(tm) As to overcoming strength:
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Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. (Isaiah 41:14,15)
Mountains and hills symbolize the governments of the earth and the powers that rule in the earth. The Servant of the Lord will judge these governments and powers and bring them down into obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. All opposition will be cut into helpless chaff before the onslaught of the Servant of the Lord.
Such threshing and beating small is impossible until the Church is ready to become God’s "worm." "Wormology" is one of the more important branches of theology.
We may not enjoy the thought of becoming God’s worm. We do not mind being termed lions or eagles or some other animal that commands respect. But worms? Never!
It is impossible for the Christian Church to bring about the Kingdom of God in the earth other than by becoming a worm. Being a worm has nothing to do with compromising with the world or with currying favor with man. God’s worms never attempt to build anything with the help or approval of the flesh. We do not need so much as a shoelace from the world. The less we lean on the arm of flesh the more fruitful and powerful we will be.
Being a worm in the true sense means being meek in the sight of God. It means allowing our rights and privileges to be removed unjustly and not resorting to scheming and trickery in the attempt to bring about our own victories.
Being a worm means waiting on God and allowing Him to deny us our desires and to bring us into unpleasant situations. The worm does not murmur or seek to justify its position. The worm is God’s worm, not man’s worm. Our attitude and approach toward God must be one of humility and patience. Worms are humble and patient.
We are not to strike back as does a rattlesnake. We are to keep on burrowing through the messy problems and circumstances under which we nearly are suffocated. In Christ we never suffocate because He raises us up continually.
For two thousand years the major segment of the Christian Church has attempted by means of its own wisdom and strength to accomplish the work of the Kingdom and to impress the world with the rightness and power of its cause. The Church desires to convince the world that the Church is of God and should be esteemed and its statements obeyed.
All such attempts are futile because the methods employed are contrary to the mind of God. In the last days, just before Christ appears, the holy remnant of the Church will understand God works through our death of consecration and our stern obedience to Christ.
Our task is to allow God to have His way in us, to be perfectly obedient. Then the Holy One of Israel will come thundering forth, bearing witness of Himself through the Body of Christ. When He does—and the Scripture promises that He shall in the last days—the Body of Christ will be filled with glory and multitudes of earth’s peoples will be brought into the righteous ways of the Lord.
In that hour of worm-like dependence the Church, having wrestled with God to the death, hardly will notice that all its desires are being fulfilled in abundance. Now, as was true of Jacob, the eyes of God’s saints will become so fixed on God that everyone and everything else will fade into secondary importance.
The Church will become enraptured with the Person of Christ. The single-minded, adoring contemplation of Christ will bring all other persons, circumstances, and things into proper perspective. Such gaining of perspective is true of each of us today who is willing to trust God to the point of ceasing to grasp our own desires and allowing our worship of Him to ascend to first place in our faith and thoughts.
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