“True light”

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

In this world such a thing keeps happening. People call evil good and good evil. What can we do with such people? When Adam sinned, his mind was perverted. When Jesus came He brought the true light. “O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles” (Psalm 43:3). In our homes, if we have this light and this truth they will be small heavens. Even our Churches would be so. But there is no light in some of our Churches and the truth is not given there. Churches have settled down to be organizations to collect money and to observe certain ceremonies.

What is the power in Christ? Is it mainly healing? No. It is mainly lighting up the heart and making man see his sinfulness in God's light.

There is a story told of Ulysses and Circe. Circe was an enchantress who lived in an island. She used to feed her guests and use her enchantments to turn them into birds or animals. Their nature used to change into that of those creatures. Satan has done the same to us. We look respectable, but we call evil good and good evil. We have taught our children so. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17). Who can deliver you from the vanity of your mind? No one can do it but Jesus. There was none that could take your place before God but Jesus. He who lived a spotless life in a mystical way took your sins upon Himself. Who can save you from your perverted mind—ye who call good evil and evil good? Through Jesus the true light has shined and the standards of Heaven will come into your heart and you will view the world differently. Let us thank God for Jesus Christ.

—N. Daniel

“If two of you agree”

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven”—Jesus Christ (Matthew 18:19).

Men seem to think that unless they gather a whole crowd to support their cause, no one will listen to them or be impressed. To focus the attention of the public or the government upon their project or plan, they crank up a mass rally with their supporters or stage noisy demonstrations.

In industry, thousands of valuable man-hours are lost by strikes for every conceivable reason. . . . These striking men are certain that their strength lies in numbers. Politicians too stick to this principle. Take the crowd away from them and they look so sheepish and imbecile.

It is numbers, numbers, numbers; we are brainwashed into thinking that numbers mean everything. But the Lord Jesus said that “if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19).

“If two of you shall agree”: it seems a simple enough thing to achieve, but in reality it is difficult to find two people who will agree on unselfish projects.

Gather two businessmen and say to them, “Look, there are too many broken homes in this city. The children of these homes are neglected and love-lorn; in time they will become a danger to society, unless we find some way to shower love upon them. Perhaps you must build a special home for them and set aside part of your money for their care.” They may agree that this would be nice and even necessary to do; but one or the other or both of them will find excuses. . . . How many great plans die at the committee stage itself!

Two men can’t agree; two women rarely agree; two sisters, but they have diametrically opposed views; two leaders, but they use completely different methods. So we have a babel of voices, one crying one thing and another the opposite.

But when a man repents of his sins and receives the New Life in Christ, there comes a great longing in him to do good to his neighbours. It is not an aimless and haphazard scattering of money I am talking about, but a strong, fixed, benevolent longing, to sacrifice, to serve, and to save others. So it is not hard for two young men who are transformed by Jesus’ power to put their hearts and heads together, to launch some great movement which will transform the lives of thousands.

True conversion means renouncing self and reaching out to Christ. When self is still strongly entrenched in you, you cannot say you are truly converted. A person who has come to the Cross of Jesus and seen that irresistible love which claims his all—his will, mind, ambitions, and whole personality—truly turns away from doing his own will and begins to do God’s will. Turning from self-will to God’s will is true conversion.

Such a man wants to glorify God, and live a self-denying life. Pleasing the Saviour is his greatest delight. Now for two converted people to pray together and think alike is nothing astonishing. They have the Word of God to unify them. When two people thus pray together with unified hearts and minds, great power is generated; miracles take place; God is right there amongst them. It has been said that the Church is where the Holy Spirit works.

When we pray in Jesus’ Name, it is hardly possible to ask selfish little things from God. Jesus our Lord teaches us to pray for great things, things that build His kingdom.

“If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done . . .” God rarely likes to deny His children. Unless it is absolutely injurious to you, God does not want to withhold a request which comes from united hearts.

I meet many young couples who have been married several years but don’t pray together. Living together and yet not praying together! You can reduce your marriage to the purely animal level, but be sure, dire consequences will stem from the neglect of praying together.

From the time I was a child I saw my father and mother praying together daily. Their prayer resulted in our home being a lovely place, full of harmony and peace. In that atmosphere there was health and hardly any painful disease. We enjoyed great security as children. Fear had no place in our home. We knew that when our father prayed God did miracles. So nothing worried us unduly. Mother was gentle on the one hand and firm on the other and taught us implicit obedience.

My father and mother made a wonderful team. We children never heard them fighting or arguing about money, but we often heard their voices in prayer. We had many opportunities to see the efficacy of prayer made from clean hearts.

There was a very cultured old lady who lived in our home for a long period. She had held very high government positions and as she desired the fellowship of God’s children, my father let her stay with us.

One day, however, she was taken ill with severe abdominal pain. It was an emergency case of intestinal obstruction. But doctors would not operate on her as she was very old and frail. . . . But the suffering became unbearable. We children who had never known our parents’ prayer to fail, were watching the worsening condition with some concern. Whatever was to be done needed to be done quickly.

That night, father and mother spent nearly the whole night in prayer. And the Lord who said, “Whatsoever you agree on earth and pray for, it shall be done,” heard their prayer. By the morning the agony ceased and the gentle old lady was healed. Never again did she suffer in that way.

Our motives are very important in prayer. If you want your prayer to be answered purely because it will add to your comfort and prosperity, God is in no way obliged to hear you. Nor should you ask for your prayer to be heard in order that your importance should be enhanced, or that you should gain a reputation among your acquaintances as a man of piety. There should be nothing selfish in your asking.

Why do you want your health to be restored? Is it to rise up and glorify God and be His true disciple? Why do you ask for promotion? Is it that in that higher post, you want to wield a stronger influence for Jesus and for righteousness, such that all evil or unrighteousness should be banished from your office? If so, God will grant you your desire. I always rejoice when men whom Jesus has transformed—righteous men—come to positions of great responsibility.

Get yourself a new heart and begin to pray with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.

—Joshua Daniel

“Choose for yourself!”

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it”—Jesus Christ (Matthew 13:45-46).

Each of us is a collector. Some collect coins, stamps, baseball cards, paintings and the list goes on. If you analyze yourself you will find that you are a collector of “treasures.” The Bible says where your treasure is there lies your heart. Are you wasting your time and money when not a single item can go with you after death? You need to obtain the only thing that you can have now and take with you when you die—Eternal Life.

Eternal life is possible from God as a free gift you can choose.

Social work and doing good cannot buy you this eternal life. You can’t throw up a rope and climb to Heaven—it has to be dropped down. When you admit to your helplessness and hopelessness and call out to Him from your heart, He will listen and help you.

When you know that you are going to lose even your dime, what have you to lose by calling on God’s mercy and pardon through Jesus? You only have eternal life to gain!

Go ahead! Choose for yourself.

—Selected

“Reality Check”

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”—Jesus Christ (John 14:27).

“Wonderful Saviour”

Isaiah said: “His Name shall be called Wonderful ...”

A wonderful Saviour, is Jesus my Lord,
A wonderful Saviour to me;
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock,
Where rivers of pleasure I see.

Jesus is a wonderful Saviour.

“I want to be saved,” wrote a district nurse—and in her desperate unhappiness, she travelled almost 100 miles to speak to London City Mission Christians about her burden.

She had been brought up in a Christian home, but doubts had been sown in her mind during college. Faith and peace had disappeared. Sorrow was the reward.

Though others had tried to help her experience restoration, she had been unable to trust God’s Word.

“I cannot trust,” she would write back when letters arrived how she could be restored.

She was invited to London City Mission Headquarters where a missionary and his wife spoke to her for three hours. She could unburden her soul.

In that dark place of spiritual doubting and personal wrestling with Satan, the soul under attack experiences depths of despair. It senses the ravages of Hell.

The first obstacle to overcome was the problem of personal faith. Some simply believe, but for others the battle for faith is fiercely contested. For some, there are years of wrestling for reasons such as personal problems, secret sins, the unwillingness to surrender, and the problematic fact of personal unbelief.

“Faith is a gift of God,” the missionary explained. “He gives it. He is offering it. Take it from Him now, just as you would receive a gift from a friend.”

“But, I cannot see faith. How then, do I know that He gives it, or that He is willing to give it to me?”

The Bible says: “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9).

“God gives it. God is offering to you the faith – the confidence to believe.”

“But supposing that God has not numbered me among His elect [those He has chosen to be saved]?”

“You are among God’s elect. This is your authority. ‘God so loved the world’—that includes you and me—the whole world of humankind. ‘Whosoever cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.’ You need only to come.”

Step by step she struggled up her spiritual stairway into the sanctuary of the solace of her Saviour. They knelt in thankfulness; they arose in joyfulness.

“Now I know that I am saved,” she said, as we wished her ‘Goodbye’.

The heart of a Christian who had just helped her was singing:

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Saviour am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

“The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Matthew 18:11). “The lost!” This tragic word is the most common designation that Jesus used to describe those who were outside His Kingdom: “Lost to God and to themselves.” He came into the world to seek and to save them. That was His mission and is still His burning passion, and His ongoing burden until ultimately “He sees of the travail of His soul” and is wholly satisfied.

—F. H. Wrintmore, The New London (London City Mission)

“When He has come”

“And when He [the Holy Spirit] is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”—Jesus Christ (John 16:8).

In 1859, there was a revival in Wales—when God’s Holy Spirit woke up a sleeping Church to spiritual life. When news of a revival in America in 1858 reached Wales, various churches were ready to pray for an outpouring of God’s Spirit; there had been revivals in Wales already, and some of its people desired another one.

As a result of revival, there was more fervent prayer, more powerful preaching, more passionate zeal for the ungodly to be converted, and more prominent godliness. The revival was like spiritual spring after the winter—caused by the sunshine of God’s good pleasure and the refreshing showers of the Holy Spirit. God saved those who had been amongst the most profane and careless before. Here is one example recounted by J. J. Morgan, who wrote about the revival.

In an evening service, a coarse and callous farmer was strangely affected. In the morning he was alarmed by the consciousness of a mysterious and revolutionary change in himself. He was unable to swear. He said to himself like Samson, “I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself”. But his evil strength had departed, and he was weak like another man. He sought his servants at their work, imagining that he would find enough reasons to exercise his habit of swearing, but for the life of him he couldn’t rap out a single oath. Then he realised that his ‘ailment’ (not being able to swear) required a drastic remedy, and thought, as a last resort, that if could see some neighbour’s sheep trespassing on his pasture, he could recover his ability to swear. So he climbed a hill that was near, but nothing availed. He began to tremble in every limb. “What is this?” he cried. “I can’t swear; what if I tried to pray?” He fell on his knees among the furze-bushes, and continued a man of prayer as long as he lived.

—Eifion Evans, When He is come: the 1858-60 revival in Wales (Evangelical Press)

“The power of prayer”

In August 1857, there was a sudden, fearful convulsion in the commercial world in America. That calamity was quickly followed by reports of revivals of Christianity and remarkable displays of God’s divine grace. The commercial crisis could not easily be explained by the laws of trade. It was acknowledged to be a judgment. Many people had been so absorbed in the material that they were oblivious of the spiritual and eternal. The justice of God was confessed in arresting men in recklessness, extravagance, and foolishness. Thousands were thrown out of business, and, not having anything better to do, gathered in prayer meetings, meetings that had already been set up and now gained more numbers as well as a new infusion of life from God above.

In a church in Fulton Street, New York, Jeremiah Calvin Lamphier was kneeling upon the floor, engaged in serious prayer. He had been a resident of the city for about twenty years and lived very much in the lives of others, almost wholly for others. There were so many without God and hope in the world going to the gates of eternal death. He had gone to the lower wards of the city and longed to do something for the people’s salvation. His constant prayer was: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” The more he prayed, the more encouraged he was in the joyful expectation that God would show him the way through which hundreds and thousands might be influenced.

Doing his rounds one day, as he walked along the streets, the idea was suggested to his mind that an hour of prayer, from twelve to one o’clock, would be beneficial to businessmen. The idea was to have singing, prayer, exhortation, and relation of religious experience, as the case might be; that no one should be required to stay the whole hour; that all should come and go and go based on their engagements or inclinations.

At twelve o’clock on 23 September 1857, the door to a Church room was opened where Lamphier sat for half an hour alone until the step of another individual was heard upon the stairs. Six gathered in total and the Lord was with them to bless them. So began the noonday businessmen’s prayer meeting!

The next meeting a week later included twenty people with much prayer, and the hearts of those present melted within them. Another meeting followed on 7 October. Lamphier spoke to men as he met them in the street if he could get their attention, and he prayed that the Lord would incline many to come to the place of prayer. So animated and encouraging was this meeting that another meeting was appointed for 8 October, the next day, and thus began a daily businessmen’s prayer meeting. There was deep humility and great desire that God would pour out His Spirit upon them. For the following day, Lamphier wrote: “It was the very gate of heaven.”

Soon there were more than one hundred present, many of whom did not profess religion but were under conviction of sin and interested in Christ, asking what they should do to be saved.

The interest in the Fulton street prayer-meeting increased and the spiritual fire spread. In addition, different churches set up morning prayer meetings. The place of prayer was a delightful resort, and the places of prayer multiplied because men were moved to prayer. They wished to pray. They felt impelled, by some unseen power, to pray. They felt the pressure of the call to prayer. So once a place of prayer was opened, Christians flocked to it to pour out their supplications. There was love to Christ, love for all His people, love of prayer, love of personal effort, and love for souls. Christ’s name was so honoured, so often mentioned, and so precious to the believer. The whole atmosphere was love. Those who so loved Christ loved His image wherever and in whomever they saw it—and so there was a union of Christians from different backgrounds in prayer.

This union of Christians in prayer struck the unbelieving world with amazement. Those who had not repented from their sins felt that Christians loved them, that their love of souls made them earnest. The truth was commended to them, and they felt that this was a work of God. The prayer meeting was holy ground. They saw how humbled Christians were. It began to be felt that Christians obtained answers to prayer, that if they united to pray for any one man’s conversion, that man was sure to be converted. Men prayed as if they expected God to hear and answer prayer. Therefore God prepared the way for conviction and conversion to Christ. His Spirit led ministers to share portions of the Bible that would break the flinty heart in pieces.

The same Power that moved to prayer in Fulton Street moved to prayer elsewhere, and thus there was a revival of prayer in America in 1858. People were moved to pray. They demanded a place to pray. They shared burdens for prayer—the salvation of specific souls. They received answers to prayer. The promises stood: “Ask, and it shall be given you” and God “fainteth not, neither is weary”. The “fields” were “white to the harvest” of immortal souls. How could they stop calling upon God? Answers to prayer came down speedily, and multitudes were turning to God and seeking Him with all their heart.

Everywhere men were crowding to the meetings. The northern, middle, western, and southern States were moved. All classes prayed. The most hopeless and forbidding were brought under the almighty power of this revival. From the highest to the lowest and most degraded in society, the trophies of God’s power and grace were made. People of the most vicious and abandoned character were brought to humble themselves like little children at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ, where He died to atone for the sins of man—astonishing, overwhelming displays of divine mercy. It was as though God were saying, “Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” It seemed to be written upon all hearts: “My soul! Wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.” The deepest conviction was that “the power belongeth unto God.” In His power, He poured out and blessed a nationwide revival of prayer.

—Taken from Samuel Prime, The Power of Prayer: the New York Revival of 1858 (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991).


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