Angelic Obedience part II

When the way to the tree of life was to be closed against fallen man, cherubim were set to guard the entrance, and with their flaming sword rendered it unapproachable: when that way was again to be thrown open, and the twelve manner of fruits yielded in their season, and the leaves to be applied for the healing of the nations, twelve angels are represented as standing at the gates that are never to be shut, day or night, not armed to bar the passage, but as guards of honor welcoming the happy comers to that scene of everlasting felicity.  The variety of commissions which we know the angels to have executed among men, sufficiently attest their prompt obedience to every command of their glorious King, whom to serve is their privilege and joy: for "he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven." Dan.4:35. "Thinkest thou," said our Lord to the disciple who smote the high priest's servant, "thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than ten legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Matt. 26:53, 54.

We now proceed to review the instances of angelic interference and as the work of vengeance is in no way consonant to the character of a holy angel, except when executed in loyal obedience to the command of his righteous King, who will punish evil-doers, we may class under the present head all the destructive operations of the heavenly host. 

The Lord needs no help of men or of angels; yet the armies of heaven stand around, eager to be employed against the enemies of his name and of his people.  To render a recompense to those who afflict Christ in his members, is indeed a part of angelic office, as David shows; when speaking of those who sought to destroy his soul, he says, "Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the angels of the Lord chase them. Let their way be dark and slippery, and let the angel of the Lord persecute them." Psalm xxxv. 5, 6.  In virtue of this office, they will fulfill their terrible commission in the last days of the present dispensation. "The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Matt. 13: 42. 

They will come fully prepared for the terrible work of that great day: "It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thess. 1: 6, 7, 8.

He "who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire," (Psalm 104: 4,) has pre-ordained them to act a most conspicuous part in the transactions of the last days, we must turn to the book of Revelation, where a scene of awful magnificence is opened to us, in language of unparalleled grandeur.

Angelic Obedience

"See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book." Rev.22: 9

There is not, in the whole Bible, an instance where an angel appears to act independently of the divine command. Perfect submission is the unvaried character of the heavenly host. Our Lord expresses this, in the prayer that he has taught us to use: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." When John would have worshiped the angel who showed him the wonderful things that he has recorded for us, he was prohibited in these words: "See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book." Rev.22: 9.

We cannot doubt that the Holy Spirit has so framed the word of truth as to be a perpetual antidote to every form of error that should creep into the world : and the "worshiping of angels," which constitutes a prominent mark of the Roman apostasy, is provided against by continually setting forth their entire dependence and subordination. They never appear but as messengers:

"God sent an angel into Jerusalem to destroy it." 1 Chron. 21:15. 

"My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." Dan. 4:22. 

"The man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation." Dan. 9:21.

  "At the beginning of thy supplication the commandment came forth, and I am come." (v. 23.) 

"And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth." Luke 1:26.

  "Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews," Acts 12:11:

And in the last instance that is recorded by inspiration of an angelic mission, we read, "I Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the Church." Rev. 22:16. However willingly performed to men, it is still a service appointed of God, and by him especially directed; they are "ministering spirits," sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation," Heb. 1:14 ; and it is on this principle of holy obedience that we find them zealously executing God's righteous displeasure against the rebellious.

The Holy Spirit of Jesus part III

Our Lord was born of the Holy Spirit. The announcement by the angel to Mary, connects the Divine Spirit directly with the conception and incarnation of Christ. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Luke 1:35.

The human mind cannot fathom this mystery —a holy Christ conceived and born of one who was herself the daughter of a sinful race. We cannot believe in the immaculate Mary, but we can believe in the immaculate Son of God, born of her without sin.

The very fact that she was an imperfect and sinful woman adds to the glory of this mystery and makes it the more perfect type of the experience through which we also come into fellowship with our living Head. For just as Jesus was born of the Spirit, so we, the disciples of Jesus, must also be born of the Holy Ghost; for "except a man be born from above he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

The mystery of the incarnation is repeated every time a soul is created anew in Christ Jesus. Into the unholy being of a child of Adam a seed of incorruptible and eternal life is implanted by the Divine Spirit, and that seed is in itself through the life of God, holy and incorruptible. Just as you may see in the sweet springtime the little white, spotless shoot, coming from the dark soil and out of the heap of manure, unstained by all its gross surroundings, so out of our lost humanity the Holy Spirit causes to spring forth the life of the newborn soul; and while the subject of that marvelous experience may seem an imperfect being, still he has that within him, of which the apostle has said, '' His seed remaineth in him, and cannot sin; because it is born of God." He can sin, but that holy nature implanted in him cannot, it is like its Author, holy too.

"And so He that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Like Him we areborn of the Holy Ghost and become the sons of God, not by adoption, but by the Divine regeneration.

Spiritual Growth and Reward

"For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."  2 Peter 1:11

No struggle will be regarded as too severe, no self-denial will be regretted, no toilsome patient victory will be remembered as too trying, but these very things will constitute the exquisite joy and recompense of our eternal home-coming. "For so," he says, "an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." How it lights up this whole passage with a wondrous glory to remember that the Greek word used here to describe our entrance into the kingdom is the very same Greek word used with respect to the "adding " to our faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, godliness, and all the train of heavenly graces. It is not that an abundant entrance merely shall be ministered unto us, but the idea is that a whole chorus of heavenly voices and harmonies will sing us home, and that we shall enter like warriors returning in triumphal procession from a hard-won and glorious victory. It is not merely that a chorus will meet us, but it is the very same chair that we ourselves gathered around us in our earthly conflict. The graces, the virtues, the victories, the triumphs of patience and love that we won and perhaps had quite forgotten will all be waiting yonder like troops of angels, and all shall gather round us and fit into the chorus of joy that shall celebrate our home-coming.

Growth, Grace and Provisions part II

"According as His divine power hath given unto as all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to His glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises." 2 Peter: 1-3

This is the conception of Christian life given in the first chapter of the gospel of John, in that wonderful little expression "grace for grace." That is to say, every grace that we need to exercise already exists in Christ, and may be transferred into our life from Him, as we "receive of His fullness, even grace for grace." On the mount, Moses was called to see and study a model of the Tabernacle. A few weeks later the same Tabernacle might be seen going up piecemeal in the valley below, and, when completed, was an exact replica of the shown to Moses in the mount; for God's explicit command was, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern which was shewed thee in the mount." Corresponding to this is the tabernacle which God is building in each of our lives. It is just as heavenly a structure as the other and far more important, and is meant to be, as it is, the dwelling-place of God. 

It, too, has its model in the mount, and we may see, by the eye of faith, the model of our life, the pattern, the plan of all the graces which we exemplify and the life which is to be built up, worked out, and established. All the materials for our spiritual building are there now, already provided, and the whole design fully wrought out in the purpose of God and the provisions of His grace. But we have to take these resources and materials moment by moment, step by step, and transfer them into our lives. We have not to make the graces ourselves, but take them, wear them, live them, and exhibit them. '' Of His fullness we receive grace for grace," His graces for our graces, His love for our love, His trust for our trust, His power for our strength.

According to our Faith

"According To Thy Faith be it unto thee" was Christ's great law of healing and blessing in His earthly ministry. This was what He meant when He said '' with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." All these mighty measures that we have been' holding up are limited by the measures that we bring. God deals out His heavenly treasures to us in these glorious vessels, but each of us must bring our drinking cup and according to its measure we shall be filled. But even the measure of our faith may be a divine one. 

Thank God, the little cup has become enlarged through the grace of Jesus, until from its bottom there flows a pipe into the great ocean, and if that connection is kept open we shall find that our cup is as large as the ocean and never can be drained to the bottom. For He has said to us "Have the faith of God," and surely this is an illimitable measure.

Christ Himself

"According to Christ Jesus..." Romans 15

We read in Romans 15 "According to Christ Jesus." This is the highest of all standards, higher even than His resurrection, ascension and glory. As He is, so shall we be when He appears, but " As He is so are we," even here. "Ye are not of the world even as I am not of the world." "Love one another as I have loved you;" "As I live by the Father so he that eateth me even he shall live by me." "As Thou hast sent me into the world even so send I them into the world." "When He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Such are some of the touches of heavenly light which reveal our identity with Jesus and unfold the mystery of His life in us. Not only is He our example, but He is our life. Miniatures of Christ, God expects us to be, receiving and reflecting Him in all His fullness, our life His life, our love His love, His riches ours. We represent Him, we dwell among men' not as citizens of earth, but dead to our old citizenship and walking like Him as if we had been sent specially from heaven on a mission from another world.

Beloved, is Christ our Pattern, our Type, our living Head, our Divine Standard and Measure? Are we determined to have nothing less and to be nothing less than even as He? Shall we cease to copy men, and follow only Him?

And even though we often are conscious of our imperfect resemblance to the Great Original, are we still holding our standard as high as Christ? 

The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ

"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward that believe, According To the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." Ephesians 1:18-23

The resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ have become for us the pledge and pattern of all our faith and hope can claim. The power that God has wrought in Christ in raising Him from the dead and setting Him upon His own right hand is the very same power which we may expect Him to exercise to us-ward who believe. "The riches of the glory of this inheritance in the saints" is the standard of what we may share in our spiritual experience now. God has performed for us the most stupendous miracle of grace and power, and nothing can ever be too hard or too high for us to expect from "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

The picture is a very definite as well as a very glorious one. Step by step we can ascend its transcendent and celestial heights with our ascending Lord, as we see Him rise, first above the mighty power of earth, and then above and far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but in that which is to come, until all things are beneath His feet. And then as we gaze upon His lofty preeminence we are permitted to sit down by His side and claim all the fullness of His glory as our own. For all HIS ascension power and majesty are, not for His own personal exaltation, but that He might become the Head over all things for His body the church, and He takes His high preeminence as our Representative and recognizes us as already seated with Him in the heavenly place. His resurrection, therefore, involves ours, His triumphs ours, His ascension ours, His rights are shared with us.

God's measureless measures part IV

"We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise." 2 Corinthians 10:12

III.—THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE.

"In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence." Peter has used a parallel expression. "according to His abundant mercy He hath begotten us again unto a lively hope." This is God's standard and measure of salvation. He works and saves according to the riches of His grace. 

IV.—THE RICHES OF HIS GLORY.

Can we form any conception of the riches of His glory? Moses asked to see that glory but was told it was too bright for human gaze, and only in the distance and from behind could he dare to look upon it. A little glimpse of it the disciples beheld on the Mount of Transfiguration, but they were afraid of its brightness and their eyes were overcome with slumber under its spell. '' The heavens declare His glory, and the firmament showeth His handiwork," and some conception of the riches of His power and majesty may be gathered from these glorious constellations.  It is according to the riches of His glory that He is working out the new creation in our hearts and preparing the more glorious temple of the soul for His own eternal abode. It is according to the riches of His glory that He is willing to strengthen the heart for all patience and long-suffering. And it is according to the riches of His glory that He is able and ready to supply all our need. There is nothing too hard for such a God, too rich and glorious for His wisdom, grace and love. He looks at the littleness of our faith and cries, "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not neither is weary. There is no searching of His understanding. "He giveth power to the faint and to them that have no might he increaseth strength."

God's measureless measures part III

"We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise." 2 Corinthians 10:12

II.—HIS WORD.

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord!" is the sublime response of Mary to the angel's astonishing message, "be it unto me according to Thy Word." Never was faith put to a harder test. Never was woman asked to stand in so delicate a place of peril and possibility, of humbling shame and glorious everlasting honor. Realizing, perhaps, with every instinct of her maiden heart all that this might cost her, she meekly, unhesitatingly, without one question, one faltering breath, accepted the stupendous promise and responsibility and rose to meet the divine measure, "according to Thy word," and like an echo came back the heavenly benediction, '' Blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things that were told her from the Lord."

Beloved, are you living up to this great measure? Is faith resting and claiming, not according to signs and feelings, but according to His word? Is obedience walking, not according to the course of this world, or the moods of our capricious hearts, or the standards of men, or the example of others, or the traditions even of the church, but according- to His word? Are we Bible Christians and determined to believe and obey every word within these inspired and heavenly pages? Then we shall be found in '' the way everlasting," for "the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever," and "he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 

God's measureless measures

"We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise." 2 Corin. 10:12

There are two sorts of human measures; the one is when we are "measuring ourselves by ourselves;" the other, when we are "comparing ourselves among ourselves ;" that is, measuring by others. Both are equally "unwise," for both come equally short of the divine rule. Many persons are always trying to measure up to their ideal and their aspirations and to the out-reaching of their poor souls, and the lofty ideals of humanity, as they are pleased to call them. They will tell us that they have lived up to their light and to their conscience and are satisfied with their opinions and content with their lives, and that it is nobody's business but their own. They are measuring themselves by themselves. Some who have come upon a higher plane are measuring themselves by a past experience, by some memory of blessing, some lofty mount to which they have risen in the distant past, and this, to them, is the type and ideal of all their life. And so, we find thousands trying to hold on to their experience or to get it back again, instead of remembering that God is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think."

Others again are ever comparing themselves with others, congratulating themselves that they are as good as some of their standard, or aiming to resemble some human ideal. The result of this is to be seen in the human traditions and the stereotyped patterns of Christian living, according to which so many are molding their dwarfed and wretched lives. All this is but human measuring ; all this is most unwise. From all this Paul turned to reach up to God's measure, and, "forgetting the things that were behind he pressed forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," striving that he might "apprehend that for which he was apprehended of Christ Jesus." It is a great thing to have a worthy ideal or pattern. It is better to aim high and miss it than it is to aim low and reach it. 

From Strength to Strength

"From strength to strength." Psalm 84:7

Man is naturally the weakest creature in the universe. He comes into life with the wail of a helpless infant, weaker than the tiger's cub or the birdling in its nest. But his physical frailty is but a figure of his spiritual helplessness. "When we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly." But the grace of God in the conversion of the soul brings its first spiritual strength, enabling it to choose and trust the Lord, to turn from sin and walk in holy obedience. Then it sings the new song, '' O Lord, I will praise thee; though thou wast angry with me thine anger is turned away and thou comfortest me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and be not afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation."

Grace Abounding part V

"Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Rom. v : 20.

God's great ultimate purpose for His redeemed people is the key to all the ''exceeding great and precious promises.'' This, and this alone, explains the strong language in which He speaks to us of the provisions of His grace for our needs. These promises are out of all proportion to our importance or worth, and it is not strange that naturally we should hesitate to accept such boundless and stupendous assurances of love and care, and that our faith should be as narrow and paltry as it often is. It is not strange that the beggar child should be content with rags and crumbs, and almost think it is mocked when you talk to it about palaces and offer it the costly robes and the princely treasures of royalty. The truth is, we are the children naturally of low and shameful birth and spiritual destitution, but we have been adopted into a higher rank, nay, we have been born into a heavenly life and a divine sonship, and we are destined, as the very children of God, to share the exceeding riches of His glory through all the ages to come; and, therefore, 'we are recognized by Him now and treated in the manner befitting our future glory. We are like the children of wealthy parents who are at school in a foreign land, not having yet come into their inheritance, but being supplied by their father, even in their minority, with boundless wealth for every need. And so, although we have not entered upon our eternal inheritance, yet God has given us a check book on the bank of heaven, and on the back of every check He has Himself endorsed the vast and illimitable guarantee, "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Jesus Christ."

Grace Abounding part III

"Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Rom. 5: 20.

This text is illustrated in the sanctification of believers and especially in their sanctification from qualities and tendencies most unholy and contrary to their new and sanctified lives. Still it is literally true in the deeper life of the soul that ''where sin abounded grace much more abounds." It is not that God will make the good better, but that He will make the bad good, and the utterly and hopelessly bad divinely pure and holy. Sanctification is not the refining and elevating of the naturally pure, but the transforming of darkness into light, a selfish soul into aliving sacrifice of love, and a heart all steeped in corruption into the glorious counterpart of Christ's own holiness. In the work of grace God takes peculiar delight in contradicting natural probabilities and tendencies. He took a shrinking Jeremiah to be a bold and courageous reprover of Israel's prophets, priests and kings. He took a cowardly Peter to be the courageous and defiant apostle of Pentecost. He took a Son of Thunder to be the gentle, loving disciple of love. He took a raging persecutor to be the long-suffering apostle who could say, '' I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." He can make the weakest things in you the strongest, the worst things in you the occasions for the grace which will magnify in you the best and divinest qualities of the Christian life.

Grace Abounding part II

"Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." Rom. 5:20.

God seems to love to take the worst materials for His greatest triumphs. He chose a Jacob and a David in the Old Testament, both weak and wicked men in many a terrible sense and measure, to become the respective heads of the patriarchal and the kingly periods. He saved a Manasseh after half a century of bloody crimes. He took a Rahab from the slums of Jericho, to be a mother in the line of the Messiah's ancestry. And when He would choose His most illustrious apostle to preach the glorious work of the gospel among the infamous Gentile races, He took "the chief of sinners." There is no doubt that Paul's calm estimate of his own wickedness, given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was not exaggerated. Moral though he was, yet even his own testimony leaves sufficient evidence of the atrocity of his religious crimes. Not satisfied with insulting the name of Jesus and agreeing with the murderers of Stephen His faithful martyr, he devoted himself to exterminating the followers of Christ; and with a fiendish excess of cruelty he feared not to destroy their souls as well as their bodies by committing the most fearful crimes and compelling them to blaspheme the Name of Him on whom they believed. He must have known full well the awfulness of the crimes he required of them, and that although they might even be mistaken in their faith, yet to sin against their conscience by profaning the name of Christ was, to them, the height of impiety, and on his part the very extreme of refined and Satanic cruelty.

And yet he, "the chief of sinners," tells us that he obtained mercy for this very purpose, that he might become the pattern of the principle on which God was to act in the economy of grace, namely, to "show forth all long-suffering unto them that should hereafter believe on the name of Jesus Christ to life everlasting." And this does not merely mean that God will save the most guilty, but that He will take peculiar pleasure in making more of their redeemed lives just because of their former wickedness. And so Paul can say "the grace of God was exceeding abundant towards me, with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." "Where sin abounded grace did much more abound," not only in forgiving the sin but in making the sinner a vessel of the riches of divine grace and love, and an instrument in the hands of God for greater usefulness than ever was permitted perhaps to a mortal.

More than Conquerors part X

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Rom. 8:37

Do you know, beloved, that Christ's greatest victories were alone with God and the devil? No human eye saw that victory in the wilderness, but God saw it and was glorified. Shall we stand for Him, and so stand that He can count us, as He did His ancient prophet, His very towers and fortresses behind which He can entrench Himself and His cause, and say to us, "I have made thee this day a defended city and an iron pillar and brazen walls against the whole land. They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee. I have made thy face strong against their faces and thy forehead against their foreheads. As an adamant, harder than flint have I made thy forehead; fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellious house." 

God wants men and women today, on whom He can depend, to stand as bulwarks and battlements against the shocks of hell's artillery. Men and women of whom he can say, "upon this rock have I built my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Shall we, beloved, be not only conquerors, but trusted soldiers whom God can use as His battle-axes and His weapons of war, as His mighty iron-clads, to carry the battle to the very ships of the enemy, not fearing their hardest blows, and hurling against them the thunder-bolts of His victorious power!

More than Conquerors part VII

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."—Rom.8:37.

God takes special delight in making a blessing to us which has been recovered from Satan's power. The two mightiest strongholds of ancient Canaan were Hebron and Zion. The former was the seat of the Anakim, the giant chieftains of Canaan; but the brave, heroic Caleb dared to challenge them in their lair, and in the strength of God was "more than conqueror" over their terrific strength, and won the heights of Hebron as his special inheritance. But not only did he receive the dear old city of Abraham as his portion and spoil, but God took peculiar delight in subsequently blessing and honoring this very place, it would seem, just because it had been snatched from the very jaws of the enemy; for Hebron was the chosen seat where David's throne was subsequently established, and where God began the kingdom of Israel which He Himself is yet to rule in the coming age of Israel's restoration.

Still more defiant was the strength of the citadel of Zion. It was the last stronghold that the Canaanites relinquished. All through the days of Joshua and his successors they succeeded in holding it; all through the centuries of the Judges, all through the days of Saul, all through the early days of even David's kingdom. The fortress was impregnable so that the haughty Canaanites told their enemies in scorn that they would only deign to garrison it with the blind and the lame and they challenged them to capture it from its feeble and crippled defenders. But David met the challenge and Joab executed it by a glorious assault and took by storm the heights of Zion from the last chieftains of Canaan. Then it was that Israel found its true metropolis and the rescued stronghold was set apart by God Himself to be the very seat of the sacred kingdom and the monument of the glorious victory which had been achieved. There it was that David reigned; there it was that Solomon in all his glory swayed his glorious sceptre; there it was that the temple rose from the adjoining heights of Moriah full in view of Zion; there it is that Jesus is coming soon to reign once more. Oh, how rich and glorious the recompense of a single victory! How different the world's history if the old Canaanites had still been permitted to hold the heights of Jebus!

More than Conquerors part VI

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."—Rom. 8:37.

To be "more than conqueror" is not only to have the victory, but the spoils of victory. When Jehoshaphat's army won their great deliverance from the hordes of Moab and Amnion, it took them three days to gather all the spoils of their enemies' camps. When David captured the camp of Ziklag's destroyers he won so vast a booty that he was able to send rich presents over all Israel among his brethren. When the lepers found their way to the deserted camp of the Syrians, they found such abundance that in a single hour the famine of Samaria was destroyed. And so our spiritual conflicts and conquests have their rich reward in the treasures recovered from the hands of the enemy. 

How many things there are which Satan possesses which we might and should enjoy! Oh, the rich delight which fills the heart when we expel the giants of ill-temper, irritation, haste, hatred, malice and envy who long have ravaged and preyed upon all the sweetness of our life. What a luxuriant land we now enter into, when we overcome these foes, and how delightfully the spoils of peace and love and sweetness and heavenly joy are enriching us in the very things where once they reigned! How rich the spoils recovered from the cruel adversary when through the name of Jesus he is driven from our body, and the suffering frame which had groaned and trembled under his oppression springs into health and freedom and yields all the fullness of its strength to the service of God and the joy of a victorious life.

More than Conquerors part IV

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."—Rom.8:37.

Satan's most audacious attempt was the crucifixion of our Lord, and all hell, no doubt, held high jubilee on that dark afternoon when Jesus sank to death ; but lo! the cross has become the weapon by which Satan's head is already bruised and his kingdom is yet to be exterminated. So God makes him forge the weapons of his own destruction, and hurl the thunderbolts that fall back upon his own head. So may we ever thus turn his fiercest assaults to our advantage, and to the glory of our King.

The best thing trials do for us often is the discipline they bring us in our spiritual life. In this way, and in this alone, do we learn to exercise victorious faith and endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. The two things that the Christian needs most are the power to believe and the power to suffer, and these the enemy often comes to teach us. Not until we are ready to sink beneath the pressure do we often learn the secret of triumph. 

More than Conquerors part II

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."—Rom.8:37.

It is to have such a victory as brings actual benefit out of the battle and makes it tributary to our own and our Master's cause. It is possible in a certain sense to take our enemies prisoners and make them fight in our ranks, or at least do the menial work of our camp. It is possible to get such good out of Satan's assaults that he shall actually become our ally without intending it and shall find with eternal chagrin that he has been doing us real service. Doubtless he thought, when he stirred up Pharaoh to murder the little children of the Hebrews, that he was exterminating a race of which he was afraid. 

But that very act of his brought Moses into Pharaoh's house and raised up a deliverer for Israel and the destroyer of Pharaoh. Surely that was being "more than conqueror!" The devil was not only beaten but made to work in the Lord's chain-gang as a galley slave. Again, he over matched himself when he instigated Haman to build his lofty gallows and send forth the decree for Israel's extermination, for he had the misery of seeing Haman hang on those gallows and Israel delivered. So again, no doubt, he put the Hebrew children into the furnace and Daniel into the den of lions hoping to destroy the last remnant of godliness on the earth, but lo! these heroes were "more than conquerors." Not only did they escape their destroyer, but their deliverance led to the proclamation of Nebuchadnezzar, magnifying the truth of God through the entire Babylonian empire, and to the similar confession of Darius, recognizing God throughout all the confines of the still greater Persian empire. Surely Satan was more than beaten that time!