Vineyards in the Wilderness

"I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness¡KAnd I will give her her vineyards from thence" (Hosea 2:14-15).

A strange place to find vineyards--in the wilderness! And can it be that the riches which a soul needs can be obtained in the wilderness, which stands for a lonely place, out of which you can seldom find your way? It would seem so, and not only that, but the "Valley of Achor," which means bitterness, is called a door of hope. And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth!

Yes, God knows our need of the wilderness experience. He knows where and how to bring out that which is enduring. The soul has been idolatrous, rebellious; has forgotten God, and with a perfect self-will has said, "I will follow after my lovers." But she did not overtake them. And, when she was hopeless and forsaken, God said, "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." What a loving God is ours! --Crumbs

We never know where God hides His pools. We see a rock, and we cannot guess it is the home of the spring. We see a flinty place, and we cannot tell it is the hiding place of a fountain. God leads me into the hard places, and then I find I have gone into the dwelling place of eternal springs. --Selected

THE BLESSING OF THE CROSS

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."¡XGAL. vi. 14.

One of the blessings of the cross consists in this, that it teaches us to know the worthlessness of our efforts, and the utter corruption of our own nature. The cross does not offer to improve human nature, or to supply what man is unable to do. Many people, indeed, use it in this way, like patching a new cloth on an old garment. But this rends the garment, and such persons walk about in torn clothes, and go from one minister to another, without finding what they seek. No, the old garment, our old man, must be laid aside, and given over to the death of the cross. And the cross causes all that is of the lost nature of man to die the accursed death, and the "I" takes the place of a malefac¬tor ; it breaks the staff over all that is of the old nature.

Whosoever has been brought to the cross through the Spirit, has learnt to pronounce the death sentence on his old nature, he has broken the staff over himself, for whatever does not bear the mark of the cross, lies under the curse. He who would save his life, remains under the curse. If we have learned through the Spirit to understand the cross, then we have lost our life, and will no longer expect any good from our old nature, and will not judge others, but ourselves only.

But as long as we have not been taught this lesson through the Spirit, we shall try to find good in ourselves, something of worth in God's sight, and upon which the sentence of death need not be passed. And if we find nothing at all, we fall into a false grief, which the Evil One eagerly uses to make us despair, by saying: "You may as well give up; God will not trouble about you; there is nothing for you but failure."

But this is not what God desires. What we possess by nature must be nailed to the cross and we must put on the new man. The cross brings man to utter bankruptcy of himself, and then God can come to our aid. The cross brought the disciples of Jesus once to such an end of themselves, which even the words of the Master had failed to do. It took from them the aureole of holiness which they thought they had won in the three years that they followed Jesus, and it taught them to know themselves. And so they were prepared to receive the Holy Spirit, Who would impart a new nature and a new life. For we cannot separate the cross from the Spirit. We can have no Easter and no Pentecost, until we have first had a Good Friday.

Through the cross alone we are prepared for life in the fulness of God; only he who is crucified with Christ can be a vessel unto honour.

Our "old man" must be crucified with Christ (Rom. vi. 6), and in the resurrection of Christ we find the roots of our new life (1 Pet. i. 3). Whosoever loses his life, shall find it. We must learn the lesson of the cross, as condemned and rejected ones, who have been crucified with Christ. Then the door will be open for a life of power and blessing. All that belongs to death must be given over to death, even as the body is laid away in the earth, because it belongs to the earth.

The Holy Spirit, the Eternal Spirit, is unchangeable. He brought Christ our Head to the cross, and us His children with Him. For this work in us is twofold. On the one hand, it leads us to death, and all that belongs to death; and on the other hand, to that life which God has placed within us, and which leads from glory to glory.

Complete Deliverance

"But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the LORD; and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid"(Jeremiah 39:17).

When the LORD's faithful ones are suffering for Him, they shall have sweet messages of love from Himself, and sometimes they shall have glad tidings for those who sympathize with them and help them. Ebed-melech was only a despised Ethiopian, but he was kind to Jeremiah, and so the LORD sent him this special promise by the mouth of His prophet. Let us be ever mindful of God's persecuted servants, and He will reward us.

Ebed-melech was to be delivered from the men whose vengeance he feared. He was a humble man, but Jehovah would take care of him. Thousands were slain by the Chaldeans, but [he] could not be hurt. We, too, may be fearful of some great ones who are bitter against us; but if we have been faithful to the LORD's cause in the hour of persecution, He will be faithful to us. After all, what can a man do without the LORD's permission? He puts a bit into the mouth of rage and a bridle upon the head of power. Let us fear the LORD, and we shall have no one else to fear. No cup of cold water given to a despised prophet of God shall be without its reward; and if we stand up for Jesus, Jesus will stand up for us.

Morning, July 5

¡§Called to be saints.¡¨(Romans 1:7)

We are very apt to regard the apostolic saints as if they were ¡§saints¡¨ in a more especial manner than the other children of God. All are ¡§saints¡¨ whom God has called by His grace, and sanctified by His Spirit; but we are apt to look upon the apostles as extraordinary beings, scarcely subject to the same weaknesses and temptations as ourselves. Yet in so doing we are forgetful of this truth, that the nearer a man lives to God the more intensely has he to mourn over his own evil heart; and the more his Master honours him in his service, the more also doth the evil of the flesh vex and tease him day by day. The fact is, if we had seen the apostle Paul, we should have thought him remarkably like the rest of the chosen family: and if we had talked with him, we should have said, ¡§We find that his experience and ours are much the same. He is more faithful, more holy, and more deeply taught than we are, but he has the selfsame trials to endure. Nay, in some respects he is more sorely tried than ourselves.¡¨ Do not, then, look upon the ancient saints as being exempt either from infirmities or sins; and do not regard them with that mystic reverence which will almost make us idolaters. Their holiness is attainable even by us. We are ¡§called to be saints¡¨ by that same voice which constrained them to their high vocation. It is a Christian's duty to force his way into the inner circle of saintship; and if these saints were superior to us in their attainments, as they certainly were, let us follow them; let us emulate their ardour and holiness. We have the same light that they had, the same grace is accessible to us, and why should we rest satisfied until we have equalled them in heavenly character? They lived with Jesus, they lived for Jesus, therefore they grew like Jesus. Let us live by the same Spirit as they did, ¡§looking unto Jesus,¡¨ and our saintship will soon be apparent.

Evening, July 5

¡§Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.¡¨(Isaiah 26:4)

Seeing that we have such a God to trust to, let us rest upon him with all our weight; let us resolutely drive out all unbelief, and endeavour to get rid of doubts and fears, which so much mar our comfort; since there is no excuse for fear where God is the foundation of our trust. A loving parent would be sorely grieved if his child could not trust him; and how ungenerous, how unkind is our conduct when we put so little confidence in our heavenly Father who has never failed us, and who never will. It were well if doubting were banished from the household of God; but it is to be feared that old Unbelief is as nimble nowadays as when the psalmist asked, ¡§Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Will he be favourable no more?¡¨ David had not made any very lengthy trial of the mighty sword of the giant Goliath, and yet he said, ¡§There is none like it.¡¨ He had tried it once in the hour of his youthful victory, and it had proved itself to be of the right metal, and therefore he praised it ever afterwards; even so should we speak well of our God, there is none like unto him in the heaven above or the earth beneath; ¡§To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.¡¨ There is no rock like unto the rock of Jacob, our enemies themselves being judges. So far from suffering doubts to live in our hearts, we will take the whole detestable crew, as Elijah did the prophets of Baal, and slay them over the brook; and for a stream to kill them at, we will select the sacred torrent which wells forth from our Saviour's wounded side. We have been in many trials, but we have never yet been cast where we could not find in our God all that we needed. Let us then be encouraged to trust in the Lord for ever, assured that his ever lasting strength will be, as it has been, our succour and stay.