If this is happiness—then give me misery!

Choice excerpts from Thomas Sherman

If this is happiness—then give me misery!

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen, and lived in luxury every day." Luke 16:19

How apt are many at the sight of a rich worldling—to envy him for what he has. But, for my part, I rather pity him for what he lacks!
He has a talent—but it lacks improvement;
he has a lamp—but it lacks oil;
he has a soul—but it lacks grace;
he has the creature—but he lacks the Creator;
he has a mansion—but he lacks heaven.

In his life, he floats upon a torrent of vanity—which rolls along into an ocean of vexation! 
And after death, it will be said of him, "Take this unprofitable servant, bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness! Consign his soul to the eternal lake of fire and brimstone!"

Where now is the object of your envy?
It is not his gold that can then rescue him,
nor his mansion that can then satisfy him,
nor his friends that can then comfort him.

Therefore, if he is worth the envying—then who can be worth the pitying? 

If this is happiness—then give me misery!

Lord, rather make me poor with a holy heart—than rich with an evil heart of unbelief!

"Have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue—because I am in agony in this fire!" Luke 16:24

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment—but the righteous to eternal life!" Matthew 25:46

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The sooner we reach this conclusion

William S. Plumer, choice quotes
(1802—1880)


"Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!
 Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 1:2

How vain are all merely earthly possessions!

How unstable is popular favor!

How uncertain are riches!

How soon our pleasures may be followed by pains!

When parents rejoice at the birth of a child, they
know not how soon they may weep over his dead
body, without an assurance that his soul is saved.

Solomon thoroughly tried the world. His sober inspired
judgment was that all was utterly meaningless!  The
sooner we reach this conclusion ourselves—the
wiser shall we be!

"Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the
 matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this
 is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed
 into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it
 is good or evil."  Ecclesiastes 12:13-14


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The anointing

RICHES of J. C. PHILPOT

(Choice devotional selections
 from the works of J. C. Philpot)

"But the anointing which you have received from Him remains in you." 1 John 2:27

All the powers of earth and hell are combined against this holy anointing, with which the children of God are so highly favored. But if God has locked up in the bosom of a saint one drop of this divine unction, that one drop is armor against all the assaults of sin—all the attacks of Satan—all the enmity of self—and all the charms, pleasures, and amusements of the world. Waves and billows of affliction may roll over the soul—but they cannot wash away this holy drop of anointing oil. Satan may shoot a thousand fiery darts to inflame all the combustible material of our carnal mind—but all his fiery darts cannot burn up that one drop of oil which God has laid up in the depths of a broken spirit. The world, with all its charms and pleasures, and its deadly opposition to the truth of God, may stir up waves of ungodliness against this holy anointing—but all the powers of earth combined can never extinguish that one drop which God has Himself lodged in the depths of a believer's heart.

And so it has been with all the dear saints of God. Not all their sorrows, backslidings, slips, falls, miseries, and wretchedness, have ever—all combined—drunk up the anointing that God has bestowed upon them. If sin could have done it—we would have sinned ourselves into hell long ago—and if the world or Satan could have destroyed it or us—they would long ago have destroyed both. If our carnal mindcould have done it—it would have swept us away into floods of destruction. But the anointing abides sure, and cannot be destroyed—and where once lodged in the soul, it is secure against all the assaults of earth, sin, and hell. But the anointing which you have received from Him remains in you.

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Satan's Tools

By Mrs. Charles E. Cowman

    
"Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and, let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Heb. 12:1).

There are weights which are not sins in themselves, but which become distractions and stumbling blocks in our Christian progress. One of the worst of these is despondency. The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.

The failure of Israel to enter the land of promise began in murmuring, or, as the text in Numbers literally puts it, "as it were murmured." Just a faint desire to complain and be discontented. This led on until it blossomed and ripened into rebellion and ruin. Let us give ourselves no liberty ever to doubt God or His love and faithfulness to us in everything and forever.

We can set our will against doubt just as we do against any other sin; and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt, the Holy Spirit will come to our aid and give us the faith of God and crown us with victory.

It is very easy to fall into the habit of doubting, fretting, and wondering if God has forsaken us and if after all our hopes are to end in failure. Let us refuse to be discouraged. Let us refuse to be unhappy. Let us "count it all joy" when we cannot feel one emotion of happiness. Let us rejoice by faith, by resolution, by reckoning, and we shall surely find that God will make the reckoning real.--Selected

The devil has two master tricks. One is to get us discouraged; then for a time at least we can be of no service to others, and so are defeated. The other is to make us doubt, thus breaking the faith link by which we are bound to our Father. Lookout! Do not be tricked either way.--G.E.M.

Gladness! I like to cultivate the spirit of gladness! It puts the soul so in tune again, and keeps it in tune, so that Satan is shy of touching it--the chords of the soul become too warm, or too full of heavenly electricity, for his infernal fingers, and he goes off somewhere else! Satan is always very shy of meddling with me when my heart is full of gladness and joy in the Holy Ghost.

My plan is to shun the spirit of sadness as I would Satan; but, alas! I am not always successful. Like the devil himself it meets me on the highway of usefulness, looks me so fully in my face, till my poor soul changes color!

Sadness discolors everything; it leaves all objects charmless; it involves future prospects in darkness; it deprives the soul of all its aspirations, enchains all its powers, and produces a mental paralysis!

An old believer remarked, that cheerfulness in religion makes all its services come off with delight; and that we are never carried forward so swiftly in the ways of duty as when borne on the wings of delight; adding, that Melancholy clips such wings; or, to alter the figure, takes off our chariot wheels in duty, and makes them, like those of the Egyptians, drag heavily.

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Kansas Pastor Tackles Sexual Impropriety in Church

EXCERPT

Last summer, Hamilton discovered that two of the pastors at his church were involved in an extramarital affair with one another. At the time, he was away speaking at conferences when he got the call from one of the church staff. He returned to Leawood almost immediately to deal with what he felt was a huge crisis.

He had high hopes for the two pastors. He had envisioned one of them taking his place at the church.

But this wasn't the first time he witnessed church leaders fall.

One of his best friends from seminary who was serving in campus ministry became addicted to porn and was eventually jailed for touching a minor.

A 2005-2006 survey among evangelical pastors revealed that 37 percent admitted to sexual impropriety in ministry, Hamilton cited.

Even more distressing, however, is a statistic he heard from his professor during his senior year in seminary. The professor shared that in the last 50 years in The United Methodist Church, of the 40 pastors who began serving churches of 1,000 or more attendees before the age of 35, 39 of them burned out, experienced a moral failure or left ministry. One of them was still serving in ministry at the time but was arrested six months later when he was linked as the lead suspect in strangling his wife. He was also having an affair with his psychiatrist.

"A week doesn't go by when a leader experiences moral failure," stated Hamilton, who is more cautious about giving hugs and holding hands during prayer. "This is a real serious issue and none of us are immune."

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IT IS THE BLOOD THAT SAVES

WORDS OF DIVINE COMFORT

by Octavius Winslow, 1872

"And He said unto them, This is My blood of the new testament, shed for many."--Mark 14:24

Never did those lips, upon which grace shed its divinest, sweetest fragrance, utter words so precious as these. The language is figurative, but the truth is literal. "This is My blood," or, this cup is the 'emblem' of "My blood of the new testament," the new covenant, "shed for many," for the sins of beings whom no man can number. We are thus brought into contact with the most essential and vital doctrine of the Bible, the great Atonement of the Son of God. Beloved, the blood of Jesus is very precious to a poor, guilt-burdened sinner. It is the blood that saves him. There is everything you need in the blood of Jesus, forgiveness for every guilt-burdened, healing for every sin-wounded conscience.

The blood of Jesus speaks peace, the blood brings us into the holiest, and places us in the very presence of the Father. It is the blood that keeps the heart pure, and supplies it with the most powerful motive to holiness. It is the blood that sustains the soul in death, and after death places it before the throne in robes washed white, with the "new song" breathing from its joyous lips. My soul, consider the blood of Jesus in two or three essential points of light.

It is the blood of the Incarnate God. Herein lies its intrinsic worth, its essential efficacy. The Deity of the Savior gave it all its merit to atone, and all its virtue to cleanse. We marvel not that the apostle should denominate it, "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish." It is the most precious thing in the universe--it is the precious blood of Him whose person is precious to those who believe. Is it, my soul, precious to you?

And, then, remember that faith alone is necessary to make its saving virtue ours. Believe only, and all the sovereign efficacy of Christ's blood is ours. This "precious blood" and "precious faith" constitute the two most precious things in the universe.

Look at it, also, as applied blood. We know that the blood of the paschal lamb would have availed nothing to the Israelites when the angel of death swept through the land to slay the first-born of the Egyptian, had it not been really and visibly sprinkled upon their dwellings. It was the appliedblood that saved them. So must it be with the blood of Jesus, our Passover slain for us. If we want to be placed in a state of non-condemnation, if we desire to be quite sure that we are safe from eternal death, the blood of Jesus must be applied to the conscience. Rest not short of this, my soul! Clearly this is the mind of the Spirit in those remarkable words of the apostle, "You are cometo the blood of sprinkling." There is a present coming to the blood of Jesus, and this gives us a present salvation.

It is the blood of Jesus that sanctifies. It sets us apart as a holy people for God, it cleanses the heart from vain thoughts, worldly imaginations, and impure desires--from the taint and defilement of indwelling sin. Rest not short, then, of the applied blood of Jesus. This will remove all your doubts, quell all your fears, and bring you into perfect peace. The Holy Spirit is prepared to take of the blood of the covenant, and sprinkle it upon your heart, and then all will be peace.

The blood will give you great power in prayer. Coming to God with this plea, you may open all your heart to Him, confess every sin, disclose every sorrow, make known every need, and reveal, as in the light of the noontide sun, every secret cloistered there.

In a word, it is the blood of Jesus that SAVES, saves us from a present condemnation, and saves us to a future and eternal salvation. There is no salvation elsewhere. Here is pardon for the vilest sinner, for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Yes, dear Lord! it is Your blood, Your own blood, possessing all the dignity and virtue of Your Godhead, and this will be my song and my joy through eternity, "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins IN HIS OWN BLOOD, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father--to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen."

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Beck's marriage of politics and religion raising questions

EXCERPT


"Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" said Tom Tradup, vice president for news and talk at Salem Radio Network,which serves more than 2,000 stations, most of them Christian. "How much of this is turning to God? How much is religious revival and how much is a snake oil medicine show?"


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