Bow Down: Be Lifted Up

This is tantamount to a promise: if we will bow down, the LORD will lift us up. Humility leads to honor; submission is the way to exaltation.

That same hand of God which presses us down is waiting to raise us up when we are prepared to bear the blessing.

We stoop to conquer. Many cringe before men and yet miss the patronage they crave;

But he that humbles himself under the hand of God shall not fail to be enriched, uplifted, sustained, and comforted by the ever-gracious One.

It is a habit of Jehovah to cast down the proud and lift up the lowly.

Yet there is a time for the LORD's working. We ought now to humble ourselves, even at this present moment; and we are bound to keep on doing so whether the LORD lays His afflicting hand upon us or not.

When the LORD smites, it is our special duty to accept the chastisement with profound submission. 

But as for the LORD's exaltation of us, that can only come "in due time," and God is the best judge of that day and hour.

Do we cry out impatiently for the blessing? Would we wish for untimely honor? What are we at?

Surely we are not truly humbled, or we should wait with quiet submission. So let us do. 

~Charles Spurgeon~
                                                    

Give Diligence

2Pe 1:5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
 
2Pe 1:6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

If thou wouldest enjoy the eminent grace of the full assurance of faith, under the blessed Spirit’s influence, and assistance, do what the Scripture tells thee, “Give diligence.”

Take care that thy faith is of the right kind...that it is not a mere belief of doctrine, but a simple faith, depending on Christ, and on Christ alone.

Give diligent heed to thy courage.

Plead with God that he would give thee the face of a lion, that thou mayest, with a consciousness of right, go on boldly.

Study well the Scriptures, and get knowledge; for a knowledge of doctrine will tend very much to confirm faith.

Try to understand God’s Word; let it dwell in thy heart
richly.
 
When thou hast done this, “Add to thy knowledge temperance.”

Take heed to thy body: be temperate without.

Take heed to thy soul: be temperate within.

Get temperance of lip, life, heart, and thought.

Add to this, by God’s Holy Spirit, patience; ask him to give thee that patience which endureth affliction, which, when it is tried, shall come forth as gold.

Array yourself with patience, that you may not murmur nor be depressed in your afflictions.

When that grace is won look to godliness. Godliness is something more than religion.

Make God’s glory your object in life; live in his sight; dwell close to him; seek for fellowship with him; and thou hast “godliness”; and to that add brotherly love.

Have a love to all the saints: and add to that a charity, which openeth its arms to all men, and loves their souls.

When you are adorned with these jewels, and just in proportion as you practice these heavenly virtues, will you come to know by clearest evidence “your calling and election.”

Give diligence, if you would get assurance, for lukewarmness and doubting very naturally go hand in hand.
 
~Charles Spurgeon~

The Unchangeableness Of GOD

Mal 3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

The UNCHANGEABLENESS of God. What an anchor for a storm tossed sea!

Change is our portion here on earth! Scenes are altering. Joys are fading.

Some friends are removed by distance; others have gone to their 'long home.'

Who, amid these checkered experiences, does not sigh for something permanent, stable, enduring?

The vessel has again and again slipped its earthly moorings. We long for some secure and sheltered harbor.

I am the LORD, I do not change! Heart and flesh may faint; yes, do faint and fail...but we have an unfainting, unfailing, unvarying God!

All the changes in the world around us cannot affect Him. Our own fitfulness cannot alter Him. 

When we are depressed, downcast, fluctuating, our treacherous hearts turning aside "like a broken bow," He is without one "shadow of turning."

God who cannot lie, is the superscription on His eternal throne; and inscribed on all His dealings.

I am the LORD, I do not change! Precious name! 

It forms a blessed guarantee that nothing can befall me but what is for my good.

I cannot doubt His faithfulness. I dare not arraign the rectitude of His dispensations.

It is covenant love which is now darkening my earthly horizon.

In this hour of my affliction, He is the same as when He "spared not His own Son!"

Oh, instead of wondering at my trials, let me rather wonder that He has borne with me so long!

It is of the Lord's unchanging mercies that I am not consumed.

Had He been man, changeful, vacillating, as myself long before now would He have spurned me away, and consigned me to the doom of the cumberer!

But, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord."

I am the LORD, I do not change!

~John Macduff~

Let Them Alone!

God sometimes leaves men to themselves...their furious passions are unchained, and they are given up, without restraint, to the lusts of their own evil hearts!

A more dreadful judgment than this, cannot be inflicted on this side of hell.

Matthew Henry writes, "People go on in sin until the Lord says, 'Let them alone!' 

Then they receive no more warnings and feel no more convictions.

Satan takes full possession of them and they ripen for destruction!

It is a sad and sore judgment for any man to be let alone in sin! 

Those who are not disturbed in their sin will be destroyed for their sin!

May we be kept from this dreadful state;

For the wrath of God, like a strong tempest will soon hurry all impenitent sinners into eternal ruin!"

~John Newton~

This Was His Final Verdict!

Ecc 1:14  I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Nothing can fully satisfy a person but the Lord's love and the Lord's own self.

Christians have tried other pursuits but they have been driven out of such fatal refuges.

Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all; and to do for us what we must not dare to do for ourselves.

Here is his testimony in his own words, "So I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind! Nothing was gained under the sun!"

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" 

What! Is the whole of it meaningless? O favored monarch...is there nothing in all your wealth?

Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in your glorious palaces?

Is there nothing in all your music and dancing, and wine and luxury?

"Nothing!" he says, "but a chasing after the wind!"

This was his final verdict...after he had trodden the whole round of pleasure. 

To embrace our Lord Jesus, to dwell in His love, and be fully assured of union with Him - this is all in all. 

Dear reader, you need not try other forms of pleasure in order to see whether they are better than Christ.

If you roam the whole world...you will see no sights like a sight of the Savior's face!

If you could have all the comforts of life without the Savior, you would be most wretched.

But if you possess Christ...though you should rot in a dungeon,   you would find it a paradise!

Though you should live in obscurity, or die with famine...yet you would be satisfied with the favor and goodness of the Lord!

~Charles Spurgeon~

Word To Him Who Halts

There are plenty of these lame ones, both male and female.

You may meet "her that halteth" twenty times in an hour. 

They are in the right road and exceedingly anxious to run in it with diligence, but they are lame and make a sorry walk of it. 

On the heavenly road there are many cripples.

It may be that they say in their hearts...What will become of us? Sin will overtake us; Satan will throw us down. 

Ready-to-halt is our name and our nature; the LORD can never make good soldiers of us, nor even nimble messengers to go on His errands.

Well, well! He will save us, and that is no small thing.

He says, "I will save her that halteth."

In saving us He will greatly glorify Himself.

Everybody will ask...How came this lame woman to run the race and win the crown?

And then the praise will all be given to Almighty grace.

LORD, though I halt in faith, in prayer, in praise, in service, and in patience, save me, I beseech Thee!

Only Thou canst save such a cripple as I am.

LORD, let me not perish because I am among the hindmost, but gather up by Thy grace the slowest of Thy pilgrims...even me.

Behold He hath said it shall be so, and therefore, like Jacob, prevailing in prayer, I go forward though my sinew be shrunk. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Compelling Power Of The Cross

What is it that makes the young man devote himself, as a missionary, to the cause of God, to leave father and mother, and go into distant lands?

It is a thing of power that does it; it is the gospel. 

What is it that constrains the far away minister, in the midst of cholera, to climb up that creaking staircase, and stand by the bed of some dying creature who has that tragic disease?

It must be a thing of power which leads him to risk his life; it is love of the cross of Christ which urges him to do it.

What is that which enables one man to stand up before a multitude of his fellows, all unprepared it may be, but determined that he will speak nothing but Christ, and Him crucified?

What is it that enables him to cry, like the war horse of Job, in battle, Yes! and more glorious in might?

It is a thing of power that does it...it is Christ crucified.

What encourages that timid female to walk down that dark road some wet evening, that she may go and sit by the victim of a contagious fever?

What strengthens her to go through that den of thieves, and pass by the depraved and perverted? 

What influences her to enter into that house of death, and there sit down and whisper words of comfort?

Does gold make her do it? They are to poor to give her gold.

Does fame make her do it? She will never be known nor written among the mighty women of this earth.

What makes her do it? What impels her to it?

It is the power, the thing of power; it is the cross of Christ...she loves it, and she therefore says, Were the whole realm of nature mine, As a present it would be far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

~Charles Spurgeon~

There Is Silent Preparation Behind God's Delay

It is very helpful to remember that divine delay does not mean inactivity.

God is not idle when He does not answer us; He is busier preparing the answer than we think.

There have been men of genius who could only work irregularly; for long periods they seemed to do nothing at all. 

Then suddenly, and as if by inspiration, their powers took fire and they wrought at a white heat.

You may be sure of it that the periods in between were not so idle as the world considered them.

By thought, by reading, by communion with glad nature, half unconsciously they were preparing for their work.

And when the kindling came, and the fire burned within them, when they were divinely swept into utterance or action, they owed far more than we should ever guess to the silent preparation of delay.

As it is with men of genius, so with God, only in loftier and nobler ways. 

His delays are not the delays of inactivity. They are the delays of preparation.

In an instant the tropical storm may burst and break, yet for weeks - unseen - the storm has been preparing.

The sunshine of May comes, and all the world is green, yet on God's loom of January that robe was being spun.

And the morning breaks when at last some prayer is answered, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose, yet the answer was being fashioned in these very years when we said there was no eye to pity and no arm to save.

It takes a million years to harden the ruby, says the poet, yet through all the years the hardening goes on.

It takes a century for the sea to wear away one cliff, yet every night when we sleep the breakers dash on it.

So when we pray and strive and nothing happens, till we are tempted to say "God does not know, God does not care," who can tell but that, behind the veil, infinite love may be toiling like the sea, to give us in the full time our heart's desire?

My Father worketh hitherto and I work." It is a mysterious word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Perhaps God, like some of the busiest men I know, is doing most when He seems to be doing nothing

~George H. Morrison~

The LIVING GOD

                                                                                  

We have a Living GOD willing and able to deliver His children and keep them in the midst of trouble! Amen and Amen! Believe!

A Guide All the Way

                                                    
Psalm 48:14  For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.

We need a guide. Sometimes we would give all that we have to be told exactly what to do and where to turn.

We are willing to do right, but we do not know which one of two roads we are to follow. Oh, for a guide!

The Lord our God condescends to serve us as guide.

He knows the way and will pilot us along it till we reach our journey's end in peace.

Surely we do not desire more infallible direction.

Let us place ourselves absolutely under His guidance, and we shall never miss our way.

Let us make Him our God, and we shall find Him our guide.

If we follow His law we shall not miss the right road of life, provided we first learn to lean upon Him in every step that we take.

Our comfort is that as He is our God forever and ever, He will never cease to be with us as our guide. 

Even unto death will He lead us, and then we shall dwell with Him eternally and go no more out forever.

This promise of divine guidance involves lifelong security: salvation at once, guidance unto our last hour, and then endless blessedness.

Should not each one seek this in youth, rejoice in it in middle life, and repose in it in old age?

This day let us look up for guidance before we trust ourselves out-of-doors.

~Charles Spurgeon~

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How To Wait

Daniel 12:12  Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

It may seem an easy thing to wait, but it is one of the postures which a Christian soldier learns not without years of teaching.

Marching and quick-marching are much easier to God's warriors than standing still.

There are hours of perplexity when the most willing spirit, anxiously desirous to serve the Lord, knows not what part to take.

Then what shall it do?

Vex itself by despair? 

Fly back in cowardice, turn to the right hand in fear, or rush forward in presumption?

No, but simply wait. Wait in prayer, however.

Call upon God and spread the case before Him; tell Him your difficulty, and plead His promise of aid.

Wait in faith. Express your unstaggering confidence in Him. 

Believe that if He keep you tarrying even till midnight, yet He will come at the right time; the vision shall come, and shall not tarry.

Wait in quiet patience.

Never murmur against the second cause, as the children of Israel did against Moses.

Accept the case as it is, and put it as it stands, simply and with your whole heart, without any self-will, into the hand of your covenant God, saying, "Now, Lord, not my will, but Thine be done."

I know not what to do; I am brought to extremities; but I will wait until Thou shalt cleave the floods, or drive back my foes.

I will wait, if Thou keep me many a day, for my heart is fixed upon Thee alone, O God, and my spirit waiteth for Thee in full conviction that Thou wilt yet be my joy and my salvation, my refuge and my strong tower.

~Morning by Morning~

Wait patiently wait,  God never is late; Thy budding plans are in Thy Father's holding, And only wait His grand divine unfolding.
 
Then wait, wait, Patiently wait. Trust, hopefully trust, That God will adjust Thy tangled life; and from its dark concealings, Will bring His will, in all its bright  revealings.
      
Then trust, trust, Hopefully trust, Rest, peacefully rest On thy Saviour's breast; Breathe in His ear thy sacred high ambition, And He will bring it forth in blest fruition.

Then rest, rest, Peacefully rest!

~Mercy A. Gladwin~