Wednesday, May 4, 2016

He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.           Matthew 27:43

.....A Christian man may be beaten in business, he may fail to meet all demands, and then Satan yells, "Let him deliver him now."  The poor man has been out of work for two or three months, tramping the streets of London until he has worn out his boots; he has been brought to his last penny.  I think I hear the laugh of the Prince of Darkness as he cries, "Let him deliver him now."  Or else the believer is very ill in body, and low in spirit, and then Satan howls, "Let him deliver him now."  Some of us have been in very trying positions.  We were moved with indignation because of deadly error, and we spoke plainly, but men refused to hear.  Those we relied upon deserted us; good men sought their own ease and would not march with us, and we had to bear testimony for despised truth alone, until we were ourselves despised.  Then the adversary shouted, "Let
him deliver him now."  Be it so!  We do not refuse the test.  Our God whom we serve will deliver us.  We will not bow down to modern thought nor worship the image which human wisdom has set up.  Our God is God both of hills and of valleys.  He will not fail his servants, albeit that for a while he forbears that he may try their faith.  We dare accept the test, and say, "Let him deliver us now."
     Beloved friends, we need not be afraid of this taunt if it is brought by adversaries; for, after all, the test will come to us apart from any malice, for it is inevitable.....
     Yes, the test will come again and again.  May the gibes of adversaries only make us ready for the sterner ordeals of the judgment to come my dear friends, examine your religion.  You have a great deal of it, some of you; but what of its quality?  Can your religion stand the test of poverty, and scandal, and scorn?  Can it stand the test of scientific sarcasm and learned contempt?  Will your religion stand the test of long sickness of body and depression of spirit caused by weakness?  What are you doing amid the common trials of life?  What will you do in the swellings of Jordan?.....   
.....Some of God’s servants have been defeated in their testimony.  They have borne faithful witness for God, but they have been rejected of men.  It has been their lot, like Cassandra, to prophesy the truth, but not to be believed.  Such was Jeremiah, who was born to a heritage of scorn from those whose benefit he sought.....
     .....He does not deliver according to the interpretation put upon "deliverance" by our shrinking flesh and blood.  He delivers, but it is in his own way.  Let me remark that, if God delivers you and me in the same way as he delivered his own Son, we can have no cause of complaint.  If the deliverance which he vouchsafed to us is of the same kind as that which he vouchsafed to the Only Begotten, we may well be content.  Well, what kind of a deliverance was that?  Did the Father tear up the cross from the earth?  Did he proceed to draw out the nails from the sacred hands and feet of his dear Son?  Did he set him down upon that "green hill far away, beyond the city wall," and place in his hand a sword of fire with which to smite his adversaries?  Did he bid the earth open and swallow up all his foes?  No; nothing of the kind.  Jehovah did not interpose to spare his Son a single pang; but he let him die.  He let him be taken as a dead man down from the cross and laid in a tomb.  Jesus went through with his suffering to the bitter end.  O, brothers and sisters, this may be God's way of delivering us.  We have trusted in God that he would deliver us; and his rendering of his promise is, that he will enable us to go through with it; we shall suffer to the last, and triumph in so doing.....
     Yet God’s way of delivering those who trust in him is always the best way.  If the Father had taken his Son down from the cross, what would have been the result?  Redemption unaccomplished, salvation work undone, and Jesus returning with his life-work unfinished.  This would not have been deliverance, but defeat.  It was much better for our Lord Jesus to die.....It is not God's will that every mountain should be leveled, but that we should be the stronger for climbing the Hill Difficulty.  God will deliver; he must deliver, but he will do  it in our case, as in the case of our Lord, in the best possible manner.
     .....the taunt of the adversary shall not cause our God to forget or forego his people.  I know that the Lord will no more fail me than any other of his servants.  He will not leave a faithful witness to his adversaries. "I know that my Avenger liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."  Is this also your confidence?  Then do not sit down in sorrow, and act as though you despaired.  Quit yourselves like men.  Be strong, fear not.  Cast yourselves on the love that never changeth and never fainteth, and the Lord will answer all the revilings of Rabshakeh, and the blusterings of Sennacherib.....
                                                                                                                                           C. H. Spurgeon

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