Condemned For Continuing

“And Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Carnal Christians love to quote the first part of this text to justify their lax lifestyle. It’s amazing how sinning saints can become so Bible oriented when attempting to vindicate themselves. When the devil quoted scripture to Jesus on the mount he left out an important portion. So it is not difficult to see where these types of people get such an idea.

Paul had to deal with this kind of heresy in his day also. There were those who wanted to be saved by grace, but continue in sin. The apostle’s reply to such was, “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Certainly, as long as we have the old Adamic nature we will not be free form sin, but neither are we free to sin. Like the old time preacher used to say, “A sheep may fall into a mud hole, but it’s not his nature to stay there; on the other hand, the old sow will wallow in it.”

After forgiving the immoral woman Jesus told her that in the future her previous life style was to cease. It’s a serious thing to continue in sin once forgiven. Remember Jesus words to the man at the pool of Bethesda, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”

“No man is condemned for anything he has done: he is condemned for continuing to do wrong. He is condemned for not coming out of the darkness, for not coming to the light.” (George MacDonald)

Comfortable Clothing

“He hath clothed me…He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.” There is no doubt the songwriter had this text in mind when he penned, “Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.” I can understand the lost religionist, as the Jews of Paul’s day, “…going about to establish their own righteousness”; but for saints “complete in Him,” it’s hard to understand.

Why anyone would go back to an old discarded pile of “filthy rags” to adorn themselves, when they are clothed in His spotless robe, I’ll never know. I can only guess that it is the old self-righteous, Adamic nature still attempting to cover itself with shrinking “fig leaves.” I find such people live under constant condemnation in just about everything they do, not realizing they’re “accepted in the Beloved.”

Righteousness is not naturally ingrained, it is divinely imputed! The more cracks in the earthen vessel the more it shines forth. God is not fooled by our external showmanship. We may impress blinded believers but never an all-knowing God. To acclaim one’s own righteousness is a slap in the face of Jesus Christ. For the Bible plainly tells us, “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us…righteousness.”

As people grow older they no longer concern themselves with impressive attire, but rather, with comfortable clothing. I am very comfortable and relaxed clothed in His Righteousness!

It's Not the Way We Thought

In this play-acting age of Christianity, closeness to God is not what we see portrayed on the stages in most of the local Christian “theaters” attended each Sunday morning.

John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, who referred to himself before his conversion as “the old blaspheming African slave-trader,” had it right when he wrote the following:

I asked the Lord that I might grow

In faith and love and every grace,

Might more of his salvation know

And seek more earnestly His face.

‘Twas He Who taught me thus to pray,

And He, I trust, has answered prayer;

But it has been in such a way

As almost drove me to despair.

I thought in some favored hour

At once He’d answer my request

And by His love’s constraining power

Subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of that, He made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart,

And bade the angry powers of Hell

Assault my soul in every part.

Nay, more, with His own hand he seemed

Intent to aggravate my woe.

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

“Lord, why is this?” I trembling cried.

“Wilt thou pursue this worm to death?”

“This is the way,” the Lord replied,

“I answer prayer for grace and faith.”

“These inward trials I employ

From self and sin to set thee free

And cross they schemes of earthly joy,

That thou might’st find thy all in Me.”

A Lesson From a Leper

In Leviticus chapter thirteen we find the law of the leper. While reading this portion of scripture, I was struck by the oft repeated seven day waiting period before he could know the results of the priest’s evaluation. Any of us who have had a serious medical condition can relate to this patient in waiting. What agony he, along with his family, must have gone through. Yet this is the way God has ordained life. It seems to be one long waiting period.

We wait for a child to be born; we wait for advancement; we wait for graduation; we wait for a meal to be prepared; we wait and wait and wait. We are impatient creatures; we want life to be instantaneous. But God is never, and can never, be rushed. Isaiah tells us “…therefore will the Lord wait…blessed are all they that wait for him.” It’s the patient people who are the blessed people. Whenever you find God doing something “suddenly” in the scriptures you will find a long period of waiting leading up to the event. Pentecost came suddenly, but only after a fifty day wait.

Has it been a long night for you, dear one? Just wait a little longer, “…joy cometh in the morning.”

Motive is Everything

“And the LORD said unto David ...Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart. Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house; but thy son…Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God…I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house…[Lord] give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart...to build the palace, for the which I have made provision.

(1 Kgs. 8:18-19;1 Chr, 29:2-3;19)

There are times in all the saints' lives, that for one reason or another, we cannot do what we would like and intend to do; even though it will glorify God. It is a good and right thing we want to do for our God, but He has reserved it for someone else to do. What humility this man after God’s own heart had! He planned and provided for it, yet it is called Solomon’s Temple. He didn’t let someone else getting the credit keep him from putting his all into it! God knows what we would do if we could do it.

Motive goes a long way with God. The poor widow that gave all she had, would have given more had she had it, indicates our Lord. And the devoted one who poured her best perfume upon Him proved she would have done more if she could have. Jesus tells us, “She hath done what she could.” The Macedonian believers desired to do so much more than they were doing, but were unable, Paul tells us.

Mrs. Ina Ogden had great hopes as a young girl of being a missionary, but circumstances dashed these hopes against the rocks. Her father had fallen sick and instead she cared for him. She wrote a song that grew out of her desire, "That I should try to make things as cheerful as possible for my father." Her intent in writing the song, said she, was "to remind Christians the pulpit and mission field were not the only places one might make a difference for the Kingdom of God." Hence, the song, "Brighten the Corner," came into being.

​​"Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,

Do not wait to shed your light afar,

To the many duties ever near you now be true,

Brighten the corner where you are."

Praying

“Men ought always to pray...” Our Lord did not say we should want to, but that we ought to pray. Flesh will never, and can never, fulfill the former. Therefore, if we wait until we feel like praying, it will never be done.

Whenever you get on your knees to pray, make up your mind that you are entering the battle of your life. It is interesting that the armour we are to attire ourselves in, spoken of in Ephesians six, has to do mainly with when we pray.

Prayer is not only a privilege, but a sacred duty. Like the Old Testament priests, it is part of our “…duty of every day.” The New Testament proof text that we are to pray daily is found in, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Whenever I feel least like praying, I find it is then I need it most. It is well to remember that God’s benefits follow our obedience. It was “…after they had prayed,” things started happening.

But it is important not to forget that prayer is a dialogue, not a monologue. When you pray you talk to God, when you read the Bible, God talks to you. Let’s make sure the conversation is not one-sided in our favour.

“The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.”

Thomas Watson, Puritan

My Hiding Place

“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

(Col. 3:3)

One of my favorite songs is, “You Are My Hiding Place.”

You Are My Hiding Place

You Always Fill My Heart

With Songs of Deliverance

Whenever I’m Afraid

I Will Trust In You

What a hiding place! For Satan to get to one of the Lord’s children he must first get past God, then Christ. How ridiculous an assumption! Christ is hid in God and we are hid in Christ. If the devil wants to play the child’s game of Hide and Seek he will search for eternity and still come up frustrated and exhausted to find our secret and secure hiding place.

“...the shadow of his hand hath he hid me...in his quiver hath he hid me.”

(Isa. 49:2)

God's Guidance

Abraham had no other guide than God to direct his steps over the trackless desert to the place he knew not. The importance of God’s guidance in our lives cannot be over exaggerated. And I mean in every area. We do not know what lies around the next turn; He does, thus, the necessity of His leading.  

The scriptures abound in promises of God’s guidance in the lives of those surrendered to Him. “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye”; “And the LORD shall guide thee continually”; “The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way”; “He will be our guide [even] unto death.”

If you think for a minute you can run your own life, listen to Jeremiah, “O LORD, I know that the way of man [is] not in himself: [it is] not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” This is the reason we are to acknowledge Him in all our ways. For if He is not guide in all, then He will not guide at all.

Most informed Christians are aware in seeking God’s guidance that He generally uses means: enlightenment from the Bible, promptings of the Spirit, immediate circumstances, godly friends, etc. But sometimes it is forgotten He also uses a sanctified mind. Filling one’s brain with facts and information can be a determining factor which way He is leading. Common sense in weighing the pros and cons can go a long way in helping us.

After the angel delivered Peter from prison we are told, “when he had considered the thing,” he then set his steps for Mary’s house. How about some of us setting down and considering some things? We might just see our way through a confusing and difficult time.

Richard. D. Sandlin

Hopeless Hopers

“…all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.” The poet, Joaquin Miller, wrote these following lines in his poem that he simply called, Columbus: “What shall we do when hope is gone…Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!” He got his inspiration for writing this from reading Columbus’ log from his first voyage across the uncharted Atlantic. In spite of storms, the threat of mutiny, hunger, darkness, and exhaustion, over and again, the captain recorded these words, “This day we sail on.”

Paul was one of those rare breeds who believe, no matter what, you keep on keeping on. He was like Abraham of old, who, “against hope, believed in hope.” He could go against all odds and encourage others to “…be of good cheer.” This was because of the fact that he belonged to God—lock, stock, and barrel. His telling testimony was, “For their stood by me this night…God, whose I am…”

"If Christ is our Hope, we need never lose hope."

(rds)

Psychological Jargon

For the past twenty-five years or so, the Church and other religious institutions has been turned into a world-like psychological clinic for the disturbed. We see this both in the preaching from its pulpits, and the counseling that comes from office calls to the church’s pseudo therapist. When will we learn Biblical principles outshine psychology as much as the sun does a lit match?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones comments, “Psychology, I believe, is one of the most subtle dangers in connection to our faith.” An area in which I find many Christians are taken up with is in the matter of self-image. The “doctors” tell us this is very important in facing life with its difficulties. But you need no PhD. to understand this. A simple saint with a sixth grade education, who loves God and lives in His Book, could grasp this truth.

Any Spirit-filled Believer, reading the story of the twelve spies in the Old Testament would be aware of this. The timid ten, in making their excuse for not wanting to face their giants said, “We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” Their problem was that they saw themselves the way others did. No soul can be a giant-slayer in his or her life by accepting another’s evaluation of himself or herself.

Both Saul and Goliath said of David, “Thou art but a youth.” But the shepherd boy brought down his giant in spite of what others thought of him. He would not allow others to define him. David knew who he was and was content with what God had made him. He refused to pass himself off as another, hiding in their armour. Little David would have never said, “Why hast thou made me thus?” But he did say, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Daily Dependence

Few things in the Christian life that are once-for-all settled. Certainly our salvation tops the list in this brief category (Heb.10:10). But most things are on-going. For example, we are told God gives out His benefits on a daily basis. Israel found they were to be daily dependent during their forty year pilgrimage in the desert.

God has arranged things so that the Christian’s life is to be lived in perpetual day by day reliance upon His faithfulness. Thus He keeps our lives from becoming boring and matter-of-fact. For, says He, “Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.”

It’s reassuring to know He’s planned ahead for each new day. And exciting to anticipate what new things He has in store for us on any given day. David knew his days were in Deity’s hands, and so he penned, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

“When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past.”

(rds)

Stars, Salvation, and Victory

“…one star differeth from another…”

You’d be hard pressed to come up with a plan of salvation or a formula for victory in the scriptures. Why is this? Simply because, like the stars, no one of us is like the other. This is why it is so dangerous trying to emulate another’s spiritual experience, either in the former or latter case. We are to seek the Apostles teachings, not their experiences!

The Bible was written to meet the need of individuals, in the way each of us is going. We all travel different directions; therefore God meets us on the road we are traveling. Is it any wonder, for this reason, many believe the Bible contradicts itself? For example, to the self-righteous seeking salvation Jesus says, “Keep the commandments.” But to the convicted sinner Paul says simply, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” In the first case, it was to produce conviction, but in the second, conviction had already set in.

So it is in trying to live the Victorious Christian Life. There are many Christians who are habitually reading about the experiences of others, trying to relive them in their own lives. We are not identical in our natural makeup; therefore God deals with us on an individual basis. Oswald Chambers mentions we should allow the Lord to be as original with us as he has been with the ones we seek to copy. Say and do as little David did, when he put on Saul’s giant armour, “I cannot go with these…And David put them off him.”

“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

(Charles Schulz)

FRAGILE

“LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.”

(Psa. 39:4)

It’s early morning and I just woke to face my fourth day of having the flu that has invaded our State. Believe me, it’s as bad as they say it is. I might add even worse for us Octogenarians. During this time alone with God I've thought of darling David’s words in the text quoted above. Maybe some of you need the following article as I do.  

The word “frail” is used only once in the Bible. David asked the Lord to make known to him his frailty; that is, how weak he actually was and how easily the earthen vessel could be broken. It’s interesting to note that in David’s autobiography (Psalms) he speaks so often of his sorrow, sickness, pain, and afflictions. I heard a preacher jestingly say once, “Be careful what you pray for; you just might get it!” It is evident from David’s life, God answered his prayer request.

It is important for all of us to have our frailties revealed to us, for we are so prone to think of ourselves as indomitable, thereby making ourselves independent entities. But once God brings a crack in the vessel, we are more apt to put our fragile lives in His hands for safe keeping.

Interestingly, earlier in his life, robust David killed lions, bears, and giants with his own hands; but later on, when the frailties of life set in, he needed others that God sent his way to help him in killing his giants. Our frailties not only make us realize our dependence upon God but also on one another. “No man liveth to himself.”

“If your life has been marked ‘Fragile,’ don’t worry, God will handle it with care.”

(rds)

Losing Your Edge

“Iron sharpeneth iron…so a man sharpeneth…his friend.”

(Prov. 27:17)

By friction is one iron instrument sharpened by another. And so it is with us, when we become dull and lose our intellectual and spiritual edge. God has ordained an instrument made of the same material to be used in taking off our rough, blunt edge, thereby making us sharp once again. The wise man tells us, “If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength.”

A recluse is invariably a one-sided person. This is one reason, no doubt, we’re told, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We need to learn to mingle with those with diverse opinions and viewpoints: people who’ll make us think, that keep us from being intellectual and spiritual sloths. Brisk, lively, spirited conversations can not only be enlightening but even enjoyable.

There is great gain to be acquired from conversations with those possessing superior knowledge, mainly the increase of wisdom. Need I point out Timothy and Paul as an example? Challenging conversations are advantageous to all parties involved. Anytime we’re provoked to independent thinking, it will always be to our profit. A stagnant mind produces the same as stagnant waters.

That great intellect, C.S. Lewis, would meet with friends in a local pub for informal discussions. Not all held the same views, hence it could become quite spirited but all remained friends. They called their group, “The Inklings.” This continued for some twenty years. Such dialogue can be very profitable. J.R.R. Tolkien was one of the members of this group; he was instrumental in Lewis’s conversion.

Those who “pick up their marbles and go home” in disagreeing debates, have lost their marbles.

(rds)

Daniel's Belief in God

“But there is a God in heaven...”

(Dan. 2:28)

Daniel was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar at the age of around twenty years old most Bible teachers believe. He was one of a small band of Jewish captives carried off from his native homeland Jerusalem to distant pagan Babylon. He lived through the seventy-year Babylonian captivity. He was both a godly and handsome young man. He was a political prophet; “God rules in the affairs of men,” said he.

There is much debate among the apostates as to the authenticity of his writings, as well as the existence of such a person as himself. But Jesus vouchsafed both. That is the only authority I need, though there are many other proofs.

In spite of his lot in life, whatever that might entail, his testimony from youth to old age was, “There is a God in heaven.” Taken from home never to return again, made a slave, lied about, and put into a lion's den, he never questioned his God’s dealings with him. He was resolute. Daniel’s faith was not passive. He not only believed God COULD; he believed God WOULD. He carried this unwavering faith from youth down to his hoary hairs of old age. He was preeminently a man of prayer!

O, that our Lord might grant us the godly character of this“greatly beloved,” man of God, a man with a spiritual backbone. As the old-timer said, “The lions didn’t eat Daniel because there was too much gristle in his backbone.”

“But the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”

(Dan. 11:32)