We May Speak For God

Jer 15:19  Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

Poor Jeremiah! Yet why do we say so? 

The weeping prophet was one of the choicest servants of God and honored by Him above many. 

He was hated for speaking the truth. 

The word which was so sweet to him was bitter to his hearers, yet he was accepted of his LORD. 

He was commanded to abide in his faithfulness...

And then the LORD would continue to speak through him. 

He was to deal boldly and truthfully with men and perform the LORD's winnowing work upon the professors of his day...

And then the LORD gave him this word: "Thou shalt be as my mouth."

What an honor! 

Should not every preacher, yea, every believer, covet it? 

For God to speak by us, what a marvel! 

We shall speak sure, pure truth; and we shall speak it with power. 

Our word shall not return void...

It shall be a blessing to those who receive it...

And those who refuse it shall do so at their peril. 

Our lips shall feed many. 

We shall arouse the sleeping and call the dead to life.

O dear reader, pray that it may be so with all the sent servants of our LORD.

~Charles Spurgeon~

The Root Upon Which Our Blessings Grow

All Christians desire to be purified and made white...

But when it comes to being tried, that is a very different thing.

They shrink from the very word. 

Their trials are to them as a nightmare from which they would gladly escape. 

But trials are a necessary part of God's process of preparing us for Heaven.

The storms and obstacles in our lives, all work out for our good if we meet them as we should. 

Through them, our lives are enriched and ennobled and developed. 

They are blessings to us, though they may seem to be blessings very much disguised.

Life has both its bitter and its sweet. 

We should not always expect to have the sweet alone. 

Sometimes circumstances are in our favor, and work for our happiness, peace and contentment. 

Sometimes we have smooth sailing, and everything goes pleasantly. 

We are courageous and confident and rejoicing. 

The sun shines brightly out of a cloudless sky, and every prospect seems fair.

But this smooth sailing does not last forever. 

Sooner or later, the clouds must come and the storm-winds beat upon us. 

We must have the rough weather as well as the pleasant weather; the storm--as well as the calm.

The sunshine and the calm are very needful in life-and they work out a definite purpose.
 
But the storms and the rain and the wind are likewise needed-and they also fulfill their purpose.

Trials will come...we cannot evade them. 

We may plan and build up hopes-only to have our air-castles come crashing down around our heads! 

If we have set our hearts upon these things, we are likely to be very disappointed upon their wreck, and to feel very gloomy over the result.

How greatly we are affected by our trials, depends on whether or not we sweetly submit to them. 

We should never fret on account of disappointments. 

If we do, they will only grow more rapidly, both in size and in intensity.

Losses may come to us-our property may be swept away or burned up. 

If we have our hearts set upon our possessions-then this may touch a tender spot, and it will darken our lives and make us morose and dissatisfied.

Poverty may come and the many difficulties incident thereto.

Sickness may lay its heavy hand upon us or our loved ones, and try every fiber of our being. 

Sickness may play upon the chords of pain, a lamentation that incites with exquisite torture! 

Or it may fire our blood with fever until the sparkle has gone from the eye and the glow of health from the cheek. 

Or it may bind us helplessly captive in chains.

Death may come and take those dear by the ties of nature or friendship-and leave sorrow and grief to be our companions.

These things try the soul, but they must be borne. 

We cannot escape such things, for they are the common heritage of those who dwell in tabernacles of clay. 

They belong to mortality and to the mutable things of time. 

How greatly such things may affect us, will depend upon how much we rebel against the circumstances...

Or how easily we submit to and adapt ourselves to God's will. 

God may chasten you sorely, but He will do it for your profit, not for your destruction.

Our trials are the root upon which our blessings grow. 

These roots may be bitter-but the fruit is sure to be sweet, if we patiently wait for its maturing. 

Many choice fruits grow on thorny trees, and he who will gather the fruit, may expect to be pricked now and then by the thorns.

We cannot escape trials.

The only thing some Christians do by rebelling, is to increase their suffering in the trials and prevent themselves from getting the blessedness out of them.

We ought to be willing to suffer when it is God's will for us to suffer, and when He sees it is necessary for us to suffer. 

Our Master drank the cup of suffering, even though it was bitter. 

Are we better than He? 

Shall we refuse to go by the path which led Him to glory?

~Charles Naylor~

Let This Comfort You

Psa 31:15  My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.

What a mercy it is that all our concerns are in sure hands! 

Not a hair of our heads can fall to the ground, but by the appointment of Him who orders and marshals the stars and calls them all by their names!

Diseases and sicknesses are His messengers, and, when they have answered His end-then He will recall them. 

But on many accounts there is a need be that we should sometimes be in heaviness for a season. 

O may we learn to take up the cross, and to kiss the rod of affliction. 

We need to look through all second causes-to Him who appoints and over-rules, and without whose permission, not a hair of our heads shall fall to the ground.

The Lord has promised to direct, moderate, sanctify, and relieve every trial of every kind. 

I long to have a more entire submission to His will, and a more steadfast confidence in His Word...

To trust Him and wait on Him--to see His hand, and praise His name, in every circumstance of life, great and small.

Is sickness your present cross?

It can come no sooner, nor fall heavier, than He bids it. 

And when His end is answered, and His hour comes to give relief-then sickness departs at His word. 

The cure becomes easy then, even where it seemed desperate before.

Our comforts are never safer than when we can fully trust the Lord to do with them, and with us-as He sees fit. 

He will not willingly or unnecessarily grieve His redeemed children. 

When His arm seems lifted up to strike them-how often does He put it into their hearts to run toward Him and humble themselves before Him, and thus prevent the blow!

We shall have cause to be thankful for all our afflictions-if the Lord is pleased to employ them as means to make us more humble and broken-hearted, and to wean our hearts from this vain world.

Sickness often gives us a sensible proof of the vanity of everything earthly. 

May the Lord sanctify our sicknesses and pains, to quicken our desires for that better world, when pain shall be no more!

~John Newton~

The Rest Of Faith

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Heb 4:9  There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 

I am sure it will sound to many of you like going a long way back and going out into a very broad realm when I say that we Christians are being constantly confronted with and challenged by our Christianity.

Many of us have not really entered into Christianity yet. 

What do I mean?

Well, for one thing, the very door into true Christianity is the door of rest, the rest of faith. 

The very simple way in which the Lord put it in His appeal was..."Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).

That was to a multitude, and those words are usually employed in Gospel messages to the unsaved.

The meaning of the Lord in using those words is given to us here in the letter to the Hebrews...

A very much deeper and fuller meaning than is generally recognized in the usage of the simple invitation "Come unto Me... and I will give you rest."

There is something that we have to hear, to detect, in the statement..."There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." Heb 4:9

You will not think me too elementary, for you know in your heart, as well as I do in mine, that this matter of heart rest, the rest of faith, is a live question continually, it is coming up all the time.

One of the things which is lacking in so many of us is this rest...

Or, to put it the other way, the things which characterize us so much are fret, anxiety, uncertainty, and all those things which are just the opposite of calm assurance, quiet confidence, the spirit and attitude and atmosphere which says all the time, "Don't worry, don't fret, it is all right."

One thing our great enemy is always trying to do is to disturb that, destroy that, rob us of that, churn us up, fret us, drive us, harass us, anything to rob us of our rest or to prevent us from entering into rest.

It is the rest of faith, not just the rest of passivity, indifference, and carelessness.

There is all the difference between carelessness and carefreeness.

There remaineth, there is still to be had, there still obtains, there still exists, there is still preserved a rest for the people of God – for the people of God.

~T. Austin Sparks~

                                                                           

                                        

I Began To Read The Holy Scriptures Upon My Knees

My mind being now more open and enlarged...
 
I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees...

Laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and Word.

This proved food indeed and drink indeed to my soul. 

I daily received fresh life, light and power from above. 

I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month-than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men!

~George Whitefield~

I went to my room and locked my door, and putting the Bible on a chair, I went down on my knees at the chair. 

There I remained for several hours in prayer and meditation over the Word of God...

And I can tell you that I learned more in those three hours which I spent in this way, than I had learned for many months previously.

~George Muller~

Psa 119:97  O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

Desires Of Righteous Granted

Pro 10:24  The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted. 

Because it is a righteous desire it is safe for God to grant it.

It would be neither good for the man himself, nor for society at large, that such a promise should be made to the unrighteous. 

Let us keep the LORD's commands, and He will rightfully have respect to our desires.

When righteous men are left to desire unrighteous desires, they will not be granted to them. 

But then these are not their real desires; they are their wanderings or blunders, and it is well that they should be refused. 

Their gracious desires shall come before the LORD, and He will not say them nay.

Does the LORD deny us our requests for a time? 

Let the promise for today encourage us to ask again. 

Has He denied us altogether?

We will thank Him still, for it always was our desire that He should deny us if He judged a denial to be best.

As to some things, we ask very boldly. 

Our chief desires are for holiness, usefulness, likeness to Christ, preparedness for heaven.

These are the desires of grace rather than of nature - the desires of the righteous man rather than of the mere man. 

God will not stint us in these things but will do for us exceeding abundantly. 

Delight thy self also in the LORD, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

This day, my soul, ask largely!  

~Charles Spurgeon~

Without Fear Of Man

Deu 28:10  And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.

Then we can have no reason to be afraid of them. 

This would show a mean spirit and be a token of unbelief rather than of faith.

God can make us so like Himself that men shall be forced to see that we rightly bear His name...

And truly belong to the holy Jehovah. 

Oh, that we may obtain this grace which the LORD waits to bestow!

Be assured that Ungodly men have a Fear of True Saints. 

They hate them, but they also fear them. 

Haman trembled because of Mordecai, even when he sought the good man's destruction. 

In fact, their hate often arises out of a dread which they are too proud to confess. 

Let us pursue the path of truth and uprightness without the slightest tremor. 

Fear is not for us but for those who do ill and fight against the LORD of hosts. 

If indeed the name of the eternal God is named upon us, we are secure...

For, as of old, a Roman had but to say Romanus sum, I am a Roman, and he could claim the protection of all the legions of the vast empire...

So every one who is a man of God has omnipotence as his guardian...

And God will sooner empty heaven of angels than leave a saint without defense. 

Be braver than lions for the right, for God is with you. 

~Charles Spurgeon~

Not Forgotten

Isa 44:21  Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. 

Our Jehovah cannot so forget His servants as to cease to love them. 

He chose them not for a time but forever. 

He knew what they would be when He called them into the divine family. 

He blots out their sins like a cloud...

And we may be sure that He will not turn them out of doors for iniquities which He has blotted out.

It would be blasphemy to imagine such a thing.

He will not forget them so as to cease to think of them. 

One forgetful moment on the part of our God would be our ruin. 

Therefore He says, "Thou shalt not be forgotten of me,"...

Men forget us; those whom we have benefited turn against us. 

We have no abiding place in the fickle hearts of men...

But God will never forget one of His true servants.

He binds Himself to us not by what we do for Him but by what He has done for us. 

We have been loved too long and bought at too great a price to be now forgotten. 

Jesus sees in us His soul's travail, and that He never can forget. 

The Father sees in us the spouse of His Son...

And the Spirit sees in us His own effectual work. 

The LORD thinketh upon us.

This day we shall be succored and sustained. 

Oh, that the LORD may never be forgotten of us! 

~Charles Spurgeon~

These Forty Years In The Wilderness!

Deu 8:2  And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

This verse calls for a solemn review of our life-how far we have redeemed the time, or to what extent we have trifled it away.

We should be humbled at the recollection of how frequently we grumbled-because His way was not the one we desired. 

We should judge ourselves unsparingly-because we so often lagged behind, and sought to turn aside into forbidden bypaths. 

We should ponder the amazing grace of God in condescending to lead us across this trackless desert...

And think, too, of His infinite forbearance in continuing to lead us-who are so ungrateful and contrary.

We should praise Him for having kept us in the Narrow Way-which we would have certainly forsaken, had we been left to follow the bent of our own evil lusts. 

And we also should return fervent thanks-that we are now a year's march nearer to our Heavenly Home.

Psa 139:23  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Psa 139:24  And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

~Arthur Pink~

God's Instruments Stripped Of Their Own Glory

Zec 4:10  For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.

Now here is the real value of significance of that little interrogation - "Who hath despised the day of small things?" 

Out of the millions who went into exile, just these forty-two thousand odd would pay the price of letting go their comforts and possessions and all that they had come to settle into in their exile, and go back for the Lord's testimony.

Comparatively, out of the millions, a very small thing and in weakness; coming back with nothing, coming back to a desolate land - nothing there for them, nothing to bring with them, weak, impoverished, stripped, an afflicted people in the land - a day of small things.

But there is something very challenging in that word, "Who hath despised the day of small things?"

We have not really got the value and force of those words.

God Almighty is committed to that which is standing for His glory.

That is no small thing, you cannot despise that, and the fact remains that whenever God has sought to get peculiar glory for Himself, He has taken something which had no glory in itself.

Ah yes, you may despise it, but with God it is elect, precious, it is something of tremendous value.

You would never despise whatever the thing was in itself if it was standing wholly for the glory of God, and you understand that such a thing finds God committed in His anointing to that.

God has ever been under obligation to strip His instruments of their own glory.

A Moses with all his Egyptian glory must go for forty years to the desert to be emptied out and brought to be the man who says, "I cannot!" before the glory of God in Israel can come in.

A Gideon's twenty-two thousand must be brought down to three hundred if God is going to be glorified.

But Moses now is not a man to be despised.

Let them despise Moses and say, "Does the Lord speak only by Moses?

Does He not speak by us also?
 
And they despised him, and it just puts in there, "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth."

Now then, see what God will do.

God is committed, and the glory of God appeared at the gate of the tabernacle and took up the challenge.

And the three hundred of Gideon was a small thing, but not to be despised.

The principle holds good.

Sometimes it takes the Lord years and years to get us sufficiently empty, meek and small, to bring in glory to Him...And that explains His dealings with us.

When He has got us small enough and empty enough, then He will begin His real testimony in us.

Not by might, nor by power of any kind whatsoever, but by My Spirit said Jehovah of hosts, the Lord God of Sabaoth.

~T. Austin Sparks~

Grace For The Humble

James 4:6  But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 

Humble hearts seek grace, and therefore they get it.

Humble hearts yield to the sweet influences of grace...

And so it is bestowed on them more and more largely. 

Humble hearts lie in the valleys where streams of grace are flowing...

And hence they drink of them, 

Humble hearts are grateful for grace and give the LORD the glory of it...

And hence it is consistent with His honor to give it to them.

Come, dear reader, take a lowly place. 

Be little in thine own esteem, that the LORD may make much of thee.

Perhaps the sigh breaks out, "I fear I am not humble." 

It may be that this is the language of true humility. 

Some are proud of being humble...

And this is one of the very worst sorts of pride. 

We are needy, helpless, undeserving, hell-deserving creatures... 

And if we are not humble we ought to be. 

Let us humble ourselves because of our sins against humility...

And then the LORD will give us to taste of His favor.

It is grace which makes us humble...

And grace which finds in this humility an opportunity for pouring in more grace. 

Let us go down that we may rise. 

Let us be poor in spirit that God may make us rich. 

Let us be humble that we may not need to be humbled but may be exalted by the grace of God.  

~Charles Spurgeon~

Carry Your Cross

The cross which my Lord bids me take up and carry may assume different shapes. 

I may have to content myself with a lowly and narrow sphere, when I feel that I have capacities for much higher work. 

I may have to go on cultivating year after year, a field which seems to yield me no harvests whatsoever. 

I may be bidden to cherish kind and loving thoughts about someone who has wronged me...

Be bidden speak to him tenderly, and take his part against all who oppose him...

And crown him with sympathy and succor. 

I may have to confess my Master amongst those who do not wish to be reminded of Him and His claims.

I may be called to "move among my race, and show a glorious morning face," when my heart is breaking.

There are many crosses, and every one of them is sore and heavy. 

None of them is likely to be sought out by me of my own accord. 

But never is Jesus so near me as when I lift my cross...

And lay it submissively on my shoulder...

And give it the welcome of a patient and unmurmuring spirit.

He draws close, to ripen my wisdom...

To deepen my peace...

To increase my courage...

To increase my power to be of use to others, through the very experience which is so grievous and distressing...

And then...as I read on the seal of one of those Scottish Covenanters whom Claverhouse imprisoned on the lonely Bass, with the sea surging and sobbing round--I grow under the load.

~Alexander Smellie

Use your cross as a crutch to help you on, and not as a stumblingblock to cast you down.

You may others from sadness to gladness beguile,

If you carry your cross with a smile.                                                                             
 

From Fetters Free

Psalm 146:7  Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:
He has done it. 

Remember Joseph, Israel in Egypt, Manasseh, Jeremiah, Peter, and many others.

He can do it still. 

He breaks the bars of brass with a word and Snaps the fetters of iron with a look. 

He is doing it. 

In a thousand places troubled ones are coming forth to Light and Enlargement. 

Jesus still proclaims the Opening of the prison to them that are bound. 

At this moment doors are Flying back and fetters are Dropping to the ground.

He will delight to SET YOU FREE, dear friend, if at this time you are mourning because of sorrow, doubt, and fear. 

It will be Joy to Jesus to give you Liberty.

It will give Him as great a pleasure to Loose you as it will be a pleasure to you to be loosed.

No, you have not to snap the iron hand: the LORD Himself will do it.

Only trust Him, and He will be your Emancipator. 

Believe in Him in spite of the stone walls or the manacles of iron. 

Satan cannot hold you, sin cannot enchain you, even despair cannot bind you if you will now believe in the LORD Jesus, in the freeness of His grace, and the fullness of His power to save.

Defy the enemy, and let the word now before you be your song of deliverance...

Jehovah looseth the prisoners.

~Charles Spurgeon~

You Will One Day See Your Egyptians Dead

Exodus 14:30  Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.

What a relief that morning brought from the anxieties of the previous night! 

Then, as they lifted up their eyes, they saw Pharaoh and the dreaded Egyptian taskmaster in full pursuit; now they beheld the seashore strewn with their bodies, stark and cold.

They would never see them again, nor hear the crack of their whips.

So in life we are permitted to see the dreaded temptations and evils of earlier days suddenly deprived of all power to hurt us. 

The Egyptians are dead upon the shore; and we see the great work of the Lord. 

Let us take comfort in this.

In the pressure of trial...You are suffering keenly; yet remember that no trial is allowed to come from any source in which there is not a Divine meaning. 

Nothing can enter your life, of which God is not cognizant, and which He does not permit. 

Though the pressure of your trial is almost unbearable, you will one day see your Egyptians dead.

Amid the temptations of the great adversary of Sauls. - They may seem at this moment more than you can bear; but God is about to deliver you. 

He can so absolutely free you from the habits of self-indulgence which you have contracted, and from the perpetual yielding to temptation to which you have been prone...

That some day you will look with amazement and thankfulness on these things, as Egyptians dead on the seashore.

So also in the presence of death. - Many believers dread, not the after-death, but the act of dying. 

But as the morning of eternity breaks, they will awake with songs of joy to see death and the grave and all the evils that they dreaded, like Egyptians, strewn on the shores of the sea of glass.

~F. B. Meyer~