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he could repeat from the Scriptures, and adding, with incredible
boldness, that God must hear and answer now if He would ever
have the petitioner trust Him again.
Melancthon, writing to a friend, said,  I should have been a
dead man had I not been recalled from death itself by the coming of
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Luther. Luther wrote as follows to friends:  Philip is very well& . I
found him dead; but by an evident miracle of God, he lives.
I am associated in the Lord s work with a dear sister who had
seven major operations performed on her by some of the best
surgeons in this or any other country. Her friends jokingly say that
everything was removed except her brains. I can testify that they are
intact and fertile of many splendid expedients for advancing the
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
After all this surgery, adhesive inflammation set in; and she was
simply  glued together inside, to quote her own words. Every
effort was made to relieve this condition but all in vain. Lying on
her hospital cot dying, she, like Hezekiah, turned her face to the
wall. There she saw Jesus only. Such childlike confidence and
unclouded trust came with the sight that she knew the work was
done. She was prayed with for healing and saw herself submerged
in depths of burning white light. In Him was life; and the life was
the light of men (John 1:4). From the day, nine years ago, she has
done two days work every day of her life. I am a constant witness
of her unceasing activity.
I had thirty-five blessed years added to my life because I dared,
when dying from the abuse of narcotics, to turn my face to the wall
and cast myself upon God. I said to myself as I drew a sigh of utmost
relief,  It can t fail now because it s ALL GOD. It didn t fail, and I
don t know how many more blessed years He is going to grant me,
if the Lord should tarry.
I feel it to be a priceless privilege to live at this period of history
when we have golden opportunities of turning our faces to the wall
and taking victory over all the power of hell through faith in our all-
conquering Christ.
We are co-workers together with God, and our work is to
believe on Him whom God hath sent. If we don t believe, we are not
workers but ciphers, and worse. God has made man s cooperation
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His Face to the Wall
necessary in the plan of redemption. If thou canst believe, all things
are possible to him that believeth (Mark 9:23).
The Lord Jesus awaits the trembling, tearful cry of the father of
the demon-possessed boy, & Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief
(v. 24), before He speaks the word of power: & I charge thee, come
out of him, and enter no more into him (v. 25).
The eyes of the Lord are running to and fro throughout the
whole earth to show Himself strong on the behalf of them whose
heart is perfect toward Him, that is, those who fully trust Him.
I am sure God is sufficient for  these things, the things that He
allows to come into your life and mine, the tests spiritual, mental,
physical, financial. If we will but turn our faces to the wall and see
nothing but God, we shall find ourselves more than conquerors in
all of them.
Nay, more. I believe that God will use us, if we will look away
from all else to Him alone, to mitigate the awful conditions that
surround us, to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. But
He has made man s faith a determining factor in the execution of the
divine purposes; and the indispensable prerequisite to being so used
is that we turn our faces to the wall and see nothing but God.
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Chapter 9
A Song of Resurrection
He brought me up& out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay,
and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath
put a new song in my mouth& (Ps. 40:2,3).
H
Here we find a man crying to God out of  a horrible pit. A pit
of horrors, indeed, for the original implies a place of  chaos, confu-
sion, conflict, noise, tumult, dimness, darkness, disorder, despair,
death, and destruction. Rotherham translates it  the destroying
pit, so all in it are doomed by the mere fact that they are there.
How did this man, who is typical of every man who has ever
lived from Adam down, get there? Did God, who made him, put him
there? Never. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and
there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground
made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
and good for food& (Gen. 2:8,9).
I have gazed enraptured at gardens made by human hands,
which were so beautiful that they took my breath away; but what
must have been the exquisite loveliness of this garden planted by the
divine hand that put the shine into the stars, the majesty into the
mountains, the sacred beauty into the dawn, the glory into the
sunset, and tinted the petal of the rose!
Man had only to dwell there amidst noble trees, emerald green
turf, gorgeous blossoms, flashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful,
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His Healing Power
sleek animals, who fawned on him as their God-given head and
enjoy uninterrupted communion and fellowship with the author of
all this beauty, the Creator of the universe and the bestower of every
good and perfect gift.
Whence, then, the pit? It was Satan, that malign and mysterious
being, once the  anointed cherub& upon the holy mountain of
God in the mineral Eden of Ezekiel 28, with every precious stone
for his covering, whose heart was lifted up because of his beauty and
who corrupted his wisdom by reason of his brightness, who dug the
pit of sin rebellion against divine authority and lured our first
parents into his trap.
The bait was the knowledge of good and evil. The prize was won
but at what a cost! For Adam and Eve fell into the pit; and all their
progeny, from that day to this, were born there. And from the pit
there is no human way of escape.
Men have sought out many inventions, embellished their pit
dwellings with magnificent works of art, perfected systems of
philosophy, even erected retaining walls, and laid down paving
stones of ethical culture to prevent people from sinking deeper in the
mire; but no man has ever been able to find a way out. In other
words, with all the genius manifested by pit dwellers, there is no
power in the pit to extricate anyone from its depths.
And when all is said and done, in spite of scientific discoveries,
rapid transportation on earth and sea and in the sky, radio, and
other wonders, the pit is the pit still; and it is a horrible pit; the Bible
says so. Some are deeper in the mire than others; but all alike have
sinned, and the wages of sin is death. (Rom. 6:23.)
As there is no power in the pit to deliver, it is evident that if
anyone is to escape eternal doom, aid must come from above, and
that is precisely what happened. One day, while heaven resounded
with anthems of praise, Jesus Christ, the effulgence of the Father s
glory and the expression of His substance, rose  and the light in
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A Song of Resurrection
heaven grew dimmer as He left His father s side  and came, down,
down, DOWN, from the rainbow-circled throne on the sapphire
pavement, down from the adoration of the living creatures who
cease not day nor night crying,  Holy, holy, holy! Down from the
glory, which He had with the Father before all worlds. Down past [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]