"There is therefore now no condemnation."—Romans 8:1.

OME, my soul, think thou of this. Believing in Jesus, thou art actually and effectually cleared from guilt; thou art led out of thy prison. Thou art no more in fetters as a bond-slave; thou art delivered now from the bondage of the law; thou art freed from sin, and canst walk at large as a freeman, thy Saviour's blood has procured thy full discharge.
Thou hast a right now to approach thy Father's throne. No flames of vengeance are there to scare thee now; no fiery sword; justice cannot smite the innocent. Thy disabilities are taken away: thou wast once unable to see thy Father's face: thou canst see it now. Thou couldst not speak with Him: but now thou hast access with boldness. Once there was a fear of hell upon thee; but thou hast no fear of it now, for how can there be punishment for the guiltless?

He who believeth is not condemned, and cannot be punished. And more than all, the privileges thou mightst have enjoyed, if thou hadst never sinned, are thine now thou art justified. All the blessings which thou wouldst have had if thou hadst kept the law, and more, are thine, because Christ has kept it for thee.
All the love and the acceptance which perfect obedience could have obtained of God, belong to thee, because Christ was perfectly obedient on thy behalf, and hath imputed all His merits to thy account, that thou mightst be exceeding rich through Him, who for thy sake became exceeding poor. Oh! how great the debt of love and gratitude thou owest to thy Saviour! "A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing;
Nor fear with Thy righteousness on,
My person and offerings to bring:
The terrors of law and of God,
With me can have nothing to do;
My Saviour's obedience and blood

"For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ."—2 Corinthians 1:5.

HERE is a blessed proportion. The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales—in this side He puts His people's trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy. When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to His crew.


It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the Spirit. One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles.

The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart—He finds it full—He begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it. Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this—then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our gourds away, and we want our God; once cleanse the idols out of the house, then we are compelled to honour Jehovah. "Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.

Ezekiel 37:1-14New International Version (NIV)

The Valley of Dry Bones

37 The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”


⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”


⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.



⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’”


¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
¹¹ Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel.


They say,


‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:


My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.


¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.


¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you who  go before the Lord now and from now on in earnest, importunate prayer! Strive to be more than ever conscious of the utter indispensability of this matter. Feel that without Christ you can do nothing! In vain your society, your machinery, your committees, your secretaries, your collectors, your contributors, your missionaries without the Holy Spirit! Blow your trumpet and proclaim loudly what you have done—you have sown much—but you shall reap little unless you are trusting in the Spirit of God! There is always this danger to which we are exposed, though some, I know, think that it is a danger which does not exist—I mean the peril of looking to the strength or the weakness of the instrumentality and being either puffed up by the one or dejected by the other.

You are enough for your work if God is with you! And if you are but a handful you are too many for your work if God is not with you. God never objects to human weakness—when He comes to work He prefers it—for it makes a platform for Divine power. What did He say to Gideon—"The people are too many for Me." He did not say that they were too few. You never find a case in Scripture of God's saying that the people were too few—it was, "The people are too many for Me." Man's strength is more in God's way than man's weakness. No, human weakness, inasmuch as it makes elbow room for God's strength, is God's chosen instrument! "Therefore will I glory in infirmities," said the Apostle, "that the power of God may rest upon me." Rest then, upon the Holy Spirit as indispensable and go to God with this for your cry, "Come from the four winds, O Breath and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."

Observe, Beloved, that this second prophesying of Ezekiel is just as bold and as full of faith as the first. He seems to have no doubt, but speaks as though he could command the wind. "Come," says he and the wind comes. We need more faith in God. When we are engaged in any spiritual work we shall always find our success proportioned to our faith. Little faith, slender harvests! Much faith, plenteous sheaves! Little fishes come in slender numbers to Little-Faith's net. But Strong-Confidence can hardly hold all the great fishes which load her boat. I will not ask for your society, or for you any further gift than greater faith, for, getting greater faith you have Divine strength and sure success.

The Spirit always works with faithful men. My dear Friends, the Spirit of God is poured out! He abides in His Church as the ever-present Comforter. We are not to look upon His influences as a gift which we cannot reach for He is here waiting to give us all we need.

He dwells in the midst of His people and we have but to cry unto Him and He will manifest His mighty power!

Let your prayer, then, be with a sense of how much you need it, but yet with a firm conviction that the Holy Spirit will most surely come in answer to your petitions.

And then let it be earnest prayer. That, "Come from the four winds, O breath," reads to me like the cry, not of one in despair, but of one who is full of a vehement desire gratified with what he sees, since the bones have come together and have been mysteriously clothed with flesh! And he is now crying passionately for the immediate completion of the miracle—"Come from the four winds, O Breath and breathe upon us, that we may live." There is continual vehemence and force here—here is just that which makes a prayer prevalent. O, let us cry mightily unto God! We cannot expect to see great things unless we cry to Him—but we are only limited by our prayers. We are not straitened in Him! We are only straitened in ourselves.

We might see greater things if we could but believe.

All things are possible to him that believes, but as of old, the Lord Jesus cannot do many mighty things nowadays because of our unbelief. We hamper the arm of Grace! We do, as it were, restrain the Almighty energy. O for greater faith to believe! That multitudes may be turned unto God at once—and we shall yet see it—see what our fathers never saw and what our imaginations have never dreamed! We shall leap from victory to victory, marching on from one triumph to another until we meet the all-glorious Savior! Charging enemy after enemy and routing army after army, we shall go on, conquering and to conquer until we salute Him who comes upon the white horse of triumph followed by all the armies of Heaven!

Brethren, be of good courage in your work of faith and labor of love for it is not and shall not be in vain in the Lord.

 

C. H. Spurgeon

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"For me to live is Christ."—Philippians 1:21.

HE believer did not always live to Christ. He began to do so when God the Holy Spirit convinced him of sin, and when by grace he was brought to see the dying Saviour making a propitiation for his guilt. From the moment of the new and celestial birth the man begins to live to Christ. Jesus is to believers the one pearl of great price, for whom we are willing to part with all that we have. He has so completely won our love, that it beats alone for Him; to His glory we would live, and in defence of His gospel we would die; He is the pattern of our life, and the model after which we would sculpture our character. Paul's words mean more than most men think; they imply that the aim and end of his life was Christ—nay, his life itself was Jesus. In the words of an ancient saint, he did eat, and drink, and sleep eternal life. Jesus was his very breath, the soul of his soul, the heart of his heart, the life of his life. Can you say, as a professing Christian, that you live up to this idea? Can you honestly say that for you to live is Christ? Your business—are you doing it for Christ? Is it not done for self-aggrandizement and for family advantage? Do you ask, "Is that a mean reason?" For the Christian it is. He professes to live for Christ; how can he live for another object without committing a spiritual adultery? Many there are who carry out this principle in some measure; but who is there that dare say that he hath lived wholly for Christ as the apostle did? Yet, this alone is the true life of a Christian—its source, its sustenance, its fashion, its end, all gathered up in one word—Christ Jesus. Lord, accept me; I here present myself, praying to live only in Thee and to Thee. Let me be as the bullock which stands between the plough and the altar, to work or to be sacrificed; and let my motto be, "Ready for either."