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"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE
THRONE
Part 61
THE
CHURCH IN LAODICEA
(continued)
“As many as I love, I rebuke and
chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:19).
The trials and testings which are the daily experience of those
apprehended of God in this hour are designed to develop a character worthy of
one called to reign with Christ in His kingdom.
Our Father rules and overrules in each of these for our good. Sometimes they take the form of chastening, as we read, “If
ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom
the Father chasteneth not?” (Heb. 12:7).
Ordinarily we think of the word “chastisement” as signifying
correcting for wrongdoing. But in
the scriptures it is especially used to convey the idea of education or
instruction in righteousness. The
word in Greek which is translated chasten is paiedeia,
and comes from the word paideia, which
means child.
The verb is paiduo, and has the meaning of “to train, to educate, to instruct,
to teach.” Chastisement is,
therefore, the training, education, instruction, and correction of ignorance for
the child’s learning. Those chosen to reign with Christ in the authority and
power of the kingdom of God need to have practical lessons in character
development — lessons of a very high order!
Consequently we receive chastening such as no other creatures in the
universe have been subject to, aside from our Lord. We must receive the training necessary to fully conform us to
our Father’s mind, will, and ways in every instance and under all
circumstances.
God is chastening His sons, training them as a father trains his child.
He is educating us and bringing us under discipline.
He is not punishing us because we have done wrong, but He does correct us
that we may learn His ways. Discipline
is much more than punishment. Discipline
is something you do for
your child, not to your child. Discipline
is part of the character you build into your child that will give him a way of
life. Correction is necessary for
children! A baby is an innocent
little thief. It takes everything
it can lay its hands on, and constantly misappropriates unless watched.
It has not any notion of what is right.
It understands nothing of wisdom. We
have to teach children everything! One
of the greatest curses of this country is that children are not lovingly, but
firmly, corrected, restrained, and taught righteousness.
They are permitted to be their own masters and do their own thing when
they ought to be under government. Armed
with the understanding that chastisement is more than punishing for wrong doing,
it is clear that if a man is always beating his child, but never blessing;
always grumbling, complaining, and criticizing, but never praising; always
discouraging and putting down, but never encouraging and inspiring, he will
destroy the child. God is a loving
Father and does not want to punish us at all! Yet, it is better to correct and teach us that we may obey
Him, than for us to end up as spiritual delinquents! Spiritually spoiled brats, who only receive blessings and benefits
from the Father, as many Christians seek, especially those in the “faith”
movement, will not reign with Christ in His kingdom!
Bennie Skinner once shared this wise counsel: “You need to know God in
all the sides of His nature; if you knew all the sides of God’s nature, you
would understand how a God of love can allow bad things to happen to good
people, and not only allow it, but bring it to pass.
When you know God in all the sides of His nature you do not think of Him
as an indulgent old granddaddy who lets everybody do anything they want to, and
He still loves them anyhow — ‘it’s alright darling, everything will be
wonderful in the end.’ Ah, yes,
it will be wonderful in the end — but let me tell you something,
beloved; before you get to that end you are going to discover another side to
God’s nature. When I had children
born to me I loved those children unconditionally.
There were no reservations to my love, for I am a father.
Regardless of what they did, how they acted, or what they didn’t do, I
still loved them the same. But
suppose I had said to them, ‘I love you — I don’t care what you do,’ and
just let it go at that. Do you know
what kind of un-holy terrorists I would have raised?
Do you know what kind of juvenile delinquents I would have reared if I
would have said, ‘Anything goes, everything goes, I love you darling, it’s
all right, it’s O.K.,’ and never taught them a thing about life or
responsibility. Can you imagine how
they would have lived?
“There are multitudes of people today who think of God in this way and
so they think of themselves like that as parents.
They don’t want to bear the responsibility of showing
another side to their nature! They
equate love with permissiveness. They
invest nothing into their children to teach them and train them.
Consequently the children grow up to be delinquents.
The real problem is parental
delinquency! If you know
and understand God and the different sides of His nature it will put a balance
in your life that will be reflected in your home, in the way you treat your
wife, in the way you treat your husband, the way you treat your children.
Each of us, though we are one person, has various relationships and
offices. I am a father. I am also a son.
I am a husband.
Furthermore, I am a citizen of Palm Beach County. I
am a member of the human race.
I am a neighbor. I am a pastor.
I am all these things and more — and yet I am but one person.
I do not act as a father in the same way I act as a husband.
I do not act as a husband in the same way I act as a son.
I do not act as a son in the same way I act as a neighbor.
I do not act as a neighbor in the same way I act as a pastor.
I have all these different sides to my nature, yet I am but one person.
GOD HAS MANY SIDES TO HIS NATURE, BUT HE IS ONLY ONE GOD.
These sides of God’s nature are revealed through His names. For instance, the name Yahweh reveals the Father side of God.
Yahweh is the stern One. Yahweh
is the Law-giver. Yahweh is the
Head. Yahweh does not deal with us
in the same way that Jesus deals with us as Saviour! The Saviour is gracious in all ways, but there is awesome
responsibility with being a Father. It
requires wisdom, knowledge, and backbone!”
— end quote.
Our
heavenly Father is a wise parent! He
it was who inspired the words, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a
child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” We are not to despise this correction, no matter how severe
or painful, and we are not to faint when we are rebuked or admonished
of Him. We have come to
realize that this is for our good and is part of our training as sons of God!
How full of truth are the words of the wise man, “He that spareth his
rod hateth his son: but he that loveth
him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24).
If the parent spares the rod, or does not correct the son, then the Bible
says that such a parent hates his son!
But the parent that loves his son chastens him betimes. The word “betimes” carries a special significance also,
for it figuratively means “be up early at any task” with the implication of
earnestness.
This definition takes chastening out of the realm of emotion and puts it
in the realm of what is best for the son. The
emotional reaction of the parent to the misdeed of the son is not allowed in the
act of chastening at all. It is
entirely upon the basis of what must be
done to train, educate, instruct, teach, and develop the character of the son.
It is a necessary action to bring the son into line with the ideal of the
father for him. This is an exact picture of God’s love for His family of
sons! It is God’s business to chasten us and He does it with an
earnestness and perseverance that we know nothing of!
This love that we are under today is a chastening love! It is a love that prunes, that shakes, that molds us and makes
us to be just what our Father purposes for us to be. We have heard parents say again and again, “I don’t want
my children to go through what I had to go through.” So they work and struggle and sacrifice to give their
children something better than they had. In
many instances those parents are only indulging their children, handing
everything to them on a silver platter, making life easy for them.
These children do not learn the lessons, the principles of hard work, thriftiness, vision,
perseverance, integrity, and purpose that the parents learned “through the
things they suffered.” So the
children grow up thinking the world “owes” them something, and they are not
a credit to their parents. It is
the ones who come up the “hard way,” the University of Hard Knocks, if you
please, who generally are the ones who impart something to the uplifting of the
world.
God is not that foolish! The
love of God is a love that chastens. The
book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom that teaches many beautiful principles of
just and righteous living. In many
cases these are written in the natural to parents, but God is doing this very
thing today in the spiritual! It is
this love of God that is doing it. One
proverb says, “Chasten thy son, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (Prov.
19:18). In plain language, if
your child is crying and wailing because he is being spanked, or because he
can’t get his way or do what he
wants to do, don’t let up the pressure just because of his crying.
I remember when I was a child, my father had a razor strap, for he had at
one time been a barber. That razor strap was one of the instruments applied to my
“seat of learning.” I well
remember my favorite scream while he was spanking me — “Stop! You’re killing me! You’re killing
me!” I would wail this over and over again, but my father was a
wise man. He knew he wasn’t
killing me, so my crying had no affect at all on the punishment! Should he have had pity and stopped, the effect of the
chastisement would have been lost. Sometimes
we get to the place where we cry to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I cannot take any
more of this. I’ll die if you put
any more upon me.” But like my
father, the Lord just keeps pouring it on and pays no attention at all to us,
though we cry loudly.
Was it not
the Lord Himself who taught us this wisdom, “Withhold not correction from the
child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he
shall not die” (Prov. 23:13). If
our heavenly Father pitied us every time we whimper and cry when He is
correcting us, and left off the correction, we would never amount to anything.
We might spend eternity playing a harp on a golden street, but we would
never rule the nations or deliver creation from the bondage of corruption! If God gave us everything we want, and answered every prayer
we pray, and kept us from all the things we don’t want to face, He would have
nothing but a family of spoiled children on His hands.
We would be no good for the age and the ages to come, nor qualified in
any way to judge the world and angels!
How we praise God that He chastens us while there is yet hope, and He
does not spare when we begin to cry. He
goes right on, because He knows the end that He wants. He is training sons
to govern the world when the time is ripe for it, and to reveal His nature,
glory, and power to all creation! God
knows what He wants to do in us, and we can groan and cry and wail all we want,
but our Father will go on with the chastising.
That is the kind of love and wisdom that will produce a son that the
Father will be proud of, unto whom He can commit the reins of His government,
and be willing to be glorified in!
We all know that a horse must be broken, that is, its will must be broken before it is of any practical use to man.
God put that will in the horse, but it must be broken and made to conform
to the will of man. Just as surely did God put the will in man, and just as
surely the self-will of man must be broken and made to conform to the will of
God! What a credit we will be to
our Father, and what a benefit we will be to creation when HIS WILL has fully
become OUR WILL! We do not like
chastening and we had just as well admit it.
No chastening for the present seems to be pleasant.
But chastening will pay rich dividends in us when we have matured into
the full measure of the stature of Christ.
So we are truly thankful that God’s chastening is just as it is and we
would not have it any other way. I
read the story of a man who told how his grandfather used to make him kiss the
paddle after every whipping that he gave him.
And if he didn’t, he would get another whipping until he did!
He told it in a humorous way, and on the surface it may sound comical to
some, or cruel to others, but there is a great lesson in it.
We can either resist God’s instruction and get another whipping, or
learn to thank Him, and kiss the paddle He
is using on us, realizing that it is part of the process to mold us and make
us what He wants us to be!
Stacy Wood told a story that a young man in the Marine Corp. had related
to him. He said, “One
morning during boot camp training, our Drill Instructor took us out to a field
where he ordered us to dig a long, deep trench. Furthermore, he told us we could not stop to eat or rest until we had
completed the task. It took all day
in the hot sun to complete our assignment.
As the sun began to set in the west, we began to take comfort in looking
forward to a good hot shower, a meal, and a full night of rest.
Our Drill Instructor returned to check on us just before the chore was
completed. As he approached, we
could not believe what we heard. He appeared full of anger and was shouting, cursing, and
fussing at the top of his voice. He
said, ‘Who told you to dig this hole in my field!’
Someone said, ‘You did, Sergeant!’
He said, ‘Who told you that?!’ No
one dared to argue with him. He
then said, ‘Fill that hole up!’ It
took nearly the whole night to complete the job and no one got any rest, or
food, until we completed it.
“This young Marine went on to say, “I
did not understand this discipline until I went to Vietnam. There I learned that such training often made the difference
between life and death! On the
battlefield I experienced the necessity of going without sleep for days at a
time. Yet, it was critically
important to remain not only awake, but alert, even when our physical bodies
needed rest.”
This discipline was a hardship on those young recruits while in boot
camp, and to them appeared absolutely meaningless and un-called-for!
It probably made some of them angry.
It certainly was not a pleasant experience at the time!
However, it yielded the intended result on the field of battle where that
training was so very, very important. In
like manner, the Lord faithfully tutors and trains those who are to serve in the
Lord’s army which shall fight in the trenches in battle with the forces of sin
and death, defeat the kingdom of darkness, and bring the kingdom of God to pass
in the earth! We must learn to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Everyone who fills a position of trust and responsibility in the kingdom
undergoes discipline. Every son undergoes
discipline, for if we are without chastisement, the apostle tells us, then are
we bastards, and not sons. God
disciplines us that we may share in His holiness. Thus, all who are called to sonship have learned to submit to
the Father of spirits and live! There
is great and eternal purpose in all the severity of our Father’s dealings, and
we have learned to love and appreciate this wonderful Father who would so
fashion us and make us that which we could never become in any other way.
Oh wondrous love of God! Not
a love that allows us to be indulged by God and gives us the privilege of doing
just what we want, but a love that will “beat us within an inch of our
lives” and then raise us up in the image and likeness of God.
Remember the words of Jude. “Keep
yourselves in the love of God.” Do
not foolishly ask God to slacken His hand of chastisement, but keep yourself in
the love of God, always looking at the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This will bring us into the life of the ages!
This is the only way there. We
used to have the idea that because Jesus died on the cross, everything was paid
and finished and there was nothing but love, joy, peace, and prosperity forever. The death of Jesus, however, WON’T KEEP US FROM LEARNING
OBEDIENCE THROUGH THE THINGS WE SUFFER. It
is the suffering under the Father’s hand of chastening that will bring us to
perfection and show us the path of life! All this is going on in Christ Jesus, for we are His
workmanship, created unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them. Our Father
will do what is best for us until we become a credit to Him.
Then shall the voice come from heaven, proclaiming, “These are my
beloved sons, in whom I am well
pleased!” Then shall our
revealing and showing forth unto the world begin, and the fame of us and our
glory shall spread abroad throughout all the world and unto the extremities of
the unbounded heavens!
These words by brother Paul Mueller beautifully express the depth of this
blessed truth: “There is another rod of God that concerns us: it is the
Lord’s rod of discipline and correction.
Job referred to this rod when he said, ‘Wherefore do the wicked live,
become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their
seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their
eyes. Their houses are safe from
fear, neither is the rod of God upon
them” (Job 21:7-9). As we
look about us in the world today, we can see that the wicked live just as Job
said they did, without the rod of God in their lives.
The wicked enjoy wealth and the power which that wealth brings.
They live the so-called ‘good life,’ for their lives are free of the
Lord’s rod of discipline and correction.
But it is not so with the chosen saints of the Lord!
Our lives are wondrously and strangely predestined of our Father to
attain to the fullness of sonship in Christ through the discipline of our
trials.
“Throughout our journey in this life, with every step we take, we will
see the rod of God in our lives. At
times, our lives will be interrupted by a strange set of circumstances that are
unique and unexplainable. But we
must know that our loving Father predestined us to the adoption of sons, and His
rod is that set of disciplinary circumstances in our lives designed to lead us
to the fullness of the life of Christ (Rom. 8:29).
Others may live in abundant prosperity and health, enjoying the things of
this world, but we are being disciplined by the rod of the Lord, and are
separated unto Him for His holy purposes. If
we are truly called and chosen of our Father to become manifest sons of God at
this time, we must experience His strange and unique rods, including the rod of
selection and separation as well as His rod of discipline.
“The
chastisement of Father’s rod is unique to true sons.
All the sons of God are now going through some form of chastisement, or
will soon experience it. The
prophet declared, ‘The Lord’s voice crieth unto the city (the heavenly
Jerusalem): hear ye the rod, and who hath
appointed it’ (Mic. 6:9). When
the Lord applies His rod of correction to our lives, it is an indication that He
wants to teach us something wonderful and important.
The Lord’s rod brings a message to us, therefore we should hear the
message of the rod. In every trial,
He is doing something wonderful in our lives!
When a strange form of discipline unto correction comes our way, we will
then reply to our Father, ‘Abba, Father, what lesson do you want me to learn
through this experience?’ Father
has a rich, new message for us in every application of the rod, a message we
could not receive in any other circumstance, so we are admonished to ‘hear ye the rod.’
“Furthermore, we should not only hear the message of the rod, but we
also should understand ‘who hath
appointed it.’ The rod of
correction, that must come into the life of every true son, is that experience
that will perfect us and bring us into the fullness of the life of Christ.
By the wisdom of the mind of Christ we will recognize the chastisements
in our lives as the rod of God, and not Satan’s works.
The devil would rather keep us living in constant ecstasy, and our minds
thus dulled to the voice of the Lord. Satan
does not want us to be perfected and would not send these tests and trials into
our lives! But God is applying His rod to our lives to keep us alert and
aware of His voice and leadings, and to perfect us and conform us to His image
and likeness. We have grown
spiritually beyond the doctrines of the old order.
Now, we no longer see the devil in our lives. The Lord has taken the devil out of our minds, out of our
doctrines, and out of our lives. Now
we know the truth! Now we know ‘It
is GOD which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good
pleasure’” — end quote.
A strange but wonderful statement from the inspired pen of the prophet
Isaiah says, “When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people,
there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when
the vintage is done. Wherefore glorify
ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel” (Isa.
24:13,15). Those of God’s elect who walk in the dealings of the Lord
in this hour have truly learned to glorify
God in the fires! We
glorify God in the fire when we bear it patiently.
We glorify God in the fire also, when we are really and fully persuaded
God will not put us in the fire except for our good, and His own glory.
We glorify God in the fire when we say, “Lord, don’t let the fire go
out until it has purged away all the dross.
Then we glorify God when we wish for the good of the fire, and not to
have it extinguished; when the soul can say, “Here I am, my God, do with me as
seemeth good in Thy sight.”
We glorify God in the fire when we are not grumbling and complaining, but
humbly submitting to His will, content to walk by faith and not by sight.
We glorify God in the fire, when in the midst of the fire we can sing
God’s high praises. Years ago we learned to sing the high praises of God in the
assembly of the saints, in great joy and rejoicing. But now, praise God, we have learned to glorify God in
the fire! Thus the children of Israel glorified the Lord; the song of
the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace is a sweet song! as are all songs
that are made in the fire. Then we
glorify God in the fire when we can bless God for not letting us alone; but we
glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience.
Blessed are you that have gotten into Christ’s fire!
Blessed are you that have found His fire in your souls, in whatever fires
He has been pleased to send you, and into whatever furnaces He has been pleased
to cast you!
Our hearts and souls are the workshop of God.
It is there that He is changing us and bringing us into union with
Himself in the spirit. And what a
mighty work it is that He is doing there! The
change comes not by a wonderful spiritual experience with waves of joy and
glory. Oh, no!
It is the blow of His hammer that breaks our hard heart!
It is the stroke of His ax that strikes at the root of our life!
It is the plunge of His pruning knife that cuts away the natural,
worldly, and religious things that sap our spiritual strength!
It is the furnace heated seven times hot that consumes our dross!
It is an overthrow, a shipwreck, utter desolation that He brings to our
carnal mind and our old religious ways! It
is His bitter cup of suffering that mellows our self-confident spirit!
And without ceasing God works — the everlasting God, He neither
slumbers nor sleeps, sang David in one of his sublime psalms.
Absolutely without sleeping He works.
He visits us in our dreams, He searches our reins and instructs us in the
night seasons, as if He had no other man’s perfection on His hands but ours! We see, we hear, we taste, we feel Him and His work in us
every day and night, and every hour and moment of the day and night!
This is the experience of every son of God who walks with Christ in the
spirit and is being changed into His image and likeness!
One of the most interesting places in the world to see, I have been told,
is the Royal Palace in Tehran, Iran. One
of the things that makes it so interesting is that it has been recognized as one
of the most beautiful buildings ever to have been constructed.
And yet, when they were building it, a catastrophe occurred.
The main entrance hall was going to be lined with mirrors.
The architect had ordered the mirrors to be shipped from across the
ocean. When the shipment had
finally arrived, the mirrors were uncrated ever so carefully. But to the astonishment of the architect, many of the mirrors
had been shattered en route. And
what wasn’t broken would never cover the designated area. They were useless.
As the crew was preparing to haul the splintered glass to the dump, the
architect suddenly had an idea. “Stop!”
he ordered. “Don’t throw them
away.” Then he ordered that the
mirrors that were still intact be broken into fragments as well.
And so, every last mirror was shattered into fragments.
Then they hauled the small pieces to the worksite and began piecing them
together again into what became an exquisite mirrored mosaic.
They used this innovative technique to cover pillars and to cover the
dome and some of the different hallways. The
effect was phenomenal! The mirrors
pick up light, like a prism, reflecting rainbows of color throughout the rooms.
They were broken to be made beautiful.
And that is what happens with us as
well! God breaks
us to make us the revelation of His glory!
The deep mystery of our Father’s chastening is that He is not punishing
us for not being what we should be, but He is making us what he has purposed for
us to be! When He is chastening us
He is making us chaste, pure, clean, undefiled, and bringing us into His
likeness. He not only chastens us,
He also “scourges every son whom He
receiveth” (Heb. 12:6). Scourge
is a pretty strong word! Scourging
is the word used for the beating that was given with a whip called the “cat of
nine tails.” It was a whip with
nine lashes, with little balls of lead tied to the end of the lashes to give
them greater force when brought down on the bare back of the victim.
The victim would be tied to a post, his back made bare, and when the
beating was over his back would be cut to shreds.
This is what Jesus suffered just before His crucifixion. Our English word “scourge” literally means to strip the
hide off, and when the scourging is over there is little hide left on the
victim’s back. It is instructive
to note that the first five letters of the word spell “scour”. When something has a residue or coat of dirt, grease, or
other undesirable substance on the surface of it that spoils its appearance or
usefulness, then we scour it to remove the film, or the covering that should not
be there. Usually an abrasive
material is used to remove this film, such
as Comet or Brillo pads. When the
scouring is finished, and the film removed, the vessel shines forth in all of
its beauty!
That which the Lord has to get rid of in us is the covering of the old
fleshly nature and carnal mind which conceal and mar the beauty of the Christ
within. What our Father is doing
when chastening and scourging us, is stripping away our old self-nature which
obstructs the glory of the divine life within.
This covering of the old flesh must be removed to let the glory of the
Christ shine forth! This God is
doing with His chastening rod and His scourging whip; removing the filthy film
of our old fleshly nature and religious ways, taking the hide of carnality off,
until our vessel shines with the beauty and glory of Christ and is made useful
in the kingdom of our Father.
When receiving chastening and scourging from the hand of God there is
nothing pleasant about it; it is not an occasion for great shouting and
rejoicing. The words of the apostle
Peter are fulfilled in us, for he speaks of our being “in heaviness through
manifold testings” (I Pet. 1:6). Yet,
when we consider the end of the chastening we can rejoice and praise and thank
our Father for what He is producing in our lives, for truly “the trial of your
faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the unveiling of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 1:7). As we submit to the testings and trials, which are the
instruments of the Lord’s rod and of His whip, and endure them patiently, they
bring forth in our lives His righteousness, beauty, and perfection.
We will be holy as He is holy and perfect as our Father in heaven is
perfect. The old fleshly self-nature will be gone, and Christ will be all in all
within us. We will be like Him!
We will do only those things we see our Father do, and speak only those
words which we hear from Him. If we
are to be king-priests in His kingdom, working with Him in the restoration of
the suffering creation, bringing the dominion of the kingdom of God into the
life of every man and nation on the face of the earth, there can be no
interference in us that would keep us from doing wholly and always the perfect
will of our Father. The old carnal
nature and the old religious mind can never do this!
Only Christ in us can be this submissive to the Father’s voice and the
Father’s will — there is no way we
can be. There has to be a complete
stripping away of the tough hide of the outer man, so we can come into the
formation of Christ, to be the revelation of the Father upon earth.
As we presently endure the chastening of the Lord, let us remember the
words of the writer to the Hebrews, who tells us that in all these trials,
“GOD DEALETH WITH YOU AS WITH SONS”(Heb. 12:7).
This indeed is the pathway to sonship!
Sad to say, there are many who glibly mouth the truths of sonship but who
are not walking under the Father’s disciplines which are common to all the
sons of God. To use the very words
of scripture, these then are “bastards, and not sons.” We would do well to remember at all times that sonship is a
WALK. It is not just a
“message,” a “revelation,” a “doctrine,” or even a “truth” to be
put to memory and repeated. IT IS A
LIFE TO BE LIVED AND WALKED OUT. Sonship
involves training and discipline, and all who are apprehended of the Lord for
sonship must be seen passing through the disciplines, instructions, corrections,
trials, testings, provings, chastisements, and scourgings of the Lord. Let us therefore walk through this time of intense
preparation with faith and confidence, looking unto Jesus the author and
finisher of our faith, keeping our eyes on the goal set before us: to live in
His life and partake of His holiness. This
is the best and most sound advice anyone can give to the sons of God who are
passing through the fiery trials and severe dealings of this present hour, along
with the inspired words spoken to Job, “ACQUAINT NOW THYSELF WITH GOD, AND BE
AT PEACE.”
Yes, I was living to myself — was dead:
Self —
with its hopes and dreams was all I had;
But soon the Lord fulfilled my prayer to know
The power of His cross — ’twas death below.
I asked contrition — He sent me pain;
For purity — but anguish came again;
I asked I might be meek — He broke my heart;
I asked — I knew not what — the better part.
I asked to know what death was to the world,
And quickly all my living hopes were spoiled;
I asked to be like Him — His image bear —
He placed me in a furnace, sitting there
Like one refining silver, till He see
The reflex of His image bright in me.
I asked that I the daily cross might bear,
It lacerated me — the wounds I wear;
I blindly prayed, not knowing how, nor what,
He took me at my word — it mattered not.
Then I began to shrink from following near,
And well-nigh prayed Him to depart through fear.
To suffer was not pleasing to the flesh,
I feared to pray lest suffering come afresh;
But I had gone too far — on I
must go —
The virtues of His cross had pierced me through.
In me His promise now fulfilled must be —
“Suffer with me, and you will
reign with me!”
Ah, I had only heard of love
— but now
I feel it, Oh! I feel its
living glow.
He fastened on me such a look of love,
Withering to self — tender, all words above;
Follow I must, whatever may betide;
I love the cross — I shelter in His side!
To be continued… J.
PRESTON EBY
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