Not of the Extraordinary

Streams in the Desert

Not of the Extraordinary

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

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

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

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

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

"An high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. iv. 15).

 Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      "An high priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. iv. 15).
      
      Some time ago we were talking with a greatly suffering sister about healing, who was much burdened physically and desirous of being able to trust the Lord for deliverance.
      
      After a little conversation we prayed with her, committing her case to the Lord for absolute trust and deliverance as she was prepared to claim.
      
      As soon as we closed our prayer she grasped our hand, and asked us to unite with her in the burden that was most upon her heart, and then, without a word of reference to her own healing, or the burden under which she was being crushed to death, she burst into such a prayer for a poor orphan boy, of whom she had just heard that day, as we have never heard surpassed for sympathy and love, imploring God to help him and save him, and sobbing in spasmodic agony of love many times during her prayer, and then she ceased without even referring to her own need. We were deeply touched by the spectacle of love, and we thought how the Father's heart must be touched for her own need.

Proverbs 1

 

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

13 We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord:

30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

Ephesians 4

The Ten Virgins

 George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons

      The Ten Virgins
      
      Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish--Mat 25:1-2
      
      The Tradition of a Jewish Wedding
      
      The ceremonies at a marriage in the East were very different from those we are accustomed to, and the more clearly we can picture one of these Eastern weddings, the better we shall understand this parable. There was no religious service, as with us; no priest or minister was present. The essential thing was that the bridegroom should lead his bride from her father's house to his own. Hence the old phrase, "to take a wife," was literally true in Eastern countries, and we know that to this day, among the Arabs, the bride is taken as if she were an enemy--captured after some show of violence, and removed as a prisoner to her husband's home. Among the Jews, the bridegroom, with his friends (Joh 3:23), went to the home of his bride in the late evening. It was dark, and lights were needed for the procession--such lights among the Greeks and Romans (as the boys who are reading Latin poetry know) were generally torches; but among the Jews were more commonly lamps. The bride was waiting for the bridegroom there, in a white dress, decked out in all her jewels; and John would recall many a village scene when he wrote that the wife of the Lamb was arrayed in fine linen, clean and white (Rev 19:8), and that the New Jerusalem came down from heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev 21:2). Then the bridegroom led his bride into the street, with her maiden friends bearing her company, amid music and a score of flashing lights. And as the procession made its way back to the bridegroom's home, through the crowds who had poured out to see the bridal party, a little group of maidens at this corner, and a few more who had been waiting in the court, joined the happy company, and went with it to share in the marriage feast.
      
      Five Were Not Prepared for a Delay
      
      This, then, was the scene that Jesus transfigured in this exquisite parable, and the ten virgins, who take the chief place in it, may either (as many have thought) have been attending the bride in her own home that evening, or they may have formed one of those little bands that waited for the return of the procession. Will the reader please observe that number ten ? It is a favourite number in the Bible. When Abraham's servant went on his great journey, he took ten of the camels of his master (Gen 24:10). When the kinsman of Ruth desired to deal with Boaz, he took ten men of the elders of the city (Rth 4:2). The dragon in Revelation had ten horns (Rev 12:3).There were ten lepers who were cleansed by Jesus (Luk 17:12). The commandments were ten, and the talents and pounds were ten, and here our Lord says there were ten virgins. Now we are not told that these ten were good and bad; but we are told that five were wise and five were foolish, and we recall another parable where we read of a wise and of a foolish builder (Mat 7:24-27). The strange thing is that the foolish as well as the wise, here, each had her lamp, and it was burning merrily. The sad thing is that the foolish were not prepared for a quite possible, and indeed quite common, delay. The night deepened, and still there was no bridegroom. The wisest of them nodded off into sleep. Then at midnight there rang the cry, "Behold the bridegroom!" and in a twinkling every eye was open. No lamp was out, but all were going out (read verse 8 in the Revised Version). The wick even of the wise was sputtering. But then the wise had little flasks of oil with them; it was the work of a moment to trim their lamps. But the foolish had no oil, and there was none to borrow, and when they hurried out to buy it at the merchant's--can you not hear the jesting of the crows? And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut.
      
      Want of Forethought Is True Foolishness
      
      Now I trust that no one will spoil this matchless story by arguing what the lamp or what the oil must be. I do not think that Jesus built up His parables laboriously. It is better to keep to the broad lessons of a parable, and there are three here which anyone may grasp. The first is, want of forethought is true foolishness. Can you tell me why the one builder was a foolish man (Mat 7:26)? It was just because he never foresaw the storm. He built in May when the birds were singing, and the sand was firm enough for summer weather; but he forgot November and its gales, when nothing could stand but a house upon a rock. So here the foolish virgins had their lamps, and their lamps were burning merrily enough. But they forgot to reckon with a tardy bridegroom, and it was just that want of forethought that spoiled all. Now none of us is to be anxious for tomorrow. But we have a strange and difficult life to live, and we have a death to die and a God to meet, and it is high time to make provision for all that. Have you done it? You know perfectly what the provision is. "Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart."
      
      Times When We Cannot Help Each Other
      
      And the second lesson of the story is this: in the great hours we cannot help each other. I have no doubt the ten were all good friends; they had done many a kindly turn one to another. But now, that friendship was of no avail; there was no oil to borrow or to spare. It was not because the wise disdained the foolish, or were eager to see them ousted from the marriage, that they were deaf to this request for oil. They refused it for a far better reason--they needed every drop of oil they had. That means, that in every hour of judgment, there is no shining with a borrowed light. The help of others is priceless in many things, but in the hours of spiritual crisis it is vain. Another's faith can never aid us then, even though that other be a friend or father. It is our own faith and holiness and love that will determine matters when the Bridegroom comes.
      
      The Highest Wisdom Is to Be Watchful
      
      Then, lastly, and this is the great lesson of the parable, it is the highest wisdom to be watchful. The bridegroom came when no one looked for him, and Jesus will come in an hour we think not of. The one day has been hidden, said Augustine, that every day might be regarded. How little did Pompeii think, in the bright morning, of the desolation the evening was to bring! With what awful suddenness in 1666, did the great fire devastate London! And like a Bridegroom in the night, Jesus will come. God grant He find us vigilant!
      
      Watch! 'tis your Lord's command,
          And while we speak, He's near;
      Mark the first signal of His hand,
          And ready all appear.

"(Now I was cupbearer to the king)" Nehemiah 1:11 R.V.

OLD TESTAMENT PARENTHESES (18)

"(Now I was cupbearer to the king)" Nehemiah 1:11 R.V.

THIS sentence is placed between brackets in my Bible, though not in some other versions. Nevertheless it seems worthy of a place among our collection. It follows an eloquent and moving prayer. It also precedes a bold action. Prayers should be the basis of our actions but never an excuse for inaction.

WHEN Nehemiah had finished praying he seems suddenly to have recalled his personal condition: "Now I was cupbearer ...". It may be that he was appalled at his own helplessness. 

What hope had a man in his position of ever being able to go off to join the returned exiles in Jerusalem? Moreover, what could his type of man contribute to the work of recovery? What could a soft palace official do in the great task of conflict and re-building?

ALL of us know the feeling of hopelessness which can come over us when, after rising to great heights in our prayers, we come down to earth and realise what poor material we are for the great work about which we have been praying. Whether this is what happened or not, it is certainly true to experience.

THERE is, however, another explanation of Nehemiah's parenthetical note. It may be that he realised that the unattractive job which had been forced upon him could be the very key to Jerusalem's problem. In his position of trust in the palace, he could perhaps gain the King's ear and speak up for the interests of his God.

HE had been praying for some months when he came to the day of resolution. "... prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day ...". The king, after all, was only a man, whereas his Lord was "the God of heaven" (2:4).

SURE enough, that very day the occasion arose for him to lodge his appeal. He apparently showed signs of his inner tension, for prayer does not always free us from natural emotions, but the Lord used this to arouse the suspicions of the king and provoke the question which led to his release for the task. So, in answer to prayer -- both the laboured intercessions of the months and the ejaculatory petition of the moment -- the king's butler became the Lord's master-builder.

LATER, when Nehemiah wrote this story, he must have looked back in wonder. He had not had to break away from his palace job -- indeed he could not do so -- but prayer had released him and set him on his way of service for God. He thought of what he was -- cupbearer to a heathen king; and then what God had made of him -- an honoured instrument for the recovery of the Lord's testimony in the earth.

THERE seems to be no limit to God's power. It does not matter what we are in ourselves; what is all important is what God can make of us if we only persevere in the place of prayer.

Only One Life

Only One Life

By C.T. Studd

      Two little lines I heard one day, Traveling along life's busy way;
      Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart;

Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      Only one life, yes only one, Soon will its fleeting hours be done;
      Then, in 'that day' my Lord to meet, And stand before His Judgment seat;

Only one life,' twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      Only one life, the still small voice, Gently pleads for a better choice
      Bidding me selfish aims to leave, And to God's holy will to cleave;

Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      Only one life, a few brief years, Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;
      Each with its clays I must fulfill, living for self or in His will;

Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      When this bright world would tempt me sore, When Satan would a victory score;
      When self would seek to have its way, Then help me Lord with joy to say;
      Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      Give me Father, a purpose deep, In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
      Faithful and true what e'er the strife, Pleasing Thee in my daily life;
      

Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      Oh let my love with fervor burn, And from the world now let me turn;
      Living for Thee, and Thee alone, Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;
      Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

      Only one life, yes only one, Now let me say, 'Thy will be done';

      And when at last I'll hear the call, I know I'll say 'twas worth it all';
      Only one life,' twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.

[MINISTRY] Watchman Nee

 [MINISTRY]

[Watchman Nee]

"Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you ... that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you" (2 Corinthians 2.4).

A ministry that is to bring healing and life must spring essentially from experience. This fact is strikingly displayed in the apostle Paul. The ministry of 1 Corinthians, for example, is based firmly on the man revealed to us in 2 Corinthians.

In 1 Corinthians Paul writes of God's choice of "the weak things"; 2 Corinthians shows in grim reality his own experience of a divinely imposed weakness. In the first letter Paul appeals to his readers for unity; in the second he shows how, in spite of their rebuffs, he still counts himself one of them. 

Chapter 13 of the fist letter offers his classic treatment of love; in 2 Corinthians 12.15 he affirms "I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls." 

Finally, 1 Corinthians 15 gives us the clearest teaching anywhere in the New Testament on the subject of the resurrection: yet 2 Corinthians makes plain his own desperate need to trust from hour to hour in "God which raiseth the dead". 

At every point his doctrine is backed with experience. Nothing else really constitutes a basis for a ministry of Christ. - W. N. [22/23]

Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean. Lev 13:13

 Our Daily Homily

 

      Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean. Lev 13:13
      
      At first sight this seems a very extraordinary provision. When the leprosy was beginning to show itself, and whilst the marks were hardly distinguishable, the poor patient was treated as unclean; but, when it was fully developed, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, the priest pronounced the leper clean.
      
      As long as we palliate and excuse our sins, and ,dream that there is much in us which is noble and lovely, we are not fit subjects for God's saw ing grace. But when we take our place as helpless and undone, without one plea or one redeeming trait, we are in the position in which the free grace of God can have its blessed way with us.
      
      We must come to an end of ourselves, and fall prostrate, in the very helplessness of our despair, in the very dust at our Saviour's feet; we must confess that from the crown of our head to the sole of our foot we are full of need and sin - then we are nearest Christ, and in a fit condition to be richly blest, and made the channel of blessing to others.
      
      Would you rise? then you must humble yourself before God. God's thrones are approached, not by steps up to them, but by steps down to them. It is the publican who beats his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me the sinner," that goes clown justified to his house. It is when sin abounds, that grace much more abounds. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. "For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones" (Isa 57:15).

Better Farther On - Charles Spurgeon Devotional