According to Our Faith

  
Streams in the Desert

      According to Our Faith
     
      "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matt. 9:29).
     
      "Praying through" might be defined as praying one's way into full faith, emerging while yet praying into the assurance that one has been accepted and heard, so that one becomes actually aware of receiving, by firmest anticipation and in advance of the event, the thing for which he asks.
     
      Let us remember that no earthly circumstances can hinder the fulfillment of His Word if we look steadfastly at the immutability of that Word and not at the uncertainty of this ever-changing world. God would have us believe His Word without other confirmation, and then He is ready to give us "according to our faith."
     
      "When once His Word is past,
      When He hath said , 'I will,' (Heb. 13:5)
      The thing shall come at last;
      God keeps His promise still." (2 Cor. 1:20)
     
      The prayer of the Pentecostal age was like a cheque to be paid in coin over the counter. --Sir R. Anderson
     
      "And God said...and it was so." (Gen. 1:9.)

"To obey is better than sacrifice" (I. Sam. xv. 22).

  
Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      "To obey is better than sacrifice" (I. Sam. xv. 22).
    
      Our healing is thus represented as a special recompense for obedience. If, therefore, we would please the Lord and have the reward of those who please Him, there is no service so acceptable to Him as our praise.
    
      Let us ever meet Him with a glad and thankful heart and He will reflect it back in the health of our countenance and the buoyant life and springing health, which is but the echo of a joyful heart.
    
      Further, thankfulness is the best preparation for faith. Trust grows spontaneously in the praiseful heart. Thankfulness takes the sunny side of the street and looks at the bright side of God, and it is only thus that we can ever trust Him.

    
      Unbelief looks at our troubles and, of course, they seem like mountains, and faith is discouraged by the prospect. A thankful disposition will always find some cause for cheer, and gloomy one will find a cloud in the brightest sky and a fly in the sweetest ointment. Let us cultivate a spirit of cheerfulness, and we shall find so much in God and in our lives to encourage us that we shall have no room for doubt or fear.

Newman Hall - Steep, Craggy, and Beset with Foes! (Christian devotional reading)

Hold on Until the End

  


Streams in the Desert




Hold on Until the End


"We are made partaker of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end" (Heb. 3:14).


It is the last step that wins; and there is no place in the pilgrim's progress where so many dangers lurk as the region that lies hard by the portals of the Celestial City. It was there that Doubting Castle stood. It was there that the enchanted ground lured the tired traveler to fatal slumber. It is when Heaven's heights are full in view that hell's gate is most persistent and full of deadly peril. "Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." "So run, that ye may obtain."

In the bitter waves of woe
Beaten and tossed about
By the sullen winds that blow
From the desolate shores of doubt,
Where the anchors that faith has cast
Are dragging in the gale,
I am quietly holding fast
To the things that cannot fail.

And fierce though the fiends may fight,
And long though the angels hide,
I know that truth and right
Have the universe on their side;
And that somewhere beyond the stars
Is a love that is better than fate.
When the night unlocks her bars
I shall see Him--and I will wait.
--Washington Gladden

The problem of getting great things from God is being able to hold on for the last half hour. --Selected

"Silent Unto God"

The Silver Lining: Chapter 6 - "Silent Unto God"

By John Henry Jowett


"My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be moved."--Psalm lxii. 5, 6.


"My soul!" Here is a man communing with his own soul! He is deliberately addressing himself, and calling himself to attention. He is of set purpose breaking up his own drowsiness and indifference, and calling himself to a fruitful vigilance. There is nothing like the deliberate exercise of a power for making it spontaneously active. 

Men who come to have keen and discerning vision begin by deliberate exercise of the eyes. It is a good and a healthy thing to stand before a flower and to clearly and strongly challenge the eyes to attention. It is a profitable thing to stand before some natural panorama and wake the eyes to diligent quest. Eyes that are trained in deliberateness come at last to watch instinctively. We may apply the same reasoning to the realm of the spirit. 

We must challenge our own souls, and rouse them to the contemplation of the things of God. "My soul! look upon this, and look long!" But let us see to it that when we do incite the attention of our spirits we give them something worthy to contemplate. "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease!" That was a most unworthy spectacle to present to the wondering spirit, and it would be no surprise if, after a single glance, the soul fell back again into deeper and more perilous slumber.

Here in my text the Psalmist calls upon his soul to contemplate the manifold glory of God. Let us gaze at one or two aspects of the inspiring vision.


"He only is my rock." Here is one of the figures in which the Psalmist expresses his conception of the ministry of his God. "My rock!" The figure is literally suggestive of an enclosure of rock, a cave, a hiding-place. There are two or three kindred words used in the Old Testament Scriptures which will, perhaps, unfold to us something of the wealthy content of the speech which the Psalmist employs. All the words are suggestive of encirclement; they describe the state of being surrounded, protected, and secured. 

Here is one of the kindred words, "Thou hast beset me behind and before." How perfectly complete is the suggestion of an all-encircling presence, round about me on every side. The ramparts are built up all about me, and the ring of defence is complete. Perhaps there is no experience in human life which more perfectly develops the thought of the Psalmist than the guardianship offered by a mother to her baby-child when the little one is just learning to walk. The mother literally encircles the child with protection, spreading out her arms into almost a complete ring, so that in whatever way the child may happen to stumble she falls into the waiting ministry of love. Such is the idea of "besetment" which lies in this familiar word "rock."


But let me remind you of another kindred word, "Bind up the money in thy hand." You place a coin in the palm of your hand, and your fingers close over it, and the precious metal is strongly secured. It is encircled by a muscular grasp. Let us carry the suggestion into the relationships between ourselves and God. Our Father will secure us as a precious jewel in His own clenched hand. His fingers will wrap round about us, and there shall be no crevice through which the sheltered piece may slip. "None shall pluck you out of My hand!" This, then, is the significance of the word "rock." It is a strong enclosure, an invincible ring, a grand besetment within which we move in restful security.


"He is my salvation." Then He not only shields me, but strengthens me! We are not left by protection in the state of weaklings. We are nourished and developed into healthy children. Salvation is a wealthy and comprehensive word. It denotes not merely "first aid," the primary treatment given to those who are bruised and wounded by the wayside; it means, also, "last aid," the bringing of the wounded into strength again. Salvation implies more than convalescence, it denotes health. It is vastly more than redemption from sin; it is redemption from infirmity. It offers no mediocrity; its goal is spiritual prosperity and abundance. This promise of health we have in God. He accepts us in our disease; He pledges His name to confer absolute health. "Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end."

"He is my defence." The Psalmist is multiplying his figures that he may the better bring out the richness of his conception. Defence is suggestive of loftiness, of inaccessibility. It denotes the summit of some stupendous, out-jutting, precipitous crag! It signifies such a place as where the eagle makes its nest, far beyond the prowlings of the marauders, away on the dizzy heights which mischief cannot scale. God is my defence! He lifts me away into the security of inaccessible heights. My safety is in my salvation. Purity is found in the altitudes. I have lately been reading the analysis of the air as it is found by the aIronaut at different levels above our metropolis. The heightening grades revealed heightening degrees of purity, until the last microbe appeared to have been left behind. God lifts us to spiritual heights where our very loftiness of thought and feeling is our best defence. "He hath made us to sit with Him in the Heavenly places." In those lofty spheres the pestilential microbe is harmless. "Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling."


In these three words the Psalmist expresses something of his thought of the all-enveloping and protecting presence of God. He is "my rock," "my salvation," "my defence." What, then, shall be the attitude of the soul towards this God? "My soul, wait thou only upon God." "Wait!" Or as the marginal rendering so beautifully gives it, "be thou silent unto God." 

We are to be in the presence of God with thoughts and feelings which are the opposite to those of false haste. The spirit of impatience is to be hushed and subdued. There is to be nothing of passion or of heated distemper. Loud murmurings are to be silenced. Our own clamorous wills are to be checked. The perilous heat is to be cooled. We are to linger before God in composure, in tranquillity. We are to be unruffled. It is the unruffled surface of the pool that receives the reflected beauty of the skies. The reflection is clearest where the life is most calm. How much evidence we have of this in the temper and disposition of the Quakers! They are so frequently, and so long, silent unto God that the very peace of God steeps their spirits, and chastens and refines their manners, gives softness to their speech, and appears to impart leisureliness even to the very activities of their bodies. Would it not be wise for us to copy something of their method, and to linger silently and quietly in the presence of our God? Perhaps we are inclined to talk too much in communion with our God. If silent our spirits might be the more receptive. "One evening," says Frances Ridley Havergal, "after a relapse, I longed so much to be able to pray, but found I was too weak for the least effort of thought, and I only looked up and said, 'Lord Jesus, I am so tired,' and then He brought to my mind Rest in the Lord,' and its lovely marginal rendering, Be silent to the Lord,' and so I was just silent to Him, and He seemed to overflow me with perfect peace in the sense of His own perfect love."


"My expectation is from Him." It is to my mind a very fruitful significance that the word translated "expectation" might also be translated "line" or "cord." "The line of scarlet thread." The line of all my hope stretches away to Him, and from Him back to me! The Psalmist declares that however circumstances may vary, the cord of his hope binds him to the Lord. Ever and everywhere there is the outstretched line! I stood a little while ago by the sea. Away over the waters above the horizon, there was the moon shining at the full. Between me and the moon there was a golden line of light stretching across the waters. I walked away down the shore and the line moved with me. Wherever I stood there was the golden cord between me and the lamp of the night. The experience came back to me when I was considering the meaning of the Psalmist's words, "My line is from Him." Whether he was in trouble or in joy, in prosperity or adversity, on whatever part of the varying shoreline he stood, there was the golden track between him and his God. "Thine expectation shall not be cut off"; the line shall never be broken.


"I shall not be moved." Of course not! man whose conception of God is that of "Rock," "Salvation," and "Defence," and who is "silent unto Him," and is bound to Him by the golden "cord" of hope, cannot be moved. But mark how the Psalmist's confidence has grown by the exercise of contemplation. In the outset of the Psalm his spirit was a little tremulous and uncertain. "I shall not be greatly moved." But now the qualifying adverb is gone, the tremulousness has vanished, and he says in unshaken confidence and trust, "I shall not be moved."

God is Not Unobservant

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman


"I will be still, and I will behold in my dwelling place" (Isa. 18:4, RV).

Assyria was marching against Ethiopia, the people of which are described as tall and smooth. And as the armies advance, God makes no effort to arrest them; it seems as though they will be allowed to work their will. He is still watching them from His dwelling place, the sun still shines on them; but before the harvest, the whole of the proud army of Assyria is smitten as easily as when sprigs are cut off by the pruning hook of the husbandman.

Is not this a marvelous conception of God--being still and watching? His stillness is not acquiescence. His silence is not consent. He is only biding His time, and will arise, in the most opportune moment, and when the designs of the wicked seem on the point of success, to overwhelm them with disaster. As we look out on the evil of the world; as we think of the apparent success of wrong-doing; as we wince beneath the oppression of those that hate us, let us remember these marvelous words about God being still and beholding.

There is another side to this. Jesus beheld His disciples toiling at the oars through the stormy night; and watched though unseen, the successive steps of the anguish of Bethany, when Lazarus slowly passed through the stages of mortal sickness, until he succumbed and was borne to the rocky tomb. But He was only waiting the moment when He could interpose most effectually. Is He still to thee? He is not unobservant; He is beholding all things; He has His finger on thy pulse, keenly sensitive to all its fluctuations. He will come to save thee when the precise moment has arrived. --Daily Devotional Commentary

Whatever His questions or His reticences, we may be absolutely sure of an unperplexed and undismayed Saviour.

"O troubled soul, beneath the rod,
Thy Father speaks, be still, be still;
Learn to be silent unto God,
And let Him mould thee to His will.

"O praying soul, be still, be still,
He cannot break His plighted Word;
Sink down into His blessed will,
And wait in patience on the Lord.

"O waiting soul, be still, be strong,
And though He tarry, trust and wait;
Doubt not, He will not wait too long,
Fear not, He will not come too late."

Missionary Predestinations

By Oswald Chambers


'And now, saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be His servant.'
Isaiah 49:5

The first thing that happens after we have realized our election to God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our prejudices and our parochial notions and our patriotisms; we are turned into servants of God's own purpose. The whole human race was created to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever. Sin has switched the human race on to an other tack, but it has not altered God's purpose in the tiniest degree; and when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God's great purpose for the human race, viz., I am created for God, He made me. This realization of the election of God is the most joyful realization on earth, and we have to learn to rely on the tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do with us is to "force through the channels of a single heart" the interests of the whole world. The love of God, the very nature of God, is introduced into us, and the nature of Almighty God is focused in John 3:16 - "God so loved the world. . ."

We have to maintain our soul open to the fact of God's creative purpose, and not muddle it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to crush our intentions on one side however much it may hurt. The purpose for which the missionary is created is that he may be God's servant, one in whom God is glorified. When once we realize that through the salvation of Jesus Christ we are made perfectly fit for God, we shall understand why Jesus Christ is so ruthless in His demands. He demands absolute rectitude from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.

Beware lest you forget God's purpose for your life.

Chariots to Carry

By Mary Wilder Tileston


Even to your old age, I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you; I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
--ISAIAH 46:4

The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.
--PSALMS 68:17


I HAVE not a shadow of doubt that if all our eyes could be opened today, we should see our homes, and our places of business, and the streets we traverse, filled with the "chariots of God." There is no need for any one of us to walk for lack of chariots. That cross inmate of your household, who has hitherto made life a burden to you, and who has been the Juggernaut car to crush your soul into the dust, may henceforth be a glorious chariot to carry you to the heights of heavenly patience and long-suffering. That misunderstanding, that mortification, that unkindness, that disappointment, that loss, that defeat,--all these are chariots waiting to carry you to the very heights of victory you have so longed to reach. Mount into them, then, with thankful hearts, and lose sight of all second causes in the shining of His love who will carry you in His arms safely and triumphantly over it all.
--HANNAH WHITALL SMITH

The Lord's Field

By T. Austin-Sparks

      "Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth he that plougheth to sow, plough continually? doth he open and harrow his ground? When, he hath levelled the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and put in the wheat in rows, and the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in the border thereof? For his God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a sharp threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread grain is ground; for he will not be always threshing it: and though the wheel of his cart and his horses scatter it, he doth not grind it. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom" (Isa. 28:23-29).

      "Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field" (Ecc. 5:9).

      Spiritual Agriculture

      This is one of the numerous examples and aspects of that great truth that the whole natural creation is intended by God to be a symbolism of heavenly and spiritual things. We know there is a great deal in the Scriptures which sets forth the idea that the Lord's people are to the Lord like a field to be cultivated. Many of the terms of Scripture indicate that, as you know - the Lord's field, the soil, the ground, the seed, the planting of the Lord, the trees of the Lord, and so on. All these terms are symbols of spiritual things. The Lord is cultivating; there is a spiritual agriculture under the hand of the Lord, the great Husbandman. This passage which we have just read in Isaiah brings to us this one thing among others, that, as in the case of Israel, so in the case of the Church - which, of course, involves us all individually - the Lord deals with His people as with a field, or as with a farm, to be fruitful in various ways, to represent different kinds of satisfaction to Himself. Over and through all, the Lord works to get for Himself satisfaction.

      He ploughs. The interrogation here - "Doth he... plough continually?" - is to be carried into the case of Israel, for God was indeed ploughing Israel and was going to make Israel like a ploughed field, and there was going to be some very deep cutting, shearing down deep into the very soul of Israel, laying open and bare and turning over. It was going to be very hard work with Israel. But the Lord in this question says, 'I do not do that sort of thing just for its own sake, and, although that is a very painful aspect of My activities, it is only done with a view to fruitfulness.' 

The ploughing has its place and its time, it has to be done; that may seem to be destructive, hard, painful, the ruthless activity of the Lord with His people. He is ploughing deep into their souls, making deep furrows in their very being; but that is an aspect and a phase, something which will not go on always. He does not continually plough. That will be completed for the time being - but it will be completed - and when it is, the Lord gets on with that for which the ploughing is necessary. He gets on with the positive and constructive aspect, the putting in of the seed.

      The Lord is after some kind of fruit from every life for His own satisfaction. Even the king is served by the fruit of the field. It comes even to the Lord's table. The Lord lives upon what He produces in our lives.

      Fruit Possible on Resurrection Ground Only

      I started by saying that the whole of this creation is a symbolism of spiritual things, and that here, in this realm of agriculture, we have very much that indicates what the Lord is after. The very creation itself seems to have this symbolism. You go back to Genesis 1. There you find the earth without form and void, and darkness covering the face of the deep; everything is in chaos; and then on the third day the dry land appears. The third day speaks always of resurrection, and resurrection is out of a chaos. We come to know well enough at some time or other in our lives what a chaos this old creation is. We may have known something of it before we were saved. We may have come to know a little more about it when we were saved, but I think we have been learning ever since we were saved that a far greater chaos lies in the direction of the old creation than ever we imagined. We know the darkness that lies in the natural realm; we know the bareness, the unprofitableness, of this natural life so far as God's satisfaction is concerned. We know that from us in our natural state there is nothing that can come to His table for His pleasure and satisfaction, that we are no field yielding to His pleasure.

But then that great work is done in our union with Christ - "planted together" (Rom. 6:5). You see, it is an agricultural figure again. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." The third day there was the mighty act of our being raised from the dead with our Lord Jesus; and therein, so to speak, 'the dry land' appears. Here is a new field for the Lord to work upon. And that principle is constantly in operation. It is seen in a crisis, but it is going on all the time; that is, it is also a process by which the Lord brings us more and more on to that resurrection basis where there can be more and more for Him. Death works on one side, and is made to work; there must be the growing realisation of the hopeless mess there, the increasing consciousness of the chaos and the darkness lying over that old creation of ours. Yes, that is death working on the one side, but issuing in resurrection on the other side, where God is going to have more.

      The Husbandman's Wisdom

      But the point that I want to emphasize is this - the wisdom of God over all this. The farmer carries out the ploughing and other agricultural activities, putting in the seed into its own place. I take it that the meaning of it all is that the Lord Who gives wisdom to this man, this earthly man, is acting with Israel in that kind of wisdom. He is saying, 'What I am doing, I am doing in wisdom; I know what I am doing.' He does that which His infinite wisdom dictates is necessary and which He knows will bring the greatest and best fruit for His satisfaction. 'O Lord, this ploughing, this upheaving, this deep cutting, this furrowing - why is so much of it necessary?' Well, He is "wonderful in counsel." He knows when the ploughing work should go on, and when the ploughing work is done for a season, and so He is governed in His dealings with us by infinite wisdom, having in view the greatest measure of fruit.

      Fruit for the King in Terms of Christ

      We have our own ideas as to what is fruit for the Lord. So often with us it is a matter of a kind of service and place of service. It is not like that with the Lord. Let us remember that, after all, the fruit that the Lord is after is not so much the fruit of our activities as the quality of our lives. Of course He wants fruitfulness in service, in what we do; but even in that we shall be disciplined. 

If you think you are going to get away from the plough when you get into the Lord's work, you make a great mistake. Some of us know, after many years of being in the work of the Lord, that we are not away from the plough yet. We are continually being opened up, broken and cut. Yes, the plough comes back into use again from time to time. There is something more yet for the Lord. What is it? Not so much what we may do in service for the Lord, but more that answers to the Lord's mind in life; for, after all, it is Christ that the Husbandman is after, and real fruitfulness is just that Christ is given back to Him in our lives - the fruit of life.

      That means death and resurrection, if 'the dry land' appears on the third day. But once the Lord gets us on to resurrection ground, there is something there for Him. I notice in Genesis that, after the record of the appearing of the dry land, nothing is said about the creation of the seeds that were to bring forth the trees and the fruit and the herbs and so on; the land spontaneously yielded, the vegetation grew. The seed was there, and the life was in the resurrection earth. There was something for the Lord in resurrection which spontaneously began to grow; and if we really do go through these processes which bring us on to resurrection ground, there is something there for the Lord which will begin to show of itself. We have not to strain to produce it - it comes. It comes out of the ordeal, it just shows itself, it must manifest itself. The life seed is there and it will grow in the power of that resurrection.

      Fruitfulness Governed by Heavenly Ordinances

      There is only one other thing I am going to point to at this time in this connection. It is that, on the fourth day, the Lord created the heavenly bodies, sun, moon and stars, so that this earth came under a completely established order of government in heaven; and the continuation of fruitfulness and fruitful seasons was the result of this established government of heavenly bodies. We know that to be true. The seasons are governed by the heavenly bodies, and therefore the fruit of the earth absolutely depends upon the established order of things.

      But here we come to see that our fruitfulness for the Lord's satisfaction demands all established order of things in heaven and that we can and must come into it and under it. When the Lord was challenging Job at the end of the story, one of the questions that He put, in order to show that after all Job did not know everything, was - "Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens?" (Job 38:33). 

That is a great phrase "the ordinances of the heavens." Translate that spiritually, and you find in the New Testament that the Church stands related to an established order of things in heaven; and if you and I are going on to a life of full fruitfulness, we shall come up against those ordinances of the heavens. They represent an order that is fixed and heavenly. It has got to govern us. We have to come under it, respond to it; and until we do, the Lord's full purpose in all His effort with us in ploughing and harrowing is arrested; there is no yield, or at best the fruit is limited. There is a heavenly order fixed. 

I am not going to indicate what those ordinances of the heavens are, but if we are really on resurrection ground, that is, under the government of the Holy Spirit, we shall come up against this and that and another thing which is a fixed heavenly ordinance - something that is established - and response to it, like the earth's response to the sun, will determine the measure of the fruitfulness of our lives.

      You have only to walk down the drive here to get plenty of illustration of that. See those distorted, twisted trees down there. The branches are all shapes, and in themselves rather poor things. Why? Because they found themselves in a position where there was not enough light and air, and for their very life's sake they have strained tortuously to reach out to find what they needed; and because they were circumscribed in their movements, and there was not enough light and air for them, they are these poor, twisted, crippled things. They show that there is something of the heavens to which they must come into correspondence, that they must find for their very life and fruitfulness. And of course you have seen in other cases where a tree is in a position to get all the light and air it needs, what a grand tree it is. It is obeying the ordinances of the heavens; it is right in touch with fixed principles of heavenly government.

      In His wisdom God has said, 'Now, such-and-such is a heavenly law, a heavenly principle, a heavenly ordinance which is fixed, and you will never yield your full quota of fruit for My satisfaction if you do not recognise that.'

      One of the laws is the law of corporate life, of the house of God. If you detach yourself and live as an individual, your measure is limited. And I could indicate many others. The ordinances of the heavens are fixed, and it is going to be a poor lookout for the things of the earth if they are not in line with those ordinances and if there is not a correspondence with them.

      We are not concerned with merely earthly ordinances. The Lord's Table, for example, can be, and has been, made an earthly ordinance, but it is really an ordinance of the heavens, it is an ordinance of the risen Christ Himself. You may put it aside as a merely earthly ordinance and suffer nothing, but if you come into the realm of resurrection, it takes on a new meaning and new value. This is an ordinance, not of man, not of an ecclesiastical system, but of heaven - something precious and living, from which the Lord gets something. And there are many things like that; the ordinances of the house of God, of corporate life, and so on. They are all established things if, I say again, we are in the Spirit, we come into the line of those wise counsels of God which are working unto fruitfulness.

      The Lord knows what He is after, and takes the way with each one of us that will reach His end most effectively. It may be a plough, it may be a harrow; but it is not going to be always the same. Each will have its place and He will turn to other phases; but whatever the phase, it is governed by the wisdom which is seeking for Himself the very answer to His creative activities - that for which He brought this spiritual field into being at all - that the King's table might be served. And He Himself is the King.

      First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-June 1949, Vol 27-3

In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given, his writings are not copyrighted. Therefore, we ask if you choose to share them with others, please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of changes, free of charge and free of copyright.

Trouble is a Messenger

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman


"My Father is the husbandman" (John 15:1).

It is comforting to think of trouble, in whatever form it may come to, us, as a heavenly messenger, bringing us something from God. In its earthly aspect it may seem hurtful, even destructive; but in its spiritual out-working it yields blessing. Many of the richest blessings which have come down to us from the past are the fruit of sorrow or pain. We should never forget that redemption, the world's greatest blessing, is the fruit of the world's greatest sorrow. In every time of sharp pruning, when the knife is deep and the pain is sore, it is an unspeakable comfort to read, "My Father is the husbandman."

Doctor Vincent tells of being in a great hothouse where luscious clusters of grapes were hanging on every side. The owner said, "When my new gardener came, he said he would have nothing to do with these vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk; and he did, and we had no grapes for two years, but this is the result."

There is rich suggestiveness in this interpretation of the pruning process, as we apply it to the Christian life. Pruning seems to be destroying the vine, the gardener appears to be cutting it all away; but he looks on into the future and knows that the final outcome will be the enrichment of its life and greater abundance of fruit.

There are blessings we can never have unless we are ready to pay the price of pain. There is no way to reach them save through suffering. --Dr. Miller.

"I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

"I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne'er a word said she;
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me.

The Harvests of the Word of God

By G. Campbell Morgan


For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11

The fitness of the symbolism of this text is apparent even to the most casual observer.

Snow and rain are characterized by gentleness which merges into force. One drop of rain falls upon my hand, and I brush it away, and it is not; but when the drop is multiplied and the great storm sweeps along the valley, it is almost resistless in its onrush. One feathery flake of snow falls through the atmosphere. I touch it and it passes and is lost, its crystal beauty destroyed forever by the rudeness of my human hand; but let that flake be multiplied and the falling snow will take hold of the thundering locomotive, clog its wheels, check its progress, bury it beneath its soft and noiseless whiteness.

Rain and snow are characterized by helplessness which grows into beneficence. We ask: "What can this drop of rain do for man? What can this flake of snow do for humanity?" And yet we know that when we pass from the individual drop to the great rain, that this in falling makes the earth laugh back in harvest and crowns the labor of the hands of men. There is no more exquisite word in all Scripture about nature than that simple and sublime passage: "He giveth His snow like wool." Like a warm mantle, it wraps the earth in winter time and keeps it from the penetration of intenser cold. And so we find that rain and snow, helpless as they seem, are the very messengers of beneficence to men.

Again, rain and snow come to us characterized by unfruitfulness, yet generating fruitfulness wherever they fall. Life cannot be sustained by the one or the other. Neither is there in either any element of reproductiveness. Yet in their cooperation with the forces of "old mother earth" and with the ministries of light and air, all that is needed for life's sustenance is produced.

This is but a surface application of the truth. As we watch the rain and the snow and think upon it more carefully, we find a most suggestive symbol of the Word of God. By the Word of God at this moment I mean all that phrase can possibly mean; the written Which reveals the Living, the Living Which seals the written; the written Which is still ours, the Living Which lies behind it and speaks through it in power to the sons of men.

This Word of God in the history of the race, what has it been? Symbols becoming substance, letters advancing to life, that which has seemed to kill becoming, presently, that which has bestowed life everywhere. In order that we may understand the value of this Word of God and learn the true method of appreciation of such value, let us take this symbolism of the prophet and consider it exactly as he has stated it; first, as to the similarities suggested; second, as to the principles revealed; and finally, as to the responsibility entailed.

Let me first tabulate the phrases which we are to consider in this verse: "Cometh from heaven; returneth not thither; watereth the earth; maketh it bring forth, and bud; that it may give seed to the sower; and bread to the eater."

The rain and the snow come from heaven. Man has nothing to do with the coming of the rain and the snow. You will remember how in that great theophany of the Book of Job when, after the human eloquence of his friends has providentially been silenced, God Himself begins to speak to the suffering man. He speaks to him in the midst of his sorrow and his suffering by making all His glory in creation pass before him. In the midst of that wonderful questioning of Job by God occur these two inquiries; "Hast thou entered into the treasuries of the snow...?" which, being translated from poetry into prose means, do you understand the snow? Do you know from whence it comes? Can you analyze the mystery of its crystallization and deposit? Then, "Hath the rain a father?..." which, by some process of translation means, are you able to generate it, to produce it? With those questions in mind, let me read again this statement of the prophet. "For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven,..." 

The Word of God is a message from God to man which no man was able to find out for himself. It is never a philosophy formulated by human wisdom; it is always a revelation made, a something declared that man could not by searching find out. The supreme quality of the Word of God is that however men may occupy their time in discussing the methods by which we have come into possession of these documents, there is stamped upon every page of them the sign manual of Jehovah. They are great unveilings of His nature, great revelations of the deepest secrets of human life, great illumination of the problems that confront men by Divine revelation. The Word of God is the gift of God and not the contrivance of man.

But it "... returneth not thither...." The snow and the rain pour themselves out on the face of the earth, they melt and pass, and within a very few hours of the great rainfall, which has sweetened everything in its coming, the roads are dusty again and we say, "How soon the rain has passed." So also, soon after the snow has once come under the influence of the sun, it is gone. It has seemed to pour itself out in magnificent waste. Judged by first appearances, it seems as though this gift of heaven had been poured upon earth to be spoiled, contaminated, soiled, wasted.

So also with the Word of God. The Word of God has been given to men in figure and symbol, in prophecy and song, and at last in the Person of Jesus, and since He came, in exposition and explanation, for centuries; and, ah, me! how perpetually it seems to us as we watch the openings and processes of the decades and even of the centuries, as though this great outpouring of Divine revelation was lost, falling upon man only to be spoiled. How often have we thought of it as wasted? Nay, have we not thought so of it sometimes when we have been preaching it? Have we not looked out with almost passionate desire upon audiences that have listened and passed away apparently to frivolity and forgetfulness and have said, Yea, verily, "as the snow and the rain from heaven... but it returneth not thither"? That is the first effect upon us after observing what happens as God gives His Word.

But there is another statement needed to complete and explain this; it "... watereth the earth...." Take this dust as it lies upon the highway and over the furrowed field, and know that within the dust is the making of everything that is beautiful and fruitful. But the dust does not of itself laugh in flowers; it is capable and incapable. Lying within it are all the forces of life. All the mysterious magnificence of your personality on the physical side lies within the dust at your feet, and all flowers that bloom lie there in potentiality. As the rain and snow water the earth, which is at once characterized by capacity and yet unable to fulfil the possibilities that lie sleeping within its own being, it makes all nature laugh with new beauty.

So also the Word of God comes to men in whose nature are the potentialities but not the realizations. The Word of God falls upon the centuries, upon society, upon individuals, and we thought it touched them but to be spoiled and soiled and pass, but we watched and we found that by its falling the soil became productive. There is in every human being the capacity for Deity. There is in every human life the potentialities of the highest and the noblest and the best. I am not discussing the question of man's ruin. I know the ruin; I know it in my own life. But that which is ruined is not destroyed. Without some beneficent ministry external to itself it will be destroyed. Given that ministry it is still capable of realization. The very ministry it needs is that of the Word of God. As is the rain, as is the snow to the dust, so is the Word of God to humanity in its ruin. God has not been wasting His Word. As He has given it by prophets, seers, and psalmists, by His Son, in many a symbol and by many a sign, in many a dispensation; given it to the mocking, laughing, scoffing crowds; He knows that in all the dust that lies about Him there are potentialities; and as He gives His rain and snow to smite the dust into laughter, so He has given His Word that the Word coming to men may touch the unrealized capacity into realization.

The prophet now adds a further truth concerning these elements in the statement, "... maketh it bring forth,..." After the rain and the snow the dull russet ground becomes beautiful with emerald and opal and ruby and diamond, and thus we know that when God's rain and snow touch the dust it makes the dust bring forth.

So with the Word of God. The Word of God makes the dormant forces in man move to fulfilment. All men that have ever realized the possibilities of their own life have done so in response to some part of the Word of God, to the Word spoken, to the Word written, to the Word lived, to the revelation granted; and as the snow and rain coming upon the earth make the earth answer by bringing forth, so the Word of God in the centuries, as they come and go, has provoked into realization the dormant capacities of life.

Yet another word that I have taken separately, because I think it really is separate. It is a stronger word than the former--"... maketh it bring forth, and bud,..." I feel inclined to use here the literal Hebrew word, "and sprout." That is to say, the rain and the snow not merely touch the dust into generation but actually come again in the grass, the flowers, the fruitage. You saw that rainstorm as it swept the field yonder. You watched it come; you smiled at the helplessness of the first few drops as they fell. You were appalled at the rush of the storm as the clouds broke and swept that field. Then you watched it as the clouds passed and the sun shone. As you watched the field it seemed as though all was lost and of no avail, and you went to sleep--and God gives unto His beloved in sleep--and you came back again and looked at your field, and there was the sheen of the emerald all over it. First the blade and then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear, and so on and on, until russet had become green and green had become golden harvest. And in that waving harvest of gold what do I find? The rain that I thought lost, the snow that I thought perished. It touched the dust with the alchemy of God, and it brought back the glorious, gracious harvest.

It is equally true that the Word of God that He has been giving for centuries has never been lost. It has come from Him to touch the failure of human life, and it has been returning to Him laughing with the harvest of ransomed souls. The Word was incarnate in the Christ supremely, and in a less and different degree but nevertheless as truly, God's Word has been re-incarnate in human lives in all the passing centuries. Do not let us be afraid of the word. I make no comparison finally between the incarnation of our blessed Lord and the incarnation of truth in the life of the believer. Nevertheless, in degree every Christian soul is a re-incarnation of the Word Who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Is it not so? That which is true and beautiful and of good report in you, in others, what is it but God's great Word which has touched the fibre of your being and reconstructed your broken lives to the realization of His purpose and so to the glory of His Name. The transmuted rain makes the earth not only generate by the touch of beneficence; it makes it sprout and bud and answer back in harvest. So also, the Word re-incarnate in believing souls is the harvest of the earth which supremely satisfies the heart of God.

Yet that is not all. "... that it may give seed to the sower,..." What is this harvest for? You say for the sustenance of human life. That is not the first thing. What is the harvest for? "That it may give seed to the sower" comes before "bread to the eater." Bread to the eater is a secondary thing. Bread to the eater is provision for the toiler that he may continue his sowing and reap his harvests. But the first thing is that, in the new form in which the rain and snow return to God, there is always found the potentiality of propagation waiting for new showers and new transmutations and new harvests. This is the perpetual story of the harvests as they come and go. Always first, seed to the sower.

So with the Word of God. The Word of God taking hold of human life, changing it, becoming incarnate in it, communicates propagative power; it makes a new wealth of seed which may be scattered still further afield. From every life remade and sanctified by the Word of God, there must go forth the seed that will affect yet other fields and stretch out toward the consummating glory of the final harvest.

Finally we come to the last phase of the symbolism, "... and bread to the eater." The issue then is also sustenance to the toiler. The man that plowed and sowed and reaped, feeds. So surely also is it with this Word of God. It comes, as we have seen for the larger purpose, the creation of new seed that may be scattered still for the uplifting of man, but the Word of God is also the bread of life to the toiler. By it his own life is sustained, both in health and strength, and so he is enabled for the service for which he is created and to which he is called.

Let me pass now from these similarities to take the broader outlook and consider the great principles that are revealed.

The symbolism of this great prophetic Word teaches me, first of all, that the Word of God is purposeful. Rain and snow come certainly not for nothing and not for the display of their own wonders but for purpose. The symbolism teaches me, second, that the Word of God is powerful. The rain and snow come to victory always; they are never defeated. And the symbolism of my text teaches me, finally, that the Word of God is prosperous. It accomplishes, it prospers, as do also rain and snow.

The Word of God is purposeful. All this is seen by the various similarities which we have rapidly surveyed. The Word of God is not given to be possessed; it is given that it may possess. The truth of God is not given that men may hold it. Oh, I am tired of the men that want to know if I "hold the truth." Of course I don't "hold the truth"; no man can "hold the truth." It is too big for any man to hold, and God has never given His Word to men that they may "hold the truth." The facts are truly stated in quite another way. The truth must hold the man, wrap him around, change the very fibre of his being, permeate his complete life, and unless the Word of God is doing that for me it is failing in the first intention that God has for it. Not for our good only does it come. It is seed as well as bread. Unless we come to receive the Word as the earth takes the sun and the rain, then I am not sure that we had better not absent ourselves from every occasion when the Word is opened. If I come with my notebook to write down all I can learn about the Word of God in order that I may know it, then I am absolutely failing. But if I come to strip from my soul all the things that hide me that the Word of God may search me, if I have come to lay my life out in the light of the Word that the Word may correct it, then I shall find the Word in me is fruitful as is the snow, as is the rain upon the earth. It is a purposeful thing.

Then, thank God, it is powerful. He says it shall not return to Him void. And why not? May I not reverently say as in the presence of the inspired declaration, God's Word never returned to Him void because it never comes void from Him. Do you remember the word of the angel to the blessed Virgin?--"... no word of God is void...." Every word of God thrills with fruitfulness. If we but know how to receive it and how to respond to it, then it shall return to Him not void but fruitful, in lives changed, remolded, re-fashioned, sanctified.

And finally, then the Word of God is prosperous. It is so because it is His Word. "It shall not return unto me void, but it shall..."--and mark the two words--"... accomplish... prosper...." The word "accomplish" means it does something, it makes something, it realizes something; and the Hebrew word "prosper" literally means it "pushes forward." It is a great dynamic force. It is prosperous, moreover, by selection. "... that which I please,... the thing whereto I sent it."

These are the principles which we must bear in mind as we take up our Bibles and come to listen to the teachings of the Word of God. It is given for a purpose; it is full of power; it accomplishes the purpose by reason of the power.

In conclusion, it is important that we inquire as to the responsibilities that are entailed? Rain and snow might fall upon the earth a long time, and there be no harvest unless the earth is prepared. The rain and snow may fall in all their prodigal munificence and magnificence upon the earth, and there will be no harvest unless the seed is sown. And rain and snow may fall and make the earth laugh with harvest if the earth be ready and the seed be sown, and yet men get no benefit unless the harvest be reaped, the seed be sown again, and through the process the bread be eaten.

Here, then, are three things at least that I would say: the earth must be prepared; take heed how ye hear. The seed must be sown; preach the Word. The bread must be eaten; let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Take heed how ye hear. In all tenderness and yet with great earnestness and great conviction, I would sound that word in the hearing of all. Take heed how ye hear. How shall we hear? Prayerfully, obediently, and in faith. The spirit of criticism never produces the result of power. Let us pray that in our lives God will plow up the fallow ground, give us the receptive heart, the child heart, willingness to hear and learn, deliver us from preconceived notions and prejudice, make us ready when He speaks to obey, make us simple-hearted at His feet, for as the rain and snow demand an earth plowed, broken, prepared, so does the Word of God demand a condition in those who hear, if it is to bring forth a harvest.

The true seed must be sown, and it must be by the preaching of the Word if the work is to be done. We are not to criticize the Word of God, not to account for the Word of God, not to defend the Word of God. We are to preach it and hear it. And there is a yet fuller application of that truth. The final preaching of the Word is not that of the lips but that of the life. Fundamentally the Word is the seed in the hearts of men, but functionally for the sake of the world, the seed is the sons of the Kingdom, the men in whom the Word has had its true effect.

Finally, the Word, the bread that comes, must be eaten or the toiler will grow weak. We are to let this Word of Christ dwell in us, take it into our life. The Word must come into the intellect, the emotion, the will; and when we take the Word of God into our whole life and answer its every claim, then in that moment God's purpose will be fulfilled in us.

One of the greatest instruments of God in the world today is the British and Foreign Bible Society. It sends out no preachers, but it accompanies the preacher with his message in the tongue of the people to whom he goes. It cannot issue statistics of conversion, but it pours forth the great stream of living water over all the earth and by such action quenches the thirsts of humanity as with the river of God. Alone, however, it would soon fail. As the Word circulates it becomes the sustenance of human lives, and so over earth's wilderness wastes the green appears which merges at last into the golden glory of the harvests of the Word of God.

Haggai

By J.G. Bellet


This book is a witness how rapidly declension sets in, and fresh corruption follows upon restoration and blessing.

Return to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon was made at the opening of the Book of Ezra, with great brightness and promise. Thousands left Babylon; and they who remained behind helped them with their goods; and a general awakening of the national heart and energy was known.

The first business of the returned captives was to build the house of the Lord; and they laid the foundation of it in the midst of such mingled and diverse affections, as showed how thoroughly and personally they had set themselves to it. Tears and joys, shouts and wailings, told the living realities of the moment, and gave promise that an earnest-hearted work. then begun, would find its way happily and prosperously to the end. But it was not so. The promise was not made good. Is man's pledge, and promise, and stewardship ever realised? The Gentile seed which had been planted in the lands of the ten tribes became the occasion of hindrance and difficulty; and the building of the house is suspended, and that, too, for so long a time as fourteen years; during which interval, self-indulgence and consultation about their own things marked the moral ways of the people, of that people who had started so earnestly and so single-heartedly.

Under such conditions, the Spirit of God visits Haggai, and by him the word of the Lord addresses itself to Zerubbabel the chief of Judah, and to Joshua the high priest, and to the congregation of returned captives.

It was in the second year of Darius king of Persia, that Haggai was thus called forth by the Spirit. This notification of time has meaning in it. It bespeaks the degradation of Israel. The coin of the Roman is by and by to go current through the land, and Israel will then be taught by their land to accept that badge of their vassal-state; and so now the Spirit teaches them the like lesson, marking the eras of their history by the reign of the Persians.

Haggai begins by challenging the people on account of their neglect of God's house, and concern about their own houses; and he calls on them to take knowledge of their present condition as the consequence of this, and to mark how unequal the fruit they were gathering out of their fields and vineyards was to the toil they had spent upon them. And, under this rebuke, the people are brought afresh to the fear of God; and fear being awakened, the conscience being reached, the fallow-ground of nature ploughed up, the same voice of God by Haggai begins its ministry of comfort and encouragement. "I am with you, saith the Lord." But the Spirit visited the heart of the people, as well as the lips of the prophet, and the end of the ministry was therefore reached. "And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God."

The heart of Lydia, in other days, was opened by the Lord, as well as the lips of Paul that spoke to her. He spoke to her and she attended to him; and both of these things were of God. How simple, and yet how needful! The Lord lets us know the need of each of those operations in His great discourse in John 6, teaching us that if the Father gave not to the Son, if He draw not, if He teach not, the ministry will be lost upon the soul, and the bread of life, the true manna of the desert, will be spread in vain.

Now, this was a revival, and reviving of God's work in the midst of the years became the neccessary way because of the tendency to decline which is found to be in us. The sinner's utter ruin, and full incompetency to restore himself, is the ground of needed sovereignty at the first; (Isaiah 1: 9); the saint's or the church's tendency to slacken, to grow cold and dull, becomes the like ground of renewed, repeated revivals afterwards. A fresh putting forth of reviving virtue has been ever the way of maintaining a dispensation in any condition worthy of itself. And this day of Haggai was one of those revival seasons.

The subject of this prophetic word by Haggai might lead us to observe how perfect in their seasons the divine thoughts and purposes are, though so various and different. David proposed to build a house for the ark of God, a house of cedars, costly and stable, but Cue word of a prophet forbad him; the time had not come. There would have been moral unfitness in the ark taking its rest before Israel had reached theirs; or seating itself in a sure dwelling-place in a land as yet unpurged of the blood of the sword of battle. But in the day of Haggai, we find the contrary of all this. Israel are rebuked by a prophet for not building the house of the Lord. David erred in saying that the time had come for such a work; the returned captives now err in saying that the time had not come. And the Spirit of the Lord knew the times, and what Israel ought to do, whether to build or not to build. "God is a rock. His work is perfect." He is true, though every man be a liar.

But again, as we find also in the book of Ezra, the returned captives had refused the Samaritans, rejected alliance with people of such mixed blood and principles. They had done rightly in this--surely they had. They had kept themselves pure. But this was a provocation, and under the suggestions of those Samaritan adversaries, the great king, the Persian "breast of silver," had stopped the building of the house.

This, however, becomes a temptation. As soon as their hands get free of the work of the Lord's house, the people go, every one to his own house. How easy to understand this! Nature is ready to take all its advantages. We know this every day. But faith acts above nature. Paul, for instance, becomes a prisoner after he had been for years a servant. His activities abroad are stopped by the adversaries. But Paul, though a prisoner, though stopped in his work abroad, waits on the same Master still. There is prison-service, as well as field or pulpit-service. He will receive,, at his own hired house, all that come to him, though he be in chains, and talk with them from morning till evening, expounding and testifying the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. This was faith, not nature. But the returned captives employ their hands for themselves; tied up from working in God's house, they use them, as free, for the work of their own house; and thus Satan masters them as well as the Samaritans. And it is upon this condition of things the Lord breaks in by the voice of Haggai.

The building of the house, as I observed, seems to have been suspended for about fourteen years; but it is very happy to find that it was resumed, not by force of a decree in its favour by the great king, the Persian who had rule over the Jews at that time, but by the voice of the prophets of God, Haggai and Zechariah. The Lord, indeed, did dispose the heart of the king; but this was not till His prophet had disposed the heart of Israel. (See Ezra 5-6) And this is very much to be remembered in connexion with our prophecy. The fresh spring in the heart of the people was found to have been in God, and not in circumstances. It was God's voice by His prophets that set them on work again, and not the royal favour of the Persian. The Lord turned the heart of the king their master to countenance them, when they had taken again the place of faith and obedience.

Haggai is simply styled, "Haggai the prophet." We have nothing about him more than that. The word of the Lord was delivered by him on several distinct occasions; but all in the second year of Darius the king of Persia: and all was directed to this end, to set agoing and to further the building of the house of the Lord.

I can look at them only in the most general way, noticing the time of each, during this second year of Darius the Persian.

6th month, 1st day. Haggai arouses the careless, self-indulgent people--the returned remnant, who were neglecting the Lord's house, and serving themselves.

6th month, 24th day. He promises them that the Lord will be with them; thus, as in the name of the Lord, appreciating the fear that had been awakened; and, consequently, the people begin to work.

7th month, 21st day. In order to encourage them in their work, Haggai tells them that the final glory of the house which they had now begun to build should be the brightest after the shaking of all things by the hand of the Lord.

8th month, 24th day. He leads the people to a humbling sense of what they had been ere the house of the Lord was attended to; but he tells them also of future blessing.

Same day. He addresses Zerubbabel, telling him again of the shaking of everything, and of the establishing of Zerubbabel as the Lord's signet.

These are his utterances in their seasons. The voice of the Lord by this prophet first awakens the conscience of the people, and then, in various ways of grace, encourages them in their revived condition and energy.

Let me observe, that the Spirit of God in the prophet does not take part, either with the aged man, who wept over the remembrance of the past, or with the younger ones who were rejoicing in the present; (see Ezra 3); but He bears the heart of the people on to the future. Those tears had been real, and were service to God; but neither were perfect. The Spirit who leads according to God indulges neither, but carries heart and hope forward. Encouraging the people in their work by His servant, He tells them of the future glory of the house, and of the stability of the true Zerubbabel, when all that has its foundation in the creation, be it what it may, shall be shaken to its removal and overthrow.

The Spirit again, in an apostle, comments upon this of the prophet. (See Heb. 12) He tells us, that all that which is to be shaken is "all that is made"--that is, as I judge, all that has not its root or it foundation in Him in whom "all the promises of God are yea and amen." He only is the rock. His work is perfect. Christ the Lord can say, and will say, "The earth and its inhabitants are dissolved; I bear up the pillars." What is of Him cannot be shaken. It remains. And in the faith and hope of what we have in Him, and from Him, beloved, let us say to one another, in the words of the apostle, "we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear." Amen.

Section 10 of: The Minor Prophets (Ed. W. Kelly, Allan, 1870.)

Ephesians 2 - The Father's Wealth

By F.B. Meyer


THE Epistle to the Ephesians is full of the wealth of God's nature. It is set to that master-chord struck centuries before by a temple minstrel, "Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all those that call upon Thee." The apostle struggles with the inadequacy of human language in his attempt to convey some conception of what God is willing to expend upon the heirs of salvation.

We are all familiar with God's prodigality in Nature. Every common hedgerow with its wealth of vegetation; every lazy trout-stream; where the fish lie in the cool depths, and the flowers dip down their dainty cups; every square foot of the midnight sky, set thick with rare jewels --attest the unsearchable resources of his power. But these are for all the world to see. And as the man of wealth opens richer stores to those that share his love than he displays to the casual visitor, so God has prepared for those that love Him, things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived. There are riches of grace in the heart of God, of forgiveness, and pitifulness, and mercy, of which the foremost of the saints in the heavenly ranks, and the chief of sinners on earth--however heavily they have drawn on them--know comparatively nothing. We have no standard for computing infinity; and infinity is the orbit in which God lives and loves.

This is what the apostle means when he speaks of the riches of God's grace.

OUR TRESPASSES ARE FORGIVEN, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF GOD'S GRACE (Ephesians 1:7)

"Trespass" is the term used by our Lord of the negligence, sins, and ignorance's, which mark the lives even of those who can look up into God's face and say, Our Father. The conjunction and which links the prayer for the forgiveness of these with the petition for daily bread, suggests that we need to plead for the one as often as we ask for the other. And our Father instantly and freely forgives us according to the riches of His grace. He is only too ready to forgive. He yearns over the wayward and stubborn, who keep their faces averted from his. He sorrows for their sins; but sorrows most of all that they will not take the only position in which his tender, forgiving grace can come to them.

As the hungry sea frets down the line of cliff to find an aperture through which to pour itself, and seethes and sobs until it find room; so does the love of God wait impatiently outside our hearts till we open to it in confession and repentance. Then God forgives, not meagerly or stingingly, but royally, gracefully, abundantly. His forgiveness is worthy of Himself, proportioned to the wealth of his glorious being, and according to the riches of his grace. He does more than forgive; He "remembers no more." He does more than forget: He sets the joybells ringing, and cries, "Let us make merry." He does more than this: He insets the scars of our sins with jewels--where sin abounded his grace abounds much more--and all because of the Blood that has set free this wealth of mercy.

GOD INDWELLS US WITH THE RICHES OF HIS GLORY (Ephesians 1:18)

His inheritance in the saints is not what they have in God, but what God has in them. "The Lord is the portion of my soul" is one side of the truth; but "the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance" is the other, and is equally important. We settle on the nature of God as our estate, living on its abundant crop, and mining for its hidden treasures; and God comes into possession of us, as a man might of an estate which had lain for long years exhausted and barren.

Ah, what gladness rings through the deserted acres when the tidings fly from hedge to hedge, and from field to field, as though the birds carried them, that one has come into possession who is well able to pour in tons of enriching soil; and to continue doing so for long years, if need be, until corn replaces weeds, fir-trees thorns, and myrtle-trees briars. It may be that some soul, reading these lines, is sick at heart, and cries, "I am that barren thorn-cursed soil." Nevertheless, lift up thy head and rejoice! for the Lord has come in to dwell, never to depart; and He will do great things. He will create all that He commands. He will put in what He calls out. He will pour into thee wealth on wealth; as though a millionaire should put ten fortunes into an unproductive mine. He will make thee know the riches of the glory of his indwelling in the heart; and He will not forsake thee until the revenues of thy life begin to repay Him in love and adoration. But of this we shall have more to say ere this treatise has reached its close, (see Chapter 14)

WE ARE MONUMENTS OF GOD'S WEALTH (Ephesians 2:4-8)


That He could love us when we were dead like Lazarus, in trespasses and sins; that He has linked us in the bonds of indissoluble union with his Son; that He had made it possible for us to share his Resurrection, his Triumph, and his Throne; that we, the poor children of earth and sin, should be admitted into the inner circle of Deity--this will be, to all eternity, the mightiest proof of the exceeding riches of his grace.

The word "exceeding" might be rendered "beyond throwing distance." Fling your thoughts forward as far as you can, and there will always be an immense beyond; throw them as high as you may, till they out soar the stars, and there will always be an above; let them sink for ever, and there will always be a beneath--in the exceeding riches of God's grace.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork"; but the glory of the position and character of the saints, contrasted with the degradation from which they were raised, will be accounted in coming ages a more extraordinary exemplification of the riches of Divine grace than the splendour of the heavens is of the wealth of his skill.

GOD'S WEALTH IS FOR ALL (Ephesians 3:8)

The special note of this Epistle, and of that to the Colossians, is Paul's desire to express his conviction of the universality of God's bounty. It is not for Jews only, but for Gentiles. His commission was to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. The mine is inexhaustible; in it are the precious things of heaven above, and of the depth beneath, of the fruits of the sun, of the fulness of the earth, of the abundance of the seas, and of the hidden treasures of the sand: and it is all for all who believe.

OUR STRENGTH MAY BE IN PROPORTION TO OUR FATHER'S WEALTH (Ephesians 3:16)

Who is there of us all that does not long for strength, whether to suffer or to do? The sapling says, "Let me be strong, to bear the harvest of the rich autumn fruit." The child says, "Let me be strong, that I may help mother Carry her burdens, and do her work." The invalid says, "Let me be strong, that I may tread again the heather, and roam the woods, and carry light into darkened homes." "Let me be strong," the Christian cries, "that I may not faint nor be weary; that! may launch the Master's boat; or that I may gather in the golden sheaves." Who would not wish to be strong for his sake, who speaks as a Lamb from the Throne?

The strength of God awaits us, through his Spirit pouring into the inward man. Reader, I implore you, in moments of weakness and discouragement, to appropriate that strength in that measure; but remember that it is only perfected in weakness, and consummated in them that have no might.

The Authority Of Reality

By Oswald Chambers


'Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.'
James 4:8

It is essential to give people a chance of acting on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual, you cannot act for him, it must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message ought always to lead a man to act. The paralysis of refusing to act leaves a man exactly where he was before; when once he acts, he is never the same. 

It is the foolishness of it that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Immediately I precipitate myself over into an act, that second I live; all the rest is existence. The moments when I truly live are the moments when I act with my whole will.

Never allow a truth of God that is brought home to your soul to pass without acting on it, not necessarily physically, but in will. Record it, with ink or with blood. 

The feeblest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is emancipated the second he acts; all the almighty power of God is on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, we confess we are wrong, but go back again; then we come up to it again, and go back; until we learn that we have no business to go back. 

We have to go clean over on some word of our redeeming Lord and transact business with Him. His word "come" means "transact." "Come unto Me." The last thing we do is to come; but everyone who does come knows that that second the supernatural rush of the life of God invades him instantly. 

The dominating power of the world, the flesh and the devil is paralysed, not by your act, but because your act has linked you on to God and His redemptive power.