No Contest

"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7)

Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises. She cried from the top of the high places, "Receive my instruction, and not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold" (Proverbs 8:10). After that, every man is on his own. He may accept or refuse.

Were this an unfallen world the path of truth would be a smooth and easy one. Have the nature of man not suffered a huge moral dislocation there would be no discord between the way of God and the way of man.

I assume that in heaven the angels live through a thousand serene millenniums without feeling the slightest discord between their desires and the will of God. But no so among men on earth. Here the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other.

In that contest there can be only one outcome. We must surrender and God must have His way.

There is a moment in every life when we meet God, and by a supreme surrender enter into His sovereign will and His perfect peace.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Outpourings and More Outpourings

"If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another" (1 John 1:7)

God desires to advance His work among men by frequent outpourings of the Spirit upon His people as they need them and are prepared to receive them.

The Bible encourages us to expect "showers of blessings" and "floods upon the dry ground". It was impossible for the outpouring which came at Pentecost to affect persons who were not present or congregations not yet in existence. 

The Bible does not sponsor the chilling doctrine of one-for-all blessing. It is obvious that the spiritual benefits of Pentecost must be prolonged beyond the lifetimes of the persons who were the first to receive them.

In brief, the teaching of the New Testament is that the outpouring at Pentecost was the historic beginning of an era which was to be characterized by a continuous outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes with the light of truth in one hand, so to speak, and the blood of Christ in the other. What the light reveals, the blood cleanses.

~A. W. Tozer~