April 9 Streams in the Desert

“All these things are against me.” (Gen. 42:36.) “All things work together for good to them that love God.” (Rom. 8:28)

MANY people are wanting power. Now how is power produced? The other day we passed the great works where the trolley engines are supplied with electricity. We heard the hum and roar of the countless wheels, and we asked our friend,

“How do they make the power?”

“Why,” he said, “just by the revolution of those wheels and the friction they produce. The rubbing creates the electric current.”

And so, when God wants to bring more power into your life, He brings more pressure. He is generating spiritual force by hard rubbing. Some do not like it and try to run away from the pressure, instead of getting the power and using it to rise above the painful causes.

Opposition is essential to a true equilibrium of forces. The centripetal and centrifugal forces acting in opposition to each other keep our planet in her orbit. The one propelling, and the other repelling, so act and re-act, that instead of sweeping off into space in a pathway of desolation, she pursues her even orbit around her solar centre.

So God guides our lives. It is not enough to have an impelling force—we need just as much a repelling force, and so He holds us back by the testing ordeals of life, by the pressure of temptation and trial, by the things that seem against us, but really are furthering our way and establishing our goings.

Let us thank Him for both, let us take the weights as well as the wings, and thus divinely impelled, let us press on with faith and patience in our high and heavenly calling.

—A. B. Simpson.

In a factory building there are wheels and gearings,

There are cranks and pulleys, beltings tight or slack—

Some are whirling swiftly, some are turning slowly,

Some are thrusting forward, some are pulling back;

Some are smooth and silent, some are rough and noisy,

Pounding, rattling, clanking, moving with a jerk;

In a wild confusion in a seeming chaos,

Lifting, pushing, driving—but they do their work.

From the mightiest lever to the tiniest pinion,

All things move together for the purpose planned;

And behind the working is a mind controlling,

And a force directing, and a guiding hand.

So all things are working for the Lord’s beloved;

Some things might be hurtful if alone they stood;

Some might seem to hinder; some might draw us backward;

But they work together, and they work for good,

All the thwarted longings, all the stern denials,

All the contradictions, hard to understand.

And the force that holds them, speeds them and retards them,

Stops and starts and guides them—is our Father’s hand.

—Annie Johnson Flint.^[1]

 

^[1] Cowman, L. B. (1925). Streams in the Desert (pp. 110–111). Los Angeles, CA: The Oriental Missionary Society.

April 9 The Interpreter: Spurgeon’s Devotional Bible

April 9.—Morning. [Or July 16.]
“Beware lest ye also be led away with the error of the wicked.”

WE cannot linger over Samson’s famous feat at Gaza, where he carried away the city gates upon his shoulders, but must come to the unhappy scene in which that great man fell a victim to his own follies, and was deprived of his power to judge and protect his countrymen. Delilah, the companion of his sin, was the instrument of his downfall.

Judges 16:6–20

^{6, 7} And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee. And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.

⁸ Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withs which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

⁹ Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the withs, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known. (After this deliverance Samson had no excuse for further remaining in traitorous company. “Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird,” but this man was so infatuated that he plunged into the snare after he had once narrowly escaped from it. Sin is madness.)

^{10, 11} And Delilah said unto Samson, Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.

¹² Delilah therefore took new ropes, and bound him therewith, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And there were liers in wait abiding in the chamber. And he brake them from off his arms like a thread.

A second time betrayed! A second time delivered! Will he not fly now from the deceiver’s house? Alas! No. You might sooner teach a moth to shun the candle than a man besotted by sin to escape from its wiles.

¹³ And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.

¹⁴ And she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web.

This time he came dangerously near his secret. The whirlpool in which he was surging was sucking him down. Poor Samson! Who could save thee when thou wast determined to destroy thyself?

^{15 16, 17} And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth. And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man. (His consecration was his strength, and when in renounced the unshorn locks, which were the symbol of his dedication, the Lord left him, and he reaped the due reward of his sinful indulgences. He sinned deliberately, and therefore was left to smart for it.)

¹⁸ And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. (Bad men and women are always ready to sell for gain those whom they loudly profess to love. They are never to be trusted.)

^{19, 20} And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. (Vainly do we go forth without our God. We may have been valiant and mighty before, but if the Lord shall leave us we shall be captives to our foes. What a warning does this unhappy story present to us. May infinite mercy enable us to profit thereby.)

April 9.—Evening. [Or July 17.]
“Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him.”

Judges 16:21–31

BUT the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, (according to the Arabic Version, they applied fire to them), and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; (the strongest they could find, and the most painful to the wearer;) and he did grind in the prison house. (The great champion was degraded to do a woman’s work, work which when performed for others was considered to be the meanest servitude. Milton pictures the fallen hero as describing himself thus—

“Made of my enemies the scorn and gaze;

To grind in brazen fetters under task

With this Heaven-gifted strength. O glorious strength,

Put to the labour of a beast, debased

Lower than bond slave! Promise was that;

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him

Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.”)

²² Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven. (God’s grace casts not off his servants: grace though reduced to the lowest ebb returns again, even as Samson’s hair grew, and his strength returned. It is one of the wonders of divine love that it holds on to its object even when he proves unworthy of it.)

²³ Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.

²⁴ And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us. (Thus they blasphemed Jehovah by magnifying Baal. They do, however, teach us one lesson, too often forgotten, namely, to ascribe all our victories to God.)

²⁵ And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars.

²⁶ And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them. (The poor blind prisoner made rare mirth for the assembled lords, and they could do no other than let him rest a while, while they refilled their cups, and meditated fresh insults.)

²⁷ Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport.

²⁸ And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. (How touching is that sweetest of prayers, “Remember me,” whether it be Samson or the dying thief who uses it. The Lord indeed did remember him.)

²⁹ And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left.

³⁰ And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Milton shall again expound for us—

“Those two massy pillars

With horrible convulsion to and fro

He tugg’d, he shook, till down they came and drew

The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder,

Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,

Lords, ladies, captains, counsellers, or priests,

Their choice nobility and flower, not only

Of this but each Philistian city round.

* * * * * *

O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious!

Living or dying thou hast fulfill’d

The work for which thou wast foretold

To Israel, and now ly’st victorious

Among thy slain, self-killed,

Not willingly, but tangled in the fold

Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoin’d

Thee with thy slaughter’d foes.”

Thus the Lord God of Israel silenced the boastings of his enemies, as he will do in the last great day.

³¹ Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.^[1]

 

^[1] Spurgeon, C. H. (1964). The Interpreter: Spurgeon’s Devotional Bible (pp. 205–206). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

AG Bill Barr Discusses Justice Dept. Aspects to COVID-19 Crisis… — The Last Refuge

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr appears for an interview by Laura Ingraham about COVID-19, and what the Justice Department is doing. The second part of this interview will be broadcast tonight.

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via AG Bill Barr Discusses Justice Dept. Aspects to COVID-19 Crisis… — The Last Refuge

South Korean Scientists Warn: COVID-19 Can Spontaneously “Reactivate” In Cured Patients | ZeroHedge News

Yesterday, we reported on some new research that has just been published in the the Lancet, a journal of non-peer-reviewed research that is nonetheless viewed as an extremely credible resource. The report, published by scientists at a university in Shanghai, claimed that some COVID-19 patients showed few, or, even more alarming, no COVID-19 antibodies in their blood after recovering from the illness.

And now, another report highlighting the extremely concerning susceptibility that humans have to this virus has been released. Researchers in Seoul have found several cases wherein patients who’ve recovered from COVID-19 have seen the disease “reactivate”, possibly because the virus was still lying dormant inside them, and had been reawakened, somehow.

The Straits Times reported that about 51 patients who had been “cured” in South Korea have tested positive again, the Korean Centers for Disease Control said during a media briefing. Rather than being infected again, the virus may have been reactivated in these people, given they tested positive again shortly after being released from quarantine, and likely didn’t have time to reacquire the virus and see it go active, said Mr Jeong Eun-kyeong, the KCDC’s director-general.

“While we are putting more weight on reactivation as the possible cause, we are conducting a comprehensive study on this,” Mr Jeong said.

“There have been many cases when a patient during treatment will test negative one day and positive another.” A patient is deemed fully recovered when two tests conducted with a 24-hour interval show negative results.

Despite having one of the earliest outbreaks, South Korea has only recorded 200 deaths and reported falling new daily numbers since cases peaked at 1,189 on Feb. 29. The KCDC reported just 39 new cases on Thursday for a total of 10,423. One of the world’s most expansive testing programs and a tech-driven approach to tracing infections has helped the country contain its epidemic without lockdowns or shuttering businesses.

Fear of re-infection in recovered patients is also growing in China, following a string of reports claiming some patients had tested positive again – or even died from the disease – after supposedly recovering and leaving hospital.

As of now, scientists are still trying to understand this phenomenon, and nothing is set in stone.

But we fact that there’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that many people just can’t build up an immunity to this drug doesn’t bode well for prospects of a universally effective vaccine.

Source: South Korean Scientists Warn: COVID-19 Can Spontaneously “Reactivate” In Cured Patients

Pentagon Denies ABC News Report Military Intelligence Knew About Coronavirus in November | Harbingers Daily

The Pentagon late on Wednesday said an ABC News report that said a military intelligence unit wrote a report on the coronavirus in November is not accurate.

Col (Dr.) R. Shane Day, the director of the National Center for Medical Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in a statement that as a matter of practice, the NCMI does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters. He said”

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However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.

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A defense official added on background that the NCMI and the DIA spent considerable time over the last 24 hours examining every possible product that could have been identified as related to this topic and have found no such product.

The exclusive ABC News report, published Wednesday morning, said the NCMI warned the military and the White House about the spread of the virus in China as far back as late November:

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As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.

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ABC News’s report said concerns about what is now known to be the coronavirus pandemic “were detailed in a November intelligence report” by the NCMI, according to “two officials familiar with the document’s contents.”

It said the report analyzed “wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images,” and raised alarms because an “out-of-control disease” would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia.

One of ABC News’s sources said analysts concluded it could be a “cataclysmic event” and that it was “then briefed multiple times” to the DIA, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, and the White House.

The sources said there were repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House.

Those briefings culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources claimed.

ABC News said the NCMI report was made “available widely” to people authorized to access intelligence community alerts, and that after it was released, other intelligence community bulletins began circulating through confidential channels across the government around Thanksgiving.

Esper was asked Sunday on ABC News’s This Week if the Pentagon received an intelligence assessment on the coronavirus in November. Esper said he did not recall, but that he would have known if such an assessment was briefed to the National Security Council in December.

“I’m not aware of that,” he said.

President Trump was also asked about the alleged report during a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, and when he learned of such intelligence and whether he could have acted sooner.

“When I learned about the gravity of it was sometime just prior to closing the country to China. And when we closed up the flights coming in from China and various other elements — and then, as you know, we closed up to Europe,” he said.

“So, I don’t know exactly, but I’d like to see the information,” he said.

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Source: Pentagon Denies ABC News Report Military Intelligence Knew About Coronavirus in November