Spurgeon Evenings: Seven Times

1 Kings 18:43
Go again seven times.

Success is certain when the Lord has promised it. Although you may have pleaded month after month without evidence of answer, it is not possible that the Lord should be deaf when His people are earnest in a matter which concerns His glory. The prophet on the top of Carmel continued to wrestle with God, and never for a moment gave way to a fear that he should be non-suited in Jehovah's courts.

Six times the servant returned, but on each occasion no word was spoken but "Go again."

We must not dream of unbelief, but hold to our faith even to seventy times seven. Faith sends expectant hope to look from Carmel's brow, and if nothing is beheld, she sends again and again. So far from being crushed by repeated disappointment, faith is animated to plead more fervently with her God. She is humbled, but not abashed: her groans are deeper, and her sighings more vehement, but she never relaxes her hold or stays her hand.

It would be more agreeable to flesh and blood to have a speedy answer, but believing souls have learned to be submissive, and to find it good to wait for as well as upon the Lord. Delayed answers often set the heart searching itself, and so lead to contrition and spiritual reformation: deadly blows are thus struck at our corruption, and the chambers of imagery are cleansed. The great danger is lest men should faint, and miss the blessing. Reader, do not fall into that sin, but continue in prayer and watching.

At last the little cloud was seen, the sure forerunner of torrents of rain, and even so with you, the token for good shall surely be given, and you shall rise as a prevailing prince to enjoy the mercy you have sought. Elijah was a man of like passions with us: his power with God did not lie in his own merits. If his believing prayer availed so much, why not yours?

Plead the precious blood with unceasing importunity, and it shall be with you according to your desire.

Spurgeon Mornings :The Lord looketh from heaven

Psalm 33:13

The Lord looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men.

Perhaps no figure of speech represents God in a more gracious light than when He is spoken of as stooping from His throne, and coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the woes of mankind.

We love Him, who, when Sodom and Gomorrah were full of iniquity, would not destroy those cities until He had made a personal visitation of them. We cannot help pouring out our heart in affection for our Lord who inclines His ear from the highest glory, and puts it to the lip of the dying sinner, whose failing heart longs after reconciliation.

How can we but love Him when we know that He numbers the very hairs of our heads, marks our path, and orders our ways? Specially is this great truth brought near to our heart, when we recollect how attentive He is, not merely to the temporal interests of His creatures, but to their spiritual concerns. Though leagues of distance lie between the finite creature and the infinite Creator, yet there are links uniting both. When a tear is wept by thee, think not that God doth not behold; for, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."

Thy sigh is able to move the heart of Jehovah; thy whisper can incline His ear unto thee; thy prayer can stay His hand; thy faith can move His arm. Think not that God sits on high taking no account of thee. Remember that however poor and needy thou art, yet the Lord thinketh upon thee. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards Him.

Oh! then repeat the truth that never tires;
No God is like the God my soul desires;
He at whose voice heaven trembles, even He,
Great as He is, knows how to stoop to me.

Streams in the Desert: God shows us the troubles

Quicken Us
 
"Thou, who hast showed its many and sore troubles, wilt quicken us again" (Ps. 71:20, RV).

God shows us the troubles. Sometimes, as this part of our education is being carried forward, we have to descend into "the lower parts of the earth," pass through subterranean passages, lie buried amongst the dead, but never for a moment is the cord of fellowship and union between God and us strained to breaking; and from the depths God will bring us again.

Never doubt God! Never say that He has forsaken or forgotten. Never think that He is unsympathetic. He will quicken again. There is always a smooth piece in every skein, however tangled. The longest day at last rings out the evensong. The winter snow lies long, but it goes at last.

Be steadfast; your labor is not in vain. God turns again, and comforts. And when He does, the heart which had forgotten its Psalmody breaks out in jubilant song, as does the Psalmist: "I will thank thee, I will harp unto thee, my lips shall sing aloud." --Selected

"Though the rain may fall and the wind be blowing,
And old and chill is the wintry blast;
Though the cloudy sky is still cloudier growing,
And the dead leaves tell that the summer has passed;

My face I hold to the stormy heaven,
My heart is as calm as the summer sea,
Glad to receive what my God has given,
Whate'er it be.

When I feel the cold, I can say, 'He sends it,'
And His winds blow blessing, I surely know;
For I've never a want but that He attends it;
And my heart beats warm, though the winds may blow."

God Calling: Suffer it to be so now

Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.  Matthew 3:15

Upon this I founded My three years' Mission on earth -- on the acceptance of the difficulty and discipline of life so as to share that human life with My followers in all the ages.

Much that you both must accept in life is not to be accepted as being necessary for you personally, but accepted, as I accepted it, to set an example, to share in the sufferings and difficulties of mankind.

In this "to share" means "to save."  And there, too, for you both ... the same must be true as was so true of Me.  "He saved others.  Himself He cannot save."

Beloved, you are called to save and share in a very special way.  The way of sorrows if walked with Me, the Man of Sorrows, is a path kept sacred and secret for My nearest and dearest, those whose one desire is to do all for Me, to sacrifice all for Me, to count, as My servant Paul did, "all things but loss so that they might gain Me."

But, dreary as that Path must look to those who view if only from afar, it has tender lights and restful shades that no other walk in life can give.

I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.  For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass form the law, till all be fulfilled.  Matthew 5:17,18

My Utmost for His Highest: One thing thou lackest:

THE "GO" OF UNCONDITIONAL IDENTIFICATION

One thing thou lackest: . . come, take up the cross, and
follow Me.

Mark 10:21


The rich young ruler had the master passion to he perfect. When he
saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts
personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts
absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with
Himself - a relationship with Himself in which there is no other
relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or
sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus
Christ. Very few of us know the absolute "go" of abandonment to
Jesus.

"Then Jesus beholding him loved him." The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and
transfixes. Where you are "soft" with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.

"One thing thou lackest . . ." The only "good thing" from Jesus Christ's point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.

"Sell whatsoever thou hast . ." I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save by soul (only one thing saves a man - absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) - but in order to follow Jesus. "Come, and follow Me."

And the road is the way He went.