Blog Archives - Witness And Testimony

"Be Of Good Cheer"

5/31/2014

Joh 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

My LORD's words are true as to the tribulation. I have my share of it beyond all doubt.

The flail is not hung up out of the way, nor can I hope that it will be laid aside so long as I lie upon the threshing floor, How can I look to be at home in the enemy's country, joyful while in exile, or comfortable in a wilderness?

This is not my rest. This is the place of the furnace, and the forge, and the hammer. My experience tallies with my LORD's words.

I note how He bids me "be of good cheer." Alas! I am far too apt to be downcast. My spirit soon sinks when I am sorely tried. But I must not give way to this feeling.

When my LORD bids me cheer up I must not dare to be cast down.

What is the argument which He uses to encourage me? Why, it is His own victory. He says, "I have overcome the world."

His battle was much more severe than mine. I have not yet resisted unto blood. Why do I despair of overcoming?

See, my soul, the enemy has been once overcome. I fight with a beaten foe. O world, Jesus has already vanquished thee; and in me, by His grace, He will overcome thee again. Therefore am I of good cheer and sing unto my conquering LORD.

~Charles Spurgeon~

LOOKING UPON THE FORBIDDEN

5/29/2014

Wanderings from God often begin by looking on forbidden objects.

The eye is allowed to rest too long upon an object of temptation.

Through the eye the thoughts take hold upon the object. This kindles exaggerated and unlawful desires. This undermines the will, and the outcome is sin in greater or less degree.

Such was the case of Eve, who stood looking on the forbidden fruit.

This was the case of David, who was gazing from the top of the palace.

This is the art that Satan tried on Jesus, when he spread before His mental vision all the kingdoms of the earth and all their glory in one dazzling panorama of world-wide sovereignty and splendor.

But Jesus instantly turned His mental eye from the beautiful vision and fixed it on His coming cross. This is the best cure for all fascinating and tempting visions -- to get in the mind the precious blood of Jesus.

The sight of Christ crucified is the panacea for unholy mental pictures.

~G. D. Watson~

Commonest Things Blessed

5/26/2014

Exo 23:25 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

What a promise is this! To serve God is in itself a high delight. But what an added privilege to have the blessing of the LORD resting upon us in all things!

Our commonest things become blessed when we ourselves are consecrated to the LORD.

Our LORD Jesus took bread and blessed it; behold, we also eat of blessed bread. Jesus blessed water and made it wine: the water which we drink is far better to us than any of the wine with which men make merry; every drop has a benediction in it.

The divine blessing is on the man of God in everything, and it shall abide with him at every time.

What if we have only bread and water! Yet it is blessed bread and water. Bread and water we shall have. That is implied, for it must be there for God to bless it. "Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy waters shall be sure."

With God at our table, we not only ask a blessing, but we have one. It is not only at the altar but at the table that He blesses us. He serves those well who serve Him well.

This table blessing is not of debt but of grace. Indeed, there is a trebled grace; He grants us grace to serve Him, by His grace feeds us with bread, and then in His grace blesses it.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Will Worrying Make Matters Any Better?

5/24/2014

Mat 6:27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

So it is useless to worry! A short person cannot, by any amount of anxiety, make himself an inch taller. Why, therefore, should he waste his energy and fret his life away in wishing he were taller?

One worries because he is too short another because he is too tall; one because he too lean another because he is too fat; one because he has a lame foot another because he has a mole on his face.

No amount of fretting will change any of these things!

People worry, too, over their circumstances. They are poor, and have to work hard. They have troubles, losses, and disappointments which come through causes entirely beyond their own control. They find difficulties in their environment which they cannot surmount. There are hard conditions in their lot which they cannot change.

Now why should they worry about these things? Will worrying make matters any better? Will discontentment cure the blind eye, or remove the ugly mole, or give health to the infirm body?

Will chafing make the hard work, lighter; or the burdens, easier; or the troubles, fewer?

Will anxiety keep the winter away, or keep the storm from rising, or put coal in the cellar, or put bread in the pantry, or get clothes for the children?

Even human reason shows the uselessness of worrying, since it helps nothing, and only wastes one's strength and unfits one for doing one's best!

The Christian gospel goes farther, and says that even the hard things and the obstacles, are blessings if we meet them in the right spirit. They are stepping-stones lifting our feet upward...disciplinary experiences in which we grow.

So we learn that we should quietly, and with faith, accept life as it comes to us fretting at nothing, and changing hard conditions to easier if we can. And if we cannot then we must use them as means for growth and advancement.

~J. R. Miller~

Fleeting Earthly Comforts And Worldly Trinkets!

5/21/2014

God often does better for us than we ask. We go to Him with our little requests. We are in need and ask for temporal relief. We are suffering and ask that our pain may cease. We are poor and ask Him for more money.

We are just like the beggar, holding out our hands for paltry alms to eke out the day's need. Then God looks down upon us and says, "My child, are these little trifles all you want Me to give to you..daily bread, clothing, fuel for your fire, medicine for your sickness, comfort for your grief? The small things to supply your common needs...are these the only gifts and blessings you want and ask from the hand of your heavenly Father, who has infinite treasures to give to you?"

Yet thousands never get beyond just such requests in their praying! Bowing daily before a God of infinite power and love, in whose hands are unsearchable riches.They never ask for anything but fleeting earthly comforts and worldly trinkets! They ask only for things for their bodies, or to beautify their homes making no requests for the heavenly and spiritual gifts that God has for their souls!

We should learn to ask for the best things in all God's treasure house!

Col 3:1-2 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

~J. R. Miller~

We Dare Not Doubt

5/20/2014

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron" (Isaiah 45:2).

This was for Cyrus; but it is evermore the heritage of all the LORD'S own spiritual servants.

Only let us go forward by faith, and our way will be cleared for us.

Crooks and turns of human craft and satanic subtlety shall be straightened for us; we shall not need to track their devious windings.

The gates of brass shall be broken, and the iron bars which fastened them shall be cut asunder.

We shall not need the battering ram nor the crowbar: the LORD Himself will do the impossible for us, and the unexpected shall be a fact.

Let us not sit down in coward fear. Let us press onward in the path of duty, for the LORD hath said it: "I will go before thee."

Ours not to reason why; ours but to dare and dash forward. It is the LORD's work, and He will enable us to do it: all impediments must yield before Him.

Hath He not said, "I will break in pieces the gates of brass"! What can hinder His purpose or balk His decrees? Those who serve God have infinite resources.

The way is clear to faith though barred to human strength. When Jehovah says, "I will," as He does twice in this promise, we dare not doubt.

~Charles Spurgeon~

He Purges To Bring Forth More Fruit

5/19/2014

Joh 15:2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Recently we passed a garden. The gardener had just finished his pruning, and the wounds of the knife and saw were just beginning to heal, while the warm April sun was gently nourishing the stricken plant into fresh life and energy.

We thought as we looked at that plant how cruel it would be to begin next week and cut it down. Now, the gardener's business is to revive and nourish it into life.

Its business is not to die, but to live. So, we thought, it is with the discipline of the soul. It, too, has its dying hour; but it must not be always dying: Rather reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Death is but a moment. Live, then, ye children of the resurrection, on His glorious life more and more abundantly, and the fulness of your life will repel the intrusion of self and sin, and overcome evil with good, and your existence will be, not the dreary repression of your own struggling, but the springing tide of Christ's spontaneous overcoming and everlasting life.

~A. B. Simpson~

Losses Overcome

5/18/2014

Joel 2:25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
Yes, those wasted years over which we sigh shall be restored to us.
God can give us such plentiful grace that we shall crowd into the remainder of our days as much of service as will be some recompense for those years of unregeneracy over which we mourn in humble penitence.

The locusts of backsliding, worldliness, lukewarmness, are now viewed by us as a terrible plague. Oh, that they had never come near us! The LORD in mercy has now taken them away, and we are full of zeal to serve Him.

Blessed be His name, we can raise such harvests of spiritual graces as shall make our former barrenness to disappear.

Through rich grace we can turn to account our bitter experience and use it to warn others.

We can become the more rooted in humility, childlike dependence, and penitent spirituality by reason of our former shortcomings.

If we are the more watchful, zealous, and tender, we shall gain by our lamentable losses.

The wasted years, by a miracle of love, can be restored. Does it seem too great a boon? Let us believe for it and live for it, and we may yet realize it, even as Peter became all the more useful a man after his presumption was cured by his discovered weakness. LORD, aid us by Thy grace.

~Charles Spurgeon~

Take Me As I Am With All My Sin And Shame

5/16/2014

Here is this sin! Save me from it!

Here is this snare! Break it to pieces!

Here is this lust! Lord, subdue it!

Here is this temptation! Deliver me out of it!

Here is my proud heart! Lord, humble it!

Here is my unbelieving heart! Take it away, and give me faith; give me submission to Your mind and will.

Take me as I am with all my sin and shame and work in me everything well pleasing in Your sight.

~J. C. Philpot~

Living Stones Of The Holy Temple Of The LORD

5/16/2014

Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

The body of Christ is at present scattered, and, if I may so speak--fragmentary. Of the members of his mystical body some are now before the throne, "spirits of just men made perfect." Others are still in the wilderness; others are yet in the world, dead in trespasses and sins, uncalled by grace, destitute of the Spirit; others at present are unborn, still hidden in the womb of time.

But earth is the stage whereon ALL the members are from time to time brought into a vital, manifestive union with their living Head.

When I was a boy at school, in London, Waterloo Bridge was building; and I and my playmates used to go sometimes to what was then called "The Stone Field," on the other side of the water, where the stones that now make up Waterloo Bridge were being squared and chiseled.

Every vestige of that field, I have no doubt, is gone, and the place covered with buildings; but there stands Waterloo Bridge; and those stones that I used to play upon as a boy now form a part of that beautiful structure which Canova, the great Italian sculptor, said it was alone worth coming to London to see.

Take the idea into spiritual things. The body of Christ is compared in Scripture to a building. "And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in the Lord."

Of this building believers are "living stones;" and many of them are at present in "the Stone Field," where they are being hammered and hacked, squared and chiseled by the hand of the great Architect.

During this state, like the stones of Solomon's temple, which were hewn and squared at a distance, that "neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron might be heard in the house while it was in building," so are these living stones prepared for their future glory. The mallet and the chisel are at work upon them now day by day, that in due time they may fill their designed position in the spiritual building.

I remember well that all the stones which were strewn over the field were marked and numbered; and these figures no doubt denoted their intended position.

Every stone so marked was in due time individually transferred to, and now occupies, the exact position that the architect designed for it.

So every living stone was marked and numbered in eternity, is hewed and squared in time, and will, in future glory, be placed by the hand of the divine Architect in that place of the spiritual building originally designed for it.

~J. C. Philpot~