“For Such a Time as This” - Walk With The · PDF file“Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this ... Yet it is the open-minded who succumb the...

“For Such a Time as This”

By Dr. Robert A. Cook

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Walk With The King, Inc.

CONTENTS For such a time as thisChrist is ALL or is He? “Rusty, stay down!”Free from fear

The issue is not whether we live long or comfortably, but whether we are projecting God into our world

For such a time as this

God has always raised up certain individuals for a particular place in history. Joseph was raised up for his day, David for his. Daniel was God’s nomination for prime minister, by way of the prisoners’ barracks. To Queen Esther came the call of God through her cousin Mordecai: “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4: 14). With the clear light of centuries shining on the story, we are sure that Queen Esther was God’s provision for the needs and crises of her people.

One person-and God uses that one to affect the many. There was just one Abraham, just one Elijah, just one Peter, just one Paul, just one Augustine, just one Luther, just one Moody, just one Hudson Taylor. And there is just one you!

Have you ever thought what your life might mean to those whom you can influence-either for good or for evil? One Ahab and a nation sunk in idolatry. One Josiah-and a nation led in revival! Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

But, you say, who am I? Moses said the same: “Lord, I am not eloquent.” Gideon was far from convinced by the angelic commission: “Wherewith shall I save Israel? I am the least in my father’s house.” John the Baptist, busy about his God-given ministry, had no time to spare to reflect on his greatness; yet of him the Lord declared, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater ... “ (Matt. 11:11).

God is looking for those who will allow Him to work through them. “I sought for a man among them,” He says, “that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none” (Ezek. 22:30). “Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it (the whole city)” (Jer. 5:1).

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Who can forget Moses’ prayer, burning with the eloquence of a desperate heart? “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin-and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book” (Ex. 32:32). God looks for someone who will stand between Him and a city-or even a whole nation. And that someone could be you. Responsibility is implicit in the Christian message. The believer is responsible for himself and his relation to God’s truth: “Take heed to thyself and to the doctrine ... so then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” The believer also is responsible for his brother: “Judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” And the believer is responsible for his . world: “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance ... Go ye therefore.”

The Christian is to make a difference in his world, as long as he is in it. Our Lord said to His disciples, “Ye are the light of the world ... ye are the salt of the earth.” He also said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world ... as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” Above all, we who are privileged to enjoy a great deal of light and liberty certainly are more respon-sible under God than those who are less favored. It is about time that fat, sleek, easy-going Ameri-can believers take stock of their situation, and faced their duty to the rest of the world! “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48).

For such a time as this ... ? What kind of time do we live in? Basically, the world, the flesh and the devil are no different from what they were in other centuries. Sinful human nature is still predictably selfish, anti-God and anti-good. Human personality in the raw is still “filled with malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.” We need not expect the world to love us Christians when it hates our Christ. We need not expect the great men of our day to come flocking to the Cross; “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” respond to His call.

A confused time

Some characteristics, however, seem to belong especially to the day in which we live. One is that it is a confused time. No one seems sure of anything. Having thrown out authoritarian religion, together with faith and belief in the inspiration of the Word of God, modem educators and scientists have fallen a prey to the philosophy of tentativeness - thinking that what is true today may not be true tomorrow. Since some new satellite may loom up over our horizon and change all our concepts.

Even in religious circles many are hiding their confusion under the guise of “having an open mind.” The person with religious convictions is accused of being a bigot. The New Testament believer who knows what-and Whom-he believes is labeled as naive, obstructionist and reactionary.

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Yet it is the open-minded who succumb the quickest under pressure of mind and spirit. Hunter says it was the men who were college and university trained in having” an open mind” who collapsed the soonest under the pressures of communist brainwashing. They weren’t sure of any thing so they had nothing to live or die for. Luke says that in the end time “there shall be ... upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity” (21:25).

Christians do well to identify this characteristic of the age in which we live and decide where they stand in relation to it. Because others are confused and are surrendering, one by one, the principles for which our fathers stood and which they affirmed with their own blood, does it follow logically that we too must be just as confused and that we must give in to the drift of a godless world? Never!

It is the enemy that whispers, “Surrender ... give up.” It is the Spirit of God speaking through the believer Who says, “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

So others are confused? Let them be. You stand for something! You are somebody-a child of the King! You know Him through the miracle of the New Birth! You talk to God every day, and He talks to you! Your steps are divinely guided, and your life is divinely protected, so that nothing evil can harm you! Your standards of life are already set by a Holy God, and forever settled in His Word - good enough to live and die by!

Let the world wobble on its foundations; you stand firm on the solid Rock, Jesus Christ. Let others wonder what to believe you make sure that you know what and Whom you believe ... and that you believe it strongly enough to stake your very life on it!

History has never been written by discussions. People who like to hear the sound of their own voices rarely can be counted upon to lead a faltering humanity out of its troubles. It is the Bible-based stalwart who dares to say, “Sirs, I believe God!” that makes all the difference in the midnight of a shipwrecked world. Thou art come for such a time as this!

Corrupt Time

The second thing to consider is that we live in a corrupt time. There are, for example, the phonies. Matthew 24:23-24 speaks of those who will “deceive the very elect.” Peter warns of some whose speciality is “beguiling unstable souls,” who “through feigned words make merchandise of you.” Paul warns that in the last days there will be those who have a form of godliness but who deny the power thereof. They are all with us today.

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There are the fallen-away. Luke 18: 8 asks the plaintive question, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” And Matthew 24: 12 flatly says that the love of many shall wax cold. One would have to admit that for most evangelicals about the only thing we know of sacrifice is how to spell it. A drifting coldness, like the imperceptible chilling of the blood before death by freezing, is sweeping over the visible church. Much religion ... little heart. There are the forsaken. Iniquity shall abound, Matthew says. Paul paints the horrible picture of people so wedded to their sin that they call black white and call wrong right. Dialectic materialism is simply the logic of the damned-put in a book! God is forced to forsake such people. “God gave them up,” says Romans 1:24, 26, 28.

Every so often the FBI warns that crime is increasing. But we have lived with a rising crime rate for so long that we count it like rising prices-inevitable-and go on living with it. Standards are sagging, morals vanishing, and godlessness is taught to our society in little doses through mass communication media. We are living to see the day when God is turning His back on people who have forsaken Him. ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”

Yes, it is a corrupt day we live in. But what about you, child of God? Thou are come to the kingdom for just such a time as this!

Others are false. Do you have to be? No!

Paul says, “Be henceforth no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine ... but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ . .. Walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Eph. 4:14, 15,17). Someone has to be true, no matter how many counterfeits there are! You be that someone!

Others are fallen away. Should you? No!

“Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (Rev. 3:11). The secret of avoiding apostasy is not fighting apostasy, but fighting sin and Satan with the sword of the Spirit-the Word of God! If more apostasy hunters would take unto them the whole armor of God and go out after lost souls, rebuking sin and Satan, we would soon have a different climate in the church of the Living God! “Take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to with-stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Eph. 6:13).

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Others have given in to the ever encroaching spread of godlessness. Must you? No! “When the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against him” (Isa. 59:19). Who knoweth whether thou art come ... for such a time as this? It takes just one person, sold out to God, filled with His Spirit, to make all the difference.

A Challenging Time

We live also in a challenging time. These are terrifying days-catastrophe is just a heartbeat away. Some madman can at any moment loose upon the world a holocaust that would, within the space of thirty minutes, leave fifty million Americans dead. People are losing their minds through sheer panic ... “for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” Many a heart attack is being induced by constant fear, that brings the tension that stops the beating of life in the breast.

And yet, for the child of God who is walking in the will of God, there is - or ought to be - perfect peace and an opportunity for service such as he has never known before. Are people afraid? He has the antidote to fear: One, a Person, who says, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb. 13:5). Is there danger in the air? Jesus, our Almighty Savior says, “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more than they can do ... “ (Luke 12:4).

The death of the body is just an incident in the eternal story of Divine accomplishment. To die is to depart and be with Christ which is far better. The great longing is not to live long, but to live - or to die - in a manner that will glorify Christ.

If ever the Lord Jesus Christ was real, He is today! You have the priceless privilege of presenting Him to people who are confused, corrupted, caved-in emotionally and spiritually spent. You are come to the kingdom for such a time as this. God has plans for you. God have mercy on you if you back away from living-or dying-so as to make a difference in the history of your generation!

Let us be fully cognizant of the force of prophetic truth, and the cast of coming events foretold in God’s Word. But let us never forget that in the economy of God, the seemingly inevitable march of human events has often been reversed by one person who dared to believe and obey God!

Remember Moses ... and Elijah .. and Daniel ... and Peter ... and Paul ... and Luther ... and Wesley ... and Edwards ... and Finney ... and Moody! Remember Joseph ... and Gideon ... and David ... and Hezekiah ... and Nehemiah! God is still saying, “Ask me concerning my sons, and concerning the works of my hands, command ye me ... ask what I shall do for thee according to your faith be it unto you ye have not because ye ask not.”

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Oh, Little-faith, the issue is not whether you live long or comfortably, whether you are spared war and its suffering or whether your taxes go up or down. Eternal matters are at stake! You are responsible for projecting God into the day in which you live. Your Sunday School teaching and preaching must communicate God! Your life must be a demonstration of what God can do in shoe leather! Your personality must always be plugged in to the heavenly switch-board! And through it all, God is willing to tie His Almightiness to your faith. Make your plans and your prayers big enough for God to get into! Specialize in believing and obeying God in your own life - leave the projection of it across the world to Him.

Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Think this over carefully., .

Christ is ALL or is He?

The Apostle Paul uses a strange expression. He says, “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). What does he mean?

What do I mean when I use these words? The answer is at the cross, that great common denominator. A profound leveling process goes on there, by which every conceivable hindrance to oneness is removed: ... Every national barrier - ”Greek or Jew” ... Every religious barrier -” circumcision or uncircumcision” ... Every cultural barrier - ”Barbarian or Scythian” ... Every societal barrier - ”bond or free.”

There we are - all of us who have trusted Christ. We have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Positionally, we are “in Christ.”

If by that action our relationship to Christ has changed (and it has) then our goals in life also have changed. The stuff of which our thoughts are made is different now than it used to be. And exactly to the extent that we recognize what Calvary has accomplished for us will Christ become in very truth “ALL and in all.”

The ALL of my desires

Since I am “risen with Christ,” Paul says I am to “seek” certain things. “Seek” has in it the idea of pursuing earnestly a goal. I am to studiously desire those things that are above, where Christ is. I am to set my mind deliberately on heavenly things. I am to refuse to be shackled by every-

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day things on earth.

Did you know you can decide what you want as truly as you can work for its attainment? Oh, yes, you can!

Let me give you an illustration. Five or six years ago (the time element is important) a good friend, a prosperous car dealer, met me at an airport in Detroit. He had a brand new Mercedes-one of the big ones-a great, solid, gorgeous piece of machinery that would retail for around $39,000.

As we got in and drove away, I exclaimed, “This is a tremendous car! Why don’t you show off what it can do?”

Well, he proceeded to do just that. He achieved speeds which, while I won’t quote them, were well above the usual.

He said proudly,”You know, this thing is so well engineered that if you put it on a given course it will steer itself.” He lifted his hands from the steering wheel for a few seconds, and sure enough, at umpteen miles an hour the car moved ahead without so much as a wobble. Now at this point there wasn’t anything terribly illegal about what he was doing.

But talk to the same man today and say, “How about putting this car through its paces and letting me see the maximum of what it will do,” and he will respond, “Oh, no! I don’t want to get a ticket.”

What has happened? The national speed limit has been lowered to 55 miles an hour, enforceable by law.

You are a healthy American male, let us say, who has a lead foot and you just love to propel a vehicle down a straight freeway at “60 - leven” miles an hour. You want that, don’t you? But do you do it? No, you say, “not today.”

Why not?

The circumstances have changed. The rules are different. And now you don’t even want the thing that might lead to your arrest.

Thus it is with your relationship to Christ. At the cross a whole new life opened to you. The circumstances have changed. Christ is at least beginning to become Lord of your life.

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Your desires now are different, and Christ-centered. You want Him to be “ALL and in all.”

The ALL of my affections

“Set your affections on things above.” How do I do that?

That phrase, “set your affections” has to do with the way my mind and emotions work.

We might use a little generous paraphrasing here: ”Anchor your thoughts and your emo-tions in heavenly things... Let heaven fill your thoughts... Don’t spend time worrying about things down here ... You should have as little desire for this world as a dead person has ... The pursuit of your goals will follow your mind and your heart.

How much do you love the Savior (the most powerful of emotions)? Show me a person who consistently neglects Jesus-in his thoughts and in his love life-and I will show you one who either never was truly born again or who has wandered far from the One who made him His child.

I must continually ask myself, “Is Christ ALL and in all in my affections?”

The ALL of actions and motives that cause them I am to “mortify” (put to death) certain things here specified. Some items on this list may not seem to apply to us: fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence (v. 5).

But what about “covetousness, which is idolatry”? I am to “die” to that, too. Why? Because it can get between me and the Lord.

I think of a dear missionary brother in Japan whom I knew many years ago. He acquired a beautiful camera outfit from a G.I. who went on a bender and needed ready cash. The equipment would be worth thousands of dollars today, but the soldier sold it to my friend for one hundred dollars.

The Christian brother was delighted and he justified the purchase by saying he had to take pictures representing his work to show to supporters back home.

Well the thing soon became a snare to him. He found he was taking more pictures than he was winning souls.

When revival came to his life and to his mission in 1953 when it was my privilege to have a

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part in an evangelistic thrust, he immediately sold the camera and gave the money to his mission for a youth camp being held outside of Osaka.

I kidded him a little. I said, “I suppose you saved enough money out of the sale to get your-self at least a Brownie box camera so you can keep on taking pictures.”

“Don’t talk to me about cameras!” he replied. “That thing got between me and God, and I’m not going to let that happen again.”

Now is there anything wrong with having a camera? No. I have one or two myself, and you probably do, too. The problem is that wanting things can easily get between ourselves and God. Some one gave me a book entitled Think and Grow Rich. It contains one oft repeated concept that has merit. It is this:

Determine what you really desire. If you will write that down, if you will think about it every day, and if you will lay out in your mind how you expect to achieve that desire - you’re going to get it! Watch what you want. That’s the way life works.

The ALL of God’s goodness

God wants the best for you. And He will see that you get it - He surely will - if you assign the choice to Him.

There is a plaintive passage in the Old Testament. God is sorrowing over His straying people. They rejected Him. They wandered far from Him. And then you have these poignant words: “Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies ... [I would have] fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied them ... But my people would not”. - Psa. 81:11-16

Merv Rosell, an evangelist of note and now a missionary statesman, tells a story about his daughter who, at the time, was a small child. She had her heart set on owning a little necklace she had seen in a dime store. It was a thinly plated brass chain with a small amount of gilt on the outside of the metal, destined to wear off immediately.

One day the child was with her father in the store.

“0h Daddy,” she pleaded, “please let me buy it! I want is so very much!”

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The father explained: “This necklace is a poor quality. It’s not going to last long. Don’t you think it would be better to wait until we can get something better?”

“But I want it,” the child cried. “I’ll pay for it with my own money.”

So the contents of the piggy bank was spread out on the counter, and a happy little girl went away with her new possession.

She wore it with girlish pride. Then within a few days-you guessed it - a little line of green began to appear on her neck. The “gold plating” had worn off. The brass was showing through. The jewelry was worthless.

Crestfallen, the child went to her father admitting, “I guess I should have waited.” Well, of course, she should have waited, for all the time the parents had in readiness a lovely strand of pearls to give to her on her birthday.

She had to learn the difference between what she wanted right now and the much better and longer lasting provision of her parents.

God has only good things planned for us.

We often misjudge the goodness in our eagerness to have what we want when we want it.

The ALL of exclusion

As we have seen earlier in this passage, our new relation to Christ rules out our engaging in what we call gross sins. I’m sure that when you became a Christian you gave up bank robbing, didn’t you? And narcotics? And gambling?

Now Paul says we are to go a step farther if Christ is, in fact, all and in all to us. We are to “put off” certain things-and the change is effected by faith, exactly in the same way that salvation is received. Here is the list, from verses 8 and 9: .. anger - that is selfish demanding .. wrath - that is anger having a tantrum .. malice - that is anger scheming to do wrong. .. blasphemy - that is anger against the Almighty .. filthy communications - that is dirty stories .. lying - that is shading the truth

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Dear Christian friend, do not miss the thrust of this passage. We are not urged to make ourselves “better” by putting off undesirable traits. We are to return to Calvary - again and again - to remind us of what happened there. Paul says, “ ... Ye have put off the old man” (v. 9). When you stand at the cross, you realize - blessedly! - that the old nature has been crucified with Christ. It is your business now to “reckon” (to count) that work as being done. You do this by faith, and so all of your life becomes in truth a “walk of faith.”

The ALL of eternal blessedness

Do you realize that when Christ is all and in all for you, your life is inextricably tied with His from now to eternity? All through the ages to come certain things are indeed dead with Him and certain things are alive with Him, and by faith you can achieve and experience that life of Christ. The reality is there and you can experience it by faith.

Let me give you a homely illustration. At county fairs, carnivals and such, you may have seen a machine calculated to measure how much electricity can pass through your body before you are forced to break the contact.

The operator makes a little speech. ‘There is electricity in this machine,” he says. “Who of you in the audience will prove it? If you’ll just take hold of these two handles you’ll feel it.” You say, “I don’t believe it. I can’t see any sparks, and glow.”

“No, you can’t see electricity, but it’s there.”

Finally, somewhat skeptically, you walk up and say, “All right, I’ll try what you say. Show me your proof.”

So you reach out both your hands. You take hold of the handles and all at once you feel a tingling ... and a warmth ... and a glow caused by a low voltage current passing through the machine into your body.

All the time you argued about what you couldn’t see ... or feel. .. or experience ... nothing happened to you. But when you reached out and took hold - what a difference!

God says, “Look, all your old nature was crucified with Christ. All the immoral things that plague you, and the covetousness which drives you, and the anger that hinders you, and the unforgiveness that limits you-all that has been nailed to the cross.

But you say, “I’m still troubled by these things. Some of them have a firm hold on me”

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“Oh,” He calls to you, “reach out! Take hold of the cross! ‘Put on’ (v. 10) the new nature.” In other words, grasp in your own two hands the benefits of Calvary. You do this by faith. Bill Bright said to me one day, “I discovered I could take love for another person whom I didn’t love naturally-by faith.”

How wonderful!

Here is the formula. Claim these evidences of Christ’s presence that have already been purchased for you by His death: kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, forbearance, forgiveness -and above all, Calvary love (vs. 12-15).

Years ago, when crossing the Atlantic required a number of days, an immigrant couple packed food enough, as they thought, for the journey to the United States. Every day they would open their lunch hamper and take out a little cheese, a little bread, a little salami. They never had anything else during the long period of their crossing.

The day before the ship was to dock, they remarked to a fellow passenger that they were hungry because they had run out of food.

“Haven’t you been eating in the dining room?”

“No. What dining room?”

“Why, your tickets included all your meals.”

The dear couple hadn’t known that. If they had known, they could have been eating good food all the days of their journey. Instead, they had ignored their privilege, and finally gone hungry.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He died and rose again, purchased for you and me victory over every desire, every need. The victory is His-and He shares it with us. Whatever you decide to do about it (or to do nothing) “Christ IS all and in all.” He wants this triumph also to be yours.

Whether in animal or in man, patience must be learned ...

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“Rusty, stay down!”

A few months ago we acquired a new puppy, a Doberman of all things. That’s a breed that has a bad name because it has been used as an attack dog, in warfare and elsewhere. But at our house we now have a very friendly and enthusiastic creature, “man’s best friend,” yes-loud-mouthed, dirt-bearing, flea-bitten, but eminently affectionate and strong.

Rusty loves to jump up to greet you-and what a greeting you get! Thus it is that the first thing he hears in the morning and at intervals through the day is “Rusty, stay down!” Now did you know that our expression, “stay down” is the same as the word rendered “patience” in 2 Peter, chapter I?

And patience-whether in animal or man-has to be learned.

Some things, Peter says, come to you freely. You can’t earn them or work for them. If you have them at all it is because you accept them as God’s gift to you: precious faith ... precious promises ... grace ... peace-to name a few (see vs. 5-7).

But there are other things you must work for. Peter says, ADD virtue ... knowledge ... temperance (inner strength)... patience.

Most of us have a fairly short fuse, wouldn’t you say? We need to learn the blessed, gentle art of waiting for God to act in His own time and way. He is never late. He never makes mistakes. His timing is exquisitely beautiful. If we truly want patience to be developed in us we must do two things. First count on God’s perfect timing.

Then busy ourselves with whatever it is that we know to be the will of God for us now.

Trouble can be the best thing to happen to us

Trouble works for us actually. The Bible says so, and those of us who have lived a while know this is true.

“Tribulation (we would say ‘trouble’) worketh (is the active agent in developing) patience; and patience, experience; and experience hope” (Rom. 5:3,4).

“Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17).

Oh, yes, trouble can kill you, if you let it.

If you allow resentment to turn inward upon yourself, in just a short time you will be so filled with self-pity that you will lose “the joy of the Lord” that He wants you to have as your “strength.”

So here you are-faced with some trouble you have to go through; there is no escape from it. What can this trouble do for you? It can develop in you a quality that especially pleases the Lord: endurance. Peter says, “If you do right, and still suffer for it, and are patient beneath the blows, God is well pleased” (1 Pet. 2:20, LB).

Dear Christian friend, are you tempted to blow up, or give up, because of long testing? Remember that all God’s dealings with you are for good. Be patient! Stay down!

Patience begets experience

What is “experience,” in Peter’s use of the word? We might say it is the God-can-do-it again factor in our lives. In other words, we remind ourselves that we have been in tight places before-and God has delivered us. Since this is the case, we can say confidently, “He can do it again!”

David knew this. He said, “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Phillistine (Goliath)” (1 Sam. 17:37).

Jehoshaphat knew this truth too. When the Moabites and the Ammonites were attack-ing he prayed: “Art not thou our God who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend forever? ... We have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon thee” (2 Chr. 20:7, 12). In other words, Lord, do it again!

Patience that blossoms into experience is a personal’ thing. At the same time it is not some-thing that you “try” on your own thank God for that. It is wrought in your heart and mind by God, but only when we want it.

Do you remember the story of the man who was seen wheeling a baby carriage with a cry-ing infant inside?

As he moved along he was saying, “Now be patient, Albert. Be quiet, Albert. Albert, don’t fuss.”

A lady who was about to pass him said, “Sir, it’s wonderful to hear you talk so soothingly to the

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baby, asking Albert to be quiet.”

“Oh,” he replied, ‘’I’m Albert.”

See what this dear fellow was doing: He was speaking to his own heart, as we often need to speak to ours, “Stay down! Be patient.”

If you pray for patience, you’ll get it God may send you the very kind of trouble that will develop patience in you. There is no substitute for the discipline of waiting ... of resting ... of quietly going through things with God.

We often pray, “Lord, give me more faith ... more courage ... more compassion”naming cer-tain lacks we see in our own lives. Does God not hear those prayers? Oh, yes, He does! But the answers may come in forms that we do not recognize.

The Bible says, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.”

While we do not know the exact petitions that he presented to God, we do know that he had great concern for the spiritual state of his sons and daughters. Listen to Job 1:4,5: “And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day (his birthday); and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And ... when the days of their feasting were gone about, that lob sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings ... for Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.”

Here is a devout believer in Jehovah, praying for his family, and what happens: one after another, messengers come to him with bad news: oxen taken sheep burned ... camels carried away sons and daughters dead.

Finally Satan was allowed to touch the body of Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. Even his wife forsook him. “Dost thou still retain thine integrity?”, she chided. “Curse God, and die.”

Then his three so-called friends got together and determined to see Job, ostensibly to mourn with him. The rest of the book is largely a record of their attempts to comfort him. He suffered loss of possessions, false accusations, physical pain. With what result? Job came to see himself as he never had before. Look at Job 29, where personal pronouns occur some fifty times. Compare this with the humility he shows in 42:3: “I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.”

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God not only restored his material possessions and increased his family, but even more important - He did a deep work in the heart of Job himself. Would you say that Job’s prayers were answered?

His books is regarded as the oldest book of the Bible. If this be the case, think of the thou-sands of people who, throughout the years, have read of his experience and have been mightily strengthened by it.

Now what about me?

My dear friend, here is something that God would teach you and me. We are to be patient in prayer and intercession ... patient when reversals come ... patient when bereaved ... patient when health is lost ... patient when criticized by family and closest friends.

Why? Because those testings bring us to a place, as Job was brought, of new awareness of His Almightiness: “I know that my Redeemer liveth ... When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

In Christ, God has given us all we need.

He will develop in us the quality of patience if we will simply trust our blessed Lord and go through the experiences He gives to us-by faith.

Yes, the word to us, day after trouble filled day, is this: Stay down! ... Rest in the Lord ... Wait patiently for Him. For just down the road a little way there will spring up the beautiful bless-ings that He delights to give.

You can be ... Free from fear Are you afraid? ...

Many who read these lines are suffering the shock of physical limitation. You are feeling the crippling ravages of arthritis. Maybe the doctor has told you that you have diabetes ... or emphysema ... or cancer. You are consumed with anxiety. (Or your trouble may be of an entirely different sort.)

My dear friend, Jesus knows how to deal with fear of every kind, and He will deal with it for you, if you really want Him to do this for you.

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Focus on the right objective

Many of us are afraid of the wrong things. I think of a dear lady whom I met years ago in a counseling session following an evangelistic invitation. She was more afraid of her mate’s reaction than of losing favor with Almighty God.

This is what she said: “My husband warned me that if I became a Christian he would divorce me. I’m afraid he would. I can’t face that.”

Though she seemed thoroughly convinced of her need of the Savior, she went away in the same sad state in which she had come in. Her fear was misdirected.

In the fourth and fifth chapters of Mark we find us dealing with situations-quite different from each other-in which fear was dominant. One had to do with physical danger and one with altered life style.

Be a victor-not a victim

To be afraid of a physical calamity is a natural reaction. Don’t tell some one who is desper-ately ill that he shouldn’t worry. It’s human to be concerned., If illness strikes you or some one you love, a million questions flood your troubled mind, and quite naturally so. You ask yourself: What will happen to my family ... to my job ... if I can’t work? Will I become a burden to some one?

You don’t have to be a victim of your fear. You can-as a definite act of your will -turn yourself and your situation over to the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you are God’s child, does He know about you? Yes, of course!

Is He trying to punish you? Certainly not.

Well, then, you may ask: Why did He allow me to come to this extremity? My answer to that, dear friend, is that I don’t know-but God does. “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” He knows what He is doing. He sees the end from the beginning. You know the story in Mark 4 (vs. 35-41): the great storm ... the sleeping Savior ... the agonizing cry of the disciples ... the waking Lord ... and the subsequent calm.

Jesus said to those disturbed disciples, ‘Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?”

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Elsewhere He warned: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). In other words: Focus on the right objective. Accord supreme respect to the One who has your life and your eternal destiny in His control.

Once you settle that in your mind and heart, you don’t have to be afraid of anything. You see, you are the key to your own situation. You can mope and cry and worry. Or you can turn in faith to the God who already knows what He is doing with your life, whose plans are already laid, and who is working out a pattern far greater than you can imagine. You can trust Him!

Answer to fear is faith

Faith turns a troubled situation over to One well able to handle it. I have had a few lessons in learning to fly an airplane. One of the great disappointments of my life is that I was never able to pursue my studies long enough to qualify for a private pilot’s license. But I did have some experience in a dual control plane with Paul Hartford as instructor. When we were airborne, he would turn the controls over to me. Invariably I would over control. Before long the aircraft was pitching wildly. The more I tried the worse the condition seemed to get.

Then I would say, “Paul, you had better take over.” He had been watching all the time. He knew exactly what to do, and when to do it. Gently he now took command. And my terrible frustration melted away. Why? A competent person had taken charge.

The answer to your fear is faith: unshaken trust in the altogether competent One. The circumstances may not change-but then again they may. Whatever happens, your little craft is unsinkable with Jesus aboard.

Don’t be afraid of change

The second portion that we are dealing with is in Mark 5:1-17. The chief character is “a man with an unclean spirit” (v. 2). That is, he was powerfully controlled by Satan. We do not hear much about demon possession in our day, but make no mistake, the devil and his henchmen are constantly busy. When asked, ‘What is thy name?” the answer was, “My name is Legion: for we are many.” A Ro-man legion Was composed of six thousand soldiers. The demons identified with this concept, showing how completely they possessed this man.

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We are considering the subject of fear.

Significantly, it was not the man who was so sadly afflicted that was afraid. Fear gripped the hearts of those who witnessed the mightiness of Jesus’ act, the entirely changed individual whom they now saw before them.

“They went out to see what it was that was done. And they came to Jesus, and saw him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting and clothed, and in his right mind, and they were afraid.” (Mk. 5:14, 15).

Earlier, the demons were afraid of Christ because they knew He would cast them out of their human habitation-as He did.

You and I do not need to be afraid of the changes the Lord Jesus Christ will make, because they are always for good. Notice the change He made in this man.

At first he was violent. He broke chains and handcuffs that were put on him. He didn’t wear any clothes, and he was restless and insane.

But when the Lord Jesus cast out the demons and became the Lord and Master and Savior of his life, what a different person he became!

The violence was quelled. He was no longer cutting himself, breaking the chains and hand-cuffs, thrashing about uncontrollably. Instead, he was now seated at the feet of Jesus. And he had put some clothes on. I don’t know where he got them, but it is evident that the return of sanity carried with it the return of modesty. There is something insane, I say, about the current rage to uncover human bodies. The closer you get to Jesus the more modest-not prudish-I think you’ll be. Instead of being restless and wild and threatening, this man now had proper use of his mental faculties, and he was able to listen to what Jesus had to say.

Learn to listen

One of the characteristics of the mentally ill-and to a degree it also marks our godless culture-is the inability to listen. Ours is what we call a sensate culture. We say, in effect, “Don’t bother me with the fine print; just let me look at the pictures. Don’t trouble me about thinking; just let me feel something, experience something.”

Thousands are seeking what they call a valid personal experience. What the experience is doesn’t really matter to them. And so they go from talk to liquor ... to pot. .. to heroin ... to cocaine ... to angel dust, and on and on.

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To have some kind of “experience” is also the driving force that many Christians follow.

But when the Lord Jesus Christ takes charge of your life, you are not going to be seeking for an experience. You will be preoccupied, thank God, with a wonderful PERSON. You will want to sit at His feet and listen to His words because you know that every change He brings will be for good. You do know that, don’t you?

Has God ever cheated you? Has He ever lied to you? Has He ever done less than He promised?

No, all your past experience with God (I hear you say) has been salutary and beneficial. Well then, why not go on the assumption that if all your life thus far has been a good one, you can trust Him for what lies ahead, for any changes that His wisdom may dictate?

You may say, “You don’t understand what I’m going through. I can’t see any possible good in the changes that are being forced on me.”

Dear child of God, trust Him! You may not see any evidence of it now, but in God’s hands-for you who love Him-all things do “work together for good.” Let me cite just one instance.

When I was pastor of a church in Chicago, we were acquainted with a family concerning whom (some time earlier) the following happenings had taken place.

The daughter had attended the church I now pastored. She listened to the gospel and decided to trust Christ as Savior. When she went home and told her father, he flew into a rage and said, “All right, if you are going to be a Christian, you can sleep with the dog. You are not one of us any more.”

So he forced her into the cellar where, trembling with cold, she spent the night on a torn piece of carpet shared by “man’s best friend.”

The next day the father threw this girl out of the house and she lived for some time with kind Christian friends who took her in.

Was that the end of the world for her?

Oh, no. By the time I got to that church to become pastor, that whole family had been won to Christ, including the father who had thrown his daughter out of the house.

I say again: Take your fears to Jesus.

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Learn the blessedness of His control of your life. In addition to that, learn the wonder of being a witness of God’s power to those about you.

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