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Help, LORD!

Posted by Tkulp , 05 October 2017 · 839 views

Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak. Psalms 12:1-2






A.B. Simpson

 

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

 

The Holy Spirit is the only one who can kill us and keep us dead. Many Christians try to do this disagreeable work themselves, and they are going through a continual crucifixion but can never accomplish the work permanently. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and when we really yield ourselves to the death, it is delightful to find how sweetly He can execute the sentence.

They tell us that by the touch of the electric spark life is extinguished almost without a quiver of pain. However this may be in natural things, we know the Holy Spirit can touch with celestial fire the surrendered thing, after it is really yielded up to the sentence of death, and slay it in a moment. The yielding is our business, and it is God's business to execute the sentence and to keep it constantly operative.

May we not live in the pain of perpetual and ineffective suicide, but reckoning ourselves dead indeed, let us leave ourselves in the hands of the blessed Holy Spirit. He will slay whatever rises in opposition to His will and keep us true to our heavenly reckoning and filled with His resurrection life.

Scripture

If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall liveRomans 8:13

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Streams In The Desert
October 8 Don't Fret

Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God.—Phil 4:6 NET

Not a few Christians live in a state of unbroken anxiety, and others fret and fume terribly. To be perfectly at peace amid the hurly-burly of daily life is a secret worth knowing. What is the use of worrying? It never made anybody strong; never helped anybody to do God’s will; never made a way of escape for anyone out of perplexity. Worry spoils lives which would otherwise be useful and beautiful. Restlessness, anxiety, and care are absolutely forbidden by our Lord, who said: “Take no thought,” that is, no anxious thought, “saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” He does not mean that we are not to take forethought and that our life is to be without plan or method; but that we are not to worry about these things. People know you live in the realm of anxious care by the lines on your face, the tones of your voice, the minor key in your life, and the lack of joy in your spirit. Scale the heights of a life abandoned to God, then you will look down on the clouds beneath your feet. —Rev. Darlow Sargeant

It is always weakness to be fretting and worrying, questioning and mistrusting. Can we gain anything by it? Do we not unfit ourselves for action, and unhinge our minds for wise decision? We are sinking by our struggles when we might float by faith.

Oh, for grace to be quiet! Oh, to be still and know that Jehovah is God! The Holy One of Israel must defend and deliver His own. We may be sure that every word of His will stand, though the mountains should depart. He deserves to be confided in. Come, my soul, return unto thy rest, and lean thy head upon the bosom of the Lord Jesus. —Selected

“Peace thy inmost soul shall fill
Lying still!”

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Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Friday, October 13, 2017

The flesh is incurably bad. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. It can never be any better. It is no use trying to improve the flesh. We may educate it all we please. We may train it by the most approved methods, we may set before it the brightest examples, we may pipe to it or mourn before it we may treat it with encouragement or severity. But its nature will always be incorrigibly the same.

The wild hawk which the little child captures in its infancy and tries to train in the habits of the dove will fasten its cruel beak upon the gentle fingers that caress it, showing the old wild spirit of fear and ferocity. So the flesh is a hawk by nature, and it can never be made a dove. For the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

 

The only remedy for human nature is to destroy it and receive instead the divine nature. God does not improve man. He crucifies the natural life with Christ and creates the new man in Christ Jesus.

Scripture

The carnal mind is enmity against GodRomans 8:7

 

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Rom 6:7  For he that is dead is freed from sin.

 

Rom 6:16  Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

 

Rom 6:18  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Rom 6:19  I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
Rom 6:20  For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
Rom 6:21  What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
Rom 6:22  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

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Simpson Devotional

Inspirational Readings by A.B. Simpson

Days of Heaven on Earth

Saturday, October 14, 2017

If when it seems your old self has come back, you listen to it, fear it, believe it, it will have the same influence upon you as if it were not dead. It will control you and destroy you. Instead, simply ignore it and say: "You are not I, you are Satan trying to make me believe that my old self is not dead. I refuse you. I treat you as a demon power outside of me, I detach myself from you." The evil thing will disappear, the shadow will vanish, the wand of faith will dispel the troubling spirit and send it back to the abyss. In its place we will find Christ there instead with His risen life to back up our confidence and seal our victory.

Satan can stand anything better than neglect. If we ignore him he becomes disgusted and disappears. Jesus turned His back upon him and said, Get thee behind me, Satan. So let us refuse him, and we shall find that he will be compelled to act according to our faith.

Once I believed I must always be stumbling

For my old nature was poisoned with sin;

Now there's a mightier Power upholds me,

Cleansing and keeping and dwelling within.

Scripture

Get thee behind me, SatanMatthew 16:23

 

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I have not found evil to go away by ignoring it. I have had to resist it, which is what is being encouraged at the beginning of the devotional. In having great respect for A.B. Simpson I really do not accept that he really believes what it appears that he is saying. Not having the complete context of his statement, I can only give what I know to be truth.

 

In the Bible we do have many examples, one in the OT is of Achon in Joshua 7.

 

In the NT here is the account quoted from Net Bible, that is mentioned in the devotional.

 

 "Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
He spoke openly about this. So Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But after turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan. You are not setting your mind on God's interests, but on man's."
Then Jesus called the crowd, along with his disciples, and said to them, "If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.
For what benefit is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his life?
What can a person give in exchange for his life?
 For if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."  Mark 8:31-38

 

If you examine the truth of God's creation, if diseased, rotting produce is not removed from the basket, the entire basket will become rotten in time. 

 

Jesus taught that....

 

 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a person, it passes through waterless places looking for rest but does not find it.
Then it says, 'I will return to the home I left.' When it returns, it finds the house empty, swept clean, and put in order.
Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, so the last state of that person is worse than the first. It will be that way for this evil generation as well!" Matthew 12:43-45

 

Both physically and spiritually I find the Bible to have the truth, the answer for real deliverance and protection (most often translated as saved). Paul says....

 

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. Romans 6:12-13

 

Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? Romans 6:16

 

In the realm of health, I have come to believe a different philosophy than that which is in the world.

God created our bodies to heal themselves. Most all of the cells in the human body are totally replaced in something like a year's time. When you are injured, given the proper response, cleanliness, etc, the body heals itself.

 

If a body is sick, cleanse the surroundings and the items fed the body and it will heal. Build and strengthen the immune system and the bad bacteria that enters the body will be destroyed by the good bacteria.

 

Basically, stop doing what is wrong, clean up the life and its surroundings, start doing what is know to be correct and you will experience deliverance from that which is harmful, leading to premature death.

 

Jesus' instruction would parallel the physical. He said to repent, die to self, take my yoke upon yourself, become one with me, and demonstrate your love for me by keeping my commands. The Bible stress over and over the importance of the heart and mind and staying under the influence of the divine, the Word of God. Remain clean by not conforming to the world, but by being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ with fruit that establishes that transformation to the world.

 

Follow the thoughts of Paul regarding who or what we yield our members to, James tells to.....

 

So submit to God. But resist {to stand against, that is, oppose} the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you double-minded. James 4:7-8

 

So what are the supporters of evil and the enemies of righteousness and truth purported to say on the subject of turning the back on a lie. Satan is the father of lies and what he is all about, deception and darkness?

 

"If a lie is only printed often enough, it becomes a quasi-truth, and if such a truth is repeated often enough, it becomes an article of belief, a dogma, and men will die for it."  Unknown

 

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels

 

The conclusion from the Bible....

 

"Then he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near.
The evildoer must continue to do evil, and the one who is morally filthy must continue to be filthy. The one who is righteous must continue to act righteously, and the one who is holy must continue to be holy."

 

(Look! I am coming soon, and my reward is with me to pay each one according to what he has done!
 

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end!)
 

Blessed are those who wash their robes so they can have access to the tree of life and can enter into the city by the gates.  Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood!
 

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star!" And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let the one who hears say: "Come!" And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge.
 

I testify to the one who hears the words of the prophecy contained in this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.  And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book. The one who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon!" Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
  The grace(especially the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; including gratitude) of the Lord Jesus be with all."
Revelation 22:10-21

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Streams In The Desert
October 17 He Refines Them

But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.—Gal 6:14 NET

They were living to themselves; self with its hopes, and promises and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and had surrendered for it to be given them at any cost, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by “as a refiner and purifier of silver,” until they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands.

They had asked they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow Him so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought that they had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to do than to give up, to bear the cross than to hang upon it. But they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them His promise, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32).

But now at last their turn has come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they can but choose to follow.

Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams, the mystery of His cross shines out upon them. They behold Him lifted up, they gaze on the glory which rays from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for He dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own (and what they might have had), and to be unlike all, so that they are only like Him.

Such, are they in all ages, “who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.”

Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His Kingdom. They would have had Lot’s portion, not Abraham’s. If they had halted anywhere—if God had taken off His hand and let them stray back—what would they not have lost? What forfeits in the resurrection?

But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well nigh slipped; but He in mercy held them up. Now, even in this life, they know that all He did was done well. It was good to suffer here, that they might reign hereafter; to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them and in them.—Anonymous.

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I was encouraged by the Meyer's devotional this morning. It is written from a different "Christianity" than is in the "church" today. A Christianity that believed in, surrendered to, and experienced the indwelling presence of God in this shell of clay, even as the presence of God dwelt in the tabernacle and later in Solomon's Temple.

 

It is very sad that God did not always reside in the Temple. When the nation disobeyed, the preists disobeyed God's presence was not there. Is it any different then that within those who call themselves by the name of Christ, but live like the world, in the ways of the world?

Isaiah 30

 

Our Daily Walk by F B Meyer   October 26

 

The Blameless Life

Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this. — 1 Thess 5:23-24 NET

 

He will do it. There is a tone of confidence in these words which bespeaks the unwavering faith of the Apostle in the faithfulness and power of God to do for these early Christian folk what indeed is needed by all of us; first, to be sanctified wholly, and secondly, to be preserved without blame until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We can hardly realise how much this meant for men and women reared amid the excesses and evils of those days, when religion was another name for unbridled indulgence. Blamelessness of life, the stainless habit of the soul, self-restraint—these were the attributes of the few whose natures seemed cast in a special mould. And yet how strong the assertion of the Apostle that, in the face of the insurmountable difficulties, the God of Peace would do even as much for them.

 

We must distinguish between blamelessness and faultlessness. The latter can only be ours when we have passed into the presence of His glory, and are presented faultless before Him with exceeding joy (Jud 1:24). The former, however, is within the reach of each of us, because God has said that He will do it. The Agent of the blameless life is God Himself. None beside could accomplish so marvelous a result, and He does it by condescending to indwell the soul. As His glory filled Solomon’s Temple, so He waits to infill the spirit, soul, and body of those who trust Him.

 

He will do it as the God of Peace. The mightiest forces are the stillest. Who ever heard the day break, or detected the footfall of Spring? Who thinks of listening for the throb of gravitation, or the thud of the forces that redden the grape, golden the corn, and cover the peaches with bloom? So God works in the hearts of those who belong to Him. When we think we are making no progress, He is most at work. The presence of ozone in the air can only be detected by a faint colour on a piece of litmus-paper, and God’s work in the soul is only apparent as the bloom of perfect love is shown in the life.

 

 

 

Streams In The Desert    October 26

 

An Hour In The Garden

And after he sent the crowds away, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.—Matt 14:23 NET

 

The man Christ Jesus felt the need of perfect solitude—Himself alone, entirely by Himself, alone with Himself. We know how much intercourse with men draws us away from ourselves and exhausts our powers. The man Christ Jesus knew this, too, and felt the need of being by Himself again, of gathering all His powers, of realizing fully His high destiny, His human weakness, His entire dependence on the Father.

 

How much more does the child of God need this—himself alone with spiritual realities, himself alone with God the Father. If ever there were one who could dispense with special seasons for solitude and fellowship, it was our Lord. But He could not do His work or maintain His fellowship in full power, without His quiet time.

 

Would God that every servant of His understood and practiced this blessed art, and that the Church knew how to train its children into some sense of this high and holy privilege, that every believer may and must have his time when he is indeed himself alone with God. Oh, the thought to have God all alone to myself, and to know that God has me all alone to Himself! —Andrew Murray

 

Lamertine speaks in one of his books of a secluded walk in his garden where his mother always spent a certain hour of the day, upon which nobody ever dreamed for a moment of intruding. It was the holy garden of the Lord to her. Poor souls that have no such Beulah land! Seek thy private chamber, Jesus says. It is in the solitude that we catch the mystic notes that issue from the soul of things.

A MEDITATION

My soul, practice being alone with Christ! It is written that when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples. Do not wonder at the saying; it is true to thine experience. If thou wouldst understand thyself send the multitude away. Let them go out one by one till thou art left alone with Jesus. … Hast thou ever pictured thyself the one remaining creature in the earth, the one remaining creature in all the starry worlds?

In such a universe thine every thought would be “God and I! God and I!” And yet He is as near to thee as that—as near as if in the boundless spaces there throbbed no heart but His and thine. Practice that solitude, O my soul! Practice the expulsion of the crowd! Practice the stillness of thine own heart! Practice the solemn refrain “God and I! God and I!” Let none interpose between thee and thy wrestling angel! Thou shalt be both condemned and pardoned when thou shalt meet Jesus alone! —George Matheson

 

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Tozer Devotional

 

Wed, November 08, 2017

God the Heart Opener

 

About the intimate workings of the Holy Spirit in the human heart there is a highly personal relationship in which no third person can share. The sacred work of redemption was wrought in darkness. No strange eye could see what was taking place when the sins of the world entered the holy soul of Christ that He might die under their weight and thus make “his life a guilt offering” (Isaiah 53:10; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Matthew 27:46).

 

That there is a deep mystery about the new birth is plainly stated by our Lord.

 

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." "How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” (John 3:8-12).

 

It is bordering on the irreverent to suggest that this sovereign work of the Spirit can be induced at the will of a personal worker by means of a textual recipe. The moment this is attempted, the Spirit withholds His illumination and leaves the worker and the seeker to their own designs. And the tragic consequences are all about us.

All any Christian worker can do is to point the inquirer to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29). That was all John the Baptist did. He did not attempt to create faith in any of his hearers. The Spirit alone can open the heart, as John well knew. It is our task to arrest the sinner’s attention, give him the message of the cross, urge him to receive it and meet its conditions.

 

After that the seeker is on his own. The individual is out of the hands of the instructors and helpers and in the hands of the God with whom he has to do.

 

Verse

 

One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. Acts 16:14

 

Thought

 

Let's be extremely careful that, in our zeal, we do not attempt to do what only God can do--that is, to open the hearts of people. Our part is to present the Good News as clearly as we are able, faithfully praying that God will open hearts. Are we so praying?

 

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Is unconditional love a concept of the most recent generations of the modern church?

It must not have been around in the days of Tozer's life!

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