Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (Psalm 119:105)

Because of the growing apostasy in our Lord’s Church today and the corresponding putrid pabulum passing for Christian teaching right now in $evangelical$ and even worse Emergent $$new evangelical$$ circles today I offer the following as a gift to you from Apprising Ministries.

The great evangelist D.L. Moody once said:

“Someday you will read in the papers that Moody is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I was born of the flesh in 1837, I was born of the spirit in 1855. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit shall live forever.”

And with this in mind let us take to heart some excellent advice for true soldiers of the Cross as this Truth War escalates from the following men who are more alive than you or I :

A.W. Tozer:

Every new year is an uncharted and unknown sea. No ship has ever sailed this way before. The wisest of earth’s sons and daughters cannot tell us what we may encounter on this journey. Familiarity with the past may afford us a general idea of what we may expect, but just where the rocks lie hidden beneath the surface or when that “tempestuous wind called Euroclydon” may sweep down upon us suddenly, no one can say with certainty….

Now more than at any other time in generations, the believer is in a position to go on the offensive. The world is lost on a wide sea, and Christians alone know the way to the desired haven. While things were going well, the world scorned them with their Bible and hymns, but now the world needs them desperately, and it needs that despised Bible, too. For in the Bible, and there only, is found the chart to tell us where we are going on this rough and unknown ocean.

The day when Christians should meekly apologize is over–they can get the world’s attention not by trying to please, but by boldly declaring the truth of divine revelation. They can make themselves heard not by compromise, but by taking the affirmative and sturdily declaring, “Thus saith the Lord.” TWP09-010

“Lord, guide me carefully on this uncharted sea of a new year as I daily seek You in Your word. Then use me mightily as Your servant this year as I boldly proclaim Your word in leading others. Amen.” (Tozer on Christian Leadership, January 1)

Oswald Chambers:

“My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever I may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless courage.” Philippians 1:20 (MOFFATT)

My Utmost for His Highest. “My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed.” We shall all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus on the point He has asked us to yield to Him. Paul says – “My determination is to be my utmost for His Highest.” To get there is a question of will, not of debate nor of reasoning, but a surrender of will, an absolute and irrevocable surrender on that point.

An overweening consideration for ourselves is the thing that keeps us from that decision, though we put it that we are considering others. When we consider what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He does not know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point; He does know. Shut out every other consideration and keep yourself before God for this one thing only – My Utmost for His Highest. I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and for Him alone.

My Undeterredness for His Holiness. “Whether that means life or death, no matter!” (v.21.) Paul is determined that nothing shall deter him from doing exactly what God wants. God’s order has to work up to a crisis in our lives because we will not heed the gentler way. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him, and we begin to debate; then He produces a providential crisis where we have to decide – for or against, and from that point the “Great Divide” begins.

If the crisis has come to you on any line, surrender your will to Him absolutely and irrevocably. (My Utmost for His Highest, 1)

Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so (Acts 17:11).

I commend scrupulous obedience to all of you, and especially to those young people who have lately made a profession of their faith in Christ. Do not be as your fathers were, for the generation that is now going off the stage neither reads its Bible nor cares to know the Lord’s will.

If people searched the Scriptures, we should find them come together in union: but the least-read book in all the world, in proportion to its circulation, is the Word of God. It is distributed everywhere, but it is read scarcely anywhere with care and attention and with a sincere resolve to follow its precepts at all hazards.

You come and listen to us, and we give you little bits taken from it here and there, but you do not get a fair notion of it as a whole. How can you? Ministers make mistakes, and you follow them without inquiry. One elects this leader and another that, to the creation of varieties of opinions and even of sects, which ought not to be, and would not be if all stood fast by the standard of inspired Truth.

If the Bible were been read in the past, many errors would die a speedy death, and others would be sorely crippled. Had that inspired Book been read in the past, many errors would never have arisen. Search you, then, the Book of God. I pray you; and whatever you find there, be sure to attend thereto. At all costs, keep to the Word of God. (At the Master’s Feet, January 1)