Heavenly Springs

Holding Fast The Doctrines of Grace

Just Like Yahweh

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This from Dale Ralph Davis’s Commentary on 1 Samuel 2 where we find Hanna’s prayer:

“When John Calvin had suffered the death of his wife Idelette, he wrote his friend William Farel: “May the Lord Jesus … support me … under this heavy affliction, which would certainly have overcome me, had not He, who raises up the prostrate, strengthens the weak, and refreshes the weary, stretched forth His hand from heaven to me.” Calvin was saying he would surely have been crushed but he knew a Lord who raises up the prostrate, strengthens the weak, and refreshes the weary—and that Lord had again acted in character in Calvin’s grief. That is what Hannah is saying here. I was ready to fall and Yahweh gave me strength; I was barren and he made me fruitful; I was poor and he made me rich. But that is not really surprising, for that is just the way Yahweh is (vv. 4–8)!“

Dale Ralph Davis, 1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart, 1998, Christian Focus Publications, Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-shire, IV20 1TW, Scotland, Logos Version.

With God, Nothing Shall be Impossible!

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“And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.  And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.” (Luke 1:34-38)

“Questions and doubts will often arise in men’s minds about many subjects in religion. They are the natural result of our fallen estate of soul. Our faith at the best, is very feeble. Our knowledge at its highest, is clouded with much infirmity. And among many antidotes to a doubting, anxious, questioning state of mind — few will be found more useful than that before us now — a thorough conviction of the almighty power of God. With Him who called the world into being and formed it out of nothing — everything is possible. Nothing is too hard for the Lord!

There is no sin too black and too wicked to be pardoned — the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. There is no heart too hard and wicked to be changed — the heart of stone can be made into a heart of flesh. There is no work too hard for a believer to do — we can do all things through Christ strengthening us. There is no trial too hard to be borne — the grace of God is sufficient for us. There is no promise too great to be fulfilled — Christ’s words never pass away — and what He has promised, He is able to perform. There is no difficulty too great for a believer to overcome — if God is for us, then who can be against us? The mountain shall become a plain.

Let principles like these be continually before our minds. The angel’s reply is an invaluable remedy. Faith never rests so calmly and peacefully — as when it lays its head on the pillow of God’s omnipotence!“

JC Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Luke

The Christian Journey by Mary Winslow

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Portrait of Mary Winslow: The Octavius Winslow Archive

“Life is a journey, often a short one, and always uncertain. But there is another journey. The believer is traveling through a waste howling wilderness, to another and a glorious region, where ineffable delight and happiness await us. The road is narrow, the entrance strait, so strait that thousands miss it and perish in the wilderness. But true believers, under the teaching and convoy of the Holy Spirit, find it and walk in it. The King, in His infinite love and compassion, has made a hedge about them, separating and defending them from the many beasts of prey that lurk around them; and although they hear their howlings and behold their threatenings, they are safe from their power. But their strongest foe is within themselves; a heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. From this there is no escape but by constant watchfulness, and earnest cries to their best Friend and Guide for protection. Were it not for this faithful Guide, how often, discouraged by reason of the way, would they turn back! But He watches over them by night and by day, strengthens them when weak, upholds them when falling, encourages them when cast down, defends them when attacked, provides for them when in need, leads them by living streams, and causes them there to lie down in pleasant pastures, and on sunny banks. And as they advance they obtain brighter views of the good land they are nearing, and they long to see the King in His beauty, and the land that is yet very far off, and to meet those that have already arrived on that happy shore.”

Source: GraceGems

Encouragement from a Reformers Wife

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One of the most outspoken women of the Reformation was Katherina Zell. She was wife of Strasburg Reformer and pastor, Matthew Zell, and she is known, among other things, for her encouragement to the wives of pastors who suffered persecution.

Once, in a neighboring town called Kentzingen, a minister was forced to leave. One hundred and fifty men from his parish accompanied him for several miles but when they could travel no more turned back. The men returned only to find the town gates shut. One minister was caught and executed. The rest fled to Strasburg. Moved with compassion for their plight, Katharina not only provided beds and meals for most of the men, she also published a tract for the wives left behind called, “Letter to the Suffering Women Of The Community Of Kentzingen, Who Believe In Christ, Sisters With Me In Jesus Christ (1524).” Below is an excerpt that provides a glimpse into the hardships these women faced, but also reveals the firm faith of this Reformation stalwart — not to mention the breadth of her knowledge of Scripture.

So I beg you, loyal believing women, also to do this:  take on you the manly, Abraham-like courage while you too are in distress and while you are abused with all kinds of insult and suffering.  When you may meet with imprisonment in towers, chains, drowning, banishment, and such like things; when your husband and you yourselves may be killed, meditate then on strong Abraham, father of us all [cf. Rm 4:16]; struggle after him as a good child should follow his father in the faith like the father’s. Do you not think that Abraham also suffered when God told him to kill his only son?! When He told Abraham to do it himself! – to kill the son in whom also the blessing of human beings was promised.  Yes, indeed he was very grieved, for he was also flesh and blood like all of us; but he knew (as the scripture says) that God could bring his son back to life [cf. Gn 22:1-2; Heb 11:17-19].

As so you also, when your husbands are killed, do you not know that Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me, though he is already dead, yet he will live” (Jn 11:25). And in the sixth chapter of John, He says that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood, that is, whoever truly believes that he is redeemed only through the death and shedding of blood of the Christ, that one He will bring back to life on the last day [cf. Jn 6:54]. He says to His disciples, “If you know this, you are blessed” (Jn 13:17). So also to you, believing women beloved by God, Christ says, “Whoever does not want to leave father and mother, wife, husband, and child, and all that he has, for my sake and the Gospel’s, that one is not worthy of me.  Whoever, however, for my sake leaves father and mother, wife, husband, and child, farm and field, to that one I will return them a hundredfold here and in the age to come eternal life ” [cf. Mt 10:37, 19:29; Lk 14:26].

Dear Christian women, if you know and do this, then you also are blessed, as Christ said [cf. Jn 13:17]. Trample your flesh under foot, lift up your spirit, and speak comfortingly to your husbands and also to yourselves the words that Christ Himself has said, “Do not fear those who can kill the body; I will show you one who can kill your body and soul and cast them into hell.”

Katharina Schutz Zell, Church Mother: The Writings of a Protestant Reformer in Sixteenth-Century Germany. Edited and Translated by Elsi McKee, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006, pages 77-78.