By A.B. Simpson
Jesus does not say you cannot very well serve God and mammon.
Rather, He says you cannot serve two masters at all.
If you try, you will surely end up serving only one.
The person who thinks he or she is serving God a little is deceived.
He or she is not serving God. God will not have that service.
The devil will monopolize the person before long. A divided heart loses both worlds.
Saul tried it. Balaam tried it. Judas tried it. Their efforts ended in desperate failure.
For Mary there was but one choice.
Paul said: This one thing I do, and For me to live is Christ. Of such a life God says: Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name (Psalm 91:14).
God takes a peculiar pride in revealing His love to the heart that wholly chooses Him.
Heaven and earth will fade away before its trust can be disappointed.
Have we chosen Him only and given Him all our hearts?
Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing? Is He your Royal Master? Is He your heart's dear King?
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article4494.shtml
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Lords of Darkness
To the Lords of Darkness, the pastors of the Lord's flocks in America,
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
M't:23:33
You have become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore you shall not prosper, and all your flocks shall be scattered. Your flocks are scattered in a thousand denominations and sects and cults. Your flocks sit under the headship of serpents and slumber as you do. None of you are in unity with anything but your bellies. And you have become Lords of Darkness who rule in the name of Satan. Says the LORD.
You pastors of God's flocks serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but your own belly; and by good words and fair speeches and great shows of opulent pride with covetousness, deceive the hearts of the simple. You pastors rely upon questionnaires and surveys to find out what the dumb sheep want from a church and a pastor today. You have become experts in marketing and demographics. You have become the Predators that you have been ordained to become. The Knowledge of God does not exist in you. The Lord God has already shown you His wrath and you have tasted the bitterness of His displeasure, Yet you hearken not unto God, nor inclined you ears to hear, but hardened your necks: and you do worse than your fathers. More than foul weather approaches your land. Do you not hear the Thunder? Will you not heed the warnings?
You have sown for gain and reap esteem, profit and fat earthly rewards and your father the devil, reaps multitudes of damned souls, lulled into a sleepwalk of death by virtue of your skillful, blood soaked, deceiving tongues. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. That, you have done. You have become pitchmen, not careful watchmen. And the Lord rebuke you all.
The Lord God says, many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Your grand facades and business ventures and holdings are your god. And you teach the love of mammon and self over the love of Truth, humility and obedience to the God of Israel. Your mesmerized, cash-cow congregations feed your lusts and condemn themselves to rebuke and spiritual death. Yet you do not warn them. You milk them for all you can get from them. And why is it that the true worshipers of God are now returning to their homes to worship as they did in the days before the advent of the cathedrals and of the mega-churches and your LIE!? Praise the Living God!
What goes around, comes around Pastors of America. Your churches are filled with wood, hay and stubble, false gospels and true lies, ready now to burn. Your mega-barns are stored up with famine. We have plowed these fields by the calling of God. And now, that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. You have become utterly depraved.
The Elect of God have come out from your whorehouses and been scattered into the wilderness where they belong. What have you taught the people, Lords of Darkness? You have taught them blasphemies. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. And I speak directly to you, my "Pentecostal" friends". For the Lord has heard your "howlings" and witnessed your witchcraft! The Lord says, I have heard all thy blasphemies!
And what recompense comes for you, dear pastors? You have a great reward in the eyes of men. And this reward has a bill attached to it. The shew of your countenance does witness against you; and you declare you sin as Sodom, you hide it not. Woe unto your souls! For you have rewarded evil unto yourselves. It is not the freedom in Christ you preach. It is slavery to sin. Communion with darkness. And the very chains with which you have bound so many, are bound around your souls and will be your sore comforter in blackest darkness, forever separated from the God you sold out, because of your weakness and compromise.
You Pastors of America are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and you are shepherds that cannot understand: you all look to your own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. You sow and breed iniquity. And I warn you, there is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. And you 'shepherds' shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape, for what is coming upon you for your rebellion and idolatry. The Lord God has found you out. He has known of you.
You send your missionaries out into the world to make your deceived proselytes twice the sons of hell than you are. You spread plague. Plagues of un-truths and the vomit of your covetous bellies. Woe be unto you pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of God's pasture! saith the LORD. And woe unto you who profane the name of a Righteous God. Jesus Christ has spoken to you, ...but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. You do not preach repentance, humility, holiness before God. You preach obedience to vanity and lust. You preach a strange gospel. You preach prosperity for the body and leave the souls to starve.
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened,
and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire:
no man shall spare his brother.
Isa:9:19
To you sheep of the Brothels of Darkness, the Lord God of Israel has spoken unto you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you obeyed not God's voice. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. God's Watchmen are told therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. And that trouble has surrounded your gilded cages you call churches and ministries. And it awaits the Destroyer. You are surrounded. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all you that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for you have sinned against the LORD. But you shall NOT prevail!
Therefore says the Lord, the wind shall eat up all your pastors, and your lovers shall go into captivity. Your idols shall be destroyed. Surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. Will anyone heed the warning? Will anyone consider what has truly befallen you? The Lord God will first recompense your iniquity and your sin double; because you have defiled God's Church, you have filled God's inheritance with the carcases of your detestable and abominable things. And your worship is an abomination in the sight of this Holy God. And God will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and God's soul shall abhor you.
America, in all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. You have allowed Lords of Darkness to sit in authority over you. Over your souls. Your delusion is complete and utterly immutable. And the Lord God has now said, As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go you, serve you every one his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not hearken unto me: but pollute you my Holy Name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
America, you are idolaters. And your fate is sealed. And in the words of Job, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. How therefore then can revival come to this forsaken land, America? It is nowhere to be found. Only war in your hearts, famine of God's Word, the pestilence eating away your seared consciences and the death of multitudes of souls.
I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,
which walketh in a way that was not good,
after their own thoughts;
Isa:65:2
WISDOM cries outside; she utters her voice in the streets. Can you hear her? She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. In the parking lots and in your defiled sanctuaries and temples of your hearts. In the city she utters her words, saying, How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and you refused to listen; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But you have regarded all my counsel as nothing, and would have none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes; When your fear comes as desolation, and your destruction comes as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish comes upon you. Then shall you call upon me, but I will not answer; you shall seek me early, but you shall not find me: For you that hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: you would have none of His counsel: you despised all His reproof. Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of you own way, and be filled with your own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay you, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy you. But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
To the Saints of the Light...
Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted,
it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
Mic:2:10
But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Are you dwelling in safety with your God Saints? I know you are. The Lords of Darkness no longer hold sway over you. Their spells have no power anymore. You have been called out of the Harlot and you are free in and by the Blood of Jesus Christ. For it is only in Blood and this Jesus, that you will be saved at the end. It is only in this blood which covers you, that your ears will be closed up to the sounds of the Pitchmen of Satan and the screams of terror which comes upon the wicked.
Remain in God. Seek always the Truth. Love it, and it shall be well with you. As I have been given to speak it to you in years past, it has now come to pass that the chasm between the Elect and the Chaff is deep and wide and well formed. It is before your very eyes. None shall escape the Judgment that comes. Do not look back upon what you have left behind, lest you be turned to a pillar of salt by a God who requires His Priesthood to look forward unto Him at all times. Without fear must you continue in the Way; The very narrow way with the real Jesus; The Stone the builders of today's churches have rejected. We are rejected and reviled as He was. But that, to the glory of our God. Take the pain and rejoice in the sufferings that come upon you in the manner of Jesus our Lord of Light. Leave behind the darkness forever. And in the quiet solitude of your Refuge, wait, watch and pray. There is a great move of God going forth at this time. His Saints are being visited. His watchmen know this.
God has sent you a few true pastors and watchmen. Heed them. They come in the name of the Lord God. And they shall teach God's people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. God's people shall enter into His sanctuary, and they shall come near to His table, to minister to God, and they shall keep His charge. Remember that your righteousness is in and of Jesus Christ. Nothing you could have done could earn you even a glimpse of the glory of God. Be thankful always to our God for His mercy and the unfathomable depths of His Love that He has extended to you. Remember that you are clay and water, dust in the wind, yet you are remembered by God. Hearken not to the Lords of Darkness. Now, more than ever, remain steadfast, vigilant and in complete humility before our Father. He has made us righteous by His own blood. Not ours. For, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. For we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Praise and glory be to the Almighty, Sovereign Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and for ever. May His grace, peace and mercy abound. May you Saints be fortified in the knowledge of Jesus Christ by the indwelling of His Spirit. Much has begun that cannot be turned back. The true Elect of God rejoice that the way back, over their shoulders to the Sodom they have fled, is forever blocked, the bridges burned and in smoldering ruin. We move forward in Christ and we shall soon behold the very Hand of the Living God in full upon our wicked land and upon the cankered fields of souls.
Keep to the Road Saints of the Living God. Do not look back. Do not keep your eyes on Jerusalem, Saints. Only fools heed this deceptive catch-phrase. It has made some of the Wolves who preach this, much mammon. I ask you, will you have even access to electricity when what is to become of Jerusalem occurs? Our land faces sore Judgment and no conveniences in its aftermath. Keep your eyes upon the Good Shepherd who walks before you. By answering the Call to follow the real Jesus Christ, you have entered in at the strait gate and are now walking a narrow way with Jesus. May Life be yours at the end of your Journey.
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Rev 12:12
This time is at hand. Look up Saints. And don't look back. Amen.
http://www.theremnantcafe.org/articles/lordsofdarkness.htm
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
M't:23:33
You have become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore you shall not prosper, and all your flocks shall be scattered. Your flocks are scattered in a thousand denominations and sects and cults. Your flocks sit under the headship of serpents and slumber as you do. None of you are in unity with anything but your bellies. And you have become Lords of Darkness who rule in the name of Satan. Says the LORD.
You pastors of God's flocks serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but your own belly; and by good words and fair speeches and great shows of opulent pride with covetousness, deceive the hearts of the simple. You pastors rely upon questionnaires and surveys to find out what the dumb sheep want from a church and a pastor today. You have become experts in marketing and demographics. You have become the Predators that you have been ordained to become. The Knowledge of God does not exist in you. The Lord God has already shown you His wrath and you have tasted the bitterness of His displeasure, Yet you hearken not unto God, nor inclined you ears to hear, but hardened your necks: and you do worse than your fathers. More than foul weather approaches your land. Do you not hear the Thunder? Will you not heed the warnings?
You have sown for gain and reap esteem, profit and fat earthly rewards and your father the devil, reaps multitudes of damned souls, lulled into a sleepwalk of death by virtue of your skillful, blood soaked, deceiving tongues. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. That, you have done. You have become pitchmen, not careful watchmen. And the Lord rebuke you all.
The Lord God says, many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Your grand facades and business ventures and holdings are your god. And you teach the love of mammon and self over the love of Truth, humility and obedience to the God of Israel. Your mesmerized, cash-cow congregations feed your lusts and condemn themselves to rebuke and spiritual death. Yet you do not warn them. You milk them for all you can get from them. And why is it that the true worshipers of God are now returning to their homes to worship as they did in the days before the advent of the cathedrals and of the mega-churches and your LIE!? Praise the Living God!
What goes around, comes around Pastors of America. Your churches are filled with wood, hay and stubble, false gospels and true lies, ready now to burn. Your mega-barns are stored up with famine. We have plowed these fields by the calling of God. And now, that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. You have become utterly depraved.
The Elect of God have come out from your whorehouses and been scattered into the wilderness where they belong. What have you taught the people, Lords of Darkness? You have taught them blasphemies. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. And I speak directly to you, my "Pentecostal" friends". For the Lord has heard your "howlings" and witnessed your witchcraft! The Lord says, I have heard all thy blasphemies!
And what recompense comes for you, dear pastors? You have a great reward in the eyes of men. And this reward has a bill attached to it. The shew of your countenance does witness against you; and you declare you sin as Sodom, you hide it not. Woe unto your souls! For you have rewarded evil unto yourselves. It is not the freedom in Christ you preach. It is slavery to sin. Communion with darkness. And the very chains with which you have bound so many, are bound around your souls and will be your sore comforter in blackest darkness, forever separated from the God you sold out, because of your weakness and compromise.
You Pastors of America are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and you are shepherds that cannot understand: you all look to your own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. You sow and breed iniquity. And I warn you, there is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. And you 'shepherds' shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape, for what is coming upon you for your rebellion and idolatry. The Lord God has found you out. He has known of you.
You send your missionaries out into the world to make your deceived proselytes twice the sons of hell than you are. You spread plague. Plagues of un-truths and the vomit of your covetous bellies. Woe be unto you pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of God's pasture! saith the LORD. And woe unto you who profane the name of a Righteous God. Jesus Christ has spoken to you, ...but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. You do not preach repentance, humility, holiness before God. You preach obedience to vanity and lust. You preach a strange gospel. You preach prosperity for the body and leave the souls to starve.
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened,
and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire:
no man shall spare his brother.
Isa:9:19
To you sheep of the Brothels of Darkness, the Lord God of Israel has spoken unto you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you obeyed not God's voice. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. God's Watchmen are told therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. And that trouble has surrounded your gilded cages you call churches and ministries. And it awaits the Destroyer. You are surrounded. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all you that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for you have sinned against the LORD. But you shall NOT prevail!
Therefore says the Lord, the wind shall eat up all your pastors, and your lovers shall go into captivity. Your idols shall be destroyed. Surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. Will anyone heed the warning? Will anyone consider what has truly befallen you? The Lord God will first recompense your iniquity and your sin double; because you have defiled God's Church, you have filled God's inheritance with the carcases of your detestable and abominable things. And your worship is an abomination in the sight of this Holy God. And God will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and God's soul shall abhor you.
America, in all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. You have allowed Lords of Darkness to sit in authority over you. Over your souls. Your delusion is complete and utterly immutable. And the Lord God has now said, As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go you, serve you every one his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not hearken unto me: but pollute you my Holy Name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
America, you are idolaters. And your fate is sealed. And in the words of Job, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. How therefore then can revival come to this forsaken land, America? It is nowhere to be found. Only war in your hearts, famine of God's Word, the pestilence eating away your seared consciences and the death of multitudes of souls.
I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,
which walketh in a way that was not good,
after their own thoughts;
Isa:65:2
WISDOM cries outside; she utters her voice in the streets. Can you hear her? She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. In the parking lots and in your defiled sanctuaries and temples of your hearts. In the city she utters her words, saying, How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and you refused to listen; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But you have regarded all my counsel as nothing, and would have none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes; When your fear comes as desolation, and your destruction comes as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish comes upon you. Then shall you call upon me, but I will not answer; you shall seek me early, but you shall not find me: For you that hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: you would have none of His counsel: you despised all His reproof. Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of you own way, and be filled with your own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay you, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy you. But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
To the Saints of the Light...
Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted,
it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
Mic:2:10
But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Are you dwelling in safety with your God Saints? I know you are. The Lords of Darkness no longer hold sway over you. Their spells have no power anymore. You have been called out of the Harlot and you are free in and by the Blood of Jesus Christ. For it is only in Blood and this Jesus, that you will be saved at the end. It is only in this blood which covers you, that your ears will be closed up to the sounds of the Pitchmen of Satan and the screams of terror which comes upon the wicked.
Remain in God. Seek always the Truth. Love it, and it shall be well with you. As I have been given to speak it to you in years past, it has now come to pass that the chasm between the Elect and the Chaff is deep and wide and well formed. It is before your very eyes. None shall escape the Judgment that comes. Do not look back upon what you have left behind, lest you be turned to a pillar of salt by a God who requires His Priesthood to look forward unto Him at all times. Without fear must you continue in the Way; The very narrow way with the real Jesus; The Stone the builders of today's churches have rejected. We are rejected and reviled as He was. But that, to the glory of our God. Take the pain and rejoice in the sufferings that come upon you in the manner of Jesus our Lord of Light. Leave behind the darkness forever. And in the quiet solitude of your Refuge, wait, watch and pray. There is a great move of God going forth at this time. His Saints are being visited. His watchmen know this.
God has sent you a few true pastors and watchmen. Heed them. They come in the name of the Lord God. And they shall teach God's people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. God's people shall enter into His sanctuary, and they shall come near to His table, to minister to God, and they shall keep His charge. Remember that your righteousness is in and of Jesus Christ. Nothing you could have done could earn you even a glimpse of the glory of God. Be thankful always to our God for His mercy and the unfathomable depths of His Love that He has extended to you. Remember that you are clay and water, dust in the wind, yet you are remembered by God. Hearken not to the Lords of Darkness. Now, more than ever, remain steadfast, vigilant and in complete humility before our Father. He has made us righteous by His own blood. Not ours. For, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. For we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Praise and glory be to the Almighty, Sovereign Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and for ever. May His grace, peace and mercy abound. May you Saints be fortified in the knowledge of Jesus Christ by the indwelling of His Spirit. Much has begun that cannot be turned back. The true Elect of God rejoice that the way back, over their shoulders to the Sodom they have fled, is forever blocked, the bridges burned and in smoldering ruin. We move forward in Christ and we shall soon behold the very Hand of the Living God in full upon our wicked land and upon the cankered fields of souls.
Keep to the Road Saints of the Living God. Do not look back. Do not keep your eyes on Jerusalem, Saints. Only fools heed this deceptive catch-phrase. It has made some of the Wolves who preach this, much mammon. I ask you, will you have even access to electricity when what is to become of Jerusalem occurs? Our land faces sore Judgment and no conveniences in its aftermath. Keep your eyes upon the Good Shepherd who walks before you. By answering the Call to follow the real Jesus Christ, you have entered in at the strait gate and are now walking a narrow way with Jesus. May Life be yours at the end of your Journey.
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Rev 12:12
This time is at hand. Look up Saints. And don't look back. Amen.
http://www.theremnantcafe.org/articles/lordsofdarkness.htm
How long halt ye between two opinions?
By A.B. Simpson
It is strange that people will not get over the idea that a consecrated life is a difficult one.
A simple illustration will answer this foolish impression. Suppose a streetcar operator were to say, "It is much easier to run with one wheel on the track and the other off." His line would soon be dropped by the public, who would prefer to walk.
Of course, it is ever so much easier to run with both wheels on the track-and always on the track-and it is much easier to follow Christ fully than to follow Him with a half heart and halting step.
Elijah was right in his pungent question, How long halt ye between two opinions?
The undecided man is a halting man.
The halting man is a lame man and a miserable man, but the out-and-out Christian is the admiration of men and angels and a continual joy to himself. Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing?
Is He your Royal Master, Is He your heart's true King?
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article4621.shtml
It is strange that people will not get over the idea that a consecrated life is a difficult one.
A simple illustration will answer this foolish impression. Suppose a streetcar operator were to say, "It is much easier to run with one wheel on the track and the other off." His line would soon be dropped by the public, who would prefer to walk.
Of course, it is ever so much easier to run with both wheels on the track-and always on the track-and it is much easier to follow Christ fully than to follow Him with a half heart and halting step.
Elijah was right in his pungent question, How long halt ye between two opinions?
The undecided man is a halting man.
The halting man is a lame man and a miserable man, but the out-and-out Christian is the admiration of men and angels and a continual joy to himself. Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing?
Is He your Royal Master, Is He your heart's true King?
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article4621.shtml
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
What He Calls Death
By William M. Clow
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
(1 Cor. 15:55).
He has three names for death. He calls it a falling asleep. He is using one of the phrases which daring and trustful men had coined, and He is giving it proof and reality. When He stands beside the bed of Jairus' little daughter He softly says, "Talitha cumi," "My little lambie, arise."
He calls it a going to the Father. This is the word which remained unspoken until the end, but it was His most cherished thought. When He gathers His disciples together in the upper room, and He is upon the eve of His dying, then the word is like a refrain in a song, a recurring note of music in His addresses. Again and again He repeats, "I go to My Father." He is like an emigrant who has been for years in another hemisphere and in the land of strangers. He has been busy with its life and its industries. He has endured its hardships and isolation. Now the time of His sojourn is over and the hour of His return is come. He is going to the Father. He is going home.
He calls it, in the conversation, by a singular word. "They spake of His decease." In the literal and significant meaning of the word it was His "exodus. "We cannot doubt why the word was chosen. It is the thought of death from the point of view of one who is about to go out by it as by a door. How full of light is this word. Death is an exodus, a going out from the land of the stranger, from the house of bondage, from affliction and thankless toil, from the state of the slave. Death is a deliverance and a boon. It is a going through a wilderness, with its loneliness and its pain and privation, but it is a going through a wilderness upon a journey which is to end in the land which is the promise of God.
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article9624.shtml
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
(1 Cor. 15:55).
He has three names for death. He calls it a falling asleep. He is using one of the phrases which daring and trustful men had coined, and He is giving it proof and reality. When He stands beside the bed of Jairus' little daughter He softly says, "Talitha cumi," "My little lambie, arise."
He calls it a going to the Father. This is the word which remained unspoken until the end, but it was His most cherished thought. When He gathers His disciples together in the upper room, and He is upon the eve of His dying, then the word is like a refrain in a song, a recurring note of music in His addresses. Again and again He repeats, "I go to My Father." He is like an emigrant who has been for years in another hemisphere and in the land of strangers. He has been busy with its life and its industries. He has endured its hardships and isolation. Now the time of His sojourn is over and the hour of His return is come. He is going to the Father. He is going home.
He calls it, in the conversation, by a singular word. "They spake of His decease." In the literal and significant meaning of the word it was His "exodus. "We cannot doubt why the word was chosen. It is the thought of death from the point of view of one who is about to go out by it as by a door. How full of light is this word. Death is an exodus, a going out from the land of the stranger, from the house of bondage, from affliction and thankless toil, from the state of the slave. Death is a deliverance and a boon. It is a going through a wilderness, with its loneliness and its pain and privation, but it is a going through a wilderness upon a journey which is to end in the land which is the promise of God.
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article9624.shtml
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Treasure in Earthen Vessels
By Alan Redpath
The principle of the world is "self-glorification," and the principle of the Christian is "self-crucifixion."
The principle of the world is "exalt yourself," and the principle of the Christian is "crucify yourself."
The principle of men is greatness, bigness, pomp, and show; the principle of the cross is death. Therefore, whenever a man has seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ . . . at once he comes right into a head-on collision within his own personal living, with all of his principles and motives upon which he has lived until this moment. . . . if there is to be a continual manifestation of Holy Spirit life, there must be a constant submission to the crucifixion of the flesh, not simply sometimes, but always.
. . . . I see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in the measure in which I am prepared to die. . . Why is it that so many Christians behave like kindergarten children? Because they have not seen His face!
. . . And the cost in the Christian life. . . . Deep down in the Christian's life, always and all the time, there is to be a "no" to every demand that the flesh may make for recognition, and every demand that the flesh may make for approval, and every demand that the flesh may make for vindication. Always the Christian must bear about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Blessings Out of Buffetings, p. 37-38).
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article370.shtml
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