"Called. Chosen. Faithful."

"Called. Chosen. Faithful."  by T. Austin-Sparks "These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they also shall overcome that are with him, called and chosen and faithful."Revelation 17:14. There is a sense in which these three words represent a graduation from one plane and sphere of probation to another. While we may be "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world," it is also true that in the matter of trusted service and honored intimacy with God the choice is from those who "make their calling and election sure." God begins all His dealings with us by a call. "The call of God," to be of any use, must be personally felt and realized by the inner man. The flesh may hear of it; yes, as with those who went with Paul, it may be struck to the ground by the glory of the revelation; the senses may witness some of the outward manifestations accompanying the call; but, as Paul says, "They heard not the voice of Him that spoke to me." The call of God contains both grace and truth. Truth is the separating instrument. "Get thee out." Grace is the promise. "I will bless and make a blessing." Man often grasps at the grace, the "I will bless" of God, and fails to comply with the demand thereof - "Get thee out." Now this does not only apply in the matter of our salvation in its first steps, but it comes in new revelations and calls at different times in the Christian life. The call of God to some fuller and higher acceptance of truth and ministry; of testimony and witness; of surrender and experience, will undoubtedly come by one or another of the Divine forms of visitation to such as the Lord wishes to lead in grace. This will be timed, definite, and challenging. A messenger may come as out from nowhere; the nowhere of reputation, recognition, worldly fame or honor. He will deliver a message, only staying long enough to leave its essential implications with those who hear. Then, having passed on, things can never be the same for them again. The "call" has sounded. The crisis has been precipitated. The issue is between the life which has been with its limitations known or unrecognized, and that which God offers. But, as usually is the case, this truth is going to call for a "getting out." Getting out, it may be, of a certain popularity, a comparative easy going. There may be a risking of reputation, a loss of prestige, a disfavor among men, a being labelled "singular," "peculiar," "extreme," "unsafe." It may mean a head-on impact of all the prejudice, tradition, and disfavor of the religious world. It may involve exclusion, ostracism, and suspicion. These are the accompaniments of all calls of God to advance with Him beyond accepted standards. This is the cost of path-finding for souls. This is the price to be paid for the higher serviceableness to God and men. One who paid this price as few ever will, and who was entrusted with superlative revelation and immortal and universal service said at the end of his life "There is no man like-minded with me." "No man stood with me." Did this mean that he was wrong? Who will ever dare say so? Note, moreover, that every step ahead with God brings the "called" into more direct and intimate collision with the forces of the enemy, and he is going to give much more attention to such. The only way to "reign in life" is by literally knowing the need for it. The interrogation is, are we going on with God at any cost? Shall we refuse Him that speaketh? Are we going to respond to every call to advance, mean what it may? Shall we stand our ground when the price seems almost too much? Shall we "hold fast" in the probation of a "call," and having proved ourselves by the grace of God, be chosen for a work which only such can have committed to them? Or shall we sink back to our easier path, and take a line of less resistance; keep our treasures, fear to lose, keep our place in the pleasantries and safeties of the shallows, and not "launch out into the deep." The "Well done, good and faithful servant," will be reserved for those who risked something of loss and went beyond the obligation of duty and embarked upon the second mile at the "call" of the growing revelation. Oh, beloved of God, let us go all the way and whatever it may involve - it will never be in advance of the apostolic suffering - aspire to be of "the called, chosen, and faithful."

The Guiding Pillar

The Guiding Pillar by  Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910)

/ "So it was always; the cloud covered [the tabernacle] by day, and the appearance of fire by night" (Numbers 9:16).

The children of Israel in the wilderness, surrounded by miracle, had nothing which we do not possess.  They had some things in an inferior form; their sustenance came by Manna; ours comes by God's blessing on our daily work, which is better.  Their guidance came by this supernatural pillar, ours comes by the reality of which that pillar was nothing but a picture.  And so, instead of fancying that men thus led were in advance of us, we should learn that these, the supernatural manifestations, visible and palpable, of God's presence and guidance were the beggarly elements: "God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."

With this explanation of the relation between the miracle and symbol of the old, and the reality and standing miracle of the new covenants, let us look at the eternal truths which are set before us in a transitory form, in this cloud by day and fiery pillar by night.

I. Note first, the double form of the guiding pillar.

The fire was the center; the cloud was wrapped around it.  The former was the symbol, making visible to a generation who had to be taught through their senses the inaccessible holiness, and flashing brightness, and purity of the Divine nature; the latter tempered and veiled the too great brightness for feeble eyes.

The same double element is found in all God's manifestations of Himself to men. In every form of revelation are present both the heart and core of light, which no eye can look upon, and the merciful veil which, because it veils, unveils; because it hides, reveals; makes visible because it conceals; and shows God because it is the hiding of His power.  So, through all the history of His dealings with men, there has ever been what is called in Scripture language the "face," or the "name of God"; the aspect of the Divine nature on which eye can look; and manifested through it there has always been the depth and inaccessible abyss of that Infinite Being.  We have to be thankful that in the cloud is the fire, and that round the fire is the cloud.  For only so can our eyes behold and our hands grasp the else invisible and remote central Sun of the universe.  God hides to make better known the glories of His character.  His revelation is the flashing of the uncreated and intolerable light of His infinite Being through the encircling clouds of human conceptions and words, or of deeds which each show forth, in forms fitted to our apprehension, some fragment of His luster.  After all revelation He remains unrevealed.  After ages of showing forth His glory He is still the King invisible, whom no man hath seen at any time nor can see.  The revelation which He makes of Himself is "truth, and is no lie." The recognition of the presence in it of both the fire and the cloud does not cast any doubt on the reality of our imperfect knowledge, or the authentic participation in the nature of the central light, of the sparkles of it which reach us.  We know with a real knowledge what we know of Him.  What He shows us is Himself, though not His whole self.

This double aspect of all possible revelation of God, which was symbolized in comparatively gross external form in the pillar that led Israel on its march, and lay stretched out and quiescent, a guarding covering above the Tabernacle when the weary march was still, recurs all through the history of Old Testament revelation by type, and prophecy, and ceremony, in which the encompassing cloud was comparatively dense, and the light which pierced it relatively faint.  It reappears in both elements, but combined in new proportions, so as that "the veil - that is to say, His flesh" is thinned to transparency and all aglow with the indwelling luster of manifest Deity, so a light, set in some fair alabaster vase, shines through its translucent walls, bringing out every delicate tint and meandering vein of color, while itself diffused and softened by the enwrapping medium which it beautifies by passing through its pure walls.  Both are made visible and attractive to dull eyes by the conjunction.  He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father, and he that hath seen the Father in Christ hath seen the man Christ as none see Him who are blind to the incarnate Deity which illuminates the manhood in which it dwells.

But we have to note also the varying appearance of the pillar according to need. There was a double change in the pillar according to the hour, and according as the congregation was on the march or encamped.  By day it was a cloud; by night it glowed in the darkness.  On the march it moved before them, an upright pillar, as gathered together for energetic movement; when the camp rested it "returned to the many thousands of Israel" and lay quietly stretched above the tabernacle like one of the long drawn motionless clouds above the setting summer's sun, glowing through all its substance with unflashing radiance reflected from unseen light, and "on all the glory" (shrined in the Holy Place beneath) was "a defense."

But these changes of aspect symbolize for us the reality of the Protean capacity of change according to our ever varying needs, which for our blessing we may find in that ever changing, unchanging Divine Presence which will be our companion, if we will.

It was not only by a natural process that, as daylight declined, what had seemed but a column of smoke, in the fervid desert sunlight, brightened into a column of fire, blazing amid the clear stars.  But we may well believe in an actual measurement of the degree of light correspondent to the darkness and to the need for certitude and cheering sense of God's protection which the defenseless camp would feel as they lay down to rest.

When the deceitful brightness of earth glistens and dazzles around me, my vision of Him may be "a cloudy screen to temper the deceitful ray"; and when "there stoops on our path, in storm and shade, the frequent night," as earth grows darker, and life becomes grayer and more somber, and verges to its even, the pillar blazes brighter before the weeping eye, and draws near to the lonely heart.  We have a God that manifests Himself in the pillar of cloud by day, and in the flaming fire by night.

II. Note the guidance of the pillar.

When it lifts the camp marches; when it glides down and lies motionless the march is stopped and the tents are pitched.  The main thing which is dwelt upon in this description of the God guided pilgrimage of the wandering people is the absolute uncertainty in which they were kept as to the duration of their encampment, and as to the time and circumstances of their march.  Sometimes the cloud tarried upon the Tabernacle many days; sometimes for a night only; sometimes it lifted in the night.  "Whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed.  Or whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the Tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up, they journeyed." So never, from mo-ment to moment, did they know when the moving cloud might settle, or the resting cloud might soar.  Therefore, absolute uncertainty as to the next stage was visibly represented before them by that hovering guide which determined everything, and concerning whose next movement they knew absolutely nothing.

Is not that all true about us? We have no guiding cloud like this. So much the better.  Have we not a more real guide?  God guides the circumstances; God guides us by His Word; God guides us by His Spirit, speaking through our common sense and in our understanding; and, most of all, God guides us by that dear Son of His, in Whom is the fire and round Whom is the cloud.  And perhaps we may even suppose that our Lord implies some allusion to this very symbol in His own great words, "I Am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the sight of life." For the conception of following the light seems to make it plain that our Lord's image is not that of the sun in the Heavens, or any such supernal light, but of some light that comes near enough to a man to move before him, and behind which he can march.

So I think that Christ Himself laid His hand upon this ancient symbol, and in these great words said in effect, "I am that which it only shadowed and foretold." At all events, whether in them He was pointing to our text or no, we must feel that He is the reality which was expressed by this outward symbol. And no man who can say, "Jesus Christ is the Captain of my Salvation, and after His pattern I march; at the pointing of His guiding finger I move; and in His foot steps, He being my Helper, I want to tread," need feel or fancy that any possible pillar, floating before the dullest eye, was a better, surer, and Diviner guide than he possesses.  They whom Christ guides want none other for leader, pattern, counselor, companion, reward.  This Christ is our Christ forever and ever; He will be our guide, even unto death, and beyond it.  The pillar that we follow, which will glow with the ruddy flame of love in the darkest hours of life - blessed be His name - will glide in front of us through the valley of the shadow of death, brightest then when the murky midnight is blackest.  Nor will the pillar which guides us cease to blaze as did the guide of the desert march, when Jordan has been crossed.  It will still move before us on paths of continuous and ever increasing approach to infinite perfection.  They who follow Christ afar off and with faltering steps here shall there "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth."

In like manner, the same absolute uncertainty which was intended to keep the Israelites (though it failed often) in the attitude of constant dependence, is the condition in which we all have to live, though we mask it from ourselves.  That we do not know what lies before us is a commonplace.  The same long tracks of monotonous continuance in the same place and doing the same duties, befall us that befell these men.  Years pass, and the pillar spreads itself out, a defense above the unmoving sanctuary.  And then, all of a flash, when we are least thinking of change, it gathers itself together, is a pillar again, shoots upwards, and moves forwards; and it is for us to go after it.  And so our lives are shuttle cocked between uniform sameness which may become mechanical monotony, and agitation by change which may make us lose our hold of fixed principles and calm faith, unless we recognize that the continuance and the change are alike the will of the guiding God whose will is signified by the stationary or moving pillar.

III.  That leads me to the last thing that I would note, viz., the docile following of the Guide.

In the context the writer does not seem to be able to get away from the thought that whatever the pillar did, that moment prompt obedience follows.  He says it over and over and over again.  "As long as the cloud abode ... they rested .... And when the cloud tarried long ... [they] journeyed not"; and "when the cloud was a few days on the Tabernacle ... they abode"; and "according to the commandment they journeyed"; and "when the cloud abode until the morning ... they journeyed"; and "whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried . . . [they] journeyed not, but abode in their tents." So after he has reiterated the thing half a dozen times or more, he finishes by putting it all again in one verse, as the last impression which he would leave from the whole narrative - "at the commandment of the Lord they rested in their tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed." Obedience was prompt; whensoever and for whatsoever the signal was given the men were ready.  In the night, after they had had their tents pitched for a long period, somewhere or other, in the night, when only the watchers' eyes were open, the pillar lifts, and in an instant the alarm is given, and all the camp is in a bustle. That is what we have to set before us as the type of our lives - that we shall be as ready for every indication of God's will as they were.  The peace and blessedness of our lives largely depend on our being eager to obey, and therefore quick to perceive the slightest sign of motion in the resting or of rest in the moving pillar which regulates our march and our encamping.

What do we want in order to cultivate and keep such a disposition? We need perpetual watchfulness lest the pillar should lift unnoticed. When Nelson was second in command at Copenhagen, the Admiral in command of the fleet hoisted the signal for recall, and Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and said, "I do not see it." That is very like what we are tempted to do - the signal for unpleasant duties that we want to get out of is hoisted; we are very apt to put the telescope to the blind eye and pretend to ourselves that we do not see the fluttering flags.

We need still more to keep our wills in absolute suspense, if His will has not declared itself.  Do not let us be in a hurry to run before God. When the Israelites were crossing the Jordan they were told to leave a great space between themselves and the guiding Ark, that they might know how to go, because "they had not passed that way heretofore." Impatient hurrying at God's heels is apt to lead us astray.  Let Him get well in front, that you may be quite sure which way He wants you to go, before you go.  And if you are not sure which way He wants you to go, be sure that He does not at that moment want you to go anywhere.

We need to hold the present with a slack hand, so as to be ready to fold our tents and take to the road if God will.  We must not reckon on continuance, nor strike our roots so deep that it needs a hurricane to remove us.  To those who set their gaze on Christ, no present from which He wishes them to remove can be so good for them as the new conditions into which He would have them pass.  It is hard to leave the spot, though it be in the desert, where we have so long encamped that it has come to look like home.  We may look with regret on the circle of black ashes on the sand where our little fire glinted cheerily, and our feet may ache and our hearts ache more as we begin our tramp once again, but we must set ourselves to meet the God appointed change cheerfully, in the confidence that nothing will be left behind which it is not good to lose, nor anything met, which does not bring a blessing, however its first aspect may be harsh or sad.

We need, too, to cultivate the habit of prompt obedience.  "I made haste and delayed not to keep Thy commandments" is the only safe motto.  It is reluctance which usually puts the drag on.  Slow obedience is often the germ of incipient disobedience.  In matters of prudence and of intellect second thoughts are better than first, and third thoughts, which often come back to first ones, better than second; but, in matters of duty, first thoughts are generally best.  They are the instructive response of conscience to the voice of God, while second thoughts are too often the objections of disinclination, or sloth, or cowardice.  It is easiest to do our duty when we are first sure of it.  It then comes with an impelling power which carries us over obstacles on the crest of a wave, while hesitation and delay leave us stranded in shoal water.  If we would follow the pillar, we must follow it at once.

A heart that waits and watches for God's direction, that uses common sense as well as faith to unravel small and great perplexities, and is willing to sit loose to the present, however pleasant, in order that it may not miss the indications which say "Arise! this is not your rest" - fulfills the conditions on which, if we keep them, we may be sure that He will guide us by the right way, and bring us at last to the city of habitation.

It's Never Too Late (and other devotionals)

It's Never Too Late

As we wrap up our series of devotionals on how to break a spiritual drought, I want to focus our attention on Psalm 72:6  This verse contains a very powerful truth that I want to leave with you. It says,

He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass. (KJV)

I remember when I was first saved and read this passage, I would picture somebody out there with a lawnmower. But of course, they didn't have lawnmowers back then!

This verse refers to a field that has been eaten over by locusts, a plague of locusts that has come through and just devoured a field. And God gives a wonderful promise:  He will come down like the rain on the mown grass, to revive and to restore that which the locusts have eaten.

Today, as you read this devotional, you may feel like a swarm of locusts has come over your life and eaten your blessing. I think if you seek God and earnestly pray and ask Him to send the rain, you will have an encounter with God beyond anything you could have imagined.

He can restore what the enemy has stolen in your life. You can indeed experience the freshness and revival and fruitfulness in your life again. It is never too late to pray for God's blessing.

No matter the situation, seek God today. Ask, and He will send the rain down on whatever part of your life has been mowed over by the locusts. And you will experience the blessing God desires for you.

Remember, it is never too late.

~Bayless Conley~

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Every Failure—Is a Prayer Failure!

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.”Ephesians 3:12

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
One of the grandest privileges you and I have is the privilege of prayer. I believe when we get to heaven, one of the things that will amaze us is that we prayed so poorly, and we prayed so little, while we were here on earth.

I want to tell you: you do not have a failure in your life but what it is a prayer failure. You do not have a need in your life but what prayer could supply that need. There’s not a sin in your life that a proper prayer life couldn’t overcome.

Hymn writer Joseph M. Scriven penned these words, “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

ACTION POINT:
Friend, rather than wringing our hands, we ought to be bending our knees.

~Adrian Rogers~

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Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside, of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush" (Exod. 3:1,2).

The vision came in the midst of common toil, and that is where the Lord delights to give His revelations. He seeks a man who is on the ordinary road, and the Divine fire leaps out at his feet. The mystic ladder can rise from the market place to Heaven. It can connect the realm of drudgery with the realms of grace.

My Father God, help me to expect Thee on the ordinary road. I do not ask for sensational happenings. Commune with me through ordinary work and duty. Be my Companion when I take the common journey. Let the humble life be transfigured by Thy presence.

Some Christians think they must be always up to mounts of extraordinary joy and revelation; this is not after God's method. Those spiritual visits to high places, and that wonderful intercourse with the unseen world, are not in the promises; the daily life of communion is. And it is enough. We shall have the exceptional revelation if it be right for us.

There were but three disciples allowed to see the transfiguration, and those three entered the gloom of Gethsemane. No one can stay on the mount of privilege. There are duties in the valley. Christ found His life-work, not in the glory, but in the valley and was there truly and fully the Messiah.

The value of the vision and glory is but their gift of fitness for work and endurance.

~L. B. Cowman~

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Learning From Your Haircut

“I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in a way that is not good, According to their own thoughts” - Isaiah 65:2

I went to a new hair stylist this past week. Have you ever had that feeling of vulnerability when meeting someone new who has scissors in his or her hands? I was anxious, but this stylist's reputation put my fears a little more at ease as I waited to get in the chair. To break the ice, he joked that he wanted to cut my hair really short. Everyone in the salon laughed including me, the "first time visitor" joke. However, by the time he was finished trimming my hair, he told me that my hair should be cut really short. It is a terrible feeling to get your hair cut just the way you requested, then have the person who cut it tell you that your hair would look better another way.

I left relieved and confused at the same time. Relieved that he did what I asked of him but confused that he did not like what he did. After talking and praying to the Lord about this experience, I came to the conclusion that it is a matter of professional opinion and training on the part of the hair stylist, but more of a matter of convenience and comfort on my part. There is no right or wrong answer, just preference.

With our issues in life, we pray and ask God for His guidance, but then, we go and do what we want. That works fine when you sit in a salon but not when dealing with the ways of God. We need to listen and obey what He says. God addresses many of these issues very clearly in the Bible. God's ways are not a matter of opinion or a strong suggestion; they are commands. We have to remember that those commands are written for our protection. Our Lord cares about everything we do and every detail of our lives (even how we get our hair cut). Regardless of the issues in your life, big or small, read God's Word every day for clear instruction and ask Him for guidance. You may not always agree with your hair stylist but that is okay. Agreeing with the Lord, however, brings a peace and joy that cannot even begin to compare to the best of haircuts.

~Daily Disciples Devotional~
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Avoiding Compromise

Proverbs 2

Although the temptation to compromise threatens every believer, we don't have to give in. If we're aware of the danger and understand the downward progression and ultimate consequences, we can determine to be vigilant in obedience to the Lord.

The first step in learning how to avoid compromise is understanding why it is so tempting. When others pressure us to take part in in what we know God has forbidden, it's easy to give in because we don't want to feel rejected. But anyone who's committed to living a godly life must be willing to stand alone and face ridicule or even persecution (2 Tim. 3:12). At other times, we consent to activities that violate our conscience just to avoid conflict, but peace at any price means we have to sacrifice obedience to God.

However, the temptation to compromise doesn't always originate with others. In fact, James 1:14 says we are tempted when we're carried away by our own lusts. How many Christians have fallen into sexual immorality or pornography by desiring a second look? Greed is another motivation that drives us to compromise. If you fudge on your income tax or take a few things home from the office, you've stepped over the line of obedience to God. Our choices should be based on scriptural truth, not on our feelings and desires.

In order to stand firm against compromise, we must make God's Word the standard for our conduct. If you begin each day with the Lord in His Word, He will guide your way. Then when the Spirit gives a warning, obey immediately, because giving consideration to the temptation opens a door for Satan.

~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~

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Should We Make the Gospel Easier to Accept? by Jack Graham

There are many today who suggest that the church would be better off if we watered down the message of the Gospel for the sake of our witness. These people say things like, "You're too hard on people. Don't be so dogmatic regarding Christ's teaching. You're going to run people off." Well, you know what? The very opposite is true. You and I have been given clear instruction and teaching in the Scripture on how we should behave and how we are to perpetuate Christ's teachings in the world. So what is our message and how do we present it to a hostile world? Part of the message that we carry as Christ-followers states unapologetically that there is a right and wrong when it comes to cultural, ethical, and moral issues. It's clearly written in God's Word. And we've been given a message of hope and transformation that the world desperately needs to hear and to embrace. So when you engage those whose opinions are diametrically opposed to yours, be respectful. But remember who you represent. We aren't here to champion our own opinion, but to lift up Christ and his Truth! Treasure and defend the hope and love that Christ has deposited within you! Never deny your faith but be faithful to lift up Christ Jesus! And when you do, he will draw men to himself!

Mental or Spiritual?

Mental or Spiritual   by T. Austin-Sparks There is a vast amount of intellectual comprehension of truth and doctrine which is not touching the situation, not meeting the need... A person may know Scripture most thoroughly and yet be the most awkward, cantankerous and peevish person in daily life; or go into business relationships, drive a hard bargain and send another man to the wall for his own ends. You may have all knowledge and yet profit nothing. It is the natural man receiving on the plane of the natural man. It is mental apprehension of Divine truth, and it is not alive, it is not the 'water of Life, clear as crystal.' Services may be very beautiful but dead... You may have very high ideals, sublime thoughts, and yet there may be just something that renders it all ineffective and you get nowhere. The modern pulpit goes as far as it can, with its own human mental outfit. If a man happens to be more scholarly and better educated than another, his interpretation is thought to be nearer the truth than that of anyone else. If he can put a construction upon the Word of God which is fresh, interesting, and fascinating and just satisfies the inquiring minds of his hearers, they go away with the idea that that is truth. That is no argument at all - no criterion whatever. To make the whole thing a matter of scholarship is to get off the road. Moses was learned in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, and yet he had to have forty years of isolation and discipline. At the end, Moses had to say, 'I cannot,' and then God was able to say 'Now I have got you down to a level where I can say, 'I can.' Before Saul of Tarsus could go anywhere for God, he had to talk like this: 'Sinners, of whom I am chief'; 'I am the least of all the apostles and not meet to be called an apostle'; 'the things that I counted gain, I now count but loss'; 'I received it not from men, it was made known to me by revelation'; 'it pleased God to reveal His Son in me.' That is not objective achievement; that is subjective experience, and between the two there is all the difference that there is between life and death... The man who brags of scholarships and argues that because he has a higher brow than anybody else and is therefore nearer the truth is probably the most blind of all men... The moment you introduce the element of the natural man into the ministry you kill it. The river of the water of Life clear as crystal will not flow through the channel of the flesh. What you minister must be born of the Spirit of God in your spirit, and it must not be interfered with by the flesh. God will not let the stream of living ministry flow until the flesh is laid forever in death and it is no longer I but Christ.

Take Up the Challenge

Take Up the Challenge

by Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910)
"Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression."
Psalm 19:18. 

Another psalmist promises to the man who dwells "in the secret place of the Most High" that "he shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh at noonday," but shall "tread upon the lion and adder." These promises divide the dangers that beset us into the same two classes as our psalmist does--the one secret; the other palpable and open. The former, which, as I explained in my last sermon, are sins hidden, not from others, but from the doer, may fairly be likened to the pestilence that stalks slaying in the dark, or to the stealthy, gliding serpent, which strikes and poisons before the naked foot is aware. The other resembles the "destruction that wasteth at noonday," or the lion with its roar and its spring, as, disclosed from its covert, it leaps upon the prey. 

Our present text clears with the latter of these two classes. "Presumptuous sins" does not, perhaps, convey to an ordinary reader the whole significance of the phrase, for it may be taken to define a single class of sins--namely, those of pride or insolence. What is really meant is just the opposite of "secret sins"--all sorts of evil which, whatever may be their motives and other qualities, have this in common, that the doer, when he does them, knows them to be wrong. 

The Psalmist gets this further glimpse into the terrible possibilities which attach even to a servant of God, and we have in our text these three things--a danger discerned; a help sought; and a daring hope cherished. 

A Danger Discerned

I.--Note, then, the first of these, the dreaded and discerned danger--"presumptuous sins" which may "have dominion over" us, and lead us at last to a "great transgression." 

Now the word which is translated "presumptuous" literally means that which boils or bubbles; and it sets very picturesquely before us the movement of hot desires--the agitation of excited impulses or inclinations which hurry men into sin in spite of their consciences. It is also to be noticed that the prayer of my text, with singular pathos and lowly self-consciousness, is the prayer of "Thy servant," who knows himself to be a servant, and who therefore knows that these glaring transgressions, done in the teeth of conscience and consciousness, are all inconsistent with his standing and his profession, but yet are perfectly possible for him. 

An old medieval mystic once said, "There is nothing weaker than the devil stripped naked." Would it were true! For there is one thing that is weaker than a discovered devil, and that is my own heart. For we all know that sometimes, with our eyes open, and the most unmistakable consciousness that what we are doing was wrong, we have set our teeth and done it, Christian men though we may profess to be, and may really be. All such conduct is inconsistent with Christianity but we are not to say, Therefore, that it is incompatible with Christianity. Thank God! that is a very different matter. But as long as you and I have two things--viz., strong and hot desires, and weak and flabby wills--so long shall we, in this world full of combustibles, not be beyond the possibility of a dreadful conflagration being kindled by some devil-blown sparks. There are plenty of dry sticks lying about to put under the cauldron of our hearts, to make them boil and bubble over! And we have, alas! but weak wills, which do not always keep the reins in their hands as they ought to do, nor coerce these lower parts of our nature into their proper subordination. Fire is a good servant, but a bad master; and we are all of us too apt to let it become master, and then the whole "course of nature" is "set on fire of hell" The servant of God may yet, with open eyes and obstinate disregard of his better self, and of all its remonstrances, go straight into "presumptuous sin." 

Another step is here taken by the Psalmist. He looks shrinkingly and shudderingly into a possible depth, and he sees, going down into the abyss, a ladder with three rungs on it. The topmost one is wilful, self-conscious transgression. But that is not the lowest stage; there is another step. Presumptuous sin tends to become despotic sin. "Let them not have dominion over me." A man may do a very bad thing once, and get so wholesomely frightened, and so keenly conscious of the disastrous issues, that he will never go near it again. The prodigal would not be in a hurry, you may depend upon it, to try the swine trough and the far country, and the rags, and the fever, and the famine any more. David got a lesson that he never forgot in that matter of Bathsheba. The bitter fruit of his sin kept growing up all his life, and he had to eat it, and that kept him right. They tell us that broken bones are stronger at the point of fracture than they were before. And it is possible for a man's sin--if I might use a paradox which you will not misunderstand--to become the instrument of his salvation. 

But there is another possibility quite as probable, and very often recurring, and that is that the disease, like some other morbid states of the human frame, shall leave a tendency to recurrence. A pin-point hole in a dike will widen into a gap as big as a church-door in ten minutes, by the pressure of the flood behind it. And so every act which we do in contradiction of our standing as professing Christians, and in the face of the protests, all unavailing, of that conscience which is only a voice, and has no power to enforce its behests, will tend to recurrence once and again. The single acts become habits, with awful rapidity. Just as the separate gas jets from a multitude of minute apertures coalesce into a continuous ring of light, so deeds become habits, and get dominion over us. "He sold himself to do evil." He made himself a bond-slave of iniquity. It is an awful and a miserable thing to think that professing Christians do often come into that position of being, by their inflamed passions and enfeebled wills, servants of the evil that they do. Alas! how many of us, if we were honest with ourselves, would have to say, "I am carnal, sold unto sin." 

That is not the lowest rung of the slippery ladder. Despotic sin ends in utter departure. 

The word translated here, quite correctly, "transgression," and intensified by that strong adjective attached, "a great transgression," literally means rebellion, revolt, or some such idea; and expresses, as the ultimate issue of conscious transgression prolonged and perpetuated into habit, an entire casting off of allegiance to God. "No man can serve two masters." "His servants ye are whom ye obey," whomsoever you may call your master. The Psalmist feels that the end of indulged evil is going over altogether to the other camp. I suppose all of us have known instances of that sort. Men in my position, with a long life of ministry behind them, can naturally remember many such instances. And this is the outline history of the suicide of a Christian. First secret sin, unsuspected, because the conscience is torpid; then open sin, known to be such, but done nevertheless; then dominant sin, with an enfeebled will and power of resistance; then the abandonment of all presence or profession of religion. The ladder goes down into the pit, but not to the bottom of the pit. And the man that is going down it has a descending impulse after he has reached the bottom step and he falls--Where? The first step down is tampering with conscience. It is neither safe nor wise to do anything, howsoever small, against that voice. All the rest will come afterward, unless God restrains--"first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear," and then the bitter harvest of the poisonous grain. 

A Help Sought

II.--So, secondly, note the help sought. 

The Psalmist is like a man standing on the edge of some precipice, and peeping over the brink to the profound beneath, and feeling his head beginning to swim. He clutches at the strong, steady hand of his guide, knowing that, unless he is restrained, over he will go. "Keep Thou back Thy servant from presumptuous sins." So, then, the first lesson we have to take is, to cherish a lowly consciousness of our own tendency to light-headedness and giddiness. "Blessed is the man that feareth always." That fear has nothing cowardly about it. It will not abate in the least the buoyancy and bravery of our work. It will not tend to make us shirk duty because there is temptation in it, but it will make us go into all circumstances realizing that without that Divine help we cannot stand, and that with it we cannot fall. "Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe." The same Peter that said, "Though all should forsake Thee, yet will not I," was wiser and braver when he said, in later days, being taught by former presumption, "Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." 

Let me remind you, too, that the attitude which we ought to cherish is that of a confident belief in the reality of a Divine support. The prayer of my text has no meaning at all, unless the actual supernatural communication by God's own Holy Spirit breathed into men's hearts be a simple truth. "Hold Thou me up," "keep Thou me back," means, if it means anything, Give me in my heart a mightier strength than mine own, which shall curb all this evil nature of mine, and bring it into conformity with Thy holy will. 

How is that restraining influence to be exercised ? There are many ways by which God, in His providence, can fulfil the prayer. But the way above all others is by the actual operation upon heart and will and desires of a Divine Spirit, which uses for its weapon the Word of God, revealed by Jesus Christ, and in the Scriptures. "The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God" and God's answer to the prayer of my text is the gift to every man who seeks it of that indwelling power to sustain and to restrain. 

That will keep our passions down. The bubbling water is lowered in its temperature, and ceases to bubble, when cold is added to it. When God's Spirit comes into a man's heart, that will deaden his desires after earth and forbidden ways. It will bring blessed higher objects for all our affections. He who has been fed on "the hidden manna" will not be likely to hanker after the leeks and onions, however strong their smell and pungent their taste, that grew in the Nile mud in Egypt. He who has tasted the higher sweetnesses of God will have his heart's desires after lower delights strangely deadened and cooled. Get near God, and open your hearts for the entrance of that Divine Spirit, and then it will not seem foolish to empty your hands of the trash that they carry in order to grasp the precious things that He gives. A bit of scrap iron magnetized aligns itself with a magnetic field. My heart, touched by the Spirit of God dwelling in me, will turn to Him, and I shall find little sweetness in the else tempting delicacies that earth can supply. "Keep Thy servant back from," by depriving him of the taste for, "presumptuous sins." 

That Spirit will strengthen our wills. For, when God comes into a heart, He restores the due subordination which has been broken into discord and anarchy by sin. He dismounts the servant riding on horseback, and carrying the horse to the devil, according to the proverb, and gives the reins into the right hands. Now, if the gift of God's Spirit, working through the Word of God, and the principles and the motives therein unfolded, and therefrom deducible, be the great means by which we are to be kept from open and conscious transgression, it follows very plainly that our task is twofold. One part of it is to see that we cultivate that spirit of lowly dependence, of self-conscious weakness, of triumphant confidence, which will issue in the perpetual prayer for God's restraint. When we enter upon tasks which may be dangerous, and into regions of temptation which cannot but be so, though they be duty, we should ever have the desire in our hearts and upon our lips that God would keep us from, and in, the evil. 

The other part of our duty is to make it a matter of conscience and careful cultivation, to use honestly and faithfully the power which, in response to our desires, has been granted to us. All of you, Christian men and women, have access to an absolute security against every transgression; and the cause lies wholly at your own doors in each case of failure, deficiency, or transgression, for at every moment it was open to you to clasp the hand that holds you up, and at every moment, if you failed, it was because your careless fingers had relaxed their grasp. 

The Challenge

III.--Lastly, observe the daring hope here cherished. 

"Then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression." That is the upshot of the Divine answer to both the petitions, which have been occupying us in these two successive sermons. It is connected with the former of them by the recurrence of the same word, which in the first petition was rendered "cleanse"--or, more accurately, "clear"-- and in this final clause is to be rendered accurately, "I shall be clear from the great transgression." And it obviously connects in sense with both these petitions, because, in order to be upright and clear, there must, first of all, be the Divine cleansing and then Divine restraint. 

So, then, nothing short of absolute deliverance from the power of sin in all its forms should content the servant of God. Nothing short of it contents the Master for the servant. Nothing short of it corresponds to the power which Christ puts in operation in every hears that believes in Him. And nothing else should be our aim in our daily conflict with evil and growth in grace. Ah! I fear me that, for an immense number of professing Christians in this generation, the hope of--and, still more, the aim towards--anything approximating to entire deliverance from sin, have faded from their consciences and their lives. Aim at the stars, brother, and, if you do not hit them, your arrow will go higher than if it were shot along the lower levels. 

Note that an indefinite approximation to this condition is possible. I am not going to discuss, at this stage of my discourse, controversial questions which may be involved here. It will be time enough to discuss with you whether you can be absolutely free from sin in this world when you are a great deal freer from it than you are at present. At all events, you can get far nearer to the ideal, and the ideal must always be perfect. And I lay it on your hearts, dear friends, that you have in your possession, if you are Christian people, possibilities in the way of conformity to the Master's will, and emancipation from all corruption, that you have not yet dreamed of, not to say applied to your lives. "I pray God that He would sanctify you wholly, and that your whole body, soul, and spirit be preserved blameless unto the coming." 

That daring hope will be fulfilled one day; for nothing short of it will exhaust the possibilities of Christ's work or satisfy the desires of Christ's heart. 

The Gospel knows nothing of irreclaimable outcasts. To it there is but one unpardonable sin, and that is the sin of refusing the cleansing of Christ's blood and the sanctifying of Christ's Spirit. Whoever you are, whatever you are, go to God with this prayer of our text, and realize that it is answered in Jesus Christ, and you will not ask in vain. If you will put yourselves into His hands, and let Him cleanse and restrain, He will give you new powers to detect the serpents in the flowers, and new resolution to shake off the vipers into the fire. For there is nothing that God wants half so much as that we, His wandering children, should come back to Him, and He will cleanse us from the filth of the swine trough and the rags of our exile, and clothe us in fine linen clean and white. We may each be sinless and guiltless. We can be so in one way only. If we look to Jesus Christ, and live near Him, He "will be made of God unto us wisdom," by which we shall detect our secret sins; "righteousness," whereby we shall be cleansed from guilt; "sanctification," which shall restrain us from open transgression; "and redemption," by which we shall be wholly delivered from evil and presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. 

Obedience or Preference (and other devotionals)

Obedience or Preference

Matthew 26:36-42

Every believer must choose whether he will live by the principle of obedience or follow his preferences. When a person commits to doing the Lord’s will, then every situation and decision is sifted through the standard of "God said it, so I’m going to do it—and that’s the end of it." He may complain, weep, or try to argue. But in the end he will be obedient, no matter what.

I recall being invited years ago to interview with a church in Atlanta. During the entire road trip, I told the Lord that I didn’t want to move. I fussed and carried on a good while, but I knew Atlanta would be my new home. I didn’t like the idea, but the alternative was unimaginable: there are few things more unpleasant than living with the nagging anxiety that you missed out on something good.

The Lord certainly understands our need to question, cry out, and petition Him for the strength to do what He asks. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that we have a high priest who can sympathize with us. Jesus wasn’t excited or happy about the cross. He grieved over the coming separation from His Father. Nevertheless, He was committed to following God’s will (Matt. 26:39). No one took Christ’s life from Him; He laid it down (John 10:18).

Our lives are about fulfilling God’s purpose. Many people miss His awesome plan for them because they choose to follow their preferences. Obedience is sometimes hard, but the struggle and sacrifice are worth it. There is joy and peace for the believer who pleases the Lord and lives by His principles.

~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~

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Do You Feel “Fogged In”?

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.” Psalm 116:5

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Imagine you are in a plane, ready for take-off on the runway. The pilot has come on the intercom and announced there’s a delay because of fog. You glance out your window. It looks so gloomy and dark. You wonder if the sun is shining.

The fog lifts enough for the control tower to give the pilot the green light, and the plane takes off. It’s still cloudy, but the plane starts climbing, climbing, climbing. Suddenly, the plane bursts through the clouds, and it is so gloriously bright that you have to blink your eyes. Now, you realize the sun has been there all the time.

That’s the way it is with Jehovah God, the Son of righteousness with healing in His wings (see Malachi 4:2-3). He is always loving, always giving. He is waiting for you to see Him now.

ACTION POINT:
Ask the Holy Spirit to show you today the true condition of the sky—above the clouds. Let Him speak to you about what is really there beyond the fog. Things are not always what they seem. And God has His hand upon you.

~Adrian Rogers~

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Praying for the Rain

For the past week we have been seeking to understand what causes a spiritual drought, and then how we can break that drought if indeed we are in one.

Here is what I want you to understand.  Even if you earnestly seek God and repent of sin in your life, or you shift your focus and say, "God, I'm putting Your house first, and I'm going to put other people before myself,"  or perhaps God leads you to do something of a personal nature, you still need to pray for the rain.

Do not just assume God's blessing will automatically fall.  You still need to ask for it.  Zechariah 10:1 teaches us this truth,

Ask the LORD for rain In the time of the latter rain.  The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone.

I used to read that and wonder, "God, I don't understand.  If it is the time of the latter rain, if it is rainy season, why ask for rain?  Won't it just fall automatically?"  If it is rainy season, why pray for rain?"

Because you cannot assume that it is automatically going to fall.

In James 5:17-18 there is a story about Elijah from 1 Kings 18.  James gives us the very, very, very short version.  But it tells us something significant,

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.  And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

What caused the rain to stop?  His prayer.  What caused the rain to fall again?  His prayer.

Ask God today for the blessing of His rain in your life!

~Bayless Conley~

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For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor. 5:1).

The owner of the tenement which I have occupied for many years has given notice that he will furnish but little or nothing more for repairs. I am advised to be ready to move.

At first this was not a very welcome notice. The surroundings here are in many respects very pleasant, and were it not for the evidence of decay, I should consider the house good enough. But even a light wind causes it to tremble and totter, and all the braces are not sufficient to make it secure. So I am getting ready to move.

It is strange how quickly one's interest is transferred to the prospective home. I have been consulting maps of the new country and reading descriptions of its inhabitants. One who visited it has returned, and from him I learn that it is beautiful beyond description; language breaks down in attempting to tell of what he heard while there. He says that, in order to make an investment there, he has suffered the loss of all things that he owned here, and even rejoices in what others would call making a sacrifice. Another, whose love to me has been proven by the greatest possible test, is now there. He has sent me several clusters of the most delicious fruits. After tasting them, all food here seems insipid.

Two or three times I have been down by the border of the river that forms the boundary, and have wished myself among the company of those who were singing praises to the King on the other side. Many of my friends have moved there. Before leaving they spoke of my coming later. I have seen the smile upon their faces as they passed out of sight. Often I am asked to make some new investments here, but my answer in every case is, "I am getting ready to move."

The words often on Jesus' lips in His last days express vividly the idea, "going to the Father." We, too, who are Christ's people, have vision of something beyond the difficulties and disappointments of this life. We are journeying towards fulfillment, completion, expansion of life. We, too, are "going to the Father." Much is dim concerning our home-country, but two things are clear. It is home, "the Father's House." It is the nearer presence of the Lord. We are all wayfarers, but the believer knows it and accepts it. He is a traveller, not a settler.
--R. C. Gillie

The little birds trust God, for they go singing
From northern woods where autumn winds have blown,
With joyous faith their trackless pathway winging
To summer-lands of song, afar, unknown.

Let us go singing, then, and not go sighing:
Since we are sure our times are in His hand,
Why should we weep, and fear, and call it dying?
'Tis only flitting to a Summer-land.

~L. B. Cowman~

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Modeling Commitment

Today's reading: 1 Kings 15:9-24

After a few generations when we get to Asa (David's great great great grandson), we finally see a different attitude and heart toward God. Following in David's footsteps, Asa chooses to follow and serve God fully. A wise decision, but one that immediately puts the difficult task in front of him of ridding the country of false gods and idols. What impressed me so much about Asa was how he demonstrated top down leadership by stepping up and dealing with idol worship within his own family. That had to have been difficult, but it modeled to the people of Judah that he was absolutely committed to God.

What are some ways that you model your commitment to God at home? At work? At school? In your community? 

~Tami~

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From Every Sin

"He shall save His people from their sins"   (Matthew 1:21).

LORD, save me from my sins. By the name of Jesus I am encouraged thus to pray. Save me from my past sins, that the habit of them may not hold me captive. Save me from my constitutional sins, that I may not be the slave of my own weaknesses. Save me from the sins which are continually under my eye that I may not lose my horror of them. Save me from secret sins; sins unperceived by me from my want of light. Save me from sudden and surprising sins: let me not be carried off my feet by a rush of temptation. Save me, LORD, from every sin. Let not any iniquity have dominion over me. hou alone canst do this. I cannot snap my own chains or slay my own enemies. Thou knowest temptation, for Thou wast tempted. Thou knowest sin, for Thou didst bear the weight of it. Thou knowest how to succor me in my hour of conflict; Thou canst save me from sinning and save me when I have sinned. It is promised in Thy very name that Thou wilt do this, and I pray Thee let me this day verify the prophecy. Let me not give way to temper, or pride, or despondency, or any form of evil; but do Thou save me unto holiness of life, that the name of Jesus may be glorified in me abundantly.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Faith of the Overcomer - Chapter 3

The Faith of the Overcomer  by T. Austin-Sparks Chapter 3 - The Call to Stand Fast "But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings... For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of you possessions, knowing that ye have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a very little while, He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry. But my righteous one shall live by faith: And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. But we are not of them that shrink back unto perdition; but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul. Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them" (Heb. 10:32,34-39; 11:1-2). "Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:1-2). You will have observed that these words are addressed to those of the Lord's people who were in danger of departing from the way of faith, and the recall here was to faith, the way of faith. In these closing chapters there is a gathering up of the main features of the letter; that is, we get those things which are the main and primary implications of the letter, what the letter is intended to imply, what the force of it is; and if there is one word which summarizes this letter more perfectly than another it is that word faith. You can take it right back to the beginning of the letter and carry it right through to the end, and find that it is the governing word. It stands over everything that this letter contains; for now, as the letter shows, everything for the life of the believer is out of sight. There was a day in the life of the Hebrew when everything was in sight, and all those things of his belief as seen are mentioned, a whole system as manifested on the earth in the tabernacle service; the priesthood, the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the whole order. That has passed, and now all that is removed from sight, is gathered up into Him who is at God's right hand, out of the sight of the believer, and therefore everything becomes a matter of faith. But by reason of their trials and afflictions, and of the adversity which they encountered, and all the stress and the pressure, these Hebrew believers were in peril of departing from that life and way of faith. It would appear that they had already commenced that departure. Thus here is the strong call, or recall, to faith. They are reminded of the faith which possessed them and actuated them at the outset of their confession, and how they took joyfully the spoiling of their possessions, knowing that they had a better possession, an abiding one. Now that better and abiding possession has become somewhat obscured, at least in it's clear definition and outline, its vividness, and they were in danger of casting away their boldness. These are very significant words: "...a better possession and an abiding one" - "...a great recompense of reward". You have to link that with these words a little further on, "Faith is the giving substance to things hoped for..." If faith becomes weakened, the better possession, the great recompense of reward recedes, becomes weaker in the heart. The Possessing of a Hope through Faith That is the backward glance in respect of this letter; but look forward. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen, for therein the elders had witness borne to them". Then begins the great line of elders; Abel, Abraham, and so on. Do you catch the suggestion or indication? All these men had something for which they hoped, an object of hope. It was something better than that which was here on the earth. They had an object of hope, and they believed God concerning that object, and their faith led them to let everything else go with that object in view. They endured, they suffered, they persisted toward an object of hope which had been laid hold of by faith. When you recognize that, then you look at these men and say, What was their object? What was the object of their hope? Abel had witness borne that he was righteous. Was that what he was after? Was that the longing of Abel's heart, to stand as justified before God? Well, everything would point to that as being Abel's object, and faith brought him to his great recompense of reward: "He had witness borne that he was righteous", through faith. I am not going through the chapter taking up every one of the persons mentioned, but you will see that they all had an object of hope, and that they reached their object through faith. Why did Enoch walk with God? He had faith unto an end, and it was his faith to possess that great recompense of reward that caused him in his day to walk with God as he did. He walked with God: he had to walk with God in his own heart as every man does. Whether there be few or whether there be many others walking with God, a walk with God is always a lonely thing. One of the marks of a real walk with God is this, that it seems that no one else has ever gone that way before, or knows anything about it. A real walk with God is always a personal thing of one's own personal faith, and it is always a lonely thing. It is finding out God for yourself, and that is pioneer work whether there be millions doing the same thing or whether you are having a lonely walk. No one else can find out God or walk with God for you. No one else's faith can serve you in that full sense of bringing you to know what they know about the Lord. We have to walk with God alone. And Enoch walked with God. We must believe, when we are told that, that his walk with God meant something very real, something peculiar, something special. It was a very real walk with God, a very utter walk with God. But he did it with a hope, and his walk being in the faith that his hope would be reached, God took him. We must believe that Enoch's was faith which was set upon that which we would mean by translation, by rapture, by not going the ordinary way of life but having an extraordinary consummation of his course, a triumphant consummation of his walk with God here. He believed that was possible. His heart was set upon it, and he walked with God and received the great recompense of reward, and faith gave substance to the thing hoped for. I think we might go deeper than that and say it was faith that conceived of such a possibility. I doubt whether there was another one on the earth who had conceived of such an idea as being translated. He had an object in view; that is the point. It was his hope, and faith caused him to act in the light of the object of his hope, and he received the recompense of reward. Thus it was with every other one: there was an object. That object was their recompense of reward, the object of hope, and in relation to it they accepted, adopted, pursued a course of faith, and by faith the elders had witness borne to them. They had God's witness. Patience and the Perfecting of Faith Now, having surveyed that whole ground, the Apostle comes back in thought and, as you notice, he uses the word patience: "For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise" (verse 36). "Therefore (with the whole range of these witnesses before us) let us run with patience..." These three things are brought together, hope, faith and patience. Very often faith needs a buttress, and faith's buttress is patience. "Having done the will of God" - that is your act of faith; you have acted in faith in the light of that which has been born in you as God's object in your case. Yes, you might well say, I have stepped out in faith, I have adopted the faith way, I have done the will of God in the matter of believing God and acting in faith. Yes, but that does not always get us to the end; there is the patience of faith. Very often we have to support that patience which suffers long. These believers stepped out at the beginning in faith, out from the whole system of things seen, out on to the basis of the unseen, the heavenly, and in so doing they had suffered very much: "Partly, being made a gazingstock... for ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions..." (Heb. 10:33-34). Well, they had stepped out in faith and done the will of God, but a long period had stretched out before them after that. Thus the force of chapter 11 is this, that not only did these people accept a course of faith, not only did they obey God in the matter of faith, but they persevered with their hope throughout their whole life. Many of them never in their lifetime reached the hoped-for end nor obtained the great recompense of reward. All they had was witness borne to them, and patience, therefore, was a constant necessity to go hand in hand with faith. This is the faith of God's elect. We are thinking at this time of the faith of the overcomer, and when you turn to the Book of the Revelation, which is the summary of it all, you know what a tremendous place the patience of Christ has for the overcomer: "...hast kept the word of my patience..." (3:10): "...the patience of Jesus Christ" (1:9). Now bring that back to the beginning: "Run with patience the race that is set before us, looking off unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith". Faith and patience are exemplified by the Lord Jesus as, shall we say, the twin virtues and factors in overcoming. "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down..." (Heb. 12:2); overcoming through faith and patience. The Disciplining of the Soul Now one more word in this meditation: "...have faith unto the saving (or the gaining) of the soul" (10:39). That is not the object of hope, that is not the great recompense of reward, but that is put in there to show where our difficulty is. It is our own souls that are the difficulty in that way of faith and patience. If you have a soul that believes and trusts and has faith quite easily, and you do not in your own human nature have any trouble in the matter of faith, then the Bible was never written for you. If the same should be true of patience and you are one of those people who never find it difficult to be patient, you have all the patience that is ever required of you, well then, you are a monstrosity. You see what I mean. Here mention is made of faith to the gaining of the soul. You have to bring that soul over on to your side. A better word would be the winning of the soul. That again is not a perfect translation; gaining is not perfect, and certainly saving is not the best word. It is that this soul of ours has to be brought into line, possessed and brought into line, so that our souls are made to serve us in this Divine end, that our whole being is there. That is a matter of progress. That is not done all at once, but it is a course in our lives where all the doubting, unbelieving, questioning, natural, human life is being brought over on to the way of faith. Now this is a very important thing for us to recognize. What is the Lord doing with us? I do not believe that the Lord is going to cut us up into water-tight compartments and put our spirit in one compartment and take our spirits on without the rest of us; and He is certainly not going to isolate our souls and rule them out. Do not get that idea with all that you hear about the difficulty of the soul, and soulishness. Do not get the idea that the Lord has cut off the soul and relegated it to a place where it is altogether disregarded. He is dealing with our spirits in order that through our spirits there may be a gaining of the soul, a mastering of the soul, a bringing of the soul over. That is the very nature of spiritual education. You may come into any test in this matter at any time. On the one hand there is the call and necessity for faith in God, trust in the Lord, and probably the action of faith in taking some step. Now your soul rises up: you know in your spirit what is true, what is right, what the Lord's mind is, but here you have an enemy in your own soul that rises up and begins to question, to doubt, to pull back. What is the Lord going to do? He is not going to annihilate your soul, put your soul out of action: and don't you try to put your soul out of action. What is the position to which one comes who has had experience, who has walked with the Lord for any length of time, who knows a little of this walk of faith? The position is just this: Yes, I know all about those doubts and fears, those questionings, that swirl of confusion, that conflict of forces which rises up in the face of the known will of God, and I have many times suffered; suffered because I have been disobedient, suffered because I have not trusted the Lord: I have had a bad time inside because I allowed my own soul to have the upper hand and the stronger word and to cause a hesitation, a standing still. I have known that it does not do to allow that sort of thing. But what I have to do now is that when that thing rises up - that doubt or that natural tendency of mine to doubt, or to fear, or to question, or to quarrel, or to hesitate - I have to say to my soul, No, I am going on with God and you have to come with me! I have put that perhaps rather crudely, but I am sure you will see what I mean. That is a position to which we come after a time of walking with God. We come to the place where we begin to get a bit knowing about our own souls. Yes, that got me into trouble before, that natural tendency of mine to argue the matter, to discuss it at length, to walk round it asking questions; that simply gets nowhere. God's mind about the matter is this and though there are all the arguments against it, seeing I know that to be God's mind, well, the arguments for the time being must go by the board, and I must go on with God. That is the only way through. Thus, little by little - oh, so slowly! - we gain our souls, we bring our souls over, and we progressively approximate to the position which contradicts the idea of the soul being ruled out: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength". That is putting the soul in its right place with God; not ruling it out but bringing it in. But we are slow in coming to the place where the soul goes on with God: "...faith unto the gaining of the soul". You see how all of a piece this is when you come to chapter 12. "Consider him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls" (verse 3). Here in the hands of the Father the spirit is being instructed, trained, and one of the objects of that spiritual training is this gaining of the soul. A truly spiritual person is not one whose soul has the upper hand, but who, having a soul, really having a soul, has that soul in hand. That is a spiritual person. That is what God is after. We must remember that the soul has the distinctive mark of our humanity, and God is not going to make us other than human at any time in this life or afterward. Humanity is not an evil thing: it is a Divine thing. It is a peculiar and unique conception of God. Angels are lower than man as God means man to be: "Not unto angels did he subject the world to come, whereof we speak. But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him... Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet" (Heb. 2:6-8). Man is a peculiarly noble conception of God, not as he is but as he will be and as Christ is, "the Man Christ Jesus". It is a glorified humanity that God is after, and the distinctive mark of humanity is the soul in its right position and right relationship. Man is comprised of spirit, soul, and body, but the soul is the seat of the moral intelligence, so it has to be won. That can only be as the spirit is in a right position and right union with God. The Abiding Character of Spiritual Laws We will close with one more general remark which arises out of what is here in this part of the letter to the Hebrews. It is that spiritual laws never change. God's end is the same, and the laws by which God reaches His end never alter. Thus here all these men of the old dispensation, these witnesses, are brought up before us, and we are given to see that they moved on the basis of spiritual laws, their lives were governed by spiritual laws. We saw the sevenfold effect of faith in Abraham. That is what is in our mind, and we are going to see a great deal more about those seven laws of faith. Those laws are not laws for Abraham alone, or for one dispensation. The way in which Abraham had to move, of course, in relation to those laws may be peculiar to Abraham's life and to Abraham's day. We do not all live in Ur of the Chaldees, and so on. That was simply the local coloring and setting, but the spiritual law was exactly the same, and all these points are brought right forward up to date and presented to us in their spiritual significance, and it is as though the Lord shows the same law for you as for Abraham, the same principle for you as for Abel; there is no change. The end is the same, and the way to the end is the same. That it may come to that end, the Church therefore is caused to stand upon the very same spiritual laws. Seeing, then, the cloud of witnesses, "let us... lay aside every weight... and let us run with patience the race that is set before us"; for the basis of their life and ours is one, and that is all summed up in one word, faith. No one from Abel onward ever got through except by faith. We shall get through in no other way. We may as well settle that. If I could strengthen that in your heart by any additional word, I think it would be this, that the more spiritual we become (and that is only another way of saying, the more immediately we are in touch with God, and with God's ways and God's purposes) the more fierce and intensely real will be the battle of faith. That may seem strange: we perhaps would think it would work just the other way; but it is not so, and never has been so. The fact is that the more you get outside of that which is tangible, seen, that which can be grasped by the natural senses, the more you come into touch with those naked forces which have as their supreme object the destruction of the faith of God's people. "Howbeit when the Son of man cometh, shall he find the faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Well, the enemy concentrates on faith. "Satan hath desired to have thee that he may sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:31). You see what the object of Satan is - "thy faith". Therein lay Peter's peril in the hour of his sifting. It is a comfort to recognize that point. It was in that moment when he was overwhelmed with the consciousness of his own failure. He had denied his Lord; it had come home to him, and he became crushed, broken. He says, I have denied my Lord! And when you get anywhere into that realm of the consciousness of your own failure and breakdown, and of the Lord being disappointed, oh, Satan comes in there. He rushes in and says, What is the good of you trying? What is the good of you expecting, hoping? You had better give it all up! Blessed be God, in the hour of that peril to faith, we have that word of encouragement "I have prayed for thee..." Our faith is not a matter of our own strength to maintain it; it is a matter of His prayer. (The End)