Obedience Brings Blessing

Deu 12:28  Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God.

Though salvation is not by the works of the law, yet the blessings which are promised to obedience are not denied to the faithful servants of God.

The curses our LORD took away when He was made a curse for us, but no clause of blessing has been abrogated.

We are to note and listen to the revealed will of the LORD, giving our attention not to portions of it but to "all these words."

There must be no picking and choosing but an impartial respect to all that God has commanded.

This is the road of blessedness for the Father and for His children.

The LORD's blessing is upon His chosen to the third and fourth generation.

If they walk uprightly before Him, He will make all men know that they are a seed which the LORD has blessed.

No blessing can come to us or ours through dishonesty or double dealing.

The ways of worldly conformity and unholiness cannot bring good to us or ours.

It will go well with us when we go well before God.

If integrity does not make us prosper, dishonest dealing will not.

That which gives pleasure to God will bring pleasure to us.

~Charles Spurgeon~               

Our Helper In Prayer

Heb 4:14  Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
 
Heb 4:15  For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
 
Heb 4:16  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Our great Helper in prayer is the Lord Jesus Christ, our Advocate with the Father, our Great High Priest, whose chief ministry for us these centuries has been intercession and prayer.

He it is who takes our imperfect petitions from our hands, cleanses them from their defects, corrects their faults, and then claims their answer from His Father on His own account and through His all-atoning merits and righteousness.

Brother, are you fainting in prayer? Look up.

Your blessed Advocate has already claimed your answer, and you would grieve and disappoint Him if you were to give up the conflict in the very moment when victory is on its way to meet you.

He has gone in for you into the inner chamber, and already holds up your name upon the palms of His hands;

And the messenger, which is to bring you your blessing, is now on his way, and the Spirit is only waiting your trust to whisper in your heart the echo of the answer from the throne, "It is done."

~A. B. Simpson~

The Spirit has much to do with acceptable prayer, and His work in prayer is too much neglected.

He enlightens the mind to see its wants, softens the heart to feel them...

Quickens our desires after suitable supplies...

Gives clear views of God's power, wisdom, and grace to relieve us...

And stirs up that confidence in His truth which excludes all wavering.

Prayer is, therefore, a wonderful thing.

In every acceptable prayer the whole Trinity is concerned.

~J. Angell James~

The Psalmist Was a Man Unanswered

First, note that he was a man unanswered. 

He knew the bitterness of heaven's silence.

His opening cry in our deep psalm is this: "Hide not thyself from my supplication".

Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication. Psa 55:1

It is an easy thing to trust in God when swiftly and certainly our prayers are answered.

There are some who read this column whose life is a compact of answered prayer.

But when we pray and the face of God is hidden, and we are restless because heaven is silent-it is often difficult to trust Him then.

Especially is that true of intercession when we have been praying for someone who is dear, that God would spare a life or kill a habit or bring the beloved prodigal home again.

To continue trusting when we have prayed like that and the prayers have seemed to go whistling down the wind, is one of the hardest tasks in human life.

The splendid thing is that the psalmist did it. He refused to regard silence as indifference.

He knew that a thousand days are as one day to God and that sometimes love delays the chariot wheels.

Heaven might be silent and the face of God averted and all the comfort of fellowship withdrawn, but I will trust in thee.

~George H. Morrison~
     

To Him That Overcometh

We all have resurrection Life if we are joined to Christ as Resurrection, but there is something more than that;

There is resurrection power, which carries us eventually (if it has its full outworking) to the Throne, and not all will come to the Throne.

It is: “to him that overcomes.” Caleb, like Paul, and Paul, like Caleb, stood against the more general course of things amongst the Lord’s people.

The majority were content with going so far as to the inheritance, possessing so much, and there staying and settling down.

An unfinished course, a curtailed spiritual advance, an accepting of something less than what God had appointed and intended.

The majority took that course, but Caleb was never content and he stood against the majority just as he had always stood against a majority that did not represent God’s full mind....

Spiritual leadership always involves loneliness.

That is the cost of it.

The overcomers will always be, so far as the larger Christian world is concerned, a lonely company, having to go on, with few able to follow.

Caleb could not accept the popular voice, his heart was too set upon the Lord.

He wholly followed the Lord, not the popular and general standard of Christian life.

We may say that Caleb was the very embodiment of all that God meant the whole people to be.

When you see Caleb you see what God wished all Israel to be, but all Israel did not come to the standard of Caleb.

But the Lord gets in a Caleb the satisfaction of His heart.

The Lord realizes His full thought in a Caleb, in the same way as He does in a Paul.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Doom Of The Double-Hearted

Num 31:8  And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. 

Balaam had taken the field against Israel-against a people whom he had pronounced blessed-whom he had pronounced invincible both by earth and hell.

Yes; Balaam "the son of Beor," he, and not another of the name-he rushes on the bosses of the Almighty's buckler; he defies Israel and Israel's God!

But he fails.

He would sincerely have cursed Israel; but he could not.

He counseled Moab to seduce Israel by temptation, and his device succeeded too well.

He now fetches his last stroke. In vain He perishes ignobly.

He is slain with the sword which he had defied.

Such is the end of the backslider; of one who knew the truth but did it not; who once said, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

It was certainly not the end he prayed for; yet it was the end to which his whole life had been tending.

He reaped what he sowed, and in him "God was not mocked." 

He died as he lived, in fellowship with Moab, yet in heart persuaded that Israel was the beloved of the Lord, and that Jehovah was God.

His life had been with Midian, and so was his death.

His grave is with the unclean.

He passes from earth with none to soothe his death-bed and close his eyes; none to lament for him or to build his monument.
 
Sad end of a life of halting and indecision, and resistance of the Spirit, and braving of conscience, and rejection of light, and wretched covetousness.

He loved the wages of unrighteousness, and verily he had his reward.

Let us see what he wanted and how he failed; how ambitious he was, yet what a life of utter failure and disappointment was his. 

He would sincerely have risen, but he sunk.

He would sincerely have been rich, but he lost everything.

What a wasted life!

Yet the life of one who knew better things but did them not; who knew that the world was vanity, yet followed it;

Who knew that Israel's portion was the best, yet chose that of Moab; who knew the true God and the true Messiah, but preferred the idolatries of Israel's enemies.

He saw Him from the top of the rocks, but that was all.

He got a passing glimpse of the cross, but no more.

It was all he saw of the way of life, before he plunged into death and woe.
 
I. He wanted to serve two masters.

These were the same as the Lord in after days designated God and mammon. He wanted not to offend either; to please both. 

He was like Issachar crouching between two burdens. But it would not do.

He failed. Such is the certain failure of all who make the like attempt. "You cannot serve God and mammon."

He loved the one master, mammon; and he dreaded the other; but would sincerely do the will of both.

He could not afford to lose the favor of either. Miserable life! More miserable death!

The life and death of one whose whole career was one long attempt to do the bidding both of God and the devil.
 
II. He wanted to earn two kinds of wages.

The wages of righteousness and the wages of unrighteousness were both in his eyes; he would sincerely have the pay both of God and of the devil.

2Pe 2:15  Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

He was unwilling to do or say anything which would deprive him of either. 

He was as cautious and cunning as he was covetous.

He would not work without wages; and he would work for a hundred masters if they would only pay him well.

How like many so-called "religious" men among ourselves.
 
III. He wanted to do two opposite things at the same time.

He wished both to bless and to curse.

He was willing to do either according as it might serve his interests.

The only question with him was, "Would it pay?"

If the blessing would pay, he would take it; if the curse would pay, he would take it.

If both would pay, he would take them both.

Blessing and cursing were both alike to him, confessing and denying the true God, worshiping Baal or Jehovah, it mattered not, if by "this craft he could have his wealth."

So with many among us. If Sabbath-keeping will pay, they will keep the Sabbath; if Sabbath-breaking will pay, they will break the Sabbath.

True Balaams– without principle, without faith, and without fear!
 
IV. He wanted two kinds of friendship.

He would sincerely be friends with everybody. Perhaps he was timid; of those whom Scripture calls "fearful"

Rev 21:8  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. 

Perhaps, also, he was ambitious, and sought great things for himself wherever these could be obtained...

Jer 45:5  And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.

Certainly he had before him "the fear of man which brings a snare," and the love of man's approbation which brings no less a snare;

He dreaded Israel's God, of whom he knew much, but he dreaded also Moab's gods, though whether he really believed in them we know not.

Made up of these contradictions, and acting not by faith but unbelief, he tried to secure the friendship of all whom he counted great, whether in heaven or in earth.

He shut his eyes not only to the sin but to the impossibility of such a course;

He saw not that the friendship of the world is the enemy of God, and that whoever will be the friend of the world must be the enemy of God.
 
V. He wanted to have two religions.

He saw religion to be a paying concern, a profitable trade, and he was willing to accept it from anybody or everybody, to adopt it from any quarter if it would but raise him in the world, and make his fortune.

Perhaps he thought all religions equally right or equally wrong, equally true or equally false.

He would rather not offend any god if lie could help it.

He would make concessions to "religious prejudices" of any kind if the prejudiced people will only help him on.

He was like Erasmus of old, whom a German writer thus describes– "Erasmus belongs to that species of writers who have all the desire to build God a magnificent church; at the same time, however, not giving the devil any offense...

To whom, accordingly, they set up a neat little chapel close by, where you can offer him some touch of sacrifice at a time, and practice a quiet household devotion for him without disturbance."
 
Such was Balaam; two gods and two religions he wanted to have.

But this double service, and double friendship, and double religion would not do.

He could make nothing by them. They profited him nothing either in this life or that to come.

His end was with the ungodly, his portion with the enemies of Israel.

And his soul, where could it be? Not with Israel's God, or Israel's Christ, or in Israel's heaven.

He reaped what he sowed.

He was a good specimen of multitudes in these last days.

An educated and intelligent man, shrewd and quick-seeing, of respectable character, high in favor with the rich and great, a religious man, too, after a fashion, not unsound in creed so far, for he acknowledges Jehovah as the true God.
 
But he is fond of the world, fond of money, fond of preferment; one that would not let his religion stand in the way of his advancement; who could pocket all scruples if he could pocket a little gold along with them;

Hollow of heart, but with a fair outside; just an Erasmus; no Luther, no Calvin, no Knox, no confessor, no martyr.

His worldly interests are the main thing to him.

He would rather not risk offending God, but yet he would not like to lose Balak's rewards and honors.
 
He would rather not take up his cross, nor deny himself, nor forsake all for his God.

Religion with him is not just a thing to be suffered for-at least if he can help it.

So is it with multitudes among us. They want as much religion as will save them from hell; not an atom more.

The world is their real God; gold is their idol; it is in mammon's temple that they worship.

Love God with all their heart! They don't so much as understand the meaning of such a thing. 

Sacrifice riches, place, honor, friends to Christ! They scoff at the thing as madness.

Oh, be on the side of God, out and out. Don't trifle with religion.
 
Don't mock God and Christ.

Love not the world.

Be religious in your inmost soul.

Don't mistake sentimentalism for religion, or a good character for the new birth.

You may go very far and yet not be a Christian.

You may follow Christ in some things; but if not in all, what is your following worth?

This world or the world to come, that is the alternative; not this world and the world to come.

Christ all or nothing. 

The soul more precious than worlds, or utterly worthless. 

No middle ground; no half-discipleship; no compromise.

No. The friendship of the world is enmity with God.

Come out and be separate. The new birth, or no religion at all.
Look to your latter end! 

What is it to be?

Where is it to be?

With whom is it to be?

Anticipate your eternity.

Is it to be darkness or light, shame or glory?

Oh make sure, make sure!

Do not sear your conscience by praying Balaam's prayer, "Let me die the death of the righteous."

What will that avail you?

It is the life of the righteous that God is calling you to lead and he will take care of your death.

Decide, halt not; else surely yours will be a wretched life and a still more wretched death.

What will gold, or purple, or honor do for you when you lie down to die, or rise up to be judged? 

~Horatius Bonar~

Help From Without

                                                   
Yesterday's promise secured us strength for what we have to do, but this guarantees us aid in cases where we cannot act alone.

The LORD says, "I will help thee."

Strength within is supplemented by help without.

God can raise us up allies in our warfare if so it seems good in His sight;

And even if He does not send us human assistance, He Himself will be at our side, and this is better still.

Our August Ally is better than legions of mortal helpers.
 
His help is timely: He is a very present help in time of trouble. 

His help is very wise: He knows how to give each man help meet and fit for him.

His help is most effectual, though vain is the help of man.

His help is more than help, for He bears all the burden and supplies all the need.

The LORD is my helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me.
 
Because He has already been our help, we feel confidence in Him for the present and the future.

Our prayer is, "LORD, by thou my helper";

Our experience is, "The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities"; 

Our expectation is, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help";

And our song soon will be, "Thou, LORD, hast holden me."

~Charles Spurgeon~

In Calm Repose

Hos 2:18  And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

Yes, the saints are to have peace.

The passage from which this gracious word is taken speaks of peace with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground.

This is peace with earthly enemies, with mysterious evils, and with little annoyances!

Any of these might keep us from lying down, but none of them shall do so.

The LORD will quite destroy those things which threaten His people: "I will break the bow and the sword, and the battle out of the earth."

Peace will be profound indeed when all the instruments of disquiet are broken to pieces.

With this peace will come rest, "So he giveth his beloved sleep."

Fully supplied and divinely quieted, believers lie down in calm repose. This rest will be a safe one.

It is one thing to lie down but quite another "to lie down safely."

We are brought to the land of promise, the house of the Father, the chamber of love, and the bosom of Christ: surely we may now "lie down safely."

It is safer for a believer to lie down in peace than to sit up and worry.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, We never rest till the Comforter makes us lie down.

~Charles Spurgeon~

"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~