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For
Those Seeking The Truth & Dynamic Living Christ is Victor |
May/June
2004
Volume
17, Number 3
God’s Overruling Providence
Sometimes when our plans don’t work out as hoped, it’s because God is detouring us, leading us elsewhere, in his overruling providence.
Thomas Coke, a sophisticated Oxford-educated Welshman, left his ministry in the Anglican Church in 1777 to become John Wesley’s chief assistant in the new and quickly-growing Methodist movement.
On
The ship’s captain
determined that Coke and his missionaries, like Biblical Jonah, were bringing
misfortune on his ship, and he considered throwing them overboard. He did, in
fact, gather up some of Coke’s papers and toss them into the raging
ocean. The voyage took three months rather than the expected one, and instead
of landing in
Coke knew that at least one
Methodist lived somewhere on
It was John Baxter himself! He was on his way to special Christmas morning services he had planned for the island, and the sudden appearance of Coke and his missionaries out of the darkness—out of nowhere—seemed too good to be true.
It took three services that day
to accommodate the crowds. And after it was over, Coke and his associates
abandoned any idea of going to
-Selected
Stand up, Stand up for Jesus!
Preaching against slavery was not a popular thing to do in
many parts of the
However, Dr. Dudley Tyng, the
twenty-nine year old rector of the church of the Epiphany in
He also believed that all men are sinners by nature and
need to repent and be converted if they are ever to enter heaven.
Dudley Tyng was no ordinary
church pastor and this bold, straightforward denunciation of sin disturbed his
cultured and wealthy parishioners so much that by the end of his second year in
the church many were demanding his removal.
Tyng resigned from the rich and
fashionable assembly and formed his own ‘Church of the Covenant’
which met for worship in a little meeting hall. With his wife and boys, he went
to live on the family farm outside
At the same time he also began giving lectures at the
Philadelphia YMCA. Interest grew and thousands were converted to the Saviour. At one particular meeting held in Jayne’s
hall in March 1858, many thousands were present.
During his address Dr. Tyng
said, “I must tell my Master’s errand and I would rather this right
arm were amputated at the trunk than I should come short of my duty in
delivering God’s message.”
Those words were strangely prophetic, for just the next
week, while watching a horse-powered cornsheller at
work on the farm, he was caught in the wheels of the machinery and his right
arm was badly mangled. A few days later, it was necessary to amputate at the
shoulder.
Tyng was dying and he realized
it. As the loved ones gathered round his bed he took his father by the hand and
addressed the old man who was also a faithful preacher, in these words,
“Stand up for Jesus, father, stand up for Jesus, and
tell my brethren of the ministry to stand up for Jesus.” And thus he
died.
The dying exhortation impressed another of Tyng’s ministerial colleagues, George Duffield. He took up the theme in a sermon and preached the
following Sunday, from Ephesians 6:14: “Stand therefore, having your loins
girt about with truth.” At the close of the sermon he read the words of
this hymn he had composed just after Dr. Tyng’s
funeral:
Stand up,
stand up for Jesus
Ye soldiers of the cross
Lift high His royal banner
It must not suffer loss
From victory unto victory
His army shall He lead
Till every foe is vanquished
And Christ is Lord indeed.
Reality Check
“But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in
secret shall reward thee openly.” Matthew 6:6
Take Care of Your Thoughts
“Search me, O God, and
know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 139:23, 24
This is a very great prayer.
Some of the prayers of David are very deep and are born out of revelation. One
thought of Nebuchadnezzar made him lose his kingdom. He said to himself,
“Have not I built this great
David says, “How wonderful are thy thoughts!” The greatest men of the world are the sum total of the thoughts of God. Jesus Christ was nothing but the thought of God in flesh. So twenty centuries have gone by. Nobody could find any fault in that Saviour. It is God’s thought that caused the incarnation. His disciples received Him. Those who invited Him became like Him.
Thoughts are so forcible. If they are of the devil, he wants them to be executed very quickly. When you are urged to do anything so quickly that you can’t even take time to pray about, then it is of the devil. The devil always says, “Why pray and waste time?” Even when you are in church, a wrong thought can possess and dominate you. It depends upon the atmosphere of the church. Even from the pulpit can come thoughts that are dangerous. Churches are expected to be places where godly men congregate and create an atmosphere conducive for spiritual growth. Churches should not become a resort for vain people.
David is praying that
among his many thoughts Satan should not thrust in a single thought which is
wrong. When you move with God’s children that wrong
thought can be detected and put away. You may have entertained it for a
long time but God would want it eliminated. Even our sympathies must be in the
will of God. There are sympathetic and kind thoughts but are they of God?
Nothing which is not of God must be included in your thoughts. Your thoughts
create your character. If you are with a proud man you become proud.
Hitler’s one thought was, “If I live I will destroy
One great comfort for a child of God is: “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.” (Ps.139:2,3). What a chance for God to help us with this all-pervasive knowledge. When our thoughts are afar off He knows it. Some of the wrong thoughts are from our friends.
Put every thought before God. To be amidst God’s children and taking in correct thoughts is a great blessing. Some of those thoughts are the promises of God for your life. Are you claiming the promises given to you of God? If you do not claim the promises of God, you will be claiming the promises of the world. ‘A man who works hard becomes rich’ is a maxim that works in the world. With riches you can buy many things. There are many things and much goods you can buy. But they will carry you in a wrong direction.
Today if we put ourselves to a test in the sight of God and discard thoughts that are not of God, how many of our thoughts would still remain? An unconverted man’s thoughts just evaporate without fulfillment. If from the beginning you have been having thoughts that are not of God, you must know that through marriage, through friendships, the devil wants to stabilize you in his ways. Set your thoughts right. Then God will help you.
-N. Daniel
The Sharpest Tool of the Devil
Every parent must know that what the child observes in them can be turned into the greatest rocket-thrust in the life of your child or the greatest deterrent to its true advancement. Who wants to trip up his or her own child? No one. From the strangest lips of very disadvantaged children, one hears the sad tale, ‘My dad loved me so much, but he never did overcome his tragic weakness or his addiction to ... ” Many dads and mums put a sad tale to tell in their children’s mouth and sure enough they do tell it to their children and their grandchildren too hear of it and tell their children. So on and on it goes — the tale of pride or temper, or self-indulgence or selfishness or divorce.
It breaks my heart when I hear people say, “My parents separated when I was seven...” or something like that. A tale of sadness!
Now the Bible says, “Tell ye your children of it and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. ” (Joel 1:3) Now that takes in five generations. Transmitting the great works of God to at least five generations does not seem like some impossible challenge. Yes, our children must hear of God’s judgements too as God tells the prophet Joel. Today’s generation thinks that life is a kind of lottery and there are no consequences to ones thoughts, choices and actions.
Our God – the Living God – wants our children
to know His works and His Almightiness. When the children of
Then Joshua said to them, “This … be a sign
among you, that when your children ask their fathers, in time to come. What
mean these stones? You shall answer them, that the waters of
In other words, we should communicate to the generations to come, what we have tasted and experienced of the mighty works of the Lord.
Children today have a lot of information flung at them from all angles. When they return home from school, there is little let-up, for they hear their parents talk of things that they do not understand. Yes, they hear more of the ‘adult stuff ’ in their own homes.
Surely children today must be tired of hearing their parents incessantly talk of money, argue or fight over it. As an interlude, they turn on their children with equal fury and scream, “You must study hard and make a lot of money”.
The beauty and tranquility of the home is gone. The children receive little inspiration or instruction from their parents. Moreover, parents who do not have a walk with God are so tired and jaded after their day’s work, they have nothing elevating to share with their children. In fact many children today, all too quickly outgrow the time when they seek to learn from their parents. Soon they seem to detest or resent even the little input for good that their parents may attempt to put into them.
Now at such a critical time in a child’s development, parents get very angry and aggressive when even a teacher attempts to correct some misbehaviour or misdemeanor of the child. As a parent, I always tried to take the side of well-meaning teachers and others when they brought strictures or complaints against my children. It was obvious to me and my wife that our children were no ‘saints’.
Now it is time we faced this, many of us parents are simply not giving a godly heritage to our children, such that they want to do exploits for Christ. Even ‘converted’ parents appear to be giving a lethal dose of their ‘pre-conversion worldliness’ to their children.
While I was growing up, especially as a teen-ager, I found the air around me to be full of the works of the Lord. This was the talk around me – the mighty works of the Lord. The Living Saviour was so real, whithersoever we turned we saw Him working. There were no glittering objects, or worldly goals before us. CHRIST was our focus. To lift Him high and see the spread of the revival which was burning around us, was all we cared for.
Now I ask every parent, Are you setting Eternal goals before your children and true riches which are more precious than fine gold before them? The Lord will surely ask you, What lasting legacy of righteousness have you left for your children?
Dear Dad, dear Mom, give your son or daughter a much-needed booster thrust of righteousness and godly goals, by repenting of the wrong input you have given, which is clearly indicated by the direction which is currently pleasing to them.
Oh, do not be a tool of the devil to drag your child down to the traditional or cultural values of your background or of today’s demented world.
-Joshua Daniel
The Power of the Bended
Knee
Birds go
to sleep on their perches, but they never fall off. This is because of the
tendons in the bird’s legs. They are so constructed that when the leg is
bent at the knee the claws refuse to let go until the knees are unbent again.
The bended knee gives the bird the ability to hold on to his perch so tightly.
Isn’t this also the secret of the holding power of the Christian?
Daniel found this to be true. Surrounded by a pagan environment, tempted to
compromise with evil, urged to weaken his grip on God, he refused to let go. He
held firm when others faltered because he was a man of prayer. He knew the
power of the bended knee.
From sleeping birds we can learn the secret of holding things which are most precious to us – honestly, purity thoughtfulness, honour and character. That secret is the knee bent in prayer, seeking to get a firmer grip on those values, which make life worth living. When we hold on firmly to God in prayer, we can rest assured he will hold on tightly to us.
This newsletter is produced six times per year by the
Laymen’s Evangelical Fellowship International. It is printed and
distributed in the
This Fellowship
is an inter-denominational missionary and prayer group working for revival in
churches and amongst students in several countries. We invite every layperson
to become God’s ally in changing his or her corner of the world. We train
people in evangelistic work and to be self-supporting missionaries.
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or Wisdom Hall, 37 Persiaran Shahbandar, Taman Tambahan Krian VI, 34200 Parit Bundar, Perak, Phone – (05)
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