They made him king, and anointed him. 2 Kings 11:12

  
Our Daily Homily

      They made him king, and anointed him. 2 Kings 11:12
     
      THIS dexterous overthrow of Athaliah by the bringing of the youthful king, who had been hidden in the secret chambers of the Temple, accommodates itself so obviously to a reference to the inner life, that we must be pardoned for making it.
     
      Is not the spiritual condition of too many children of God represented by the condition of the Temple, during the early years of the life of Joash? The king was within its precincts, the rightful heir of the crown and defender of the worship of Jehovah: but, as a matter of fact, the crown was on the head of the usurper Athaliah, who was exercising a cruel and sanguinary tyranny. The king was limited to a chamber, and the majority of the priests, with all the people, had not even heard of his existence. So, unless we are reprobates, Jesus is within the spirit, which has been regenerated by the Holy Ghost; but in too many cases He is limited to a very small corner of our nature, and exercises but a limited power over our life.
     
      There needs to be an anointing, an enthroning, a determination that He shall exercise his power over the entire Temple of our Being; the spirit, which stands for the Holy of Holies; the soul, for the Holy Place ; the body, for the outer court.
     
      Holiness or Sanctification is Dot a quality or attribute which can be attributed to us apart from the indwelling of the Holy One. If we would be holy, we must be indwelt by Him who is holy. If we would have holiness, we must be infilled by the Holy One. But there must be no limiting of his power, no barrier to his control, no veiling or curtaining of his light. The veil, if such there be, must be rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

Want to Run Away?

By Warren Wiersbe


Read Psalm 11:1-7
Have you ever felt like running away? "In the Lord I put my trust; how can you say to my soul, 'Flee as a bird to your mountain'?" (v. 1). All of us have days when we feel like quitting. We throw up our hands and say, "That's it. I've had it, and I'm leaving."

At times we do need to get away to rest and regain our perspec-tive. Our Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Let's just depart and rest a while." Vance Havner once remarked, "If you don't come apart and rest, you'll just come apart." But the psalmist was not talking about a vacation. "The wicked bend their bow" (v. 2). He was saying, "The wicked are doing this and that. Let's get out of here and go to some mountaintop and have a good Bible conference."

When you feel like running or flying away, remember, God's throne is secure. The Lord is in His holy temple. In a difficult time Isaiah looked up and saw the Lord on His throne, high and lifted up. In the Book of Revelation, John saw the Lord on His throne, and it gave him new courage.

Don't flee to a mountain; flee to the throne of grace. When you feel like quitting or running away, remember that you can't run away from your troubles and you can't run away from yourself. The solution is not running away; it's running to. It's running to the throne of grace and finding grace to help in time of need.

Those times when you feel like quitting can be times of great opportunity, for God uses your troubles to help you grow. When you feel like running away, claim your privilege as a child of God and approach the throne of grace. There you will find the personal and tailored help you need.

On Knowing the Will of God

By A.W. Tozer


One of the problems most frequently encountered by serious-minded Christians is how to discover the will of God in a given situation. This is not a small matter. To countless thousands of Christians it is vitally important. Their peace of heart depends upon knowing that God is actually guiding them, and their failure to be sure that He is destroys their inward tranquility and fills them with uncertainty and fear. They must get help if they are to regain their confidence. 

Here is a modest effort to provide some help. First, it is absolutely essential that we be completely dedicated to Gods high honor and surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. God will not lead us except for His own glory and He cannot lead us if we resist His will. The shepherd cannot lead a stubborn sheep. The evil practice of using God must be abandoned. Instead of trying to employ God to achieve our ends we must submit ourselves joyously to God and let Him work through us to achieve His own ends.

Saved from Famine By J.R. Miller

Devotional Hours with the Bible, Volume 4: Chapter 22 - Saved from Famine

By J.R. Miller


2 Kings 7:1-16


The city of Samaria was besieged. The famine was great. The people were suffering. The king blamed it all on Elisha and sought to kill him. Men often charge their troubles on God. They may be divine judgments; but if so, the reason for the judgments is to be sought for, in the sins of those on whom the judgments are falling.

Elisha told the king that the famine was about over. "Elisha said, Hear the word of Jehovah." It is always well to listen to the word of the Lord. He always has something to say to us, especially in time of trouble or perplexity. When we are in sorrow--He has something to say which will comfort our hearts, if only we will listen to it. When we are tempted and are about to sin--He has something to say which will save us if we heed His words.

When we read what goes before Elisha's answer, we get a specially important lesson here. The king had been blaming all the trouble of the famine on the Lord, and complaining that He was too slow in sending promised help or relief. "Stop," says the prophet, "and hear the word of the Lord." We should never be quick to blame God when any trouble is upon us, or when He seems to be slow in keeping His promises. We should learn to wait for the Lord. He knows best when to give the blessing we seek. We must not judge any unfinished work of the Lord. Today He may give pain or disappointment--but wait until we see what He will give tomorrow.

Then Elisha foretold what change in the hard conditions in Samaria there would be, almost immediately. "Thus says Jehovah, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel." The king was complaining bitterly because of the famine, and this is the answer of God to his angry complaint. Even while the words of unbelief were on his lips--the blessing of bread was at the very door. Tomorrow provisions would be abundant and cheap. We see how useless was the king's anxiety.

The king of Samaria is now dead--but the lesson is for us. Do we ever get discouraged and fume and fret and grieve God by our complainings, when He leaves us without material help for a little time? We lose both faith and patience, because the help we need is not given instantly, or because the promise we find is not at once fulfilled. Faith is trusting--when we cannot see, believing God's promise--when it is not yet fulfilled. We ought therefore to be confident of blessing before it comes--if we have God's Word for it; and, no matter how long the delay--we should not be afraid.

We must notice here also that the king's unbelief and anger did not cause God to withhold His blessing. The king had tried to kill the prophet, as if he were the cause of the famine. He had spoken most bitterly, too, of God. But the answer to all this, was the announcement, "Tomorrow there shall be abundance of bread." There is great comfort in this. If our unbelief and sin shut the doors of God's kindness and cut off the flow of His mercies and favors--we would never get much of good from the divine fullness. But it is not thus that God treats us. He is patient with our impatience, ingratitude, and unbelief--and blesses us in spite of ourselves.

But the prophet's words were not received with confidence. "The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God--Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?" There was a sneer as well as unbelief in the answer. The captain meant to say that such a thing was impossible. He made no account of the divine word spoken by God's prophet. He could see no way in which the thing could be done, and therefore refused to believe that it could be done.

Hope Keeps Us Going

By A.W. Tozer


Among those treasures with which we are all endowed by nature, hope stands by itself as being at once the most precious and the most treacherous. 

Just because hope is so common we accept it as a matter of course, without realizing how precious it is. Without it life in a fallen world would be unbearable; without it the zest for living would disappear almost at once; without it one hour of adversity would break our spirits and drive millions to suicide. It is not too much to say that if all hope were destroyed within the human breast, the race of mankind would die out altogether in a very few years. Even the procreative drive and the instinct for self-preservation would hardly be strong enough to save from extinction a race from which all hope had fled.

Hope is a nurse and comforter and enables us to go on after every reason for going on has disappeared. Hope has sustained the spirit of a shipwrecked sailor and given him strength to stay alive through the long days that seemed years till help and rescue came; hope has steeled the patriot to fight on and win at last against overwhelming odds; hope has saved from insanity or suicide the prisoner in his lonely cell as he checked off the years and months and days on his homemade calendar; hope has enabled the sick or injured man to wait out the pain and the nausea till health returned and the suffering ended; hope has made light the feet of the traveler hurrying home in near exhaustion to the bedside of someone he loved.

Walking in Fear of the Lord

By Warren Wiersbe


'The fear of our God' is not the servile dread of a slave toward a master but the loving respect of a child toward a parent. To fear the Lord means to seek to glorify God in everything we do. It means listening to His Word, honoring it, and obeying it. 'The remarkable thing about fearing God,' wrote Oswald Chambers, 'is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.' Because Nehemiah's life was motivated by the fear of the Lord (Neh. 5:15), he did not fear what the enemy might do (vv. 14, 19). The fear of the Lord moved Nehemiah to be a faithful servant of the Lord.

To walk in the fear of God, of course, means to walk by faith, trusting God to deal with your enemies and one day balance the accounts. It means claiming Matthew 6:33 and having the right priorities in life. 'The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; he will not be visited with evil' (Prov. 19:23).

Christ says: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matt. 6:33, niv).

A Word To You Who Would Be Useful

By Samuel Logan Brengle


Does the devil ever tempt you to feel that you are of no use and can do nothing? Every genuine Christian wants to be useful, fruit-bearing, and a soul-winner. This desire is characteristic of the new nature, received at conversion. When Paul was converted, he wanted to go back to Jerusalem and tell all his old friends about it, that they, too, might be saved. When you were converted your heart went out to God for the salvation of your friends, and you tried to so live your life before them that they would be brought to Jesus, and it is largely this desire for usefulness and the salvation of others that has led you to become a soldier or an officer. But now that you are fairly in the Army and in its work, do you ever feel that you are useless; that you can do nothing; that your words are powerless to lead people to Jesus?

I find a great many such people, and maybe you are such an one, and if so, it is for you I write. I have often felt as you do myself; and therefore can sympathize with you, and maybe can write something to encourage you. And first I would say, do what you can. 'Angels can do no more.' Your talents may not be great, but use what talents you have and God will surely increase them. It is a law of God, that what is used shall be increased. Everything that has life begins small. The largest oak was once enfolded in an acorn. The most skillful musician in the world at one time did not know one note from another. The most learned man now living once did not know A from Z. Moses was once a helpless babe in a floating ark of bulrushes. The General was once a young convert. But they grew and increased. If there is spiritual life in you, you will grow, if you will do with your might what your hands find to do.

Cultivate your talents. There are many thousands of bandsmen in the Army today who at one time could not play an instrument, and who did not know a cornet from a concertina. But they began to practice. It was slow work at first. But they kept at it. Probably, the first day they could not see that they had made any progress at all, nor the second day; but in a week or a month they could see. They began, kept patiently at it, and at last succeeded. That is the way to cultivate any talent we have. That is the way to become mighty in prayer, to become acquainted with the Bible, to learn to speak or sing or fish for souls. Begin and keep at it.

Do not get discouraged because you cannot do as well as someone else. God has a work for you to do, and no one else can do it; not even the General can do it. God meant that work for you and you for that work, and if you do not do it, it will never be done. The thing then for you to do is to go to God and thank Him for what gifts you have and for giving you some work to do, and then ask Him for wisdom to do it bravely, faithfully and wisely, and He will surely be with you.

Do not sit down in the discouragement of unbelief and think because you have not the talents of some gifted person you know that therefore you can do nothing. That is wicked. It is dishonoring to God, pleasing to the devil, and will surely result in a great loss to your soul, if not in the final loss of your soul. Jesus tells us that the man with five talents put his money out at use and gained five talents more, and likewise the man with two talents. But He says the man with one talent went and wrapped it in a napkin and hid it, and so lost it, and was himself cast out as a slothful and wicked servant into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Secondly, encourage your poor, trembling heart with the promises and examples, in the Bible. Here is a promise for you, 'Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord' (1 Cor. xv. 58). The devil tells you that your labour is vain, but God says it is not. Believe God, my brother, and go on with your work. Again the Lord says, 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap' (Gal. vi. 7). 

To Friends in the Ministry By George Fox

By George Fox


Friends, 

Dwell in the power of life and wisdom, and dread of the Lord of life, and of heaven and earth, that you may be preserved in the wisdom of God over all, and be a terror and a dread to all the adversaries of God, answering that of God in them all, spreading the truth abroad, awakening the witness, confounding the deceit, gathering up out of transgression into the life, into the covenant of light and peace with God. 

Let all nations hear the sound by word or by writing. Spare no place, spare no tongue, nor pen; but be obedient to the Lord God. Go through the work, and be valiant for the truth upon earth; tread and trample down all that is contrary. You have the power, do not abuse it. you have the strength, presence, and wisdom of the Lord. Eye it, that with it you may all be ordered to the glory of the Lord God. 

Keep in the dominion, keep in the power over deceit. Tread over deceit in that which lets you see to the world's end and to the utmost parts of the earth. Reign and rule with Christ, whose scepter and throne is now set up, whose dominion is over all to the ends of the earth. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, his throne an everlasting throne, his kingdom an everlasting kingdom, his power above all powers. 

Therefore this is the word of the Lord God to you all: Keep in the wisdom of God, which spreads over all the earth and is pure from above, the wisdom of the creation, which is not destructive. For now shall salvation go out of Zion to judge the Mount of Esau. Now shall the Law go forth from Jerusalem to answer the principle of God in all, to hew down all inventors and inventions. For all the princes of the earth are but as air to the power of the Lord God, which you are in, and have tasted of. 

Therefore live in it and do not abuse it. That is the word of the Lord God to you all. Keep down the low and take heed of false joys that will change.

Bring all into the worship of God: plow up the fallow ground thresh and get out the corn, that all people may come to the Beginning, to Christ, who was before the world was made. For the chaff has come upon the wheat by transgression. He who treads out the chaff is out of transgression and fathoms transgression. He sees the difference between the precious and the vile and can pick out the wheat from the tares and gather it into the garner. Thus he brings the immortal soul to God, from whom it came. 

No one worships God but he who comes to the principle of God, which he has transgressed; no one is plowed up but he who comes to the principle of God in him, that he has transgressed. Then he does service to God, then the planting and the watering take place, and the increase comes from God. So the ministers of the spirit must minister to the spirit that has been in captivity in every one, so that with the spirit of Christ people may be led out of captivity up to God, the Father of Spirits, and do service to him, and have unity with him, with the Scriptures, and with one another. 

This is the word of the Lord God to you all, and a charge to you all in the presence of the living God: Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you go, so that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them. Then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one. Thereby you can be a blessing in them and make the witness of God in them bless you. Then you will be a sweet savor and a blessing to the Lord God.

Spare no deceit; lay the sword upon it; go over it. Keep yourselves clear of the blood of all men, either by word or writing or speaking. Keep yourselves clean, so that you can abide in your throne, and everyone have his lot, and abide in that lot in the Ancient of Days. And so the blessing of the Lord be with you and keep you over all idolatrous worships and worshippers. Let them know the living God. For teachings, churches, and worships that have been set up by man's earthly understanding, knowledge, and will must be thrown down with the power of the Lord God. For all this must be thrown down with that power that gave forth Scripture. Whoever is in that power reigns over it all. 

This is the word of the Lord God to you all: God is worshiped in that which declares his will and brings the ground and pillar of truth to the Church in God. For now the mighty day of the Lord has appeared, and the arrows of the Almighty, which shall stick in the hearts of the wicked, have gone forth. Now will I arise, says the Lord God Almighty, to trample and thunder down deceit, which has long reigned and stained the earth. Now will I have my glory out of every one. The Lord God Almighty who is over all in his strength and power keep you to his glory, that you may come to answer that of God in every one in the world. Proclaim the mighty day of fire and sword, when the Lord will be worshiped in spirit and in truth. Keep in the life and power of the Lord God so that the inhabitants of the earth may tremble before you, that the Lord God's power and majesty may be admired among the hypocrites and heathen, and that in his wisdom, dread, life, terror, and dominion you may be preserved to his glory, and that nothing may rule or reign but power and life itself, and that you may be preserved in the wisdom of God. 

This is the word of the Lord God to you all: The call is to come out of transgression now. The spirit bids, come! The call is away from all false worships and gods and from all inventions and dead works to serve the living God now. The call is to repentance and to the amendment of life, whereby righteousness may be brought forth to go throughout the earth. Therefore you who are chosen and faithful, who are with the Lamb, go about your work faithfully, and in the strength and power of the Lord. Be obedient to the power, for that will save you out of the hands of unreasonable men and preserve you over the world to himself. Hereby you can live in the kingdom that stands in power and has no end, where there is glory and life. GEORGE FOX
Launceston Jail, 1656
Text modernized from Fox's Journal.