” I want my message to be intelligible to the ordinary man. I’m feeding sheep, not ministering to a few intellectual giraffes.”

~Vance Havner

“On the voyage to Rome, Paul did not hide in his cabin when the storm arose; he went on deck and took command of the situation. Too many Christians huddle in staterooms these days, discussing Euroclydon instead of rising to the occasion in the name of the Lord. It is much easier to stay hidden and deplore the tempest. We need to be on deck with a word for the passengers.”

~Vance Havner

ALONE, YET NOT ALONE

By Vance Havner

Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
John 16:32

Blessed paradox of the Saviour and the Saint! Our Lord was a solitary soul, yet not alone. And the Christian who presses into the deeper things of God will often be lonely but never alone. Paul was lonely in the Roman prison: “All men forsook me.” But he was not alone: “The Lord stood with me.”

“He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone.” Jacob may fancy himself alone in a strange land, with a stone for a pillow, but he will make a discovery: “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.”

Live as though He were with you, for He is. You have His word for it and you can be confident of His promise, though you may not be conscious of His presence.

Even through the Valley of Death’s Shadow, “I will fear no evil, FOR THOU ART WITH ME.” Alone yet not alone!

The Holy Spirit Today

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

The believers at Pentecost “were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4), but the Apostle Paul never anywhere says that all the members of the Body of Christ are filled with the Holy Spirit. It is surely clear from the record that the Corinthians and the Galatians, for example, were not filled with the Spirit, for Paul’s letters to these churches contain much of rebuke and correction. And it is also evident that believers today are not — even the best of them — wholly filled with the Spirit. The filling with the Spirit is now a goal, an attainment, which the Apostle, by inspiration, sets before us. We are not all filled with the Spirit as a matter of fact, as were the Pentecostal believers. While the Spirit does indeed dwell within us by God’s grace, we must daily appropriate His help by faith.

Hence the Apostle now exhorts believers: “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) just as he exhorts them and prays for them, that they may be “filled with the fruits of righteousness” (Philippians 1:11); “filled with the knowledge of His will” (Colossians 1:9); “filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19), yet none of us have been filled with any of these.

The reason why we are not automatically filled with the Spirit is another matter, but let the reader not fail to first recognize the fact that while the believers gathered in the upper room at Pentecost were all filled with the Spirit, the believers under Paul, and since that time, have not all been filled with the Spirit. Moreover, while it is distinctly stated, again and again, that the Pentecostal believers were, or were to be, baptized with the Spirit, not once does Paul in his epistles teach that members of the Body of Christ are baptized with or in the Spirit. Instead he exhorts them to appropriate God’s grace by faith so that they may be filled with the Spirit.

DOING BUSINESS WITH CHRIST: DEMONS

By Vance Havner

What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God?
Matthew 8:29

The devil and the world of demons must face Christ. The devil tried to do business with Him, but the Lord dismissed him: “Get thee hence, Satan.” The devil is not in the first two chapters of the Bible or in the last two. Thank God for a Book that disposes of the devil!

There is no concord between Christ and Belial. The demons cried, “Art thou come to torment us before the time?” They are doomed to the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. They are overactive today because their time is short. The only power that can control them is Christ. Much that goes by other names today is really the work of the powers of darkness. And note that they know Jesus is the Son of God, a fact which many poor humans will not accept.

Our Lord has no traffic with the world of demons. There is no ground where they can get together. Let us beware of doing business with the devil. And if you don’t want to trade with him, stay out of his shops!

The Spirit Of Sonship

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption [Literal, sonship], whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

The position of the believer in the family of God is amply illustrated for us in the Epistles of Paul. In Galatians 4:1-5 the Apostle alludes to the fact that in the life of every Hebrew boy there came a time, appointed by the father, when the lad was formally declared to be a full-grown son, with all the rights and privileges of sonship.

It was now assumed that the young man would no longer need overseers to keep him in check. There would be natural understanding and co-operation between father and son. And so the “adoption” [Greek, son-placing] proceedings took place, indicating that the child, now a full-grown son, was no longer under law, but under grace.

“And because ye are sons,” says the Apostle, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a [full-grown] son” (Galatians 4:6,7).

This is the position of every believer in Christ. He may, like the Corinthians, still be a babe in his spiritual experience (I Corinthians 3:1), but in Christ he occupies the position of a full-grown son, and to grow spiritually it will do him no good to go back under the Law; he must rather recognize his standing before God in grace. This is why the Apostle says in Romans 8:15:

“Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption [sonship], whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

A recognition of this position will do far more to help us live godly lives than will the “dos and dont’s” of the Law.

God’s Two Poems

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

In Romans 1:18-20 the Apostle Paul declares that ungodly men are “without excuse” because they are surrounded by the evidences of the Creator’s “eternal power and Godhead.”

Our Authorized Version calls the creation, in this passage, “the things that are made,” but in the Greek it is called literally “the poyeema,” from which we get our word poem. The Apostle refers, of course, to the harmony of God’s creation, and is it not indeed amazing how billions of heavenly bodies can continually revolve in the vastness of space and never collide! And are not the flowers, the seasons, the sunsets all part of a harmonious creation, which God alone could have conceived and set to music?

But very interestingly, this word poyeema is used just once more in Scripture. We find it in Ephesians 2:10, where it is translated “workmanship.” Let us consider this passage in its context:

“For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of your- selves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are His workmanship [Gr., poyeema], created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Romans speaks of the poem of creation, Ephesians of the poem of redemption, and the latter is the more wonderful. An old hymn says: “‘Twas great to speak a world from naught; ’tis greater to redeem.”

In this poem of redemption which God has composed, we believers too often want to change some word or phrase. We would like this or that in our circumstances to be different. Ah, but this would destroy the meter and meaning of God’s new creation.

Thank God, when we believers go to be with Christ, we will see the beauty and glory of the poem of redemption. Then we will rejoice that He did indeed “work all things together for good” for us.

Peace And Access

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access…” (Romans 5:1,2).

“Being justified… we have peace with God”!

What a priceless blessing! We believers are prone to take this blessing altogether too much for granted. Since the day we trusted Christ and the burden of sin rolled away, most of us have never had another question about our eternal destiny. Hence the danger of taking our salvation for granted.

We often fail to appreciate sufficiently what it means to be able to arise in the morning, go about our business during the day and give ourselves up to unconsciousness at night, always assured that through our Lord’s redemptive work we have “peace with God” and our eternal destiny is secure. Surely this knowledge should overwhelm our hearts with constant gratitude and have a profound effect upon our daily conduct.

The companion blessing to “peace with God” is our full and free access into His presence: another blessing of grace far too little appreciated. Think of the wonder of our free access to God; how He, the Ruler of the Universe, invites us to come confidently before His “throne of grace” at our convenience — “in time of need.”

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

We should never forget that this high privilege was purchased for us by the precious blood of Christ, and that having thus been purchased, it is His will that we believers avail ourselves of “this grace.” Could there be greater proof of His love for us?

“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,

“…a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.

“….Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…” (Hebrews 10:19-22).

Full Assurance

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

It is wonderful to have the full assurance of salvation, and it is God’s will that every one of us enjoy this assurance. Toward the close of his life the Apostle John wrote by divine inspiration:

“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life…” (I John 5:13).

There are three bases upon which believers in Christ may enjoy the full assurance of salvation: First, God urges every true believer: “Let us draw near, with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith…” (Hebrews 10:22). This is the full assurance that results from simply believing God; much as a child implicitly believes what his father has said and is absolutely sure that it is true. God says: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36). We may simply — and with good reason — believe His Word and enjoy the full assurance of faith.

Second, we may enjoy what Hebrews 6:11 calls “the full assurance of hope.” The hope of the Bible, however, must not be confused with wishing. The Christian’s “hope” is “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Ver. 19). It comes from having proved God. Thus the full assurance of hope is the confidence that results from having accepted God’s Word.

But third, and best of all, is what Colossians 2:2 calls “riches of the full assurance of understanding.” This full assurance is God’s reward to Christians who study His Word and His purposes, beginning with His plan of salvation as revealed in “the gospel of the grace of God.” When one not only believes God’s Word, but begins to understand it he cannot but be gripped by its sublime reasonableness, its powerful logic, and its provision for his deepest needs, and thus he comes to enjoy “all [the] riches of the full assurance of understanding.”

The Truth Of The Gospel

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Twice in Galatians 2 Paul speaks of “the truth of the gospel.” In both cases the Apostle had been forced to speak out to defend the purity of “the gospel of the grace of God.”

In Verses 4,5 he refers to his contest with those at Jerusalem who would have brought the Gentile believers under the law of Moses. Among them were “false brethren,” he says, “unawares brought in… to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”

In the second case he refers to a controversy with Peter who, having enjoyed blessed fellowship with Gentile Christians, had been intimidated by some of his Jewish brethren into separating himself from the Gentiles. Concerning this, Paul writes: “But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed” (Ver. 11). Why was Peter to be blamed? Verse 14 answers: Because he “walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel,” i.e., “the gospel of the grace of God,” in which believing Jews and Gentiles are “one body in Christ.”

How we should all thank God for Paul’s vigorous defense of the gospel of grace, under which all who trust in Christ as Savior are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the one true Bible Church (I Corinthians 12:13).

Doubtless Paul’s stand for “the gospel of the grace of God” stemmed from the fact that he himself had experienced the truth of this blessed message. As the chief of sinners he had been gloriously saved. All his power and prestige as a Pharisee, all his intellectual achievement, all his rigid Law observance meant nothing now, as in the presence of the glorified Lord he saw himself a sinner, the chief of sinners, and was saved by the matchless grace of God.

God Knows and Cares as No One Else

By A.W. Tozer