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As the world plunges ever further
into chaos and confusion,
there are two critical spiritual
gifts which we all need.
These are Faith and Long Suffering.
When discussing Faith, many
people think that this is a human quality that we can work up.
Many people say I wish I had the
faith like some other person.
They are unaware that the faith
that matters is the faith of Jesus Christ.
It is not a human faith, which
we can intensify by some activity.
Genuine believers are still only
human beings who have a spiritual calling.
We are called to spiritual
warfare where the Eternal implements,
His already gained victory over
Satan.
Spiritual problems, require
spiritual solutions.
Often our physical problems are
the result of spiritual conditions.
Our problems are often much greater
than we can physically cope with.
Our faith has to be utterly and
completely in the Eternal God.
We have not only to believe but
also to know that we know,
that the Eternal is looking
after our very best interests in all situations.
It does not matter how things
look to us, or if nothing seems to be happening,
or if pain is involved.
David and Goliath,
When David a mere youth
confronted Goliath, this was much more than
a confrontation between a
physical big man and a little boy.
1 Samuel 17:33 And Saul said to David,
Thou art not able to go against
this Philistine to fight with him:
for thou art but a youth, and
he a man of war from his youth.
This was just as much a
spiritual confrontation as a physical one.
David was a very unusual youth.
1 Samuel 16:13 Then Samuel took
the horn of oil,
and anointed him in the midst of
his brethren:
and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward….
David knew absolutely that he
could destroy Goliath because the Spirit of the Lord
was upon him. His faith greatly
exceeded that of his brothers and the whole Israelite army.
It was not a faith that he had
to work up.
To David it was a reality.
His faith was completely in the
Eternal God.
Zechariah 4:6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying,
This is the word of the LORD
unto Zerubbabel, saying,
Not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
We can see clearly where David’s
faith lay.
He had no doubt whatsoever that
the battle is the Lord’s and that it was
the Eternal who gave victory.
1 Samuel 17:45 Then said David to the Philistine,
Thou comest to me with a sword,
and with a spear, and with a shield:
but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts,
the God of the armies of Israel,
whom thou hast defied.
46 This day will the LORD deliver
thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee,
and take thine head from thee;
and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines
this day unto the fowls of the
air, and to the wild beasts of the earth;
that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
47 And all this assembly shall know
that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear:
for the battle is the LORD’S, and He will give you into our hands.
Goliath was no ordinary person
either.
We see that the land of Canaan
was inhabited by giants.
Numbers 13:33 And there ( In the Promised Land, Canaan) we
saw the giants,
the sons of Anak, which come of
the giants:
and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
The word translated giants in
the above verse has the exact same meaning
as in Genesis 6:4
giants, the Nephilim.
In our documents
The Days of Noah are today
Building the Ark – Fallen
Angels,
we show that these nephilim are
the offspring of fallen angels and the daughters of men.
These giants were cannibalistic
savages.
Numbers 13:32 And they brought up an evil report of the
land which
they had searched unto the
children of Israel, saying,
The land, through which we have
gone to search it,
is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof;
and all the people that we saw
in it are men of a great stature.
Goliath was some 9 feet tall.
His armour weighed some 125 lb.
The shaft on his spear was as
thick and heavy as a weavers beam.
The iron spear head weighted 15
lb.
These beings were of phenomenal
strength.
Just the sight of them created
fear and panic in their opponents.
You can read the full report in 1
Samuel 17.
In the battle between David and
Goliath, David took his sling and 5 smooth stones
and went towards his enemy. He faced him and confronted him in the name of the Lord.
The stone left his sling and the
Eternal guided it to the half-breed’s forehead,
and caused the stone to smash
deep into Goliath’s forehead.
In an instant he was dead.
The above report is a supreme of
example of faith.
We have to ask the Eternal to be
all the things which we need.
This includes our faith.
Humanly we nothing that is worth
building on.
Therefore personally I prefer to
ask the Eternal to be whatsoever I need.
We then have to believe that the
Eternal hears and answers us.
He fights our battles, it is
none of our doing at all.
Even in the battle at
Armageddon, we might think that the saints who accompany Christ
wage war with Him.
This is not the case at all.
Christ destroys His enemies with
the great sword which comes out of His mouth.
The armies accompany Him that is
all.
Revelation 19:14 And the armies which were in heaven followed
him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and
clean.
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword,
that with it he should smite the
nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:
and he treadeth the winepress of
the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon
the horse,
which sword proceeded out of his
mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
We must receive the faith of
Christ and then let Him fight all our battles.
Revelation 19:16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh
a name written,
KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF
LORDS.
The second spiritual gift which
we need is long suffering.
Many churches today preach a
health and wealth gospel.
I am not aware of any that preach
that we are called to a life of suffering,
muchless long suffering,
although there might well be some.
Suffering is essential to our
Spiritual growth.
When we suffer we personally
become involved in the sufferings of Christ,
for the benefit of the whole
body.
This is quite an astounding
statement.
Colossians 1:24 Now I can find joy amid my sufferings for
you,
and I fill up in my own person whatever is lacking in Christ’s
afflictions
on behalf of His Body, the
Church.
A little study will show that
the true followers of Christ have always been
persecuted. You can see this in
the life of Paul and all the apostles,
and the saints from the time of
Christ until now.
Fox’s Book of Martyrs, is
dedicated to this subject.
Matthew 5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake:
for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,
and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in
heaven:
for so persecuted they the
prophets which were before you.
If your life has been a very
easy road all the time, you need to worry,
as that is not the life to which
we are called, and which we can expect.
The Eternal gives us the strength
to endure whatever suffering comes our way.
I am not saying that it is easy
and painless, far from it.
Without the empowerment from the
Eternal we simply would not be able to cope.
Christ was rejected and still is
rejected.
This is a major cause of
suffering for us today.
Isaiah 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows,
and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our
faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isaiah 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows:
yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted.
Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our
transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed.
We can forget about all those clean pictures of a
crucified Christ
and the little crucifixes which almost everyone wears
now a days.
Isaiah 51:13 Behold, My servant
shall prosper,
he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very
high.
Isaiah 51:14 According as many were appalled at thee
—so marred was his visage unlike that of a man,
and his form unlike that of the sons of men—
Christ’s body was ripped open by the savage scourging,
to the extent
that He almost did not look human. That is what the
verses above state.
When it comes to suffering, Christ went into an area
that we are unable to go.
We have to realize that their was a spiritual
dimension to His suffering.
He took the sins of the whole world on himself.
1
John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for
our sins: and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world.
Propitiation means reconciliation by
blood.
I think that we all have a very good idea of
suffering.
We have to consider the concept of long suffering,
that is suffering long.
We often pray for others to be changed so that they
can be easier to get along with.
We pray and pray and nothing happens.
We fail to realize that the Eternal is trying to get
us to change and not the other person.
He often wants us to experience what He is
experiencing, but we do not grasp this point at all.
An example of this is as follows.
Let us say that I am desperately wanting to have a
mate and get married.
I meet little Miss Wonderful, and I have great hopes that
this time
this is going to work, she is the perfect match for
me.
Every day I wait for the phone calls, sometimes they
come, sometimes they don’t.
I wait for the visits, sometimes they happen,
sometimes they don’t.
Every time I hear a car approaching the drive, I look
out the window,
can it be a visit from Miss Right, more often than not
it is not.
This goes on day after day, week after week, month
after month, even year after year.
Now we can begin to feel how the Eternal feels, and
how long suffering He is.
He is lonely, He is asking,
‘Where is My Bride?’
He has been waiting for Hs wife, His bride to make
herself ready, He is asking
‘Where is My Bride?’
He was waiting from the time of Adam, He is asking
‘Where is My Bride?’
Since Christ came and died for us all, He is asking,
‘Where is My Bride?’
Now that the time has run out the question remains the
same.
‘Where is My Bride?’
As a young person earnestly
desiring to get married,
the waiting is driving you
almost insane.
You have done everything
possible.
You have made the sacrifices,
but it seems all y our plans have stalled,
and all you know is that you are
still asking,
‘Where is My Bride?’
There is not a great deal of
difference in the case of the Eternal.
You will be put into this and
similar positions so that you can experience
a little what the Eternal is
experiencing.
You might actually be married
but because of your separate lives under
the same roof you are asking the
very same question.
Where is my bride?
When you view relationship
differences in this light,
it takes on a very different
appearance.
You can do the same thing with
strange situations which you face at your work,
with your children, and the
apparent never ending illness which many of us experience.
When you come out of all these
experiences of long suffering, you are then much
better equipped to empathise
with others and help them to bear their burdens.
without this experience all you
have is an intellectual understanding but no real
practical experience.
Please do not think that I am
saying that long suffering is easy or that it is enjoyable.
It is not.
In my experience is certainly
helps me to view things from a different perspective.
In my work with computers, I
have spent days resolving problems when there was
no one to whom I could turn. As
at one point I was making my living in this way.
I had no choice.
It was always interesting to me
that most often when there was someone who could
help me, they were unavailable.
All this taught me patience and
long suffering.
I hope that this will help us to
see that faith and long suffering are two spiritual
qualities that greatly benefit
the body of Christ.
We should desire to learn from
these painful but necessary experiences.
The only way out of ALL dilemmas
is Jesus Christ.
He is the only way of escape.
Praise
the Lord.
Come
soon Lord Jesus.
Amen.
(Bible Explanations,
Messages of Life, Hope & Encouragement)