trials

Walking Past Danger on a Chain

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pilgrim_s_progress__chained_lions_by_douglasramsey-d7i7hot“…There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold…” (1 Pet 1:6,7 NLT).

God is allowing something right now to happen in your life to observe and evaluate your confidence in the truth and promises of scripture. He wants to see if you can face life’s challenges that normally would cause depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness and guilt. The sense of danger always seems to be our reaction to serious problems. Hey, problems are problems and that never changes-but what is the solution? What is the way out? The Teacher knows the answers to the test He is giving and He grades you according to your correct or incorrect response. God knows how we will react, but we do not know.  We think we do, but we really don’t. What we believe is seen in how we react to trials just verbalizing our statement of faith.

As we trust him in the storms of life we will see more of his power and nature, not our achievements. God does not polish our trophies he purifies our being and shows us who He is. We say we know what it is to trust in God, much like knowing the answers to a test. God tests that assertion. God is in total control of the test and as a child of God, he is not out to destroy you but remove the unwanted element of self reliance. tested faith, perseverance in full blossom in the ratification of our faith. It is now faith with some muscle. It is my conviction that the test depends on what level you are, every test is adjusted accordingly-and you will walk past the real danger not realizing until later, it was on a chain.

I have paraphrased a story from the classic book Pilgrims Progress in which the traveler named Christian came to the top of a hill and saw two men running at full speed the wrong way. The name of the one was Mistrust (which means full of fear) and Timorous (which means full of doubt). They were on their way to the Celestial City but they had seen blood thirsty lions and were on their way back to their homes in the City of destruction.

Christian became afraid when he heard this, but there was no where to go. He knew the only place of safety was moving forward towards Celestial City. Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill, and Christian went ahead. But realized he lost the scroll of God’s promises somewhere earlier that day. After a long search he found them but now it was dark and he still had to face those monsters of which Mistrust and Timorous had warned him.

As he walked he saw on the side of the road he saw a beautiful palace and as he began to walk toward it there was a narrow passage. Then he saw the Lions. They were growling and vicious. He did not know how he would get past them and he was about to turn around when a man named Watchful yelled to him, “Don’t be afraid of these lions for they are chained up and they are left here to test if travelers have genuine faith. If you stay in the middle of the path they cannot touch you.”

He walked right through them and they roared and clawed at him but did not injure him at all. Christian was not only relieved but he started clapping and shouting!

All of your trials and difficulties are chained. There is a divine restraint on your difficulties. That should bring great confidence in God. Oh trials are real, this is not a game, but they are on a leash. No matter how difficult the trial, God has restrained it from destroying you. Already you have seen others run away from something that you faced. You were no better than them, but you knew you had no other choice but to serve God. You thought, “I cannot go back because there is nothing to go back to.”  You kept your eyes on Jesus and walked past the danger on a chain. 

You went on thinking that you might fail but that did not stop you. You kept going and saw God was true to his Word.  You thought you might lose everything and instead you gained more than you could have dreamed. You even thought you might die, and you are still alive. All things are designed by God for his glory in your welfare and nothing that happens to you even though it hurts you will not harm you (Rom. 8:28). All God requires is forward motion. Keep going. Keep believing. Stay on the path. Walk past the danger on a chain. 

© 2015 Soul Health Care-give credit where credit is due. Thou shalt not steal.

The Love Behind the Words

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The last time we discussed the wonder of the Holy Spirit’s work of heart in Psalm 45. Here we see the results.

The sweet singer of Israel says, “His heart is “indicting a good matter.”

This is word carries a different meaning than the english word for “indict.” In the original Hebrew language it  means to bubble up and overflow. In this Psalm the song writers heart steadily boils and then overflows at what it understands.  His teaching in song (Eph 5:19-20) serves to reveal Christ. The saint serves God with heartfelt affection and gratitude! I know we joke about God’s chosen frozen, but there is no room for a frigid, aloof relationship with the Savior of our souls! The problem with church people and preachers is Jesus is not quite enough for them! Preaching the cross seems too simple for them despite their abject ignorance of  penal substitutionary atonement. Calvary is not the Gospel 101 and we move on to better or deeper things-it is our doctorate of divinity! It is the love behind the words!

Christians are men and women who have been given access to the Holy of holies by the blood of Christ (Heb 10:19) and there like Moses they may hear and read the written word of God (Heb. 4:12) and see his ultimate Word in Christ (Heb 1:1-2).  The Bible says, “Whenever Moses went into the Tabernacle to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the Ark’s cover–the place of atonement–that rests on the Ark of the Covenant. The LORD spoke to him from there.” (Num. 7:89NLT). The LORD spoke to him from there. Where? The place of atonement? Only the Bible can bring us directly to the place where Christ’s blood and cross still speak his love to his own people through the gospel!  Christ and his gospel, his love behind the Words, is the only cure for men’s sin sick souls and the power of God that raises them from among the spiritually dead!

The one who truly stands in His presence will melt  and their eyes fill with tears as they see the battered body of Jesus on Calvary! We see his pain, his forsakeness and it comforts us in our trials and we give that gospel comfort to those in need (2 Cor 1:3-6). Ah how we look for the finely crafted hand made, melted and molded preacher of the pure gospel and not these factory cookie-cutter models of today! These are the weathered Shulamites among all the sterile daughters of Jerusalem (Song 1:5-6). They may not be attractive, people are repulsed by their sun baked blackness and brokeness as they derided Jesus on the cross (Mk 15:29) but God has ordained that these people are his workmanship (Eph 2:10) and they are those who know their God, who LOVE their God and that have served him graciously and humbly no matter the trials or circumstances. You don’t have to be good-looking and talented to be a vessel for the Master-just one who has endured the storm with this testimony, you pleased God (Heb 11:5) and speak with love behind the words.

This Psalm is an outburst of one who loves the Lord who has knowledge of the holy (Prov. 9:10) and unlike so many rude, meaningless, emotional outbursts that distract us from true worship these days, this directs us to “seeing him who is invisible.” (Heb. 11:27).  We must point with forthtelling  prophecy to Christ for their welfare. Paul says, “But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.” (1 Cor. 14:3NLT).  We need MEN (and I mean MEN) who can mark the Word of the Lord! Jeremiah asks, “For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?” (Jer. 23:18). This is the churches greatest advantage over the enemies of the Lord. In these days of apostasy how there is need for an intelligible, clear and meaningful sound from those who preach.

There is so much false doctrine these days it is like chasing pillow feathers, we must preach Christ crucified as the cure for sin and error! People must not only repent of sin but false ideas about God. The Holy Spirit will convince and cross-examine (oh what a thought) of their need of Christ (John 16:8).  May the preacher cross-examine his congregation. What I mean is preach the cross so that they will examine their hearts (1 Cor 11:28)! “As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.” (1 Cor 14:25NLT).

I must also add that our friend the psalmist heart began to become full and gush with so much love that he felt compelled to speak the revelation he received to bring relief to his soul. For example, in Luke 3:2 it says that, “the word of God came unto John” or it came upon (epi) John. It pressed down upon him and exerted force. This teaches that there is a Divine pressure that comes upon a man who loves Christ in that he must preach Christ in order to sense release in obedience. There is a weight with which the Word of God is carried by a man (Jer. 23:38). I doubt if we could even see a finer example of the superintendency of the Spirit of God in breathing the scriptures into the hearts of men. May God in his mercy grant those who preach his word that if our message be not from the Lord that our tongue would cleave to the roof of our mouths and if it is his message that we would be free to speak (Ezek 3:26-27)! Oh that God would grant us men in the pulpit that could not feel relief unless they obediently preached the Word of God as written.

Those of us who have settled the issue of the Holy Spirit’s power in the authorship of the Bible sometimes fail to see the Divine love that was in the weeping pens of the writers. The love of God was poured into their hearts (Rom. 5:5)! Like a cloudburst of rain upon a parched and dry countryside so the love of God is poured into our hearts from these Bible words. We have a dire need for true gospel preachers whose hearts have been warmed by being with God in the oracle room of the written Word (1 Kings 6). In that place there is only one light-the candlestick of the Holy Spirit that illuminates their hearts with understanding (Eph. 1:17) and that room has no place for the counsel of the ungodly (Ps. 1:1) and there they learn the love behind the Words.

The love of God constrained the writers of scripture (2 Cor 5:14). They sensed not only obligation but divinely inspired devotion as they wrote. Most translators see this as the word constrain as “control”, but from what I have derived is the love of Christ pressed in on them, motivated them and took up their thoughts!  It gave them focus, it kept them in a straight line.

It is amazing what happens to the heart when it is focused on Christ! When John preached in the wilderness his message carried a sense of urgency because Christ was coming. There is much teaching about foretelling prophecy these days, one for every mood or opinion. But John’s message was not just eschatological but Christological. He pointed to Christ in his message!

Such is the direction in the torrents of the river of scripture. It rushes toward Christ and when he arrives there is nothing more that needs to be said (Heb 1:1-2). Could it be that the Spirit of God caused such a love for Christ in the hearts of apostles and prophets that they wrote down the testimony of the scriptures in an unbroken, elegant and fluent manner that could only be described as the truth in love (Eph 4:15). Is it any wonder that when a true child of God reads the scripture he begins to shed tears or rejoice every time he beholds in the mirror of scripture the love behind the words, the glory of the Lord Jesus?

© 2011 Soul Health Care Ministries, If you share this article just let them know about us and where it came from.

Walk with Me in the Dark!

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“Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.  Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”  (James 5:10-11).  God is calling us to endure, to be patient, to believe him when there are no explanations and no resources to save ourselves from our trials.  To trust him in the times of affliction, loneliness and pain.  When our bodies are in weakness, our reputation is attacked and we suffer personal losses-this is when we learn to walk with Him in the dark.  Isaiah asks, “Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.” (Isa. 50: 10). Who will be faithful to God, lean upon God alone for support and walk with him in the dark?

Where are those who will acclimate their “eyes of faith” while in the dark? Remember God’s friend Abraham? He walked with God in the dark.  He had no light at all for many years in his life. He was as good as dead (Heb. 11:12) and his wife was childless (Rom 4:19). In himself  he could produce nothing, only failure at best and futility at worst.  In the midnight of his life,  it was THEN that God spoke, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, ‘So shall thy seed be.’ ”  (Gen 15:5).  These are the stars of God’s promises to him. He could not see them unless he was in the dark.  The more he was in the dark, the more he stared at heaven, the more stars he could see!  It was when a horror of darkness (Gen. 15:12) gripped him he saw God’s faithfulness, pledge and oath and covenant in Christ!  Do not despise the eye-opening chastening of the Lord!  The eyes of your hearts will see and understand the promises of the scriptures like,  “a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.” (see Eph 1:17-18; 1 Pet 1:19-20).

Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and learned what it was to, “sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron; darkness of the pit.” (Psa. 107: 10). The Bible says, “whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron. Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.” (Psa. 105: 18-19).  Ah how so many hear God’s promises and acknowledge they are true but do not want the word of the Lord to test and refine them. But when we bottom out in some crater of betrayal or we feel shackled and unable to move in our circumstances-it is then, like Joseph, our eyes become more accustomed, more sensitive to light as we are in the dark. The longer the period of darkness, the more stars one can see. The promises of God that seemed dim and distant now take on a brighter magnitude and become “exceeding great and precious!” (2 Peter 1:4). Do not worry night will not last forever. Richard Sibbes asks, “Is it not an unreasonable speech for a man at midnight to say, “It will never be day?” So it is an unreasonable thing for a man that is in trouble to say, “O Lord, I shall never get free of this; it will always be thus with me.”

In the dark our desire steadily becomes focused on Christ rather than deliverance.  What was blurred becomes plain as day as we embrace Christ our light and our salvation (Psa. 27:1-2).   This is where we must be like Moses for “he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” (Heb 11: 27).  Moses for so many years was unseen by men, and known only to God. Is this such a grievous thing to you dear child of God, to be unknown, or even despised by men?   The Bible says, “He made darkness his secret place.” (Psa. 18:11). Do you understand this? The dark can be better, and to him that ears to hear, we learn much in the darkness of obscurity as God hides us in the thick cloud of his presence.  God is in the darkness and he obscures the godly whom he has set apart for himself (Psa. 4:3).  What is the temporary pleasures of the sinful world and its short lived fame to the child of God who would rather, “suffer affliction with the people of God…esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches?” (Heb. 11:25-26).   Even if a thick darkness rests upon the entire earth, God’s glorious light will be seen upon us (Isa 60:2). We walk in the light of God’s fellowship always, despite our dark trials (1 John 1:5-7). Scripture testifies, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” (Ps 84:11).

Job described his trials in terms like, “he hath set darkness in my paths.” (19:8).  Paraphrasing Job 17 he was just resolved to die. That is real pain my friends, where death is preferable to life even in the heart of an elect child of God.  Everything went wrong, “When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.” (30:26).  Darkness! He had lost all hope, his plans were smashed and his heart was broken. His only comfort was a well-built coffin so at least when he dies he could have a family reunion with the children he has lost. The picture of his friendship with God was like the old negatives of photos that when developed in the darkroom the result is the beautiful color pictures. It seemed like all was darkness around him, so many trials, it seemed so negative and yet we see in the end the picture developed into  bright colors of God’s mercy and tenderness the whole time.  Job’s help was only coming from God. He must learn what God had to teach him in the darkroom of the soul. He walked with God in the dark. Now there are times, when for some unexplained reasons we will look for Christ and find he has withdrawn himself and the sense of his presence is not there. You call to him in prayer and he does not seem like he is there (Song 5:6). We begin to seek him in the dark times, not relying on feelings, circumstance, opinion or any resource of the flesh and will we will not rest and until we have found him and restrain him (Song 3:1-5). We must apprehend him who has apprehended us! (Phil. 3:12).

The darkness makes us concentrate on where we are going. Your focus is not on peripheral things, it is paying attention on making progress and maturing spiritually and not tripping in weakness. God has ordained both light and darkness (Gen 1:4). The darkness and light are alike to him (Ps 139:12).  He employs both in his plans. In the dark we must rely on God’s Word which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Ps 119:1-5) and not be blinded by the good times when we are tempted to rely less on God.  Seeking Jesus Christ must be our priority. He is the author and editor of our faith, including the affliction of trial and relief of the trial where patience has her perfect work in our hearts so that we are growing spiritually (James 1:4).  In the dark we read God’s promises by the light of the Holy Spirit’s teaching and to ponder his words, set our attention upon it, let his words supply our life, health and resource! The Bible promises, “When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” (Prov 6:22-23). This sorrow you are experiencing carries a special blessing! The gift of tears comes with the promises of the God of every comfort.  Our hearts become strengthened as we wait upon God alone (Ps 27:14).  He who works in darkness and mystery has a given you his heart in a friendship sweeter than anyone can describe. The half has not yet been told! This is when God will bless you. In the dark times, when it does not matter if you see help or hinderance, friend nor foe, angel nor devil! All that matters is when you can see God and his promises and then walk with Him in the dark.

© 2011 Rev. Stephen S. Gibney

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