The Place of Blessing (and Others)

In Genesis 12:1-3 we read,

Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Notice how God says to Abram, "Abram, I'm going to bless you, and you will be a blessing."  But here is what I want you to see:  Abram's being a blessing was tied to being in God's purpose.  He could only become a great blessing if he followed God's calling.

You will never be the blessing God intends for you to be if you are not flowing in your purpose.

Was there risk involved for Abram?  You bet!  He had to leave everything that was familiar to him, all of his security, everything that was comfortable and familiar.

He left Ur of the Chaldeans, which history tells us was one of the most highly developed cities of the ancient world.  They had cobblestone streets, an underground sewage system, and it was a place of world trade.

Abram left all of that and went out on an adventure by faith, pursuing the purpose that God had for his life.  And in pursuing that purpose, God blessed him, and he became a blessing.

But think about this. What if he had stayed back? What if he had said, "I'm secure here; I have it made; I have a nice house and everything I need.  I think I will stay put."  We would not even know his name.

Pursue your purpose. That is the place of God's blessing. 

~Bayless Conley~

Someone Loves You Perfectly

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Are you gripped with fear about something? Do not give in to despair. There is hope. Love is the answer to overcoming your fear because love is the Christian’s security blanket.

When you were a child, did you have a teddy bear or a blanket that gave you a sense of security—something you wanted to hold close to you and get wrapped up in? Well, dear friend, the Holy Spirit of God is the believer’s warm, loving security blanket. Have you read the verse, “Perfect love casteth out fear”? It may not have rung true to you because you are thinking, “I can never manage to achieve “perfect love.” But this is not the way to look at this verse. Listen to it in The Living Bible, which says, “We have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly.” God’s perfect love can eliminate all dread. It is not our love for Him, but His perfect love for us that will cast out our fears.

ACTION POINT:
The question isn’t “Am I brave enough?” The question is “Do I trust His love enough?”

~Adrian Rogers~

One a Majority!

"One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, He it is that fighteth for you, as He hath promised you"   (Joshua2
3:10).

Why count heads? One man with God is a majority though there be a thousand on the other side. Sometimes our helpers may be too many for God to work with them, as was the case with Gideon, who could do nothing till he had increased his forces by thinning out their numbers. But the LORD's hosts are never too few. When God would found a nation, He called Abram alone and blessed him. When He would vanquish proud Pharaoh, He used no armies, but only Moses and Aaron. The "one-man ministry," as certain wise men call it, has been far more used of the LORD than trained bands with their officers. Did all the Israelites together slay so many as Samson alone? Saul and his hosts slew their thousands but David his ten thousands.

The LORD can give the enemy long odds and yet vanquish him. If we have faith, we have God with us, and what are multitudes of men? One shepherd's dog can drive before him a flock of sheep. If the LORD sent thee, O my brother, His strength will accomplish His divine purpose. Wherefore, rely on the promise, and be very courageous.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Defeat of Defeatism

The Defeat of Defeatismby William E. Sangster  (1900-1960)

William Sangster was a Bible-believing Methodist in a time when the Methodist Church was crumbling in unbelief.  Dr. Sangster did all he could to rally his denomination back to the fundamental truths of the faith.  This sermon is an example of that bold preaching.  Dr. Sangster failed in bringing Methodism back, but never failed in his personal ministry to publish the eternal truths of God's Word.

"Beloved, now are we the Sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

                                                                    — I John 3:2

"Defeatism" is not a pleasing word, but it is a popular one. Its wide use indicates its serviceableness to those who want to describe the strange temper of the times, a compound of doubt, depression, and hopelessness. All spheres of life are infected. Statesmen feel it. They want peace, but they are so sure that they cannot get it that they bend their whole strength to the preparations for war. Economists feel it. They dread a slump in trade, but they have no confidence in their ability to avoid it. Doctors feel it. Lord Horder said recently: "All is not well with the family doctor...He has lost caste...He must change his own attitude of defeatism." The Church knows the malady too. I talked with a layman recently who has given all the leisure of the last twenty years to sustain a waning cause in the inner belt of a large city, and looking back over the years he felt that the strain had achieved nothing. "We've kept the doors open," he said. "It has been an awful struggle, and it has left us neither time nor strength for really spiritual things. I asked myself the other day what we had achieved, and I could only conclude that we had done nothing but keep the minister and the caretaker!" Some ministers are in the same slough of despond. Sharing their problems with me recently, some young men raised the question as to whether the Church, as an institution, was under sentence of death and if, with their life before them, they ought to remain in the ministry. They appeared to think that any efforts to resuscitate it was "painting the ship while she goes down." 

But how remote all this sounds from the spirit of the New Testament and how strange among the people who recovered, for all Christendom, the Pauline doctrine of assurance! Concerning this doctrine Doctor Denney said, "Speaking broadly, we may say that in Romish churches it is regarded as essentially akin to presumption; in the Protestant churches it is a privilege or a duty; but in the New Testament it is simply a fact." 

It was simply a fact in early Methodism. Wesley guarded it, expounded it, battled for it, and rejoiced in it and "the people called Methodists" rejoiced with him. They lived in days of vast uncertainty, of civil strife, of colonial disruption, and the threat of foreign invasion, but nothing could dislodge their certainty. It was not based on their feelings, though it mightily affected them. It was based on the facts of revelation, and their experience of God in Christ. 

Nothing would so defeat the defeatism of the present times as the recovery of Christian assurance. God is longing to meet repentance and surrender with absolution and the seal of sonship, and to guard His children's peace in a distraught world. Dr. H. B. Workman says: "Once let Methodism as a Church lose this note, and its historic justification has perished." 1 We believe it. But who would say that Methodism has the note of assurance today? 

Or look at it from another angle. Listen closely to the men who still feel that they have a word for us in these perplexing times, and how many of them fail to display any confident assurance themselves! They try to whip up a quick keenness for some new "adventure," or "challenge" us to embark on some new "quest." Perhaps it is a proof that we are no longer adolescent, that we have grown weary of these constant incitements, and are seeking for certainty rather than a new thrill. 

Not that we have no use for the word "adventure" at all; but it is only some kind of adventure that we want. We ache to get right past the need to go in quest of God, and we want to exhaust all our passion for adventure in a quest with God. The difference is immeasurable. The word "adventure" belongs only to this second kind of quest. The other thing is not an adventure; it is a nightmare. A true adventure requires confidence at the heart's core, and a degree of detachment from cares that come too closely in. In a true adventure the element of fear is only a condiment at the feast; it must not maintain itself in the central place. That is why these parsons and social workers who spend a week or a fortnight on the 
road, and try to share the plight of the unemployed by sleeping in a casual ward or a "flophouse," may justly describe their experiences as an "adventure." When they go farther and claim that they have identified themselves with these men, and really understand their position, they are talking utter nonsense. These adventurers know quite well that if the worst comes to the worst, however little money they have in their pocket, they can go to the post office, or the police station, and wire for a few dollars. It is beside the point to say that they do not do it. They could do it, and the real tramp cannot and that makes all the difference. One is an adventurer; the other is a vagabond. One can enjoy the delight of doing the daring thing; the other walks numbly on, wondering where he will find something to eat. One can set an end to his exile; the other sees it stretching on forever. 

That puts the points fairly well so far as this spiritual quest is concerned. We do not want to be religious vaga- bonds all our days, living on the scraps that we pick up as we go along, but with a great big fear in the forefront of our mind. We want that core of confidence, and central certainty, which the true adventurer enjoys. We are prepared to say with, the hymn writer, "We go in quest," if we may say as swiftly as he does, "Still Thou art our abode," because, then, we shall feel that it is not just one quest after another, but that, when the fires of life burn low or sorrow overwhelms us, we need not go in quest at all; we may stay at home for a while a home rich with every comfort, and utterly satisfying in the 
certitude of the Father's presence. 

Yes, that is what we want what we wanted, we ought now to say. Looking back, it is perfectly clear that it had some merit to be honest with our own hearts, and to make our needs vocal to ourselves. It made us face such acid questions as these: Does God intend that we be wistful all our days? Does He love us, and forgive us, and yet want to keep us ignorant that we are His? Can we live without this sense of certainty, and convince ourselves that it does not matter? We came to a definite answer on all these questions. It might have been more devout to have avoided answering them, and temporized with our clamorous hearts by concluding that God would give, or withhold, according to His good pleasure. Instead of that we said: "God does not intend us to be wistful all our days. He wants us to be sure of His forgiveness and His love. If we are to live without this sense of certainty, we shall be as birds with a broken wing." 

And that was where the old Methodist hymns came in. To this plain conviction that God wishes us to be sure, they added the impressive witness of men and women who were. What joy it was and is to read those hymns over and over again. Even in the days when one had so little experience out of which to sing them, and sang them, therefore, with a sense of unreality, one always knew that the unreality was in oneself, and not in the hymn. God wills this thing. Godly men and women have enjoyed it. These were milestones on the pilgrimage, and definite steps toward certainty. 

Everybody has had the experience of hearing a voice call them from some absorbing task, and realizing, at their first response to it, that it had been sounding on the fringe of consciousness for some time before. One starts up with a guilty feeling, and finds the voice astonishingly loud the moment it becomes the focus of attention. I think it must have been like that when, at the first, the Spirit bore witness with our spirits that we were the children of God. Won to a fuller surrender, keeping the morning watch with the strictness of good soldiers, and prosecuting the search for certainty with the zeal of those who feel it is at hand, we became aware of an impression on the mind, a "comfortable voice," and inward assurance (these are poor phrases, but the truth breaks through language and escapes), yet as "absolute and luminously self-evident," as Newman says the Creator was to his child mind. And as we regarded it, it grew clearer, and brought with it a sense of the most satisfying peace not a peace to which we were foreign before, but richer in quality, reaching to the very heart of our need, and making us feel that the search for certainty was at an end. Even in that hour of relief and plenitude the individualism of it was present to our mind. Confirmation will be required for this, we thought. Reasons must be given but only to other people. In the possession of this inward witness, the pursuit of reasons for oneself would be mere academics. Small wonder that those early Methodist hymns are full of such abounding confidence, and make such frequent use of the word "know." 

Clearly, this experience lies behind Wesley's Sermon X. For this he battled with the Bishop of Lichfield and Mr. John Smith. And we are now in that succession of Methodists more than name. "The witness in ourselves we have." Thank God, we are not without evidence that He is going to justify the rest of that quotation too. He is loosening the pride in us, removing those petty jealousies, and giving us grace to endure misrepresentation without bitterness. May He hasten the day when others can say of us what we shrink to say of ourselves, "And all its fruits they show." 

It was when we came to tell others of this experience that we met with difficulty. Some were pained that we had not enjoyed it from our youth up, and others were pained that we had the temerity to claim it at all. It was bewildering to be found wrong in both quarters, but for precisely opposite reasons. To our first critics, we simply pleaded guilty. It was astonishing, but true. Yet, surely, some excuse could be found. John Wesley, a better man than any of us, was thirty-five before the experience came to him. And, after all, had we not been born into an age when the very structure of society rocked with the greatest war in history, and the Church was making heavy weather after sixty years of Biblical criticism? We grew up in a generation in which the pulpit lacked the note of confidence. No wonder we were left in ignorance of our birthright, and suspected ourselves when the experience came. But it has come! For some time now we have been able to sing without a sense of unreality, "What we have felt and seen, with confidence we tell." 

It is with the other critics that we find it hardest to come to terms those who marvel at our presumption in claiming the experience at all. We have been reminded that "so great a man" as Newman denied the possibility of this inner witness. We have been told that this claim flouts the common sense of ordinary men, who feel upon this subject just what Quiller-Couch suggests that Hetty Wesley felt: 

"Of a way to forgiveness through faith (though she must have heard of it a hundred times) she scarcely thought; still less of a way through faith to instant assurance. To those who have not traveled by that road its end though promised on the honor of God and proclaimed incessantly by those who have traveled and found it seems merely incredible. Hardly can man or woman, taught from infancy to suspect false guides, trust these reports of a country where to believe and to have are one."

Even in Methodist circles we have been warned against the dangerous presumption of it, and told that it greases the path to spiritual pride. There is a strident note in those who claim it, we are told a hard, unyielding dogmatism; an assertiveness and overconfidence that are not truly Christian. Let us admit at once that, if this were true, it would be very sad, for they are all grievous faults. Nor am I concerned to defend the extravagances of immature converts, and from the abyss of spiritual pride I shrink with loathing. 

But let us set all these aberrations aside for the moment, and seek a simple answer on the main question. Is there such an inner witness? And, if there is, may we not proclaim our possession of it in no uncertain way? Is the appearance of pride so great that we must follow the example of Dr. Samuel Annesley, and carry it about like a guilty secret for forty years, but never preach it to a soul? Or, should we be so sobered by the extravagances of charlatans and novices that we hold our tongue? Must we be silent because a braggart shouts? Or is the confirmation of the Church so much more than mere confirmation that we must deny the voice in our own soul until "some man in robes" approves it? And, even if we seek to conceal it, what hope is there that we shall succeed? Like Johnson's philosophical friend, we shall find it rising again for all our efforts at repression, and, somehow, we cannot shake off the feeling that people are eager for that definite note. It would be as much a pose now to speak uncertainly, as it was once a pose to say that we knew. 

One friend, who is wise in the things of God, has expressed the opinion that it is better to be uncertain of God and humble, than certain of Him and proud. Quite so! But are we shut up to that alternative? May we not be certain and humble too? When Charles Wesley found his soul "unutterably full of glory and of God," did pride have a corner in it as well? I cannot think so. Great confidence in God and a sense of certitude, can be compounded with deep humility. He calls a worm His friend. There it is! A worm: a friend of God. Both. The wonder of it! 

So we preach Assurance, like the early Methodists, as "the common privilege of Christians." We know its real source. It is neither a "presumption of the natural mind, nor a delusion of the devil." The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.  

Judging Others

One of our Lord's counsels to his followers is, "Judge not, that you be not judged."

We cannot judge others fairly. For example, we do not know what may be the causes of the faults we would condemn in others.

Some people's infirmities are hereditary. Or there may be something in their circumstances or experiences, which is the cause of the peculiarities we are disposed to censure. We do not know what hidden troubles people have — what secret sorrows.

Longfellow somewhere says, "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man's life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility!" If we knew all that God knows of people's lives, our censure would turn to pity!

We are in danger of misjudging the acts and character of others, also, because we can see only a fragment of their life. There are two sides to most things and people, and we usually see but one.

One Christmas the poet Whittier received from a friend a flower pressed between two panes of glass. One side showed only a blurred mass of leaves and stems, without beauty. The other side revealed all the loveliness of the flower as it lay beneath the glass. Mr. Whittier hung his gift in his window, and turned the beautiful side inward. Those who passed outside saw only "a grey disk of clouded glass," and wondered that the poet hung such an unsightly thing in his window. But he, sitting within, saw all the exquisite loveliness of the flower. Other things besides pressed flowers have two sides, and Whittier writes:

"Deeper musings come to me,
My half-immortal flower, from thee;
Man judges from a partial view;
None ever yet his brother knew.

The eternal Eye that sees the whole
May better read the darkened soul,
And find to outward sense denied,
The flower upon its inmost side."

Too often we see only the blurred side of people — and most people have a blurred side. Behind their rough exterior, however, may be a true heart, gentle and kindly.

We know a man out in the world among men, and he seems harsh, stern, ungentle. But some day we see him at home where his sick child suffers, and there he is another man — thoughtful, patient, almost motherly. It would have been most unjust if we had made up our judgment of him from the outside view only.

A young man was severely criticized by his companions for his miserliness. He was receiving a good salary but lived in a pinched way, without even the plain comforts which he could easily have afforded — his fellow-clerks thought. He never spent a penny for luxuries and avoided the expenses which other young men thought necessary. That was one side of the young man's life, and there were those who judged him by it.

But there was another side. He had an only sister — they were orphans — who was a great sufferer. She was confined to her room and bed, a helpless invalid. This brother provided for her. That was the reason he lived so cheaply, saving and doing without things for himself. He made these personal sacrifices, that his sister in her loneliness and pain, might have comforts. That was the other side of the character, the one side of which had seemed so unattractive to the young man's friends.

There are countless cases of this kind. We see a person's actions and form an unfavorable opinion — not knowing the true motive or reason for the actions.

The Pharisees judged Jesus and condemned him bitterly for eating with publicans and sinners, and showing himself the friend of these outcast classes. They saw him only in the light of their own prejudice, and they inferred that he was not a godly man, or he would not have chosen such companions. But we know that he went among these despised and fallen ones, that he might save them. The judgment of his enemies was wrong, because it was passed upon only a fragment of the truth.

Our own imperfections also unfit us for judging fairly. One who has no art taste cannot be a fair critic of works of art. We with our marred and imperfect moral nature, cannot judge righteously of the work and character of another.

The very faults we condemn in our neighbors — oft-times exist in ourselves in even graver form! Jesus teaches this when he says, "Why do you behold the mote that is in your brother's eye — but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye?" While we are finding little specks of fault in others and judging and condemning them on account of these motes — we ourselves have greater faults! We are not fit to be judges of others, because we have the same faults which we see in them.

Besides, while we are looking after the faults of others — we are in danger of neglecting the care of our own life!

"You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way." Romans 14:10-13


~J. R. Miller~

How To Wait (and others)

"Blessed is he that waiteth" (Dan. 12:12).

It may seem an easy thing to wait, but it is one of the postures which a Christian soldier learns not without years of teaching. Marching and quick-marching are much easier to God's warriors than standing still.

There are hours of perplexity when the most willing spirit, anxiously desirous to serve the Lord, knows not what part to take. Then what shall it do? Vex itself by despair? Fly back in cowardice, turn to the right hand in fear, or rush forward in presumption?

No, but simply wait. Wait in prayer, however. Call upon God and spread the case before Him; tell Him your difficulty, and plead His promise of aid.

Wait in faith. Express your unstaggering confidence in Him. Believe that if He keep you tarrying even till midnight, yet He will come at the right time; the vision shall come, and shall not tarry.

***

Wait in quiet patience. Never murmur against the second cause, as the children of Israel did against Moses. Accept the case as it is, and put it as it stands, simply and with your whole heart, without any self-will, into the hand of your covenant God, saying, "Now, Lord, not my will, but Thine be done. I know not what to do; I am brought to extremities; but I will wait until Thou shalt cleave the floods, or drive back my foes. I will wait, if Thou keep me many a day, for my heart is fixed upon Thee alone, O God, and my spirit waiteth for Thee in full conviction that Thou wilt yet be my joy and my salvation, my refuge and my strong tower." --Morning by Morning

***

Wait patiently wait,

God never is late;

Thy budding plans are in Thy Father's holding,

And only wait His grand divine unfolding.

Then wait, wait,

Patiently wait.

Trust, hopefully trust,

That God will adjust

Thy tangled life; and from its dark concealings,

Will bring His will, in all its bright revealings.

Then trust, trust,

Hopefully trust.

Rest, peacefully rest

On thy Saviour's breast;

Breathe in His ear thy sacred high ambition,

And He will bring it forth in blest fruition.

Then rest, rest,

Peacefully rest!

~L. B. Cowman~

He Hath Sealed Us Unto the Day of Redemption

I have separated you from the peoples, that ye should be Mine. - Leviticus 20:26 (R. V.)

"Separate me Barnabas and Saul," said the Holy Ghost. And in after days Paul spoke of himself as being separated unto the Gospel of God. It is a mistake to make the act of separation our own resolve and deed. We shall inevitably drop back unless God has come into the transaction, and has set us apart for Himself. We must be separated from sin and sinners unto a holy God.

We are needed for a specific purpose. - God can bless men only through men. As once He used the Jews to be the medium of communicating His truth to men, so now He is eager to use His Church; if only she will allow Him to deliver her from the taint of sin and the world, and separate her for a peculiar possession unto Himself. Let us individually yield ourselves to the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, that He may realize in us the purpose for which He has called us.

We are required to satisfy God's heart. - He needs love for love. Throughout the world He seeks for those who can afford Him pleasure, as His enclosed gardens, His sealed fountains, His peculiar treasure.

This separation is effected by the Holy Ghost, and is referred to in the word "sealing." "He hath sealed us unto the day of redemption."

What an honor is this! To be for God Himself: to do His errands, to fulfill His behests and give Him pleasure! Rejoice greatly when God says, "Thou art Mine." We also can take up His words, and answer back, "Thou also art mine." Let us be glad, if we know that the oil of separation has come on our heads, and let us walk worthily of our high calling, separated to the Holy Ghost, and counting it sacrilege to be used for any unholy purpose.

What Is Outside His Control?

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:11

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
The fourth and fifth chapters of Mark give us marvelous illustrations of all the things God has placed under the authority of our Lord Jesus. You’ll find Jesus stilling the storm (vv. 4:35-41); He is the Master over disaster. You’ll find Him healing a demon-possessed man (vv. 5:1-20); He has authority over demons. Next, Jesus heals a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years; even disease is under His domain (vv. 5:24-34). Finally in these chapters He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead; Jesus has authority over death (vv. 5:38-43).

Whatever befall—disaster, demons, disease, or even death—Jesus Christ is Lord!

ACTION POINT:
“These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He [the Father] put all things in subjection under His [Jesus’] feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:19b-22 NASV). Friend, meditate upon this passage and rest in Him today, for He has it all under His control.

~Adrian Rogers~

A Needed Revival

A NEEDED REVIVALby Hyman Appleman 
“Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalm 85:6) 

Some people think the need for a revival is a sign of decadence in a church. This is not always so. In the New Testament, in the Old Testament, in Christian history, revivals have been a part of God’s plan for the advancement of the kingdom. This is natural. This is spiritual. This is psychological. It is impossible for a farmer to be always harvesting. The same is true of the Lord’s work. We cannot have a perennial revival. It is impossible to have a perpetual harvest, physical or spiritual. We are so constituted that it is impossible for us to be always on the heights. We would go mad with the strain. We could not endure it. The flesh is still with us. 

What many people call revivals are not revivals at all. You have heard of revivals with supposedly great singing, with supposedly great preaching—and with few if any noticeable results. Such meetings are not revivals. They may be extended seasons of singing and preaching, but that is all. A revival is a revival. You do not have to be told you were born. You know it. You were there, not consciously, but you were there. The same is true of a revival. You will know it. You will witness it when it comes. Mere preaching is not enough. 

We want something that will make people know there is a God in heaven, that the Bible is His Word, that the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ. A real revival shakes, breaks, melts, molds, and causes the power of God to flow over the hearts of people. We want a revival. God is ready to give it. He wants us to have it. He will give us that kind of victory the minute we make room for it. How can we make room for God? That is our present and pressing problem. Let us therefore consider the purpose of a revival, the personnel of a revival and the price of a revival.

The first purpose of a revival is to expose sin in the hearts and lives of God’s people and in the hearts and lives of the unsaved multitudes. You know without my telling you that when workmen build a giant skyscraper, the higher they go the deeper they must go. As the walls go higher, the basements and subbasements go deeper. The same is true of a revival. To build a structure for the glory of God and the salvation of the lost, you must dig, blast and carry away all those things which might hinder progress. I can say by experience—thank God, I can witness to you of personal knowledge—that nothing can convict of sin, condemn for sin, bring people faster and more definitely to a realization of their sins than a revival of religion.

There has never been so much gambling, drinking, adultery, corruption in high places and in low as there is now. Immorality, indecency, infidelity are rife. How we need to expose the rottenness, the evil, the corruption in the hearts of all the people! We go on day after day, month after month, year after year, in the even or uneven tenor of our ways. Sin becomes so common, so prevalent that we pay no attention to it. We have every sort of philosophical and psychological
explanation. “Everybody does it.” Our consciences are dead. Our minds are befogged by Satan. We have grown fat and sleek in our souls. We love to hear soft, warm, perfumed platitudes. We need a shock of terrific dynamite to blast us out of the rut into which the Devil has thrown us. The only kind of explosion that can accomplish this is a Holy Ghost revival.

The second purpose of a revival is to enlist souls. First we must seek to enlist God’s people. Why are our churches half empty? Why do not souls come to Christ? Because Christians are not sufficiently concerned about the work of the Lord. We have to enlist God’s people. We must enlist those who are twice born, who are washed in the blood, who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who claim the Lord as their personal Saviour.

We must enlist also the unsaved, bring them out of darkness into light, lead them from hell to heaven, from sin to salvation, from iniquity to righteousness. We must win them for the Lord Jesus Christ. The majority of people who have been saved since the beginning of Christianity have been reached and enlisted during revival meetings. The majority of those who will be saved in this dispensation of grace will be reached for Christ during revivals.

The third purpose of a revival—the chief purpose, God help me to tell it, the noblest motive, the highest passion, the only purpose God can really bless, God will bless, God has blessed—is to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. I am very much afraid that one, if not the chief, reason why God is not blessing our efforts more is that we are selfish, that we have no thought for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why many of us are not doing anything. Many of us are not in love with Jesus. We have no compassion for the lost. We work for each other, for our churches, for our pastors, but the least little thing throws us off balance.

If we are in love with Jesus, if we have a passion for Jesus, no matter what the difficulty, no matter what anybody else does, our passion for Christ will drive us to give, to pray, to do. We need to exalt Christ. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Only by enthroning Christ can we claim the promises of God, the fullness of His Holy Spirit, the answers to our prayers.

Consider also the personnel of a revival. Most important, of course, are the Three Persons of the Trinity: God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. There are many things we can do in our own strength. We can visit, advertise, invite, attend services, but, my friends; we are utterly unable to bring about a revival. We need God. We need Christ. We need the Holy Spirit, to convict, to constrain, to convert, to consecrate, to attract. Thank God, I can tell you, dogmatically, positively, assuredly, beyond doubt or peradventure, that the Holy Spirit is eager, longing, and able to bless us if we will but give Him the opportunity.

A revival is also composed of church members: Christians —you and I. Give me three hundred people dedicated to God, surrendered to Christ, submitted to the Holy Spirit, who will say, “You can count on me”—give me even two hundred who will go the limit for Jesus, for the Gospel, in the Holy Spirit, for the souls of men—and we will take a city for the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been in campaigns when the people were hot, when the people were cold, when the church was big, when the church was little; I have conducted meetings in the North, East, South, West, from one end of the country to the other. There is, I believe, only one unknown equation in a revival, only one thing that can stop us from having a victory, only one thing that will keep God from giving us a revival. Would you like to know what it is? I will tell you. Look in the mirror. There between the frames of the mirror you will see the only thing that can stop us from having a spiritual upheaval. God is ready, willing, and able to bless us. Christ will deny us no good thing. The Spirit’s power has never abated.

A revival is also composed of unsaved souls, backsliders, those out of Christ for any reason. If we pray for them, if we go after them, they will come by the scores, by the hundreds. It has been so everywhere. But they will not come unless we go after them. I have heard people say that in olden times sinners came to church. That is not true. It is not in the Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ went after them. He sent His disciples after them. It is so in Christian history. It has always been
difficult to reach sinners. They have never come of their own free will. The Devil had them, has them, will have them, until we cut them loose by the power of the Spirit from his hold. I believe, I know, with all my soul I am certain, that the unsaved will come to the place of meeting, will come to Christ if and when you and I in compassion, consecration, anxiety, intercession, with yearning, longing, anxious hearts, even weeping eyes, go after them and press the claims of the
Lord upon them.

We have considered the purpose and the personnel of a revival. Now let us think about the price of a revival. What is the price of a revival? What did Moses have to pay? What did Samuel have to pay? What did Elijah have to pay? Isaiah? Hezekiah? What price did Joshua have to pay? What price did Peter and Paul and Luther and Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon and Moody and Billy Sunday have to pay? Each of us has to pay the same price—exactly the same price. There is no difference. There never will be any difference. God has never changed His terms. Power is costly. The most expensive power in all the world is the power of Pentecost. The price is high—but we can pay it. Here is how.

We must have a personal devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you will study the biographies of these men I mentioned, you will find that they were characterized by one outstanding attitude. They were in love with the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I must fall in love with Jesus. Passion and devotion to Christ will take care of the sin problem in our lives. If we love Jesus we will hate the Devil, hate the world, and hate sin. If we really love Jesus, all that might put a shadow between Him and us will be a horrible detestation to us. I wish I could go to each of you, one by one, and ask you, “Do you love Jesus?” I wish I could press the question upon you until your hearts responded with the answer, “Yes, I love Jesus more than I love life itself.”

- We must visit for Jesus’ sake.
- We must invite for Jesus’ sake.
- We must sacrifice for Jesus’ sake.
- We must attend services for Jesus’ sake.
- We must give our money for Jesus’ sake.
- We must preach for Jesus’ sake.
- We must win souls for Jesus’ sake.

We must have a personal devotion to Jesus—not in word only, but with all our hearts, with all our souls. There must be a passionate devotion that will wake us in the night, that will be with us in the day, that will beset us on every hand, at home and abroad. “Jesus, Jesus, blessed Jesus!”— that must be the cry of our hearts.

The second price of a revival is a purposeful compassion for the souls of men. I say “purposeful” because I mean it. There is compassion and compassion.

B. B. Crimm held a revival in Lawton, Oklahoma when I was a soldier at Fort Sill. He could tell fascinating stories about dogs. I went every night I was not on duty. Church members sobbed and wept over his dog tales, but I knew that most of them never prayed, never sought the lost. I do not know what you call that in English, but the Jewish name for it is hypocrisy. It is lying. By compassion I do not mean the compassion which causes one to weep when a moving story is told. I mean the compassion that burns high and clear when there is no revival that flames on Monday even more than on Sunday, and is higher on Tuesday than on Monday. I mean the kind of compassion that gives us no rest nor peace until we give the best of our thought, the best of our talents, the best of our time, the best of our efforts to seeking out the lost for the Saviour.

- We need a purposeful compassion that will wake us in the morning crying, “O Lord, for Jesus’ sake, save our city.” 

- We need a compassion that will drive us to our knees and make us say when we go to bed at night, “O Lord, for Christ’s sake, save our people.”
- We need a compassion that will seek out and make opportunities to witness for Christ day and night. That is purposeful compassion.

The third price that we must pay for this revival that God wants, that you, Christian reader, want, that I want, is persistent intercession. We must have not only personal devotion to Christ, purposeful compassion for the souls of men, but persistent intercession.

- We must pray without ceasing.
- We must pray as we have never prayed before in all our lives.
- We must pray for ourselves.

Pray for our fellow church members, pray for the backslidden, the indifferent, the unconcerned, the unconsecrated, pray for the pastors, pray for the evangelists, pray for the choirs and pianists. We must literally saturate our towns with prayers. If I were to ask you the question “Do you believe God answers prayer?” you would answer immediately, “I surely do.” Do you? Do you believe God answers prayer? How do you know? Has someone told you? Do you know it “secondhand”? Have you ever tested the truth of the statement? Has God ever answered prayer for you in a mighty, miraculous way?

If you believe the Bible is the Word of God, if you believe the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ, if you believe there is a God in heaven, if you believe God can give us a revival, if you want to see a torrential visitation of God’s Spirit, I challenge you, I appeal to you, I implore you, I beseech you, from this moment on, without rest or cessation, let us—all of us, each of us—lift our cities to God’s throne of grace. Let us keep them there in the white heat of our prayers until God answers by fire and sends us a revival from above.

This is God’s plan for a revival. Comply with it and the heavens will flood the earth with showers of blessings. Let us plead God’s grace until the Holy Spirit creates within our hearts a burning passion for Christ, a purposeful compassion for souls, a ceaseless intercession for power and victory. 

I Am the Lord Your God (plus Others)

I am the Lord your God. - Leviticus 19:3

This is the refrain of the entire chapter; count how many times it recurs. Evidently the thought of God should ring in our lives, as a perpetual chime.

Sometimes as an inspiration to duty. We should seek to be holy because He is holy. "Imitators of God." Or as a remonstrance against yielding to temptation. Lo, God is in this place; His pure eye is upon me: how can I do this great wickedness! Or as an incentive to liberality. We can afford to be generous to the poor and hireling, because we are children of so great and rich a parent. Or as a reason for mercy and gentle kindness. How can we act otherwise than lovingly, when His love encompasses us with its persuasive bands?

Thus the perpetual consciousness of God becomes the source of holy and happy living. But how may it become ours? We may make many resolutions, only to break them. We forget after our most definite purposing. There is no help but in the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to teach us all things, and bring all things to our remembrance. He is able also to help our infirmity: "for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

In the morning let the thought of God's presence with you in your secret closet sink well into your heart. Wait till His presence is made real to you, and you cry, Lo, God is here. Then entrust yourself to the Holy Spirit, asking Him to keep you in the current of the love and thought of God. Reckon on Him to do so. Now and then in the course of daily duty stop and remember God. Thus you will live in His fear and love all the day long.  

~F. B. Meyer~

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The God of the Second Chance

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Hebrews 8:12

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Have you ever felt like you have used up God’s reservoir of forgiveness? Perhaps you’ve thought, “I don’t have a right to come and ask Him to forgive me again.” Friend, it doesn’t matter how many times we have sinned.

Suppose you came back to God the 5,000th time with the same sin. Will He forgive you? Yes indeed, He will. As far as He is concerned, it is the first time you have come to Him. Why? Because He has forgotten all the other times.

Our God doesn’t hold grudges. He does punish sin, but He doesn’t hold grudges. The God of Jonah, David, Mark, Peter, and Jacob is your God and my God. I have come to Him so many times and asked Him for a second chance. And guess what? He has given it.

ACTION POINT:
If He can give Jonah, David, Jacob, etc., a second chance, He will certainly give you another chance. Failure is not final. 

~Adrian Rogers~

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1 Kings 19:4

And he requested for himself that he might die.

It was a remarkable thing that the man who was never to die, for whom God had ordained an infinitely better lot, the man who should be carried to heaven in a chariot of fire, and be translated, that he should not see death-should thus pray, "Let me die, I am no better than my fathers." We have here a memorable proof that God does not always answer prayer in kind, though He always does in effect. He gave Elias something better than that which he asked for, and thus really heard and answered him. Strange was it that the lion-hearted Elijah should be so depressed by Jezebel's threat as to ask to die, and blessedly kind was it on the part of our heavenly Father that He did not take His desponding servant at his word. There is a limit to the doctrine of the prayer of faith. We are not to expect that God will give us everything we choose to ask for. We know that we sometimes ask, and do not receive, because we ask amiss. If we ask for that which is not promised-if we run counter to the spirit which the Lord would have us cultivate-if we ask contrary to His will, or to the decrees of His providence-if we ask merely for the gratification of our own ease, and without an eye to His glory, we must not expect that we shall receive. Yet, when we ask in faith, nothing doubting, if we receive not the precise thing asked for, we shall receive an equivalent, and more than an equivalent, for it. As one remarks, "If the Lord does not pay in silver, He will in gold; and if He does not pay in gold, He will in diamonds." If He does not give you precisely what you ask for, He will give you that which is tantamount to it, and that which you will greatly rejoice to receive in lieu thereof. Be then, dear reader, much in prayer, and make this evening a season of earnest intercession, but take heed what you ask.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Devotionals from Charles Spurgeon

1 John 2:6

So to walk even as He walked.

 

Why should Christians imitate Christ? They should do it for their own sakes. If they desire to be in a healthy state of soul-if they would escape the sickness of sin, and enjoy the vigor of growing grace, let Jesus be their model. For their own happiness' sake, if they would drink wine on the lees, well refined; if they would enjoy holy and happy communion with Jesus; if they would be lifted up above the cares and troubles of this world, let them walk even as He walked. There is nothing which can so assist you to walk towards heaven with good speed, as wearing the image of Jesus on your heart to rule all its motions. It is when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to walk with Jesus in His very footsteps, that you are most happy, and most known to be the sons of God. Peter afar off is both unsafe and uneasy. Next, for religion's sake, strive to be like Jesus. Ah! poor religion, thou hast been sorely shot at by cruel foes, but thou hast not been wounded one-half so dangerously by thy foes as by thy friends. Who made those wounds in the fair hand of Godliness? The professor who used the dagger of hypocrisy. The man who with pretences, enters the fold, being nought but a wolf in sheep's clothing, worries the flock more than the lion outside. There is no weapon half so deadly as a Judas-kiss. Inconsistent professors injure the gospel more than the sneering critic or the infidel. But, especially for Christ's own sake, imitate His example. Christian, lovest thou thy Saviour? Is His name precious to thee? Is His cause dear to thee? Wouldst thou see the kingdoms of the world become His? Is it thy desire that He should be glorified? Art thou longing that souls should be won to Him? If so, imitate Jesus; be an "epistle of Christ, known and read of all men."

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Losses Overcome

"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten"   (Joel2:25).
Yes, those wasted years over which we sigh shall be restored to us. God can give us such plentiful grace that we shall crowd into the remainder of our days as much of service as will be some recompense for those years of unregeneracy over which we mourn in humble penitence. The locusts of backsliding, worldliness, lukewarmness, are now viewed by us as a terrible plague. Oh, that they had never come near us! The LORD in mercy has now taken them away, and we are full of zeal to serve Him. Blessed be His name, we can raise such harvests of spiritual graces as shall make our former barrenness to disappear. Through rich grace we can turn to account our bitter experience and use it to warn others. We can become the more rooted in humility, childlike dependence, and penitent spirituality by reason of our former shortcomings. If we are the more watchful, zealous, and tender, we shall gain by our lamentable losses. The wasted years, by a miracle of love, can be restored. Does it seem too great a boon? Let us believe for it and live for it, and we may yet realize it, even as Peter became all the more useful a man after his presumption was cured by his discovered weakness. LORD, aid us by Thy grace.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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Colossians 2:9, 10:

In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him.

 

All the attributes of Christ, as God and man, are at our disposal. All the fullness of the Godhead, whatever that marvelous term may comprehend, is ours to make us complete. He cannot endow us with the attributes of Deity; but He has done all that can be done, for He has made even His divine power and Godhead subservient to our salvation. His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability and infallibility, are all combined for our defence. Arise, believer, and behold the Lord Jesus yoking the whole of His divine Godhead to the chariot of salvation! How vast His grace, how firm His faithfulness, how unswerving His immutability, how infinite His power, how limitless His knowledge! All these are by the Lord Jesus made the pillars of the temple of salvation; and all, without diminution of their infinity, are covenanted to us as our perpetual inheritance. The fathomless love of the Saviour's heart is every drop of it ours; every sinew in the arm of might, every jewel in the crown of majesty, the immensity of divine knowledge, and the sternness of divine justice, all are ours, and shall be employed for us. The whole of Christ, in His adorable character as the Son of God, is by Himself made over to us most richly to enjoy. His wisdom is our direction, His knowledge our instruction, His power our protection, His justice our surety, His love our comfort, His mercy our solace, and His immutability our trust. He makes no reserve, but opens the recesses of the Mount of God and bids us dig in its mines for the hidden treasures. "All, all, all are yours," saith He, "be ye satisfied with favor and full of the goodness of the Lord." Oh! how sweet thus to behold Jesus, and to call upon Him with the certain confidence that in seeking the interposition of His love or power, we are but asking for that which He has already faithfully promised.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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We May Speak for God

"Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth"   (Jeremiah15:19).

Poor Jeremiah! Yet why do we say so? The weeping prophet was one of the choicest servants of God and honored by Him above many. He was hated for speaking the truth. The word which was so sweet to him was bitter to his hearers, yet he was accepted of his LORD. He was commanded to abide in his faithfulness, and then the LORD would continue to speak through him. He was to deal boldly and truthfully with men and perform the LORD's winnowing work upon the professors of his day, and then the LORD gave him this word: "Thou shalt be as my mouth."

What an honor! Should not every preacher, yea, every believer, covet it? For God to speak by us, what a marvel! We shall speak sure, pure truth; and we shall speak it with power. Our word shall not return void; it shall be a blessing to those who receive it, and those who refuse it shall do so at their peril. Our lips shall feed many. We shall arouse the sleeping and call the dead to life.

O dear reader, pray that it may be so with all the sent servants of our LORD.

~Charles Spurgeon~