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T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
February 1930
But when we are kept still, God is marching on before. He is selecting ground for a fresh advance. Soon He will summon us to go on where He is, and launch out in a new campaign. We can well afford to bide His time. Do not forget Paul’s experience in his second missionary journey. He wanted to reach out into fresh territory. He longed for the great city of Ephesus, but the Holy Spirit told him not to go there. He longed for Bithynia to the north, but the Spirit bade him keep away from there. So he stopped in Troas and waited for orders, and they came in the Macedonian vision which sent him over into Europe on the greatest advance that Christianity ever made.— Streams in the Desert. I longed to leave the uncongenial sphere, Where all alone I seemed to stand and wait; To feel I had some human helper near— But Jesus bade me guard one lonely gate. —o— February 6— “ Who teacheth like him?” (Job 36:22). Our bitterest trials are our best les sons. Joseph studied statesmanship in prison. Mioses found a Divinity Hall in the backside o f the desert. Forty years in the wilderness made Joshua one of God’s greatest soldiers, one o f His brav est heroes. Saul’s persecution did more to make David the king he was than Samuel’s sacred oil. Elijah learned the Gospel in its “still small voice” in a cave. Jonah graduated in a whale’s belly. Peter got his best lesson in evangelistic, theory when he went out in the dark night to weep bitterly for his great sin. Paul was not conferring with flesh and blood dur ing the time spent in Arabia. John went to the highest class in Patmos. The long agony of Luther has lessened the sor rows of millions. John Bunyan called more pilgrims into the King’s highway from his dungeon than ever he did from his pulpit. And so of thousands more. — Selected. I used to struggle for my way, My rightsT would not lose; Now all is changed, for ’neath His sway, I’ve chosen not to choose. I used to long for second sight, To scan the yet to be; Now faith links weakness with His might, And does not ask to see! —o— February 7— "God hath not given us the spirit o f fear” (2 Tim. 1:7). It is the wonder o f the history o f the Church how shy, frail saints have, all along the ages, become bold for God. . . . They have had the spirit of power, be lieving that they could do things, laugh ing at impossibilities, speaking to the mountain that it should depart at their bidding. And the wonderful thing is that it has departed. Their spirit has been dy namic; they have turned the world up side down. They have had the spirit of love, and it has cast out all • fear: Love makes even the bashful brave, love scorns danger, love risks pain, love transfigures sacrifice. “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” With love the timid become strong, and the faltering feet step firmly and blithely
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| D a i l y D e v o t i o n a l R e a d i n g s A M essage for Everg D ag o f fhe Month
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February 1— "And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand! And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not” (1 Kings 18:44). This is a parable of faith and sight: faith shutting itself up with God, sight taking observations and seeing nothing; faith going right on, and “praying in prayer,” with utterly hopeless reports from sight. Do you know how to pray that way, how to pray prevailingly? Let sight give as discouraging reports as it may, but pay no attention to these! The living God is still in the heavens, and even to delay is part of His goodness.— Arthur T. Pier son. I will believe, though all around be dark ness, Believe to see the rainbow after rain; Believe that light will surely follow dark ness, And frozen earth will yield her flowers again; I must believe, He hears my faintest call— For Jesus lives and reigns, and God is over all. “Act faith,” as our forefathers used to say. “Keep up your repeated acts of faith,” said William Bramwell. I take this to mean that our faith should be active. There is no peril more fatal to the soul than to suppose that spiritual blessing will come to us of itself, and that all we have to do is to wait for the moving o f the waters. The Holy Ghost would ever stir us up to press on into deeper depths of communion. We have not merely to hold fast that which we have, but actively to exercise faith in all the saving and sanctifying power o f Jesus. “If the devil puts a stone wall in front o f us,” as an old Methodist has said, “we are to believe right through it,” whether the blessing we are seeking is the sanctification o f our own soul, or the salvation of sinners whom the Lord has laid upon our hearts, or the solution of some difficulty that needs to be over come. “To receive by faith alone—this is the difficulty. We can scarcely per suade the people that God will do it.” We need then to experience an active faith in our living God, to cry out again and again: “ I will not let thee go except thou bless me” ; to constrain Him, saying: “Abide with us” ; to say: “Lord, I be lieve; help thou mine unbelief.” Exer cise, in mind and thought and acts of life, faith in God that every plant that He hath not planted shall be rooted up, and the fruitless fig tree shall be withered.— A. Paget Wilkes. February 2— “Have faith in God" (Mk. 11:22). i
February 3—“And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, Esau was coming, and with him four hundred men. . . . . And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept’ (Genesis 33: L 4). And so the great, black trouble and catastrophe of his life had arrived 1 This was what Jacob had been dreading and praying against so desperately. This was what his elaborate plans of strategy, in dividing his company and putting for ward those for whom he cared the least, had tried to avert or mitigate. The catas trophe had struck. The blow had fallen. The storm had broken over him in all its fury. Oh, how we need to take this les son to heart! How we dread, and dodge, and agonize over God’s plans for our en richment and blessing, just because to us they seem, in the distance, to be troubles ! “All things work together for good” to them that love Him. “Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take. The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings o’er your head.” ' ,—Messages for the Morning Watch. —o— February 4— “ Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18). What we want is enthusiasm. Do not be afraid of it. Some people, the minute you speak about enthusiasm, think it is fanaticism. Do you know what the word “enthusiasm” means? “In God”—that is what it means! I have prayed many times that the Lord would let me die before en thusiasm departs from my soul. I want to keep full o f fire up to the last.— D. L. Moody. O overflowing Love, possess my soul And so through me outshine That everywhere I go I may dispense The Love divine. Make me a vessel so possessed by Thee, That this dark world may smile Because a brimming-over life, has been On earth a while. —o— February 5— “Stand still, and see the salvation o f Jehovah" (Ex. 14:13). “ Their strength is to sit still” (Isa. 30:7). “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psa. 46:10). Margaret Bottome brought together those three sentences, and said concern ing them, “You may depend upon it, God never says to us, ‘Stand still,’ or ‘Sit still,’ or ‘Be still,’ unless He is going to do something.” We need to remember this when life comes to a sudden halt, when we are ap parently making no progress, when all our plans fail and our hopes collapse and depressing stagnation settles down upon us. Those still times are among the very hardest we have to endure.
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