Count It All Joy

Jas 1:2-3  My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

We do not always feel joyful, but we are to count it all joy. The word "reckon" is one of the key-words of Scripture. It is the same word used about our being dead. We do not feel dead. We are painfully conscious of something that would gladly return to life. But we are to treat ourselves as dead, and neither fear nor obey the old nature.

So we are to reckon the thing that comes as a blessing. We are determined to rejoice, to say, "My heart is fixed, O God, I will sing and give praise." This rejoicing, by faith, will soon become a habit, and will ever bring speedily the spirit of gladness and the spontaneous overflow of praise.

Then, "although the fig-tree may wither and no fruit appear in the vines, the labor of the olive fail and the fields yield no increase, the herd be cut off from the stall, and the cattle from the field, yet we will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation."

Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round, On Jesus' bosom naught but calm is found; Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown, Jesus we know, and He is on the throne."

~A. B. Simpson~

Set Apart

Isa 61:6  But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves.  
This literal promise to Israel belongs spiritually to the seed after the Spirit, namely, to all believers.

If we live up to our privileges, we shall live unto God so clearly and distinctly, that men shall see that we are set apart for holy service, and shall name us the priests of the Lord.

We may work, or trade, as others do, and yet we may be solely and wholly the ministering servants of God. 

Our one occupation shall be to present the perpetual sacrifice of prayer, and praise, and testimony, and self-consecration, to the living God by Jesus Christ.

This being our one aim, we may leave distracting concerns to those who have no higher calling. "Let the dead bury their dead."

It is written, "Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vine-dressers." 

They may manage politics, puzzle out financial problems, discuss science, and settle the last new quibbles of criticism; but we will give ourselves unto such service as becomes those who, like the Lord Jesus, are ordained to a perpetual priesthood.

Accepting this honorable promise as involving a sacred duty, let us put on the vestments of holiness, and minister before the Lord all day long.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Hard Places Reveal God’s Resources

                                                                                

Hard places help us to know the resources of God. It is only under difficult circumstances that we know His all-sufficiency.

Israel must first stand still and next behold the salvation of God. When they ceased from their acting, God revealed His power. 

And so He tells them that the reason He led them through the wilderness and exposed them to a situation where there were no natural supplies of any kind – was to teach them that He was adequate for every need, and that, "man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. 8:3). 

God can only become real to us up to the measure of our actual needs, and every difficult situation is just a vessel for Him to fill, and an occasion for Him to show Himself in His infinite wisdom, power and grace.

The Apostle Paul tells us, therefore, that he was exposed to every sort of difficulty in order that the power of Christ might rest upon him according to his needs, and therefore he welcomed each new situation as another vessel for God to fill and another occasion for Him to say, "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Cor. 12:9).

Beloved, are we thus proving and finding Him equal to all the conditions of our lives, and glorying in being able to tell the world that our God shall supply all our need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus?

~A. B. Simpson~

Continual Guidance

Isa 58:11  And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

What aileth thee? Hast thou lost thy way? Art thou entangled in a dark wood and canst thou not find thy paths? Stand still, and see the salvation of God. He knows the way, and He will direct thee in it if thou cry unto Him.

Every day brings its own perplexity. How sweet to feel that the guidance of the LORD is continual! 

If we choose our own way or consult with flesh and blood we cast away the LORD's guidance; but if we abstain from self-will, then He will direct every step of our road, every hour of the day, and every day of the year, and every year of our life. 

If we will but be guided, we shall be guided. If we will commit our way unto the LORD, He will direct our course so that we shall not lose ourselves.

But note to whom this promise is made. Read the previous verse: "If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry." 

We must feel for others and give them, not a few dry crusts, but such things as we ourselves would wish to receive.

If we show a tender care for our fellow-creatures in the hour of their need, then will the LORD attend to our necessities and make Himself our continual Guide.

Jesus is the Leader, not of misers, nor of those who oppress the poor, but of the kind and tenderhearted. Such persons are pilgrims who shall never miss their way.

~Charles Spurgeon~

God Can Make You Strong

Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded  II Chronicles 15:7.

God had done great things for King Asa and Judah, but yet they were a feeble folk. Their feet were very tottering in the ways of the LORD, and their hearts very hesitating, so that they had to be warned that the LORD would be with them while they were with Him, but that if they forsook Him He would leave them.

They were also reminded of the sister kingdom, how ill it fared in its rebellion and how the LORD was gracious to it when repentance was shown.

The LORD's design was to confirm them in His way and make them strong in righteousness. So ought it to be with us. 

God deserves to be served with all the energy of which we are capable. 

If the service of God is worth anything,it is worth everything.  

We shall find our best reward in the LORD's work if we do it with determined diligence. 

Our labor is not in vain in the LORD, and we know it. 

Halfhearted work will bring no reward; but when we throw our whole soul into the cause, we shall see prosperity.

This text was sent to the author of these notes in a day of terrible storm, and it suggested to him to put on all steam, with the assurance of reaching port in safety with a glorious freight.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Wretched Aspects Of Mixture

Turn to the first letter to the Corinthians, and see into what a different realm you enter. You find very little that is heavenly there. 

You find that immediately you begin to move into this letter you are touching the earthlies, mundane, natural things -- and what a mass of such things there is!

There is none of the atmosphere of the heavenlies here. You find yourself down in somewhat sordid things, even amongst the Lord's people. 

Sordid is not too strong a word in some connections. You are having to deal with all the unpleasantness, all the wretched aspects of mixture and spiritual weakness and immaturity, and be occupied with things which you would fain sweep aside and have done with. 

You feel as you move here: 'Oh, that we could get out of this realm of things; divisions, schisms and quarrellings, lawsuits and whatnot! How earthly it is!

It is another realm altogether, and because it is so earthly, because there is such an absence of the heavenly, you are not surprised that the testimony is so poor.

You can find here no trace of registration upon spiritual forces. 

If you read this first letter to the Corinthians from an entirely spiritual standpoint, you have to say that the situation is rather one where the evil forces have gained an advantage than of their having been overthrown. 

You have to admit that the enemy is running roughshod here amongst the saints. 

He seems in some things to be having his way altogether, and carrying things into a realm which it is a shame to speak of even in the world. 

Yes, it is true that the enemy is no defeated foe, so far as these believers are concerned, or so far as the situation in this letter is concerned. 

He is having too much of his own way, simply because they are so much on the earthly level of things.
 
That speaks for itself, does it not? The testimony, for its real value and effectiveness, demands that the Lord's people, the Church, be a heavenly Body. It demands that!

It is clear that these believers at Corinth had come into a very small measure of the power of His resurrection, simply because they had not entered into the meaning of His death, His Cross. 

It is a sad and painful reflection that the Apostle should have to remind them of the opportunity that had been theirs by what he says in the opening section of this letter: "And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom ... I was with you in weakness and in fear, and in much trembling. 

I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."

That had been Paul's attitude and message and aim when he went to Corinth some considerable time before he wrote the letter. 

Now, his having been amongst them, stressing, emphasizing Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and nothing else, and then much later writing such a letter, exhibits the fact that they had not learned that for which he had been there!
 
If there is a living apprehension of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, you will not have divisions like this, nor schisms, fornication, and all these things.

They had missed the meaning of the Cross.

They had failed to apprehend the message upon which the Apostle had laid such undivided and such exclusive stress in his presence amongst them.

And if they do not know the meaning of the Cross, how can they know the meaning of the resurrection? 

How can they know the power of the resurrection? 

And if they do not know that, then how can they know the power of that resurrection-life registering the impact of the risen, living Lord upon spiritual forces?

You can never undo divisions among the saints by bringing saints together to discuss their differences, and to ask them to make them up. 

You can never patch up a situation like that, because it is devilish.

The only way in which such things can be dealt with amongst the Lord's people is to get down on your knees and deal with the forces behind. 

The power of the enemy behind that thing has to be broken.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Hard Love

 When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was" (John 11:6). 

In the forefront of this marvelous chapter stands the affirmation, "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus," as if to teach us that at the very heart and foundation of all God's dealings with us, however dark and mysterious they may be, we must dare to believe in and assert the infinite, unmerited, and unchanging love of God.

Love permits pain.

The sisters never doubted that He would speed at all hazards and stay their brother from death, but, "When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was."

What a startling "therefore"! He abstained from going, not because He did not love them, but because He did love them.

His love alone kept Him back from hasting at once to the dear and stricken home.

Anything less than infinite love must have rushed instantly to the relief of those loved and troubled hearts, to stay their grief and to have the luxury of wiping and stanching their tears and causing sorrow and sighing to flee away. 

Divine love could alone hold back the impetuosity of the Savior's tender-heartedness until the Angel of Pain had done her work.

Who can estimate how much we owe to suffering and pain?

But for them we should have little scope for many of the chief virtues of the Christian life. 

Where were faith, without trial to test it; or patience, with nothing to bear; or experience, without tribulation to develop it?

~Selected~

Loved! then the way will not be drear; For One we know is ever near, Proving it to our hearts so clear That we are loved.

Loved when our sky is clouded o'er, And days of sorrow press us sore; Still we will trust Him evermore, For we are loved.

Time, that affects all things below, Can never change the love He'll show; The heart of Christ with love will flow, And we are loved."

The Battle Already Won In The Cross

And then...this is where we begin to get near to the heart of the nature of this battle-the song was governed by the priestly and Levitical side of things

You will see at the end of the previous chapter how the government was put into the hands of the priests; and then the narrative in II Chron. 20 shows that it was the Levites, whose it was to praise, who spontaneously broke into praise (v. 19).  

Praise expressive of faith was governed by what was priestly and Levitical-which shows the nature of the battle at once.

This was the question, the whole question...on whose side was God? and God has no favorites.

God is not on one side just because He feels inclined to favour that side.

God is only on the side of righteousness, on the side of holiness “in holy array.”  

God is on the side where salvation is already implicit by reason of priestly government, or the government of priestly principles-that is, the Blood, the Cross, all that redemption means through the work of the Lord Jesus.  

And so the answer to the question, On which side is God?

Is this...He is found where that is represented and implicit which is the work of His Son on Calvary.  That is the nature of the battle; and that is not your battle nor mine; that was God’s battle!

So we come over to this well-known passage in the Letter to the Colossians.  It is a wonderful passage.  I have been looking at several different versions, and, although I do not often trouble you with the technique of different translations, I think it worth dwelling upon two or three. 

Having despoiled the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it (His cross).

The dominions and powers He robbed of their prey, put them to open shame, led them away in triumph through His cross.

He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in His cross. 

Now you notice that is all in the past tense; that is something done.  The ground has been taken from the enemy-that is the first thing; and when an enemy’s ground is taken from him, he is in total confusion. 

Note the confusion back there in 2 Chron. 20-they are all killing one another. Why?...their ground upon which they trusted has been taken from them.

In Colossians it is the same confusion: “put to shame.”  What is shame but confusion?

If anybody is in confusion, they are very much put to shame.  In confusion they are helpless, you can take their prey; and that is what Judah did in the story we have read. 

He took their prey, prey from the principalities and powers.  Why?...because their ground was taken away. 

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Fire Of Discrimination

It was the fire of unerring and avoidable discrimination.
 
Fire always finds things out. As it creeps and encroaches and overtakes, it makes one discrimination between things that it can devour and things over which it has no power.
 
It puts them into those categories; the finding out, the classifying, the deciding.

Look at the context, Luke 12:51 - "Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division."

He goes on - "There shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
 
They shall be divided, father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her mother in law..." discriminating, setting things in the category to which they belong.

One category is that which can go on and abide and endure because it is of God.
 
The other will be licked up by the fire, and simply pass out of existence.

The fire shall try every man's work, said Paul (1 Cor.3:13).

The fire of unavoidable and unerring discrimination. That has ever been the effect of a work of the Holy Spirit; to put us into the place to which we belong.

It is a kind of dividing thing all the time. Are you for or are you against?

Are you with or are you not with the Lord?

Are you going on with the Lord, or are you not going on with the Lord?
 
The Holy Spirit is pursuing that course all the time to find us out and to just classify us like this, so that when the Holy Spirit has worked we are in definite categories.
 
Division has come, and it is unavoidable.

It is no use, dear friends, our trying to avoid this. You see, here is a terrible statement. "I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34), dividing even families and households.

You cannot avoid it; it is no use trying to. 

If you are going on with the Lord, this sort of thing is going to happen, and in the world it is going to become perfectly clear and pronounced where we are.

It is of no use just trying to keep and avoid, you have got to yield to the work of the Spirit, and it is costly in your own home with the clear division on the ground of whether the Lord is having His way or not---clear division in the family anywhere, everywhere...you just cannot avoid it.

~T. Austin Sparks~