Day: September 8, 2017

​Steve Hammer

Steve Hammer

Self-righteousness is the largest idol of the

human heart – the idol which man loves most

and God hates most. Dearly beloved, you will

always be going back to this idol. You are

always trying to be something in yourself, to

gain God’s favour by thinking little of your

sin, or by looking to your repentance, tears,

prayers ; or by looking to your religious

exercises, your frames, etc; or by looking to

your graces, the Spirit’s work in your heart.

Beware of false Christs. Study sanctification

to the utmost, but make not a Christ of it.

– Robert Murray McCheyne

JoAnn N Alan

Streams in the Desert – September 8

Human Suffering – Streams in the Desert – September 8
2017Sep 08
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress”(Ps. 4:1).
This is one of the grandest testimonies ever given by man to the moral government of God. It is not a man’s thanksgiving that he has been set free from suffering. It is a thanksgiving that he has been set free through suffering: “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” He declares the sorrows of life to have been themselves the source of life’s enlargement.
And have not you and I a thousand times felt this to be true? It is written of Joseph in the dungeon that “the iron entered into his soul.” We all feel that what Joseph needed for his soul was just the iron. He had seen only the glitter of the gold. He had been rejoicing in youthful dreams; and dreaming hardens the heart. He who sheds tears over a romance will not be most apt to help reality; real sorrow will be too unpoetic for him. We need the iron to enlarge our nature. The gold is but a vision; the iron is an experience. The chain which unites me to humanity must be an iron chain. That touch of nature which makes the world akin is not joy, but sorrow; gold is partial, but iron is universal.
My soul, if thou wouldst be enlarged into human sympathy, thou must be narrowed into limits of human suffering. Joseph’s dungeon is the road to Joseph’s throne. Thou canst not lift the iron load of thy brother if the iron hath not entered into thee. It is thy limit that is thine enlargement. It is the shadows of thy life that are the real fulfillment of thy dreams of glory. Murmur not at the shadows; they are better revelations than thy dreams. Say not that the shades of the prison-house have fettered thee; thy fetters are wings — wings of flight into the bosom of humanity. The door of thy prison-house is a door into the heart of the universe. God has enlarged thee by the binding of sorrow’s chain.

–George Matheson
If Joseph had not been Egypt’s prisoner, he had never been Egypt’s governor. The iron chain about his feet ushered in the golden chain about his neck.

–Selected

Oswald Chambers

Do It Yourself (1)
September 8, 2017
…casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God… —2 Corinthians 10:5
   
Determinedly Demolish Some Things.Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God’s divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord…” (see Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier “against the knowledge of God” is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God’s power, not through human effort or by compromise (see 2 Corinthians 10:4).
It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin— Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply entrenched— the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers “against the knowledge of God.” We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L

​God’s Full ArmourPROPHETIC UPDATE

God’s Full Armour

PROPHETIC UPDATE

A Special Report Early this morning Israel launched an attack on a factory in Syria, operated by Iran, that makes chemical weapons and missiles largely destined to be used against Israel. Iran has acknowledged Israel’s attack and has sworn revenge. Two weeks ago, Netanyahu spoke to Putin about Iran’s operations in Syria. We also know that Russia is very resentful of Israel’s newly discovered oil and gas fields which they want to export directly to Europe. We also know of Ezekiel 38’s prediction that Russia, Iran and Turkey, now dug into Syria, will invade Israel but will lose.

I also believe that born-again believers of the Lord Jesus Christ will no longer be here when Ezekiel 38 occurs. What I really want to say is: the time is very, very near. If you have something to do or say, do it now.

8 hrs · Public

18

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​J.C. Ryle

J.C. Ryle

Thank God For Feeling Your Sinfulness

He that has any feeling of his own sinfulness, ought to thank God for it.

That very sense of weakness, wickedness, and corruption, which perhaps makes you uncomfortable, is in reality a token for good, and a cause for praise. The first step towards being really good, is to feel bad. The preparation for heaven, is to know that we deserve hell. Before we can be counted righteous we must know ourselves to be miserable sinners. Before we can have inward happiness and peace with God, we must learn to be ashamed and confounded because of our manifold transgressions. Before we can rejoice in a well-grounded hope, we must be taught to say, “Unclean, unclean! God, be merciful to me a sinner!” ~ J.C. Ryle

Sharon Eddy

There’s A New World Coming!!

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness. And I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, … And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. Jeremiah 23:5,6 Daniel 7:13,14 Jeremiah 17:7