Greetings from True Hope!
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Greetings!
Awake! Arise! Sound the Alarm!
This election has not marked the "end of America as we have known it" - - it affirms that our nation is already far down the path of judgment and chastisement from God ... and get ready, more is coming!
In discussing the election with a close colleague, he mentioned that "multitudes of people were praying for this election and still Obama won, and what the heck happened?"
Well, the problem is that multitudes of people were praying for the election!
God never told His people to pray for an election! God tells His people to pray for our leaders . . .
- That "... supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." 1 Timothy 2:1-2
But far more than that, if God's people want their land (nation) to be healed, then God's people must pray and do this ...
- "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
In the spring of 2008 God began sending out a specific word through His prophets to the Body of Christ that HIS people must repent and usher in a revival of righteousness! But as of yet this has not happened, it has not really even begun to happen!
Instead of returning to righteousness, the vast majority of the church community is - -
- Compromising with the enemy rather than exposing him!
- Condoning sin in their leaders because of the sin in their own lives!
- Seeking acceptance by the world rather than being willing to suffer persecution and even the loss of all things!
- Desiring earthly goods and worldly comforts rather than to "take up his cross daily and follow Christ"!
- Do I even need to go into the statistics of adultery, divorce, abortion, pornography and substance abuses by God's own people - even by those in leadership?
Is it really any wonder that God answered NO to those prayers for Obama to lose the election?
IF Obama - and the progressive liberals - had lost the election, God's people would have taken this to mean that all is well again and they would have not seen any reason to change their wicked ways!
For the majority of God's people, easy times do not produce repentance - - it always takes PRESSURE! And God's people are about to be under pressure to accept sin and compromise with satanic influence as never before in this nation!
It has not even been 72 hours since the election and CONSERVATIVES are already deciding to embrace abortion, homosexuality and all manner of sin in order to gain the popularity of the population! Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner has already declared that there will be no more efforts to overturn Obama-care!
Yes, God gave His people 4 years already to repent and revive righteousness in this land among HIS OWN PEOPLE and they have not done so! Get ready beloved - - now the Body of Christ is going to go through a furnace of affliction that will do two things:
- Remove the dross from the Body of Christ collectively
- Remove the dross from the lives of the saints personally!
The outcome? Well, it won't be pleasant but in the end, Christ will have a GLORIOUS CHURCH for which He is coming to collect!
- That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 1 Peter 1:7
- That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:26-27
MANY BLESSINGS!
Dr. Timothy
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From Dr. Timothy D.TH
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Part 23
Steps of Grace Growth
GRACE IS SUCH A MAGNIFICENT WORD, FROM SUCH A MAGNIFICENT GOD, WHO DOES SUCH A MAGNIFICENT WORK THROUGH SUCH A MAGNIFICENT MEANS TO CHANGE OUR LIVES IN SUCH MAGNIFICENT WAYS!
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
In the last issue we established that God commands us to grow in grace and that an important key to being conformed to the image of Christ is that we do, indeed, GROW IN GRACE!
And this is shown in these two illustrations - -
- This first illustration showing the fullness and balance of Grace that was (and is) in Christ as a man ...
- This second illustration showing us the need for us to grow in grace IF we are to in fact become like Christ in our own lives ...
The question is: HOW DO WE GROW IN GRACE?
The answer is, as in all things spiritual, that we cooperate with the Holy Spirit's work within us and allow Him - don't quench and don't grieve - allow Him to accomplish God's will in us!
And we know by God's Word that God's Will is that we do, in fact, GROW IN GRACE!
There are a couple of key ways in which the Holy Spirit leads us to grow in grace . . .
First is by His divine inner working that we cannot necessarily see or feel, but by cooperating with other members in the Body of Christ, those other grace factors become more prevalent within us.
Second, if you are ready for this, is by conflict! Conflict with other members of the Body of Christ! Now I know that sounds strange, but actually, many times, conflicts arise between us and those whose grace factors are at the opposite end of the spectrum than ours are!
The "servers" are at odds with the teachers - - recall the conflict that arose within Martha as Mary sat at the feet of Jesus as Martha prepared the meal!
The "mercy" is at odds with the "prophetic" graces - - mercy is often seen by the "prophetic" as being tolerant of sin while the "mercy" often sees the "prophetic" as being uncaring and harsh, even hurtful to those who are hurting!
Now, if you are not aware of the different graces at work in the Body of Christ, you will just continue to be in conflict with those who are graced different than yourself and you won't learn!
However! If you are aware of what is taking place, you will quickly recognize that the things that cause you to feel conflict are the very things that you are lacking!
Again: The "prophetic" DOES lack compassion for the hurting and the "mercy" DOES lack the provocation to confront the sin that causes the hurt in people! While the "prophetic" is in place to point out sin - he/she also needs to empathize with the hurt that the sin caused!
- Jesus recognized the agony of the woman caught in adultery and so He did not need to address her sinfulness in a harsh manner but rather in a compassionate manner telling her if she wanted to be free from the hurt of this sin, than she must go and sin no more!
So again I point out that we must cooperate with the Holy Spirit's working in us to grow us in grace!
When conflicts arise between HOW another saint does something or WHAT his/her priorities are - - look for the different grace factors at play and realize that as long as you feel conflict with that point of view, there is quite likely an imbalance of graces in your life that the Holy Spirit is addressing and trying to grow into you!
Now a word of caution: Sin is sin is sin! Discernment is needed to recognize if a person you may be in conflict with is in fact sinning or is it a difference of graces?
Again, let's look at Martha - she was actually being spiritual by preparing the meal while Mary was learning, also being spiritual.
Now if Martha, refused to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn, that is a different problem entirely. But it seems that she was also hearing what Jesus was teaching and her issue seemed to be that Mary could listen while cooking dinner!
Or, if Mary refused to ever help Martha with the home's needs and was slothful, then there is a problem! If Mary was using "teaching" as an excuse to avoid her duties, that is not being spiritual but carnal and that is sinful! But again, that was not the case with Mary, but at that particular time, "teaching" was the greater need in her perspective, so again, she was being spiritual.
We also grow by interaction - that is, how we minister in cooperation with one another.
For instance, an injured person may be ministered to by each grace factor simultaneously with the "prophetic" looking for a possibility of sin being the cause of the injury while the "teacher" discusses how to avoid the injury and yet he "mercy" focuses on how to make the person feel better and the "server" offers to take care of the person's errands and chores.
In this situation, each one can learn from the other by their interaction in the situation.
Of course, says the teaching grace in me, you really should take time to learn the characteristics - both spiritual and carnal - of each of the grace factors so you can more readily recognize and learn each one - - and grow thereby as well!
Many blessings!
Dr. Timothy
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"Now brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death." Mark 13:12
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Obamacare and The Mark of The Beast?
FROM: Prophezine
Recently I was sent the following from a reader.
MARK OF THE BEAST IS COMING SOON !-WIFE STANDS UP FOR JESUS AND AGINST THE RFID IMPLANT AT HOSPITAL--GOD BLESS HER FOR HER STRENGTH OF CONVICTION
Today my wife went to the Doctors office for some check-ups and she was getting tired of being asked for her ID and insurance card as this was the third time in a month. They already have her name on file and the receptionist is familiar with her so she was a bit irate of this constant asking of her ID and she let it be known that she is getting tired of this police state of having to know who you are, and run your information again and again through the system.
The head receptionist leaned over and tapped the camera and said "pretty soon you're not going to have to worry about those cards because you're going to have and RFID implant chip" and she was serious NOT JOKING!
My wife said "BS not this girl not ever, no way no how not happening."
Then the receptionist said "WELL YOU MAY NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE IN YOUR BODY" and my wife said " well I know BETTER than to take INOCULATIONS OR FLU SHOTS ETC" but she still didn't seem convinced so my wife said " Your probably right Obama care will see to it that the majority gets chipped, but I'm here to tell you if it ever gets to that point and I am deathly ill with any kind of disease or any illness I won't seek treatment if it requires a chip , I will go and die in the wilderness like an animal"
So my wife then asked her "what would you do if YOU have to take a RFID chip?" and she wouldn't answer her. So my wife asked again "I am serious what will be your response if you are forced to take one of those chips"?
The lady then did the "lips are seal gesture" and followed with saying " I have already said too much" and my wife said "yes you being in the public sector like this need to watch what you say to people" and she said "yes being in this office and also that I'm MILITARY I really need to watch what I say".
My wife then said "military or not they won't tell me what to do ever, because there is only ONE person in this world that I will EVER BOW to and that is JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF AND NO OTHER MAN OR BEING"
My wife then said " I will die on my feet fighting this BS then begging for my life on my knees" and they all then shut up.......But some of the girls in the office that worked in the office were concerned and said that this is all getting very scary. My wife then said it is BIBLICAL what is happening and people who don't understand it need to read the Bible because it is all in there.
My wife got so upset she almost walked out of the office, but she had to remain there to proceed with her test results.
This morning we were watching the video that was on your site Steve with Paul Begley about the implementation of the RFID and the School in Texas, and then this happened... To us it was AFFIRMATION from God that it is all getting very close as obvious as it is... This all happened in Colorado Springs. But we all know that Colorado Springs is home of the Military Industrial Complex. This is nothing new to both her and myself but to hear this from the doctor's office was VERY TROUBLING....
http://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=33&d=163
Is it true? Will everyone have to receive a biochip to be part of Obamacare? I have not been able to pin down the exact verbiage, but I found the following that seems to be the documentation pointing to the biochip in the healthcare bill.
“ In the massive US HEALTHCARE BILL, which your elected representatives voted for without reading, there is a section titled: Subtitle C-11 Sec. 2521 – National Medical Device Registry which states:
“The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of postmarket safety and outcomes data on each device that—‘‘(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and ‘‘(B) is a class III device; or ‘‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable.”
The language is deliberately vague, but it provides the structure for making America the first nation in the world that would require every U.S. citizen to receive an implanted radio-frequency (RFID) microchip for the purpose of controlling medical care."
Ok, the language is vague and does allow for the possibility of chipping people.
But is it the mark of the beast?
I know that many of you are going to disagree with me, but just because someone is chipped, does not mean it is the mark of the beast.
Let's first look at what the chip is.
REST OF THE ARTICLE - - CLICK HERE
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U.N. Plotting Takeover Of Internet
FROM: WND
The United Nations is about to discuss whether it should have the power to regulate the Internet.
Next month, the 12th World Conference on International Telecommunications, or WCIT-12, will be held in Dubai. At the meeting, the 193 member countries of the U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union, or ITU, will consider renegotiating a fairly obscure treaty known as the International Telecommunication Regulations, or ITRs.
The 24-year-old agreement delineates much of the ITU’s rule-making authority over telecommunications.
The hope of several countries is that they can expand the ITU’s jurisdiction to the Internet, replacing the current governing system with one that is controlled by a U.N. bureaucracy.
The member nations will also consider an “Internet tax” designed to collect money from more affluent nations and redistribute it to poorer nations to improve their Internet infrastructure. ITRs do not currently include regulation of the Internet within their jurisdiction, since they have not been revised since the beginning of the Internet communications era.
In testimony given last May at a hearing of a U.S. House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee, Republicans and Democrats were united in their opposition to any move by Russia and China to transfer control of the Internet to the U.N.
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, said, “Nations from across the globe will meet at a United Nations forum in Dubai at the end of this year, and if we’re not vigilant, just might break the Internet by subjecting it to an international regulatory regime designed for old-fashioned telephone service.”
Walden said that as the U.S. delegation to the WCIT takes shape, he urges the Obama addministration “to continue the United States’ commitment to the Internet’s collaborative governance structure and to reject international efforts to bring the Internet under government control.”
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., the ranking member of the subcommittee, echoed Walden’s comments.
“Beyond just imposing new regulation on how Internet traffic is handled, several nations are set on asserting intergovernmental control over the Internet,” she said.
“Now, we have had some real battles here over the issue of ‘Net neutrality, and it seems to me that we are calling on the international community for hands off, international ‘Net neutrality, as it were, when it comes to the Internet.”
Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google, was even more explicit in his concerns over the power grab for a technology that has become an integral part of 35 percent of the world’s population.
“A new international battle is brewing, a battle that will determine the future of the Internet,” Cerf said. “And if all of us from Capitol Hill to corporate headquarters to Internet cafés in far-off villages don’t pay attention to what is going on, users worldwide will be at risk of losing the open and free Internet that has brought so much to so many and can bring so much more.
“As you can see,” he continued, “the decisions made this December in the ITU could potentially put regulatory handcuffs on the ‘Net with a remote U.N. agency holding the keys.”
The International Telecommunication Union, previously the International Telegraph Union, is a U.N. agency that is responsible for information and communication technologies. The ITU was first formed in 1869 and has seen its mandate increase from regulating telegraph communication to helping assign the orbits used by space satellites.
It now seeks to increase its mandate by regulating and taxing the Internet.
This new direction would have far-reaching consequences for the future of communications. Cisco estimates that by 2016, roughly 45 percent of the world’s population will be Internet users; there will be more than 18.9 billion network connections; and the average speed of mobile devices will be four times faster than today.
Robert McDowell, an FCC commissioner, was succinct in his statement of the threat facing the U.S. today.
“For many years now, scores of countries led by China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, but many, many others have pushed for – as Vladimir Putin said almost a year ago – ‘international control’ of the Internet through the ITU,” he said.
“Six months separate us from the renegotiation of the 1988 treaty that led to insulating the Internet from economic and technical regulation,” he continued. “What proponents of Internet freedom do or don’t do between now and then will determine the fate of the ‘Net and affect global economic growth as well as determine whether political liberty can proliferate.”
Russia, China, Iran and the Arab countries have been maneuvering to impose these controls, not through direct proposals but “through the backdoor,” through small expansions of intergovernmental powers.
They have offered proposals that would have the U.N. exert outright control over the Internet while maintaining that they have no wish for the ITU to exert Internet governance. They then state that any regulation of the Internet would be of the “light-touch” variety.
The Arab States have submitted a new rule that would change the definition of telecommunications to include “processing” and “computer functions.” The change would essentially give the ITU control over the Internet with a simple redefinition of terms.
In another example, China proposed the creation of a system where Internet users are registered using their IP addresses. China was joined by Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to propose to the U.N. General Assembly that it create an “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to “mandate international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyberspace.”
All of the moves are designed to reduce the unrestricted freedom and growth of the Internet. Such changes would make it easier for a totalitarian government to identify and silence political dissident.
While not officially part of the current WCIT negotiations, it provides a hint at the direction these countries would take.
All of this is being done under the cover of a very real looming crisis. Just as the world ran out of Internet Protocol Addresses in 2011, it may also be running out of phone numbers over which the ITU does have some jurisdiction.
Many of the world’s current phone numbers are used for voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, services such as Skype or Google Voice. It is the explosion of VOIP usage that has caused the shortage of telephone numbers. The WCIT-12 will attempt to resolve this issue.
If that was the only issue on the table, the conference would be a non-event, but beyond the regulation of the Internet, there are other proposals to be deliberated as well.
Currently, the Internet is regulated by a “multi-stakeholder” model where different organizations share responsibility for the Internet’s governance. These groups include the Internet Engineering Task Force (which helps coordinate the design of Internet technical standards) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Named and Numbers, which manages Internet names.
Not all of the member nations are happy with the current arrangement. Many governments have argued that the present regulatory environment unfairly serves American business and ideological interests.
Several foreign government officials are lobbying for the creation of an international universal service fund of sorts where foreign, usually state-owned, telecom companies would use international mandates to charge certain web destinations on a per-click basis to fund the build-out of broadband infrastructure across the globe.
Estimates of revenue generated from that tax are in excess of $800 billion. Google, iTunes, Facebook and Netflix are mentioned most often as prime sources of funding.
To date, all of the discussions leading up to WCIT-12 have been held largely behind closed doors. While some proposals have been leaked through a Wikileaks-style site, WCITleaks.org, most of the process is still shrouded in secrecy. Having these clandestine negotiations continue out of public view makes the final outcome difficult to determine.
Many skeptics say that a U.N. takeover of the Internet is unlikely. Even in the event that Russia, China and others are able to push through the measures they propose and put the Internet under U.N. control and tax usage on a per-click basis, nations such as the United States and its allies would pull out of the organization and develop Internet standards outside of the World Organization.
The effect of this “Balkanization” of the Internet is difficult to predict. If the worst-case scenario would happen, the Internet would be split along regulatory lines, with China, Russia and other nations following the ITR rules and the technological requirements and the rest of the world attempting to maintain the status-quo through the existing protocols.
Actually, this Balkanization has already happened to a degree. China in particular, through the deployment of its “Great Firewall of China,” has already shown that a government that has the will and the technical capacity can create a national network that is independent of the wider global ‘Net.
If WCIT-12 were to go in the direction of an empowered U.N. bureaucracy, this segregation would only be accelerated.
Anyone concerned about the future the Internet should at least be paying attention.
Find more at WND.COM
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TIME WITH TRUE HOPE TEACHERS . . .
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INCLINE YOUR EAR
By Rev. Michael Cochran
“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” ( Hebrews 4:12, NKJV)
God longs for His Word to be actively at work in our lives. The Bible is a living and powerful book. It is packed with both the truth and the power of God that are to be released into our lives – all through the power of God's Spirit. It is a seed to be planted in the heart with the potential to bear much fruit.
However, before God's Word can accomplish these results, it has to be received and it has to be obeyed.
But He answered and said, “It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' “ ( Matthew 4:4, NKJV)
The wise study and memorize God's Word so that its truth will be readily available to help throughout life. If we are wise, we will heed the Word – apply it to our lives and obey it. Proverbs 1:7 (NKJV) reads, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.” After the fear of the Lord, this is the key to skillful, successful living.
“Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, And apply your heart to my knowledge; For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you; Let them all be fixed upon your lips, So that your trust may be in the Lord; I have instructed you today, even you. Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge, That I may make you know the certainty of the words of truth, That you may answer words of truth To those who send to you?” ( Proverbs 22:17-21, NKJV)
There is a powerful message to grasp in this passage: God can be trusted. He can be trusted to reveal His truth – His wisdom – to us. God wants us to know His wisdom. He wants us to be happy, to live successfully, and to make good decisions. But we always need to remember that true, lasting happiness and success are the result of obeying God's Holy Word.
“For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” ( Romans 15:4, NKJV)
His truth – His wisdom is spelled out for us in Scripture. God has acted supernaturally throughout the process of revealing His truth; therefore, we can have complete confidence in the credibility of Scripture – every word of it. We can share God's Word with confidence because it is reliable in answering people's questions about the human soul, in solving their problems, and in leading them to eternal life. It is the standard by which every idea – every claim of wisdom – must be tested.
“The Lord God has given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak A word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear To hear as the learned. ( Isaiah 50:4, NKJV)
Godly wisdom cannot be separated from understanding. It is focused on understanding how to behave in life. One cannot be “wise” and refuse to understand how to behave as he/she lives life, nor can one understand how to behave as he/she lives life and refuse to be “wise.” To say the least, the two are inseparable companions. To pursue wisdom is to to pursue understanding of how to live, and to pursue an understanding of how to live is to pursue wisdom.
“If you need wisdom – if you want to know what God wants you to do – ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking. ( James 1:5, NLT)
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Called to be an apostle...called to be saints
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(1 Corinthians 1:1-2)
CONTINUED
However deep the mystery, however many the paradoxes involved, it is still true that men become saints not at their own whim but by sovereign calling. Has not God by such words as these taken out of our hands the ultimate choice?
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.... No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.... No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.... Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.... It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me. (John 6:63, 44, 65; 17:2; Galatians 1:15-16)
God has made us in His likeness, and one mark of that likeness is our free will. We hear God say, "Whosoever will, let him come." We know by bitter experience the woe of an unsurrendered will and the blessedness or terror which may hang upon our human choice.
But back of all this and preceding it is the sovereign right of God to call saints and determine human destinies. The master choice is His, the secondary choice is ours. Salvation is from our side a choice, from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest of the Most High God.
Our "accepting" and "willing" are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God.
God has indeed lent to every man the power to lock his heart and stalk away darkly into his self-chosen night, as He has lent to every man the ability to respond to His overtures of grace, but while the "no" choice may be ours, the "yes" choice is always God's. He is the Author of our faith as He must be its Finisher. Only by grace can we continue to believe; we can persist in willing God's will only as we are seized upon by a benign power that will overcome our natural bent to unbelief.
So keenly do we men enjoy dominion that we like to think that we hold in our own hands the power of life and death. We love to think that hell will be easier to bear from the fact of our having gone there in defiance of some power that sought to rule us. He knew this well who put into the mouth of Satan that speech of proud defiance:
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
The study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall His wrath or might
Extort from us.
While few would dare thus to voice their secret feelings, there are millions who have imbibed the notion that they hold in their hands the keys of heaven and hell.
The whole content of modern evangelistic preaching contributes to this attitude. Man is made large and God small; Christ is placed in a position to excite pity rather than respect as He stands meekly, lantern in hand, outside a vine-covered door.
How deeply do men err who conceive of God as subject to our human will or as standing respectfully to wait upon our human pleasure.
Though He in condescending love may seem to place Himself at our disposal, yet never for the least division of a moment does He abdicate His throne or void His right as Lord of man and nature. He is that Majesty on high.
To Him all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all power therein: to Him cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory." He is the Fear of Isaac and the Dread of Jacob, and before Him prophet and patriarch and saint have knelt in breathless awe and adoration.
The gradual disappearance of the idea and feeling of majesty from the Church is a sign and a portent. The revolt of the modern mind has had a heavy price, how heavy is becoming more apparent as the years go by. Our God has now become our servant to wait on our will. "The Lord is my
shepherd," we say, instead of "
The Lord is my shepherd," and the difference is as wide as the world.
We need to have restored again the lost idea of sovereignty, not as a doctrine only but as the source of a solemn religious emotion. We need to have taken from our dying hand the shadow scepter with which we fancy we rule the world. We need to feel and know that we are but dust and ashes and that God is the disposer of the destinies of men. How ashamed we Christians should be that a pagan king should teach us to fear the Majesty on high. For it was the chastened Nebuchadnezzar who said:
I...lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? (Daniel 4:34-35)
"At the same time," added the humbled king, "my reason returned unto me" (4:36). This whole passage is apt to be overlooked, occurring as it does in one of the less popular books of the Bible, but is it not of great significance that
humility and
reason returned together?
"Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase" (4:37). The king's pride was to him a kind of insanity which drove him at last into the fields to dwell with the beasts. While he saw himself large and God small he was insane; sanity returned only as he began to see God as all and himself as nothing.
Such moral madness as Nebuchadnezzar suffered is now upon the nations. Men of reputed learning have long been chanting with Swinburne, "Glory to man in the highest," and the masses have picked up the chant.
A strange amentia has resulted, marked by acute self-importance and delusions of moral grandeur. Men who refuse to worship the true God now worship themselves with tender devotion.
A return to spiritual sanity waits for repentance and true humility. God grant that we may soon know again how small and how sinful we are.
God's Pursuit of Man. A.W. Tozer
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TRUE HOPE BIBLE INSTITUTE
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FOR SUPPLIES
"The Lord upholdeth all that fall,
And raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
The eyes of all wait upon Thee;
And Thou givest them their meat in due season." Psalm 145:14-15
Psalm 104 is a Psalm of Creation, and the words, "
These all wait upon Thee," were used with reference to the animal creation. Here we have a Psalm of the Kingdom, and "
The eyes of all wait upon Thee" appears specially to point to the needs of God's saints, of all that fall and them that be bowed down. What the universe and the animal creation do unconsciously, God's people are to do intelligently and voluntarily. Man is to be the interpreter of Nature. He is to prove that there is nothing more noble or more blessed in the exercise of our free will than to use it in waiting upon God.
If an army has been sent out to march into an enemy's country, and tidings are received that it is not advancing, the question is at once asked, what may be the cause of delay. The answer will very often be: "Waiting for supplies."
All the stores of provisions or clothing or ammunition have not arrived; without these it dare not proceed. It is no otherwise in the Christian life: day by day, at every step, we need our supplies from above. And there is nothing so needful as to cultivate that spirit of dependence on God and of confidence in Him, which refuses to go on without the needed supply of grace and strength.
If the question be asked, whether this be anything different from what we do when we pray, the answer is, that there may be much praying with but very little Waiting on God. In praying we are often occupied with ourselves, with our own needs, and our own efforts in the presentation of them.
In waiting upon God, the first thought is of
the God upon whom we wait. We enter His presence, and feel we need just to be quiet, so that He, as God, can overshadow us with Himself. God longs to reveal Himself, to fill us with Himself. Waiting on God gives Him time in His own way and divine power to come to us.
It is specially at the time of prayer that we ought to set ourselves to cultivate this spirit.
Before you pray, bow quietly before God, just t remember and realize who He is, how near He is, how certainly He can and will help.
Just be still before Him, and allow His Holy Spirit to waken and stir up in your soul the child-like disposition of absolute dependence and confident expectation. Wait upon God as a Living Being, as the Living God, who notices you, and is just longing to fill you with His salvation. Wait on God till you know you have met Him; prayer will then be come so different.
And when you are praying, let there be intervals of silence, reverent stillness of soul, in which you yield yourself to God, in case He may have aught He wishes to teach you or to work in you.
Waiting on Him will become the most blessed part of prayer, and the blessing thus obtained will be doubly precious as the fruit or such fellowship with the Holy One, God has so ordained it, in harmony with His holy nature, and with ours, that waiting on Him should be the honor we give Him. Let us bring Him the service gladly and truthfully; He will reward it abundantly.
"The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season." Dear soul, God provides in Nature for the creatures He has made: how much more will He provide in Grace for those He has redeemed. Learn to say of every want, and every failure, and every lack of needful grace: I have waited too little upon God, or He would have given me in due season all I needed. And say then too,
"My soul, wait thou only upon God!"
Waiting on God.
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