"The sweetness of the lips" (Prov. xvi. 21).

  
Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      "The sweetness of the lips" (Prov. xvi. 21).
    
      Spiritual conditions are inseparably connected with our physical life. The flow of the divine life-currents may be interrupted by a little clot of blood; the vital current may leak out through a very trifling wound.
    
      If you want to keep the health of Christ, keep from all spiritual sores, from all heart wounds and irritations. One hour of fretting will wear out more vitality than a week of work; and one minute of malignity, or rankling jealousy or envy will hurt more than a drink of poison. Sweetness of spirit and joyousness of heart are essential to full health. Quietness of spirit, gentleness, tranquility, and the peace of God that passes all understanding, are worth all the sleeping draughts in the country.
    
      We do not wonder that some people have poor health when we hear them talk for half an hour. They have enough dislikes, prejudices, doubts, and fears to exhaust the strongest constitution.
    
      Beloved, if you would keep God's life and strength, keep out the things that kill it; keep it for Him, and for His work, and you will find enough and to spare.

A. W. Pink - The Memory (Christian devotional)

"God, even our own God."—Psalm 67:6.

C. H. Spurgeon 

"God, even our own God."—Psalm 67:6.

T is strange how little use we make of the spiritual blessings which God gives us, but it is stranger still how little use we make of God Himself. Though He is "our own God," we apply ourselves but little to Him, and ask but little of Him. How seldom do we ask counsel at the hands of the Lord! How often do we go about our business, without seeking His guidance! In our troubles how constantly do we strive to bear our burdens ourselves, instead of casting them upon the Lord, that He may sustain us! This is not because we may not, for the Lord seems to say, "I am thine, soul, come and make use of me as thou wilt; thou mayst freely come to my store, and the oftener the more welcome." 

It is our own fault if we make not free with the riches of our God. Then, since thou hast such a friend, and He invites thee, draw from Him daily. Never want whilst thou hast a God to go to; never fear or faint whilst thou hast God to help thee; go to thy treasure and take whatever thou needest—there is all that thou canst want. Learn the divine skill of making God all things to thee. He can supply thee with all, or, better still, He can be to thee instead of all. Let me urge thee, then, to make use of thy God. Make use of Him in prayer. 

Go to Him often, because He is thy God. O, wilt thou fail to use so great a privilege? Fly to Him, tell Him all thy wants. Use Him constantly by faith at all times. If some dark providence has beclouded thee, use thy God as a "sun;" if some strong enemy has beset thee, find in Jehovah a "shield," for He is a sun and shield to His people. If thou hast lost thy way in the mazes of life, use Him as a "guide," for He will direct thee. Whatever thou art, and wherever thou art, remember God is just what thou wantest, and just where thou wantest, and that He can do all thou wantest.

Psalm 8

8 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

RULING, TOILING, WATCHING

RULING, TOILING, WATCHING
Raymond Golsworthy

"For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch" (Mark 13:34).

ONE of the marvels of Christ's ministry was His ability to present the deepest truths in the simplest and briefest terms. For those who have eyes to see it, there is, in the single sentence quoted above, a concentration of deep Church truth, and a survey of the whole present dispensation. It merits our closest attention.

In this verse the Lord tells of a wealthy householder who, obliged to undertake some foreign travel, preceded his departure by gathering together his employees and explaining what would need to be done during his absence. Some, it seems, were given 'power of attorney', qualifying them to negotiate various business transactions during the unspecified period of the master's absence. Others were briefed concerning practical tasks that would need to be undertaken either in the fields or in the homestead itself. Uppermost in the householder's mind seems to have been his concern that those left behind should remain constantly alert, on the look-out for his return. We notice that the whole chapter (Mark 13) deals with our Lord's Second Coming, and all that is said revolves around the key statement: "Then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with power and with great glory" (v.26). Our brief story is calculated to bear down upon that truth, and is designed to show us in composite form, what it is that the Lord expects from His people, the Church, during the present period of His absence from us. According to the story, His outstanding concerns are three:

1. He wants us to exercise authority during His absence

This, we notice, is the first matter mentioned: "He gave authority to His servants". Without a doubt one of the greatest revelations of the New Testament is that the Church is a company of people "called out", and called out for administration. It is helpful to notice that the Greek word, 'Ecclesia' (usually translated 'church') is applied to a group of citizens specially chosen to exercise authority in civic affairs (Acts 19:39). In like manner we may say that the Lord's Church consists of a people 'called out' to exercise authority in the spiritual world. In connection with His Church our Lord said: "And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:18-19). It is striking that the same words are repeated exactly where the reference is to the local expression of the church (Matthew 18:18). These are the only two occasions on which the Lord is quoted as actually using the word 'church', and in both cases he makes it plain that it consists of a people called out for administration and authority. This, then, is an authority which has clearly been delegated to us by our Absent Master, and it may be used to the extent to which we ourselves are subject to His will. With it we may bind God's enemies, and even resist the devil himself, so that he will flee from us (James 4:7). And by this authority we may 'loose' situations and set captives free. This, evidently, is a primary function of the Church during the period of our Master's absence. How sad it is that so few Christians know anything of a spiritual authority! So much is possible through believing prayer because of the authority of the name in which we pray. We need to allow the Word of God to enlighten us as to the Church's calling to apply the power of that name to actual situations and we also need the Lord's help to be faithful in this matter.

2. He has much work for us to do during His absence

We are told that this householder "gave to every man his work". This also is significant and basic. None of us would question that there is very much work that needs to be done before the Lord returns. Just prior to His going, our Lord said: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). The fact is that we who are the Lord's people have been put in trust with the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:4). Today as much as ever there is a great deal of sowing of the seed which needs to be done in a worldwide context, to say nothing of the harvest waiting to be reaped from seed already sown. Now is the time for such evangelistic witness. But Peter's commission reminds us that now is [94/95] also the time in which we have the commands: "Feed My sheep" and "Feed My lambs (John 21:15-17). This refers to other activities and callings which are an related to the same household and to be done in the light of Christ's near return. It is strenuous work, as all vital service must surely be, but it is the very work for which our absent Lord ,has provided full sufficiency.

BOOKS OF WISDOM

BOOKS OF WISDOM

John H. Paterson

Get wisdom, get understanding ... Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee:
love her and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing... ( Proverbs 4:5-7)

IT is one of the simple facts of life that human wisdom cannot lead a person to God. It may point them in the right direction; it may lead them to conclude that there is a God, but it cannot, by itself, bring them into contact with Him. For some people, this is a tragedy they never resolve; they spend their lives and their wisdom searching for God and end in despair because, although they want to, they have still not found Him. For others it becomes, perversely, a source of pride, for if they, with their fine minds, have been unable to discover God, then that must prove that He does not exist!

But to find God it is necessary both to start at the right point and then to seek Him. And Paul tells us that this "right point" is the recognition that there are two kinds of wisdom, and that it is quite possible to possess one and not the other:

"Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, which are coming to naught: but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the world, unto our glory: which none of the rulers of this world knoweth ..." (1 Corinthians 2:6-8)

But this at once raises an important question: is all human thought then vain? It must, surely, play some part in bringing us to perceive the true wisdom of God. How, then, do these two kinds of wisdom relate to one another?

These are questions which, it seems to me, are dealt with in what are generally known as the Books of Wisdom in the Old Testament. Whatever we call them, we can recognise the character of these books -- Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. They are intended, I think, to show us from both a positive and a negative standpoint where true wisdom lies, and how it is acquired. Their effect is to divide humanity into two categories -- the wise person and the fool. This division is, you may recollect, most marked in Proverbs, where there are almost one hundred references to fools, folly and the foolish. The fool is, for these writers, simply someone who thinks himself wise but who does not, in reality, possess the key to true wisdom.

What does it mean to seek or get wisdom, as these Scriptures urge us to do? It seems that two things are involved. They are to develop: (1) [29/30] the ability to identify the wisdom of God when we meet it in the circumstances of our lives. To learn, then, to discern the hand of God in external conditions is "wise; (2) the ability to adapt to the wisdom of God, by responding rightly to God's actions. The wise man is recognised by his attitude of heart, or his response, when and where God touches him personally.

It is these reactions to what we might call internal and external circumstances that represent the true wisdom. And it is the struggle -- the learning process -- to achieve right reactions which occupies the writers of the books we know as the Wisdom Books.

They are, of course, diverse in character, but I think that it is possible to trace through all five of them this common theme. It might be easier to do so if their order in the Bible was slightly different, for they seem to me to be a graded series of approaches to the problem of the two wisdoms. If, just for now, you will allow me to tamper a little with their order, I will try to show you what I mean.

Ecclesiastes

AT one end of the scale comes the Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher. No one can read this book, especially in a modern paraphrase, without being impressed by the worldly-wise cynicism of the writer. It all sounds completely, wearily up-to-date! And what it amounts to is that, viewing things as they are in the world, there is no sense in them. In other words, a "wise" person, in any human meaning of the word, would never have created a world like ours; nor would he allow it to run in such a contradictory fashion. Good intentions and good actions are frustrated, evil flourishes. One cannot even account for -- explain the why's and wherefore's of -- the natural world, let alone the world of man: rivers run into the sea and the hydrological cycle goes on turning century after century without any apparent progress or change (1:7). What good is it?

Viewing the world armed with the best of its wisdom, the Preacher can only reiterate that it arouses nothing but "vanity and vexation of spirit" (10 references). It doesn't make sense and the more you think about it the less sense it makes: "I applied my heart to know wisdom ... I perceived that this also was vexation of spirit" (1:17) -- or "a striving after wind" as the Revised Version puts it. The word translated "vexation" has its apparent origin in a root that describes hunger and greed: this search for wisdom is an unsatisfied hunger in the human mind. If you have made your best efforts to understand the world as you see it and have failed, you are left hungry.

The reaction of the Preacher comes in the twelfth chapter. His advice to anyone wrestling with the problem of why the world does not work wisely is -- to forget it! We should turn away, he says, from vain efforts to make sense of nature and events, and turn to their creator. Furthermore, we should do that early, in the days of our youth, so that we waste as little of our lives as may be in what is, for human wisdom, an impossible task. What eventually counts as true wisdom is (12:13) to "fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."

Job

SO far, these scriptural thoughts on wisdom have been overwhelmingly negative. When we turn to Job, negative ideas still predominate; that is, most of the book is still about what wisdom is not. But we have moved on appreciably from Ecclesiastes. In Job, we have a man who recognises the existence of another and higher wisdom, but who is hard put to it to find its key.

There are two excellent reasons why this key eluded Job. One is that he was being assailed for much of the time by his friends' cliche-ridden "explanations" of what had happened to him in that incredible run of misfortunes which had overtaken him. I have already suggested that one of the spiritual skills that the man or woman of God must learn in seeking wisdom is the ability to interpret circumstances, and to discern the hand of God in them.

REAL SECURITY

REAL SECURITY

Poul Madsen

"Be ye free from the love of money; content with such things
as ye have; for himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee,
neither will I in any wise forsake thee." Hebrews 13:5

MEN think that money gives safety and security. Our secure salvation, however, depends on the death on the cross of the Man who was stripped of everything as He hung there. At Calvary was anyone thinking about money? Did money play any part at all in the work of salvation? Emphatically No! "We were redeemed from our vain manner of life, not with silver or gold ..." (1 Peter 1:18-19). Could our Saviour have accomplished more if He had possessed more money? The question is so absurd that it needs no answer. The greatest thing that was ever done was done without the least help from money. The Lord Jesus did not have silver or gold and never asked for them. He was never dependent upon earthly wealth -- and so His priceless work has never depreciated in value. [61/62]

The Lord's Servants
No-one accomplished more for the Lord than His apostles and their co-workers, but do we ever hear them asking for economic support? Not even once! It is clear that they did not carry out their great work with the help of gold and silver but by the sacrifice of their own lives. A work of spiritual significance can, by its own nature, never depend upon something so unspiritual as money. What it needs is not so much money as those who will follow in the footsteps of their Lord, prepared to lose everything for His sake.

If we ask then how did they get their daily bread, we must also ask if He who had taught them to pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread' would forget to answer the very prayer He had instructed them to pray?

In Paul's case the prayer was sometimes answered by his working as a tentmaker and earning his keep. Should he then be disqualified as a 'full-time worker'? Could he have accomplished more if he had been what we call a 'full-time worker'? Again the answer must surely be No! So far as the other apostles were concerned, it seems that humanly speaking they lived from hand to mouth -- "Silver and gold have I none" (Acts 3:6) -- but they never lacked what they needed. He who had Himself said that He would never fail them was alive to implement His assurances.

We might argue that when we have money in the bank we can better concentrate on spiritual work without anxiety, but the apostles did not look at life like that. I do not imagine that they desired earthly security. They had such an intimate relationship with the Lord that they could truly say, "If I only have Thee, I desire nothing on earth besides" (Psalm 73:25 Danish ) and they could say it because they meant it. So often had they experienced that the Lord was their Helper, and would not for the world be without such rich experiences. What is more, they knew that the security which is given by money is false; a safety which disappears just when we need it most is quite illusory.

Their View of Service
This attitude towards money surely sprang from the fact that they always kept their eyes on the cross of Christ. There, without human support of any kind, He had completed the wonderful work of their eternal security. Since the apparent foolishness displayed there for all the world to see was really the supreme wisdom of God, they realised that human wisdom and clever considerations have no part in the work of God, but, on the contrary, are a hindrance to it.

The thought that their service was dependent upon money or that they could accomplish more for the Lord if they were richer never occurred to them. No-one can accomplish more for God than to follow Christ, and mere money can never help him to do that. On the other hand, they did not regard their independence of money as some great accomplishment of faith, but just as their privilege. They were content to complete their mission as what Jesus had described as lambs among wolves, and were content to count all things as loss in comparison with the heavenly riches of knowing Christ and walking with Him. Such service was, and still is, incomprehensible to the natural mind. Humanly speaking it rests on the most uncertain basis imaginable, without any support, but yet it worked in a living way then and still works today.

Those Who Have Money
There are, then, those who own nothing and yet make many rich. This is nothing to boast of, as we have said, for it is a privilege given to them by the Lord, so that they must never be jealous of those who have money and nor must they think of despising them. Clearly there were those in the early churches who were rich in gold and silver, because this was the specific will of God for them. Were their riches an advantage to them? Not in the eyes of the apostles, but nevertheless since the Lord had so called them, then they were told to regard their wealth as a responsibility committed to them and act accordingly. The important thing was, and still is, that no love of money should creep into their hearts.