Bits and Pieces – 176th Edition – July 23, 2023

“There hath been no latter rain” [Jeremiah 3;3]

     Spiritual drought makes a wasteland where once there was a Canaan.  It reduces a land flowing with milk and honey to poverty and want.  It produces spiritual famine, powerlessness, and despondency.

      No generation knows this better than ours.. We are living through a prolonged and terrible drought.  Gone are the days of great awakenings when the preaching of the old evangel caused a deep fear of God to fall upon multitudes and led them to faith in Christ.  Where once there were floods of blessing we have only dried-up river beds that testify to what used to be and mock our present deadness.

     The lack of spiritual fulness is evident on an individual level too.  Do you not lament that in your own experience you have lacked the latter rain?  The latter rain is the rain shortly before harvest.  Without it the harvest is scorched.  Ah! Where are the fulness and fruitfulness we know we should experience?  Where is the freshness we should have in prayer?  Where is the power we should have in witness?  Where are the results we should see for our preaching?  Alas! “There hath been no latter rain.”

     This drought is not accidental.  Jeremiah says, “Therefore the showers have been withholden”  [Jeremiah 3:3].  When the heavens are as brass it is because the Lord hath shut them up in response to our sin [II Chronicles 7:13].  The worldliness so prevalent among God’s people today is the direct cause of our spiritual drought.

     The answer to our needs is clearly the opening of heaven and the outpouring of the latter rain.  The Bible tells us how to obtain this blessing  [II Chronicles 7:14].  It can come only by self-humbling, prayer, and repentance.  Can we endure another day of drought?  May God drive us to our knees, and keep us there till we hear the ‘sound of abundance of rain”  [I Kings 18:41]. [Dr. Alan Cairns]

     Several countries are currently passing anti- ‘gay’ legislation including Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana.  The latest to join is Russia.  Its parliament has unanimously passed a law banning trans-gender surgery with some pretty harsh penalties for offenders.

     The Christian Bible has nothing good to say about homosexual practices and it is sad that it takes countries once evangelized by Christians to defend the Biblical teaching.

     Christianity accounts for almost 32% of the world’s population.  If every so-called Christian lived by the morality of the Bible there would be a major reduction in the world’s sin.  The sad reality is that only a relatively small percentage of Christians fall under the banner of Bible believing and practicing umbrella.  Most of them would be evangelicals – and they are despised by the world – nominal Christians included.

     Bible believers need to re-focus their prayers and practice against false religion and sinful legistation.

“But David waxed stronger and stronger” [2 Samuel 3:1]

     As sinners we all fought a battle against God we could not win. Paul reminds us, “the carnal mind is enmity (hatred) against God” [Romans 8:7]

     When we came to Christ, however, we entered another battlefield to fight a new battle, one we can win.  The new war is against the world, the flesh, and the devil as the Lord leads us along he path of sanctification where we daily die unto sin and live unto righteousness.

     It is an intense battle, which is why Paul cries out, “O wretched man that I am”  [Romans 7:24].  Why does he cry?  He highlights our inner conflict by saying, “the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” [Romans 7:19].  As we read in Galatians [5:17], “the flesh lusteth against the spirit.”  The battle may be difficult but, by the grace of God, it can and will be won.  Today’s scripture illustrates that well.

     David waged a long war with Saul to decide would reign in Israel.  Saul was king but his sin caused God to depose him.  But before that actually happened there was a lengthy conflict for supremacy between David’s and Saul’s armies.  Saul represents the fleshly man, a man of stature, the people’s choice.  David was God’s choice, a young man after God’s own heart.

     Notice that Saul “waxed weaker and weaker” while David “waxed stronger and stronger” until all Israel acknowledged David as the undisputed

King.  In daily sanctification, with the help of God, we must engage in an uncompromising warfare against sin, and weaken the flesh by mortifying its deeds [Colossians 3:5].

     Only in this way will we “wax stronger” in holiness, and Christ will reign in us as our uncontested King.  Be encouraged today in your battle with sin.  The Lord is with you, and will give you victory.