(Praise)
Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.
Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.
He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass.
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:
Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:
Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:
Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:
Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:
Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent;
his glory is above the earth and heaven.
He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints;
even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 148
Was David in a good mood? I really don't think so. It wouldn't have mattered. David knew suffering. David knew His God. David knew how to address His God. It was with praise and thanks, first. David drives home the point that, in the midst of life in the crushing gloom, David saw the essence of his and our purpose here; The essence of the purpose of all life created by God through Jesus Christ. To give praise and glory to the God and Father of all.
How do "beasts and cattle", sun, moon and stars praise God? Simple, really, ...by living as they were created to live. The trees and grasses and flowers reach upward don't they? It is a physical manifestation of lifting up praise to the Creator. Just like some of us lift up our hands. A sign of worship and praise. Spiritually, we lift up our hearts. When we deviate from the Way of righteousness, we "rend" (tear) our hearts before God. We do not tear our garments, as was a sign of repentance, subservience and grief of old (2Sam:3:31). God requires our worship to come from our hearts, not our mouths (Joel:2:13 - M't:15:8).
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,
and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me,
and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Isa:29:13
Is our praise of God "taught to us by the precept of men"? Is our "fear" of God choreographed by our "teachers"? Good question. Does our praise well up from deep within us without orchestration, prompting from the choir or by reason of feeling "good"? We do not "learn" to give our God praise but it comes naturally, as given, because of the infilling of His Spirit.
So after all the yelling and screaming, you'd think this preacher is only fixated on the ruin upon us. Well, think again. Even under fire, there should be praise given to our God. He's never told us otherwise. It separates the fair-weather "Christians" from the real ones. This ruin we are witnessing is God's reason to test our hearts again and again. If we can give God praise, pure and from the heart of Christ in us, when the roof blows off or when we're stuck on the unemployment line or when the wolves are slobbering at our shoes, then it is a truly pleasing offering to our God. If we be branches and God does the spiritual horticulture, then His fruit is indeed pure, righteous and well deserved by Him. That is why God planted His Vineyard. Uh huh.
Who are we going to blame for putting us here and putting us in these terrible days? The Dragon? I don't think so. Oh poor us eh? It better not be in our thoughts. Sad but true, we are the only branch of creation that has this sometimes "burdensome" gift of free will. When it is our will, by the mind of Christ in us, to praise God despite the circumstances, then this praise is a sweet smell to His "nostrils"; A sweet sound to His "ears". It puts the sun and stars to shame, Saints.
"I will have mercy, and not sacrifice..."
Sing and holler all you want. Fire up the praise band and dance in the aisles. Rock for Jesus. "Joyful noise" or not, is it coming from a pure heart toward God? The Heart of Christ? Or is it a ritual? I believe our God requires hearts for Him, not 12 bar progressions in the key of A Major. Actually, most don't sing well in A Major. Better, ...E Flat. Anyway, I'm not putting down the music of "churchland", just the motive for it.
Will the singing stop when the checks stop rolling in? When the church fails to make it's fiscal budget? When the "praise-pastor" has to find another job? Will the praise words from our lips cease when the foreclosure sign is hung on our property? When the boss tells us we're no longer needed at the job? This is the "test" Saints. The test of David, if you will. David was a man after God's own heart because of his desire for God and God's gift of His Spirit. Is that our hearts today? For God?
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ ushered in the age of the Spirit, within those called out by God. Not righteousness by works. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ made the temple rites obsolete. No more blood. Hearts! "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith"? (Gal:3:2) No more blood Saints. Hearts, spirits. "no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident..." (Gal:3:11) We give God more substantial praise through our hearts, if they be right, than we do in any other form. Why? Jesus Christ, that's why. God's will and plan. Or have we too, stopped short like the "bewitched" Galatians? Our "works" should be of Jesus Christ not our design. Our works manifest our hearts, don't they?
And whether the "natural man" cares to admit it, he too, as all God's creation, gives praise by being just what he or she was created for. Even them that sin were planned by God. And even this gives God praise. Swallow hard but think about this.
It is the heart, the individual heart, that God listens to and judges. And everyone's got one. God's "ears" are discerning and He knows the heart (Heb:4:12). God also knows who resides in our hearts. Christ or anti-Christ.
I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just;
because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Joh:5:30
What is in your hearts today, Saints? Are we the only created thing which metes out praise contingent upon our well being? God's creation WILL give Him praise despite the "human" contingent. Jesus Christ sought not his own will. And us? Well, IF the Spirit of Jesus Christ lives in His Saints, then the answer is obvious. It's still a choice, too.
When you're down to your last can of beans, praise and thank your Father first. Then ask Him to mercifully supply you with more. Consider what you have as sufficient. God will not deny His children.
When you're out in the parking lot with a pink slip in your hand, Praise God first. Thank Him for sustaining you all these years with a paycheck and feeding you and/or your family. Then ask Him, if it is His will, to give you another job. Remember that your job is also a gift of God and it is not to be thought that it is you by your own means, hooks or crooks, that you "survive". Big mistake Saints.
We mustn't be afraid if we are not given something when we think we must have it either! God's people in the wilderness had that same problem and what did it get them? What I'm aiming at is this..., Some of us have the middle of the fence dug so deep between our legs that we cannot even discern when we are in rebellion, unsatisfied and grumbling; When we're reaching over to the steering wheel! Have we come to do the will of the Father like the Master we profess to follow and emulate? Have we trust in God our Father? Or do we still do our own will when the wind's not blowing quite right?
Our praises will be shallow, hollow and cold. Our praises will become a judgment upon us if we are not sincere and grounded in our roles as servant and priests of ONE master! Need I say, "think about it"?
Let's take a look at the sun, moon and stars. At the mountains, beasts and creeping things. The dragons and deeps. They are right where God the Creator placed them and they give Him glory because they do not fight His will, nor 'think' of themselves as anything more than what they'd been made to be. Mankind is included here also. We were made of the same "stuff". But we were given His Spirit! We live, not only on the earth but also in the heavenlies, through Jesus Christ. That should make them dragons jealous, if you ask me. Why doesn't it? Because Creation is doing exactly what God had ordained it to do.
And are we fearful ingrates, given the gift of the Holy Spirit, acting as we were ordained to act? THAT is a mighty deep question in relation to God's Sovereignty. But simply put, either we serve one master and fear, or we serve the other Master and live in peace and praise of the Father who called a few to live the life of His Son and find real Life at the end of their journeys.
Give God praise that you are given to see His mighty works! That He keeps His promises. Give Him praise that He loves His own so much that He spares not the rod of chastisement. God is why we praise Him! We were made for this. And by the blood of Jesus Christ, we can enter in to His Holy Place. We can exercise our freedom in Christ! No blood, incense, libation, song or "laws" can ever match what comes forth from the depths of the heart of Christ within us. A direct line to the "ear" of the Father. It's faster than priority mail folks. It is not a "formula" for prosperity! It is part of our "reasonable" service!
Don't be "upstaged" by dragons and deeps Saints. Walk as Christ walked. Be a pleasing sacrifice to our God. There should be no room in your hearts for you. Just Jesus. We are not only being conformed into His image but we have HIS heart and mind (1Cor:2:16). Think about that. What is Christ's mind? Obedient, surrendered and loving toward His Father. Wanting nothing for Himself, only that the Father be pleased. The simplicity which is Christ. It that us?
I do pray that we might see, that the underlying theme of this little message is still and always, humility. And humility goes a long way in "narrowing" the way for us. Can't stress that enough. And don't think that I am a pinnacle of righteousness, Saints. I fall too. And that is precisely why I wanted to share this with you.
Hey, lots of question marks in this article, I agree. But let's examine ourselves here, shall we? Oops, there's another one. Be strong and take comfort in your Refuge, Saints. If your hearts are upon His Kingdom and His Righteousness, then He will supply. What you "have" doesn't matter. WHO you have, does. We are in tribulation. We are told to watch. We are told to pray. What do we pray for...? And why...?
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverb:3:6
Shields up. Keep to the Road.
http://www.theremnantcafe.org/articles/yedragons.htm
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Battle For Life
The Battle For Life
by T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 2 - The Controversy of Zion
Reading: Hebrews 12:22; Isaiah 34:8.
"Ye are come to Zion."
"For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, the year of recompence in the controversy of Zion."
What is the controversy of Zion? It is nothing other than the controversy for the life of Zion. Zion is often represented in the Old Testament as Jehovah's bride, as the one betrothed to Him, to whom He was married. We are familiar with such a phrase as "the virgin daughter of Jerusalem". The history of Zion was a chequered history. Zion was constantly in the realm of dispute, the object of the envy, covetousness, antagonism of the nations, and all the nations were found at one time or another in some kind of relationship with Zion. The history of Zion is a very significant and suggestive history from a spiritual standpoint. The controversy, then, was God's controversy with the nations for Zion's life. The prophecy of Isaiah makes that very clear. God was taking up the cause of Zion, of Zion's very life, and entering into a terrible controversy with the nations on this matter.
Let us bear that in mind as we take up the New Testament and consider the spiritual interpretation. In the Book of the Revelation we find the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, adorned as a bride, and the angel taking the Apostle and saying to him: "Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:9). The Apostle goes on to say: "And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God". The closing chapter of the Revelation brings us into the city and the central thing therein is the tree of life, while down its centre flows the river of the water of life; and then, as this fullness is viewed, the Spirit and the bride say: "Come." Do you see the spiritual follow-through? Here the controversy for the life of the spiritual Zion is at an end, and life - full, triumphant, effulgent - is the characteristic. Throughout the book of Revelation, God is dealing with the nations, and at its close all nations are seen as having been brought under the judgment of His Son, the controversy of Zion has been settled once for all, and Zion is found at last triumphing in fullness of life.
We have said enough to establish the fact that the controversy is in relation to life, and it is that with which we are concerned at this time. There is a spiritual sense in which we are in God's controversy for Zion today. If we take the sixth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians as representing what is going on in the spiritual realm, namely, a conflict with world rulers, then the rest of that letter makes it perfectly clear that the controversy with the world rulers is concerning the Church: concerning the very life of the Church, the life of the elect. We are, then, in the controversy and the issue is no other, and no less, than the issue of life.
In our earlier meditation, in considering the messages of the Lord to the seven churches in Asia, we were seeing that the thing which occupies the place of pre-eminent importance and value to the Lord Himself is the testimony of life - not tradition, for they had that; not so much Christian work and activity, for they were there; not so many good and commendable things praiseworthy even in the sight of God, for they were there - but that which is central and basic to the Divine election, choice and apprehension is the testimony of life. In the first chapter of the book the Lord is presented as the One who is living, who became dead, but is alive unto the ages of the ages, and has the keys of death and Hades. Alive now from the dead, He is seen standing in the midst of the lampstands, the vessels of testimony, and judging them according to what He is as the Living One, as the One who has conquered death. What He discovers and reveals in those churches is the measure in which that testimony to Him has been lost. This is more to Him than what is found amongst them of interest, concern, activity, for Him and for His things. He shows the things which have struck a blow at that testimony and names them; the things, that is to say, which have interfered with the full expression of Himself as the Living One. So it is disclosed that what to Him is more precious than anything else, than all other things put together, is the spiritual life, in fullness, in power, in expression, in impact, in testimony.
THE LORD'S JEALOUSY OVER LIFE
The priority and primacy of life is referred to in a fragment of Scripture in a much-overlooked little New Testament letter - Titus 1:2: "The hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal". ("Before the world or the ages began" - Amplified New Testament.)
I want to carry that thought 'from before times eternal' into the Old Testament, to see how jealous the Lord is over life, and what is His relationship thereto.
1. THE TREE OF LIFE
It is necessary to go right back to the beginning of the Book, where you will find that immediately there has been that initial disobedience by which sin and death have entered and man has fallen out of his position in relationship to God, and out of his state as created by God, the question of the tree of life arises. Following the judgment upon the serpent, and upon the man and the earth, God takes His step of precaution in relation to the tree of life. He proceeds to safeguard it, lest this man should put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and live for ever. God set His cherubim to keep the way to it with the flaming sword which turned in every direction, so that the tree of life should not be approached.
The interpretation of that is to be found in the last chapter of the Bible. The tree of life in the midst of the city of God is something from which all sin and sinfulness is excluded. Without are seen to be all those who represent fallen Adam, sinful nature. No one can eventually be found in the presence of God, in a living relationship with God, and no one can know eternal life unless the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus has been made effectual in them. The point is that, right at the beginning, God took a step to protect life from the touch and the appropriation of sinful man. God was not going to have a sinful state perpetuated indefinitely. The last chapter of the Bible sets its seal to the fact and shows that the sinful state is fully and finally dealt with. The state perpetuated is a state in fulness of life by reason of what the Lamb has wrought through the shedding of His blood, even as the book of the Revelation makes clear. If at the commencement of the book we can say: "Unto him that loved us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood...", then at the end of the book we can be found within the city, drinking of the water of life freely, and living in the full power of that life. Thus we see right at the beginning God's jealous attitude and action in relation to life. It is precious to note that He suspends the possession of it until the mighty work of the Cross has dealt with all that state which, if perpetuated, would be but the perpetuation of a lost world, of a world outside of the Divine intention.
2. CAIN AND ABEL
The next step to the unveiling of God's attitude toward life is seen in His dealings with Cain. When Cain has slain his brother Abel, God instantly appears on the scene. There is no delay; it is as though God hastens to the situation. Here is something which concerns Him preeminently. No sooner has Cain shed the blood of his brother, and that warm blood trickled into the sand, than God is on the scene. "Where is Abel thy brother? And he said I know not: am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground" (Genesis 4:9-10). Then see what God has to say to Cain. He is cursed. He is marked. Everybody who shall observe him shall see him as scarred by God and branded: and he, hardened as he may have been, and insolent to God, has to humble himself and say: "My punishment is greater than I can bear." That is God's attitude toward life - His jealousy over it.
3. NOAH
We pass to Noah. The terms of the covenant with Noah are familiar to us, the equalizing of things in that covenant, and the terrible warning to man: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed..." (Genesis 9:6). God will keep things even. No man shall get an advantage in this matter. No man who touches that thing which is precious to God shall come by any gain. God will bring it to evenness. He will equalize in the realm of life. You rob man of that and you shall be robbed; you shall not be the gainer. That is a solemn warning and shows to man what is God's attitude toward life.
4. ENOCH
There is a great disclosure in the Old Testament of God's mind for man in this matter. God's thought is life, not death. God is against death and for life. We glance back a step and see Enoch, who breaks the long story of death: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). That is an offset to the course of fallen man, showing what God's thought is when a man comes into real fellowship with Himself. It is life, not death, and that was ever God's thought. It remains God's thought, and He is going to have it fully and gloriously expressed in a company of His own believing children, who will be translated to His presence even as Enoch was, and will not see death or the grave.
5. ABRAHAM AND ISAAC
In Abraham and Isaac it is further set forth that when God has a great purpose in mind, when He is moving out on that basis, He must have things brought on to the ground where death cannot touch His purpose. Isaac is the one in whom the purpose of God is bound up, and therefore for the sake of the purpose Isaac must be put typically beyond the power of death. He must come into death to have death destroyed, that God's purpose might be realized upon a ground where death is not future, but past. That is the great illustration of Divine purpose being upon the ground of deathless life. And in the greater Isaac the purposes of God are all going to be realized, without any fear whatever of death breaking in to interrupt, because in Christ death is past and not future.
All these are vivid, strong, and, in most cases, agonized expressions of God's attitude to the clatter of life. It is a very costly thing. It was infinitely costly to God. It cost those who were in fellowship with God much also. All this is the controversy of Zion in principle - God's jealousy in the matter of life.
6. JOB
We pass on, so far as the arrangement of the record is concerned, and come to Job; and here Satan is found in the heavenlies with access to God. God challenges him: "Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth..." (Job 2:3). Satan sneers back at God: "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face." Do you see how the question of life is bound up in that challenge, and what subtlety there is in the whole movement? God gives Satan permission to touch Job; to touch his body, to touch his family, his property, everything that he has, but says: "... Only spare his life." Here again is God's jealousy for life. Satan gets to work, and the subtlety is this: that Satan presses, and presses, and presses along every line, by every means, seeking to touch Job's life indirectly, because he cannot touch it directly. Satan's indirect method is to move Job to break with God by cursing Him, so that his life is forfeited and destroyed.* (*[footnote] The suggestion of Job's wife may have been that he should break with God, and then take his own life.) To understand the book of Job we have to recognise that it is a controversy for life. We have said it is a controversy over faith, but that is a relative factor. The real controversy is over life. We shall see the faith element at some subsequent time, but here God's jealousy for life is seen. Job is brought to great straits, but the life link is never broken, and the end is life triumphant. We see fullness, victory, everything that speaks of life at the end.
We sometimes come very near to collapse under the strain, under the trial, under the tension. When the enemy is pressing to quench our spiritual life through body, through mind, through circumstance, we are often brought very low, as was Job. We have our questionings, we get despondent, we may well-nigh despair. Yes, every heart knows its own story of how far it goes into gloom even about God, His wisdom, His love, His faithfulness. But because God is jealous for the life, and is the Custodian of the life (we are not talking about the natural physical life), the issue is always more than we had before. We always emerge with increase. In a lesser way it is Revelation 22 after every conflict.
We must remember that in all that we are saying there is a factor extra to the natural, physical life. The real battle is in the realm of man's spiritual relationship with God.
7. THE EXODUS
We think of the story of Israel and the emancipation from Egypt, and once again everything is entered in the issue of life and death. God heads it right up to the main, the final, issue of life and death. God, moreover, takes His own way, makes this own provision, so that when death is to be broad in the land, smiting, smiting, smiting, devastating everywhere, His own people shall be immune from death, and shall be in life because of the blood. The life of His own is taken into His own Custody and if the life of His own necessitates the smiting of a nation, grim as that necessity may be, He will follow it out. God stands at nothing when the life of His people is at stake. His jealousy over life is made very clear in all these things.
8. LEVITICAL LAW OF LIFE
I hardly need bring to your remembrance those passages of Scripture, in Leviticus for example, concerning God's attitude towards life, and the emphasis laid upon the necessity for the people to avoid drinking the blood, because the blood is the life and the life is in the blood - "Whosoever it be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people" (Leviticus 7:27). Here is God preserving the life. Life is sacred to Him. Life is His. Man must not appropriate it for himself. Man must not take it and make it his. Life is God's and must ever be regarded as sacred unto God. It means a good deal more than that, of course, but we simply state what is apposite to our present consideration.
All these things, when summed up, bring us primarily to this: that life is sacred to God, and He is intensely jealous over it. Then, that life and not death is God's will. Again, sin and death always go together just as righteousness and life go together. The Old Testament is an earthly type of heavenly truth, and all this is throwing its light forward and saying that what is represented there in those Old Testament Scriptures as to God's attitude toward life - there primarily represented by man's earthly, soul-life - is but figurative, typical, a foreshadowing of that dispensation to come, in which eternal life, Divine life, would be the life given to man.
A LIFE THAT IS ETERNAL
Thus when we come over into the new dispensation, we find that it is not merely the soul-life of man, the bodily life, the life of man as here on the earth which is in view, but it is another life, called eternal life. "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John 10:10). It is over this life that God is represented as being so jealous. It is this life which is pre-eminent in God's thought. The Old Testament, as we have said, is the earthly type or representation of heavenly truth. If it were only a matter of physical death, that is, if the question at issue were but that of the termination of life physically, and that were the end and all that mattered, I do not know that such a great deal of ado might be made about it. But the emphasis in the Old Testament upon even that takes its force from the fact that it is pointing to something else, is typical of something else and is illustrative of another life.
We are not in the New Testament very long before it is apparent that the controversy has been taken into another realm, and is now seen to be over man's spiritual life, over eternal life. That controversy is waged on a two-fold issue: firstly, as to whether man shall become possessed of that life or not, and secondly as to whether that life, once possessed, shall be allowed its full opportunity of final expression in man, or shall not rather be smothered and thwarted, baffled and hindered. That is the controversy. It is still over life, but now we have come into the reality as out from the shadows and the types.
THE PERSISTENT ASSAULT UPON LIFE
So we pass for a few moments to see, in the realm of the reality, the assault of death upon that which is of God.
The Lord Jesus.
Let us pass right on at once to the New Testament, and come to our Lord Jesus, for He gathers all up in Himself. He is the last Adam. He is the greater Abel. All these Old Testament types are gathered up in Him. But remember that at His very birth there was launched an awful design of death. The intention of the devil was to destroy Him at His birth.
We have to pass over many years wherein we have no record of the things that touched His life, and then we find Him in the wilderness; and the explanation of those temptations in the wilderness is that they were an assault upon His life. Though from various points, by various subtleties, the issue was one: they were intended to break His union with the Father and get Him out into a realm where He could be smitten. You have only to see that even He, had He cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple contrary to the will of His Father or, as the enemy would have it viewed, by way of testing God - putting God to the test instead of believing Him - would not have been safeguarded by the angels of whom the devil spoke when he quoted the Scriptures. Angels have no commission to bear in their arms any man or woman who presumptuously tries to test God when called to believe Him. The Lord Jesus in His own life has shown us this. It was a threefold assault upon His life, which was dependent upon unquestioning obedience to His Father.
From the wilderness He went to Nazareth where, in the synagogue, He opened the Scriptures. The outcome was that they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city stood, to cast Him over. A little later the Jews took up stones to stone Him, and He asked them: "Why seek ye to kill me?" (John 7:19). What is connected with such a question? "Ye are of your father the devil...", "He was a murderer from the beginning..." (John 8:44). The Lord Jesus uncovers what lies behind. He sees something more than man's opposition and antagonism. He sees the devil as the murderer, and set against His life.
We follow Him on to the lake, where the storm is beaten up, until those who were most familiar with those storms feared for their very lives. Being awakened by them, He arose, and in words identical with those which He used in casting out demons He rebuked the wind, saying unto the sea: "Peace! be muzzled!" and the storm subsided, showing that behind it there were other forces trying to swallow Him up.
Then we follow Him on into the garden and to the Cross. Who shall know of the death conflict in the darkness? It is all the assault of death upon what is of God.
The Church.
The same thing is carried on into the Church. It is not long before Stephen is stoned, and James is killed. Peter is taken with the same object, but marvellously delivered because God had yet something to do through him. Paul was in deaths oft, despairing sometimes of life. It is a battle with the power of death. There are the sweeping persecutions in which literally tens of thousands of Christians are called upon to lay down their lives for the testimony, and "count not their lives dear unto the death". It goes on still. We are in that succession, not all of us perhaps of outward persecution, but do we not know something of the pressing of that spirit of death? We do!
All this is very true. It is the controversy of Zion. It is the battle for the life of the Lord's people. May the Lord bring home to our hearts the nature of the conflict in which we are found! We have perhaps painted a dark picture, have brought the gloomy aspect into view, and have been rather strong and severe, but if you are not able at the moment through your own experience to enter into what we are saying, you may come to do so if you are going on with the Lord. In some real way you will enter into this controversy of Zion. I am anxious that we should see this more clearly, and recognise it in a more definite way. We can never adequately seek the Lord in relation to it and come into line with His intention to overcome it, be to Him the instrument against it which He requires and desires that we should be, until we are fully alive to what the issue is. I wonder if the Lord's people are at times really alive to the issue, and whether their prayers are always a true index of their apprehension of this thing! I believe that if you and I were adequately impressed, and fully alive to the tremendous issue, we could never pray mere prayers. We could never allow words to run out of our mouths, which is what we call praying. We should be down on our faces in a tremendous conflict on God's side against the evil menace that is seeking to devour the life of God's people; but we shall never pray like that unless we are really alive to what the issue is.
While we may know it in a doctrinal way, it is necessary for us to wake up to what is happening and to what this means. The explanation of many a heaviness and of many a difficult experience is not simply that we have had a meal that does not agree with us, or that we are none too well and therefore not able to pray as we would wish. No, it is not just some physical malady from which we are suffering. This is not something which can be explained along any ordinary line of nature. Behind these things there so often lies another power. We may feel ill in body for no justifiable reason, from the natural standpoint. Our very energies and vitalities, physical and mental, may be sapped, and we say that we are tired, but there is something extra to that. The enemy delights in our accounting for these things on human grounds, when we ought to be waking up to the fact that there is a much bigger issue at stake. Let us ask: what is its tendency, and what is its effect? Is it to destroy our prayer life? Does it work in the direction of bringing us into a state of weakness and uselessness to God? If so, are we going to accept that? That is the question. There is a good deal that seems to be perfectly natural which should not be accepted by the Lord's people, and we need to test everything, try it out, and see whether, after all, the whole thing is natural, or whether there is not something hidden. Do not look for a devil with horns and a tail and a pitchfork! He hides himself. He covers his tracks. He comes in such an intangible way that you are often inclined to explain the whole trouble as quite a natural thing, when it is all covering up something else, and its effect is simply to put you out of spiritual action. We have to wake up to what is the issue for the Lord's people today, and it is no less an issue than that of life and death.
Do you recognise what is actually happening? The enemy does not mind how many so-called churches there are, how much preaching there is, or how much religious worship. I do not know that he minds very much how much orthodoxy there is, or how much of what we would call sound doctrine. What he is against is life. In multitudes of places, so far as the preaching is concerned, and so far as the things said are concerned, no fault can be found, but there is no sense of any vitalizing. There is no energizing, no impact, and no moving of the people to register the testimony of the risen Lord against the forces of evil. The enemy is getting them all quietly, nicely, snugly into spiritual death.
Oh, may the Lord move us to a new position in relation to this tremendous issue, the issue of life and death. The Lord bring it home to our hearts!
http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000703.html
by T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 2 - The Controversy of Zion
Reading: Hebrews 12:22; Isaiah 34:8.
"Ye are come to Zion."
"For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, the year of recompence in the controversy of Zion."
What is the controversy of Zion? It is nothing other than the controversy for the life of Zion. Zion is often represented in the Old Testament as Jehovah's bride, as the one betrothed to Him, to whom He was married. We are familiar with such a phrase as "the virgin daughter of Jerusalem". The history of Zion was a chequered history. Zion was constantly in the realm of dispute, the object of the envy, covetousness, antagonism of the nations, and all the nations were found at one time or another in some kind of relationship with Zion. The history of Zion is a very significant and suggestive history from a spiritual standpoint. The controversy, then, was God's controversy with the nations for Zion's life. The prophecy of Isaiah makes that very clear. God was taking up the cause of Zion, of Zion's very life, and entering into a terrible controversy with the nations on this matter.
Let us bear that in mind as we take up the New Testament and consider the spiritual interpretation. In the Book of the Revelation we find the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, adorned as a bride, and the angel taking the Apostle and saying to him: "Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (Revelation 21:9). The Apostle goes on to say: "And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God". The closing chapter of the Revelation brings us into the city and the central thing therein is the tree of life, while down its centre flows the river of the water of life; and then, as this fullness is viewed, the Spirit and the bride say: "Come." Do you see the spiritual follow-through? Here the controversy for the life of the spiritual Zion is at an end, and life - full, triumphant, effulgent - is the characteristic. Throughout the book of Revelation, God is dealing with the nations, and at its close all nations are seen as having been brought under the judgment of His Son, the controversy of Zion has been settled once for all, and Zion is found at last triumphing in fullness of life.
We have said enough to establish the fact that the controversy is in relation to life, and it is that with which we are concerned at this time. There is a spiritual sense in which we are in God's controversy for Zion today. If we take the sixth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians as representing what is going on in the spiritual realm, namely, a conflict with world rulers, then the rest of that letter makes it perfectly clear that the controversy with the world rulers is concerning the Church: concerning the very life of the Church, the life of the elect. We are, then, in the controversy and the issue is no other, and no less, than the issue of life.
In our earlier meditation, in considering the messages of the Lord to the seven churches in Asia, we were seeing that the thing which occupies the place of pre-eminent importance and value to the Lord Himself is the testimony of life - not tradition, for they had that; not so much Christian work and activity, for they were there; not so many good and commendable things praiseworthy even in the sight of God, for they were there - but that which is central and basic to the Divine election, choice and apprehension is the testimony of life. In the first chapter of the book the Lord is presented as the One who is living, who became dead, but is alive unto the ages of the ages, and has the keys of death and Hades. Alive now from the dead, He is seen standing in the midst of the lampstands, the vessels of testimony, and judging them according to what He is as the Living One, as the One who has conquered death. What He discovers and reveals in those churches is the measure in which that testimony to Him has been lost. This is more to Him than what is found amongst them of interest, concern, activity, for Him and for His things. He shows the things which have struck a blow at that testimony and names them; the things, that is to say, which have interfered with the full expression of Himself as the Living One. So it is disclosed that what to Him is more precious than anything else, than all other things put together, is the spiritual life, in fullness, in power, in expression, in impact, in testimony.
THE LORD'S JEALOUSY OVER LIFE
The priority and primacy of life is referred to in a fragment of Scripture in a much-overlooked little New Testament letter - Titus 1:2: "The hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal". ("Before the world or the ages began" - Amplified New Testament.)
I want to carry that thought 'from before times eternal' into the Old Testament, to see how jealous the Lord is over life, and what is His relationship thereto.
1. THE TREE OF LIFE
It is necessary to go right back to the beginning of the Book, where you will find that immediately there has been that initial disobedience by which sin and death have entered and man has fallen out of his position in relationship to God, and out of his state as created by God, the question of the tree of life arises. Following the judgment upon the serpent, and upon the man and the earth, God takes His step of precaution in relation to the tree of life. He proceeds to safeguard it, lest this man should put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and live for ever. God set His cherubim to keep the way to it with the flaming sword which turned in every direction, so that the tree of life should not be approached.
The interpretation of that is to be found in the last chapter of the Bible. The tree of life in the midst of the city of God is something from which all sin and sinfulness is excluded. Without are seen to be all those who represent fallen Adam, sinful nature. No one can eventually be found in the presence of God, in a living relationship with God, and no one can know eternal life unless the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus has been made effectual in them. The point is that, right at the beginning, God took a step to protect life from the touch and the appropriation of sinful man. God was not going to have a sinful state perpetuated indefinitely. The last chapter of the Bible sets its seal to the fact and shows that the sinful state is fully and finally dealt with. The state perpetuated is a state in fulness of life by reason of what the Lamb has wrought through the shedding of His blood, even as the book of the Revelation makes clear. If at the commencement of the book we can say: "Unto him that loved us, and loosed us from our sins by his blood...", then at the end of the book we can be found within the city, drinking of the water of life freely, and living in the full power of that life. Thus we see right at the beginning God's jealous attitude and action in relation to life. It is precious to note that He suspends the possession of it until the mighty work of the Cross has dealt with all that state which, if perpetuated, would be but the perpetuation of a lost world, of a world outside of the Divine intention.
2. CAIN AND ABEL
The next step to the unveiling of God's attitude toward life is seen in His dealings with Cain. When Cain has slain his brother Abel, God instantly appears on the scene. There is no delay; it is as though God hastens to the situation. Here is something which concerns Him preeminently. No sooner has Cain shed the blood of his brother, and that warm blood trickled into the sand, than God is on the scene. "Where is Abel thy brother? And he said I know not: am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground" (Genesis 4:9-10). Then see what God has to say to Cain. He is cursed. He is marked. Everybody who shall observe him shall see him as scarred by God and branded: and he, hardened as he may have been, and insolent to God, has to humble himself and say: "My punishment is greater than I can bear." That is God's attitude toward life - His jealousy over it.
3. NOAH
We pass to Noah. The terms of the covenant with Noah are familiar to us, the equalizing of things in that covenant, and the terrible warning to man: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed..." (Genesis 9:6). God will keep things even. No man shall get an advantage in this matter. No man who touches that thing which is precious to God shall come by any gain. God will bring it to evenness. He will equalize in the realm of life. You rob man of that and you shall be robbed; you shall not be the gainer. That is a solemn warning and shows to man what is God's attitude toward life.
4. ENOCH
There is a great disclosure in the Old Testament of God's mind for man in this matter. God's thought is life, not death. God is against death and for life. We glance back a step and see Enoch, who breaks the long story of death: "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him" (Genesis 5:24). That is an offset to the course of fallen man, showing what God's thought is when a man comes into real fellowship with Himself. It is life, not death, and that was ever God's thought. It remains God's thought, and He is going to have it fully and gloriously expressed in a company of His own believing children, who will be translated to His presence even as Enoch was, and will not see death or the grave.
5. ABRAHAM AND ISAAC
In Abraham and Isaac it is further set forth that when God has a great purpose in mind, when He is moving out on that basis, He must have things brought on to the ground where death cannot touch His purpose. Isaac is the one in whom the purpose of God is bound up, and therefore for the sake of the purpose Isaac must be put typically beyond the power of death. He must come into death to have death destroyed, that God's purpose might be realized upon a ground where death is not future, but past. That is the great illustration of Divine purpose being upon the ground of deathless life. And in the greater Isaac the purposes of God are all going to be realized, without any fear whatever of death breaking in to interrupt, because in Christ death is past and not future.
All these are vivid, strong, and, in most cases, agonized expressions of God's attitude to the clatter of life. It is a very costly thing. It was infinitely costly to God. It cost those who were in fellowship with God much also. All this is the controversy of Zion in principle - God's jealousy in the matter of life.
6. JOB
We pass on, so far as the arrangement of the record is concerned, and come to Job; and here Satan is found in the heavenlies with access to God. God challenges him: "Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth..." (Job 2:3). Satan sneers back at God: "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce thee to thy face." Do you see how the question of life is bound up in that challenge, and what subtlety there is in the whole movement? God gives Satan permission to touch Job; to touch his body, to touch his family, his property, everything that he has, but says: "... Only spare his life." Here again is God's jealousy for life. Satan gets to work, and the subtlety is this: that Satan presses, and presses, and presses along every line, by every means, seeking to touch Job's life indirectly, because he cannot touch it directly. Satan's indirect method is to move Job to break with God by cursing Him, so that his life is forfeited and destroyed.* (*[footnote] The suggestion of Job's wife may have been that he should break with God, and then take his own life.) To understand the book of Job we have to recognise that it is a controversy for life. We have said it is a controversy over faith, but that is a relative factor. The real controversy is over life. We shall see the faith element at some subsequent time, but here God's jealousy for life is seen. Job is brought to great straits, but the life link is never broken, and the end is life triumphant. We see fullness, victory, everything that speaks of life at the end.
We sometimes come very near to collapse under the strain, under the trial, under the tension. When the enemy is pressing to quench our spiritual life through body, through mind, through circumstance, we are often brought very low, as was Job. We have our questionings, we get despondent, we may well-nigh despair. Yes, every heart knows its own story of how far it goes into gloom even about God, His wisdom, His love, His faithfulness. But because God is jealous for the life, and is the Custodian of the life (we are not talking about the natural physical life), the issue is always more than we had before. We always emerge with increase. In a lesser way it is Revelation 22 after every conflict.
We must remember that in all that we are saying there is a factor extra to the natural, physical life. The real battle is in the realm of man's spiritual relationship with God.
7. THE EXODUS
We think of the story of Israel and the emancipation from Egypt, and once again everything is entered in the issue of life and death. God heads it right up to the main, the final, issue of life and death. God, moreover, takes His own way, makes this own provision, so that when death is to be broad in the land, smiting, smiting, smiting, devastating everywhere, His own people shall be immune from death, and shall be in life because of the blood. The life of His own is taken into His own Custody and if the life of His own necessitates the smiting of a nation, grim as that necessity may be, He will follow it out. God stands at nothing when the life of His people is at stake. His jealousy over life is made very clear in all these things.
8. LEVITICAL LAW OF LIFE
I hardly need bring to your remembrance those passages of Scripture, in Leviticus for example, concerning God's attitude towards life, and the emphasis laid upon the necessity for the people to avoid drinking the blood, because the blood is the life and the life is in the blood - "Whosoever it be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people" (Leviticus 7:27). Here is God preserving the life. Life is sacred to Him. Life is His. Man must not appropriate it for himself. Man must not take it and make it his. Life is God's and must ever be regarded as sacred unto God. It means a good deal more than that, of course, but we simply state what is apposite to our present consideration.
All these things, when summed up, bring us primarily to this: that life is sacred to God, and He is intensely jealous over it. Then, that life and not death is God's will. Again, sin and death always go together just as righteousness and life go together. The Old Testament is an earthly type of heavenly truth, and all this is throwing its light forward and saying that what is represented there in those Old Testament Scriptures as to God's attitude toward life - there primarily represented by man's earthly, soul-life - is but figurative, typical, a foreshadowing of that dispensation to come, in which eternal life, Divine life, would be the life given to man.
A LIFE THAT IS ETERNAL
Thus when we come over into the new dispensation, we find that it is not merely the soul-life of man, the bodily life, the life of man as here on the earth which is in view, but it is another life, called eternal life. "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John 10:10). It is over this life that God is represented as being so jealous. It is this life which is pre-eminent in God's thought. The Old Testament, as we have said, is the earthly type or representation of heavenly truth. If it were only a matter of physical death, that is, if the question at issue were but that of the termination of life physically, and that were the end and all that mattered, I do not know that such a great deal of ado might be made about it. But the emphasis in the Old Testament upon even that takes its force from the fact that it is pointing to something else, is typical of something else and is illustrative of another life.
We are not in the New Testament very long before it is apparent that the controversy has been taken into another realm, and is now seen to be over man's spiritual life, over eternal life. That controversy is waged on a two-fold issue: firstly, as to whether man shall become possessed of that life or not, and secondly as to whether that life, once possessed, shall be allowed its full opportunity of final expression in man, or shall not rather be smothered and thwarted, baffled and hindered. That is the controversy. It is still over life, but now we have come into the reality as out from the shadows and the types.
THE PERSISTENT ASSAULT UPON LIFE
So we pass for a few moments to see, in the realm of the reality, the assault of death upon that which is of God.
The Lord Jesus.
Let us pass right on at once to the New Testament, and come to our Lord Jesus, for He gathers all up in Himself. He is the last Adam. He is the greater Abel. All these Old Testament types are gathered up in Him. But remember that at His very birth there was launched an awful design of death. The intention of the devil was to destroy Him at His birth.
We have to pass over many years wherein we have no record of the things that touched His life, and then we find Him in the wilderness; and the explanation of those temptations in the wilderness is that they were an assault upon His life. Though from various points, by various subtleties, the issue was one: they were intended to break His union with the Father and get Him out into a realm where He could be smitten. You have only to see that even He, had He cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple contrary to the will of His Father or, as the enemy would have it viewed, by way of testing God - putting God to the test instead of believing Him - would not have been safeguarded by the angels of whom the devil spoke when he quoted the Scriptures. Angels have no commission to bear in their arms any man or woman who presumptuously tries to test God when called to believe Him. The Lord Jesus in His own life has shown us this. It was a threefold assault upon His life, which was dependent upon unquestioning obedience to His Father.
From the wilderness He went to Nazareth where, in the synagogue, He opened the Scriptures. The outcome was that they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city stood, to cast Him over. A little later the Jews took up stones to stone Him, and He asked them: "Why seek ye to kill me?" (John 7:19). What is connected with such a question? "Ye are of your father the devil...", "He was a murderer from the beginning..." (John 8:44). The Lord Jesus uncovers what lies behind. He sees something more than man's opposition and antagonism. He sees the devil as the murderer, and set against His life.
We follow Him on to the lake, where the storm is beaten up, until those who were most familiar with those storms feared for their very lives. Being awakened by them, He arose, and in words identical with those which He used in casting out demons He rebuked the wind, saying unto the sea: "Peace! be muzzled!" and the storm subsided, showing that behind it there were other forces trying to swallow Him up.
Then we follow Him on into the garden and to the Cross. Who shall know of the death conflict in the darkness? It is all the assault of death upon what is of God.
The Church.
The same thing is carried on into the Church. It is not long before Stephen is stoned, and James is killed. Peter is taken with the same object, but marvellously delivered because God had yet something to do through him. Paul was in deaths oft, despairing sometimes of life. It is a battle with the power of death. There are the sweeping persecutions in which literally tens of thousands of Christians are called upon to lay down their lives for the testimony, and "count not their lives dear unto the death". It goes on still. We are in that succession, not all of us perhaps of outward persecution, but do we not know something of the pressing of that spirit of death? We do!
All this is very true. It is the controversy of Zion. It is the battle for the life of the Lord's people. May the Lord bring home to our hearts the nature of the conflict in which we are found! We have perhaps painted a dark picture, have brought the gloomy aspect into view, and have been rather strong and severe, but if you are not able at the moment through your own experience to enter into what we are saying, you may come to do so if you are going on with the Lord. In some real way you will enter into this controversy of Zion. I am anxious that we should see this more clearly, and recognise it in a more definite way. We can never adequately seek the Lord in relation to it and come into line with His intention to overcome it, be to Him the instrument against it which He requires and desires that we should be, until we are fully alive to what the issue is. I wonder if the Lord's people are at times really alive to the issue, and whether their prayers are always a true index of their apprehension of this thing! I believe that if you and I were adequately impressed, and fully alive to the tremendous issue, we could never pray mere prayers. We could never allow words to run out of our mouths, which is what we call praying. We should be down on our faces in a tremendous conflict on God's side against the evil menace that is seeking to devour the life of God's people; but we shall never pray like that unless we are really alive to what the issue is.
While we may know it in a doctrinal way, it is necessary for us to wake up to what is happening and to what this means. The explanation of many a heaviness and of many a difficult experience is not simply that we have had a meal that does not agree with us, or that we are none too well and therefore not able to pray as we would wish. No, it is not just some physical malady from which we are suffering. This is not something which can be explained along any ordinary line of nature. Behind these things there so often lies another power. We may feel ill in body for no justifiable reason, from the natural standpoint. Our very energies and vitalities, physical and mental, may be sapped, and we say that we are tired, but there is something extra to that. The enemy delights in our accounting for these things on human grounds, when we ought to be waking up to the fact that there is a much bigger issue at stake. Let us ask: what is its tendency, and what is its effect? Is it to destroy our prayer life? Does it work in the direction of bringing us into a state of weakness and uselessness to God? If so, are we going to accept that? That is the question. There is a good deal that seems to be perfectly natural which should not be accepted by the Lord's people, and we need to test everything, try it out, and see whether, after all, the whole thing is natural, or whether there is not something hidden. Do not look for a devil with horns and a tail and a pitchfork! He hides himself. He covers his tracks. He comes in such an intangible way that you are often inclined to explain the whole trouble as quite a natural thing, when it is all covering up something else, and its effect is simply to put you out of spiritual action. We have to wake up to what is the issue for the Lord's people today, and it is no less an issue than that of life and death.
Do you recognise what is actually happening? The enemy does not mind how many so-called churches there are, how much preaching there is, or how much religious worship. I do not know that he minds very much how much orthodoxy there is, or how much of what we would call sound doctrine. What he is against is life. In multitudes of places, so far as the preaching is concerned, and so far as the things said are concerned, no fault can be found, but there is no sense of any vitalizing. There is no energizing, no impact, and no moving of the people to register the testimony of the risen Lord against the forces of evil. The enemy is getting them all quietly, nicely, snugly into spiritual death.
Oh, may the Lord move us to a new position in relation to this tremendous issue, the issue of life and death. The Lord bring it home to our hearts!
http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000703.html
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Ye cannot serve God and mammon
By A.B. Simpson Jesus does not say you cannot very well serve God and mammon.
Rather, He says you cannot serve two masters at all.
If you try, you will surely end up serving only one.
The person who thinks he or she is serving God a little is deceived.
He or she is not serving God. God will not have that service.
The devil will monopolize the person before long. A divided heart loses both worlds.
Saul tried it. Balaam tried it. Judas tried it. Their efforts ended in desperate failure.
For Mary there was but one choice.
Paul said: This one thing I do, and For me to live is Christ. Of such a life God says: Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name (Psalm 91:14).
God takes a peculiar pride in revealing His love to the heart that wholly chooses Him.
Heaven and earth will fade away before its trust can be disappointed.
Have we chosen Him only and given Him all our hearts?
Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing? Is He your Royal Master? Is He your heart's dear King?
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article4494.shtml
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Lords of Darkness
To the Lords of Darkness, the pastors of the Lord's flocks in America,
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
M't:23:33
You have become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore you shall not prosper, and all your flocks shall be scattered. Your flocks are scattered in a thousand denominations and sects and cults. Your flocks sit under the headship of serpents and slumber as you do. None of you are in unity with anything but your bellies. And you have become Lords of Darkness who rule in the name of Satan. Says the LORD.
You pastors of God's flocks serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but your own belly; and by good words and fair speeches and great shows of opulent pride with covetousness, deceive the hearts of the simple. You pastors rely upon questionnaires and surveys to find out what the dumb sheep want from a church and a pastor today. You have become experts in marketing and demographics. You have become the Predators that you have been ordained to become. The Knowledge of God does not exist in you. The Lord God has already shown you His wrath and you have tasted the bitterness of His displeasure, Yet you hearken not unto God, nor inclined you ears to hear, but hardened your necks: and you do worse than your fathers. More than foul weather approaches your land. Do you not hear the Thunder? Will you not heed the warnings?
You have sown for gain and reap esteem, profit and fat earthly rewards and your father the devil, reaps multitudes of damned souls, lulled into a sleepwalk of death by virtue of your skillful, blood soaked, deceiving tongues. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. That, you have done. You have become pitchmen, not careful watchmen. And the Lord rebuke you all.
The Lord God says, many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Your grand facades and business ventures and holdings are your god. And you teach the love of mammon and self over the love of Truth, humility and obedience to the God of Israel. Your mesmerized, cash-cow congregations feed your lusts and condemn themselves to rebuke and spiritual death. Yet you do not warn them. You milk them for all you can get from them. And why is it that the true worshipers of God are now returning to their homes to worship as they did in the days before the advent of the cathedrals and of the mega-churches and your LIE!? Praise the Living God!
What goes around, comes around Pastors of America. Your churches are filled with wood, hay and stubble, false gospels and true lies, ready now to burn. Your mega-barns are stored up with famine. We have plowed these fields by the calling of God. And now, that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. You have become utterly depraved.
The Elect of God have come out from your whorehouses and been scattered into the wilderness where they belong. What have you taught the people, Lords of Darkness? You have taught them blasphemies. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. And I speak directly to you, my "Pentecostal" friends". For the Lord has heard your "howlings" and witnessed your witchcraft! The Lord says, I have heard all thy blasphemies!
And what recompense comes for you, dear pastors? You have a great reward in the eyes of men. And this reward has a bill attached to it. The shew of your countenance does witness against you; and you declare you sin as Sodom, you hide it not. Woe unto your souls! For you have rewarded evil unto yourselves. It is not the freedom in Christ you preach. It is slavery to sin. Communion with darkness. And the very chains with which you have bound so many, are bound around your souls and will be your sore comforter in blackest darkness, forever separated from the God you sold out, because of your weakness and compromise.
You Pastors of America are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and you are shepherds that cannot understand: you all look to your own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. You sow and breed iniquity. And I warn you, there is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. And you 'shepherds' shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape, for what is coming upon you for your rebellion and idolatry. The Lord God has found you out. He has known of you.
You send your missionaries out into the world to make your deceived proselytes twice the sons of hell than you are. You spread plague. Plagues of un-truths and the vomit of your covetous bellies. Woe be unto you pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of God's pasture! saith the LORD. And woe unto you who profane the name of a Righteous God. Jesus Christ has spoken to you, ...but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. You do not preach repentance, humility, holiness before God. You preach obedience to vanity and lust. You preach a strange gospel. You preach prosperity for the body and leave the souls to starve.
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened,
and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire:
no man shall spare his brother.
Isa:9:19
To you sheep of the Brothels of Darkness, the Lord God of Israel has spoken unto you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you obeyed not God's voice. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. God's Watchmen are told therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. And that trouble has surrounded your gilded cages you call churches and ministries. And it awaits the Destroyer. You are surrounded. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all you that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for you have sinned against the LORD. But you shall NOT prevail!
Therefore says the Lord, the wind shall eat up all your pastors, and your lovers shall go into captivity. Your idols shall be destroyed. Surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. Will anyone heed the warning? Will anyone consider what has truly befallen you? The Lord God will first recompense your iniquity and your sin double; because you have defiled God's Church, you have filled God's inheritance with the carcases of your detestable and abominable things. And your worship is an abomination in the sight of this Holy God. And God will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and God's soul shall abhor you.
America, in all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. You have allowed Lords of Darkness to sit in authority over you. Over your souls. Your delusion is complete and utterly immutable. And the Lord God has now said, As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go you, serve you every one his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not hearken unto me: but pollute you my Holy Name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
America, you are idolaters. And your fate is sealed. And in the words of Job, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. How therefore then can revival come to this forsaken land, America? It is nowhere to be found. Only war in your hearts, famine of God's Word, the pestilence eating away your seared consciences and the death of multitudes of souls.
I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,
which walketh in a way that was not good,
after their own thoughts;
Isa:65:2
WISDOM cries outside; she utters her voice in the streets. Can you hear her? She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. In the parking lots and in your defiled sanctuaries and temples of your hearts. In the city she utters her words, saying, How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and you refused to listen; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But you have regarded all my counsel as nothing, and would have none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes; When your fear comes as desolation, and your destruction comes as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish comes upon you. Then shall you call upon me, but I will not answer; you shall seek me early, but you shall not find me: For you that hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: you would have none of His counsel: you despised all His reproof. Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of you own way, and be filled with your own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay you, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy you. But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
To the Saints of the Light...
Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted,
it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
Mic:2:10
But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Are you dwelling in safety with your God Saints? I know you are. The Lords of Darkness no longer hold sway over you. Their spells have no power anymore. You have been called out of the Harlot and you are free in and by the Blood of Jesus Christ. For it is only in Blood and this Jesus, that you will be saved at the end. It is only in this blood which covers you, that your ears will be closed up to the sounds of the Pitchmen of Satan and the screams of terror which comes upon the wicked.
Remain in God. Seek always the Truth. Love it, and it shall be well with you. As I have been given to speak it to you in years past, it has now come to pass that the chasm between the Elect and the Chaff is deep and wide and well formed. It is before your very eyes. None shall escape the Judgment that comes. Do not look back upon what you have left behind, lest you be turned to a pillar of salt by a God who requires His Priesthood to look forward unto Him at all times. Without fear must you continue in the Way; The very narrow way with the real Jesus; The Stone the builders of today's churches have rejected. We are rejected and reviled as He was. But that, to the glory of our God. Take the pain and rejoice in the sufferings that come upon you in the manner of Jesus our Lord of Light. Leave behind the darkness forever. And in the quiet solitude of your Refuge, wait, watch and pray. There is a great move of God going forth at this time. His Saints are being visited. His watchmen know this.
God has sent you a few true pastors and watchmen. Heed them. They come in the name of the Lord God. And they shall teach God's people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. God's people shall enter into His sanctuary, and they shall come near to His table, to minister to God, and they shall keep His charge. Remember that your righteousness is in and of Jesus Christ. Nothing you could have done could earn you even a glimpse of the glory of God. Be thankful always to our God for His mercy and the unfathomable depths of His Love that He has extended to you. Remember that you are clay and water, dust in the wind, yet you are remembered by God. Hearken not to the Lords of Darkness. Now, more than ever, remain steadfast, vigilant and in complete humility before our Father. He has made us righteous by His own blood. Not ours. For, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. For we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Praise and glory be to the Almighty, Sovereign Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and for ever. May His grace, peace and mercy abound. May you Saints be fortified in the knowledge of Jesus Christ by the indwelling of His Spirit. Much has begun that cannot be turned back. The true Elect of God rejoice that the way back, over their shoulders to the Sodom they have fled, is forever blocked, the bridges burned and in smoldering ruin. We move forward in Christ and we shall soon behold the very Hand of the Living God in full upon our wicked land and upon the cankered fields of souls.
Keep to the Road Saints of the Living God. Do not look back. Do not keep your eyes on Jerusalem, Saints. Only fools heed this deceptive catch-phrase. It has made some of the Wolves who preach this, much mammon. I ask you, will you have even access to electricity when what is to become of Jerusalem occurs? Our land faces sore Judgment and no conveniences in its aftermath. Keep your eyes upon the Good Shepherd who walks before you. By answering the Call to follow the real Jesus Christ, you have entered in at the strait gate and are now walking a narrow way with Jesus. May Life be yours at the end of your Journey.
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Rev 12:12
This time is at hand. Look up Saints. And don't look back. Amen.
http://www.theremnantcafe.org/articles/lordsofdarkness.htm
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
M't:23:33
You have become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore you shall not prosper, and all your flocks shall be scattered. Your flocks are scattered in a thousand denominations and sects and cults. Your flocks sit under the headship of serpents and slumber as you do. None of you are in unity with anything but your bellies. And you have become Lords of Darkness who rule in the name of Satan. Says the LORD.
You pastors of God's flocks serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but your own belly; and by good words and fair speeches and great shows of opulent pride with covetousness, deceive the hearts of the simple. You pastors rely upon questionnaires and surveys to find out what the dumb sheep want from a church and a pastor today. You have become experts in marketing and demographics. You have become the Predators that you have been ordained to become. The Knowledge of God does not exist in you. The Lord God has already shown you His wrath and you have tasted the bitterness of His displeasure, Yet you hearken not unto God, nor inclined you ears to hear, but hardened your necks: and you do worse than your fathers. More than foul weather approaches your land. Do you not hear the Thunder? Will you not heed the warnings?
You have sown for gain and reap esteem, profit and fat earthly rewards and your father the devil, reaps multitudes of damned souls, lulled into a sleepwalk of death by virtue of your skillful, blood soaked, deceiving tongues. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. That, you have done. You have become pitchmen, not careful watchmen. And the Lord rebuke you all.
The Lord God says, many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Your grand facades and business ventures and holdings are your god. And you teach the love of mammon and self over the love of Truth, humility and obedience to the God of Israel. Your mesmerized, cash-cow congregations feed your lusts and condemn themselves to rebuke and spiritual death. Yet you do not warn them. You milk them for all you can get from them. And why is it that the true worshipers of God are now returning to their homes to worship as they did in the days before the advent of the cathedrals and of the mega-churches and your LIE!? Praise the Living God!
What goes around, comes around Pastors of America. Your churches are filled with wood, hay and stubble, false gospels and true lies, ready now to burn. Your mega-barns are stored up with famine. We have plowed these fields by the calling of God. And now, that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. You have become utterly depraved.
The Elect of God have come out from your whorehouses and been scattered into the wilderness where they belong. What have you taught the people, Lords of Darkness? You have taught them blasphemies. Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed. And I speak directly to you, my "Pentecostal" friends". For the Lord has heard your "howlings" and witnessed your witchcraft! The Lord says, I have heard all thy blasphemies!
And what recompense comes for you, dear pastors? You have a great reward in the eyes of men. And this reward has a bill attached to it. The shew of your countenance does witness against you; and you declare you sin as Sodom, you hide it not. Woe unto your souls! For you have rewarded evil unto yourselves. It is not the freedom in Christ you preach. It is slavery to sin. Communion with darkness. And the very chains with which you have bound so many, are bound around your souls and will be your sore comforter in blackest darkness, forever separated from the God you sold out, because of your weakness and compromise.
You Pastors of America are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and you are shepherds that cannot understand: you all look to your own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. You sow and breed iniquity. And I warn you, there is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. And you 'shepherds' shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape, for what is coming upon you for your rebellion and idolatry. The Lord God has found you out. He has known of you.
You send your missionaries out into the world to make your deceived proselytes twice the sons of hell than you are. You spread plague. Plagues of un-truths and the vomit of your covetous bellies. Woe be unto you pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of God's pasture! saith the LORD. And woe unto you who profane the name of a Righteous God. Jesus Christ has spoken to you, ...but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. You do not preach repentance, humility, holiness before God. You preach obedience to vanity and lust. You preach a strange gospel. You preach prosperity for the body and leave the souls to starve.
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened,
and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire:
no man shall spare his brother.
Isa:9:19
To you sheep of the Brothels of Darkness, the Lord God of Israel has spoken unto you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your manner from your youth, that you obeyed not God's voice. Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. God's Watchmen are told therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. And that trouble has surrounded your gilded cages you call churches and ministries. And it awaits the Destroyer. You are surrounded. Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all you that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for you have sinned against the LORD. But you shall NOT prevail!
Therefore says the Lord, the wind shall eat up all your pastors, and your lovers shall go into captivity. Your idols shall be destroyed. Surely then shall you be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. Will anyone heed the warning? Will anyone consider what has truly befallen you? The Lord God will first recompense your iniquity and your sin double; because you have defiled God's Church, you have filled God's inheritance with the carcases of your detestable and abominable things. And your worship is an abomination in the sight of this Holy God. And God will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and God's soul shall abhor you.
America, in all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. You have allowed Lords of Darkness to sit in authority over you. Over your souls. Your delusion is complete and utterly immutable. And the Lord God has now said, As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go you, serve you every one his idols, and hereafter also, if you will not hearken unto me: but pollute you my Holy Name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
America, you are idolaters. And your fate is sealed. And in the words of Job, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. How therefore then can revival come to this forsaken land, America? It is nowhere to be found. Only war in your hearts, famine of God's Word, the pestilence eating away your seared consciences and the death of multitudes of souls.
I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,
which walketh in a way that was not good,
after their own thoughts;
Isa:65:2
WISDOM cries outside; she utters her voice in the streets. Can you hear her? She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. In the parking lots and in your defiled sanctuaries and temples of your hearts. In the city she utters her words, saying, How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and you refused to listen; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But you have regarded all my counsel as nothing, and would have none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes; When your fear comes as desolation, and your destruction comes as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish comes upon you. Then shall you call upon me, but I will not answer; you shall seek me early, but you shall not find me: For you that hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: you would have none of His counsel: you despised all His reproof. Therefore shall you eat of the fruit of you own way, and be filled with your own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay you, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy you. But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
To the Saints of the Light...
Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted,
it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.
Mic:2:10
But whoso hearkeneth unto The Lord God shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Are you dwelling in safety with your God Saints? I know you are. The Lords of Darkness no longer hold sway over you. Their spells have no power anymore. You have been called out of the Harlot and you are free in and by the Blood of Jesus Christ. For it is only in Blood and this Jesus, that you will be saved at the end. It is only in this blood which covers you, that your ears will be closed up to the sounds of the Pitchmen of Satan and the screams of terror which comes upon the wicked.
Remain in God. Seek always the Truth. Love it, and it shall be well with you. As I have been given to speak it to you in years past, it has now come to pass that the chasm between the Elect and the Chaff is deep and wide and well formed. It is before your very eyes. None shall escape the Judgment that comes. Do not look back upon what you have left behind, lest you be turned to a pillar of salt by a God who requires His Priesthood to look forward unto Him at all times. Without fear must you continue in the Way; The very narrow way with the real Jesus; The Stone the builders of today's churches have rejected. We are rejected and reviled as He was. But that, to the glory of our God. Take the pain and rejoice in the sufferings that come upon you in the manner of Jesus our Lord of Light. Leave behind the darkness forever. And in the quiet solitude of your Refuge, wait, watch and pray. There is a great move of God going forth at this time. His Saints are being visited. His watchmen know this.
God has sent you a few true pastors and watchmen. Heed them. They come in the name of the Lord God. And they shall teach God's people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. God's people shall enter into His sanctuary, and they shall come near to His table, to minister to God, and they shall keep His charge. Remember that your righteousness is in and of Jesus Christ. Nothing you could have done could earn you even a glimpse of the glory of God. Be thankful always to our God for His mercy and the unfathomable depths of His Love that He has extended to you. Remember that you are clay and water, dust in the wind, yet you are remembered by God. Hearken not to the Lords of Darkness. Now, more than ever, remain steadfast, vigilant and in complete humility before our Father. He has made us righteous by His own blood. Not ours. For, as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. For we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Praise and glory be to the Almighty, Sovereign Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for ever and for ever. May His grace, peace and mercy abound. May you Saints be fortified in the knowledge of Jesus Christ by the indwelling of His Spirit. Much has begun that cannot be turned back. The true Elect of God rejoice that the way back, over their shoulders to the Sodom they have fled, is forever blocked, the bridges burned and in smoldering ruin. We move forward in Christ and we shall soon behold the very Hand of the Living God in full upon our wicked land and upon the cankered fields of souls.
Keep to the Road Saints of the Living God. Do not look back. Do not keep your eyes on Jerusalem, Saints. Only fools heed this deceptive catch-phrase. It has made some of the Wolves who preach this, much mammon. I ask you, will you have even access to electricity when what is to become of Jerusalem occurs? Our land faces sore Judgment and no conveniences in its aftermath. Keep your eyes upon the Good Shepherd who walks before you. By answering the Call to follow the real Jesus Christ, you have entered in at the strait gate and are now walking a narrow way with Jesus. May Life be yours at the end of your Journey.
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Rev 12:12
This time is at hand. Look up Saints. And don't look back. Amen.
http://www.theremnantcafe.org/articles/lordsofdarkness.htm
How long halt ye between two opinions?
By A.B. Simpson It is strange that people will not get over the idea that a consecrated life is a difficult one.
A simple illustration will answer this foolish impression. Suppose a streetcar operator were to say, "It is much easier to run with one wheel on the track and the other off." His line would soon be dropped by the public, who would prefer to walk.
Of course, it is ever so much easier to run with both wheels on the track-and always on the track-and it is much easier to follow Christ fully than to follow Him with a half heart and halting step.
Elijah was right in his pungent question, How long halt ye between two opinions?
The undecided man is a halting man.
The halting man is a lame man and a miserable man, but the out-and-out Christian is the admiration of men and angels and a continual joy to himself. Say, is it all for Jesus, As you so often sing?
Is He your Royal Master, Is He your heart's true King?
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article4621.shtml
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
What He Calls Death
By William M. Clow
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
(1 Cor. 15:55).
He has three names for death. He calls it a falling asleep. He is using one of the phrases which daring and trustful men had coined, and He is giving it proof and reality. When He stands beside the bed of Jairus' little daughter He softly says, "Talitha cumi," "My little lambie, arise."
He calls it a going to the Father. This is the word which remained unspoken until the end, but it was His most cherished thought. When He gathers His disciples together in the upper room, and He is upon the eve of His dying, then the word is like a refrain in a song, a recurring note of music in His addresses. Again and again He repeats, "I go to My Father." He is like an emigrant who has been for years in another hemisphere and in the land of strangers. He has been busy with its life and its industries. He has endured its hardships and isolation. Now the time of His sojourn is over and the hour of His return is come. He is going to the Father. He is going home.
He calls it, in the conversation, by a singular word. "They spake of His decease." In the literal and significant meaning of the word it was His "exodus. "We cannot doubt why the word was chosen. It is the thought of death from the point of view of one who is about to go out by it as by a door. How full of light is this word. Death is an exodus, a going out from the land of the stranger, from the house of bondage, from affliction and thankless toil, from the state of the slave. Death is a deliverance and a boon. It is a going through a wilderness, with its loneliness and its pain and privation, but it is a going through a wilderness upon a journey which is to end in the land which is the promise of God.
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article9624.shtml
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
(1 Cor. 15:55).
He has three names for death. He calls it a falling asleep. He is using one of the phrases which daring and trustful men had coined, and He is giving it proof and reality. When He stands beside the bed of Jairus' little daughter He softly says, "Talitha cumi," "My little lambie, arise."
He calls it a going to the Father. This is the word which remained unspoken until the end, but it was His most cherished thought. When He gathers His disciples together in the upper room, and He is upon the eve of His dying, then the word is like a refrain in a song, a recurring note of music in His addresses. Again and again He repeats, "I go to My Father." He is like an emigrant who has been for years in another hemisphere and in the land of strangers. He has been busy with its life and its industries. He has endured its hardships and isolation. Now the time of His sojourn is over and the hour of His return is come. He is going to the Father. He is going home.
He calls it, in the conversation, by a singular word. "They spake of His decease." In the literal and significant meaning of the word it was His "exodus. "We cannot doubt why the word was chosen. It is the thought of death from the point of view of one who is about to go out by it as by a door. How full of light is this word. Death is an exodus, a going out from the land of the stranger, from the house of bondage, from affliction and thankless toil, from the state of the slave. Death is a deliverance and a boon. It is a going through a wilderness, with its loneliness and its pain and privation, but it is a going through a wilderness upon a journey which is to end in the land which is the promise of God.
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article9624.shtml
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Treasure in Earthen Vessels
By Alan Redpath
The principle of the world is "self-glorification," and the principle of the Christian is "self-crucifixion."
The principle of the world is "exalt yourself," and the principle of the Christian is "crucify yourself."
The principle of men is greatness, bigness, pomp, and show; the principle of the cross is death. Therefore, whenever a man has seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ . . . at once he comes right into a head-on collision within his own personal living, with all of his principles and motives upon which he has lived until this moment. . . . if there is to be a continual manifestation of Holy Spirit life, there must be a constant submission to the crucifixion of the flesh, not simply sometimes, but always.
. . . . I see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, in the measure in which I am prepared to die. . . Why is it that so many Christians behave like kindergarten children? Because they have not seen His face!
. . . And the cost in the Christian life. . . . Deep down in the Christian's life, always and all the time, there is to be a "no" to every demand that the flesh may make for recognition, and every demand that the flesh may make for approval, and every demand that the flesh may make for vindication. Always the Christian must bear about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Blessings Out of Buffetings, p. 37-38).
http://articles.christiansunite.com/article370.shtml
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)