And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. Luke 22:43 The BottomLine: Every description which the evangelists give of the state of mind in which our Lord entered upon this conflict, proves the tremendous nature of the assault, and the perfect foreknowledge of its terrors possessed by the meek and lowly Jesus.When Christ was in his agony, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. It was a part of his humiliation that he was thus strengthened by a ministering spirit.Being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Prayer, though never out of season, is in a special manner seasonable when we are in an agony. In this agony his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down. This showed the travail of his soul. We should pray also to be enabled to resist unto the shedding of our blood, striving against sin, if ever called to it. When next you dwell in imagination upon the delights of some favourite sin, think of its effects as you behold them here! See its fearful !, effects in the garden of Gethsemane, and desire, by the help of God, deeply to hate and to forsake that enemy, to ransom sinners from whom the Redeemer prayed, agonized, and bled. (Lu 22:47-53)
"There we saw the giants" (Num. 13:33)
Yes, they saw the giants, but Caleb and Joshua saw God! Those who
doubt say, "We be not able to go up." Those who believe say, "Let us go
up at once and possess it, for we are well able."
Giants stand for great difficulties; and giants are stalking
everywhere. They are in our families, in our churches, in our social
life, in our own hearts; and we must overcome them or they will eat us
up, as these men of old said of the giants of Canaan.
The men of faith said, "They are bread for us; we will eat them up."
In other words, "We will be stronger by overcoming them than if there
had been no giants to overcome."
Now the fact is, unless we have the overcoming faith we shall be
eaten up, consumed by the giants in our path. Let us have the spirit of
faith that these men of faith had, and see God, and He will take care
of the difficulties. --Selected
It is when we are in the way of duty that we find giants. It was
when Israel was going forward that the, giants appeared. When they
turned back into the wilderness they found none.
There is a prevalent idea that the power of God in a human life
should lift us above all trials and conflicts. The fact is, the power
of God always brings a conflict and a struggle. One would have thought
that on his great missionary journey to Rome, Paul would have been
carried by some mighty providence above the power of storms and
tempests and enemies. But, on the contrary, it was one long, hard fight
with persecuting Jews, with wild tempests, with venomous vipers and all
the powers of earth and hell, and at last he was saved, as it seemed,
by the narrowest margin, and had to swim ashore at Malta on a piece of
wreckage and barely escape a watery grave.
Was that like a God of infinite power? Yes, just like Him. And so
Paul tells us that when he took the Lord Jesus Christ as the life of
his body, a severe conflict immediately came; indeed, a conflict that
never ended, a pressure that was persistent, but out of which he always
emerged victorious through the strength of Jesus Christ.
The language in which he describes this is most graphic. "We are
troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in
despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed,
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in our body."
What a ceaseless, strenuous struggle! It is impossible to express in
English the forcible language of the original. There are five pictures
in succession. In the first, the idea is crowding enemies pressing in
from every side, and yet not crushing him because the police of heaven
cleared the way just wide enough for him to get through.
The second picture is that of one whose way seems utterly closed and
yet he has pressed through; there is light enough to show him the next
step. The Revised Version translates it, "Perplexed but not unto
despair."
The third figure is that of an enemy in hot pursuit while the divine
Defender still stands by, and he is not left alone, "Pursued but not abandoned."
The fourth figure is still more vivid and dramatic. The enemy has
overtaken him, has struck him, has knocked him down. But it is not a
fatal blow; he is able to rise again. It might be translated,
"Overthrown but not overcome."
Once more the figure advances, and now it seems to be even death
itself, "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus."
But he does not die, for "the life also of Jesus" now comes to his aid
and he lives in the life of another until his life work is done.
The reason so many fail ... is
because they expect to have it all without a struggle, and when the
conflict comes and the battle wages long, they become discouraged and
surrender. God has nothing worth having that is easy. There are no
cheap goods in the heavenly market. Our redemption cost all that God
had to give, and everything worth having is expensive. Hard places are
the very school of faith and character, and if we are to rise over mere
human strength and prove the power of life divine in these mortal
bodies, it must be through a process of conflict that may well be
called the birth travail of a new life. It is the old figure of the
bush that burned, but was not consumed.
No, dear suffering child of God, you cannot fail if only you dare to believe, to stand fast and refuse to be overcome.
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