Christ Is Victor
September/October 1999
Vol.12,
No.5
"Resisting Temptation"
Genesis 3:4 "Ye shall not surely die." Our first parents heard the voice of Satan. Why did the evil spirit come to them? Eve stood near the forbidden fruit. She observed the fruit. She liked the smell. She used her senses to judge whether the fruit was good to eat or not. When you are in front of a temptation, you must just leave it and go away. You must not stand there and argue about it. You may not stand the attraction. Satan paints on the temptation. The devil is watching when you come near temptation. If it is a group of bad friends, you must not go near them. Wherever you go, you must consider whether you can be a blessing to the people there. Eve was near the tree and Satan knew it. When the Bible tells you a certain thing is wrong, do not argue about it, whether it could not be right sometimes under some circumstances. Satan is watching your heart. Eve was arguing with one of the most brilliant minds of evil. What immense evil consequences came out of this woman’s disobedience! Once the Lord told me not to go past a particular house on my way to college. I immediately changed my route even though it meant a big detour. A class-mate of mine fell into sin in that house and his life was ruined. God says you must not even go by a house of sin.
When you go down in prayer, you will go to wrong places. When you go to wrong places you cannot happily fit into a group prayer. You become argumentative instead of acknowledging your sin. Do you know what temptations are waiting for you and how Satan is planning to destroy you? When you have no inclination for prayer it is a sure sign that you are going to destruction.
God’s great plans were being spoiled by a woman standing in a wrong place. Adam and Eve were having fellowship with God every day. Such a fellowship can become a common-place thing. When that happens it is dangerous. They could have waited till the evening and consulted God, but Satan’s method is to hurry. God taught me to ask His permission for every thing I did. Whenever I did so there was no defeat in my life. Adam and Eve lost the beautiful garden and the comfort of God’s presence.
Satan came to Jesus also. But by this time Jesus had grown spiritually for thirty years, and had spent forty days in prayer. Satan tried to use the word of God itself to defeat Him, but Jesus defeated Satan. 1 Timothy 4:1.
There are deceiving spirits. When there is a certain amount of victory in your life, the deceiving spirits come as counsellors--as angels of light. Behind them come darker spirits which will destroy you. I know some who did great things for God when they were a boy. But they went back into sin. Because of such people all the children of God are suspected and doubted.
Which company are you in? Which house are you in? With whom are you conversing? Youth is the best time to develop your spiritual life. You must permanently hate evil. Do not be weary of prayer. Your prayer-strength will be a support for many souls in the days to come.
When you sin and ask forgiveness, you may be forgiven. But every time it happens you will lose some souls-sometimes your own children. As we obey Him, His Holy Spirit will be upon us.
-Late Mr. N. Daniel
"Reach
the Cross"
One of the finest Christian gentlemen I ever knew was the late Frederick
Dawes, who served twenty five years in the
The child was only a toddler, but, like many others, he had developed a love for wandering. It was true that he had only gone round a few corners, but at his time of life that represented a journey to the end of the world! The strange buildings, the hurrying people, the increasing noise frightened the boy; and suddenly sitting on the curb stone, he placed his grubby hands to his eyes, and yelled! When people paused to ask the cause of his discomfort, the urchin screamed, "I’m lost, I’m lost, I’m lost". A kindly lady asked his name, and was told, "I’m Tommy, and I’m lost." The onlookers were at a loss to know what to do, when a policeman strolled toward the scene. His gruff voice asked, "What’s wrong?" and immediately someone supplied the information that the little boy was lost. The man-in-blue said, "Out of the way," and instantly the crowd separated. When the policeman looked at the boy and asked, "Son, what’s your name?" The lad raised his tear-stained face and answered, "I’m Tommy, and I’m lost, I’m lost." "Where do you live?" asked the policeman, and again the boy replied, "I don’t know; I’m Tommy, and I’m lost."
The fatherly officer grasped the boy’s hand, and in a soothing whisper said, "Come with me, my lad." The people began to disperse, but some lingered, for this was a fascinating sight. The towering policeman and the diminutive child were strange companions; they seemed like old friends. Slowly the officer of the law led a boy to a monument in a nearby street, and as they stood before it, he asked, "Son, did you ever see anything like that?" The whimpering boy removed a fist from his eye, and staring before him replied, "Mmm, but like that." Pulling his other hand from the grasp of his big friend, he spread wide his arms and repeated, "Not like that, but a cross." A delightful grin spread across the face of the listening policeman. He knew every monument for miles around, and remembered that only two streets away, a huge cross outside the door of a church. Taking a new grip on the boy’s hand, he said, "Come on." And they went off together. Soon the officer was pointing to the large crucifix and enquiring, "Is that it, my boy?" The youngster beamed and shouted, "Yes, I live over there," and his little hand indicated a home across the street.
I remember Frederick Dawes telling his story. At its conclusion he said, "Men and women, you may be lost amid the highways of sin. You may not know what to do or where to turn; but I assure you that if you find your way to the cross, everything will be all right afterwards. Reach the cross, and your Father’s home will be just across the street." That wonderful fellow had been telling such a story in our open-air meeting one evening, when his strength failed, and slipping to the roadway, he passed into the presence of his Lord. Frederick Dawes left behind a fragrance which enriched my life and ministry. As he indicated, he had found his way to the cross, and there discovered happiness.
I must needs go home by the way of the Cross
There’s no other way but this:
I shall ne’er get sight of the gates of light,
If the way of the Cross I miss.
The way of the Cross leads home…
The way of the Cross leads home…
It is sweet to know, as I onward go,
That the way of the Cross leads home.
-Selected
Say What?
Quality... "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives"
"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven"
Matthew 5: 19
"Praying
for the Perishing"
Our right to pray for the lost is based on the fact that Christ has already paid for their sin with His blood. We are claiming what is rightly His.
One week in December, when I was in seminary in
When we walked into the house, we found that it was just as cold inside as it was outside. It didn’t take long to discover that our gas had been cut off. With my little family standing there shivering, I picked up the phone and called the gas company and asked them what in the world was going on. We were freezing to death for heaven’s sake!
A voice, as icy as the weather, replied, "Sir, you failed to pay last month’s bill. We couldn’t get hold of you, so we cut off your gas."
"But I paid it," I said.
"I’m sorry, but we have no record of any payment," the icy voice said. "You will have to come down to the office and pay the bill before we can turn the gas back on."
"Hang on a minute," I said. I put the phone down and began searching through my desk for the stub that had the gas company’s stamp on it --- the one that says, PAID. And I found it. Grasping the proof of payment, I jerked up the receiver and told the icy voice to turn my gas back on, and do it now. And they did.
When Christ poured out His blood, He paid the ransom for the lost souls, and when God raised Him from the grave on the third day, He stamped the bill ‘Paid in full.’
There will be times, as you pray for someone God has laid on your heart, you will hear an icy voice saying, "You have no right to pray for him. He’s my property. He belongs to me."
But you can point to the proof of payment, the death and resurrection of Christ, and inform the icy voice that God has plundered his house and spoiled his goods. The Lord has foreclosed on the devil and bought up all his property. Therefore, when we pray for the lost in the name of Jesus, we are laying claim to what Jesus has already paid for with His ‘Precious Blood’.
-Selected
"I am a Jew, but the radiant picture of the Nazarene has overwhelmingly impressed me. Nobody has expressed himself as godly as He. There is really only one place on earth, where we see no darkness. That is the person Jesus Christ. In Him God has manifested Himself. "
-Albert Einstein
"A
Shelter in the Time of Storm"
It is certainly true that God watches over His own
and guards them in times of danger. In Psalm 91 the Lord says that He will
shelter His own and put a covering upon them in times of distress. Many
Christian people in
One night at about
As they ran, they saw other houses collapsing. When their own home fell, they looked for their little three-year-old daughter, but supposed that she had been crushed beneath the wreckage.
Suddenly, as the father ran, holding on to the twelve-day-old baby, a tremendous gust of wind snatched the infant from his arms and hurled him into the darkness. The poor man was dazed and shocked. He didn’t know what to do. Stunned, he ran after his wife and the other child to see that they got to safety. The father was certain that both his three-year-old and twelve-day-old had died instantly.
As they arrived at the church, that building also began to come apart and soon it fell. Terrified, the man took his two-year-old child in his arms and fled, not even looking back to see if his wife was coming, but feeling certain that she would be able to make it.
They were moving against the wind, trying to get into the open field; but the pathway, which had become a ravine of rushing water, was now a seething torrent. He and the child got across, but what he did not know was that his wife, who had been just a few steps behind him, was hurled and carried by the water down the steep bank into the swirling water beneath.
A few minutes later she found the limb of a tree against which the water had slammed her and clung to it until she was able to pull herself out of the water and up the bank. Then, making her way into the field, she finally joined her husband and their two-year-old child.
During the remainder of the night, the stocks of millet pounded them; sheets of iron roofing and pieces of debris sailed over their heads, carried by the force of the blast of the hurricane. With the gray morning light coming on, their sorrowful hearts contemplated returning to their home to see if anything could be salvaged from it and, if possible, to recover the bodies of their two little children.
Moments later, a Christian lady, who was helping look for the body of the twelve-day-old child, found the little baby lying in the mud with his hand under his head. As she lifted him up, to her amazement she found that the baby was still alive! The little body was rubbed and with the drugs and warming materials that they had, the infant was saved.
As the parents went into the house to find the body of the three-year-old, to their amazement again, they found her alive and playing under a chair. A board and part of the wall material had fallen on the chair but had not smashed it, so the child’s life was spared.
Does God take care of His children? Yes, this Christian family in Haiti is certainly a testimony to God’s "covering" in a time of distress.
-Selected