No Miracles

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman


"And the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land" (Acts 27:44).

The marvelous story of Paul's voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a fine pattern of the lights and shades of the way of faith all through the story of human life. The remarkable feature of it is the hard and narrow places which we find intermingled with God's most extraordinary interpositions and providences.

It is the common idea that the pathway of faith is strewn with flowers, and that when God interposes in the life of His people, He does it on a scale so grand that He lifts us quite out of the plane of difficulties. The actual fact, however, is that the real experience is quite contrary. The story of the Bible is one of alternate trial and triumph in the case of everyone of the cloud of witnesses from Abel down to the latest martyr.

Paul, more than anyone else, was an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being crushed or broken in spirit. On account of his testifying in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and obliged to fly for his life. but we behold no heavenly chariot transporting the holy apostle amid thunderbolts of flame from the reach of his foes, but "through a window in a basket," was he let down over the walls of Damascus and so escaped their hands. In an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry, or groceries, the servant of Jesus Christ was dropped from the window and ignominiously fled from the hate of his foes.

Again we find him left for months in the lonely dungeons; we find him telling of his watchings, his fastings, and his desertion by friends, of his brutal and shameful beatings, and here even after God has promised to deliver him, we see him for days left to toss upon a stormy sea, obliged to stand guard over the treacherous seaman, and at last when the deliverance comes, there is no heavenly galley sailing from the skies to take off the noble prisoner; there is no angel form walking along the waters and stilling the raging breakers; there is no supernatural sign of the transcendent miracle that is being wrought; but one is compelled to seize a spar, another a floating plank, another to climb on a fragment of the wreck, another to strike out and swim for his life.

Here is God's pattern for our own lives. Here is a Gospel of help for people that have to live in this every day world with real and ordinary surroundings, and a thousand practical conditions which have to be met in a thoroughly practical way.

God's promises and God's providences do not lift us out of the plane of common sense and commonplace trial, but it is through these very things that faith is perfected, and that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love along the warp and woof of our every day experience.--Hard Places in the Way of Faith


http://articles.ochristian.com/article9411.shtml

Divine Jealousy For the Truth.

By Horatious Bonar


"O Lord, are not your eyes upon the truth?" Jeremiah 5:3

"O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?" Jeremiah 5:3

This first clause of this verse should be connected with the two previous verses, in which the Lord complains that truth was gone from his city and his people; that even when swearing by his name men disregarded it. Jerusalem had become a city of falsehood; Israel a nation of false men. They said, 'God regards it not. He allows the speaker of falsehood to go on unpunished. His eyes are not on such men or such things. They are of no importance to him.' The prophet breaks in here with his question, his appeal, "O Jehovah, are not your eyes upon the truth?" Whatever men may say, Do not you regard it? Do not you abhor the untrue? Do not you cut off the liar? Do you not condemn him who utters error?

The word "truth" in Scripture refers both to doctrine and practice. It points both to the "error" and the "lie." It classes both together. It condemns both. False speaking, whether in reference to teaching or witness-bearing, is declared to be abominable to God. His eyes are upon the truth. They watch over it, to guard it and to maintain it. The eyes of Jehovah are upon the truth, whatever men may say; and that which is untrue, whatever form it takes, he marks and will avenge; the untrue thing, whatever its nature or object, the untrue word, the untrue look, the untrue act, private or public, is not tolerated by him, though tolerated by man, and though God himself bear long with it.

The theory of many is that God's eyes are not upon the truth, and that therefore a man may believe what he pleases, and say what he likes, without fearing God's displeasure. It is only when the untrue thing which he thinks and says interferes with human rights, or social privileges that he is to be visited with punishment. But Jehovah's eyes are upon the truth- the truth as found on earth among the sons of men.

I. They are WATCHFUL eyes. They close not. He whose eyes they are, neither slumbers nor sleeps. Not a sound, a thought, a word from pen or lip, but He notices. He who sees the sparrows, numbers the hairs, and feeds the ravens, has His eye on all human utterances, all writings of man, books or tracts, all openings of man's lips in private or public.

II. They are DISCERNING eyes. They are like flames of fire. They search and try everything. There is no indifference about their gaze. They are keen to discriminate between truth and error. They are the eyes of a judge who loves the true and hates the false. Man thinks whatever is earnestly spoken is good; not so with God. He discerns, he judges, he sifts, he tries every word, every phrase, every thought, every plan. There is such a thing as divine censorship, minute but unerring criticism.

III. They are JUST eyes. They do not make a man an offender for a word, yet they weigh everything in equal balances. There is no over-valuing nor under-valuing what is spoken or written. Each thing is judged without favor or partiality, and it is approved or condemned according as it is true or false. The standard of measurement is divine and perfect. No bribery here, no special favor to the rich. It is "just judgment," a just verdict that is pronounced. The righteous Lord loves righteousness. With nothing less than truth, in every sense, will he be satisfied. Truth from man; truth between himself and man, truth between man and man; the true word, the true thought, the true look, and voice, and tone.

In this watchfulness, this discernment, this justice, there are some things specially to be observed.
1. There is but one standard of truth. God fixes the standard and acts on it, without caprice, or partiality, or compromise. Error is a thousandfold - pliable, moveable, uncertain. But truth is ONE. On this God calls on us to act, on this he acts himself. So that man cannot excuse his error or his falsehood on the ground that there were more standards than one.


2. This one standard of truth is definite. It is not vague or shadowy. It does not merely settle certain great principles, but smaller ones as well. It is so very definite and precise as to leave man without excuse. It lets man know explicitly God's present estimate of truth and falsehood, as well as his future judgment on these. It is so distinct that no one with an open ear and eye can misunderstand it. In our day men call this narrowness, bigotry, intolerance. But if we only insist on being of one mind with God, he that condemns us condemns God himself. Let us be as broad as he is, but no broader; that is enough, whatever the age may say.

3. That one standard of truth is universal. It is for every age and location. It never becomes obsolete. It is like God himself- unchangeable; like the Christ of God- the same yesterday, today, and forever. It was given to our fathers, it is given to us. It suited the East, it suits the West. It suited the Jew, it suits the Gentile also; barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free. It suited the Asian, it suits the European. It suits the Briton, it suits the Indian, and the African. It suits the unlearned, it suits the learned too. One standard for all! One universal test or measurement of truth.

4. That one standard of truth is the Bible. It is no secret standard that He judges us by, or by which He tests truth and error. The test which He gives to us He acts upon himself. The Bible is His book of truth as well as ours. That book contains what God calls truth- truth definite, fixed, certain, not moveable, nor becoming obsolete, nor falling behind the age. The Bible is the one book of the age, no, of the ages- of all ages and all territories. Man's present unbelief seeks to loosen its authority, to dilute its statements, to render indefinite its doctrines. But the word of the Lord endures forever. God is not a man that he should lie. His word is sure, his truth is everlasting, his book is like the sun in the firmament; a light for all ages and lands.

Thus God's eyes are on the truth. It is truth that he delights in, it is error that he abhors. It is truth that he is seeking for among the sons of men. What a condemnation to the laxity of thought in the present day! As if man were at liberty to think as he pleases, irrespective of God and his book! God watches over the truth; he marks each error, each deviation from his one standard.

O man, have you received the very truth, and the whole truth of God? He has given man a book for a standard, not that he may speculate, but that he may not speculate, but believe. What God, in and by that book, demands of men is not criticism, opinion, speculation, but BELIEF. God's eyes are on the truth, to see if men believe it. The day is at hand, the great day of the Lord, when TRUTH only shall be set on high, and error put to shame. O man, God's eyes are on the truth, let yours be on it too. Be true to truth; be true to yourself; be true to God.


http://articles.ochristian.com/article1082.shtml

Quench Not The Spirit

By Oswald Chambers

'Quench not the Spirit.'
1 Thessalonians 5:19

The voice of the Spirit is as gentle as a zephyr, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice you will quench it, and your personal spiritual life will be impaired. His checks always come as a still small voice, so small that no one but the saint notices them.

Beware if in personal testimony you have to hark back and say - "Once, so many years ago, I was saved." If you are walking in the light, there is no harking back, the past is transfused into the present wonder of communion with God. If you get out of the light you become a sentimental Christian and live on memories, your testimony has a hard, metallic note. Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the light by recalling past experiences when you did walk in the light. Whenever the Spirit checks, call a halt and get the thing right, or you will go on grieving Him without knowing it.

Suppose God has brought you up to a crisis and you nearly go through but not quite, He will engineer the crisis again, but it will not be so keen as it was before. There will be less discernment of God and more humiliation at not having obeyed; and if you go on grieving the Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be repeated, you have grieved Him away. But if you go through the crisis, there will be the p�an of praise to God. Never sympathize with the thing that is stabbing God all the time. God has to hurt the thing that must go.


http://articles.ochristian.com/article9970.shtml

Death Of 'The Old Man'

By Samuel Logan Brengle


The Son of God came into this world, and lived, and toiled, and taught, and suffered, and died and rose again in order to accomplish a twofold purpose. The Apostle John explains this twofold work. In I John iii. 5, speaking of Jesus, he says, 'Ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins. This is His justification, and regeneration, which are done for us and in us. In verse 8 he adds, 'For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.' That is entire sanctification, which is a work done in us. Now upon an examination of experience and scripture, we find this is exactly what man needs to have done for him.

First, he needs to get rid of his own sins, and have a new principle of life planted in him. 'For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God' (Rom. iii. 23), and when any man comes to God, he comes burdened with a sense of his own wrongdoings and tempers. His sins condemn him; but, thank God, Jesus came to take away our sins. When a man comes with a penitent heart, acknowledging himself a sinner, and puts his trust in Jesus, he will find himself suddenly freed from his sins. The sense of guilt will vanish. The power of evil will be broken. The burden will roll away. Peace will fill his heart. He will see that his sins were laid on another, even on Jesus, and he will realize that 'with His stripes we are healed ' (Isa. liii. 5).

This is a result of that free pardon, that free justification for all past offenses, that God gives to every one who surrenders himself heartily to, and trusts in, Jesus. At the same time God plants in the man's heart a new life. The man is born of God, and receives what Paul calls the washing of regeneration, which washes away all the man's guilt, and all the sin for which he is responsible.

At this time, too, there will be planted in the man's heart love, joy, peace and the various fruits of the Spirit, and if his experience is very marked, as such experiences frequently are, he will probably think there is nothing more to be done. But, if he walks in 'humbleness of mind' (which, by the way, is a much-neglected fruit of the Spirit), if he speaks often and freely with those who love the Lord, and if he carefully searches the word of God and meditates therein day and night, he will soon find that sin's disease is deeper and more deadly than he thought, and that behind and below his own sins are the 'works of the devil,' that must also be destroyed before the work of grace in his soul can be complete.

He will find a big, dark something in him that wants to get mad when things are against him; something which will not be patient; something that is touchy and sensitive; something that wants to grumble and find fault; something that is proud and shuns the shame of the Cross; something that sometimes suggests hard thoughts against God; something that is self-willed and ugly and sinful. He hates this 'something' in him and wants to get rid of it, and probably condemns himself for it and maybe will feel that he is a greater sinner now than he ever was before he was converted. But he is not. In fact, he is not a sinner at all so long as he resists this something in himself.

Now, what is the trouble with the man? What is the name of this troublesome 'something'? Paul calls it by several names. In Rom. viii. 7 he calls it ' the carnal mind,' and he says it is 'enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.' You cannot fix it up. You cannot whitewash it over. You cannot make it better by culture or growth, or by any effort whatever. It is an enemy of God, and cannot be anything else.

In the seventh chapter (verse 24) he calls it 'the body of this death' and wonders how he can get deliverance from it. In Eph. iv. 22, and in Col. iii. 9, he calls it 'the old man.' In Gal. v.17, he calls it 'the flesh.' James calls it 'superfluity of naughtiness,' which is also well rendered, 'the remainder of iniquity' (Jas. i. 21).


John calls it 'sin,' as distinct from 'sins,' and the 'works of the devil.' In Ezek. xxxvi. 26 it is called a 'stony heart.' The theologians call it 'inbred sin,' 'original sin' and 'depravity.' Whatever you wish to call it, it is something evil and awful, that remains in the heart after a man has been converted.

Some say that it is dealt with at conversion, but I never saw any people who found it so, and John Wesley, who was a much wiser man than I am, and who had a far wider range of observation, examined thousands of people on this very point, and he said he never knew of one who got rid of this troublesome thing at conversion.

Some people say that growing in grace is the remedy. Others say you never get rid of it while you live. It will remain in you and war against you till you die. They are not altogether prophets of despair, for they say the new life in you will overcome it and keep it down, but that you will have to stand on guard and watch it, club and repress it, as you would a maniac, till death relieves you.

Personally, this subject once gave me great concern. These warring opinions perplexed me, while the 'old man ' made increasing war against all my holy desires and purposes. But while I found man's teachings and theories were perplexing, God's teachings were plain and light as day.

1. God does not admit that we get rid of this at conversion, for all His teachings and exhortations concerning it are addressed to Christians. And those who hold this doctrine will have to admit one of two things either that it is not removed at conversion, or that a great number of earnest professors who claim to be converted have never been converted at all. Personally, I cannot admit the latter for an instant.

2. God does, by the mouth of Peter, exhort us to grow in grace, but that simply means to grow in favor with God, by obedience and faith, and does not touch the subject in hand. Corn may grow beautifully and delight the farmer, but all its growth will not rid the field of weeds, and the farmer will have to look to some other method to get rid of those troublesome things.

3. Neither does God anywhere teach that this thing need be bothering us till death, or that death will destroy it.

4. Nor do I find any warrant in the whole Bible for purgatorial fires being the deliverer from this evil.

5. But I do find that God teaches very plainly how we are to get rid of it. Paul says, 'Put off . . . the old man" (Eph. iv. 22). James says, ' . . . lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness' (Jas. i. 21). John says, '. . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin' (I John i. 7), not part or some, sin, but 'all sin.'

And again, John says, Jesus 'was manifested' to 'destroy the works of the devil'; (I John iii. 8), and God says through Ezekiel, 'I will take away the stony heart' (Ezek. xxxvi. 26).

All these passages teach that we are to get rid of something that bothers us and hinders our spiritual life and show plainly that this work is not to be a slow, evolutionary process, but an instantaneous work, wrought in the heart of the humble believer by the Holy Ghost. Blessed be God! And the Bible further teaches that the one thing needful on our part to secure this operation of the Holy Spirit is an obedient faith that laughs at impossibilities, and cries "It shall be done."'

If this Bible teaching is true, then it is a matter that can be proved by experience. If one man proves it to be so, that establishes the Bible testimony against all the doubters in the world. All men used to believe the world was flat. Columbus rose up and said it was round, and he proved it against them all. There may be some ignorant old fogies yet who believe the world is flat, but they can prove it to be round, if they will take the trouble, and whether they prove it or not, their purblind unbelief does not change the fact.

Just so, the greater part of mankind believe that 'the old man' is destined to live to the end. But as Paul asks, ' . . . shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? '(Rom. iii. 3) and humble men and women are rising up every day to declare it is possible, and that all men can prove that he can be destroyed, if they will meet the conditions.

Oh, that we could get men to understand this! Oh, that we could get them to take counsel with faith and not with unbelief! Oh, that we could get them to see what Jesus really came to do!

I proved this fifteen years ago, and ever since I have been walking in a day that has no setting sun, and everlasting joy and gladness have been on my head and in my heart. Glory be to God!

It is no little salvation that Jesus Christ came to work out for us. It is a 'great salvation,' and it saves. Hallelujah! It is not a pretense. It is not a 'make believe.' It is a real salvation from all sin and uncleanness; from all doubt and fear; from all guile and hypocrisy; from all malice and wrath. Bless God!

When I begin to consider it and to write about it, I want to fill the page with praises to God. The hallelujahs of heaven begin to ring all through my soul, and my heart cries out with those four mystical beasts before the throne, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,' (Rev. iv. 8) and in spirit I fall down with 'the four and twenty elders,' and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, who has taken away my sins and destroyed the works of the devil out of my heart, and come to dwell in me.

Finally, 'Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief ' 'And to whom sware He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.' 'For we which have believed do enter into rest' (Heb. iii. 12, 18, 19, and iv. 3).


http://articles.ochristian.com/article6264.shtml

My Times in God's Hand

By Octavius Winslow

"My times are in your hand." Psalm 31:15.

Outline

INTRODUCTION
Our past
Our future
An individual truth
A comprehensive truth

Our times of PROSPERITY

Our times of ADVERSITY

Our times of SOUL-DISTRESS

Our time of DEATH

WHOSE hand are we in?
Our Father's hand
Our Redeemer's hand

UNCONVERTED READER

PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Don't be anxious about anything
Live a life of daily dependence upon God
All is in God's hand
Trust God implicitly for the future



What confirmation would the precious truth contained in these words derive from the personal experience of the man of God who penned them? Reviewing the past of his eventful history, he would trace the guiding and overshadowing hand of his heavenly Father in all the circumstances of the checkered and diversified scene; and as memory thus recalled the strange and momentous events of his life, with what overpowering solemnity would the conviction force itself upon his mind, that for the form and complexion of that life how little was it indebted to himself! Circumstances which chance could not originate, events which human sagacity could, not foresee, and results which finite experience could not determine, would at once lift his grateful and adoring thoughts to that God of infinite foreknowledge and love, whose overruling providence had guarded with a sleepless eye each circumstance, and whose infinite goodness had guided with a skillful hand each step. With this retrospect before him, with what intensity of feeling would the aged king exclaim: "My Times Are In Your Hand."

But if David felt this truth- that all his interests were in God's keeping, and under His supreme direction- so consolatory, as life drew near its close, how much more cheering may it be to us just entering upon a new year of life, all whose history is, to our view, wisely and beneficently enshrouded in obscurity, and all whose events, from the least to the greatest, are happily beyond our control. "My times are in your hand." Who can give us the heartfelt, soothing influence of this precious truth but the Holy Spirit by whose divine inspiration it was uttered? May He now unfold and apply with His sanctifying, comforting power this portion of his own holy word to the reader's heart!

The declaration that "our times are in the Lord's hand," implies that the future of our history is impenetrably and mysteriously veiled from our sight. We live in a world of mysteries. They meet our eye, awaken our inquiry, and baffle our investigation at every step. Nature is a vast arcade of mysteries. Science is a mystery, truth is a mystery, religion is a mystery, our existence is a mystery, the future of our being is a mystery. And God, who alone can explain all mysteries, is the greatest mystery of all. How little do we understand of the inexplicable wonders of a wonder-working God, "whose thoughts are a great deep," and "whose ways are past finding out."

To God nothing is mysterious. In purpose, nothing is unfixed; in forethought, nothing is unknown; in providence, nothing is contingent. His glance pierces the future as vividly as it beholds the past. "He knows the end, from the beginning." All his doings are parts of a divine, eternal, and harmonious plan. He may make ''darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies, and to human vision his dispensations may appear gloomy, discrepant, and confused; yet is he, "working all things after the counsel of his own will," and "at the brightness that is before him, his thick clouds pass." and all is transparent and harmonious to his eye.



And why this obscurity thus investing all our future? Would it not make for our present well-being; would it not be a satisfaction and a blessing, could we pull back the mystic veil, and gaze with a farseeing and undimmed eye upon "our times," yet awaiting us this side the grave? Remembering the past, you are, perhaps, ready to say: "Could I but have foreseen, I would have fore-arranged. Had I anticipated the result of such a step, or have known the issue of such a movement, or have safely calculated the consequences of such a measure, I might have pursued an opposite course, and have averted the evil I now deplore, and have spared me the misery I now feel." But hush this vain reasoning! God, your God, O believer! had in wisdom, faithfulness, and love, hidden all the future from your view. "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years." How has he guided, counseled, and upheld you! He has led you by a right way. In perplexity he has directed you- in sorrow he has comforted you- in slippery paths his mercy has held you up, and when fallen he has raised you again. From seeming evil he has educed positive good. The mistakes you have made and the follies you have committed in the blindness of your path, and in the sinfulness of your heart, have but led you to a closer acquaintance with, and to a stronger confidence in God. They have opened up to you new and more glorious views of his character and his government; while in leading you closer to the feet of Jesus in self-knowledge and self abhorrence, they have unlocked to you spring of spiritual blessings, fresh, sanctifying, and, unspeakable.

Beloved, God has placed us in a school in which he is teaching us to lay our blind reason at his feet, to cease from our own wisdom and, guidance, and lean upon and confide in him, as children with a parent. The goodness of God to us, combined with a jealous regard to his own glory, constrains him to conceal the path along which he conducts us. His promise is, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

Could the scenes of this year's history rise in their shadowy outline before us, or were an angel permitted to divulge a single page in the momentous volume of events just opened, how might we shrink from the revelation, and closing the book again, calmly wait until he should unfold its leaves, "in whose hand our times are!" How unfitted should we be to discharge our duties, to sustain our responsibilities, to meet our trials, cope with our difficulties, and bear with our sorrows, were they all to confront us this moment! Oh! how kindly, wisely, and tenderly does our Father deal with us! And in no part of his providential dealings is his goodness more clearly seen than in veiling all our future from our reach. Let us sit down at Jesus' feet, thanking him that the "life which we now live in the flesh," we live not by sight, but by "faith in the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us."

But our "times" all wrapped in impenetrable mystery, are yet in the Lord's hand. The words are emphatic. Our times are not in the hands of angels or of men, still less in our own- they are in the Lord's, hand. It is an individual truth. "MY times." We deal too timidly with our individuality- with, the truth of God as individuals- with Jesus as individuals- with the covenant of grace as individuals- with our responsibilities as individuals. "What," you exclaim, "I, a poor worm of the dust, not worthy of his regard, too insignificant for his noticed, who have a heart so cold, a nature so, depraved, a will so perverse- "are my times in the Lord's hands?" Yes, dear reader, you may humbly adopt these words as, your own, and exultingly exclaim: "My times are in his hand."

How comprehensive, too, is this truth, "My times are in his hand!" Diversified as they may be- whatever the shape in which they are developed, or the complexion which they assume, attractive or repulsive, bathed with light or draped in gloom, all are there, exclusively and safely lodged in the Lord's hand. Let us specify a few of these "times".

Our time of PROSPERITY is in the Lord's hand. There are no circumstances of life in which we are more sadly prone to indulge in self-complaisance than those of earthly prosperity. Industry is enriched, and perseverance rewarded, wealth increases and blessings accumulate, and the "heart grows fat and kicks against God." The merchant-ship returns freighted with treasure- the acres of the tiller are fruitful, and his barns are filled with plenty, or prosperity in some form smiles upon our path, and then, alas! God is forgotten. We arrogate to ourselves the praise of our success. "My hand and the might of my power has gotten me this." But what is the language of God's word? "Beware that you forget not the Lord your God . . . lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and dwelt therein; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God." But, oh! let us remember that all our past and all our coming prosperity, if indeed he shall so appoint it, is in the hand of God. It is his wisdom that suggests our plans, it is his power that guides, and it is his goodness that causes them to succeed. Every flower that blooms in our path, every smile that gladdens it, every mercy that bedews it, yes, "every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights." Oh! for grace to recognize God in our mercies, for a heart lifted up in holy returns of love, gratitude and praise! How much sweeter will be our sweets, how much more blessed our blessings, and endeared our endearments, seeing them all dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father!

But there are times of ADVERSITY, and, they too, are in the Lord's hand. As every sunbeam that brightens, so every cloud that darkens, comes from God. We are subject to great and sudden reverses in our earthly condition. Joy is often succeeded by grief, prosperity by adversity. We are on the pinnacle today- tomorrow at its bottom. Oh! what a change may one event and in one moment create! A storm- a conflagration- a slight oscillation of the funds- the morning's mail- the casual meeting of s a friend, may clothe our life in mourning. But, beloved, all is from the Lord. "Affliction comes not forth of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground." (Job 5:6). Sorrow cannot come until God bids it. Health cannot fade, wealth cannot vanish, comfort cannot decay, friendship cannot chill, loved ones cannot die until he in his sovereignty permits.

Your time of sorrow is his appointment. The bitter cup which it may please the Lord you shall drink this year, will not be mixed by human hands. In the hand of the Lord is that cup. The cloud that may lower on your path will not gather at a creature's bidding. "He makes the clouds his chariot." Some treasure you are now pressing to your heart he may ask you to resign- some blessing you now possess he may bid you relinquish- some fond expectation you now cherish he may will you should forego- some lonely path he may design you should tread, yes, he may even bereave you of all, and yet all, all is in his hand.

His hand- a Father's hand- moving in the thick darkness, is shaping every event, and arranging every dispensation of your life. Has sickness laid you on a bed of suffering? has bereavement darkened your home? has adversity impoverished your resources? has change lessened your comforts? has sorrow in one of its many forms crushed your spirit to the earth? The Lord has done it! In all that has been sent, in all that has been recalled, and in all that has been withheld; his hand, noiseless and unseen, has moved. Ah! yes, that hand of changeless love blend's a sweet with every bitter, pencils a bright rainbow on each dark cloud, upholds each faltering step, shelters within its hollow, and guides with unerring skill, his chosen people safe to eternal glory.

Dear child of God, your afflictions, your trials, your crosses, your losses, your sorrows, all, all are in your heavenly Father's, hand, and they can not come until sent by him. Bow that stricken heart, yield that tempest-tossed soul to his sovereign disposal, to his calm, righteous sway, in the submissive spirit and language of your suffering Savior: "Your will, O my father! not mine, be done. My times of sadness and of grief are in your hand."

Times of SOUL-DISTRESS, spiritual darkness, and conflict, are in his hand. Many such are there in the experience of the true saints of God. Many the hard fought battle, the fiery dart, the desperate wound, the momentary defeat in the Christian's life. Taking advantage of the spiritual mist which may hover around the mind in the time of perplexing care and of gloomy providences, the foe, with stealthy tread, may rush in upon the soul like a flood. And when to this surprisal is added the suspension of the Lord's manifested presence, the veiling of his smile, the silence of his responsive voice, oh! that is a time of soul-distress indeed! But it is in the Lord's hand. No spiritual cloud shades, no mental distress depresses, no fiery dart is launched, that is not by him permitted, and for which there is not a provision by him arranged.

There is nothing which the Lord has taken more entirely and exclusively into his keeping, than the redeemed, sanctified souls of his people. All their interests for eternity are exclusively in his hand. In the infinite fulness of Jesus, in the inexhaustible supply of the covenant, in the exceeding great and precious promises of his word, he has anticipated every spiritual exigence of the believer. How precious is your soul to him who bore all its sins, who exhausted all its curse, who travailed for it in ignominy and suffering, and who ransomed it with his own most precious blood! Guarded, too, by his indwelling Spirit is his kingdom of righteousness, joy, and peace within you. Oh! endeavor to realize that whatever be your mental exercises, spiritual conflicts, doubts and fears, your "times" of soul-despondency are in the Lord's hand. Lodged there, safe are your spiritual interests. "All his saints are in his hand." And he to whose care you have confided your redeemed soul, has pledged himself for its eternal security. Of his own sheep he says: "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."

With like precious faith and humble assurance you are privileged to exclaim with Paul: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Ah! as soon shall Christ himself perish as one bought with his blood. No member of his body, insignificant though it may be, shall be dissevered. No temple of the Holy Spirit, frail and imperfect though it is, shall be destroyed. Not a soul to whom the divine image has been restored, and the divine nature has been imparted, upon whose heart the name of Jesus has been carved, shall be involved in the final and eternal destruction of the wicked. Nothing shall perish but the earthly and the sensual. Not one grain of precious faith shall be lost, not one spark of divine light shall be extinguished, not one pulsation of spiritual life shall die.

Oh! think of this, you who have fled all sinful and trembling to Jesus, you who cling to him as the limpet to the rock, as the ivy to the oak; never shall you lose that hold of faith you have on Christ, and never will Christ lose that hold of love he has on you. You and Jesus are one, indivisibly and eternally one. Nothing shall separate you from his love, nor sever you from his care, nor exclude you from his sympathy, nor banish you from his heaven of eternal blessedness. You are in Christ the subject of his grace, and "Christ is in you the hope of glory." All your cares are Christ's care, all your sorrows are Christ's sorrow, all your need is Christ's supply, all your sicknesses are Christ's cure, all your crosses are Christ's burden. Your life, temporal, spiritual, eternal, is "hid with Christ in God."

Oh! the unutterable blessings that spring from a vital union with the Lord Jesus! The believer can exultingly say: Christ and I are one! One in nature, one in affection, one in sympathy, one in fellowship, and one through the countless ages of eternity. The life I live is a life of faith in him. I fly to him in the confidence of a loving friend, and I reveal to him my secret sorrow. I confess to him my hidden sin. I acknowledge my heart-backsliding. I make known to him my needs, my sufferings, my fears. I tell him how chilled is my affection, how reserved is my obedience, how imperfect is my service, and yet how I long to love him more ardently, to follow him more closely, to serve him more devotedly, to be more wholly and holily his.

And how does he meet me? with a hearkening ear, with a beaming eye, with a gracious word, with an outstretched hand, with a benignity and a gentleness all like himself. Confide, then, dear reader, your spiritual and deathless interests in the Lord's hand. Careful only to "work out" in the holy life, the grace he has wrought in your soul, thus manifestly a "living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men."

At the time of DEATH. To those who, depressed with a painful foreboding at their final dissolution, are all their lifetime subject to bondage, how consolatory is the reflection that the time of the believer's death is peculiarly in the Lord's hand! It is solemnly true that there is a "time to die". An affecting thought- a time to die! A time when this mortal conflict will be over, when this heart will cease to feel, alike insensible to joy or sorrow, when this head will ache, and these eyes will weep no more, best and holiest of all, a time "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality," and we shall "see Christ as he is, and be like him." The world we have left will move on then as now. Life's lights and shadows will gather in blended hues around our grave; but wrapped in death's sleep, dreamless sleep, we shall be unconscious of all that once distressed or charmed us- the frown of anger and the smile of love- "forever with the Lord."

If this be so, then, O Christian! why this anxious, trembling fear? Your time of death, with all its attendant circumstances, is in the Lord's hand. All is appointed and arranged by him who loves you and redeemed you- infinite goodness, wisdom, and faithfulness consulting your highest happiness in each circumstance of your departure. The final sickness can not come, the "last enemy" can not strike, until he bids it. All is in his hand; then calmly, confidingly leave life's closing scene with him. You cannot die away from Jesus. Whether your spirit wings its flight at home or abroad, amid strangers or friends, by a lingering process or by a sudden stroke, in brightness or gloom, Jesus will be with you; and upheld by his grace and cheered by his presence, you shall triumphantly exclaim, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me," bearing your dying testimony to the faithfulness of God and the preciousness of his promises. My time to die is in your hand, O Lord! and there I calmly leave it.

There is a peculiar emphasis in a truth contained in the beautiful words upon which we have been commenting worthy of a more particular notice. In whose hand are the believer's times? In A FATHER'S HAND. Be those times what they may, times of trial, times of temptation, times of suffering, times of peril, times of sunshine or of gloom, of life or death, they are in a parent's hand. Is your present path lone and dreary? Has the Lord seen fit to recall some fond blessing, to deny some earnest request, or painfully to discipline your heart? All this springs from a Father's love as fully as though he had unlocked his treasury and poured its costliest gifts at your feet. Can you enter upon the unknown history of this year, troubles, it may be, looming in the shadowy distance- uncertainty hanging over your future path, not able to forecast a single probability of what may be your future lot- with a firmer, sweeter truth for faith to lean upon than this? "My times are in a Father's hand, and all will, all must be well."

In A REDEEMER'S HAND, too, are our times. That same Redeemer who carried our sorrows in his heart, our curse and transgressions on his soul, our cross on his shoulder, who died, who rose again, and who lives and intercedes for us, and who will gather all his ransomed around him in glory, is your guardian and your guide. Can you not cheerfully confide all your earthly concerns, all your spiritual interests to his keeping and control- "casting all your cares upon him who cares for you"? "Oh! yes," faith replies, "in that hand that still bears in its palm the print of the nail, are all my times; and I will trust and not be afraid."

In Whose Hand, Sinner? UNCONVERTED READER, do you ask, "In whose hand are my times?' I answer, in that infinite Sovereign's, "in whose hand your life is, and whose are all your ways." I confront you, standing upon the threshold of the new year, with this solemn truth- your times are in God's hand. "In him you live, and move, and have your being." You can not be independent of God for a single breath, a single thought, or a single step. From his government you can not break, from his eye you can not hide, from his power you can not flee. He holds you responsible for all your endowments, acquirements, and doings, and before long will say to you, "Give an account of your stewardship."

Oh! that this may be a year of new spiritual life to your soul- of living to the Lord. A new year it then, indeed, will be in your history, such as you have never lived before. Oh! that this year your stubborn will, after so long a resistance- your rebellious heart, after its years of closing and hardening against a beseeching, pleading Savior, may be sweetly constrained to bow to the despised Gospel of Christ- born of the Spirit a child of God, an heir of happiness which the revolution of time and the ages of eternity shall never terminate. Ah! of how many who read these pages may the decree have already gone forth: "Thus says the Lord, this year you shall die!" Oh! dismal sentence to those who have no union with the Lord Jesus!

Dear reader, you are preparing and resolving to spend this year as all the previous years of your life have been spent? What! in hating God, abusing his mercies, in despising his Son, in neglecting his salvation, in hardening your heart in sin, in living for the world and to yourself, and in treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? Is such a life worthy of your being? Can you bend the knee upon the confines of this year and pray: "Great Author of my being! Father of all mercies! righteous Judge of the world! grant me another year of rebellion and impiety; more time to waste; more mercies to abuse; more means of grace to neglect; more property to squander; more influence to oppose and fight against you?" You shudder at the thought! You could not, for your life, breathe such a prayer. And yet, entering upon this year in an unconverted state, are not your thoughts, temper, and resolves, and ways far more expressive than words, insulting God with the spirit of a petition, the language of which you dare not utter?

Oh! that gently, persuasively drawn by the Holy Spirit, you may now betake yourself to the Lord Jesus as a self-destroyed, yet humble, repentant sinner. Oh! that this may be the happy hour of your spiritual espousals- of your covenant, unreserved surrender to the Lord, to be his child, his servant forever. True happiness, joy, and peace will ever be strangers to your heart until lit tastes the love of the Savior. Nor will you be able to give yourself to the high and noble duties of real life, or to contemplate death with calmness, and the eternity that stretches beyond it with hope, until you are reconciled to God, through the "one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

In pressing these thoughts upon your attention with equal earnestness and affection, would I exhort you to come to Christ without demurring at your sinfulness, or hesitating on the ground of having no fitness or worthiness to plead. Jesus saves none but sinners. Approach with a price in your hand with which to purchase your salvation, and you will be indignantly rejected! But approach the life-giving waters "without money and without price," and receive salvation as a free gift, and you will be cordially received! The atoning work is finished, the great salvation is purchased, the mighty debt is paid- all perfected and secured by the blood of God's incarnate Son. And now it is his good pleasure and delight to confer this priceless, precious boon upon every one who is of a "contrite and humble spirit," as an act of most free favor, however vile, undeserving, and poor the recipient might be. "By grace are you saved." "Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace." Before the majesty and splendor of this precious truth all human glory must fade, all human pride must fall.

Were a crown to encircle your brow, or had you lived the life of the most rigid moralist, or were you possessed of all the spoils of ancient legend- yet, if saved you must be saved as was the humble publican, approaching in his spirit and breathing his petition: "God be merciful to me a sinner." That proud, rebellious, self-righteous heart of yours must be laid low in the dust. Oh! descend from the 'Babel of your own works', from the towering summit of which you have profanely hoped to build your way into heaven; tear from off you the 'fig-leaf righteousness' with the covering of which you have vainly sought to veil the moral deformity of your soul, and come and base your hope of heaven upon the "only name given under heaven whereby a sinner might be saved," and enfold yourself believingly in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be accepted. "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." It is written: "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." And by the same inspiration it is also written: "But to him that works not, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." And, then, from this act of most free justification follows this precious, holy result: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Oh! then, by all the deathless interests that are at stake, by the desire for a holy life, a happy death, and a glorious immortality, cease from yourself; relinquish all reliance upon sacraments, religious duties, and charitable works, and under a spiritual, deep conviction of the desperate sinfulness of your fallen and corrupt nature, the "plague of your own heart," your entire inability to save yourself and your utter unpreparedness to stand before the holy Lord God, flee to Christ, and avail yourself of the great salvation which he has, effectually wrought and most freely bestows.

And what will be your reception by the Savior? Does it admit of a doubt? Oh! no, not one. He came into the world to save sinners, and he will save you. His compassion inclines him to save sinners, his power enables him to save sinners, his promise binds him to save sinners. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And, oh! how easy it is to be saved when the Holy Spirit draws the heart to Christ! It is not great faith, nor deep experience, nor extensive knowledge that are required. The dimmest eye that ever looked to Christ, the feeblest hand that ever took hold of Christ, the most trembling step that ever traveled to Christ, has in it present salvation, has in it life eternal. The smallest measure of real faith will take the soul to heaven. Yes, there is hope for the trembling penitent. Jesus suffered to the uttermost; therefore he is able to "save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him."

Let us, in conclusion, trace THE PRACTICAL INFLUENCE which this truth should exert upon our minds. The present aspect of our "times" as a nation, is gloomy and depressive to a degree. It is "a time of war!" The scourge which our hearts fondly hoped would be staid has fallen upon us with more than expected terror and destruction. The nation is clad in mourning. Scarcely is there a family from the highest to the lowest, that has not felt some vibration of the terrible shock. "Abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is death." Who can paint the anguish or describe the desolateness at the present time of many a home?

We turn to you who are thus so suddenly and deeply bereaved. Your present time of calamity is in the Lord's hand! He has made you a widow that he might be your God- a fatherless one that in him you might find mercy. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" "I wound and I heal." Oh! that this the time of your deep, inconsolable grief may be the time of prayer, of seeking unto Him who has smitten and who alone binds up! "Acquaint now, now yourself with him, and be at peace;" and then, in deep, unmurmuring submission to the divine disposal, you will exclaim: "The cup which my Father has given me; shall I not drink it? He has done all things well."

DON'T BE ANXIOUS ABOUT ANYTHING. Let this precious truth, "My times are in your hand," divest your mind of all needless, anxious care for the present or the future. Exercising simple faith in God, "don't be anxious about anything." "Be content with such things as you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Learn to be content with your present lot, with God's dealings with, and his disposal of you. You are just where his providence has, in its inscrutable but all-wise and righteous decision, placed you. It may be a position, painful, irksome, trying, but it is right. Oh! yes, it is right! Only aim to glorify him in it. Wherever you are placed, God has a work for you to do, a purpose, through you to be accomplished, in which he blends your happiness with his glory. And when you have learned the lessons of his love, he will transfer you to another and a wider sphere, for whose nobler duties and higher responsibilities the present is, perhaps, but disciplining and preparing you.

COVET, THEN, TO LIVE A LIFE OF DAILY DEPENDENCE UPON GOD. Oh, it is a sweet and holy life! It saves from many a desponding feeling, from many a corroding care, from many an anxious thought, from many a sleepless night, from many a tearful eye, and from many an imprudent and sinful scheme. Repairing to the "covenant ordered in all things and sure," you may confide children, friends, calling, yourself, to the Lord's care, in the fullest assurance that all their 'times' and yours are in his hand.

In a letter addressed by Luther to Melancthon, at Augsburg, there occur these striking remarks, which from their appropriateness to the present subject, I venture to interweave with my own. "Grace and peace in Christ! in Christ I say, and not in the world, amen. I hate with exceeding hatred those extreme cares which consume you. If the cause is unjust, abandon it; if the cause is just, why should we belie the promises of Him who commands us to sleep without fear? Can the devil do more than kill us? Christ will not be lacking to the work of justice and of truth. He lives! He reigns! What fear, then, can we have? God is powerful to upraise his cause if it is overthrown; to make it proceed if it remains motionless; and if we are not worthy of it, he will do it by others. For our cause is in the very hands of him who can say: 'No one shall pluck it out of my hands.' I would not have it in our hands, and it would not be desirable that it were so. I have had many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have been able to place in God's, I still possess."

ALL IN HIS HAND. Oh! yes, beloved reader, thank God that your times, your interests, your salvation, are all out of your hands, and out of the hands of all creatures, supremely and safely in his. Forward in the path of duty, of labor, and of suffering. Aim to resemble Christ more closely in your disposition, your spirit, your whole life. Soon will it be said: "The Master is come, and calls for you." He is coming. "Prepare to meet your God." Let your motto for this year be- Forward! Patient in endurance, submissive in suffering, content with God's allotment; zealous, prayerful, and watchful; be found, "standing in your lot at the end of the days;"

Trust God implicitly for the future. No sorrow comes, but shall open some sweet spring of comfort- no necessity transpires but shall endear a father's care- no affliction befalls but shall be attended with the Savior's tenderest sympathy. In him meet all confluence of grace for your hourly, momentary need. Let your constant prayer be: "Hold me up, and I shall be safe." Let your daily precept be "Casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you." And then leave God to fulfill, as most faithfully he will, "his own gracious, precious promise: "As your days, so shall your strength be." Thus walking with God through this vale of tears, until you exchange sorrow for joy, suffering for ease, sin for purity, labor for rest, conflict for victory, and all earth's checkered, gloomy scenes; for the changeless, cloudless happiness and glory of heaven.

TIME, HOW SWIFT!

While with ceaseless course the sun
Hastened through the former year,
Many souls their race have run,
Never more to meet us here;
Fixed in an eternal state,
They are done with all below;
We a little longer wait,
But how little- none can know.

As the winged arrow flies,
Speedily the mark to find;
As the lightning from the skies
Darts, and leaves no trace behind.
Swiftly thus our fleeting days
Bear us down life's rapid stream;
Upwards, Lord, our spirits raise,
All below is but a dream.

Thanks for mercies past received,
Pardon of our sins renew;
Teach us, henceforth, how to live
With, eternity in view.
Bless your word to young and old,
Fill us with a Savior's love;
And when life's short tale is told,
May we dwell with you above.

Time, with an unwearied hand,
Pushes round the seasons past;
And in life's frail glass the sand,
Sinks apace, not long to last.
Many, who, as you and I,
The last year assembled thus,
In their silent graves now lie;
Graves will open soon for us!

Daily sin, and care, and strife,
While the Lord prolongs our breath,
Make it but a dying life,
Or a kind of living death.
Wretched they, and most forlorn,
Who no better portion know;
Better never to have been born,
Than to have our all below.

When constrained to go alone,
Leaving all you love behind,
Entering on a world unknown,
What will then support your mind?
When the Lord his summons sends,
Earthly comforts lose their power;
Honor, riches, kindred, friends,
Cannot cheer a dying hour.

Happy souls who fear the Lord;
Time is not too swift for you;
When your Savior gives the word,
Glad you'll bid the world adieu.
Then he'll wipe away your tears;
Near himself appoint your place;
Swifter fly, you rolling years,
Lord, we long to see your face. (Selected)


http://articles.ochristian.com/article2911.shtml

The Most Precious Promise of Shared Life

By Bob Hoekstra


By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (2 Peter 1:4 and Galatians 3:13-14)
Here, we get at the heart of God's "exceedingly great and precious promises." By means of promise, the Lord has made it possible for us to share in His life: "that through these [God's promises] you may be partakers of the divine nature."

What a remarkable prospect this is - that man could participate in the divine nature. Yet, the promises of God make this available to man. Of course, this does not mean that man becomes divine (as many false religions and some aberrant theologies espouse). God alone is, and will ever be, divine. "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me" (Isaiah 46:9). Nonetheless, man can share in the life of God, even though he will never become "a god" himself. This is accomplished by Jesus Christ coming to dwell within the lives of those who believe in Him. The Lord Jesus died for us that He might give life to us. "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life" (John 6:47). This life that Jesus wants to share with us is His own life. "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life' . . . Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life' " (John 11:25 and 14:6).

The Apostle Paul taught this great truth extensively. "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 1:1). He understood that his apostolic ministry was not only anchored in God's will, but it also depended upon the life that God promised. Thus, he confessed Christ as his very own life: "Christ who is our life" (Colossians 3:4). Paul was not the source of the daily Christian life that he lived. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). The Lord Jesus was Paul's life source.

This is what the promise of the Spirit is about. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." At new birth, the Holy Spirit also comes to indwell those who believe. The Spirit reveals these truths to us through the word of God. Then, the Spirit pours forth the life of Christ through every humble, dependent child of God. "It is the Spirit who gives life" (John 6:63).

Lord Jesus, thank You for making Your life available to me. What a precious promise that is! Teach me to walk according to Your Spirit, that Your life might be expressed through my life day by day, Amen.


http://articles.ochristian.com/article10442.shtml

More on Jeremiah Contrasting the Two Options on Trust

By Bob Hoekstra


Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength . . . Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but her leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:5a, 7-8)
Again, we consider Jeremiah's contrasting the two options on trust. As we noted, there are only two choices: man or God. When man is the object of our hope, the result is the curse of spiritual barrenness. "Cursed is the man who trusts in man." Contrariwise, when God is the object of our dependence, the result is great blessing. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD."

The spiritual blessing that comes from trusting in the Lord is likened to a tree that is growing by the continual flow of a river. "For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters." The riverside is the ideal location for developing a flourishing tree. Trusting in the Lord is the only setting in which a flourishing spiritual life can be developed. A tree that is located by the river sends out its roots to take in more and more life-giving water: "which spreads out its roots by the river." The Christian who is hoping in the Lord finds the life his inner man cherishes, and he reaches out for more of that life for which he yearns.

When the heat of drought comes, it is a dreadful threat to plant-life (unless the plant is located beside a sufficient river). When the heat of battle or impossible circumstances arise, they can pose a fearful threat. Even a child of God is tempted to be anxious. However, if the Lord is our hope, we "will not fear when heat comes . . . and will not be anxious in the year of drought." Instead, we will continue in growth and spiritual fruitfulness. "Her leaf will be green, and will not . . . cease from yielding fruit."

What radically different results come from trusting in God (instead of hoping in man). We receive spiritual blessing (instead of a cursing). Our spiritual life is like a luxuriant tree beside a river (instead of like a shrub in the desert). We experience the grace resources of God (instead of the flesh resources of man).

Dear God, I praise You for the abundant grace that flows from You into my heart every time I trust in You. It is blessing beyond measure. Nothing else could ever keep me from fear and anxiety. Nothing less could ever bring growth and fruitfulness in the midst of threatening circumstances. You are my hope day by day, Amen.



http://articles.ochristian.com/article10465.shtml

David Confessing God as His Strength

By Bob Hoekstra


The LORD is the strength of my life . . . The LORD is . . . my strength, in whom I will trust. (Psalm 27:1 and 18:2)


Living by grace involves depending upon God to work in our lives. For the greater part of his life, David was an outstanding Old Testament example of such living. This was certainly evident in the way David frequently confessed the Lord as his strength.

For each adult who lives in this fallen world, strength is demanded just to deal with every day responsibilities and challenges. When you add the calling and desire that believers have to please and honor God, much strength is needed day by day. David confessed the Lord as his strength for living. "The LORD is the strength of my life." How wonderful to know that the Lord is with us to impart His strength in us for every aspect of our lives, whether home, or work, or ministry, or whatever.

In our earthly pilgrimage, we need strength to stay on course. The world, the flesh, and the devil want to prevent us from progressing down the Lord's perfect path. David found in the Lord the strength for this need as well. "It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect" (Psalm 18:32). At times, when walking along our designated path of life, we get trapped in circumstantial nets, laid by the enemy of our souls. When David experienced these traps, he cried out to God for the necessary strength. "Pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength" (Psalm 31:4). At other times along our path, the problem is not a trap, but an all-out battle. Once again, David found the strength he needed in His Lord. "For You have armed me with strength for the battle; You have subdued under me those who rose up against me" (Psalm 18:39).

Sometimes, the need for strength pertains to what is going on within (or flowing forth from within). The thoughts we are thinking, and the words we are expressing might need to be anchored again in the will of the Lord. David also knew how to turn to God for this essential strength as well. "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer" (Psalm 19:14). When he weakened within and stumbled in failure, David still knew where to turn for the only help that will ever prove sufficient. "My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (Psalm 73:26). Whatever the need for strength, David learned to rely upon the Lord. "The LORD is . . . my strength, in whom I will trust."

O Lord, my strength, I need Your strength for daily responsibilities, strength for staying on track with You, strength for periodic battles, strength for weaknesses within, strength to please You. You are my strength; I trust in You!


http://articles.ochristian.com/article10450.shtml

Exploits (Daniel ii. 32)

By Seth Rees

"But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits" (Daniel xi. 32).

Someone has truthfully said: "Weakness is a spreading malady; strength is a spreading energy. If we are weak we scatter weakness, we make others weak. If we are strong we impart strength to those with whom we come in contact. If God has commanded us to be strong, we cannot afford to be weak. He has commanded nothing for which He has not provided. Every command carries with it the weight of a promise. He has placed within our easy grasp ample provision for all the strength and success which He expects of us. But there is a determined purpose on the part of many to eliminate from Christianity all that is superhuman and miraculous. The tendency of the age is to exalt man and displace God. If the supernatural could be taken out of the Bible, and its miraculous occurrences explained on the ground of natural causation, many so-called clever people would be greatly delighted. The tall men of our modern institutions of learning have reduced the phenomena of life and the world to a self-acting mechanism, running by so cunning a contrivance of pulleys, and belts, and shafts, and dynamos, that there is no need of a God. The natural man is never better pleased than when he can supplant God.

Christianity is in great danger of being reduced to "a system" of theology and ethics, doctrine and dogma, laws and creeds. Many who "believe in Christianity" look upon it as simply a great institution. Many of them are devoted to its interests, are willing, in some instances, to shape their lives more or less according to its rules, and are most untiring in their efforts to further its interests. But they are not acquainted with its Author. Their knowledge of Him is indirect and remote. But away with such cold, dead, mechanical theory and practice. If Christianity is not as supernatural as in the days of Paul and Stephen, it is nothing at all. If the power of God is not so imminent and active today as in the times of Elijah or Daniel, it is nothing whatsoever. The system of redemption through Jesus Christ is intensely personal. It is the revelation of a personal God, the reception of a personal Christ, the enduement with a personal Holy Ghost. Christianity requires every moment of the presence and living hand of its Author.

There was never a time in history when the world needed supernatural religion more than it does today. There was never a time when there was more need of the church emphasizing the supernatural element in religion than now. From the day of Pentecost until this hour it has taken the extraordinary, the astounding, the amazing, the astonishing to wake the old world up so that she would attend to religion. Nothing ordinary will ever capture China, India, or Africa for Christ. Nothing human will ever save rationalistic Germany, infidel France, or Unitarian New England. Man was never so great in his own eyes as he is today, never so boastful, never so defiant and rebellious. Intellect never asserted its pride and carnal importance as it does in this the last decade of the century. It is time we had something to humble us and bring us to a knowledge of ourselves. France's greatest pulpit orator, Massillon, stood over the coffin of the great Louis, and amid the assembled nobles said the simple words: "God only is great." It was a sublime moment, and the words struck every heart with solemnity. The insignificance of man, and the all surpassing greatness of the Lord impressed the people with great force, and the people wept and sobbed, melted by the strange seriousness of the hour.

But we ought to be impressed with our nothingness and God's majesty and greatness all the time. A distinguished clergyman was crossing the Atlantic. It was noticed by the passengers that he would sit for hours each day watching the rolling sea. The gay and thoughtless crowd of promenaders passed him again and again, and were often amused at his silent, serious face. At last a young dude stepped up to him and said: "Doctor, what do you see out there that interests you so very much?" The venerable man turned his face full on the youngster, and said in answer: "Nothing but God." The dandy retreated. When we get to a place where we see nothing but God our enemies are forced to withdraw. The text says that "They that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits."


Let us notice for a little time the two words, "strong" and "exploits," in relation to personal experience. When we recognize the utter worthlessness of all things in our own experience we will begin to be strong. We never find God until we get through with everybody else as saviors. There is a time when we are getting saved when we want "just God." One of the mistakes we often make after we are saved is that we begin to depend on someone else. God awakened us, convicted us, and converted us; we acknowledge that, and then inconsistently depend on someone else. We know that God saved us, but we foolishly undertake to sanctify ourselves, forgetting that salvation is of the Lord from first to last. Sanctification is not by works, nor by growth, nor by development, nor by death, nor by evolution, nor by anything but by God Himself.

Each soul must have a personal revelation of God. Jacob was an altogether different man after Peniel. Job's life was revolutionized after he could say, "Now mine eye seeth thee." Moses was never the same man after he met the God of fire at Horeb. Joshua could never have taken Jericho if he had not met the captain of the Lord's hosts. Isaiah never did much prophesying until he saw the vision of "Jehovah sitting upon a throne high and lifted up." Paul was a high churchman, but his life was worse than a failure until he met God out in the "big road" going to Damascus. We must all meet God for ourselves. A personal knowledge of Him will make us mighty. Mountains of guilt will melt away, billows of sorrow and waves of grief and tumult will give place to "peace that floweth like a river.

In our life work as well as in our experience we must be strong and do exploits for Him. Then we recognize God as all in all and know Him as we may know Him we can take the jawbone of an ass and slay a thousand Philistines. We can down Jericho with a ram's horn; slay a giant with a boy's sling; tumble a cake of barley meal into the camp of Midianites and put to flight three hundred thousand armed men. God can thresh a mountain with a worm; all He needs is a worm --they are scarce.

Oh, if we only knew God! Then we could open the skies in judgment against sin and in salvation for the sinners: we could water three million souls from a flinty rock by the use of a mere shepherd's stick. The crying need is not more brains, money, eloquence, human magnetism, new methods nor better appointments. All we need is to know God, the Mighty God, the Irresistible God, the All-conquering God.

There is a great temptation to get into bondage to methods and appliances. We catch a few fish, and then burn incense to our nets. We succeed in some method, and then decide that that method is the only one. We expect God to duplicate Himself again and again, and when He does not we are disappointed.

Too often we undertake to do things ourselves. Like the disciples on the sea of Gennesaretwe, in our self-sufficiency, undertake to manage the ship, and let the Master lie down to sleep. It is no wonder that we get into storms and danger. After we have awakened Him and He has brought a great calm, we too frequently take hold of the steering wheel again and undertake to oversee the ship ourselves. When we put our hands on we find that He takes His off, relinquishing His generalship to us. If we would only recognize the Christ of God in the person of the Holy Ghost and permit Him to fight our battles for us we would find that "the slain of the Lord are many." "For the battle is not yours but God's." "Ye shall not fight in this battle.'' "Stand still and see the salvation of God." "Not any man shall be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life."

We must stop depending upon forms and rules and methods and folks and things. We need an invisible force, an unseen but mighty God.

I was sailing on the beautiful waters of Narragansett Bay. In our own harbor among many fine vessels lying at anchor was a large, fine looking, four-masted schooner. A friend beside me said, "Look! There is the 'Walker Armington,' the only vessel of her kind on the Atlantic coast."" What is there about her peculiar?" I said; for in appearance there was nothing to distinguish her from other fine vessels lying in the harbor. But my friend pointed out that her fourth mast served not only as a mast but as a smokestack. She had an engine down in her hull by which she was able to be independent of tugs and tow boats. She could thread the narrowest channels into the most intricate of harbors without spreading sail or making "tacks." I said, "Since God sanctified my soul I am the 'Walker Armington.' I have an engine for personal use built down in my soul. I do not depend on the direction of the wind, nor upon someone of strong convictions and great power to tug me in and out the harbor."

"Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." When we depend less on outside things and more on God we will do "exploits."

When the temple was consecrated by Solomon and sanctified by the down coming clouds of God's presence, the people had nothing to do but array themselves in white linen and sing and shout. God honored the action, and the Shekinah came down until the priests could not minister. "Being arrayed in white linen," "it came to pass that as the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord" "that the house was filled with the cloud." One thing the matter with us is that we over estimate our own importance and place. We think that too much depends upon us. We are self-important. Our place is to stand and sing arrayed in the white robes of entire holiness.

When the children of Ammon, and Moab, and Mount Seir came up against Jehoshaphat and the Lord's army, Jehoshaphat cried to God, and said: "O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon thee." And God answered: "Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God's. Ye shall not fight in this battle; set yourselves, standstill and see the salvation of God. Fear not, nor be dismayed, for the Lord will be with you." And Jehoshaphat "appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness." "And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments." It is so today. When we begin to sing and praise the beauty of holiness and stand still expectantly then the Lord sends salvation. Many a time God's servants come into times of awful conflict and in the absence of feeling they begin to praise the Lord, and feeling springs up and great victory comes. Let our praise keep pace with our prayer. Praise the Lord, "for His mercy endureth forever."

We will be strong and do exploits in the salvation of other men when we recognize nothing but God as our power and help. We depend upon so many second class things in this world; why should we not have the best? There are many human schemes and agencies and reforms and projects and propositions, but there is nothing that can save souls from an endless hell except the power of God. The Holy Ghost must convict and we must depend upon Him to accomplish all that is of value in salvation work. Some one has said that we are living in the Highway and Hedge Dispensation."

This is a time of great opportunity in neglected fields. God is working in the slums and in the jungles. He is preeminently active in fields hitherto unworked. We must work where God is working if we would have any success. God forbid that we should thunder away on old battlefields after the war is all over.

The noble founder of the Chinese Mission was sailing from New York to Canton a century ago. The captain asked him scornfully: "So you are going to convert the Chinese, are you?" "No," said Robert Morrison; "but God is." Over against the dark cloud which hangs so heavy over the foreign field is a beautiful rainbow of promise of mercy and hope. If we "know God" all things are possible with God and all things are possible to him that believeth.

An old unlearned blacksmith, out in West New York State, with dark low brow and broad brawny hands, received a conviction that there ought to be a revival in his community. There had been none for twenty-five years. He closed his shop, would not lift a hammer nor shoe a horse, but went down on his knees and cried to God until God answered. Then he took his way to the backslidden pastor and said, "I want you to announce a seekers' meeting; we are going to have a revival."

"A seekers' meeting? I will announce no such thing! There has not been a seeker since I came into this charge, and more than that there is no prospect of any." But the old blacksmith kept insisting until the preacher to get rid of him consented to announce a seekers' meeting to be held at the old man's home at sunrise Monday morning. The preacher in making the announcement was careful to clear himself of liability to embarrassment by saying that he had no faith in it and did not believe any one would be there. But long before sunrise the blacksmith's house was full and the yard overflowing, and hardened sinners, strong men, were lying on the grass weeping and crying to God for mercy. All this was before a word had been said to those who came. A great and lasting revival broke out and swept the country for miles around.

We may "be strong and do exploits" when in the trials and conflicts and persecutions of life, by depending absolutely upon God. He will open our eyes to mountains full of chariots and horsemen of fire so that we can look at the enemy and say: "They that be for us are more than they that be against us."

In the twelfth chapter of Acts we are told that "Peter was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him." There was something behind that word "but" that was stronger than all of Herod's troops and prison bars. In a brief space of time Peter was not only free, but Herod was a corrupting corpse. God brings difficult things into my life and your life that He may show His power in removing them. Remember when trouble comes into your life that God is standing "within the shadow, keeping watch above His own: to see whether you will trust Him or sink ingloriously into despair. There are two ways of looking at a difficulty: it may be either a barrier to progress or a ladder to lift you to heaven. God put Jericho in Joshua's way that he might batter down her stone walls with ram's horns, and get a victory that would shine through all the roll of the centuries. He permitted Daniel to go into a lion's den that he might astonish angels, baffle devils, and strike a heathen king and all his subjects with profound conviction. He put the Red Sea across the path of advancing Israel that He might have the opportunity of dividing it and leading His chosen people across dry shod. Paul was permitted to go into prison at Philippi in order that he might shake the old prison walls to pieces, save the jailor and his family, set up a church in his house, and liberate all the other prisoners. And when God lets His saints get into prison today it is that they may stand true to Him, and bring someone else out with them. We ought never to go into jail without bringing somebody else with us. We can afford to be bound for the sake of getting an opportunity to liberate other souls.

God sent Paul to Rome with irons on his limbs that he might plant a church in Caesar's household. And many of God's dear people today if they would only submit to being humbled and degraded in men's eyes would be wondrously used and exalted in God's work and estimation.

Let us get through with our own plans and our own power. Let us get on God's side rather than attempt to pull Him over to help us and be on our side. It was a fortunate event when Joshua met the captain of the Lord's host "over against Jericho" and he got down on his face and resigned his leadership and gave the Son of God command.

Let us believe God for greater things. There is a contrivance used by stock herders in the West by which a trough is filled with water automatically. The weight of the animal which is searching for water in the trough presses an automatic spring so that the water is turned on, and the trough is abundantly supplied with fresh cool water. But the animal must be fully on the platform before the mechanism will work. It must be a complete consecration. A conservative old ox who feels his way by placing only two feet on the platform never gets the water. And the complete and unreserved and entire consecration brings a full salvation and a knowledge of God and an abundance of strength, which enable us to do exploits.


http://articles.ochristian.com/article6641.shtml

The Wrath Of God

By Martyn-Lloyd Jones

We now come to look at the apostle's final statement about man in sin; and that is, that he is under the wrath of God. In other words Paul deals with sin, as sin affects man's standing before God. He shows what God says and thinks and does about man in that condition which we have already considered: There can be no question at all but that this is the most important aspect of the subject. The others were vitally important, but there is nothing which is as important as this. It is because we so constantly forget this that the world is as it is today - and indeed that the Church is as she is. We are so self-centred and concerned about ourselves that we fail to remember that the most important thing above all else is the way in which God looks down upon it all. That is the subject with which we now have to deal.

The apostle puts it like this. He says that "we were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others". Here we have a twofold statement. And there is no doubt at all but that these two matters that we are compelled to look at together are two of the most difficult and perplexing subjects in the whole realm and range of biblical doctrine. That is why they have often led to great misunderstanding, and are subjects which people often in their ignorance not only fail to understand but bitterly resent. There is no subject, perhaps, which has more frequently led people to speak - albeit unconsciously - in a blasphemous manner, than this very matter which we are now going to consider. The apostle says two things: that we are all under the wrath of God; and secondly that we are all under the wrath of God by nature.

Why should we examine these things? Someone may well ask that question. Why spend our time on a subject like this, a difficult subject? There are so many other things that are interesting at the present time and attracting attention. Why not deal with them? And in any case, amid all the problems that confront the world, why turn to something like this?

Well, lest there be someone who is harbouring some such idea, and is provoked to put such a question, let me suggest certain reasons why it behoves us to consider this matter. The first is that it is part of Scripture. It is here in the Bible and, as we shall see, it is everywhere in the Bible. And if we regard the Bible as the Word of God, and our authority in all matters of faith and conduct, we cannot pick and choose; we must take it as it is and consider its every part and portion.

Secondly, we must do so because what we are told here is, after all, a question of fact. It is not theory, it is a statement of fact. If the biblical doctrine of the wrath of God is true, then it is the most important fact confronting every one of us at this moment; infinitely more important than any international conference that may be held, infinitely more important than whether there is to be a third world war or not. If this doctrine is true, then we are all involved in it, and our eternal destiny depends upon it. And the Bible states everywhere that it is a fact.

Another reason for considering it is this: that the apostle's whole argument is that we can never understand the love of God until we understand this doctrine. It is - the way in which we measure the love of God. There is a great deal of talk today about the love of God, and yet were we truly to love God, we would express it, we would show it. To love God is not merely to talk about it; to love God, as He Himself points out constantly in His Word, is to keep His commandments and to live for His glory. The argument here is that we really cannot understand the love of God unless we see it in the light of this other doctrine which we are now considering. So it is essential from that standpoint.

Let me put it in this way. I suggest that we can never truly understand why it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, had to come into this world unless we understand this doctrine of the wrath of God and the judgment of God. As Christians we believe that the Son of God came into this world, that He laid aside the insignia of His eternal glory, was born as a babe in Bethlehem, and endured all that He endured, because that was essential for our salvation. But the question is, Why was it essential to our salvation? Why did all that have to take place before we could be saved? I defy anyone to answer that question adequately without bringing in this doctrine of the judgment of God and of the wrath of God. This is still more true when you look at the great doctrine of the cross and the death of our blessed Lord and Saviour. Why did Christ die? Why had He to die? If we say that we are saved by His blood, why are we saved by His blood? Why was it essential that He should die on that cross and be buried and rise again before we could be saved? There is only one adequate answer to these questions, and that is this doctrine of the wrath of God. The death of our Lord upon the cross is not absolutely necessary unless this doctrine is true. So, you see, it is a vital matter for us to consider.

Lastly, I would put it in a very practical form. This doctrine is essential from the standpoint of a true evangelism. Why is it that people do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Why is it that people are not Christians and not members of the Christian Church? Why does the Lord Jesus Christ not come into their calculations at all? In the last analysis there is only one answer to that question: they do not believe in Him because they have never seen any need of Him. And they have never seen any need of Him because they have never realised that they are sinners. And they have never realised that they are sinners because they have never realised the truth about the holiness of God and the justice and the righteousness of God; they have never known anything about God as the judge eternal and about the wrath of God against the sin of man. So you see this doctrine is essential in evangelism. If we really believe in salvation and in our absolute need of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must start with this doctrine. There, then, are the reasons for considering it. The apostle supplies them; I am simply repeating them.

Now let us look at the two statements themselves. The first thing the apostle says is that all who are born into this world are under the wrath of God. He says we "were all the children of wrath, even as others"; we were all the children of wrath, as the rest of mankind - that is what "even as others" means. Here we come face to face with this tremendous doctrine which I know full well is not only unpopular at the present time but is even hated and detested. People can scarcely control themselves as they speak about it. The whole modern idea has been for a number of years, that God is a God of love and that we must think of God only in terms of love. To talk about the wrath of God, we are told, is utterly incompatible with any idea of God as a God of love. The way in which it is put is this. They say: Of course that idea of the wrath of God stems from the ancient idea of God as a sort of tribal God. The trouble is that there are still certain Christians who believe in that God of the Old Testament, who was nothing but a tribal God. The gods of mythology were all of that type and of that kind; they displayed their anger and their wrath; but, of course, we know now from the New Testament and from Jesus that this is quite wrong and quite false. We no longer believe in the God of the Old Testament, we believe in the God of the New Testament, in the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You are familiar with the argument. Indeed, some go even further, and say that it is only during the past century that we really have become sufficiently enlightened to understand these matters, and that, until the beginning of this present century, people still believed in the wrath of God, and, therefore, had a completely false conception of God. I remember reading a very learned book in which the author stated that this idea of the wrath of God was nothing but a kind of projection into the character of God of the notion of the typical Victorian father, the stern repressive father who kept his children down and disciplined them severely and punished them. His suggestion was that people just carried that idea over and projected it right into God Himself. But that, he held, was nothing but a false bit of psychology from which we have by now delivered ourselves, and we now know that the idea of wrath in a God of love is something that is self-contradictory.

Is there any answer to such contentions? Let me dispose of one preliminary misunderstanding. There are some people who completely misinterpret the very term wrath. They think of wrath instinctively as some uncontrolled manifestation of anger. They cannot think of it apart from the idea of somebody trembling in a rage and pale with passion, who has lost self-control and is speaking in a violent manner and doing violent things. Now that is quite a false and wrong idea of the meaning of wrath. Sinful man, it is true, does sometimes manifest his wrath in this way, but all that does not enter at all into the term as used of God in the Bible. Wrath is nothing but a manifestation of indignation based upon justice. Indeed, we can go further and assert that the wrath of God, according to the scriptural teaching, is nothing but the other side of the love of God. It is the inevitable corollary of the rejection of the love of God. God is a God of love, but God is also and equally a God of justice and of righteousness; and if God's love is spurned and rejected there remains nothing but the justice and the righteousness and the wrath of God.

Now let us demonstrate the contention that this is something which is taught everywhere in the Scripture. In the Old Testament it is to be found at the very beginning. When man fell in the garden of Eden, God visited and spoke to him and pronounced judgment upon him. He drove him out of the garden, and there at the eastern gate of the garden He placed the cherubim and the flaming sword. What is the meaning of the flaming sword? It means just this very thing; it is the sword of God's justice, it is God's sword of wrath and of punishment, punishing man for his sin and making it impossible for him to come back and eat of the tree of life and live for ever. There, at the very beginning, is a manifestation of God's righteous judgment and His wrath upon sin. It is to be found running right through the Old Testament: in the story of the flood, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the various punishments of the children of Israel, whether as a nation or as individuals. The Old Testament is full of this. God has given His law and He has pronounced that if men break it He will punish them - that is His wrath. And when they have done so He has punished them. He has punished individuals, He has punished the nation, even His own chosen people. He punished them, He poured His wrath upon them by raising up the Chaldean army which came and sacked Jerusalem and carried away the people as captives into Babylon. That was a manifestation of the wrath and the righteous judgment of God. It is everywhere in the Old Testament; you really cannot believe the Old Testament unless you accept this doctrine of the wrath of God.

When you come to the New Testament, in spite of all that modern critics would have us believe, the doctrine is again present everywhere. The first preacher in the New Testament is John the Baptist. What did he say? He said, "Flee from the wrath to come"; "Repent and be baptised every one of you, flee from the wrath to come". The Pharisees came to be baptised of John, and he looked at them and said, "Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" It was his great message. Indeed it was the message of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. But, and most surprising of all, we find it in the verse that is generally quoted as the supreme statement of God as a God of love - John 3: 16, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son". Why did He do so? The answer is "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life". The alternative to everlasting life is perishing. And it is John 3: 16 that teaches it. But the thirty - sixth verse of that third chapter of John is still more plain, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him". In other words, all men are under the wrath of God, and unless we believe on the Son of God the wrath of God abides upon us. What can be more plain or explicit? There it is in the Gospel of John the apostle of love.

The apostle Paul teaches the same truth equally clearly. Preaching in Athens he says that, "God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the whole world in righteousness by this man whom he hath appointed". judgment! The wrath of God! In Romans 1: 18, we read: "For the wrath of God is manifested [is already revealed] from heaven, against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men". Paul has no gospel apart from this; it is because of the wrath of God that he is preaching the gospel. In this Epistle to the Ephesians which we are considering, in the fifth chapter and the sixth verse, you get exactly the same thing, "Let no man deceive you with vain words", says Paul "for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience". Again, in summarising his gospel to the Thessalonians in the First Epistle and in the first chapter and the last verse, Paul says that the Thessalonians have turned to Christ and await Him from heaven - what for?--well, he says, because He "delivered us from the wrath to come". The same idea is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews in several places. And if you go right on to the Book of Revelation you will find it there in a most remarkable phrase. It is a phrase about the "wrath of the Lamb". It seems quite contradictory, quite paradoxical. You think of a lamb in terms of innocence, harmlessness. And yet there is this pregnant phrase, "the wrath of the Lamb". It is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the whole world who is to judge the world in righteousness. So it is quite clear that the idea that love and wrath are incompatible is a complete denial of the plain teaching of the Scriptures. Indeed I would go so far as to say that unless we start with this idea of the wrath of God against sin we cannot possibly understand the compassion of God, we cannot understand the love of God. It is only as I realise God's wrath against sin that I realise the full significance of His providing a way of salvation from it. If I do not understand this I do not understand that, and my talk about the love of God is mere loose sentimentality which is indeed a denial of the great biblical doctrine of the love of God.

The apostle's teaching, then, is that until we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ we are under the wrath of God. And the wrath of God is an expression of God's hatred of sin, an expression of God's punishment of sin. It is a clear statement to this effect, that if we die in our sins we go on to eternal punishment. That is the teaching of Scripture. The wrath of God against sin manifests itself finally in hell, where men and women remain outside the life of God in misery and wretchedness, slaves to their own lusts and desires, selfish and self-centred. The apostle's teaching is that that is the position of all who are not Christians. They are under the wrath of God in this life, they will remain under the wrath of God in the next life. That is the position of the sinner, according to Scripture. If you object to the idea you are objecting to the Scriptures, you are setting up some philosophic idea of your own contrary to their plain teaching. You are not arguing with me, you are arguing with the Scriptures. You are arguing with these holy apostles, you are arguing with the Son of God Himself If you believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, then you must not say, "But I don't understand". You are not asked to understand. I do not understand it, I do not pretend to understand it. But I start from this basis, that my mind is not only finite but is, furthermore, sinful, and that I cannot possibly understand fully the nature of God and the justice and the holiness of God. If we are going to base everything on our understanding, then we might as well give up at this point. For the Bible tell us that "the natural man" and "the natural mind" cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God (see I Corinthians 2). It was the desire to understand that led to the Fall. Intellectual pride and arrogance is the first and the last sin. The business of preaching is not to ask people to understand; the commission of the preacher is to proclaim the message. And the message is that all are under the wrath of God until they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But indeed we must go even one step further.

That brings us to the second matter. The apostle says that we are all in that condition by nature - "we were all by nature the children of wrath, even as others". What does this by nature mean? We have already shown in a previous study in this series that this has one meaning only, and that is, "by birth". We were all by our very birth the children of wrath even as others. You notice that the apostle does not say that we "become" the children of wrath because of our nature; he says we "were". In other words the apostle, in line with the whole of the Bible, does not teach that we are born into this world in a state of innocence or in a state of neutrality, and that then, because we sin, we become sinners and thereby come under the wrath of God. That is not what he says: he says the exact opposite. He says that we are born into this world under the wrath of God; from the moment of our birth we are already under the wrath of God. It is not only something that is going to happen to us, neither is it something that results only from our actions. There are people who teach that, but that is a blank denial not only of the teaching here but, as we shall see, of the teaching elsewhere in Scripture. He does not say that we are under the wrath of God only because of our nature or because of the manifestation of our nature. He says that we are in that position "by birth".

What, then, does this mean? The answer is to be found in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans where it is argued out in detail and thoroughly from verse twelve to the end of the chapter. What is the argument? Let me summarise it. In that chapter the one great truth the apostle is concerned to prove is that our relationship, as believers to the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly analogous to our relationship formerly to Adam. He keeps on repeating the comparison and goes back and forth. He talks about what was true of us in Adam and then shows what is true of us now in the Lord Jesus Christ. He starts in verse twelve saying, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned", and so continues. Any careful and unbiased reading of that argument, which is basic to Paul's doctrine of assurance, will compel us to see that all along he says that our relationship to Adam was identical with our present relationship to Christ. If, therefore, we believe that we are what we are in Christ because of what God has imputed to us in Christ, we must also, believe exactly the same on the other side about what was imputed to us in Adam. That is the argument. But the apostle is not content merely to state it generally, he states it in particular also. Let me pick out the important verses. Take verse twelve: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned . . .". The punishment of sin is death. Adam sinned and death came upon him, yes, but not only upon Adam - upon all men. As a result of Adam's one sin, death passed upon all men. Why? The last part of the verse explains - "all sinned" in Adam. That is the statement which we will expound later.

Then take verses thirteen and fourteen of that chapter. Paul introduces a statement in a parenthesis, beginning at verse thirteen, "For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression". Are you tempted to say, What does all this mean ? I cannot follow it, I want some simple gospel of comfort. That is how we tend to speak, we who think that because we live in the twentieth century we are greatly superior to all generations that have ever lived before us. We pride ourselves on our being so learned and intellectual and able to understand great things, whereas previous generations were primitive. But we do not realise that the apostle Paul wrote these words to people who lived nearly two thousand years ago, and that he meant them to understand them. He was not writing to great philosophers; he was writing to simple Christian believers, many of whom were but slaves, and others soldiers in Caesar's household; and he meant those people to understand these things. Shame on us modern Christians who must be spoon-fed, and who just want something nice and easy and simple. If you do not accept this doctrine, then it is God's Word you are rejecting.

I again ask, What does it mean? Paul says that until the law sin was in the world. The law was given through Moses, you remember; but there was that long interval between Adam and Moses, at the least it was. probably a period of some two thousand five hundred years. Now during that whole long period sin was in the world, but sin, he says, is not imputed when there is no law. In other words, if there is not a law to define sin, the sin is not brought home to a man. The business of law is to bring the sin home to man's mind and heart and conscience. If there were no laws, for instance, about parking and about motoring, you and I might still do wrong things, but if there were not a law about these matters we could not be punished. That is what he is saying, "sin is not imputed when there is no law". "Nevertheless", he says, "death reigned from Adam to Moses". Here is the problem: though the law was not given until Moses, nevertheless, from Adam to Moses people died. All the people born into the world died. Why did they die? What is it that produced death in those people though there was no law imputing sin at that period? The apostle's answer is that there is only one explanation; they all died because they were involved in the sin of Adam. There is no other explanation. The only reason why death reigned from Adam to Moses is that that one sin of Adam brought death upon the whole of his posterity. In other words, we are born "by nature the children of wrath".

Notice then the next thing, which is still more extraordinary. He says that death reigned from Adam to Moses, "even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression". What can that mean? It means that death reigned even over those persons who had not actually committed an act of sin as Adam did when he fell. Who are they? And there is only one possible answer; they were infants who died in infancy. All other men sinned. Everybody who has lived since Adam has committed deliberate acts of sin. The only people who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who have not deliberately sinned, are infants who are too young to exercise their will because they are not conscious. Death reigned, says Paul, from Adam to Moses, even over infants also. Why do infants die? There is only one answer. Infants die because Adam's transgression involves them. "Death passed upon an men, even upon them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression".

But going on to verse fifteen we read, "But not as the offence, so also is the free gift; for if through the offence of one many be dead". There it is again. Then he turns to the other side about Jesus Christ. In verse sixteen, we have, "And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift" - and then, "for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification". The judgment, the condemnation, was by one to condemnation: the one sin of Adam brought this upon the whole of mankind. But conversely, he says, many sins are forgiven in the righteousness of One, even Jesus Christ. Then once more in verse eighteen: "Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation". Is not that as explicit as anything could be? "As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men" - no exception - "to condemnation". We are "born the children of wrath". And finally, in verse nineteen, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners". You and I and all mankind were made or, as a more accurate translation puts it, "constituted" sinners by that one sin of Adam. That is the teaching. We are "all by nature the children of wrath even as others".

Ah, you say, I do not understand that, I cannot grasp that, it seems to me almost moral. Of course you do not understand it, Who can understand such things? It is not a question of understanding, it is a question of whether you believe the Scriptures not. For the apostle says exactly the same thing in I Corinthians 15, that great and - wonderful chapter which is read at funeral services, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive", and so on. It is precisely the same argument. It is the basis of the Christian faith. Whether we understand it or not, it is the truth. You have to explain the universality of sin; you have to explain the universality of death, and especially the death of infants. And this is the biblical answer. Adam was the whole of humanity and he represented the whole of humanity. He was our federal head. As the Lord Jesus Christ is the Representative of all who are saved, as His righteousness is imputed to us, so Adam was our representative and his sin is imputed to us. We fell in him, we are damned in him and because of his action. In exactly the same way those who believe in Christ are redeemed by Him and saved in Him and righteous in Him because of His action on our behalf That is the argument. If you believe the one side about Christ, you must believe the other about Adam. If you deny this, you are virtually denying that.

Let us be careful therefore. There is nothing more tragic than the way in which Christian people bring the relics of their philosophies and their own understanding into the Christian faith. Many who claim to believe the Bible, and who regard it as authoritative, reject it at this point because they do not like the doctrine, or because they cannot reconcile certain matters. But the reconciliation is here before us. Though we were dead in trespasses and sins, hateful and hating one another, polluted by sin, sinful in practice, living in trespasses and sins and under the wrath of God, and absolutely helpless and hopeless, the very God against whom we have sinned, the very God whom we have offended, has Himself provided the way of deliverance for us. He does so in the Person of His own dearly beloved Son, whom He did not spare even from the suffering and the agony and the shame of Calvary and that cruel death. He has offered us, and provides for us, the way of complete deliverance and reconciliation to Himself in spite of the fact that our sin in Adam and our own sins, and our own sinful state deserve nothing but His eternal wrath. That is the love of God! That is the "love so amazing, so divine"! God has done that for us, who deserve nothing but eternal wrath, which we could never have done for ourselves.

May God in His grace enable us to receive these things so that we may go on to consider the next verse with its glorious "but". Though all we have been considering was true of us, "God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ". Blessed be the name of God!

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