EDITORIAL
I am praying God to bless you with conviction. Is conviction a blessing? It is if it brings the desired result.
You are a sinner. Do I need to tell you this? God says you are. "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."
You have fallen short in the first and greatest commandment of God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." You have not done this. No one has.
And the second is like unto it: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Neither have you done this. You have failed on both counts, and Jesus says the whole Old Testament revelation is bound up in these two commandments. If you fail in one point of the law, God says you are guilty of all.
As a sinner you are lost. Jesus says that if you die in your sins you shall perish. "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." You are even now under the "the wrath of God." You are "condemned already." You are awaiting death, "as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."
But I bring you good news. Christ has come, not "to call the righteous, but SINNERS to repentance." "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was LOST." Herein lies the blessing in conviction of sin. It points you to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is the answer to your sin problem. God made Him to be sin in our place. He was made a curse for us. On Him was placed our sins. Upon Him fell the wrath of God against sin. He took our guilt. He bore our condemnation. He Himself bore our sins, all of them, and their consequences, in His own sinless body on the cross of Calvary.
Know this, my friend, "without shedding of blood (there) is no forgiveness." So Christ's blood, as He testified, "is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins." If you are "in Christ" your sins are forgiven and forgotten. "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," says God. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
The Holy Spirit was sent to "convict the world of sin." "Of sin," says Jesus, "because they believe not on Me." I am praying, as I said, that God will indeed convict you of sin; but also that this conviction will cause you to turn to Christ your Saviour. Believing on Him, trusting in Him, will procure your salvation and forgiveness, and thus relieve you of conviction and guilt and condemnation.
Just as surely as your sin-burden brings you conviction; so your sin-Bearer brings you consolation. As you have yielded yourself unto sin which brings conviction, so now yield yourself unto Christ who will give you eternal consolation.
Sincerely,
Art Gordon, Editor
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"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward (who believe in Christ)." -- Romans 8:18
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A TEMPTED PEOPLE
By Robert M. McCheyne
"For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." -- Hebrews 2:18
ALL BELIEVERS are a tempted people. Every day they have their trials; every time is to them a time of need. The unconverted are little tempted; they are not in trouble as others, neither are they plagued like other men. They do not feel temptations rising in their hearts; nor do they know the power of Satan. Before conversion, a man believes as little in the devil as he believes in Christ. But when a man comes to Christ, then he becomes a tempted soul, "poor and needy, seeking water and there is none."
He is tempted of God. -- God did tempt Abraham; not to sin, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. Still, God always tries His children. He never gives faith but He brings His child into a situation where he will be tried. Sometimes He exalts him, to try if he will turn proud and forget God; sometimes He brings him low, to see if he will murmur against God. Blessed is the man that endureth temptations. Sometimes He brings them into a strait, where the trial is, whether they will believe in Him alone, or trust to flesh and blood.
The world tempts a child of God. -- They watch for their halting. They love nothing better than to see a child of God fall into sin. It soothes their conscience to think that all are equally bad. They frown; they smile.
Their own heart is a fountain of temptation. -- Sometimes it says, What harm is there in that -- it is a little sin; or, I will just sin this once, and never again; or, I will repent after and be saved.
Satan hurls his fiery darts. -- He terrifies them away from Christ, disturbs them at prayer, fills their mind with blasphemies, hounds on the world against them.
Ah! believers, you are a tempted people. You are always poor and needy. And God intends it should be so, to give you constant errands to go to Jesus. Some may say, it is not good to be a believer; but ah! see to whom we can go.
We have a merciful and faithful High Priest. He suffered, being tempted, just that He might succor them that are tempted.
The high priest of old not only offered sacrifice at the altar, his work was not done when the lamb was consumed; he was to be a father to Israel. He carried all their names graven over his heart; he went in and prayed for them within the veil. He came out and blessed the people, saying. "The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee" (Numbers 6:24-26).
So it is with the Lord Jesus. His work was not all done on Calvary. He that died for our sins lives to pray for us, to help in every time of need. He is still Man on the right hand of God. He is still God, and therefore, by reason of His divinity, is present here this day as much as any of us. He knows your every sorrow, trial, difficulty; every half-breathed sigh He hears, and brings in notice thereof to His human heart at the right hand of God. His human heart is the same yesterday, today, and for ever; it pleads for you, thinks on you, plans deliverance for you.
Dear tempted brethren! Go boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain mercy and find grace to help you in your time of need.
Are you bereaved of one you loved? Go and tell Jesus; spread out your sorrows at His feet. He knows them all; feels for you in them all. He is a merciful High Priest. He is faithful too, never wanting in the hour of need. He is able to succor you by His Word, by His Spirit, by His providence. He gave you all the comfort you had by your friends. He can give it you without them. He has taken away the stream that you may go to the fountain.
Are you suffering in body? Go to this High Priest. He is intimately acquainted with all your diseases; He has felt that very pain. Remember how, when they brought to Him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, He looked up to heaven and sighed, and said, "Ephphatha!" He sighed over his misery. So He sighs over you. He is able to give you deliverance, or patience to bear it, or improvement by it.
Are you sore tempted in soul -- put into trying circumstances, so that you know not what to do? Look up; He is able to succor you. If He had been on earth, would you not have gone to Him -- would you not have kneeled and said, Lord, help me? Does it make any difference that He is at the right hand of God? He is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.
(From MEMOIRS OF McCHEYNE, edited by Andrew A. Bonar,
published by Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1956.)
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Believer, let me pray you to live and die leaning on Jesus as your Consolation. Would you be expert in this happy art? Make it, then, your daily habit to meditate upon Himself -- His promises -- His dealings. Hold close communion with Him. Consider the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of His office and His work. Be assured that all that He is, and all that He has, and all that He has done, and all that He is doing, and all that He will do, is yours. -- You have never been absent from HIs heart, and never can be. You are a member "of His body, and of His flesh, and of His bones." Abide in Him at all seasons, and all seasons will be comfort. -- Things Concerning Himself
Reader, your calling is to dedicate yourself -- your soul -- your body -- all that you are -- all that you have -- all that you can do -- a sacrifice to God. You may not keep anything from Him who has given more than all heaven for your ransom. -- Things Concerning Himself
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WHY ARE WE AFFLICTED?
To Manifest The Faithfulness Of God In Our Lives
By Herbert L. Roush
"When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." -- Acts 7:54-46
GOD ALONE knows what is in man (John 2:25). It is not enough for Him to know, we must know. We do not suppose that God did not know where Adam was, when He cried, "Adam, where art thou?" God wanted Adam to know. He needed desperately to know where he was spiritually.
So, it is a desperate need of our own hearts to know where we are spiritually. When we have grown cold and indifferent to the love of the Lord Jesus, it is sometimes impossible to awaken us to the true condition of our hearts, apart from deep trials of faith. If it were not for the pressures that come against us from time to time in this life, we would go months without realizing that we were strangers to real fellowship with God in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then again, consider that we live in fear of the unknown and yet-future experiences of life. How often we wonder how we would ever bear it if loved ones were taken in death, or we were made invalids for life, or our material things were suddenly taken away, or our freedom, or a number of other yet-unknown experiences.
The very thoughts of these unknown trials often cast a cloud of gloom over the present joy of our lives. We reason that God's grace will be sufficient, but we have not yet faced such deep trials and we often find ourselves praying, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief."
The unknown and unseen future is sometimes a grim spectre casting its shadow over us, and fear grips us without reason in the night seasons when no one knows but ourselves and God. God will not reveal the events of our future for we could not bear it yet, and the very anticipation of them would overwhelm us; but, He will reveal through present testings, the all-sufficient GRACE that will carry us through them in triumph.
How often we find ourselves in difficult circumstances . . . circumstances we once felt that we could not cope with if they became a part of our future. Yet, the situation did come, as we feared it would, and by grace we have been enabled to bear it, and we marvel at our ability to bear this trial with joy for Jesus' sake; we are made to see how faithful God has been in His work in our hearts. We marvel at Paul's statement that he could do all things through Christ which strengthened him, and then learn in these times of trial that this is more than doctrine, but absolutely true in experience!
The three Hebrew children who found themselves in the fiery furnace, were no doubt amazed at the sufficiency of the grace of God in their lives. Undoubtedly they had read many times the Word of God in Isaiah 43:2: " . . . when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee," but in that furnace it became more than a verse of Scripture. It became the very life of the Son of God Himself manifested in their midst.
The joyful discovery that the trials and afflictions of life cannot shake our submission to God, makes us face the future with boldness and to exclaim: "Of whom shall I be afraid?" Brethren I am convinced that we need to learn through affliction, how deep the work of God has really been in our lives, that we might face the future with a holy confidence in the sufficiency of Christ that will make the world to see the reality of His indwelling.
When our business with God in deep waters is ended for a season, the believer always comes to rest on holier ground, as did Noah (Genesis 8:4).
Samson may have had a troubled heart, as he wrestled with that lion that roared against him, but " . . . after a time," the Scripture says, he came that way again and the lion's carcass was filled with honey and he ate and was filled (Judges 14:5-9).
Oh, how much sweet joy and rest has filled my heart "after a time," by reflecting on the purpose of God in the wrestlings of the past. We look back on these times, see the absolute ability of Christ to meet us in every trial of life, raise our Ebenezer, and from that day on, the monument pillows our hearts in rest as we face the future.
One hour of walking on the waters without sinking, sitting in a lion's den unafraid, singing in jail our praise to God, and the future is stripped of its fear by the victory of the present. I fear we think too much about our little faith and not enough about the great faithfulness of God, Who ever works in us whatever grace is needed to preserve our faith in the time of trial.
Think much about the trials of Job's life, but to not shrink back from them. Do not be afraid of being asked to bear his afflictions. Remember that God will not give you Job's trials without Job's grace, and I suspect that Job himself never suspicioned what grace was upon him until he found himself in the dung pile rejoicing!
Think about the future of Job's life after the trials were past. What could ever come to the mind of Job that would cause him to sink in fear and trembling?
He had gone down to the depths, but had not perished. He had faced Satan's fury and had not been crushed. He had been delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, and the life of Jesus had been manifested in his mortal flesh.
He had been troubled on every side, yet not distressed. He had been perplexed, but not in utter despair. He had been persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, and the future was stripped of fear by the sweet trials of the present.
In this light, were not the trials of Job's life a sweet gift of grace from the hand of a kind and loving God? The fear of the unknown was past and the future was as bright as the promises of God. Oh, that we might look upon our own trials in such a manner.
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WHOM GOD USES
The night, 'twas a Saturday evening,
I sat alone in my room,
Watching the fading daylight
And the steadily gathering gloom.
And I longed and watched for an opening,
A word for the Master to say
E'er the twilight gave place to darkness,
And the week had died away.
I knew that there had been moments
Afforded me thro' the week
When I might have witnessed for Jesus,
But I hadn't the heart to speak.
And now when I would have spoken,
The privilege was denied;
So I went in my sorrow to Jesus,
And "Why is it thus?" I cried.
Ah! The Master knew all about it;
So He said (and I knew 'twas right),
"The tool is too blunt for service,
I cannot use it tonight."
The sword to be used must be sharpened,
Must be hid in the Master's Hand;
The arrow, while hid in the quiver,
Must be swift to obey His command.
Oh! Christian, learn well this lesson;
We can only be used by God
When communion with Him hath fashioned
Our mouth like a sharpened sword.
Then polish and sharpen me, Master
Tho' painful the humbling may be,
And make me an instrument ready
To be used ANY moment by Thee.
-- Author Unknown
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SERMON SERIES
Romans 8:28
No. 15
(PAUL)
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
IT WAS the Apostle Paul who penned these words. He wrote from Corinth to the assembly of believers at Rome. The year was 60 A.D. Some four years later he would find himself in Rome, a prisoner of Nero, securely locked behind bars. This was possibly Paul's last imprisonment. From here he would be led out to the guillotine and decapitated.
Some may think this an unbecoming way to end ones life, to languish in jail and then to die as a common criminal, but on the contrary, this man's life ended in a blaze of glory and not shame. Paul wrote Timothy shortly before his martyrdom: "The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day."
At this man's birth and during early life who had any idea that this is the way in which he would expire.
Paul had a noble Jewish start in life. He was circumcised the eighth day, was of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was born in Tarsus but reared in Jerusalem. He received a formal education under Gamaliel, a pharisee, a doctor of the law who was highly esteemed by all the people. He was instructed according to the strict manner of the law of the fathers.
He learned his lessons well, as his early life proved, living among his people blamelessly and exemplary according to the most straitest sect of their religion, and was exceedingly zealous toward God. Concerning zeal, he was an active persecutor of the new religion which had arisen in his day -- the sect of the Nazarene. He mercilessly persecuted this Way unto the death, binding and delivering its adherents, both men and women into prison.
He determined in himself to do all he could against the name of Jesus of Nazareth. He imprisoned not a few in Jerusalem under authority of the chief priests, and when they were put to death he gave his vote against them. He punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to renounce their newfound faith and Saviour. He was so angry against them that he persecuted them even unto other cities.
And this was his "downfall."
One day on such an errand to Damascus, suddenly Paul met this Jesus of Nazareth. The resurrected and now-glorified Christ stopped him short in his mad pursuit, and by grace apprehended him for God. Humbled, repentant, and submissive, Paul yielded to his heavenly Captor with the words: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" The Lord told Ananias later concerning Paul, "He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." And He added, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." And so, true to his commission, "straightway he preached Christ," and just as the Lord had predicted, "the Jews took counsel to kill him." This was the story of his life from then on. He preached Christ everywhere he went, and suffered almost constant persecution.
Near the end of his life we find this faithful minister of Christ sitting in a jail in Rome in his last imprisonment. Let's ask him some questions. What have you to say of all these afflictions, Paul, which have been your lot to this present hour? As you sit here in your confinement, contemplating that at any moment you may be taken out and executed, have you any regrets? Tell us what is on your heart as you look back at all your trials. "No, I have no regrets. It is just as I earlier wrote to the Roman Christians from Corinth, 'We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose'."
But, Paul, how do afflictions work together for good? For instance, how does this present imprisonment promote the good? "I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have (1) fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; so (2) my bonds in Christ are (a) manifested in all the palace, and (b) in all other places (or to all others); and (3) many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the Word without fear. So (4) Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For (5) I know that this shall turn to my salvation through (a) your prayer, and (b) the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:12-19).
What a list of "good!" What "good" can come from his imprisonment? Why, it was good for his non-Christian as well as his Christian acquaintances, it was good for himself, and above all it was good for Christ and His gospel. Sometimes we are inclined to think that God's hands are tied when we are bound or that the gospel suffers defeat when we fall beneath some load or that Christ is imprisoned when we find ourselves confined. Such is not the case, very often it proves just the opposite, when we are the most helpless God manifests His might the more. Paul's imprisonment promoted "the furtherance of the gospel."
His confinement in Nero's jail just meant that he had added opportunity to bear his testimony to Christ in the royal court. Just to the royal guard alone he reached 10,000 soldiers with the Good News of Christ. There was not an ear in all those governmental halls which had not heard of Paul and his Christ.
The brethren were also emboldened by Paul's bonds. It seems persecution would serve only to muzzle the brethren, lest they too come to this humiliation and dreadful end. But it has always been the reverse. Persecution makes the true Christian "much more bold to speak the word without fear." And besides it gave the brethren opportunity to intercede in prayer for their brother in bonds. If my affliction helps you become a prayer warrior and promotes your intercession, then it is good.
"Christ is preached," says Paul, "and I rejoice." If Christ is preached as much, or more, in my affliction as otherwise, then I rejoice. And is this not good? And also at such times of affliction, "the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ" becomes more apparent. Together with the prayers of the brethren and the resources of the mighty Spirit of God, as the Apostle says, "this shall turn to my salvation -- (or deliverance)." And deliverance is good. Maybe I will be delivered OUT, or possibly I will be delivered UP, but in either case it will be good. If it is OUT then I will continue in sweet fellowship with the Lord's people on earth; if it is UP then I will enter into even sweeter fellowship with the Lord Himself in heaven.
Well, Paul, we concede that your afflictions have worked together for the higher good, but what of your present discomfort here in prison and the ever imminent danger of death under the guillotine? Are you not concerned and anxious about this? "No, my one concern is that 'as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death. For to me to live (in prison or out) is Christ, and to die (on the guillotine or otherwise) is gain'."
Oh, suffering believer, do you doubt that your afflictions are working together with everything else in your life for the higher good? You may be sure that these trials, under a loving Father's hand, are indeed working good to everyone concerned, that is if you, like Paul, have given Christ first place in your life. If Christ is magnified (made big) in your body, whether by life or death, if for you to live is Christ, and to die is gain, then you may be confident that in your extremities good is resulting -- good to your non-Christian acquaintances, good to your fellow believers, good to yourself, and certainly good to Christ and His gospel.
"And we know (beyond a shadow of a doubt) that all things (here below: both pleasant and unpleasant) work together for (the ultimate) good to them that love God (through Jesus Christ), to them who are the called according to his purpose."
And remember, as we are called to share our Lord's sufferings here, so shall we share His glory yonder. And as we suffer affliction here, He suffers with us and sympathizes and never lets us be tempted above what we are able to bear, but with the testing always makes a way of escape. Then one day soon, He will issue the "upward" call, when we shall leave our narrow "prisonhouse" and fly to Him above, "and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
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