He Guarded Them

Deu 32:10  He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.  

Deu 32:11  As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: 

Deu 32:12  So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

Our Almighty God is like a parent who delights in leading the
tender children in His care to the very edge of a precipice and
then shoving them off the cliff into nothing but air. 

He does this so they may learn that they already possess an as-yet-unrealized power of flight that can forever add to the pleasure and comfort of their lives.

Yet if, in their attempt to fly, they are exposed to some extraordinary peril, He is prepared to swoop beneath them and carry them skyward on His mighty wings.
 
When God brings any of His children into a position of unparalleled difficulty, they may always count on Him to deliver them.
 
~From The Song of Victory~
 
When God places a burden upon you, He places His arms underneath you.
 
There once was a little plant that was small and whose growth was stunted, for it lived under the shade of a giant oak tree. 

The little plant valued the shade that covered it and highly regarded the quiet rest that its noble friend provided. 

Yet there was a greater blessing prepared for this little plant.
 
One day a woodsman entered the forest with a sharp ax and
felled the giant oak.

The little plant began to weep, crying out, “My shelter has been taken away. Now every fierce wind will blow on me, and every storm will seek to uproot me!”
 
The guardian angel of the little plant responded,“No! Now the sun will shine and showers will fall on you more abundantly than ever before. Now your stunted form will spring up into loveliness, and your flowers, which could never have grown to full perfection in the shade, will laugh in the sunshine.

And people in amazement will say, ‘Look how that plant has grown!
 
How gloriously beautiful it has become by removing that which
was its shade and its delight!’”
 
Dear believer, do you understand that God may take away
your comforts and privileges in order to make you a stronger
Christian?

Do you see why the Lord always trains His soldiers not by allowing them to lie on beds of ease but by calling them to difficult marches and service?

He makes them wade through streams, swim across rivers, climb steep mountains, and walk many long marches carrying heavy backpacks of sorrow.

This is how He develops soldiers—not by dressing them up in fine uniforms to strut at the gates of the barracks or to appear as handsome gentlemen to those who are strolling through the park. 

No, God knows that soldiers can only be made in battle and are not developed in times of peace.

We may be able to grow the raw materials of which soldiers are made, but turning them into true warriors requires the education brought about by the smell of gunpowder and by fighting in the midst of flying bullets and exploding bombs, not by living through pleasant and peaceful times.
 
So, dear Christian, could this account for your situation? 

Is the Lord uncovering your gifts and causing them to grow?

Is He developing in you the qualities of a soldier by shoving you
into the heat of the battle?

Should you not then use every gift and weapon He has given you to become a conqueror? 

~Charles H. Spurgeon~

Christ Counsels His Disciples To Watch For His Return

Mat 24:42  Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
 

Mat 24:43  But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.
 

Mat 24:44  Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

Why did the Lord conceal from all the time of his second coming? 

We know not why he concealed it from angels or from devils, but we do know why he concealed it from men. 

It was that they may be watching for his return. He said, "Watch, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord does come."

He who made us is acquainted with all the secret springs of our nature. He knows that when we have a long time before us, we are disposed to loiter. 

There is a spirit of sloth and delay that steals over our hearts, which nothing overcomes so much as the idea that the opportunity for exertion may soon be past.

Though our Lord may appear to tarry, we must never cease to believe that he will soon come.  

As it is written, Heb 10:37  For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

When we have been expecting a friend for a long time, we at length grow weary of waiting, and "give him up." We say, "Surely now he will not come at all." Yet sometimes he arrives just as we have given him up. 

We must never give up expecting Christ, for he has positively promised that he will come. 

But he has not promised to prolong our lives until his return. 

Millions have dropped into the grave during his absence, and it is very probable that we may descend into ours.

The day of death is as uncertain as the day of his return. The young die as well as the old, the healthy as well as the sickly, the cautious as well as the adventurous. 

We all know that this day we MAY die. It does not require faith to believe that we may die; for reason convinces us of this fact.

Yet is it not remarkable that death generally comes unexpectedly...even to the old? 

They have lived so long, that they naturally imagine they shall live longer still.

They have seen the arrow of destruction pass by them so often, piercing their companions, but sparing them, that their fears are quelled, and their hearts are lulled to repose.

It often happens that just as men have made their plans for long life, they are visited by sudden death.

A house has just been built, and a garden planted, when he that built and planted is called to dwell in another abode, and to walk in other regions.

These unexpected removals say with a loud voice to the living, "Be you also ready."

But what if, instead of death, the Lord were to come? 

His return would create more alarm than death has ever done. 

When death attacks an ungodly man, his senses are often stupefied by disease; he is less capable of feeling alarm than when in full health. 

But when Christ returns, he will find his enemies lively and strong. A sick man usually entertains hopes of recovery until near his last hour; but when Christ returns, the wicked will see no way of escape. 

Friends surround the pillow of the dying man; some soothe and flatter him, some counsel and encourage him but when the Judge appears, the wicked will be left to meet their dreadful fate, without one friendly arm to render aid, one pitying eye to shed a tear, one godly tongue to offer a prayer.

Do we desire to escape the terrors of that dreadful moment? there is but one certain refuge. It is the Lord Jesus, who is now ready to hear our prayers, to forgive our sins, to bestow his grace, and to be our hiding-place in the day of trouble.

 

If we neglect this precious opportunity, he will come on us as a thief, and we shall not know what hour he comes upon us. 

Rev 3:3  Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.

~ Favell Lee Mortimer (1802—1878)~

The Cross The Way Of The Lamb

The Cross is the way of the Lamb, and the Cross, or the Lamb, links the eternities. 

One arm, so to speak, of that Cross reaches right back over all the ages and beyond the garden into the eternal counsels, and there takes up all the immensity of those counsels of God, the eternal purpose.

The other arm of the Cross touches the ages to come; and by way of that Cross, that from the beginning, which has in the meantime been challenged and upset, is realized: so that the way of the Lamb is the way of the realization of the eternal purpose of God, and nothing less than that. 

That is why I have taken pains to stress the immensity of that purpose.

Our conception of the Cross is so small. 

Our hymns about the Cross have such a limited view of that Cross. 

Oh, yes, “the burden of my heart rolled away” at the Cross...  quite true and good, blessed; but the Cross is infinitely, transcendently more than our conversion. 

The Cross has come in not just to get people saved from their sin and secured unto heaven and have the blessings of forgiveness and access to God.

No, the Cross has come in to lay right hold of that vast scheme of the divine intention and purpose and to realize it, and nothing less than it. 

We ought to see that the Cross is a very much bigger thing than we have ever imagined.

When the Lord begins to work subjectively by His Cross in a life, He does a very utter thing beyond conversion. 

In many lives it often comes to this: that a fuller apprehension of the meaning of identification with Christ in death and burial and resurrection is a far bigger thing than conversion, and that is significant. 

You cannot make too much of the Cross, for this very reason... that there is nothing greater and vaster than God’s eternal purpose in the creation of this universe, and the Cross has to do with every bit of it, touches it at every point.

The things in the heavens are purged by the Blood of that Cross (Heb. 9:23).

The Cross is an immense thing because of the immensity of that with which it has to do. 

So the Cross is retrospective-but not merely to the fall, not merely to the entrance of sin. 

The Cross is retrospective to before the world was, from the laying down of the foundation.

It is retrospective to the very purpose of God in having a world at all. 

If you can understand and grasp why God created this universe, what His thoughts were, what His intentions;

If you can really comprehend all the immensity of His purpose in making this a heritage for Himself, worthy of Himself and satisfying to Him, then, and only then, will you be able to see the greatness of the Cross, the magnitude of the Cross.

Yes, the Cross reaches right back to that.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Christ The Eternal Lamb

Now we pursue that matter in order to try to see what it means, or at least something of what it means, to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”, that is, in unreserved utterness.

So we allow the very designation to lead us “the Lamb”. 

And when we look into the Scriptures to find where the first glimpse of the Lamb is given~I do not mean of lambs but the Lamb...we find it here in Rev. 13:8 “And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain”.

You will see that there is an alternative rendering...“written in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world”, and I think that is the more correct order.  

The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  

That is really the first glimpse that we have of Christ as the Lamb.

A remarkable statement...“slain from the foundation of the world”.  

Probably you know that the word “foundation” there could be more literally translated “the laying down of the world”, that is, the setting out of the whole scheme of creation.

We speak of laying down a plan, a scheme, a project, and when God laid down the plan, the scheme, the project of the creation, at that time the Lamb was, in intention, slain, which, of course, in the very first instance means that the Cross is no afterthought.

The Cross is not something brought in as an afterthought because of certain emergencies. 

The Cross was in the foreknowledge of God, as we have read in Acts 2:23 “being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”: “delivered up… by the foreknowledge of God”: “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”.

That takes us back to God’s counsels from eternity.

A purpose, a purpose framed, a purpose projected, initiated.

There we find ourselves once more in the presence of those counsels of the Godhead to which Paul so much refers; wonderful, great, glorious counsels. 

How full, far-reaching, and glorious were those counsels before times eternal.

It is a matter about which we can truly be in contemplation and meditation and consideration all our days and never exhaust it. 

How many times have we come back to those parts of the Word which speak so much about God’s eternal counsels, God’s foreknowledge, God’s predestinating purpose, and still we feel we have not touched the fringe. 

There is always something more.

Yes, it was all there before, and when God, so to speak, drafted His great, universal, eternal plan and purpose, He at the same time anticipated its disruption.

He foresaw what would happen as a mighty spiritual reaction against His intentions.

He took the whole situation in, knowing that the very nature of the purpose must leave the door open for voluntary obedience and committal and acceptance.

The very essence of it all, which is love, must leave the place for option, and He foresaw the side on which man’s option would move, He foreknew the tremendous activity of spiritual forces against His purpose.

He foresaw all that has happened since man gave way to the great spiritual foe of God’s intentions concerning His Son Jesus Christ. 

Having projected, and having foreseen, He provided, and redemption was forthwith established.

~T. Austin Sparks~

“You Must Die In Order To Live"

The autumn season we are now entering is one of cornfields
ripe for harvest, of the cheerful song of those who reap the
crops, and of gathered and securely stored grain.

So allow me to draw your attention to the sermon of the fields.This is its solemn message: “You must die in order to live".

You must refuse to consider your own comfort and well-being. 

You must be crucified, not only to your desires and habits that are obviously sinful but also to many others that may appear to be innocent and right.

If you desire to save others, you cannot save yourself, and if you desire to bear much fruit, you must be buried in darkness and solitude.”
 
My heart fails me as I listen. But when the words are from Jesus, may I remind myself that it is my great privilege to enter
into “the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10) and I am therefore in great company. 

May I also remind myself that all the suffering is designed to make me a vessel suitable for His use.

And may I remember that His Calvary blossomed into abundant fruitfulness, and so will mine.
 
Pain leads to plenty, and death to life...it is the law of the
kingdom!

~From In the Hour of Silence~
 
Do we call it dying when a bud blossoms into a flower?

~Selected~
 
Finding, following, keeping, struggling, Is He sure to bless?
Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, Answer,“Yes.”

The Reason For Singing

Zep 3:17  The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

What a Word is this! Jehovah God in the center of His people in all the majesty of His power! 

This presence alone suffices to inspire us with peace and hope. 

Treasures of boundless might are stored in our Jehovah, and He dwells in His church; therefore may His people shout for joy.

We not only have His presence, but He is engaged upon His choice work of salvation. "He will save." He is always saving: 

Let us not fear any danger, for He is mighty to save. Nor is this all. He abides evermore the same, He saves, He finds rest in loving, He will not cease to love. 

His love gives Him joy. He even finds a theme for song in His beloved. This is exceedingly wonderful. 

When God wrought creation He did not sing but simply said, "It is very good"; but when He came to redemption, then the sacred Trinity felt a joy to be expressed in song; Think of it, and be astonished! 

Jehovah Jesus sings a marriage song over His chosen bride. 

She is to Him His love, His joy, His rest, His song. O LORD Jesus, by Thine immeasurable love to us teach us to love Thee, to rejoice in Thee, and to sing unto Thee our life-psalm.

~Charles Spurgeon~

And They Follow Me

We should follow our Lord as unhesitatingly as sheep follow their shepherd, for he has a right to lead us wherever he pleases. 

We are not our own, we are bought with a price—let us recognize the rights of the redeeming blood. 

The soldier follows his captain, the servant obeys his master, much more must we follow our Redeemer, to whom we are a purchased possession.

We are not true to our profession of being Christians, if we question the bidding of our Leader and Commander. 

Submission is our duty, cavilling is our folly. 

Often might our Lord say to us as to Peter, “What is that to thee? Follow thou me.” 

Wherever Jesus may lead us, he goes before us. If we know not where we go, we know with whom we go. 

With such a companion, who will dread the perils of the road? The journey may be long, but his everlasting arms will carry us to the end. 

The presence of Jesus is the assurance of eternal salvation, because he lives, we shall live also. We should follow Christ in simplicity and faith, because the paths in which he leads us all end in glory and immortality.

It is true they may not be smooth paths—they may be covered with sharp flinty trials, but they lead to the “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” 

All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant.”

Let us put full trust in our Leader, since we know that, come prosperity or adversity, sickness or health, popularity or contempt, his purpose shall be worked out, and that purpose shall be pure, unmingled good to every heir of mercy.

We shall find it sweet to go up the bleak side of the hill with Christ; and when rain and snow blow into our faces, his dear love will make us far more blest than those who sit at home and warm their hands at the world’s fire.

To the top of Amana, to the dens of lions, or to the hills of leopards, we will follow our Beloved. Precious Jesus, draw us, and we will run after thee.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Mark Of Divine Approval

Jas 1:12  Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

Yes, he is blessed while he is enduring the trial. No eye can see this till he has been anointed with heavenly eye salve. 

But he must endure it and neither rebel against God nor turn aside from his integrity.

He is blessed who has gone through the fire and has not been consumed as a counterfeit. 

When the test is over, then comes the hallmark of divine approval -- "the crown of life." 

As if the LORD said, "Let him live; he has been weighed in the balances, and he is not found wanting."

Life is the reward: not mere being, but holy, happy, true existence, the realization of the divine purpose concerning us. 

Already a higher form of spiritual life and enjoyment crowns those who have safely passed through fiercest trials of faith and love.

The LORD hath promised the crown of life to those who love Him.

Only lovers of the LORD will hold out in the hour of trial; the rest will either sink or sulk, or slink back to the world.

Come, my heart, dost thou love thy LORD? Truly? Deeply? Wholly?

Then that love will be tried; but many waters will not quench it, neither will the Roods drown it, LORD, let Thy love nourish mine to the end.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Sufferers Make Strong Believers

Lamentations 3:27  "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth."

This is as good as a promise. It has been good, it is good, and it will be good for me to bear the yoke. 

Early in life I had to feel the weight of conviction, and ever since it has proved a soul-enriching burden. 

Should I have loved the gospel so well had I not learned by deep experience the need of salvation by grace? 

Jabez was more honorable than his brethren because his mother bare him with sorrow, and those who suffer much in being born unto God make strong believers in sovereign grace. 

The yoke of censure is an irksome one, but it prepares a man for future honor. He is not fit to be a leader who has not run the gauntlet of contempt. 

Praise intoxicates if it be not preceded by abuse. Men who rise to eminence without struggle usually fall into dishonor. 

The yoke of affliction, disappointment, and excessive labor is by no means to be sought for; but when the LORD lays it on us in our youth, it frequently develops a character which glorifies God and blesses the church. 

Come, my soul, bow thy neck; take up they cross. It was good for thee when young; it will not harm thee now. For Jesus' sake, shoulder it carefully.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Fruit Of The Branch Is Directly Traceable To The Root

 “From me is thy fruit found.”Hosea 14:8  

Our fruit is found from our God as to union. 

The fruit of the branch is directly traceable to the root. Sever the connection, the branch dies, and no fruit is produced.

By virtue of our union with Christ we bring forth fruit. 

Every bunch of grapes has been first in the root, it has passed through the stem, and flowed through the sap vessels, and fashioned itself externally into fruit, but it was first in the stem. 

So also every good work was first in Christ, and then is brought forth in us.

O Christian, prize this precious union to Christ; for it must be
the source of all the fruitfulness which thou canst hope to know. 

If thou were not joined to Jesus Christ, thou wouldst be a barren bough indeed. 

Our fruit comes from God as to spiritual providence. 

When the dew-drops fall from heaven, when the cloud looks down from on high, and is about to distil its liquid treasure, when the bright sun swells the berries of the cluster, each heavenly boon may whisper to the tree and say, “From me is thy fruit found.” 

The fruit owes much to the root...that is essential to fruitfulness...but it owes very much also to external influences. 

How much we owe to God’s grace-providence! in which he provides us constantly with quickening, teaching, consolation, strength, or whatever else we want.

To this we owe our all of usefulness or virtue.
 
Our fruit comes from God as to wise husbandry. The gardener’s sharp-edged knife promotes the fruitfulness of the tree, by thinning the clusters, and by cutting off superfluous
shoots. 

So is it, Christian, with that pruning which the Lord gives to thee. “My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” 

Since our God is the author of our spiritual graces, let us give to him all the glory of our salvation.

~Charles Spurgeon~

A Strong Heart

Psa 27:14  Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.                                                       

 
Wait! Wait! Let your waiting be on the LORD! 

He is worth waiting for. He never disappoints the waiting soul.  

While waiting keep up your spirits, Expect a great deliverance, and be ready to praise God for it. 

The promise which should cheer you is in the middle of the verse -- "He shall strengthen thine heart." This goes at once to the place where you need help.

If the heart be sound, all the rest of the system will work well. 

The heart wants calming and cheering, and both of these will come if it be strengthened.  

A forceful heart rests and rejoices and throbs force into the whole man. 

No one else can get at that secret urn of life, the heart, so as to pour strength into it. He alone who made it can make it strong. 

God is full of strength, and, therefore, He can impart it to those who need it. 

Oh, be brave; for the LORD will impart His strength to you, and you shall be calm in tempest and glad in sorrow. 

He who penned these lines can write as David did "Wait, I say, on the LORD." 

I do, indeed, say it. I know by long and deep experience that it is good for me to wait upon the LORD.

~Charles Spurgeon~

RESIGNATION

Sovereign Lord, what I most desired you have denied yet I praise you! On what account, I know not, yet I praise you. 

You have done it; that silences me. 

Your will makes it indisputable, and renders it my indispensable duty to your wise determinations. 

Hitherto I have had no complaint on the conduct of providence; nor shall I complain until all the mazes are explained.

Do, then, all your counsel, though all my counsels should come to nothing. 

Can a person expect favors from God-who will not wait for God's way and time?

But what does it matter how the affairs of a present world go, if the interests of the next world are secured?

The weather-vane is whirled about with every blast, but the iron spire is still at rest, because it cannot be displaced.

So, what does it matter though the outward man decays-if the inner man grows?

What does it matter though the temporal condition be perplexed-if the conscience is possessed of spiritual peace?

I praise you that you interpose your providence, even in disappointing my dearest plans; and do not give me up to the blind desires of my own heart, and to wander at random in counsels of mine own.

I can resolve the present case into nothing but your will; yet I rejoice more to resign to your will, and to be submissive to your disposal, than to have my will in every point performed. 

This is the only way in my private capacity that I can glorify you.

If all things went as I would have them, I could not positively learn the care of God. 

But when providence, beyond all human probability, twists enterprises out of my hands, and well-resolved designs out of my heart-this clearly shows to me your condescending concern about my lot and life. 

Thus you take the wise in their own craftiness; for when all my schemes were so well laid, that human policy approved of, and wit itself commended; yet, when you did blow upon them, how did they like rainbows painted on the watery clouds, when thunders break, or boisterous winds attack-scatter into disappointments and pain!

Hence, in the school of providence I am taught some lessons.

1. Not to look to the appearance of things, but to the power of God, who brings light out of darkness, and calls the things that are not, as though they were.

2. That from probabilities, impossibilities may spring; while apparent impossibilities dissolve into easy escapes. 

As for the first, it was very probable that the Egyptians might overtake and put Israel to the sword, yet it became impossible for them to do it. 

And as for the second it seemed impossible that Israel could escape ruin, when enclosed with insurmountable hills, and swelling seas, and pursued by enraged foes; yet, in what an easy way did they walk to their deliverance!

3. I am taught to believe, and to give glory to the almighty power of God, when impossibilities throng thick before me.

4. To see my own finite wisdom to be but folly, that I can neither prevent nor foresee those events which I do not desire.

5. To hold all my mercies, all my privileges from God, and not from the certainty in which they seem to stand.

6. Not to think that things are lost, when so they seem to be.

When I think I am most sure of some things, they are all on a sudden taken from me; so when lost, they can all of a sudden be restored.

7. And, lastly, to see the mutable and fickle state of temporal things, and therefore to hold a loose grip on the creature, however dear, however near-and to set my affections on things that are above.

~James Meikle~

What Will Your Measure Of Christ Be In The Day Of Reckoning?

There is a time fixed when God will sift out everything in Christianity, sift it all out, to find out just how far the real purpose of its existence is being fulfilled, and the things which can be shaken will be shaken. 

Spirituality in men and women is the thing which governs all this, and decides the crisis. Decides the crisis. We shall come to that crisis individually sooner or later. 


Why do you bear the name of Christian? You call yourself a Christian, we call ourselves Christians. Why do we have that name upon us? Sooner or later, it will be found out whether we are Christ-ones or not, whether it is Christ; how far it is Christ.

I wonder if I dare, in a parenthesis here, introduce something that I've read recently... it was only the dream of a girl. 

She said she had a dream, and in her dream she saw a glorious angel sitting... sitting on the village green where her home was. 

And in his hand was a large measure standing up, being held by his hand up beside him. 

And as she looked at that measure, she saw it marked off: Christ, Christ. There was so much of Christ, an inch of Christ, two inches of Christ, more inches of Christ, right up to this large measure. 

And then she heard the angel call, and the angel called the name of someone known so well to her, who had a great reputation for doing a lot of things in Christian work - always running about here and there, always active in philanthropic interests in the name of Christianity - a very busy person in what is called "Christian work". 

And she knew that person so well, everybody thought that person was a very wonderful person, that they would stand well in the great day of reckoning. 

The name was called, and this person came up so confidently, quite assured as well that she would stand well by the measure, and when she came up by the measure, she began to shrink in her stature. 

She became smaller and smaller and smaller until she was a little, tiny person, down there at the bottom of the measure. 

Everybody looked and got the surprise of their lives! "Is this Miss So-and-so? Is that really all the measure of Christ, after all?" 

The angel gave her some strong, kindly words of advice, seeking to point out the difference between all this that is outward, and the real measure of Christ inward. And she went away very crestfallen.

And so, one by one, people known were called by the angel. 

There was one person whose name was called, known by the dreamer as a very poor, weak, little soul. No one thought a great deal of her. She lived in a back place in very, very uncomfortable conditions.

No one, no one made a great friend of her; they left her very much alone. They didn't think she mattered at all. 

The angel called her name, and she came forward very tremblingly, fearfully, just scared of standing up by that measure. 

And she came and stood by it. As she came into touch with it, she began to grow and grow and grow. Her whole stature developed and increased until she was bigger than all the rest! 

The angel didn't have much to say to her, but just a kindly, kindly word. "Yes, Mary, yes Mary I know all about your secret battles, all your secret sufferings, and how bravely you have borne the despisings of others, and how you have carried it all in secret to the Lord in prayer, and drawn your strength from Him to go on. You count for much in His sight".

The dreamer had her name called, and she had to stand there. She was very fond of dress and of worldly appearance and all that sort of thing. 

And for her, the things of this world counted for everything. And she, because she was popular, because people thought so much of her and were always pointing at her and saying she was a model of a well-dressed person, and the kind of person that everybody would like to be, she thought that she might stand well before the measure. 

But she found that as she came near, she also began to dwindle and to shrink... to lose all her sense or feeling of self-importance and so on. 

The angel just quoted to her a bit of Scripture from Peter's letter: "Not the adorning, plaiting of hair, and ornaments, but the ornament of a meek and a quiet spirit, which is of great price in the sight of God".

Now, I have risked introducing that. It seems fanciful and fantastic, but it perhaps gives point to this whole matter. You see, God's standard, after all, is:-

The Spiritual Measure of His Son.

~T. Austin Sparks~