Streams in the Desert

Devotional For

August 12

      The Price of Freedom
      
      "And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him" (Mark 9:26).
      
      Evil never surrenders its hold without a sore fight. We never pass into any spiritual inheritance through the delightful exercises of a picnic, but always through the grim contentions of the battle field. It is so in the secret realm of the soul. Every faculty which wins its spiritual freedom does so at the price of blood. Apollyon is not put to flight by a courteous request; he straddles across the full breadth of the way, and our progress has to be registered in blood and tears. This we must remember or we shall add to all the other burdens of life the gall of misinterpretation. We are not "born again" into soft and protected nurseries, but in the open country where we suck strength from the very terror of the tempest. "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Dr. J. H. Jowett
      
      "Faith of our Fathers! living still,
      In spite of dungeon, fire and sword:
      O how our hearts beat high with joy
      Whene'er we hear that glorious word.
      Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith!
      We will be true to Thee till death!
      
      "Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
      Were still in heart and conscience free;
      How sweet would be their children's fate,
      If they, like them, could die for Thee!"