Thoughts and Meditations

Personal comments made by David F. Reagan unless otherwise stated

May 31, 2007

The Pilgrim Went Home - On this day in the year 1688, John Bunyan, well known author of "The Pilgrim's Progress", went home to be with the Lord.  John Bunyan was imprisoned for preaching the word of God, and in the eleventh year of his imprisonment he accepted a pastorate of a Baptist Church.  The guard was so fond of Bunyan that he would allow Bunyan to go visit his church and preach.  However, as he was on a journey in the year 1688, for the sake of the ministry, he contracted a fatal illness and departed this world to enter into that city of which God is the builder and maker.  Would to God that someone would love Him enough to serve as did Bunyan.  God give us some men!! 

Pope Dethroned - While reading the book, God's Secretaries -The Making of the King James Bible, I came across a most interesting quote.  With the publishing of the King James Bible it was said that "The Reformers dethroned the Pope and enthroned the Bible."  If you study the events around the year 1611 you will find that to be true.  What a great work God has done through the King James Bible.  Just a thought to leave you with....is it possible that with the new versions we have dethroned the Bible and enthroned the Scholar?  Time and time again when someone corrects the King James Bible they tell me how many languages they know.  What do you say as individuals we keep the Bible on the throne.

May 30, 2007

Danger of False Humility – “There is much spurious humility among many saints of God, and this is one of its common forms. It is not pride gratefully to acknowledge what great things the Lord hath done for us,–it is pride that refuses to acknowledge them; it is not true humility to doubt, and underrate, until it becomes easy to deny altogether the work of the Holy Ghost within us,–it is true humility and lowliness to confess his work, bear testimony to his operation, and ascribe to him all the power, praise, and glory. See then, dear reader, that you cherish not this false humility, which is but another name for deep, unmortified pride of heart; remember that as Satan may transform himself into an angel of light, so may his agencies assume the disguise of the most holy and lovely graces; thus pride, one of his master agents of evil in the heart, may appear in the shape of the profoundest humility.” –from Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul (p. 134-135) by Octavius Winslow. Read Colossians 2:18. 

Fear of Being Thought Different – “How we abhor being counted eccentric! How unquestioningly obedient we are to fashion’s decrees, not because the styles are reasonable or right or decent, for they are often most unreasonable and indecent. We are so worldly-minded we would rather be indecent than different. Old King Lust calls thus: ‘Do this,’ and many do it as obediently as any centurion’s servant ever obeyed under the lash of his Roman master.” –from Born Crucified (p. 35) by L.E. Maxwell.

May 29, 2007

Christians and the World – “In John 17 Jesus sets forth the Christian’s position as taken out of the world (v. 6), not of the world (v. 14), kept from the evil of the world (v. 15), left in the world (v. 11), sent into the world to preach to the world (vv. 18, 20), and as a result hated by the world (v. 14).” –from Born Crucified (p. 37) by L.E. Maxwell. 

Hated by the World – “One of the most searching and condemning sentences which ever fell from the Saviour’s lips was that uttered to His own unbelieving brethren: ‘The world cannot hate you’ (John 7:7). If ever I become so one with the world, so tolerant of its spirit and atmosphere that I reprove it no more, incur not its hatred, rouse not its enmity to Christ–if the world can find in me no cause to hate me and cast me from its company, then I have betrayed Christ and crucified Him afresh in the house of His friends. On intimate terms with this world that nailed Him to the tree? Perish the thought! In full identification with Christ the world can regard me as only fit for crucifixion. And as a disciple of Christ I should no more covet the favor of this crucified world than I would court and covet the smile of a cursed and crucified and expiring felon.” –from Born Crucified (p. 38) by L.E. Maxwell.

May 28, 2007

Cancel All Previous Engagements – “Emily Post was once asked for advice by a friend. She said, ‘I have been invited to the White House but I already have an engagement for that same time and am in somewhat of a quandary trying to decide which place to go.’ Emily Post replied, ‘An invitation to the White House automatically cancels all previous engagements.’ Jesus has invited every Believer to the ‘Throne Room’ of Heaven through prayer. This invitation should automatically cancel all previous commitments.” –from Prayer, The Holy Spirit and Christian Living (p. 6) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas. 

Wind It in the Morning – “A man once owned an expensive Swiss watch. He discovered that it lost a few seconds every twenty-four hours. He took it to the watchmaker and explained the problem. The watchmaker said, ‘Do you wind the watch regularly?’ The man exclaimed, ‘Why, sir, I wind it the last thing every night, before I retire.’ The watchmaker said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with winding the watch at night but make sure you wind it in the morning. With a tight mainspring it will be able to stand the shocks, bumps, and jarring it’s exposed to during the day’s activities.’ Christians need to pray frequently. They need to have a tight mainspring wound by prayer that will protect them from the shocks, bumps and bruises of everyday life.” –from Prayer, The Holy Spirit and Christian Living (p. 14-15) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas.

May 25, 2007

Praying Hyde Prays the Hide Off – “J. Wilbur Chapman told of being in a meeting in England, when a man came to visit him at his room following the services one night. The revival had not made any progress up to this point. The man said to J. Wilbur Chapman, I came to pray with you about the meeting. That man got down on his knees with the lights out in the room. An extended period of silence followed. After a great while, he simply heard him cry, Oh God, Oh God! Except for occasional sobs, silence prevailed again. That man began to pray audibly. He continued to pray until Dr. Chapman said I was afraid to open my eyes, because I believe I could have seen the Lord. I was afraid to reach out my hand, because I believe I could have touched him. This man was praying Hyde. The revival broke at that point. Great and mighty things happened to the glory of God.” –from Prayer, The Holy Spirit and Christian Living (p. 19-20) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas. 

May 24, 2007

Spirit of God Works Through the Blood – “We read in Hebrews 9:14, ‘How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’ The blood possesses its power to cleanse and to make us fit to serve the living God by the eternal Spirit who was in our Lord when He shed His blood. This does not mean merely that the Holy Spirit was in the Lord Jesus and bestowed on His person and His blood a divine worth. It is much more than that: it indicates that the shedding of His blood was brought about by the eternal Spirit, and that the Spirit lived and worked in that blood. As a result, when the blood was shed, it could not decay as a dead thing; but, as a living reality, it could be taken up to heaven, to exercise its divine power from there. –from Secrets of Authority (p. 12) by Andrew Murray. 

May 23, 2007

Meaning and Significance of Eternal – “Eternal is one of the words of Scripture that everyone thinks he understands, but there are few who realize what a deep and glorious meaning it has. It is supposed that eternal is something that always continues, something that has no end. This explanation is merely a negative one and tells us only what eternal is not; it teaches us nothing about its nature and being. 

“Everything that exists in time has a beginning and is subject to the law of increase and decrease, of becoming and decaying. What is eternal has no beginning and knows no change or weakening because it has in itself a life that is independent of time. In what is eternal, there is no past that has already disappeared and is lost, and there is no future not yet possessed. It is always a glorious and endless present. 

“Now, when Scripture speaks of eternal life, eternal redemption, eternal joy, it means much more than to say merely that they will have no end. By the word eternal, we are taught that he who has a share in eternal blessedness possesses something in which the power of an endless life is at work. It is something in which there can be no change, nor can it suffer any diminution; therefore, we may always enjoy it in the fullness of its life-bestowing blessings. 

“The objective of Scripture in using that word is to teach us that if our faith lays hold of what is eternal, it will manifest itself in us as a power superior to all the fluctuations of our minds or feelings, with a youth that never grows old, and with a freshness that does not for a moment wither.” –from Secrets of Authority (p. 13) by Andrew Murray. 

Are You a Pismak? – “The Czechoslovaks printed the first Bible in the living tongue – the New Testament in 1475, the full Bible in 1480 – in Prague. So attached were they to the Scriptures that for a man who read and meditated on the Bible daily they coined a word, ‘Pismak’; a Czechoslovak idiom that cannot be translated into any other language.” (The Baptist Romance in the Heart of Europe, p. 23, by Joseph Novotny)” –from Czechoslovak Baptists (p. 25) by Vaclav Vojta, Th. D.

May 22, 2007

No D. D. for J. R. – J. R. Graves (1820-1893) was one of the most influential Baptist preachers and authors of the nineteenth century. For many years he was the editor of the Nashville, Tennessee, paper called The Baptist. “Dr. Graves was a thorough believer in the equality and spiritual democracy of all believers, and was opposed to a minister accepting any title of distinction that would put him above or apart from his brethren. For this reason he refused more than once to be made a D.D. [that is, Doctor of Divinity]” –from Sketches of Tennessee’s Pioneer Baptist Preachers (p. 196) by J.J. Burnett. 

Life Obtained by the Blood – “Abraham had to offer Isaac on the altar. (See Genesis 22:1-18.) This was not an arbitrary command of God. It was the revelation of a divine truth, that only through death is a life truly consecrated to God possible. But it was impossible for Isaac to die and rise again from the dead, for on account of sin, death would hold him fast. But the Scriptures tell us that Isaac’s life was spared, and a ram was offered in his place (v. 13). Through the blood that then flowed on Mount Moriah, his life was spared. He and the people who sprang from him live before God ‘not without blood.’ By that blood, however, he was in a sense raised again from the dead. The great lesson of substitution is here clearly taught.” –from The Practice of God’s Presence (p. 14) by Andrew Murray.

May 17, 2007

Trust as the Source of Leadership Power – “The greatest source of power available to a leader is the trust that derives from faithfully serving followers” (James O’Toole, Professor of Leadership studies, University of Southern California) –from Trust (p. 15) by Les T. Csorba.

Reading the Word of God on Your Knees – “My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light and power from above. I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.” (George Whitfield’s Journals, p. 60) –from George Whitefield (p. 81) by Arnold Dallimore.

May 16, 2007

Beware of These – “Paul [in Colossians 2] mentions four classes of people who try to intimidate us: philosophers, legalists, ascetics, and mystics. The philosophers [Colossians 2:8] tell us that we need more knowledge to be what God wants us to be. They make us feel like mental midgets in our walk with God. The legalists [Colossians 2:16-17] try to convict us for not adhering to their lists of do’s and don’ts. The ascetics [Colossians 2:23] tell us that we have not given up enough yet. Only then, they say, will we be what God wants. Last, the mystics [Colossians 2:18] tell us that our experience has not been deep enough to be truly spiritual. One of the greatest satanic lies today is that even though you are a Christian, you still do not have it all. The Lord alone causes growth in our lives. He is our ‘pituitary gland.’ ” –from The God You Can Know (p.18) by Dan DeHaan. 

God Controls the Rain – “Dr. Charles E. Fuller, for many years radio preacher for the Old Fashioned Revival Hour in Los Angeles, was in Waterloo, Iowa for a radio daily. They were in a large metal building during World War II. The rain was coming down in veritable torrents, the wind was blowing, there was such a rumble, and so much interference with the broadcasting equipment, the engineer said the program could not go on the air. Dr. Fuller simply bowed his head and said, ‘Lord, the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour has gone on the air uninterrupted for many years. It’s your program. I ask you now to stop the rain so the broadcast can go on as scheduled.’ Within 90 seconds the rains ceased, the elements were calm, and it didn’t rain again until the program was completed.” –from Prayer, the Holy Spirit, and Christian Living (p.17) by Wm. K. “Kenny” McComas. See Matthew 7:7.

May 15, 2007

Power and Wisdom in the Two Testaments – “Under the Old Testament there was more of Divine power, and less of his wisdom apparent in his acts: as his laws, so his acts, were more fitted to their sense. Under the New Testament there is more of wisdom, and less of power; as his laws, so his acts, are more fitted to a spiritual mind; wisdom is less discernible than power. Our wisdom, therefore, in this case, as it doth other things, consists in silence and expectation of the end and event of a work. We owe that honor to God that we do to men wiser than ourselves, to imagine he hath reason to do what he doth, though our shallowness cannot comprehend it.” –from The Existence and Attributes of God: Volume 1 (p.605-606) by Stephen Charnock. 

May 14, 2007

Training with an Hour Alone – In The God You Can Know (p.18), Dan DeHaan speaks of the importance of solitary time and its use in the training of children. “I require my children to spend an hour alone every day. I do not dictate what they do during that hour. I encourage their quietness for at least an hour because of what it does to their minds and spirits. The result of that quietness can be seen in the children’s love for one another and in their lack of murmuring. Don’t misunderstand. What I am talking about is the spirit of my children being quiet and sensitive to others. We still laugh loudly and play with gusto, but the inner man of each of them is at home with God. My children’s ages range from six to nineteen. If this can happen in them, it can happen to all of us. Is your life characterized by an inner spirit of quietness and strength? If not, check what or whom you are worshipping. Gaze on Him and be transformed.” See 2Corinthians 3:18. 

Continuing our Education – Charles Spurgeon, in An All-Round Ministry (p.167), made these comments: “No man should ever dream that his education is complete. I know that my friend Mr. Rogers, though he has passed his eightieth year, is still a student, and perhaps has more of the true student spirit about him now than ever: will any of the younger sort sit down in self-content? We shall continue to learn even in Heaven, and shall still be looking deeper and deeper into the abyss of Divine love [Ephesians 2:7]: it were ill to talk of perfect knowledge here below. If a man says, ‘I am fully equipped for my work, and need learn no more; I have moved here after having been three years in the last place, and I have quite a stock of sermons, so that I am under no necessity to read any more;’ I would say to him, ‘My dear friend, may the Lord give you some brains, for you talk like one who is deficient in that department.’ A brain is a very hungry thing indeed, and he who possesses it must constantly feed it by reading and thinking, or it will shrivel up or fall asleep. It is the child of the horseleech, and it crieth evermore, ‘Give, give.’ [Proverbs 30:15] Do not starve it. If such mind-hunger never happens to you, I suspect that you have no mind of any consequence.”

May 11, 2007

God With Us Now – “We habitually stand in our now and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future; but our now is uninhabited except for ourselves. Thus we are guilty of a kind of pro tem atheism which leaves us alone in the universe while, for the time, God is not. We talk of Him much and loudly, but we secretly think of Him as being absent, and we think of ourselves as inhabiting a parenthetic interval between the God who was and the God who will be.” –from The Divine Conquest (p.23) by A. W. Tozer. See Psalm 46:1. 

Do One Thing – K. P. Yohannan, in Revolution in World Missions (p.33) tells of the influence John Haggai had on him at an institute in Singapore in 1971. Yohannan testifies: “Haggai’s challenge seemed simple at first. He wanted me to go to my room and write down—in one sentence—the single most important thing I was going to do with the rest of my life. He stipulated that it could not be self-centered or worldly in nature. And one more thing—it had to bring glory to God. 

May 10, 2007

Meaninglessness of Life without God – “If there is no God who created us for His eternal purposes, then human life is not only a meaningless accident but a cruel practical joke perpetrated by an impersonal cosmos that has somehow spawned beings who inexplicably long for meaning and purpose when there can be none. Life has no ultimate meaning unless it continues, not temporarily, but eternally, beyond both the grave and the passing existence of this physical universe. Consequently, life is only lived wisely to the extent that it is spent in preparation for the eternity which follows.” –from Whatever Happened to Heaven? (p.17) by David Hunt. See Job 3:11. 

May 9, 2007

Design in the Days of Creation – The six days of creation (Genesis 1:1-31) “clearly divide into two triplets, the members of which correspond exactly to one another. The first triplet contains the works of division (of the light from the darkness, the upper waters from the lower, the dry land from the sea). The second triplet contains the works of quickening and adorning, (sun, moon, and stars; fishes and birds; land animals and man). 

“On the first day God created light; on the fourth day the light-bearing stars: on the second day the air and the sea; on the fifth the birds in the air and the fish in the sea: on the third day the land and the plants, that is the lowest grade of earthly life; on the sixth day the animals and man, that is, the highest grade of earthly life. 

“Thus the work of the six days bears unmistakably the stamp of the number three, which so often in the Divine revelation is the symbol of the Godhead. After it has, by three self-ascending creative impulses, attained a certain height and resting point, it pauses, and then, returning to the starting point, resumes, as it were beginning afresh, so as again by a threefold ascent to reach its summit. The creating of light is the first beginning: the creating of light-bearers the second beginning. Thus this double tri-unity becomes a deep symbolic prophecy in numbers concerning the origin, character, and goal of the earth-system in general. All is from Him, through Him, and unto Him. In all He will magnify Himself.” –from The Dawn of World Redemption (p.24-25) by Erich Sauer. 

Church Influenced by the World – “The church has lost her testimony. She has no longer anything to say to the world. The once robust shout of assurance has faded away to an apologetic whisper. She who one time went out to declare now goes out to inquire. Her dogmatic declaration has become a respectful suggestion, a word of religious advice, given with the understanding that it is after all only an opinion and not meant to sound bigoted. 

“Not only has the church nothing to say to the world but the tables have actually been turned and the ministers of Christ are now going to the world for light. They sit at Adam’s feet for instruction and clear their message with the wise and the prudent before they dare deliver it. But the certainty that comes from seeing and the assurance that springs from hearing—where are they?” –from God Tells the Man Who Cares (p.35-36) by A. W. Tozer. See Matthew 5:13.

May 8, 2007

Time Required to Know God – “In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No short cut exists. God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: the man who would know God must give time to Him. He must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance. He must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end. So did the saints of old, the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets and the believing members of the holy Church in all generations. And so must we if we would follow in their train.” –from The Divine Conquest (p.22) by A. W. Tozer. See Psalm 63:6; 143:5. 

May 7, 2007

Form of a Servant – “This condescension of the Son of God did not consist in a laying aside, or parting with, or separation from the divine nature, so as that he should cease to be God, by being man. The foundation of it lay in this, ‘that he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God,’ (Philippians 2:6). That is, being really and essentially God in his divine nature, he professed therein to be equal with God or the person of the Father. He was in the form of God, that is, he was God, participant of the divine nature, for God hath no form but that of his essence and being; and hence he was equal with God, in authority, dignity, and power… 

“Being in this state, it is said that he ‘took on him the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man,’ (Philippians 2:7). This is his condescension. It is not said, that he ceased to be in the form of God; but continuing so to be, ‘he took upon him the form of a servant,’ in our nature; he became what he was not, but he ceased not to be what he was, so he testifieth of himself (John 3:13): ‘And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” Although he was then on earth as the son of man, yet he ceased not to be God thereby; in his divine nature he was then also in heaven.” –from The Glory of Christ by John Owen (p.90-91). 

Rejection of Second Blessing – In The Sacred Anointing (p.140), Tony Sargent describes the view of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the teaching of the second blessing: “Holiness is a life lived to the glory of God and to his eternal praise. Basic to his position on holiness was a rejection of the old Keswick doctrine of a second experience. The maintenance of godliness involves the Christian in a fight which lasts throughout the whole of life. Lloyd-Jones opposed the teaching which suggests all the believer has to do is to ‘let go and let God.’ ”

May 4, 2007

Necessity of Human Freedom – “Dr. E. Y. Mullins was president and professor of systematic theology in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary of Louisville, Kentucky. In his work on theology, he said: ‘Can we reconcile the sovereignty of God and human freedom in His electing grace? The answer is in the negative. We are dealing here with ultimate forms of experience and of thought. God’s sovereignty held in an abstract way and apart from our freedom, or man’s freedom held in an abstract way apart from God’s sovereignty, is a very hurtful and dangerous teaching. We are conscious of freedom as an ultimate fact of experience. We are driven to God’s sovereignty as an ultimate necessity of thought… God is limited by human freedom. He made us free. He will not coerce man in his choices. If He did so He would destroy our freedom. We would cease to be persons and become things.’ (The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression, pp.347-348).” –from Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom by Samuel Fisk (p.21-22). 

May 3, 2007

Trinity and the Triangle – The “divine mystery of the Trinity in Unity allows itself to be represented to the spiritual human eye by the mathematical figure of the triangle... The church fathers had already pointed this out early in the history of Christianity. For of all forms the triangle is the first. Neither the point as a mere object of thought, nor the line as mere extension, has shape. But the triangle, though containing three lines and three corners, is of all forms the first, or, so to speak, form ‘One,’ that has completeness and unity, thus uniting in itself harmoniously the numbers three and one and therefore it was early employed as a symbol of the Godhead… 

 “The most detailed elaboration of the ‘trinitarian’ triangle was that by Raymond Lull, the great and well-known missionary to Moslems (died as martyr, 1315). It is a triangle with its centre of gravity and with lines which connect the corners of the three angles with this centre. At the corners and the centre of gravity there are the words ‘Father, Son, Spirit, God,’ and on the sides and lines there are the small words ‘is’ and ‘is not.’ This is to indicate that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is not the Father. But the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God.” –from From Eternity to Eternity by Erich Sauer (p.13-14).

May 2, 2007

Becoming a Fool to be Wise – “The true way to wisdom is to be sensible of our own folly (1Corinthians 3:18), ‘If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.’ He that distrusts his own guidance, will more securely and successfully follow the counsel of another in whom he confides. The more water, or any other liquor, is poured out of a vessel, the more air enters. The more we distrust our own wisdom, the more capable we are of the conduct of God’s. Had Jehoshaphat relied upon his own policy, he might have found defeat when he met with a deliverance; but he disowned his own skill and strength in telling God, ‘neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee” (2Chronicles 20:12). –from The Existence and Attributes of God: Volume 1 by Stephen Charnock (p.601). 

What Things Are Sin – “John Wesley’s mother wrote to him these significant words: ‘Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual thing—whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind—that thing to you is sin.’ ” –from The Seven Laws of Harvest by John W. Lawrence (p.65-66). See James 4:17.

May 1, 2007

Affliction Seeks Good Students – “If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.” –by James Burgh (1714-1775), a Scottish author. Read Psalm 94:12-13; 119:71; Micah 6:9; 1Corinthians 11:32; Hebrews 12:11. 

Topic: Chastisement, Affliction, Spiritual Growth 

Foreknowledge and Necessity – “God’s foreknowledge that his law would not be observed, lays no blame upon him. Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible, yet it doth not necessitate the creature in acting. It was certain from eternity, that Adam would fall, that men would do such and such actions, that Judas would betray our Saviour; God foreknew all those things from eternity; but, it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam, or any other branch of his posterity, in the doing those actions that were so foreseen by God; they voluntarily run into such courses, not by any impulsion. God’s knowledge was not suspended between certainty and uncertainty; he certainly foreknew that his law would be broken by Adam; he foreknew it in his decree in not hindering him, by giving Adam the efficacious grace which would infallibly have prevented it; yet Adam did freely break this law, and never imagined that the foreknowledge of God did necessitate him to it.” –from Existence and Attributes of God: Volume 2 by Stephen Charnock (p.145). Read Acts 15:28; 1Peter 1:2. 

Topics: Foreknowledge, Predestination, Free Will