Psalm 27:14
“THEN THE LORD…”
By Vance Havner
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.
Psalm 27:10
From childhood we like protection and security, someone to turn to. But loved ones fail us in one way or another. Death takes them, distance divides us, other circumstances render them unable to come to our aid. Some know the bitterness of being cast out or deserted by their own people. Precious as is the love and companionship and assistance of our dear ones, we had better not make that our main stay. We can be bereft of them in a moment and forsaken in tragic ways. Sometimes they remain, but because of infirmity cannot help us any more.
But when the choicest companions cannot walk with us, God says, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” It was a desolate man, forsaken of one he thought loved him, who penned out of his desperation, “O Love that wilt not let me go.” It is well to reckon on the possibility of utter bereavement, of being forsaken by those we hold dearest; but along with it we may count on the promise of never being forsaken by Him who is dearest of all. At the point of darkest human loneliness – then the Lord.
The Stars Of Messiah’s Reign
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel12:3).
The day is coming when redeemed Israel and all the saints of the Old Testament times will taste the joy of Messiah’s glorious reign. But some — the wise — will be honored more than others and will shine in that day as the stars of the firmament.
Who are these “wise” ones? Our text answers: “They that turn many to righteousness”. Not those who merely knew all the technicalities of the prophetic program, but remained unmoved, but those who, understanding the prophetic plan and recognizing that God must judge sin, did something about it and labored to turn many to righteousness.
These will be the stars of Messiah’s reign.
What a lesson this passage holds for us who have trusted Christ as our Saviour in this present “dispensation of grace”!
When we stand before the Lord, all saved by His abundant grace, not all will be equally honored. Outshining the rest will be “the wise”, who, understanding God’s message and program of grace and, “buying up the time because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16), URGED THE LOST TO ACCEPT “the gift of righteousness”by faith in Christ. Of these we may well say by way of adaption:
“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
Deserts vs Grace
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
It is an interesting fact that in this day of godlessness and lawlessness so much is being said about what we all deserve! Ads in the newspapers and commercials on radio and TV ask:
“Don’t you deserve the very finest automobile?”
“Don’t your children deserve the best?”
“Doesn’t your baby deserve Pampers?”
And even, “Doesn’t your dog deserve Alpo?”
Well, do you really deserve the finest car? Please don’t answer that! Do your children deserve the best — always? If so you surely have model children — not at all like their parents! And does your baby deserve Pampers? That’s funny! And does your dog deserve Alpo? That’s ridiculous! Dogs do not “love” or obey you from any moral consideration, nor, for that matter, does your baby, lovable as the darling is. And as to you and your children — including the baby, the Bible has something to say on this subject.
The Bible says that “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that ALL have sinned [i.e., in Adam]” (Romans 5:12). You and I were “in Adam” when he sinned. When he sinned, we sinned. Deny this and you might as well agree with the murderer who argued: “My feet and legs didn’t do it; my ears and nose didn’t do it; only my one hand and one or two other parts of my body did it, so the rest should go free.”
We believers in Christ should thank God that our blessed Lord took upon Him our just deserts when He died for our sins at Calvary. This is why God’s Word says:
“We declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness for the remission of sins… that [God] might be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.
“Where is boasting then? It is excluded” (Romans 3:25-27).
You Can’t Get By With This
by Pastor Ricky Kurth
One of Pastor Stam’s favorite jokes went something like this:
Teacher: “Johnny, what’s the difference between a pronoun and a preposition?”
Johnny: “Yeah, that’s what I say, what’s the difference!”
Despite Johnny’s indifference, we know there is a great deal of difference between pronouns and prepositions! These parts of speech are important, especially when it comes to Bible study. For instance, Pastor Stam once wrote:
“Not once does Paul in his epistles teach that members of the Body of Christ are baptized with or in the Spirit.”
In response to this, we sometimes get letters asking about this verse:
“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…” (I Corinthians 12:13).
But a close look will reveal an important difference in the preposition used in each case. The Apostle Paul taught that believers today are baptized “by” the Spirit, but Pastor Stam doesn’t say we’re not baptized by the Spirit, he says we are not baptized “with” the Spirit. No contradiction here!
Speaking of Christ, John the Baptist predicted:
“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 3:11).
This prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost, where “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues” (Acts 2:4). It is important to notice that Christ is the Baptizer here, and that He baptized people with the Spirit. This is often confused with I Corinthians 12:13, but in this passage the Spirit is the Baptizer, baptizing people into the Body. That’s quite different than what happened at Pentecost, where the Lord was the Baptizer, baptizing people with the Spirit, enabling them to speak in tongues.
This explains why believers today are not able to speak in languages they never studied, as they did at Pentecost, for we do not have their baptism. But if we do not have their baptism, we must also conclude that at Pentecost they did not have our baptism. That is, we are not baptized by Christ with the Spirit, and they were not baptized by the Spirit into the Body of Christ.
We realize this runs contrary to the common teaching that the Church began at Pentecost, where it is said that believers were first baptized into the Body, but we believe the difference in prepositions used in these passages is just one of many evidences that the Body of Christ began later, with the raising up of Paul.
You just can’t get by with mixing with and by!
God of Glory
By A.W. Tozer
Our Heavenly Father: Let us see Thy glory, if it must be from the shelter of the cleft rock and from beneath the protection of Thy covering hand. Whatever the cost to us in loss of friends or goods or length of days let us know Thee as Thou art, that we may adore Thee as we should. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The world is evil, the times are waxing late, and the glory of God has departed from the church as the fiery cloud once lifted from the door of the Temple in the sight of Ezekiel the prophet.
The God of Abraham has withdrawn His conscious Presence from us, and another God whom our fathers knew not is making himself at home among us. This God we have made and because we have made him we can understand him; because we have created him, he can never surprise us, never overwhelm us, nor astonish us, nor transcend us.
The God of glory sometimes revealed Himself like a sun to warm and bless, indeed, but often to astonish, overwhelm, and blind before He healed and bestowed permanent sight. This God of our fathers wills to be the God of their succeeding race. We have only to prepare Him a habitation in love and faith and humility. We have but to want Him badly enough, and He will come and manifest Himself to us.
Shall we allow a saintly and thoughtful man to exhort us? Hear Anselm; or better still, heed his words:
Up now, slight man! Flee for a little while thy occupations; hide thyself for a time from thy disturbing thoughts. Cast aside now thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God, and rest for a little time in Him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God and such as can aid thee in seeking Him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Verse
Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple. Ezekiel 10:18
Thought
The God of previous generations wants to be the God of our generation. All we have to do is to prepare a place for Him in love, faith, and humility. If we want Him badly enough, He will come to us.
Prayer
Lord, help us to shut out the cares of the world and seek out a quiet place with You.
The Unlimited
By A.W. Tozer
Of all that can be thought or said about God, His infinitude is the most difficult to grasp. Even to try to conceive of it would appear to be self-contradictory, for such conceptualization requires us to undertake something that we know at the outset we can never accomplish. Yet we must try, for the Holy Scriptures teach that God is infinite and, if we accept His other attributes, we must of necessity accept this one, too.
From the effort to understand, we must not turn back because the way is difficult and there are no mechanical aids for the ascent. The view is better farther up and the journey is not one for the feet but for the heart. Let us seek, therefore, such “trances of thought and mountings of the mind” as God may be pleased to grant us, knowing that the Lord often pours eyesight on the blind and whispers to babes and sucklings truths never dreamed of by the wise and prudent. Now the blind must see and deaf must hear. Now we must expect to receive the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places.
Infinitude, of course, means limitless, and it is obviously impossible for a limited mind to grasp the Unlimited. In this chapter, I am compelled to think one step short of that about which I am writing, and the reader must of necessity think a degree under that about which he is trying to think. O, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!
Verse
I will give you the treasures of darkness, / riches stored in secret places, / so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. Isaiah 45:3
Thought
It is impossible for those who have limited minds to understand the Unlimited God.
Prayer
Father, help to understand how little we really know about You—and how we can never know Your ways.
Infinitude Belongs Only to God
By A.W. Tozer
The reason for our dilemma has been suggested before. We are trying to envision
a mode of being altogether foreign to us, and wholly unlike anything we have known
in our familiar world of matter, space, and time.
“Here, and in all our meditations upon the qualities and content of God,” writes Novatian, “we pass beyond our power of fit conception, nor can human eloquence put forth a power commensurate with His greatness. At the contemplation and utterance of His majesty, all eloquence is rightly dumb, all mental effort is feeble. For God is greater than mind itself. His greatness cannot be conceived.
Nay, could we conceive of His greatness He would be less than the human mind which could form the conception. He is greater than all language, and no statement can express Him. Indeed, if any statement could express Him, He would be less than human speech, which could by such statement comprehend and gather up all that He is. All our thoughts about Him will be less than He, and our loftiest utterances will be trivialities in comparison with Him.”
Unfortunately the word infinite has not always been held to its precise meaning but has been used carelessly to mean simply much or a great deal, as when we say that an artist takes infinite pains with his picture or a teacher shows infinite patience with her class. Properly, the word can be used of no created thing, and of no one but God. Hence, to argue about whether or not space is infinite is to play with words. Infinitude can belong to but One. There can be no second.
Verse
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; / his understanding has no limit. Psalm 147:5
Thought
Used precisely, the word infinitude can belong to One—the Lord!
Prayer
God, You are greater than all language. None of our words can express your mighty power. Open our minds to help us understand at least this about You.
REJOICE TODAY!
By Vance Havner
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
We live on retrospect and anticipation. “Yesterday was so wonderful. How we did rejoice and how glad we were in it!” “Tomorrow will be a great day. We will rejoice and be glad then.” But today – that is different.
Distance lends enchantment to the view, so yesterday is haloed by the glory of the past. And anticipation does so exceed fulfillment that tomorrow looks better today. Between the two lies now and it suffers by comparison.
But true joy is not in days either past or present or to come but in Christ, and He is with us “all the days,” as He promised. He is the same yesterday, when we did rejoice. He is the same forever, all the tomorrows, through all eternity, when we shall rejoice. But He is also the same today, the day which the Lord hath made. We will be glad and rejoice in it, but better still in Him.
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