October 1931
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K i n g ’ s
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"YOUR GOD . . . GOETH BEFORE YOU” B y H enry W. F rost
“The Lord your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes ” (Deut. 1:30).
just as long as there are flowers to pick and mountains to climb; and as yet, for the most of us, there are of these a plenty. Now it was something like this that God was trying to teach Israel. He was telling them that He was a forward moving God, and that, as He moved, He would -fight. He was assuring them also that He moved forward and fought in their behalf, and that what they had to do was simply to follow Him. But He was saying at the same time that, if ever they needed encouragement because of doubt concerning His power to keep going and fighting, they were to remember Egypt. They were to think of their taskmasters; their beaten backs; their mighty leader, Moses; their Red Sea crossing; their enemies overwhelm ed and drowned; their deliverance; and finally, their songs of victory on the wilderness side. And when they had done this, they were to lift their heads, quicken their steps, close their ranks, move forward, and follow on in the full assurance that the God of Egypt was the God of the wilderness, and that victory lay on before. Discouraged? Head low? Feet dragging heavily? Fearful that God will not keep going forward, and even if He does, will not win? Look back, my brother, for just one moment! Do you see Egypt? You thought He never would get you out of there, did you not? And He did, did He not? There, that is enough! From this time on, look forward, and go forward. You follow One who has never turned back before any foe, and who has never yet lost a battle.— C h ina ’ s M illions . Master to our side. It is our “tested faith” (1 Pet. 1:7) that is precious in His sight. Do we wonder why troubles seem to pour in like a flood ? Do we wonder why some are “not in trouble as other men” (Psa. 73:5)? Do we find the problem of pain difficult to understand? Let us remember that the presence of God, coming to us in the cloud, will make up for all the bitterness and perplexity, if we will accept His gracious help in the time of need. The Purpose in the Cloud. “Behold a voice out of the cloud” (Matt. 17:5). The disciples “feared as they en tered the cloud” (Lk. 9:34). But all fear vanished when they realized the purpose of the cloud. God spoke to them out of it. He fixed their eyes upon Jesus, saying, “This is my beloved Son: hear him.” The purpose of trial is to fix our gaze and attention upon the Son of God, to get the vision of “Jesus only,” which transfigures the life and causes the face to shine as we come down from the mount to meet the calls of daily duty. May the message of the clouds bring to us all not gloom but glory. —L iving W aters .
J u T is generally true that as a man looks, so he is. Find a forward looking man, and you most frequently discover a forward moving man. Find a backward looking man, and you most frequently discover a backward moving man. So looking is a most important matter; and in general it is best to keep the face turned full forward and set in that direction like a flint. But there are times when one should look backward. And if a man is divinely taught in the art of retrospect, doing this will riot impede his forward moving, but, ra ther, it will accelerate it. For God’s looking backward is simply a process of thinking backward, wherein the mem ory recalls the past in order that it may the better work out the problems of the future. The Spirit-taught man meditates as he walks, and thus momentarily he translates past failures into better actual ities. It is this quality which has so often made little men great. They have failed. At the same time, they have remembered. And as they have remembered, they have learned. Their path, therefore, has been from weakness to strength. And, finally, it has been from strength to strength. Thus it has always been forward and likewise upward. And that is what every man’s path should be, louds can bring gloom or glory. It just depends upon whether or not they catch the sunshine. So it is with the trials and testings of life. God in His loving purpose desires that they shall bring glory, not gloom. Let us look out, then, for the glory. . The Promise in the Cloud. “The bow shall be seen in the cloud” (Gen. 9:14). God’s promise that He would not visit the earth again with a flood has been fulfilled. So will every promise of His be fulfilled. There is, in fact, a promise in the Bible to fit every trial and testing that comes to us. God suits -His promise to every difficulty. Let us be familiar with our Bibles, so that the light of His Word may shine clearly upon every cloud as it arises. The Presence in the Cloud. “The clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1 :3). Just as the dust rising in the desert betokens the coming of a caravan, so the very clouds of trouble announce the coming of God’s help and comfort. Like the stormy waves on the Lake of Galilee, which bore the feet of the coming Lord to the rescue of the terrified disciples, so the waves of trouble bring the
CLOUDS B y C anon S. M. W arner
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