Copied From Streams In The Desert 2012-06-07

Copied From Streams In The Desert  2012-06-07

"Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night."

Job  35 : 10

But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;

Do you have sleepless nights, tossing on the hot pillow, and watching for the first glint of dawn? 

Ask the Divine Spirit to enable you to fix your thoughts on God your Maker, and believe that He can fill those lonely, dreary hours with song.

Is yours the night of bereavement? Is it not often at such a time that God draws near, and assures the mourner that the Lord has need of the departed loved one, and called "the eager, earnest spirit to stand in the bright throng of the invisible, liberated, radiant, active, intent on some high mission"; and as the thought enters, is there not the beginning of a song?

Is yours the night of discouragement and fancied or actual failure? No one understands you, your friends reproach; but your Maker draws nigh, and gives you a song--a song of hope, the song which is harmonious with the strong, deep music of His providence. 

Be ready to sing the songs that your Maker gives. --Selected.

"What then? Shall we sit idly down and say

The night hath come; it is no longer day?

Yet as the evening twilight fades away,

The sky is filled with stars, invisible to day."

The strength of the vessel can be demonstrated only by the hurricane, and the power of the Gospel can be fully shown only when the Christian is subjected to some fiery trial. 

If God would make manifest the fact that "He giveth songs in the night," He must first make it night. --William Taylor.　

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Copied From Streams In The Desert 2012-06-29

Copied From  Streams In The Desert    2012-06-29

"There we saw the giants." (Num. 13:33)

Yes, they saw the giants, but Caleb and Joshua saw God!

Those who doubt say, "We be not able to go up."

Those who believe say, "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able."

Giants stand for great difficulties; and giants are stalking everywhere.

They are in our families, in our churches, in our social life, in our own hearts; and we must overcome them or they will eat us up, as these men of old said of the giants of Canaan.

The men of faith said, "They are bread for us; we will eat them up." In other words, "We will be stronger by overcoming them than if there had been no giants to overcome."

Now the fact is, unless we have the overcoming faith we shall be eaten up, consumed by the giants in our path.

Let us have the spirit of faith that these men of faith had, and see God, and He will take care of the difficulties. --Selected.

It is when we are in the way of duty that we find giants.

It was when Israel was going forward that the giants appeared.

When they turned back into the wilderness they found none.

There is a prevalent idea that the power of God in a human life should lift us above all trials and conflicts.

The fact is, the power of God always brings a conflict and a struggle.

One would have thought that on his great missionary journey to Rome, Paul would have been carried by some mighty providence above the power of storms and tempests and enemies. 

But, on the contrary, it was one long, hard fight with persecuting Jews, with wild tempests, with venomous vipers and all the powers of earth and hell, and at last he was saved, as it seemed, by the narrowest margin, and had to swim ashore at 

Malta on a piece of wreckage and barely escape a watery grave.

Was that like a God of infinite power? Yes, just like Him. And so Paul tells us that when he took the Lord Jesus Christ as the life of his body, a severe conflict immediately came; indeed, a conflict that never ended, a pressure that was persistent, but out of which he always emerged victorious through the strength of Jesus Christ.

The language in which he describes this is most graphic.

"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of 

Jesus might be manifested in our body."

What a ceaseless, strenuous struggle!

It is impossible to express in English the forcible language of the original.

There are five pictures in succession.

In the first, the idea is crowding enemies pressing in from every side, and yet not crushing him because the police of heaven cleared the way just wide enough for him to get through.

The literal translation would be, "We are crowded on every side, but not crushed."

The second picture is that of one whose way seems utterly closed and yet he has pressed through; there is light enough to show him the next step.

The Revised Version translates it, "Perplexed but not unto despair." Rotherham still more literally renders it, "Without a way, but not without a by-way."

The third figure is that of an enemy in hot pursuit while the divine Defender still stands by, and he is not left alone.

Again we adopt the fine rendering of Rotherham, 

"Pursued but not abandoned."

The fourth figure is still more vivid and dramatic.

The enemy has overtaken him, has struck him, has knocked him down.

But it is not a fatal blow; he is able to rise again. It might be translated, "Overthrown but not overcome."

Once more the figure advances, and now it seems to be even death itself, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus."

But he does not die, for "the life also of Jesus" now comes to his aid and he lives in the life of another until his life work is done.

The reason so many fail in this experience of divine healing is because they expect to have it all without a struggle, and when the conflict comes and the battle wages long, they become discouraged and surrender.

God has nothing worth having that is easy.

There are no cheap goods in the heavenly market. Our redemption cost all that God had to give, and everything worth having is expensive.

Hard places are the very school of faith and character, and if we are to rise over mere human strength and prove the power of life divine in these mortal bodies, it must be through a process of conflict that may well be called the birth travail of a new life. It is the old figure of the bush that burned, but was not consumed, or of the Vision in the house of the Interpreter of the flame that would not expire, notwithstanding the fact that the demon ceaselessly poured water on it, because in the background stood an angel ever pouring oil and keeping the flame aglow.

No, dear suffering child of God, you cannot fail if only you dare to believe, to stand fast and refuse to be overcome. --Tract.

　

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COPIED FROM STREAMS IN THE DESERT 2012-06-20

COPIED FROM STREAMS IN THE DESERT 2012-06-20

"Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." (Isa. 30:21)

When we are in doubt or difficulty, when many voices urge this course or the other, when prudence utters one advice and faith another, then let us be still, hushing each intruder, calming ourselves in the sacred hush of God's presence; 

let us study His Word in the attitude of devout attention; 

let us lift up our nature into the pure light of His face, eager only to know what God the Lord shall determine--and ere long a very distinct impression will be made, the unmistakable forth-telling of His secret counsel.

It is not wise in the earlier stages of Christian life to depend on this alone, but to wait for the corroboration of circumstances. 

But those who have had many dealings with God know well the value of secret fellowship with Him, to ascertain His will.

Are you in difficulty about your way?

Go to God with your question; 

get direction from the light of His smile or the cloud of His refusal.

If you will only get alone, where the lights and shadows of earth cannot interfere, where human opinions fail to reach--and if you will dare to wait there silent and expectant, though all around you insist on immediate decision or action--the will of God will be made clear; 

and you will have a new conception of God, a deeper insight into His nature and heart of love, which shall be for yourself alone--a rapturous experience, to abide your precious perquisite forever, the rich guerdon of those long waiting hours. --David.

"STAND STILL," my soul, for so thy Lord commands:

E'en when thy way seems blocked, leave it in His wise hands;

His arm is mighty to divide the wave.

"Stand still," my soul, "stand still" and thou shalt see

How God can work the "impossible" for thee,

For with a great deliverance He doth save.

Be not impatient, but in stillness stand,

Even when compassed 'round on every hand,

In ways thy spirit does not comprehend.

God cannot clear thy way till thou art still,

That He may work in thee His blessed will,

And all thy heart and will to Him do bend.

"BE STILL," my soul, for just as thou art still,

Can God reveal Himself to thee; until

Through thee His love and light and life can freely flow;

In stillness God can work through thee and reach

The souls around thee.

He then through thee can teach

His lessons, and His power in weakness show.

"BE STILL"--a deeper step in faith and rest.

"Be still and know" thy Father knoweth best

The way to lead His child to that fair land,

A "summer" land, where quiet waters flow;

Where longing souls are satisfied, and "know

Their God," and praise for all that He has planned.—Selected.

Copied From Streams In The Desert 2012-05-31

Copied From Streams In The Desert     2012-05-31

"Like a shock of corn fully ripe." (Job 5:26)
5:26 Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season. cometh in: Heb. ascendeth

A gentleman, writing about the breaking up of old ships, recently said that it is not the age alone which improves the quality of the fiber in the wood of an old vessel, but the straining and wrenching of the vessel by the sea, the chemical action of the bilge water, and of many kinds of cargoes.

Some planks and veneers made from an oak beam which had been part of a ship eighty years old were exhibited a few years ago at a fashionable furniture store on Broadway, New York, and attracted general notice for the exquisite coloring and beautiful grain.

Equally striking were some beams of mahogany taken from a bark which sailed the seas sixty years ago.

The years and the traffic had contracted the pores and deepened the color, until it looked as superb in its chromatic intensity as an antique Chinese vase.

It was made into a cabinet, and has today a place of honor in the drawing-room of a wealthy New York family.

So there is a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived flabby, self-indulgent, useless lives, and the fiber of those who have sailed all seas and carried all cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men.

Not only the wrenching and straining of life, but also something of the sweetness of the cargoes carried get into the very pores and fiber of character. --Louis Albert Banks.

When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set;
the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure.
And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight.
Such a man cannot die out of this world.

When he goes he leaves behind him much of 
himself.
Being dead, he speaks. –Beecher.

When Victor Hugo was past eighty years of age he gave expression to his religious faith in these sublime sentences: "I feel in myself the future life.

I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down.

The new shoots are livelier than ever.

I am rising toward the sky.

The sunshine is on my head.

The earth gives me its generous sap, but Heaven lights me with its unknown worlds.

"You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers.

Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail?

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years.

The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me.

It is marvelous, yet simple."

Copied From Streams In The Desert 2012-05-28

Copied From Streams In Tthe Desert  2012-05-28

"I will not let thee go, except thou bless me ... and he blessed him there." ( Genesis  32 : 26,  29 )

32:26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
 
32:29 And Jacob asked him , and said, Tell me , I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.

Jacob got the victory and the blessing not by wrestling, but by clinging.

His limb was out of joint and he could struggle no longer, but he would not let go.

Unable to wrestle, he wound his arms around the neck of his mysterious antagonist and hung all his helpless weight upon him, until at last he conquered.

We will not get victory in prayer until we too cease our struggling, giving up our own will and throw our arms about our Father's neck in clinging faith.

What can puny human strength take by force out of the hand of Omnipotence?

Can we wrest blessing by force from God? 

It is never the violence of wilfulness that prevails with God.

It is the might of clinging faith, that gets the blessing and the victories.

It is not when we press and urge our own will, but when humility and trust unite in saying, "Not my will, but Thine."

We are strong with God only in the degree that self is conquered and is dead.

Not by wrestling, but by clinging can we get the blessing. --J. R. Miller.

An incident from the prayer life of Charles H. Usher (illustrating "soul-cling" as a hindrance to prevailing prayer): "My little boy was very ill.
The doctors held out little hope of his recovery.

I had used all the knowledge of prayer which I possessed on his behalf, but he got worse and worse.
This went on for several weeks.

"One day I stood watching him as he lay in his cot, and I saw that he could not live long unless he had a turn for the better.

I said to God, 'O God, I have given much time in prayer for my boy and he gets no better;

I must now leave him to Thee, and I will give myself to prayer for others.

If it is Thy will to take him, I choose Thy will--I surrender him entirely to Thee.'

"I called in my dear wife, and told her what I had done.

She shed some tears, but handed him over to God. 
Two days afterwards a man of God came to see us.
He had been very interested in our boy Frank, and had been much in prayer for him.

"He said, 'God has given me faith to believe that he will recover--have you faith?'

"I said, 'I have surrendered him to God, but I will go again to God regarding him.'

I did; and in prayer I discovered that I had faith for his recovery. 

From that time he began to get better.

It was the 'soul-cling' in my prayers which had hindered God answering; 

and if I had continued to cling and had been unwilling to surrender him, I doubt if my boy would be with me today.

"Child of God! If you want God to answer your prayers, you must be prepared to follow the footsteps of 'our father Abraham,' even to the Mount of Sacrifice."
 ( See Romans  4:12 )

4:12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.