"If Need Be"

1Pe 1:6  Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:

1Pe 1:7  That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

What a blessed motto and superscription over the dark lintels of sorrow: "If need be!"

Every sharp arrow from the quiver of God is feathered with it!

Write it, child of affliction, over every trial your God sees fit to send!

If He calls you down from the sunny mountain heights to the dark glades, hear Him saying, "There is a need be!"

If He has dashed the cup of prosperity from your lips, curtailed your creature comforts, diminished your "basket and your store," hear Him saying, "There is a need be!"

If He has ploughed and furrowed your soul with severe bereavement; extinguished light after light in your dwelling; hear Him therefore stilling the tumult of your grief: "there is a need be!" 

Yes! believe it, there is some profound reason for your trial, which at present may be indiscernible. 

No furnace will be hotter than He sees needed.

Sometimes indeed, His teachings are mysterious.

We can with difficulty spell out the letters, "God is love!"

We can see no "bright light," in "our dark cloud."

It is all mystery; there is not one break in the sky!

No! Hear what God the Lord speaks: "If need be!"

He does not long leave His people alone, if He sees their chariot wheels dragging heavily.

He will take His own means to sever them from an absorbing love of the world;

To pursue them out of self;

And dislodge usurping clay idols that may have vaulted on the throne which He alone may occupy!

Before your present trial He may have seen your love waxing cold; or your influence for good, lessening.

As the sun puts out the fire, the sun of earthly prosperity may have been extinguishing the fires of your soul.

You may have been shining less brightly for Christ, effecting some guilty compromise with an insinuating and seductive world!

He has appointed this very discipline and dealing as needful to you; nothing less could have done!

Be still, and know that He is God!

That "need be," remember, is in the hands of Infinite Love, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Power!

Trust Him in little things as well as great things; in trifles as well as tragedies!

Seek to have unquestioning faith.

Though other paths, doubtless, would have been selected by you, had the choice been in your hands...

Be it yours to listen to His voice at every turn in the road, saying, "This is the way walk in it."

We may not be able to understand it now but one day we shall come to find, that AFFLICTION is one of God's blessed angels, "sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of salvation."

Lovelier, indeed, to the eye, is the azure blue; the fleecy summer vapors, or gold and vermilion of western sunsets.

But what would become of the earth if no dark clouds from time to time hung over it; distilling their treasures, reviving and refreshing its drooping vegetable tribes?

Is it otherwise with the soul? No! The cloud of sorrow is needed.

Its every raindrop has an inner meaning of LOVE!

If, even now, afflicted one, these clouds are gathering, and the tempest sighing- lift up your eye to the divine scroll gleaming in the darkened heavens...

And remember that He who has put the Rainbow of Promise there, saw also a "need be" for the cloud on which it rests!

~John Macduff~

Absolute Assurance

Hebrews 13:5  Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 

Several times in the Scriptures the LORD hath said this.

He has often repeated it to make our assurance doubly sure.

Let us never harbor a doubt about it. In itself the promise is specially emphatic.

In the Greek it has five negatives, each one definitely shutting out the possibility of the LORD's ever leaving one of His people so that he can justly feel forsaken of his God.

This priceless Scripture does not promise us exemption from trouble, but it does secure us against desertion. 

We may be called to traverse strange ways, but we shall always have our LORD's company, assistance, and provision.

We need not covet money, for we shall always have our God, and God is better than gold;

His favor is better than fortune.

We ought surely to be content with such things as we have, for he who has God has more than all the world besides.

What can we have beyond the Infinite?

What more can we desire than almighty Goodness?

Come, my heart; if God says He will never leave thee nor forsake thee, be thou much in prayer for grace...

That thou mayest never leave thy LORD, nor even for a moment forsake His ways. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Night Of Weeping~Affliction

Affliction is full of warnings. It has many voices and these of the most various kinds. It speaks counsel, it speaks rebuke, it speaks affection.

But it speaks warning too. Let us hear some of its words of warning.

1. Affliction says, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him (I John 2:15).

There is no enforcement of this warning so solemn as that which affliction gives.

It exposes the world's hollowness and says, "love not."

It shows us what a withering gourd its beauty is and says, "love not."

It points out to us its hastening doom and says, "love not."

It declares the utter impossibility of loving both the world and the Father, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

Know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?

There can be no companionship between God and the world. They cannot dwell together under the same roof or in the same heart.

2. Affliction says, "Take heed and beware of covetousness" .

Luke 12:15  And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

Riches cannot help, neither earthly comfort avail us in the hour of grief.

They cannot dry up tears, nor reunite broken bonds.

They cannot heal the living, nor bring back the dead. They profit not in the day of darkness. Their vanity and emptiness cannot then be hidden. 

You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you, then whose shall those things be which you have provided.

It is then we find that we need a "treasure in the heaven that fails not." "I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich."

3. Affliction says, "Abstain from all appearance of evil" (I Thess 5:22). "Hate even the garments spotted by the flesh."

It is not the flesh merely that we are to hate, but even its garments.

Nor is it the garments dyed and defiled with the flesh, but even "spotted" with it.

It is not merely abstain from evil, but from all appearance of evil. 

Suffering teaches us to shrink from sin- even from the remotest and most indirect connection with it. 

It says, "Oh, do not that abominable thing which I hate!"

4. Affliction says, "Grudge not one against another". 

James 5:9  Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

Let there be no halfhearted affection in the family of God.

Let there be no envy, no jealousy, no misunderstandings among the brethren.

Why should we be less than friends who are both fellow-sufferers and fellow-soldiers here?

Why should we, who are sharers in a common danger and a common exile, bear for each other anything but the sympathies of an intense affection?

Why should we not love one another with a pure heart fervently?

Yet oftentimes it needs affliction to teach us this, to remove our jealousies, and to draw us together as brethren in sympathy and love.

5. Affliction says, "Keep yourselves from idols". 

If there be one remaining idol, break it in pieces and spare it not.

Nothing is so fruitful a cause of suffering as idolatry.

Nothing so forcibly displays the vanity of our idols as suffering.

It is with this whip of cords that Christ scourges out of us the buyers and sellers- allowing no earthly traffic to proceed in His Father's house.

~Horatius Bonar~


                                                                            
         

Resurrection Hope

1Th 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
 
1Th 4:17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  

It was "very early in the morning" while "it was yet dark," that Jesus rose from the dead. Not the sun, but only the morning-star shone upon His opening tomb.

The shadows had not fled, the citizens of Jerusalem had not awaked.

It was still night--the hour of sleep and darkness, when He arose.

Nor did his rising break the slumbers of the city.

So shall it be "very early in the morning while it is yet dark," and when nought but the morning-star is shining, that Christ's body, the Church, shall arise.

Like Him, His saints shall awake when the children of the night and darkness are still sleeping their sleep of death.

In their arising they disturb no one.

The world hears not the voice that summons them.

As Jesus laid them quietly to rest, each in his own still tomb, like children in the arms of their mother; so, as quietly, as gently, shall He awake them when the hour arrives.

To them come the quickening words, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust" (Isa. 26:19).

Isa 26:19  Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

Into their tomb the earliest ray of glory finds its way. They drink in the first gleams of morning, while as yet the eastern clouds give but the faintest signs of the uprising.

Its genial fragrance, its soothing stillness, its bracing freshness, its sweet loneliness, its quiet purity, all so solemn and yet so full of hope, these are theirs.

Oh, the contrast between these things and the dark night through which they have passed!

Oh, the contrast between these things and the grave from which they have sprung!

And as they shake off the encumbering turf, flinging mortality aside, and rising, in glorified bodies, to meet their Lord in the air, they are lighted and guided upward, along the untrodden pathway, by the beams of that Star of the morning, which, like the Star of Bethlehem, conducts them to the presence of the King. 

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

~Horatius Bonar~

While the hosts cry Hosanna, from heaven descending, With glorified saints and the angels attending,

With grace on His brow, like, a halo of glory, Will Jesus receive His own.

Even so, come quickly.

A soldier said, "When I die do not sound taps over my grave, but reveillé, the morning call, the summons to rise."

Nearest And Dearest Fellowship

1Th 4:17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 

While we are here the LORD is with us, and when we are called away we are with Him. 

There is no dividing the saint from His Savior. They are one, and they always must be one:

Jesus cannot be without His own people, for He would be a Head without a body. 

Whether caught up into the air, or resting in paradise, or sojourning here, we are with Jesus; and who shall separate us from Him?

What a joy is this! Our supreme honor, rest, comfort, delight, is to be with the LORD. 

We cannot conceive of anything which can surpass or even equal this divine society. 

By holy fellowship we must be with Him in His humiliation, rejection, and travail, and then we shall be with Him in His glory.

Before long we shall be with Him in His rest and in His royalty, in His expectation and in His manifestation.

We shall fare as He fares and triumph as He triumphs.

O my LORD, if I am to be forever with Thee, I have a destiny incomparable.

I will not envy an archangel.

To be forever with the LORD is my idea of heaven at its best.

Not the harps of gold, nor the crowns unfading, nor the light unclouded is glory to me; but Jesus, Jesus Himself, and myself forever with Him in nearest and dearest fellowship.

~Charles Spurgeon~

His Love Brings Us Through

                                                                             
Isaiah 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness                                                   

"His Ways Are Everlasting"

Habakkuk 3:6 3:6  He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting. 

What he hath done at one time, he will do yet again. Man’s ways are variable, but God’s ways are everlasting.

There are many reasons for this most comforting truth: Among them are the following...

The Lord’s ways are the result of wise deliberation; he ordereth all things according to the counsel of his own will.

Human action is frequently the hasty result of passion, or fear, and is followed by regret and alteration; but nothing can take the Almighty by surprise, or happen otherwise than he has foreseen. 

His ways are the outgrowth of an immutable character, and in them the fixed and settled attributes of God are clearly to be seen.

Unless the Eternal One himself can undergo change, his ways, which are himself in action, must remain forever the same.

Is he eternally just, gracious, faithful, wise, tender?-then his ways must ever be distinguished for the same excellencies.

Beings act according to their nature: when those natures change, their conduct varies also; but since God cannot know the shadow of a turning, his ways will abide everlastingly the same.

Moreover there is no reason from without which could reverse the divine ways, since they are the embodiment of irresistible might. 

The earth is said, by the prophet, to be cleft with rivers, mountains tremble, the deep lifts up its hands, and sun and moon stand still, when Jehovah marches forth for the salvation of his people. 

Who can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?

But it is not might alone which gives stability; God’s ways are the manifestation of the eternal principles of right, and therefore can never pass away.

Wrong breeds decay and involves ruin, but the true and the good have about them a vitality which ages cannot diminish.
 
This morning let us go to our heavenly Father with confidence, remembering that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him the Lord is ever gracious to his people.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Do Not Yield To Discouragement

Exo 16:10  And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.

Get into the habit of looking for the silver lining of the cloud and when you have found it, continue to look at it, rather than at the leaden gray in the middle.

Do not yield to discouragement no matter how sorely pressed or beset you may be.

A discouraged soul is helpless. He can neither resist the wiles of the enemy himself, while in this state, nor can he prevail in prayer for others.

Flee from every symptom of this deadly foe as you would flee from a viper. And be not slow in turning your back on it, unless you want to bite the dust in bitter defeat.

Search out God's promises and say aloud of each one: "This promise is mine." If you still experience a feeling of doubt and discouragement, pour out your heart to God and ask Him to rebuke the adversary who is so mercilessly nagging you.

The very instant you whole-heartedly turn away from every symptom of distrust and discouragement, the blessed Holy Spirit will quicken your faith and inbreathe Divine strength into your soul.

At first you may not be conscious of this, still as you resolutely and uncompromisingly "snub" every tendency toward doubt and depression that assails you, you will soon be made aware that the powers of darkness are falling back.

Oh, if our eyes could only behold the solid phalanx of strength, of power, that is ever behind every turning away from the hosts of darkness, God-ward, what scant heed would be given to the effort of the wily foe to distress, depress, discourage us!

All the marvelous attributes of the Godhead are on the side of the weakest believer, who in the name of Christ, and in simple, childlike trust, yields himself to God and turns to Him for help and guidance. 

~Selected~

On a day in the autumn, I saw a prairie eagle mortally wounded by a rifle shot. His eye still gleamed like a circle of light. Then he slowly turned his head, and gave one more searching and longing look at the sky.

He had often swept those starry spaces with his wonderful wings. The beautiful sky was the home of his heart. It was the eagle's domain. A thousand times he had exploited there his splendid strength.

In those far away heights be had played with the lightnings, and raced with the winds, and now, so far away from home, the eagle lay dying, done to the death, because for once be forgot and flew too low. 

The soul is that eagle. This is not its home. It must not lose the skyward look.

We must keep faith, we must keep hope, we must keep courage, we must keep Christ.

We would better creep away from the battlefield at once if we are not going to be brave. There is no time for the soul to stampede.

Keep the skyward look, my soul; keep the skyward look!

Keep looking up-The waves that roar around thy feet, Jehovah-Jireh will defeat When looking up.

Keep looking up-Though darkness seems to wrap thy soul; The Light of Light shall fill thy soul When looking up.

Keep looking up-When worn, distracted with the fight; Your Captain gives you conquering might When you look up.

Learning Christ

It may startle you if I say that we can only know the sufficiency of our Lord Jesus Christ if we are willing to go into the wilderness.

Now, the wilderness has always been the best place for spiritual education.

You may think that there is not much to be learnt in a wilderness.

Nevertheless it is so; it is the best place to learn heavenly things.

It was so with Abraham; it was so in the case of Moses; it was true with Israel.

The wilderness had also a definite place in the life of Paul.

Whether we take it in a literal or a spiritual way, the fact is that God’s people were, again and again, sent into the wilderness.

Many of us know what such a ‘wilderness’ means.

When God puts His hand upon a people, He always cuts them off from everything which is not of Himself;

That is, He cuts them off from the whole realm of their natural life, and puts them, so to speak, outside of the world of nature.

We see this in the case of the people of Israel.

Pharaoh was allowing them to go into the desert; he wanted them to serve God in a half-hearted way: partly in Egypt and partly in the land.

But that could never serve God.

God’s irreducible minimum was: not a hoof was to be left behind.

God’s people should be absolutely separated from Egypt.

Therefore the Red Sea came between His people and the Egyptians.

God saw to it that they remained in the wilderness until they had learnt their lesson.

God had some great lessons to teach them there.

Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness had to serve coming generations as an example.

The dispensation of the church yet far away in the future was to derive its instruction from them.

In the wilderness God laid down eternal principles.

The things which happened to Israel “were our examples”.

God cuts His people off from the whole realm of nature.

You know how little the natural man prevails in the wilderness.

It doesn’t matter how intellectual, how mighty the natural resources are.

It is not of much use in a wilderness.

You may be an excellent student, a splendid businessman or organizer, yet all this is not much good in a wilderness.

For a man who is planted down alone in the middle of a wilderness, his own cleverness is not of much avail, his natural capacities will not bring him very far.

So you see what matters.

When God gets us into His hand, He takes us right out of the realm of what we are by nature.

That is the meaning of the wilderness.

God’s object is to make Christ everything.

So long as we can do things, so long as we have resources in ourselves, we cannot know Jesus Christ.

Christ will remain an unexplored realm for us.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Fly Into The Bosom Of Christ For Refuge And Safety!

Matthew 18:4  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

It is very sweet just to nestle down in the bosom of Christ-to be as a little child with Him.

Those who come otherwise do not get near to Him but the child-like always find a close place in His heart.

So the more like children we can be in our trust and in the simplicity of our faith, in humbleness of disposition, in willingness to do His will and to learn of Him-the nearer to Him shall we get, and the more shall we enjoy of His love.

Some years ago, as I was passing along one of our streets one afternoon, I heard a fluttering of birds over my head and, looking up, saw a little bird flying wildly about in circles, chased by a hawk!

The bird flew down lower and lower, and then darted into my bosom, under my coat.

I cannot quite express to you, the feeling which filled my heart at that moment...

That a little bird, chased by an enemy, had come to me for refuge, trusting me in time of danger.

I laid my hand over the bird, which nestled as quietly and confidently under my coat, as a baby would in a mother's bosom.

I carried the little thing along for several blocks until I thought the way was clear of danger, and then let it out.

It flew away into the air again, but showed no fear of me.

Ever since that experience, I have understood better what it is to fly into the bosom of Christ for refuge and safety in time of danger, or in time of distress.

All this helps me to understand better what it means to Jesus when we, hunted and chased by enemies, or suffering from weakness or pain fly to Him and hide ourselves in His love.

That is all we need to do...just to creep into the bosom of Christ, and lie down there, with no fear, no anxiety, but with simple trust.

The lines of Wesley's old hymn have meant more ever since:  

Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high.
 
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, Till the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide; Oh, receive my soul at last.
 
Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, ah! leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me.
 
All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing.

~J. R. Miller-1914~