Word just comes of a native preacher, until recently a flaming evangelist.  His wife was self-assertive.  In a certain issue she was manifestly wrong.  But the preacher took sides with his wife.  He has compromised with the flesh.  Now, peace in the home is a wonderful thing, but not at such a price.  The Spirit has ceased to use this preacher.  Moreover, God gives drastic directions concerning such things when He says, "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods . . . Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.  But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.  And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God" (Deut. 13:6-10).  This generation has been "graced" to spiritual softness and death.  We do not "fear" as our forefathers did.  We need the stiffening of Moses.
Has the reader noticed that when we ourselves are wrong we become very tender toward others who are wrong?--the reason being that we want tender handling.  "But syrupy affection never yet led to spiritual integrity.  And though it looks so like the charity which is greater than faith and hope, that it is 'admired of many,' it is not admirable.  It is sin" (Amy Carmichael).  Was the native preacher taken off his feet so easily because he was already unwatchful against the flesh?  Did his wife only furnish the self-consideration for which he was already looking?  The flesh gave "place to the devil." Satan is not divided against himself.  Flesh always cliques up with flesh.

Why is there so little church discipline today?  May one reason be that there would be so much tearful tenderness toward wrong-doers?  Even the deacon says, "Don't mention my name in connection with this trouble." But he who stands not at the Cross cannot be standing in righteousness.  At the Cross God put away sin.  "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person" (I Cor. 5:13).

One of the most manifest forms of flesh is family flesh.  Passing by the flesh that bites and devours one another, let us notice its subtler form.  It is here that 44 syrupy affection" betrays the best of parents.  Their fleshly attachment refuses to lead their children by the way of the Cross.  Is it because the parents have not gone that way themselves?
A personal friend of the writer passed away a few years ago.  This lady had been brought up to believe that what she liked her system needed and must have--whether of food or raiment.  She was not extravagant.  Her life just centered in her likes and tastes and preferences.  To these she daily bowed.  She liked color, bright red especially.  She liked fats, was very fond of sweets.  She clung to these things "as a cat clings to its home." They were her life.  But the Saviour said, "He that loveth his life shall lose it." That is more than theology.  It is a great f act, a principle of life; it is inexorable law.  And it obtains even in this world.  The very things we lust after, hold to, and seek to save for ourselves, we lose--lose those very things, find them distasteful to us, and that sooner than we think.  Some months before passing away, color became unbearable to this lady.  The flesh had to have bright red covered up. Her whole being revolted at fats.  As to sweets--well, the least sugar became sickening.  These had been her life--now she loathed them.  She had loved her life, had never lost it, refused to lose it-now she loathed it.

The Saviour said: "Remember Lot's wife.  Whosoever shall seek to save his life (preserve it alive is the thought) shall lose it." Had Lot's wife not left Sodom?  Indeed she had.  But her flesh still fed on Sodom's sweets, and so she had not left it, had not lost it.  To, God, Sodom was only fit to be turned to a cinder; to Lot's wife it was still worth saving.  She still sought to save her "life" from the falling fire--not her bodily life (for she was already outside the city),--but the things of her desire, the things of her world still back there in Sodom.  She loved that life, longed for it, looked back and lost it-her life in Sodom, her bodily life, her all.  There she stood, a pillar of salt, an eternal warning to those who live after the flesh.

My friend, the Lord is coming.  What is your life?  Is it lived in the Spirit?  Oh the power of the Cross to, sever every relationship that would bind us to the flesh!  We are debtors only to the Holy Spirit.  Give the Cross full place in your life; abandon yourself recklessly to the Crucified, for over His crucified life the flesh has not one speck of power.  Let the Cross seize upon you and sever you from that dominating thralldom to the