Sunday School Thoughts
LIFE IN
CHRIST
A
SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
JANUARY
1ST, 1871,
BY C.
H. SPURGEON,
“Because I live, ye shall live also.” —
John 14:19.
This world saw our Lord Jesus for a very little time, but
now it seeth him
no
more. It only saw him with the outward eye and after a carnal sort, so
that when the clouds received him and concealed him from bodily vision,
this spiritually blind world lost sight of him
altogether. Here and there,
however, among the crowds of the sightless there were a few chosen
men
who
had received spiritual sight; Christ had been light to them, he had
opened their blind eyes, and they had seen him as the world had
not seen
him.
In a high and full sense they could say, “We have seen the Lord,” for
they had in some degree perceived his Godhead, discerned his mission, and
learned his spiritual character. Since spiritual sight does not
depend upon
the
bodily presence of its object, those persons who had seen Jesus
spiritually, saw him after he had gone out of the world unto the
Father. We
who
have the same sight still see him. Read carefully the words of the verse
before us: “Yet a little while, and the world seeth
me no more; but ye see
me.”
It is a distinguishing mark of a true follower of Jesus that he sees his
Lord and Master when he is not to be seen by the bodily
eye; he sees him
intelligently and spiritually; he knows his Lord, discerns his
character,
apprehends him by faith, gazes upon him with admiration, sad looks to
him
for
all he needs. Now, my brethren, remember that as our first sight of
Christ brought us into spiritual life, for we looked unto
him and were
saved, so it is by the continuance of this spiritual sight of
Christ that our
spiritual life is consciously maintained. We lived by looking, we
live still by
looking. Faith is still the medium by which life comes to us from
the lifegiving
Lord. It is not only upon the first day of the Christian’s
life that he
must needs look to Jesus only, but every day of that life, even until the
last,
his
motto must be, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith.” The world sees him no more, for it never saw him aright;
but ye
have seen him and lived, and now, through continuing still to see him, you
remain in life. Let us ever remember the intimate connection
between faith
and
spiritual life. Faith is the life-look. We must never think that we live by
works, by feelings, or by ceremonies. “The just shall live by
faith.” We dare
not
preach to the ungodly sinner a way of obtaining life by the works of the
law,
neither dare we hold up to the most advanced believer a way of
sustaining life by legal means. We should in such a case expect to
hear the
apostle’s expostulate on, “Are ye so foolish? having
begun in the Spirit, are
ye
now made perfect by the flesh?” Our glorying is that our life is not
dependent on ourselves, but is safe in our Lord, as saith the apostle, “I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and
the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Because he lives, we live,
and
shall live for ever. God grant that our eye may ever be clear towards
Jesus, our life. May we have no confidence but in our Redeemer; may our
eye
be so fixed upon him, that no other object may in any measure or
degree shut out our view of him as our all in all.
The text contains in it very much of weighty truth, far
more than we shall
be
able to bring forth from it this morning. First, we see in it a life;
secondly, that life preserved; and thirdly, the reason
for the preservation of
that life: “Because I
live, ye shall live also.”
He purposely discouraged what he must have perceived was the natural tendency
of people’s minds to reverence his mother unduly; and it also seem marvelous, to
any thinking man, that after such words as these of my text, Mariolatry should
have prevailed in the Church of Rome to so frightful an extent as it has done,
and as it still does. Why, for every prayer offered to Jesus Christ, I believe
there are fifty, at the present moment, offered to the Virgin Mary. At all events,
in the Romanist’s rosary, there are nine beads for the “Hail Mary” to every one
for “Our Father.”
Observe, that she is to be held in profound respect, she is “blessed among
women;” there should never come from the lips of any Christian a single
word of disrespect to her; she was highly favored, she was a
sort of second
Eve, as Eve brought forth sin, this woman, this second Eve, brought forth
the Lord who is our salvation. She does stand in a very high position; but,
still, in no respect is she to be an object of worship; by no means is she to
be lifted up and extolled as though she were immaculately conceived, and
afterwards lived without sin, and were taken up, as the Papists declare, by
a marvellous assumption into heaven, — an assumption, indeed, on their
part, and nothing better than an assumption, without any foundation
whatever in fact. No, brethren, the Virgin Mary was a sinner, saved by
grace, as you and I are. That Savior, whom she brought forth, was a Savior
to her as much as to us. She had to be washed from sin, both original and
contracted, in the precious blood of her own Child, “the son of the
Highest;” neither could she have entered heaven unless he had pronounced
her absolution, and she had been, as we are, “accepted in the Beloved,”
Yet I do not wonder that there was a tendency to exalt her unduly;
however, I do marvel much that, after Christ has spoken so plainly and so
expressly, men should have had the impudence, and the devil should have
had the audacity, to delude millions of professing Christians into a worship
of her, who is to be reverenced, but never to be adored.
If you look at the text, you will see that there is something very beautiful
about it. This woman pronounced a benediction upon the Virgin Mary;
Christ lifts that off, and puts it on all his people. She said, “Blessed is the
woman who brought thee forth.” “Yea,” said Jesus, “she is blessed; but (in
the very same sense,) they are blessed who hear the Word of God, and
keep it.” Thus, my brethren, whatever blessings pertain to Mary, pertain to
you, and pertain to me, if we hear the Word of God, and keep it; whatever
we may suppose to have been the mercies comprehended in her being so
highly favored a person, those very same mercies are yours and mine, if,
hearing the Word of God, we truly keep it.
CH Spurgeon, 1864 – Introduction to sermon entitled The True Lineage
______________________________________________________________
God has blessed us with unspeakable favors. He is always blessing
us; it is not possible for us to compute the amount (value – CY – 2018)
of blessing which He is constantly bestowing upon us. As the echo
answereth to the voice, so let our blessing of God answer to the blessing we
have received from God, even as Paul puts it, “Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world.” This, then, is the work that is to occupy us tonight,
and the work in which we shall continue, I trust, from this time forth and for
evermore. Living unto the living God, time and eternity will be spent in
blessing the blessing God. (CH Spurgeon)
It is important to keep in mind how the worship and ministry of each
returning sabbath day
helps to keep up the moral standard of life and
conduct among
Christian people.
Whose voice was it that we heard last night thundering overhead? Who fashioned the
drops of rain that refreshed the fields? Who breathed the gentle breeze which cooled
and cheered the drooping flowers? Who has sent us this day so clear, so
calm, so bright, “the bridal of the earth and sky”? Who is creating for us
our harvests, and preparing food for man and beast? It is God that doeth
this, doing it in ways beyond our comprehension, yet doing it before our
eyes. There is no other force in the universe save that which is derived
from God. There is no other life except the life which has leaped from the
eternal self-existence. God is in all. Above us in the stars he shines; but he
works also in the grass beneath our feet. Each dew-drop gleams his glory,
and every grain of dust bears his impress. He is within us, keeping our hearts in
motion; and around us, giving to the air we breathe its power to sustain life.
__________________________________
Adversity, blessed of the Holy Spirit, calls our attention to the promise; the promise
quickens our faith; faith betakes itself to prayer; God hears and answers our cry.
This is the chain of a tried soul’s experience. Brethren, as we suffer the tribulation,
as we know the promise, let us immediately exercise faith, and turn in prayer to God;
for surely never did a man turn to God but the Lord also turned to him.
THE BRIDGELESS GULF
A
SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING,
JULY
5TH, 1863,
BY THE
REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE,
“Beside all this, between us and you there is a great
gulf fixed: so
that they which would pase from
henoe to you cannot; neither can
they pass to us, that would come from thence.” — Luke
16:26.
“Beside all this,
between us and you there is a great gulf fixed.” Human
ingenuity has done very much to bridge great gulis. Scarcely has the world
afforded a river so wide that its floods could not be over
leaped; or a
torrent so furious that it could not be made to pass under
the yoke. High
above the foam of
slender but substantial road of iron, and the shriek of the
locomotive is
heard above the roar of
which span the deep rift through which the Bristol Avon
finds its way at
will soon travel where only that which hath wings could a
little while ago
have found a way. There is, however, one gulf which no
human skill or
engineering ever shall be able to bridge; there is one
chasm which no wing
shall ever be able to cross; it is the gulf which divides
the world of joy in
which the righteous triumph, from that land of sorrow in
which the wicked
feel the smart of Jehovah’s sword. Whatever other arguments
there may be
why the righteous should have no communion with the wicked
in a future
state, beside all these other things, any one of which is
enough and
sufficient of itself, there is a great gulf fixed, so that
there can be no
passage from the one world to the other.
No
one will break in to rob or steal or even to look around
No
one from hell will ever rape again
No
murderer shall never kill another person.
No
mother will ever abort her child again.
etc.
– Think of things from this earth taken to hell as extra baggage that will
never
penetrate heaven because of this chasm – CY – December 5, 2017
_______________________________________________
GOD’S
KNOWLEDGE OF SIN.
DELIVERED
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, OCT. 19TH, 1884.
“O God, thou knowest
my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.” —
Psalm 69:5.
IT seems, then, that the best of men have a measure of
foolishness in them,
and that, sometimes, that foolishness shows itself. How
gentle and tender
ought we to be with others who are foolish when we remember
how
foolish we are ourselves! How sincerely ought we to rejoice
in Christ as
made of God unto us wisdom, when we see the folly that is
bound up in
our hearts, and which too often shows itself in our talk
and in our acts! Yet
while the best of men have folly in them, it is one of the
marks of a good
man that he knows it to be folly, and that he is willing to
confess his sin
before God. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the
truth is not in us.” If we stand as the Pharisee stood in
the temple, and cry,
“God, I thank thee,
that I am not as other men are,” we shall go home, as
the Pharisee did, without the justification which comes
from God. It is the
truly good man who stands afar off with the publican, and
cries, “God be
merciful to me a sinner,” and he also shall go to his house
“justified rather
than the other.”
There is one solemn thought which deeply impresses the man
who is right
at heart, but who sees his own foolishness and sin, and
mourns it; and that
thought is, that God sees it, and sees it more perfectly
than he sees it
himself. His own sight of it makes him repent, and humble
himself; and his
knowledge of God’s sight of it helps him to that repentance
and
humiliation. God sees everything concerning every man; but
the most of
men care not about God seeing them, they do not give it so
much as a
passing thought. It is the gracious rash, the child of God
who, from a
broken heart, cries out, “O God, thou knowest
my foolishness; and my sins
are not hid from thee.” And this it is that makes a
Christian man so greatly
value the precious blood of Christ, and the perfect
righteousness which
Jesus Christ has wrought out; albeit that omniscience still
perceives sin, yet
justice does not perceive it. God knows we are sinners, but
he imputes to
all believers the righteousness of Christ, and looks upon
them as they are in
him. He cleanses us in the precious blood of Jesus, so that
we are clean in
his sight, and “accepted in the Beloved.” What a wonderful
atonement is
that which hides from God that which cannot be hidden, so
that God does
not see what, in another sense, he must always see, and
forgets what it is
impossible for him, in another sense, ever to forget! In a
just and judicial
way, God casts our sin behind his back, and ceases to see
iniquity in his
people because they are clean every whit through washing in
the —
“Fountain
filled with blood,
Drawn
from Immanuel’s veins.”
Now, looking at our text, I am going to call attention to
the great truth of
the omniscience of God, desiring that each one of us may
say from our
heart, “O God, thou knowest
my foolishness; and my sins are not hid
from thee.”
________________________________________________________
To us, my dear hearers, who believe in Jesus, the gospel is the
most wonderful thing that can ever be. The more we know of it, the more
astounded we are at it. It is a compound of divine and infinite things. When
we study it, we go from wonder to wonder. Here we behold the heart of
God, and hear the voice of his infinite tenderness, his infallible wisdom, his
stern justice, and his supreme beneficence. How can all this be rejected by
you? Surely, you do not know what is in the gospel, or you would hearken
to its every tone. I sat yesterday with two tubes in my ears to listen to (this
being Sept. 22, 1888 – CY – 2017) sounds that came from revolving cylinders of
wax. I heard music, though I knew that no instrument was near. It was music which
had been caught up months before, and now was ringing out as clearly and distinctly
in my ears as it could have done had I been present at its first sound. I heard
Mr. Edison speak: he repeated a childish ditty; and when he had finished he
called upon his friends to repeat it with him; and I heard many American
voices joining in that repetition. That wax cylinder was present when these
sounds were made, and now it talked it all out in my ear. Then I heard Mr.
metal, and doing all sorts of things, and calling for this and that with that
American tone which made one know his nationality. I sat and listened, and
I felt lost in the mystery. But what of all this? What can these instruments
convey to us? But oh, to sit and listen to the gospel when your ears are
really opened! Then you hear God himself at work; you hear Jesus speak:
you hear his voice in suffering and in glory, and you rise up and say, “I
never thought to have heard such strange things! Where have I been to be
so long deaf to this? How could I neglect a gospel in which are locked up
such wondrous treasures of wisdom and knowledge, such measureless
depths of love and grace?” In the gospel of the Lord Jesus, God speaks
into the ear of his child more music than all the harps of heaven can yield. I
pray you, do not despise it. Be not such dull, driven cattle that, when God
has set before you what angels desire to look into, you close your eyes to
such glories, and pay attention to the miserable trifles of time and sense.
(Excerpt
from introduction to CH Spurgeon’s Sermon Further
Afield –
Sept. 23, 1888 – from Acts 13:46-48)
There never did live, and there never could live, a man whose entire nature could
be satisfied with his worldly possessions. You know that we call the man, who
delights in hoarding up riches, a miser. Why do we call him by that name unless
it is because he is truly miserable? The very name for the man who is engrossed
with avarice signifies unhappiness; and when you want to describe
somebody who is both aged and wretched, you say, “He is like an old
miser.” Yes, so it is. Men may amass as much wealth as they will, but if,
with the money, they have not acquired something better than the best
metal that ever came from the mine or the mind, they will still go on crying,
“O satisfy us! O satisfy us! “The Indians of South America believed that
the Spaniards’ god was made of gold, and well they might when they saw
the strangers’ devotion to their idol. They once poured molten gold down a
Spaniard’s throat, saying, “Thou hast thirsted for it, now thou shalt have
enough of it.” But if a man could eat gold, and drink gold, and sleep with
gold, and walk with gold, and be robed in gold, yet, still, what is there in
that metal which could satisfy the cravings of the highest part of man’s
nature, — that mysterious spiritual thing which is called the soul? No, there
is no solid satisfaction for the soul in all the wealth in the world.
Others
have despised this gross pursuit, and they have said that
satisfaction is to be found in fame. We all of us like respect, esteem,
honor; it is false for any man to say that he does not like praise, for he
does; and if anyone is pleased at being told that he does not like flattery, he
is there being more highly flattered than at any other time of his life, and he
is enjoying the sensation! Some men, to gain honors and distinction in
various ways, have made complete slaves of themselves. They have
supposed that, if they could but get the honors, — perhaps the honor of a
degree at the university, or the honor of a certain rank in the profession of
the law, or even in the church, they would be satisfied; but no man was
even yet satisfied with honors. They are but as a puff of wind, which can
never fill an immortal soul. If you read the histories of those statesman who
have risen to the greatest heights of fame, you will, as a rule, find that the
most famous man in the kingdom is generally the greatest slave. He has,
from the very weight of his honors, the heavier burden of responsibility to
bear. As “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” so, in its degree,
uneasy lies the head that wears the laurel or the bay. There is no
contentment to be found in fame, as those have proved who have won the
most of it. There was a time when the flattery of two or three poor people
in a village would have satisfied them; but, now, the plaudits of a whole
nation seem as nothing to them; and when the whole world is ringing with
their renown, they sit down in despondency, wring their hands in misery,
and cry, with Solomon, “Vanity of rarities; all is vanity.”
Others seek satisfaction in pleasure. I may be addressing some young man
who says, “I do not care for wealth; I shall never trouble myself to hoard it.
On the contrary, I love to do it. I do not want to use a rake; give me a
shovel, and I will soon scatter all my father’s substance.” There are some
man who are very proficient in scattering what others have with great
diligence gathered. These people say concerning study, “Let us get out of
these crowded rooms into the pure, fresh air; we mean to go in for
pleasure, and to enjoy ourselves while we can.” This looks, at first sight, as
if it were a prudent thing to do; and, certainly, there is a deal more sense in
enjoying ourselves in a rational fashion than there can be in pinching and
starving ourselves in order to hoard up money for heirs who will ridicule if
they do not actually curse those who have provided so bountifully for
them. Remember what Solomon says about others who seek what they call
pleasure: “Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who
hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
That that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.” There is
no satisfaction there; the merriest man who ever lived, the man who
drained the wine-cup of mirth even to its dregs, has dashed it to the ground
in his fierce indignation, and cursed the day in which he tried to find
satisfaction there. Look at those who have gone to the house of the strange
woman, and see what comes of their sinful sojourning there; even if it be
only for a little while. Does not dissipation bring disease and decay upon
nature sooner than need be there is no satisfaction there, young man; so, if
you want really to enjoy yourself, there is a nobler and a surer way of
doing so. The way of so-called “pleasure” is a delusion and a snare, and the
end thereof is sorrow, suffering, and woe. Alas, that so many should
continue to walk in a way which has such a sad end!
CH Spurgeon
_______________________________________
“To serve the living God” is necessary to the happiness of a living man: for
this end were we made, and we miss the design of our making if we do not
honor our Maker. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him for
ever.” If we miss that end we are ourselves terrible losers. The service of
God
is the element in which alone we can fully live. If you had a fish here
upon dry land, supposing it possible that it could exist, yet it would lead a
very unhappy life: it would scarcely be a fish at all! You could not tell of
what it was capable; it would be deprived of the opportunity of developing
its true self. It is not until you put it into the stream that the fish becomes
really a fish and enjoys its existence. It is just so with man: he does exist
without God, but we may not venture to call that existence “life;” for “he
shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” If he lives in
pleasure, yet he is dead while he lives. He is so constituted that to develop
his manhood perfectly, as God would have it to be, he must addict himself
to fellowship with God, and to the service of God. Many ways have been
tried by men to make themselves perfectly content, but they cannot find
satisfaction out of God. When a man getteth to serve God, and in
proportion as he thoroughly does so, he is peaceful, restful, and happy.
Man is a fallen star till he is right with heaven: he is out of order with
himself and all around him till he occupies his true place in relation to God.
When he serves God, he has reached that point where he doth serve
himself best, and enjoy himself most. It is man’s honor, it is man’s joy, it is
man’s heaven, to live unto God. Israel was a people having God to be
their glory and their defense. Happy had they been if they could have
carried out the divine ideal; it would have been well with them in the
highest degree. Alas! they were always seeking to be as the evil nations
around them; they could not rest till they had descended to the level of the
common mass of mankind; but if they could have risen to God’s intent, so
that the divine purpose of love had been fully carried out in them, they
would
have been the happiest of all the sons of men. (C. H. Spurgeon)
LAW REIGNS EVERYWHERE THROUGHOUT THE DOMINIONS
OF JEHOVAH! (The lawless need to contemplate this! CY – 2017)
The heavenly bodies speak of the symmetry he loves, and plants, animals,
and minerals teach the same
grand truth. “Order is Heaven’s
first law.”
I recommend Fantastic Trip – www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-cpYhN2YOU
- CY - 2017) “God is not the
author of confusion, but of peace.”
In the worship of the sanctuary
order and decency are of pre-eminent
importance.
On giving:
He knows little of God who
imagines that He will be put off with scanty
service, mean oblations. We
ought to ask, not what is there can be
easily
spared, but how much can
possibly be laid upon the altar. Let us not
mock Him by indulging in our own pleasures, and then giving to Him
the
petty remnants of our poverty!
Let us strive so to act that:
Ø
the firstfruits of our toil,
Ø
the chiefest of our possessions,
Ø
the prime of our life,
Ø
the best of our days,
SHALL BE DEVOTED TO HIM!
LET US BESTOW UPON GOD::
Ø
the deepest thoughts of the mind,
Ø
the strongest resolutions of the will, and
Ø
the choicest
affections of the heart!
DAVID’S
DYING SONG.
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH
MORNING,
APRIL 15, 1855,
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
AT EXETER HALL STRAND
“Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made
with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure:
for this is all
my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not
to grow.”-
2 Samuel 23:5
Below is an excerpt from point one:
But there are other houses whereyou will find the children are the trials of the
parents. “Although my house be not so with God,” may many an anxious father
say; and ye pious mothers might lift your streaming eyes to heaven, and say,
“Although my house be not so with God.” That first-born son of yours, who was
your pride, has now turned out your disgrace. Oh! how have the arrows of his
ingratitude pierced into your soul, and how do you keenly feel at this
present moment, that sooner would you have buried him in his infancy;
sooner might he never have seen the light, and perished in the birth, than
that he should live to have acted as he has done, to be the misery of your
existence, and the sorrow of your life. O sons who are ungodly, unruly,
gay, and profligate, surely ye do not know the tears of pious mothers, or ye
would stop your sin. Methinks, young man, thou wouldst not willingly
allow thy mother to shed tears, however dearly you may love sin. Will you
not then stop at her entreaties? Can you trample upon your mother? Oh!
though you are riding a steeplechase to hell, cannot her weeping
supplications induce you to stay your mad career? Will you grieve her who
gave you life, and fondly cherished you at her breast? Surely you will long
debate e’er you can resolve to bring her grey heirs with sorrow to the
grave. Or has sin brutalized you? Are ye worse than stones? Have natural
feelings become extinct? Is the evil one entirely your master? Has he dried
up all the tender sympathies of your heart. Stay! young prodigal, and
ponder!
But, Christian men! ye are not alone in this. If ye have family troubles,
there are others who have borne the same. Remember Ephraim! Though
God had promised that Ephraim should abound as a tribe with tens of
thousands, yet it is recorded in 1 Chronicles 7:20-22: “And the sons of
Ephraim, Shuthelah and Bered his son, and Tahath his son, and Eladah his
son, and Tahath his son, and Zabad his son, and Shuthelah his son, and
Ezer and Elead, whom the men of
because they came down to take away their cattle. And Ephraim their
father mourned many days, and his brethren came to comfort him.”
Abraham himself had his Ishmael, and he cried to God on account thereof.
Think of Eli, a man who served God as a high priest, and though he could
rule the people, he could not rule his sons; and great was his grief thereat.
Ah! some of you, my brethren in the gospel, may lift your hands to heaven,
and ye may utter this morning these words with a deep and solemn
emphasis-you may write “Although” in capitals, for it is more than true
with some of you-”Although my house be not so with God.”
Before we leave this point: What must I say to any of those who are thus
tried and distressing in estate and family? First, let me say to you my
brethren, it is necessary that you should have an “although” in your lot,
because if you had not, you know what you would do; you would build a
very downy nest on earth, and there you would lie down in sleep; so God
puts a thorn in your nest in order that you may sing. It is said by the old
writers, that the nightingale never sang so sweetly as when she sat among
thorns, since say they, the thorns prick her breast, and remind her of her
song. So it may be with you. Ye, like the larks, would sleep in your nest
did not some trouble pass by and affright you; then you stretch your wings,
and carolling the mating song, rise to greet the sun. Trials are sent to wean
you from the world; bitters are put into your drink, that ye may learn to
live upon the dew of heaven: the food of earth is mingled with gall, that ye
may only seek for true bread in the manna which droppeth from the sky.
Your soul without trouble would be as the sea if it were without tide or
motion, it would become foul and obnoxious. As Coleridge describes the
sea after a wondrous calm, so would the soul breed contagion and death.
But furthermore, recollect this, O thou who art tried in thy children-that
prayer can remove thy troubles. There is not a pious father or mother here,
who is suffering in the family, but may have that trial taken away yet. Faith
is as omnipotent as God himself, for it moves the arm which leads the stars
along. Have you prayed long for your children without a result? and have
ye said, “I will cease to pray, for the more I wrestle, the worse they seem
to grow, and the more am I tried?” Oh! say not so, thou weary watcher.
Though the promise tarrieth, it will come. Still sow the seed, and when
thou sowest it, drop a tear with each grain thou puttest into the earth. Oh,
steep thy seeds in the tears of anxiety, and they cannot rot under the clods,
if they have been baptized in so vivifying a mixture. And what though thou
didst without seeing thy sons the heirs of light? They shall be converted
even after thy death; and though thy bones shall be put in the grave, and
thy son may stand and curse thy memory for an hour, he shall not forget it
in the cooler moments of his recollection, when he shall meditate alone.
Then he shall think of thy prayers thy tears, thy groans; he shall remember
thine advice-it shall rise up and if he live in sin, still thy words shall sound
as one long voice from the realm of spirits, and either affright him in the
midst of his revelry, or charm him heavenward, like angel’s whispers,
saying, “Follow on to glory, where thy parent is who once did pray for
thee.” So the Christian may say, “Although my house be not so with God
now, it may be yet.” therefore will I still wait, for there be mighty instances
of conversion. Think of John Newton. He even became a slaver, yet was
brought back. Hope on; never despair; faint heart never winneth the souls
of men, but firm faith winneth all things; therefore watch unto prayer.
“What I say unto you, I say unto all, watch.” There is your trouble, a small
cup filled from the same sea of tribulation as was the Psalmist’s when he
sung, “Although my house be not so with God.” (C. H. Spurgeon – 1855)
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If we have power with God for men, we shall have power with men for God.
To a true saint the throne is never more amiable than in
its judicial capacity; righteous
men love judgment, and are glad that right will be
rewarded and iniquity will be
punished.
There can be no
prosperity which is not based on peace, nor can
there long be peace
if prosperity be gone, for decline of grace breeds decay
of love.
Knowing as we do that depraved nature is so strongly inclined to worship visible
objects, we do not wonder that the contagion of Egyptian idolatry infected the
children
of
The Jews in after time were wont to say
that never any trouble came upon them
without an ounce of the golden calf in it.
In re: Exodus 3:18
Ø The petition. The petitioners are to ask for only a small part of what is
really required. The request has been called by some a deceptive
one. It is
wonderful how quick the
worldly mind is, being so full of trickery and
deceit itself, to find out
deceit in God. If this
had been purely the request of
request, and it served more purposes than one. In the first place,
the
character of the boon desired indicated to
responsible men the elders, what God was expecting from them. He
who
had told Moses, in direct terms, concerning the service in “this mountain”
(v. 12), was now intimating to them,
indirectly, but not less forcibly,
something of the same kind. God has more ways than one of setting
our
duties before us. Secondly, the request was a very searching test
of
Pharaoh himself. It was a test with regard to the spirit and
reality of his
own religion. If to him religion was a real necessity, a real
source of
strength, then there was an appeal to whatever might be noble and
generous in his heart not to shut out the Hebrews from such
blessings as
were to be procured in worshipping Jehovah their God, and the
request
searched Pharaoh’s heart in many ways besides. God well knew beforehand
what the result would be, and He
chose such an introductory message as
would most completely serve His
own purposes. These threatened wonders
were to start from plain reasons of necessity. We must constantly
bear in
mind the comprehensiveness of the Divine plans, the certainty with
which
God discerns beforehand the conduct of men. If we keep this truth
before
us we shall not be deceived by the shallow talk of would-be ethical purists
concerning the deceptions
found in Scripture. (where
they are represented
as being “....natural
brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak
evil of things that they
understand not; and shall utterly perish in their
own corruption.” - II
Peter 2:12 – of them God says “What hast thou
to do to declare my stautes, or that thou shouldest
take up my covenant
in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest
instruction, and castest my words
behind thee.” - Psalm 50:16-17 – CY –
2017) We must not argue from
ourselves, wandering in a labyrinth of contingencies, to a God who
is
above them all. (Pulpit
Commentary)
Beloved friends, God is always with those who are with him.
If we trust
him, he hath said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake
thee.” There is a
special and familiar presence of God with those who walk
uprightly, both
in the night of their sorrow, and in the day of their joy.
Yet we do not
always in the same way perceive that presence so as to
enjoy it. God never
leaves us, but we sometimes think he has done so. The sun
shines on, but
we do not always bask in his beams; we sometimes mourn an
absent God
— it is the bitterest of all our mourning. As he is the sum
total of our joy,
so his departure is the essence of our misery. If God do
not smile upon us,
who can cheer us? If he be not with us, then the strong
helpers fail, and the
mighty men are put to rout. It is concerning the presence
of God that I am
going to speak this morning. You and I know how joyous it
is. May we
never be made to know its infinite value experimentally by
the loss of it. If
we see no cloud or flame, yet may we know that God is with
us, and his
power is around us. In that sense we will pray,
“Cover
us with thy cloudy shrine,
And in
thy fiery column shine.”
Or in more familiar words we will sing,
“Let
the fiery cloudy pillar
Lead
me all my journey through.”
(C. H. Spurgeon)
The following is in reference to secular
education’s obsession with the lack of
self –esteem in school children:
Self esteem is that speck in the eye which most effectually mars human vision;
the Great Surgeon of souls removes this from us chiefly by sanctified afflictions.
At the mouth of the furnace the Great Purifier sits as a Refiner to purify the sons
of Levi, and when this work has been achieved, and they have become pure in
heart, the divine purpose is accomplished, God’s glory is manifested, for
the pure in heart shall see the Lord, Thank God, then, dear brother, if you
have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your
experience of God’s lovingkindness. Your troubles have enriched you with
a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means; your trials have
been the cleft of the rock in which God has set you as he did his servant
Moses, that you might behold his glory as it passed by. Praise your God, O
sons of sorrow, ye have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which
continued prosperity might have involved. Bless him that you have been
capacitated to show forth his glory by being permitted and honored to
endure a great fight of affliction. Our one aim in life is, I trust, to glorify
our God, and if so, are not those afflictions precions which enable us to
honor him? We will call them friends, if they help us to praise God. We will
wear them as jewels, and rejoice in them as a bride rejoiceth in her
ornaments, if they aid us in glorifying our blessed Lord.
“Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” (Exodus 14:13)
Our text exhibits the posture in which a man should be found while
exercised with trial. Methinks, also, it shows the position in which a sinner
should be found when he is under trouble on acconnt of sin. We will
employ it in both ways.
(CH Spurgeon)
This one sentence, “The just shall live by his faith,” produced the Reformation.
Out of this one line, as from the opening of one of the Apocalyptic seals, came
forth all that sounding of gospel trumpets, and all that singing of gospel
songs, which made in the world a sound like the noise of many waters.
This one seed, forgotten and hidden away in the dark mediaval times, was
brought forth, dropped into the human heart, made by the Spirit of God to
grow, and in the end to produce great results. This handful of corn on the
top of the mountains so multiplied that the fruit thereof did shake like
bit of truth, thrown anywhere, will live! Certain plants are so fall of vitality,
that if you only take a fragment of a leaf and place it on the soil, the leaf
will take root and grow. It is utterly impossible that such vegetation should
become extinct; and so it is with the truth of God-it is living and
incorruptible, and therefore there is no destroying it. As long as one Bible
remains, the religion of free grace will live; nay, if they could burn all
printed Scriptures, as long as there remained a child who remembered a
single text of the word, the truth would rise again. Even in the ashes of
truth the fire is still living, and when the breath of the Lord bloweth upon
it, the flame will burst forth gloriously. Because of this,
let us be comforted in this day of blasphemy and of rebuke-comforted
because though “the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you.” CH Spurgeon on the occurrence of
Martin Luther’s 400th birthday.
In re: Mark 3:5 and Revelation 6:15-17
Note well that Jesus did not speak a word, and yet he said more without
words than another man could have said with them. They were not worthy
of a word; neither would more words have had the slightest effect upon
them. He saved his words for the poor man with the withered hand; but for
these people a look was the best reply: they looked on him, and now he
looked on them. This helps me to understand that passage in the
Revelation, where the ungodly are represented as crying to the rocks to
cover them, and the hills to hide them from the face of him that sat upon
the throne. The Judge has not spoken so much as a single word; not yet
has he opened the books; not yet has he pronounced the sentence, “Depart,
ye cursed;” but they are altogether terrified by the look of that august
countenance. CH Spurgeon
I beseech thee, trifle not with my Lord and Master. If thou must play the fool, do it
with something else, but not with religion. If you will gamble, play with halfpence,
as
bad boys do; your immoral soul is too precious to be thrown away in a game of
pitch and toss. Be in earnest in dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ; put away all
leaven out of thy house, and out of thy heart; and let it be with the unleavened
bread of real sincerity of heart that thou dost partake of the Lamb of God.
CH Spurgeon
Those who
refuse to seek church-fellowship are despising
God’s
arrangements for their own salvation, and proving themselves
DEVOID OF the spirit which, loving Him that begat, loveth Him also
that is begotten
of him.
“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever
I command you.” John 15:14.
OUR Lord Jesus Christ is beyond all comparison the best of
friends: a
friend in need, a friend indeed. “Friend!” said Socrates,
“there is no friend!”
but Socrates did not know our Lord Jesus, or he would have
added,
“except the Savior.” In the heart of our Lord Jesus there
burns such
friendship towards us that all other forms of it are as dim
candles to the
sun. “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down
his life for his
friend.” An ordinary man has gone as far as ever he can
when he has died
for his friend; and yet he would have died anyhow, so that
in dying for his
friend he does but pay, somewhat beforehand, a debt which
must inevitably
have been discharged a little further on. With Christ there
was no necessity
to die at all, and this, therefore, places his love and his
friendship alone by
itself. He died who needed not to die, and died in agony
when he might
have lived in glory: never did man give such proof of
friendship as this.
“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you”; we are not his friends
till then. His love to us is entirely of himself, but friendship needs something
from us. Friendship cannot be all on one side: one-sided friendship is more fitly
called mercy, grace, or benevolence; friendship in its full sense is mutual.
You may do all you will for a man and be perfectly benevolent, and yet he
may make you no return; but friendship can only exist where there is a
response. Hence, we have not before us the question as to whether Christ
loves us or not, as to whether Christ has pity on us or not; for in another
part of Scripture we read of “his great love wherewith he loved us even
when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” He befriended us when we
were
enemies,
(C. H. Spurgeon)
Religion the Parent of Morality (Ezekiel
45:9-12)
It is certain that God feels an active interest in all the
covenants of man.
The same authority that requires love to God requires love for
our
neighbors, equal in
strength to love for self. True
religion is not sublimely
indifferent to the details of home and mercantile life. It
designs to make
every home a nursery for the Church, every shop an arena
for the victories
of faith. Every
commercial transaction bears a testimony
either for God or
against Him.
- RELIGION HAS A MESSAGE FOR
EVERY RANK OF HUMAN
SOCIETY. Like the sun in
the heavens, religion exerts the benignest
influence on men of every rank
and station. It teaches the monarch humility
and self-restraint. It teaches
princes to live for others. It teaches
magistrates the value of equity
and justice. It teaches merchants principles
of honesty and truthfulness. It
cares for the poorest and the meanest among
men; inspires them with the
spirit of industry; casts a halo of beauty over
the lowliest lot. Nothing that
appertains to man is too insignificant for the
notice of true religion. For
every stage in life, from childhood to old age,
religion has some kindly
ministration. For every circumstance it affords
some succor. It superadds dignity to the prince. It gives a kingly bearing
to
the peasant. It links all classes (when unhindered) in
true and blissful
harmony (and when it don’t) – CY – 2017). Tyranny on the one hand,
and insubordination on the
other, are equally obnoxious to religion.
- RELIGION SHEDS
ITS INFLUENCE THROUGH EVERY
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN LIFE. We cannot go into any
assembly of
men for whatever purpose they
meet, where we are excused from
manifesting the principles and
the spirit of true religion. Whether we meet
for gaining knowledge, or for
industrial toil, or for political action, or for
commercial pursuits, RELIGION CLAIMS TO PRESIDE
over all our
thoughts and plans
and deeds. The shop and the mart are
capacious fields
for the daily exercise of
Christian virtues — fields exquisitely suited for the
growth and ripening of the
noblest qualities. Courage can only be developed
in presence of strife and peril; so our religious virtues can
only be
strengthened in an atmosphere of
temptation. If a man is not pious and
faithful and truthful in his
commercial transactions, he will not be
pious and
faithful anywhere. This is his test; and woe be to the man who succumbs in
the strife!
- RELIGION SETS UP STANDARDS FOR ALL
HUMAN
ACTIONS. “Ye
shall have just balances.” The shekel and the homer were
to be fixed standards. If fraud be allowed to creep into our commercial
scales and measures, the fraud will corrupt every transaction. The very
heart of the mercantile system
will be poisoned. Villany secreted here
would spread as from a center to
the whole circumference of commerce. It
is supremely
important that men establish right standards of speech and
conduct. If the exchange is to
prosper, it must
(like the throne) be
established IN RIGHTEOUSNESS!
Over the portals of every shop, on
the beam of every balance,
engraved on every coin, ought the maxim to run
in largest capitals, “Whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do ye
even so to them!” (Matthew 7:12)
Religion a Practical Thing (Ezekiel
45:13-15)
In the infancy of the world outward symbol was more needed
for the
religious instruction of men than it is today. In the
sacred ceremonies of the
temple every man had a part to take. Religious truth can
better be
impressed upon the mind when outward action accompanies
inward
sentiment. Religion requires the loyalty and service of the
entire man; and if
convictions of religious duty can be wrought into the soul,
it is cheaply
purchased by the devotement of our wealth to God. No cost
is too great by
which we can gain adequate appreciation of our indebtedness
to God.
God’s requirements and our advantage are identical; they
are interwoven
like light and heat in solar rays.
- RELIGION EMBRACES MANY ELEMENTS. There were required
“meat offerings,
and burnt offerings, and peace offerings.” Each of these
had a distinct meaning, and
represented a distinct need of man. In true
religion there enters the
sentiment of reverential homage, gratitude for gifts
received, acknowledgment of
transgression, application for larger blessing,
vows of fresh service,
intercession on behalf of others. Offerings for
ourselves, for our household,
for the nation, are suitable; and in desiring
the good of
others, our benevolent nature expands, we get a larger good
ourselves. The expansion of the soul is real gain.
- RELIGIOUS WORSHIP IS BEST EXPRESSED BY
PERSONAL
OFFERINGS. Wheat,
barley, lambs, heifers, oil, were to be the staple of
the people’s offerings. It is of the first importance that men should feel that
God is the Creator
and Giver of all good. We are
absolutely dependent on
His bounty. To live in the hourly realization of this dependence is
blessing
unspeakable. Nor can any arrangement better promote this end than the
regular offering of such things
as God has conferred. We owe to Him our
ALL, OUR ENTIRE
POSSESSIONS! But He graciously accepts
a
part as acknowledged tribute,
and gives in return a substantial blessing
upon the remainder. Best of all,
He uses our gift as a channel through which
to pour new blessing and joy
into our own souls. Our spontaneous
offerings foster the growth of faith and love and spiritual aspiration. “It is
more blessed to
give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)
- RELIGIOUS OFFERINGS SHOULD BE PROPORTIONAL
TO
OUR PROSPERITY. The
man that supposes God to be an austere
Taskmaster is a precipitant
blunderer. He has grossly missed the truth. God
does not require gigantic
offerings. He requires gifts simply proportionate
to our possessions. The gift of
ten thousand pounds may be in the balance
of righteousness only a paltry
and selfish deed. The giver may be seeking
only self-interests or human
fame. The gift of a farthing may win the smile
of Jehovah. The magnitude of our
offering is measured by the motive that
prompts it, the end sought, and
the residue that remains. According to this
spiritual calculation, the woman
who gave all she had gave transcendently
more than the rich donors of
golden shekels. (Mark 12:41-44) The
offering
of our heart’s warm love is the
noblest tribute which God appreciates (“my
son give me thine heart” –
Proverbs 23:26), and unless our gifts are the
outflow and manifestation of our
love, they are rejected as worthless, they are
like smoke in one’s eyes. “...that
which is highly esteemed among men is
abomination in the
sight of God.” (Luke 16:15)
- FIDELITY TO GOD BRINGS THE LARGEST
BENEFITS TO
MEN. The end of such
offerings among the Jews was “to make
reconciliation for
them, saith the Lord God.” Yet we shall grossly err if
we
look upon this as a
commercial bargain. Reconciliation with God cannot be
purchased with gold, or
tithes, or animal sacrifices. Reconciliation is the
outcome of God’s
grace; but to bestow it upon
rebellious men
indiscriminately would be a
waste and a crime. The grace that
has
originated
reconciliation must prepare men’s hearts to
possess it. This
omnipotent kindness of God moves
the sinner’s heart to repentance. His
desire for God’s friendship
expresses itself in prayer and in substantial
offerings. To obtain such a
heavenly boon he is willing to make any
sacrifice. Such good does his
conscience perceive to dwell in God’s favor
that obedience to His will is a delight, a very luxury to the soul. As a child
finds a delicious joy in
pleasing its parent, and runs cheerfully to do that
parent’s will, so the repentant
man loyally responds to God’s commands,
and at the altar of sacrifice
implores to be reconciled. To have God as his
Friend is his supreme desire,
his supreme good. “In His favor is life, His
loving-kindness is
better than life.” (Psalms 30:5; 63:3)
Devotement and Consecration (Ezekiel 45:1-5)
In the ideal kingdom there was to be a certain portion of
the land devoted
to sacred objects — to the sanctuary of Jehovah and to the
residence of his
ministers. This was called “a holy portion;” it was “an
oblation unto the
Lord.” Thus in the
very heart of the metropolis, in the most commanding
situation, on the very best possible site, there was an
abiding witness of the
presence and the claims of God, and a continual recognition
of and
response to those claims on the part of the nation. In a
country as Christian
as ours the towers and spires of our sanctuaries, rising
heavenward under
every sky, standing strong and even thick among the homes
and the shops
and counting-houses of town and city, bear their testimony
that God is
remembered, that Jesus Christ is honored and worshipped by
the people of
the land. But better than this devotement of land and this
building of
sanctuaries, good as that is, is the consecration of heart
and life to the
Person and the service of the Redeemer.
_______________________________________________________________
But here was a man who did not show merely externally, but even
internally, the heavy pressure of grief, on account of sin. His bones grew
old, and the sap of his life, the animal spirits, were all dried up; his
“moisture was turned into the drought of summer.” So intimate is the
connection between the body and the soul, that when the soul suffers
extremely, the body must be called to endure its part of grief. Verily in this
case
it was but simple justice, for David had sinned with his body and with
his soul too. By fornication he had defiled his members; he had looked out
from his eyes with lustful desires, and had committed iniquity with his
body, and now the frame which had become the instrument of
unrighteousness, becomes a vehicle of punishment, and his body bears its
shave of misery, — “my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.”
We gather from what David says in this Psalm, and indeed in all these
seven penitential Psalms that his convictions on account of his sin with
Bathsheba, and his subsequent murder of Uriah, were of the deepest and
most poignant character, and that the terrors he experienced were
indescribable, filling his soul with horror and dismay. (Spurgeon on
Psalm
32:3-4)
THE only blessing the law can give it bestows on those who do no iniquity,
and walk perfectly in God’s ways: the gospel alone has a blessing for the
guilty. On them upon their believing in Jesus it pronounces the benediction,
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” To be
“blessed” is to be in the most desirable state, at peace with God, happy in
yourself and full of divine favor. A man cannot be more than blessed, or,
what if I say, doubly blessed? since the benediction is pronounced twice.
Nor is it a stinted blessing, for no limiting word is put before it or after it to
mark an inferior benediction. When our Lord opened his mouth in the
Sermon on the Mount he poured forth a stream of blessings, and even so
doth the gospel’ when it speaks to the soul, rivers of blessing flow from its
every word. The language of the text is very emphatic in the original, and
implies a multiplication of blessings. There cannot be a more true, real, and
assured blessedness than that which belongs to the forgiven sinner. All the
blessedness which could have come to a perfect man does come to the man
whose transgression is forgiven. O thou who hast sinned against God, and
art conscious of it, rejoice that thou art nevertheless not shut out from
blessedness; for if by faith thou canst believe in the sin-forgiving God, and
accept the matchless atonement which covers all thy guilt. and if thou wilt
exercise faith upon that blessed system by which sin is no longer imputed,
then art thou even now among the blessed. God himself has blessed thee,
and neither men nor devils can reverse the benediction. CH Spurgeon on
Psalm
32:1
Let us learn in our confessions to be honest with God. Do not give fair names to
foul sins; call them what you will they will smell no sweeter. What God sees them
to be, that do you labor to feel them to be, and with all openness of heart acknowledge
their true character. CH Spurgeon
But oh! if we could see things as they are, — if we were not
deceived by the masquerade of this poor life, — if we were not so easily
taken in by the masks and dresses of those who act in this great drama, be
it comedy or tragedy, — if we could but see what the men are behind the
scenes, penetrate their hearts, watch their inner motions and discern their
secret feelings, we should find but few who could bear the name of
“blessed.” Indeed, there are none except those who come under the
description of my text, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.” He is blessed, thrice blessed, blessed forevermore,
blessed of heaven, blessed of earth, blessed for time, blessed for eternity,
but the man whose sin is not forgiven is not blessed, — the mouth of
Jehovah
hath said it, and God shall manifest that cursed is every man
whose transgression is not forgiven, whose sin is not covered. CH Spurgeon
on
Psalm 32:1
If we would get good out of our prosperity, we should not need so much adversity.
If we would gather from a kiss all the good it might confer upon us, we should not
so often smart under the rod. If we will not gather wisdom from vines and fig trees,
we must be taught it with briars and thorns. Our folly makes rods for its
own back. Do any of you come here to-day with hearts leaping for joy?
Have you received a valued favor which you little expected? Has the Lord
put your feet in a large room? Oh! can you sing of mercies multiplied?
Then this is the day to put your hand upon the horns of the altar, and say,
“Bind me here, my God; bind me here with cords, even for ever.” I may
also suggest that there are certain seasons in life when this fresh espousal
is very comely. In arriving at manhood, at the birth of children, at the death
of friends, in passing the anniversaries of our birth, in advancing from
strength to grey hairs, we may read anew the memorials of our love.
Inasmuch as we need the fulfillment of new promises from God, let us give
fresh promises to God, or, rather, let us offer renewed prayers that the old
ones may not be dishonored. I have known persons who have religiously
set apart a certain day in the month, or year, when they would anew look
over their obligations, survey their state before God, and determine to be
the Lord’s for ever. Let us commend their zeal, if we do not imitate their precision.
(C. H. Spurgeon)
“I will extol thee, my God, O King; and I will bless thy
name for
ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee; and I will
praise thy
name for ever and ever.” — Psalm 114:1-2.
We lack one of the surest evidences of pure love to God if we live without presenting
praise to His ever-blessed name. Nothing would oil the wheels of the
chariot of life so well as more of the praising of God. Praise would end
murmuring, and nurse contentment. If our mouths were filled with the
praises of God, there would he no room for grumbling. Praise would throw
a
halo of glory around the head of toil and thought. In its sunlight the
commonest duties of life would be transfigured. Sanctified by prayer and
praise, each duty would be raised into a hallowed worship, akin to that of
heaven. It would make us more happy, more holy, and more heavenly, if
we would say, “I will extol thee, my God, O King.”
Learn the essential elements of heavenly praise by the practice of joyful
thanksgiving, adoring reverence, and wondering love; so that, when you
step into heaven, you may take your place among the singers, and say, “I
have been practicing these songs for years. I have praised God while I was
in a world of sin and suffering, and when I was weighed down by a feeble
body; and now that I am set free from earth and sin, and the bondage of the
flesh, I take up the same strain to sing more sweetly to the same Lord and God.”
I wish I knew how to speak so as to stir up every child of God to praise.
As for you that are not his children — oh, that you were such! You must
be born again; you cannot praise God aright till you are. “Unto the wicked
God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou
shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?” You can offer him no real
praise while your hearts are at enmity to him. Be ye reconciled to God by
the death of his Son, and then you will praise him. Let no one that has
tasted that the Lord is gracious, let no one that has ever been delivered
from sin by the atonement of Christ, ever fail to pay unto the Lord his daily
tribute of thanksgiving.
CH Spurgeon
THE WARNINGS AND THE
REWARDS
OF THE WORD
OF GOD.
A
SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING,
MARCH 16TH, 1890,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
“Moreover by them is thy servant warned:
and in keeping of them there is
great reward,” — Psalm 19:11.
An Introduction – the full sermon can be
found by putting the Title of the Sermon
and the name Charles Haddon Spurgeon – in
your browser.
THIS is the declaration of one of God’s servants: “by them
is thy servant
warned.” Only for men made obedient by divine grace is this
passage
written. My hearer, are you God’s servant? Let us begin
with that question.
Remember that if you are not God’s servant, you are the
bond-slave of sin,
and the wages of sin is death.
The Psalmist, in this psalm, has compared the Word of God
to the sun. The
sun in the heavens is everything to the natural world; and
the Word of God
in the heart is everything in the spiritual world. The
world would be dark,
and dead, and fruitless, without the sun; and what would
the mind of the
Christian be without the illuminating influence of the Word
of God? If thou
despisest holy Scripture, thou art like to one that despises the
sun. It would
seem that thou art blind, and worse than blind; for even
those without sight
enjoy the warmth of the sun. How depraved art thou if thou
canst perceive
no heavenly lustre about the Book
of God! The Word of the Lord makes
our day, it makes our spring, it makes our summer, it
prepares and ripens
all our fruit. Without the Word of God we should be in the
outer darkness
of spiritual death. I have not time this morning to sum up
the blessings
which are showered upon us through the sun’s light, heat,
and other
influences. So is it with the perfect law of the Lord; when
it comes in the
power of the Spirit of God upon the soul, it brings
unnumbered blessings:
blessings more than we ourselves are able to discern.
David, for a moment, dwelt upon the delights of God’s Word.
He said,
“More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine
gold: sweeter
also than honey and the honeycomb.” The revelation of God enriches
the
mind with knowledge, the heart with comfort, the life with
holiness, the
whole man with divine strength. He that studies,
understands, and
appropriates the statutes of the Lord is rich in the truest
sense — rich in
holiness for this life, and rich in preparedness for the
life to come. Thou
hast mines of treasure, if thou hast the Word of God
dwelling richly in thy
heart. But in the sacred Book we find not only an
enrichment of gold laid
up, but a present abundance of sweetness to be now enjoyed.
He that lives
upon God’s Word tastes the honey of life — a sweetness far
superior to
honey; for honey satiates, though it never satisfies, it
cloys and never
contents. The more thou hast of divine teaching, the more
thou wilt wish to
have, and the more wilt thou be capable of enjoying. He
that loves the
inspired Book shall have wealth for his mind and sweetness
for his heart.
But David is mainly aiming at the practical; so, having
introduced the sun
as the symbol of God’s Word because of its pleasurable influence,
he adds,
“Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of
them there is
great reward.” On these two things we will meditate under
the following
heads: — First, their keeping us — “By them is thy
servant warned”;
secondly, our keeping them — “And in keeping of them
there is great
reward!”
_______________________________________________________
Never did the apostles dream for a moment of adapting the gospel to the
unhallowed tastes or prejudices of the people, but at once directly and
boldly they brought down with both their hands the mighty sword of the
Spirit
upon the crown of the opposing error. CH
Spurgeon
SELF-DESTROYED, YET
SAVED.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE,
ON
THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 11TH, 1887.
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;
but in me is thine help.”-Hosea 13:9.
(The following is the introduction – CY –
2017)
IT would be a very important subject for our meditation if
we kept to the
text, and thought upon its great truth,-that the ruin of
man is altogether of
himself, and the salvation of man is altogether of God.
These two
statements, I believe, comprehend the main points of a
sound theology.
There have been divisions in the Church over these points
where there
ought not to have been any. The Calvinist has said, and
said right bravely,
that salvation is of grace alone; and the Arminian has said, and said most
truthfully, that damnation is of man’s will alone, and as
the result of man’s
sin, and of that only. Then they have fallen out with one
another. The fact
is, they had each one laid hold of a truth, and if they
could have put their
heads together, and accepted both truths, it might have
been greatly for the
advantage of the
that you can travel on with safety and comfort, these parallel
lines-ruin, of
man; restoration, of God: sin, of man’s will; salvation, of
God’s will:
reprobation, of man’s demerit; election, of God’s free and
sovereign grace:
the sinner lost in hell through himself alone, the saint
lifted up to heaven
wholly and alone by the power and grace of God.
Get those two truths thoroughly engraven
upon your heart, and you will
then hold comprehensively the great truths of Scripture.
You will not need
to crowd them into one narrow system of theology, but you
will have a
sort of duplicate system, which will contain, as far as the
mind of man,
being finite, can contain, the great truths revealed by the
infinite God. I am
not, however, at this time going so much into the doctrinal
point as to try
and make use of my text for practical soul-saving purposes.
You notice in this text, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself,” how God
comes to close terms with men. He speaks, calling the
persons addressed
by name, “O Israel,” and then he uses a singular pronoun,
“thou hast
destroyed thyself.” It is something like Nelson’s way of
fighting. When he
came alongside the enemy, he brought his ship as close as
ever he could,
and then sent in a raking broadside from stem to stern. So
does this text, it
seems to get alongside of the man, puts its guns right
close up to him, and
then discharges its volley: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself.”
There is nothing said here that is at all flattering: “Thou
hast destroyed
thyself.” God bids a man look at himself as a blighted,
blasted, ruined thing
when he tells him that he is a self-destroyer. He has done
it all; he has no
need to ask, as Jehu did, “Who
slew all these?” (II Kings 10:11) Thine own
red right hand has done it, O thou guilty sinner, thou hast
ruined thyself! See
how plainly God speaks, how he lays judgment to the line,
and righteousness
to the plummet, and with his storm of hail sweeps away all
refuges of lies: “O
But though he does not flatter, observe that the Lord does
not conclude his
address to the sinner by leaving him in despair, for the
second part of the
text is, “In me is thine help.”
We should never so preach the law as to
show only the naked sword of divine justice; the sweet
invitations and
promises of the gospel must come in after the dreadful
verdict of judgment.
Let the thunders roll, let the lightnings
set the heavens on a blaze, but
conclude not till some silver drops have fallen, and a
shower of mercy has
refreshed the thirsty earth. No; God will not have us
preach alone the law
and its terrors, but the gospel must also be brought into
our message:
“Thou hast destroyed thyself, O Israel: there is no
concealing from thee
that grim and terrible fact. But in me is thine help: there is no keeping back
from thee that cheering and blessed information.” When
these two things
work together, breeding self-despair and hope in God, this
is the way by
which eternal life is wrought in the souls of men.
I am going to speak, then, of those two themes; and first,
here is a sad fact:
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.” Secondly, here is
a hopeful
assurance: “In me is thine help;”
and, ere I finish, I wish to notice, in the
third place, an instructive warning, which is given by this
text as you read it
in the Revised Version: “It is thy destruction, O Israel,
that thou art against
me, against thy help.” It is a warning to men not to fight
against their own
salvation, or contend against the only Helper who can aid
them to any
purpose.
___________________________________
“I WOULD;
BUT YE WOULD NOT.”
O Jerusalem,
them which
are sent onto thee, how often would I have gathered
thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her
wings, and ye would not!” — Matthew 23:37
DELIVERED
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
ON
LORD’S-DAY EVENING, JULY 22ND, 1888.
The Introduction to this sermon follows:
Matthew 23:37 - This verse shows also that the ruin of men lies with themselves.
Christ puts it very plainly, “I would; but ye would not.” “How often would I have
gathered thy children together, and ye would not!” That is a truth, about
which, I hope, we have never had any question; we hold tenaciously that
salvation is all of grace, but we also believe with equal firmness that the
ruin of man is entirely the result of his own sin. It is the will of God that
saves;
it is the will of man that damns.
the
grace and favor of the Most High; but
stones are cast down, through the transgression and iniquity of men, which
provoked the justice of God.
There are great deeps about these two points; but I have not been
accustomed to lead you into any deeps, and I am not going to do so at this
time. The practical part of theology is that which it is most important for us
to understand. Any man may get himself into a terrible labyrinth who thinks
continually of the sovereignty of God alone, and he may equally get into
deeps that are likely to drown him if he meditates only on the free will of
man. The best thing is to take what God reveals to you, and to believe that.
If God’s Word leads me to the right, I go there; if it leads me to the left, I
go there; if it makes me stand still, I stand still. If you so act, you will be
safe; but if you try to be wise above that which is written, and to
understand that which even angels do not comprehend, you will certainly
befog yourself. I desire ever to bring before you practical rather than
mysterious subjects, and our present theme is one that concerns us all. The
great destroyer of man is the will of man. I do not believe that man’s free
will
has ever saved a soul; but man’s free will has
been the ruin of
multitudes. “Ye would not,” is still the solemn accusation of Christ against
guilty men. Did he not say, at another time, “Ye will not come unto me,
that ye might have life?” The human will is desperately set against God,
and is the great devourer and destroyer of thousands of good intentions
and emotions, which never come to anything permanent because the will is
acting in opposition to that which is right and true.
That, I think, is the very marrow of the text, and I am going to handle it in
this fashion.
CH Spurgeon – July 22, 1888 – (exactly one
week before my paternal grandmother – Clara Moreland Simpson Yahnig
was born! - CY - 2017)
_______________________________________________________________________
I met with a striking sentence in the works of William Mason which is well worthy
to be
written among your memoranda: “Every day of delay
leaves a day more to
repent of, and a day less to repent in.” What if this day shall be the last I live;
shall it be spent in refusing to hear the word of my Maker? Shall my last breath
be spent in rejecting my Savior? God forbid! I see that I am bound as His creature
to
obey Him, and as His sinful creature to seek pardon of Him; help me, therefore,
blessed Spirit, to attend
to these things THIS DAY WITHOUT DELAY!
Late attendance frequently means heartless worship, disturbance, and
distraction.
Points of difficult theology are not often the means of conversion.
What have we to do with the fireworks of rhetoric, or the playthings of
controversy, when men are anxious to know the way of salvation?
He who is satisfied to receive makes little effort to attain.
THE BEST BURDEN FOR
YOUNG SHOULDERS.
NO. 1291
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
“It is good for a man that he bear the
yoke in his youth.”
— Lamentations 3:27.
YOKE-BEARING is not pleasant, but it is good. It is not every - good advice – can be found in Spurgeon sermons
o
“What
therefore God hath joined together, let
not man put asunder.”
But this the scribes had presumed to do. God is the Author of union; man,
of division. Man
would:
§
sunder
soul and body,
§
sin
and punishment,
§
holiness
and happiness,
§
precept
and promise.
(This is quite profound
and explains the world today! – CY – 2017)
I believe that there are some Christian men who have
wasted a large part of their lives for want of somebody or something to
wake them up. There is more evil wrought in the world by want of thought
than by downright malice, and there is more good left undone through
want of thought than through any aversion to the doing of good. Some
Christians appear to have been born in the land of slumber, and they
continually live in their native country of dreams. They rub their eyes
occasionally, and suppose themselves to be wide awake; but they are in the
Enchanted Ground, and though they know it not, they are little better than
sleepwalkers the most of their days. CH Spurgeon
it is written, “filled with all the fullness of God.” What a transcendent
expression! Here we have not only an indwelling God, but that God in the
utmost fullness of his Godhead filling and overflowing the whole soul with
his fullness. I cannot help borrowing an illustration from a friend who took
up a bottle by the seashore, filled it full of sea-water, corked it down, and
then threw it into the sea. “Now,” said he, “there it is, there is the sea in the
bottle, and there is the bottle in the sea.” It is full to fullness, and then in a
still greater fullness. There is my soul with God in it, and my soul in God;
the fullness of God in me as much as I can hold, and then myself in the
fullness of God. The illustration gives one as much of the text as one
knows how to convey; ourselves swallowed up in the all-absorbing abyss
of the love of God, and that same love of God flowing into all the parts and
powers of our soul till we are as full of God as man can hold. Then shall
we show that love in our lives, in our prayers, in our preaching, in
everything that we do; we shall manifest not only that we have been with
Jesus, but that we have Jesus dwelling in us, filling us right full with his
loving, sanctifying, elevating presence.
Oh the breadth, the length, the depth, the
height! To sum up what we have said in four words. For breadth the love
of Jesus is immensity, for length it is eternity, for depth it is
immeasurability, and for height it is infinity.
To the carnal man the visible is real, and the invisible a mere
dream; but to the spiritual man things are reversed, the visible is the
shadow and the invisible the substance. CH Spurgeon
We have noticed already the variety of the consolation which Jesus brings
to mourners; the Plant of Renown produces many lovely flowers with rich
perfume, and a multitude of choice fruits of dainty taste. Now, we would
call your attention to their marvelous adaptation to our needs. Man has a
spirit, and the gifts of grace are spiritual; his chief maladies lie in his soul,
and the blessings of the covenant deal with his spiritual wants. Our text
mentions “the spirit of heaviness,” and gives a promise that it shall be
removed. The boons which Jesus gives to us are not surface blessings, but
they touch the center of our being. The garment of praise hides
the pride of man. Spurgeon
_________________________________
Oh what multitudes of souls have gone to hell asking questions.
Not asking, “What must I do to be saved?” but asking questions about
matters too high for them; asking, in fact, questions which were only meant
to be some excuse for continuing in their sins, pillows for their wicked
heads to lean upon; putting queries to ministers, and propounding hard and
knotty points that from the ignorance of man they might draw reasons why
they should continue in their evil way, should hold on in their wicked
course,
and so should resist the mercy of God.
CH Spurgeon
the man Moses was very meek,” for
nobody would accord him any honor for such a declaration in that age and not
very much, even, in this age, for men have not yet come to value meekness as
God values it, but still look upon it as a kind of cowardice. They like a man
who goes about the world with his fist always doubled, ready to knock down everybody
who dares to think that the braggart is not the king of all his fellows. They
admire the great hero who will not have anything said or done against his
superlative dignity and, although that pride is earthly, sensual, devilish, yet
there are many who admire it. And when it goes by the name of “British pluck,”
then, probably, “a mean-spirited man” is the mildest appellation that they give
to one who is really meek! CH Spurgeon
In all this the Israelites were a
type of true believers, for with all His chosen ones, the Lord has dealt
wondrously. We frequently hear the complaint that we live in an age of
dullness, we have no adventures now, and events are few. Happy are we that it
is so, for it has been well said—“Blessed are the times which have no history.”
If peace and prosperity are commonplace, long may the commonplace continue! But
indeed, no thoughtful man’s life is uninteresting or barren of marvels. A life
real and earnest cannot be devoid of memorable occurrences. He who thinks so
must either be unspiritual, or he must be oblivious of his own inner history—he
must be like the tribes in the wilderness, of whom it is written, “They forget
the works of the Lord, and the wonders which He has showed them.” Foolish
people run to fiction for wonders, but gracious men can tell far greater
wonders, upon which the words, “NO FICTION,” might be written in capital
letters. The wonders which we can speak of far surpass the inventions of
imagination. When we recount them, we may appear unto men to dream, but in very
truth no dreamer could dream after such a fashion. Speak of “Arabian Nights,”
English days and nights have far exceeded them in marvel. “God does great
things past finding out, and wonders without number.” I have seen a volume
entitled, “The World of Wonders,” and another named, “Ten Thousand Wonderful
Things.” The believer is within himself a world of wonders, and his life
reveals 10,000 wonderful things. Mysteries, riddles, paradoxes, and miracles
make up Christian experience. God has dealt wondrously with us. Of these
wonders I shall try and speak at this time, according to that precept of
David—“Talk you of all His wondrous works,” and I shall dwell upon them after
the following manner: first, we shall testify that God’s dealings toward us have
been full of wonder, and lead us to praise Him as Jehovah, our God; and
secondly, we shall remark that because of this, we ought to look for wonders in
the future, and if I may speak so paradoxically, it should not be unusual for
us to see wonders. And, then, thirdly, we shall close by observing that in a
future state, we shall yet more clearly see that Jehovah has dealt wondrously
with us. I
Wonders Sermon #1098
www.spurgeongems.org Volume 19
2
2
Then with his own finger he writes the divine law upon the mind and the
affections, so that the divine commands become the center of the man’s
life, and the governing force of his action. The man now loves that law
which before he, at his very best, only feared: it becomes his will to do the
will of God. By a miracle of grace his nature is changed, so that its
tendencies, which were all towards evil, are corrected by new tendencies,
which
are all towards good. CH Spurgeon
Faith is a wonderful magician’s
wand; it works marvels, it achieves impossibilities, it grasps the
incomprehensible. Faith can be used anywhere — in the highest heaven
touching the ear of God, and winning our desire of him, and in the lowest
places of the earth amongst the poor and fallen, cheering and upraising
them. Faith will quench the violence of fire, turn the edge of the sword,
snatch the prey from the enemy and turn the alien to flight. There is
nothing which it cannot do. It is a principle available for all times, to be
used
on all occasions, suitable to be used by all men for all holy ends. CHS
He is infinite, and therefore nothing bears any comparison to him. You remember how it is written that He who telleth the stars, and calleth them by name, also bindeth up the
broken
in heart, and healeth all their wounds. CHS
Sadducees. The
conceited amongst the vulgar would sympathize
with boasted
intelligence, that they might, in turn, be credited with an
intelligence
which they did not possess.
___________
Why play the dog in the manger? If you will not have
religion for yourself, why not let others have it? It can be no gain to you,
either in this world or in the world to come, to stand as with a club at the
gates of life to drive back all who would enter thereat.
They are more diligent to destroy the faith than others are
to spread it. What an accumulation of guilt must be resting upon the mind
of the man who breathes out doubt as other men breathe air! Neither God,
nor Christ, nor heaven, nor hell, can escape the foul steam of his infidelity.
See how he blasts the souls on whom he breathes! Calculate his crimes. Put
down the soul-murders of which he is guilty.
denying the truth and sowing the seeds of unbelief! If I speak to any such, I
do it with sorrowful indignation, and I beg them to turn from their evil
way.
God save us from hindering a single soul from coming to Christ and
heaven. I cannot help trembling sometimes lest a cold and chilly sermon of
mine should wither young buds of promise; lest in the prayer-meeting a
wandering, rambling prayer from a heartless professor should damp the
rising earnestness of a tearful seeker. I tremble for you, my dear brethren
and sisters in Christ, lest levity of conversation, worldliness of conduct,
inconsistency of behavior, or callousness of demeanour, should in any one
of you, at any time, turn the lame out of the way, or give cause of
stumbling to one of the Lord’s little ones.
Charles Spurgeon
________________________________________________________________________________
If you are saved yourself,
the work is but half done until you are employed to bring others to Christ.
You are as yet but half formed in the image of your Lord. You have not
attained to the full development of the Christ-life in you unless you have
commenced in some feeble way to tell to others of the grace of God: and I
trust that you will find no rest to the sole of your foot till you have been
the means of leading many to that blessed Savior who is your confidence
and
your hope. C.
H. Spurgeon
Concerning confession of sins:
to recall the failures, imperfections, and mistakes of
the day, in order that we might learn from one day of failure how to
achieve the victory on the morrow, and that washing ourselves daily from
our sins we might preserve the purity and whiteness of our garments.
So strange are the workings of providence that, however low anyone may be
in temporal circumstances, he need not give way to despair, but he may
cherish hopes of better times coming to him.
C.
H. Spurgeon
the
ever-suffering world of sin, pitiless
toward itself, and mercilessly inflicting
self-punishment,
______________________
Faith is not a sense, nor sight, nor
reason, but taking God at His
Word.
--Christmas Evans
We do not know what we lose in our
self-indulgence!
-------
- Immorality is destructive of courage. Paganism, with its debasements,
destroyed self respect and that interest in life, home, and liberty which is
the soul of patriotism. (Take for instance: abortion, assisted suicide,
pornography, etc. – CY – 2012) For heroism religion is an essential element.
Cromwell’s Ironsides, Nelson’s Methodists,
Teetotallers, the rower of resistance to oppression developed by religion in
godliness in vitalizing all the manlier virtues. Corruption
of character
followed corruption of creed, and was followed by
deterioration of
courage. (Pulpit Commentary on Joshua 10:8-11)
Face it out to the end, cast away
every shadow of hope on the human side as an absolute hindrance to the Divine,
heap up all the difficulties together recklessly, and pile as many more on as
you can find; you cannot get beyond the blessed climax of impossibility. Let faith
swing out to Him. He is the God of the impossible.
_______________________
That God would at length so fill me with
His breath, His mind, His Spirit, that I should think only His thoughts, and
live His life, finding therein my own life, only glorified infinitely.
"In the early morning hours,
'Twixt the night and day,
While from earth the darkness passes
Silently away;
"Then 'tis sweet to talk with Jesus
In thy chamber still
For the coming day and duties
Ask to know His will.
"Then He'll lead the way before you,
Mountains laying low;
Making desert places blossom,
Sweet'ning Marah's flow.
"Would you know this life of triumph,
Victory all the way?
Then put God in the beginning
Of each coming day."
________________
The Power to cast into Hell – Luke
12:5
_________________
Deuteronomy 31:15-22, 32:1-43
Judges 6:25-26, 30.
“ye have eaten the fruit of
lies” (Hosea 10:13)
o
those
also who are wholly heedless of His claims, who show an
utter
disregard to His will, who stand outside His Church, or who
do those
things which He has expressly denounced and forbidden.
These are
His enemies, and their name is legion; their resources
are great;
they compose an army overwhelmingly strong in
numbers
and material equipments.
Before these there come the prophets of the Lord, summoning
them to
leave the ranks in which they stand, and to surrender themselves
to Him and
His service. These speakers for God entreat them to lay
down their arms
and to serve under Christ.
- TO BE OPPOSING THAT WHICH THE BEST MEN
ARE
SUSTAINING. “God’s
priests… cry alarm against you.” Invested in the
sacred garments, with the
appointed signals in their hands (Numbers 10:8),
the holiest in the land are
urging the people to maintain their ground.
The cause of Christian truth has
not only the presence of a noble host of
good and holy men; it is led by
the best of the good and wise. Those who
are clothed with righteousness,
whose voice is the sound of earnest and
irresistible conviction, are summoning all who love God and man to oppose
themselves to
the enemies of Christ. If we league
ourselves “with these his
enemies” we must make up our
mind to contend with the worthiest and the
wisest, with the most pure and
brave and devoted, that ever drew mortal
breath, that ever sounded the
note of battle.
- TO BE FIGHTING
AGAINST GOD. “God Himself is
with us for our
Captain.” In the Christian Church it is the assured conviction that
the
invisible Lord is not the absent
One; He is the very present One. “Lo, I am
with you alway,” etc.
(Matthew 28:20). We who fight for Him fight
under Him — under His eye, His observant eye; under His direction
— the
direction of a hand that is not
seen, but that is felt. They who fight
against
His cause are fighting against Him
Himself. They have to overcome THE
ALMIGHTY!
- TO BE ARRAYED AGAINST A FORCE THAT
MUST PROVE
VICTORIOUS. “You
shall not prosper.” Many times has Christianity
seemed to be doomed to defeat
and even to extinction, but out of every
terrible contest it has emerged
successful, even triumphant. Persecution,
ridicule, argumentation,
corruption, — these have done their worst, and
they have failed. To-day the
friends of Christ are more numerous, and the
cause of Christ is more
advanced, than ever. And he who is in arms
against
the Lord of all
love and power, who is seeking to
undermine His influence,
who is contemptuous
of His
holy will, who is opposing his own
indifference
or his worldliness to the commands
and the invitations of a Divine Saviour,
he is:
Ø
in the ranks of the army
that will be defeated;
Ø
no voice of victory will
greet his dying ear,
Ø
no hope of commendation and
award will then fill his
heart.
“THIS THING IS FROM ME” NO. 2476
A SERMON INTENDED FOR
“Thus says the LORD, You shall not go up, nor fight against your
brethren, the children of
I. First, SOME EVENTS ARE ESPECIALLY FROM GOD—“This thing is from Me.” I do not know what some people believe, for they seem to try to do without God altogether, but I believe that God is in all things—that there is neither power, nor life, nor motion, nor thought, nor existence apart from Him. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” By Him all things exist and consist. Like foam upon the wave, all things would dissolve away did not God continue them, did not God uphold them. I see God in everything—from the creeping of an aphid upon a rosebud to the fall of a dynasty! I believe that God is in the earthquake and the whirlwind, but I believe Him to be equally in the gentlest zephyr and in the fall of the sere leaf from the oak of the forest. Blessed is that man to whom there exists nothing in which he cannot see the Presence of God! It makes this world a grand sphere when God is seen everywhere in it from the deepest mine to the remotest star. This earth is a wretched dark dungeon if once the light of the Presence and the working of God is taken away from it.
Notice also, dear Friends, that
God is in events which are produced by the sin and the stupidity of men. This
breaking up of the
-----------
They would have been brighter here,
but less glorious in His Kingdom. They would have had
--Anonymous
_________________
Some people get easily turned aside
from the grandeur of their life-work by pursuing their own grievances and
enemies, until their life gets turned into one little petty whirl of warfare.
It is like a nest of hornets. You may disperse the hornets, but you will
probably get terribly stung, and get nothing for your pains, for even their
honey is not worth a search.
_______
To have the recognition of religion, the
faith of religion, the presence
of the practical ministries and
ministers of religion, is the salt of the earth,
the health of a people,
the conserving of the soundness of civil society.
Sin, and a grievous tale of it, were the
woe of even
never quite unsound, and its perpetuity
was never broken; while rottenness
was the very core of
absolutely. (In reference to II Chronicles 11)
The dwindling stream by which Elijah sat and mused is a
true picture of the life of each of us. “It came to pass … that the brook dried
up”—that is the history of our yesterday, and a prophecy of our morrows.
In some way or other we will have to learn the difference
between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver. The gift may be good
for a while, but the Giver is the Eternal Love.
Cherith was a difficult problem to Elijah until he
got to Zarephath, and then it was all as clear as
daylight. God’s hard words are never His last words. The woe and the waste and
the tears of life belong to the interlude and not to the finale.
--------------------------------
God is in the
midst, at the center of my physical being. He is in the midst of my brain. He
is in the midst of my nerve centers.
-----
Paul said,
"I have kept the faith," but he lost his head! They cut that off, but
it didn't touch his faith. He rejoiced in three things--this great Apostle to
the Gentiles; he had "fought a good fight," he had "finished his
course," he had "kept the faith." What did all the rest amount
to?
--------
The deep says, ‘It is not with me.’ And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ (Job 28:14)
I remember a summer in which I said, “It is the ocean I
need,” and I went to the ocean; but it seemed to say, “It is not in me!” The
ocean did not do for me what I thought it would. Then I said, “The mountains
will rest me,” and I went to the mountains, and when I awoke in the morning
there stood the grand mountain that I had wanted so much to see; but it said,
“It is not in me!” It did not satisfy. Ah! I needed the ocean of His love, and
the high mountains of His truth within. It was wisdom that the “depths” said
they did not contain, and that could not be compared with jewels or gold or
precious stones. Christ is wisdom and our deepest need. Our restlessness within
can only be met by the revelation of His eternal friendship and love for us.
—Margaret Bottome
“My heart is there!
’Where, on eternal hills, my loved one dwells
Among the lilies and asphodels;
Clad in the brightness of the Great White Throne,
Glad in the smile of Him who sits thereon,
The glory gilding all His wealth of hair
And making His immortal face more fair
THERE IS MY TREASURE and my heart is there.
“My heart is there!
’With Him who made all earthly life so sweet,
So fit to live, and yet to die so meet;
So mild, so grand, so gentle and so brave,
So ready to forgive, so strong to save.
His fair, pure Spirit makes the Heavens more fair,
And thither rises all my longing prayer
THERE IS MY TREASURE and my heart is there.”
—Favorite poem of the late Chas. E. Cowman
You cannot detain the eagle in the forest. You may gather
around him a chorus of the choicest birds; you may give him a perch on the
goodliest pine; you may charge winged messengers to bring him choicest
dainties; but he will spurn them all. Spreading his lofty wings, and with his
eye on the Alpine cliff, he will soar away to his own ancestral halls amid the munition of rocks and the wild music of tempest and
waterfall.
The soul of man, in its eagle soarings,
will rest with nothing short of the Rock of Ages. Its ancestral halls are the
halls of Heaven. Its munitions of rocks are the attributes of God. The sweep of
its majestic flight is Eternity! “Lord, THOU hast been our dwelling place in
all generations.”
—Macduff
“My Home is God Himself”; Christ brought me there.
I laid me down within His mighty arms;
He took me up, and safe from all alarms
He bore me “where no foot but His hath trod,”
Within the holiest at Home with God,
And bade me dwell in Him, rejoicing there.
And we, God’s little ones, abiding there.
“My Home is God Himself”; it was not so!
A long, long road I traveled night and day,
And sought to find within myself some way,
Aught I could do, or feel to bring me near;
Self effort failed, and I was filled with fear,
And then I found Christ was the only way,
That I must come to Him and in Him stay,
And God had told me so.
And now “my Home is God,” and sheltered there,
God meets the trials of my earthly life,
God compasses me round from storm and strife,
God takes the burden of my daily care.
O Wondrous Place! O Home divinely fair!
And I, God’s little one, safe hidden there.
Lord, as I dwell in Thee and Thou in me,
So make me dead to everything but Thee;
That as I rest within my Home most fair,
My soul may evermore and only see
My God in everything and everywhere;
My Home is God.
—Author Unknown
---------
When we have
exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father's full giving is only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth and giveth
and giveth again.
--Annie Johnson Flint
__________
Never turn God's
facts into hopes, or prayers, but simply use them as realities, and you will find them
powerful as you believe them.
“Life is not salvage to be saved out of the world, but an
investment to be used in the world.”
------
Into the deep of
God's purposes and coming kingdom, until the Lord's coming and His millennial
reign are opened up to us; and beyond these the bright entrancing ages on ages
unfold themselves, until the mental eye is dazed with light, and the heart
flutters with inexpressible anticipations of its joy with Jesus and the glory
to be revealed.
And lose
ourselves and our sorrows in the calmness and peace of the Holy Spirit’s
everlasting presence.
Into all these
things, Jesus bids us launch. He made us and He made the deep, and to its
fathomless depths He has fitted our longings and capabilities.
(He hath put
eternity into our hearts and they are
too big for this world to satisfy. – Ecclesiastes 3:11 – CY – 2016)
Into all these
things, Jesus bids us launch. He made us and He made the deep, and to its
fathomless depths He has fitted our longings and capabilities.
--Soul Food
Its streams the
whole creation reach,
So plenteous is the store;
Enough for all, enough for each;
Enough forevermore.
The deep waters
of the Holy Spirit are always accessible, because they are always proceeding.
Will you not this day claim afresh to be immersed and drenched in these waters
of life? The waters in Ezekiel's vision first of all oozed from under the doors
of the temple. Then the man with the measuring line measured and found the
waters to the ankles. Still further measurement, and they were waters to the
knees. Once again they were measured and the waters were to the loins. Then
they became waters to swim in--a river that could not be passed over. (Read
Ezekiel 47).
How far have we
advanced into this river of life? The Holy Spirit would have a complete self
effacement. Not merely ankle-deep, knee-deep, loin-deep, but self-deep. We
ourselves hidden out of sight and bathed in this life-giving stream. Let go the
shore-lines and launch out into the deep. Never forget, the Man with the
measuring line is with us today.
----
When you are doubtful as to your course, submit your judgment absolutely to the Spirit of God, and ask Him to shut against you every door but the right one…Meanwhile keep on as you are, and consider the absence of indication to be the indication of God’s will that you are on His track…As you go down the long corridor, you will find that He has preceded you, and locked many doors which you “Life is not salvage to be saved out of the world, but an investment to be used in the world.”would fain have entered; but be sure that beyond these there is one which He has left unlocked. Open it and enter, and you will find yourself face to face with a bend of the river of opportunity, broader and deeper than anything you had dared to imagine in your sunniest dreams. Launch forth upon it; it conducts to the open sea.
The Voyage of
Life – Manhood – by Thomas Cole
For life is all
too short, dear.
And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late.
__________________
On Malachi 3;10
The ability of God
is beyond our prayers, beyond our largest prayers! I have been thinking of some
of the petitions that have entered into my supplication innumerable times. What
have I asked for? I have asked for a cupful, and the ocean remains! I have
asked for a sunbeam, and the sun abides! My best asking falls immeasurably
short of my Father's giving: it is beyond that we can ask.
--J. H. Jowett
____________________
We once saw a
man draw some black dots. We looked and could make nothing of them but an
irregular assemblage of black dots. Then he drew a few lines, put in a few
rests, then a clef at the beginning, and we saw these black dots were musical
notes. On sounding them we were singing,
"Praise God
from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below."
There are many
black dots and black spots in our lives, and we cannot understand why they are
there or why God permitted them to come. But if we let God come into our lives,
and adjust the dots in the proper way, and draw the lines He wants, and separate
this from that, and put in the rests at the proper places; out of the black
dots and spots in our lives He will make a glorious harmony.
Let us not
hinder Him in this glorious work!
--C. H. P.
The world says
"seeing is believing," but God wants us to believe in order to see.
The Psalmist said, "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
Do you believe
God only when the circumstances are favorable, or do you believe no matter what
the circumstances may be?
--C. H. P.
Faith is to
believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we
believe.
--
God is looking
for a man, or woman, whose heart will be always set on Him, and who will trust
Him for all He desires to do. God is eager to work more mightily now than He
ever has through any soul. The clock of the centuries points to the eleventh
hour.
"The world
is waiting yet to see what God can do through a consecrated soul." Not the
world alone, but God Himself is waiting for one, who will be more fully devoted
to Him than any who have ever lived; who will be willing to be nothing that
Christ may be all; who will grasp God's own purposes; and taking His humility
and His faith,
His love and His power, will, without hindering, continue to let God do
exploits.
--C. H. P.
"There is
no limit to what God can do with a man, providing he will not touch the
glory."
_________________
Isaiah 18:4
Is not this a marvelous
conception of God--being still and watching? His stillness is not acquiescence.
His silence is not consent. He is only biding His time, and will arise, in the
most opportune moment, and when the designs of the wicked seem on the point of
success, to overwhelm them with disaster. As we look out on the evil of the
world; as we think of the apparent success of wrong-doing; as we wince beneath
the oppression of those that hate us, let us remember these marvelous words
about God being still and beholding.
________________________________
(This is
reference to the analogy of Plains Indians staking themselves to the ground
during battle.)
Bind the
sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar" (Psalms
118:27).
Is not this
altar inviting thee? Shall we not ask to be bound to it, that we may never be
able to start back from our attitude of consecration? There are times when life
is full of roseate light, and we choose the Cross; at other times, when the sky
is grey, we shrink from it. It is well to be bound.
Wilt Thou bind
us, most blessed Spirit, and enamor us with the Cross, and let us never leave
it? Bind us with the scarlet cord of redemption, and the golden cord of love,
and the silver cord of Advent-hope, so we will not go back from it, or wish for
another lot than to be the humble partners with our Lord in His pain and
sorrow!
The horns of the
altar invite thee. Wilt thou come? Wilt thou dwell ever in a spirit of resigned
humility, and give thyself wholly to the Lord?
--Selected
The story is
told of a colored brother who, at a camp meeting, tried to give himself to God.
Every night at the altar he consecrated himself; but every night before he left
the meeting, the devil would come to him and convince him that he did not feel
any different and therefore he was not consecrated.
Again and again
he was beaten back by the adversary. Finally, one evening he came to the
meeting with an axe and a big stake. After consecrating himself, he drove the
stake into the ground just where he had knelt. As he was leaving the building,
the devil came to him as usual and tried to make him believe that it was all a
farce. At once he went back to the stake and, pointing to it, said, "Look
here, Mr. Devil, do you see that stake? Well, that's my witness that God has
forever accepted me."
Immediately the
devil left him, and he had no further doubts on the subject.
--The Still Small Voice
Beloved, if you
are tempted to doubt the finality of your consecration, drive a stake down
somewhere and let it be your witness before God and even the devil that you
have settled the question forever.
____________________________________________
No praying man or
woman accomplishes so much with so little expenditure of time as when he or she
is praying.
------------------------------
For what if some
did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith
of God without effect? (Rom.
3:3).
I think that I
can trace every scrap of sorrow in my life to simple unbelief. How could I be
anything but quite happy if I believed always that all the past is forgiven,
and all the present furnished with power, and all the future bright with hope
because of the same abiding facts which do not change with my mood, do not
stumble because I totter and stagger at the promise through unbelief, but stand
firm and clear with their peaks of pearl cleaving the air of Eternity, and the
bases of their hills rooted unfathomably in the Rock of God.
--James Smetham
---------------------------------
God needs some
who are willing to be spiritual polyps, and work away out of sight of men, but
sustained by the Holy Ghost and in full view of Heaven.
-----------------------------------------------------------
As we never find
that Jesus Christ rejected a single supplicant who came to Him for mercy, so we
believe that no prayer made in His name will be in vain.
------------------------------------------------------
Faith is the
telegraphic wire which links earth to Heaven, on which God’s messages of love
fly so fast that before we call He answers, and while we are yet speaking He
hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we obtain
the promise?
Faith links me
with Divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of Jehovah. Faith insures every
attribute of God in my defense. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes
me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I
receive anything from the Lord?
Oh, then,
Christian, watch well thy faith. “If thou canst believe, all things are
possible to him that believeth.”
—C. H. Spurgeon
And we know that
all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called
according to his purpose, (Rom 8:28)
How wide is this
assertion of the Apostle Paul! He does not say, “We know that some things,” or
“most things,” or “joyous things,” but “ALL things.” From the minutest to the
most momentous; from the humblest event in daily providence to the great crisis
hours in grace.
And all things
"work’—they are working; not all things have worked, or shall work; but it
is a present operation.
At this very
moment, when some voice may be saying, “Thy judgments are a great deep,” the
angels above, who are watching the development of the great plan, are with
folded wings exclaiming, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in
all his works.” (Ps. 145:17)
And then all
things “work together.” It is a beautiful blending. Many different colors, in
themselves raw and unsightly, are required in order to weave the harmonious
pattern.
Many separate
tones and notes of music, even discords and dissonances, are required to make
up the harmonious anthem.
Many separate
wheels and joints are required to make the piece of machinery. Take a thread separately,
or a note separately, or a wheel or a tooth of a wheel separately, and there
may be neither use nor beauty discernible.
But complete the
web, combine the notes, put together the separate parts of steel and iron, and
you see how perfect and symmetrical is the result. Here is the lesson for faith:
“What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.”
—Macduff
In one thousand
trials it is not five hundred of them that work for the believer’s good, but
nine hundred and ninety-nine of them, and one beside.
—George Mueller
“GOD MEANT IT
UNTO GOOD” (Gen. 50:20).
“God meant it
unto good”—O blest assurance,
Falling like sunshine all across life’s way,
Touching with Heaven’s gold earth’s darkest storm clouds,
Bringing fresh peace and comfort day by day.
’Twas not by chance the hands of faithless brethren
Sold Joseph captive to a foreign land;
Nor was it chance which, after years of suffering,
Brought him before the monarch’s throne to stand.
One Eye all-seeing
saw the need of thousands,
And planned to meet it through that one lone soul;
And through the weary days of prison bondage
Was working towards the great and glorious goal.
As yet the end
was hidden from the captive,
The iron entered even to his soul;
His eye could scan the present path of sorrow,
Not yet his gaze might rest upon the whole.
Faith failed not
through those long, dark days of waiting,
His trust in God was recompensed at last,
The moment came when God led forth his servant
To succour many, all his sufferings past.
“It was not you
but God, that sent me hither,”
Witnessed triumphant faith in after days;
“God meant it unto good,” no “second causes”
Mingled their discord with his song of praise.
“God means it
unto good” for thee, beloved,
The God of Joseph is the same today;
His love permits afflictions strange and bitter,
His hand is guiding through the unknown way.
Thy Lord, who
sees the end from the beginning,
Hath purposes for thee of love untold.
Then place thy hand in His and follow fearless,
Till thou the riches of His grace behold.
There, when thou
standest in the Home of Glory,
And all life’s path ties open to thy gaze,
Thine eyes shall see the hand which now
thou trustest,
And magnify His love through endless days.
—Freda Hanbury Allen
____________________________________________
It is much
easier to trust when the sun is shining than when the storm is raging.
We never know
how much real faith we have until it is put to the test in some fierce storm; and
that is the reason why the Savior is on board.
If you are ever
to be strong in the Lord and the power of His might, your strength will be born
in some storm.
--Selected
---------------------------------
The shadows of
this world are the shades of an avenue the avenue to the house of my Father.
George Matheson
--------
I hear men
praying everywhere for more faith, but when I listen to them carefully, and get
at the real heart of their prayer,
very often it is not more faith at all that they are wanting, but a change from
faith to sight.
Faith says not,
"I see that it is good for me, so God must have sent it," but,
"God sent it, and so it must be good for me."
Faith, walking
in the dark with God, only prays Him to clasp its hand more closely.
--Phillips Brooks
_____________________
Do we know of
ONE brighter than the brightest radiance of the visible sun, visiting our
chamber with the first waking beam of the morning; an eye of infinite tenderness
and compassion following us throughout the day, knowing the way that we take?
_____________________________________________________________________
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
----------------------------------------------------------------
“Stones are not thrown except at
the fruit-laden tree,” says the proverb.
Christianity dissolves Judaism — by
fulfilling it.
Recall the promise of seed as the
stars of heaven, and as the sands of the sea, to a couple as good as dead. Read
again the story of the Red Sea and its deliverance, and of
Desperation is better than despair. Faith
did not make our desperate days. Its work is to sustain and solve them. The
only alternative to a desperate faith is despair, and faith holds on and
prevails.
There is no more heroic example of
desperate faith than that of the three Hebrew children. The situation was
desperate, but they answered bravely, "Our God whom we serve is able to
deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O
king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which
thou hast set up." I like that, "but if not !"
I have only space to mention
When obstacles and
trials seem
Like prison
walls to be,
I do the little
I can do
And leave the
rest to Thee.
And when there
seems no chance, no change,
From grief can
set me free,
Hope finds its
strength in helplessness,
And calmly waits
for Thee.
------------------------
God puts Himself within our reach in
His promises; and when we can say to Him, "Thou saidst,"
He cannot say nay. He must do as He has said.
Believe God’s
word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock
is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.
—Samuel Rutherford
Keep your eye
steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of Christ’s finished work and
righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe, look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as
you look to him, hoist your sails and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not
remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive
repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another
like vessels idly moored in a harbor. The religious life is not a brooding over
emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of
hope through the oozy tide mud as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze.
Away! With your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him, who rules the
raging of the waters. The safety of the tinted bird is to be on the wing. If
its haunt be near the ground—if it fly low—it exposes itself to the fowler’s
net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low
ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand
meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. “But surely in vain
the net is spread in the sight of THAT WHICH HATH A WING” (marginal reading Prov. 1:17). Hope thou in God.
—J. R. Macduff
___________________________________
There is no way of learning faith except by trial. It is
God’s school of faith, and it is far better for us to learn to trust God than
to enjoy life.
The lesson of faith once learned, is an everlasting
acquisition and an eternal fortune made; and without trust even riches will
leave us poor.
“Why must I weep when others sing?
’To test the deeps of suffering.’
Why must I work while others rest?
’To spend my strength at God’s request.’
Why must I lose while others gain?
’To understand defeat’s sharp pain.’
Why must this lot of life be mine
When that which fairer seems is thine?
’Because God knows what plans for me
Shall blossom in eternity.’”
_________________________________________________________________________
But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly about my
weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in me. (2 Cor 12:9)
The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day’s
work. I felt very wearied, and sore depressed, when swiftly, and suddenly as a
lightning flash, that text came to me, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” I
reached home and looked it up in the original, and at last it came to me in
this way, “MY grace is sufficient for thee”; and I said, “I should think it is,
Lord,” and burst out laughing. I never fully understood what the holy laughter
of Abraham was until then. It seemed to make unbelief so absurd. It was as
though some little fish, being very thirsty, was troubled about drinking the
river dry, and Father Thames said, “Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient
for thee.” Or, it seemed after the seven years of plenty, a mouse feared it
might die of famine; and Joseph might say, “Cheer up, little mouse, my
granaries are sufficient for thee.” Again, I imagined a man away up yonder, in
a lofty mountain, saying to himself, “I breathe so many cubic feet of air every
year, I fear I shall exhaust the oxygen in the atmosphere,” but the earth might
say, “Breathe away, O man, and fill the lungs ever, my atmosphere is sufficient
for thee.” Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls
to Heaven, but great faith will bring Heaven to your souls.
—C. H. Spurgeon
-------------------------------------------
Comparative uselessness
is the condition of freedom from suffering. Do you then wish me to cease
pruning your life? Shall I leave you alone?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though I have
afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more (Nahum
1:12).
There is a limit to affliction. God sends it, and removes
it. Do you sigh and say, "When will the end be?" Let us quietly wait and
patiently endure the will of the Lord till He cometh. Our Father takes away the
rod when His design in using it is fully served.
If the affliction is sent for testing us, that our graces
may glorify God, it will end when the Lord has made us bear witness to His
praise.
We would not wish the affliction to depart until God has
gotten out of us all the honor which we can possibly yield Him. There may be
today " a great calm." Who knows how soon those raging billows will
give place to a sea of glass and the sea birds sit on the gentle waves?
After long tribulation, the flail is hung up, and the
wheat rests in the garner. We may, before many hours are past, be just as happy
as now we are sorrowful.
It is not hard for the Lord to turn night into day. He
that sends the clouds can as easily clear the skies. Let us be of good cheer.
It is better farther on. Let us sing Hallelujah by anticipation.
--C.H. Spurgeon
Fret not thyself (Psalms
37:1).
Do not get into
a perilous heat about things. If ever heat were justified, it was surely
justified in the circumstances outlined in the Psalm. Evil-doers were moving
about clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day.
"Workers of iniquity" were climbing into the supreme places of power,
and were tyrannizing their less fortunate brethren. Sinful men and women were
stalking through the land in the pride of life and basking in the light and
comfort of great prosperity, and good men were becoming heated and fretful.
"Fret not
thyself." Do not get unduly heated! Keep cool! Even in a good cause,
fretfulness is not a wise help-meet. Fretting only heats the bearings; it does
not generate the steam. It is no help to a train for the axles to get hot;
their heat is only a hindrance. When the axles get heated, it is because of
unnecessary friction; dry surfaces are grinding together, which ought to be
kept in smooth co-operation by a delicate cushion of oil.
And is it not a
suggestive fact that this word "fret" is closely akin to the word
"friction," and is an indication of absence of the anointing oil of
the grace of God? In fretfulness, a little bit of grit gets into the
bearings--some slight disappointment, some ingratitude, some discourtesy--and
the smooth working of the life is checked. Friction begets heat; and with the
heat, most dangerous conditions are created.
Do not let thy
bearings get hot. Let the oil of the Lord keep thee cool, lest by reason of an unholy
heat thou be reckoned among the evil-doers.
--The Silver Lining
Your heavenly Father knoweth (Matthew 6:32).
A visitor at a
school for the deaf and dumb was writing questions
on the blackboard
for the children. By and by he wrote this sentence:
"Why has God
made me to hear and speak, and made you deaf and dumb?"
The awful
sentence fell upon the little ones like a fierce blow in the face.
They sat palsied
before that dreadful "Why?"
And then a little
girl arose. Her lip was trembling. Her eyes were swimming
with tears.
Straight to the board she walked, and, picking up the chalk,
wrote with firm
hand these precious words: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight!" What a reply! It reaches up and lays hold
of an eternal
truth upon which the maturest
believer as well as the youngest child of God
may alike
securely rest -- the truth that God is your Father.
Do you mean that?
Do you really and fully believe that? When you do,
then your dove of faith
will no longer wander in weary unrest, but will
settle down
forever in its eternal resting place of peace. "Your Father!"
I can still believe
that a day comes for all of us, however far off it may
be, when we shall
understand; when these tragedies, that now blacken
and darken the
very air of heaven for us, will sink into their places in
a scheme so
august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for
wonder and
delight. (Arthur Christopher Bacon)
No chance hath brought this ill to
me;
'Tis
God's own hand, so let it be,
He seeth
what I cannot see.
There is a need-be for each
pain,
And He one day will make it
plain
That earthly loss is heavenly
gain.
Like as a piece of tapestry
Viewed from the back appears
to be
Naught but threads tangled
hopelessly;
But in the front a picture
fair
Rewards the worker for his
care,
Proving his skill and patience
rare.
Thou art the Workman, I the
frame.
Lord, for the glory of Thy
Name,
Perfect Thine
image on the same.
Selected
________________________________________________________________________
“The Lord is my
shepherd”
Not was,
not may be, nor will be. "The Lord is my
shepherd." He is on Sunday, on Monday, and through every day of
the week. He is in January, in December, and every month of the year.
He is when I'm at home and in
He will silently
plan for you,
His object of omniscient care;
God Himself undertakes to be
Your Pilot through each subtle snare.
He WILL silently plan for you,
So certainly, He cannot fail!
Rest on the faithfulness of God,
In Him you will surely prevail.
He will SILENTLY plan for you
Some wonderful surprise of love.
No eye has seen, nor ear has heard,
But it is kept for you above.
He will silently PLAN for you,
His purposes will all unfold;
Your tangled life will shine at last,
A masterpiece of skill untold.
He will silently plan FOR YOU,
Happy child of a Father's care,
As if no other claimed His love,
But you alone to Him were dear.
--E. Mary Grimes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ye shall not go out with haste (Isaiah 52:12).
I do not believe
that we have begun to understand the marvelous power there is in stillness. We
are in such a hurry--we must be doing--so that we are in danger of not giving
God a chance to work. You may depend upon it, God never says to us, "Stand
still," or "Sit still," or "Be still," unless He is
going to do something. This is our trouble in regard to our Christian life; we want to do
something to be Christians when we need to let Him work in us.
Do you know how
still you have to be when your likeness is being taken? Now God has one eternal purpose
concerning us, and that is that we should be like His Son; and in order that
this may be so, we must be passive. We hear so much about activity, may be we
need to know what it is to be quiet.
--Crumbs
Sit still, my
daughter! Just sit calmly still!
Nor deem these days--these waiting days--as ill!
The One who loves thee best, who plans thy way,
Hath not forgotten thy great need today!
And, if He waits, 'tis sure He waits to prove
To thee, His tender child, His heart's deep love.
Sit still, my daughter! Just sit calmly still!
Thou longest much to know thy dear Lord's will!
While anxious thoughts would almost steal their way
Corrodingly within, because of His delay
Persuade thyself in simple faith
to rest
That He, who knows and loves, will do the best.
Sit still, my daughter! Just sit calmly still!
Nor move one step, not even one, until
His way hath opened. Then, ah then, how sweet!
How glad thy heart, and then how swift thy feet
Thy inner being then, ah then, how strong!
And waiting days not counted then too long.
Sit still, my daughter! Just sit calmly still!
What higher service could'st thou for Him fill?
'Tis hard! ah yes! But choicest things must cost!
For lack of losing all how much is lost!
'Tis hard, 'tis true! But then--He giveth grace
To count the hardest spot the sweetest place.
--J. D. Smith
(The above
reminds me of Clara Moreland Simpson Yahnig
(1888-1954)
"This is
from Me," the Savior said,
As bending low He kissed my brow,
"For One who loves you thus has led.
Just rest in Me, be patient now,
Your Father knows you have need of this,
Though, why perhaps you cannot see--
Grieve not for things you've seemed to miss.
The thing I send is best for thee."
Then, looking through my tears, I plead,
"Dear Lord, forgive, I did not know,
It will not be hard since You do tread,
Each path before me here below."
And for my good this thing must be,
His grace sufficient for each test.
So still I'll sing, "Whatever be
God's way for me is always best."
God wants us to
realize that His Word, His promise of remembrance, is more substantial and
dependable than any evidence of our senses.
The hawthorn
hedge that keeps us from intruding,
Looks very fierce and bare
When stripped by winter, every branch protruding
Its thorns that would wound and tear.
But spring-time comes; and like the rod that budded,
Each twig breaks out in green;
And cushions soft of tender leaves are studded,
Where spines alone were seen,
The sorrows, that to us seem so perplexing,
Are mercies kindly sent
To guard our wayward souls from sadder vexing,
And greater ills prevent.
To save us from the pit, no screen of roses
Would serve for our defense,
The hindrance that completely interposes
Stings back like thorny fence.
At first when smarting from the shock, complaining
Of wounds that freely bleed,
God's hedges of severity us paining,
May seem severe indeed.
But afterwards, God's blessed spring-time cometh,
And bitter murmurs cease;
The sharp severity that pierced us bloometh,
And yields the fruits of peace.
Then let us sing, our guarded way thus wending
Life's hidden snares among,
Of mercy and of judgment sweetly blending;
Earth's sad, but lovely song.
______________________________________
_Samuel took a stone and placed it between Mizpah
and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Up to here the
Lord has helped us.”—1 Sam 7:12
The word
“hitherto” seems like a hand pointing in the direction of the past. Twenty
years or seventy, and yet “hitherto hath the Lord helped us!” Through poverty,
through wealth, through sickness, through health; at home, abroad, on the land,
on the sea; in honor, in dishonor, in perplexity, in joy, in trial, in triumph,
in prayer,
in temptation—“hitherto hath the Lord helped!”
We delight to
look down a long avenue of trees. It is delightful to gaze from one end of the
long vista, a sort of verdant temple, with its branching pillars and its arches
of leaves. Even so look down the long aisles of your years, at the green boughs
of mercy overhead, and the strong pillars of lovingkindness
and faithfulness which bear up your joys.
Are there no
birds in yonder branches singing? Surely, there must be many, and they all sing
of mercy received “hitherto.”
But the word
also points forward. For when a man gets up to a certain mark, and writes
“hitherto,” he is not yet at the end; there are still distances to be
traversed. More trials, more joys; more temptations, more triumphs; more
prayers, more answers; more toils, more strength; more fights, more victories;
and then come sickness, old age, disease, death.
Is it over now?
No! there is more yet—awakening in Jesus’ likeness, thrones, harps, songs,
psalms, white raiment the face of Jesus, the society of saints, the glory of
God, the fullness of eternity, the infinity of bliss. Oh, be of good courage,
believer, and with grateful confidence raise thy “Ebenezer,” for,
“He who hath
helped thee hitherto
Will help thee all thy journey through.”
When read in
Heaven’s light, how glorious and marvelous a prospect will thy “hitherto”
unfold to thy grateful eye.
—C. H. Spurgeon
The Alpine
shepherds have a beautiful custom of ending the day by singing to one another
an evening farewell. The air is so crystalline that the song will carry long
distances. As the dusk begins to fall, they gather their flocks and begin to
lead them down the mountain paths, singing, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.
Let us praise His name!”
And at last with
a sweet courtesy, they sing to one another the friendly farewell: “Goodnight!
Goodnight!” The words are taken up by the echoes, and from side to side the
song goes reverberating sweetly and softly until the music dies away in the
distance.
So let us call
out to one another through the darkness, till the gloom becomes vocal with many
voices, encouraging the pilgrim host. Let the echoes gather till a very storm
of Hallelujahs break in thundering waves around the sapphire throne, and then
as the morning breaks we shall find ourselves at the margin of the sea of
glass, crying, with the redeemed host, “Blessing and honor and glory be unto
him that sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb
forever and ever!”
“This my song
through endless ages,
Jesus led me all the way.”
__________
Of Joseph it is said:
The shackles
hurt his feet; his neck was placed in an iron collar,—Ps
105:18
Turn that about
and render it in our language, and it reads thus, “Iron entered his soul.” Is
there not a truth in this? That sorrow and privation, the yoke borne in the
youth, the soul’s enforced restraint, are all conducive to an iron tenacity and
strength of purpose, and endurance or fortitude, which are the indispensable
foundation and framework of a noble character.
Do not flinch
from suffering; bear it silently, patiently, resignedly; and be sure that it is
God’s way of infusing iron into your spiritual life ………..there is no way of
imparting iron to the moral nature but by letting people suffer, He lets them
suffer.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Our unbelief is
always wanting some outward sign. The religion of many is largely sensational,
and they are not satisfied of its genuineness without manifestations, etc.; but
the greatest triumph of faith
is to be still and know that He is God.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every believer may
and must have his time when he is indeed himself alone with God.
Oh, the thought
to have God all alone to myself, and to know that God has me all alone to
Himself!
--Andrew Murray
------------------------
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, (Heb 12:1)
There are weights which are not sins in themselves, but which
become distractions and stumbling blocks in our Christian progress. One of the
worst of these is despondency. The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will
surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.
The failure of
We can set our will against doubt just as we do against
any other sin; and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt, the Holy Spirit will
come to our aid and give us the faith
of God and crown us with victory.
It is very easy to fall into the habit of doubting,
fretting, and wondering if God has forsaken us and if after all our hopes are
to end in failure. Let us refuse to be discouraged. Let us refuse to be
unhappy. Let us “count it all joy” when we cannot feel one emotion of
happiness. Let us rejoice by faith, by resolution, by reckoning, and we shall
surely find that God will make the reckoning real.
—Selected
The devil has two master tricks. One is to get us
discouraged; then for a time at least we can be of no service to others, and so
are defeated. The other is to make us doubt, thus breaking the faith link by
which we are bound to our Father. Lookout! Do not be tricked either way.
—G.E.M.
Gladness! I like to cultivate the spirit of gladness! It
puts the soul so in tune again, and keeps it in tune, so that Satan is shy of
touching it—the chords of the soul become too warm, or too full of heavenly
electricity, for his infernal fingers, and he goes off somewhere else! Satan is
always very shy of meddling with me when my heart is full of gladness and joy
in the Holy Ghost.
My plan is to shun the spirit of sadness as I would
Satan; but, alas! I am not always successful. Like the devil himself it meets
me on the highway of usefulness, looks me so fully in my face, till my poor
soul changes color!
Sadness discolors everything; it leaves all objects charmless; it involves future prospects in darkness; it
deprives the soul of all its aspirations, enchains all its powers, and produces
a mental paralysis!
An old believer remarked, that cheerfulness in religion
makes all its services come off with delight; and that we are never carried
forward so swiftly in the ways of duty as when borne on the wings of delight;
adding, that Melancholy clips such wings; or, to alter the figure, takes off
our chariot wheels in duty, and makes them, like those of the Egyptians, drag
heavily.
______________________________________________________________________________
It is your misson, tested and
tried one, to walk out on the stage of this world and reveal to all earth and
Heaven that the music is not in conditions, not in the things, not in
externals, but the music of life is in your own soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul said, "I have kept the faith," but he lost
his head! They cut that off, but it didn't touch his faith. He rejoiced in
three things--this great Apostle to the Gentiles; he had "fought a good
fight," he had "finished his course," he had "kept the
faith." What did all the rest amount to?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me (Ps. 138:8).
There is a Divine mystery in suffering, a strange and
supernatural power in it, which has never been fathomed by the human reason.
There never has been known great saintliness of soul which did not pass through
great suffering. When the suffering soul reaches a calm sweet carelessness,
when it can inwardly smile at its own suffering, and does not even ask God to
deliver it from suffering, then it has wrought its blessed ministry; then
patience has its perfect work; then the crucifixion begins to weave itself into
a crown.
It is in this state of the perfection of suffering that
the Holy Spirit works many marvelous things in our souls. In such a condition,
our whole being lies perfectly still under the hand of God; every faculty of
the mind and will and heart are at last subdued; a quietness of eternity
settles down into the whole being; the tongue grows still, and has but few
words to say; it stops asking God questions; it stops crying, "Why hast
thou forsaken me ?"
The imagination stops building air castles, or running
off on foolish lines; the reason is tame and gentle; the choices are
annihilated; it has no choice in anything but the purpose of God. The
affections are weaned from all creatures and all things; it is so dead that
nothing can hurt it, nothing can offend it, nothing can hinder it, nothing can
get in its way; for, let the circumstances be what they may, it seeks only for
God and His will, and it feels assured that God is making everything in the
universe, good or bad, past or present, work together for its good.
Oh, the blessedness of being absolutely conquered! of
losing our own strength, and wisdom, and plans, and desires, and being where
every atom of our nature is like placid
Soul
Food
I do not ask that He must prove
His Word is true
to me,
And that before
I can believe
He first must
let me see.
It is enough for
me to know
'Tis true because He says 'tis so;
On His
unchanging Word I'll stand
And trust till I
can understand.
--E. M. Winter
Oh that the living would lay it to heart. Some
years ago, a celebrated author — Drelincourt, wrote a work on Death, a
valuable work in itself, but it commanded no sale whatever. There were no
men who would trouble themselves with Death’s heads and cross-bones.
And to show how foolish man is, a certain doctor went home and wrote a
silly ghost-story, not one word of which was true, sent it to the bookseller,
he stitched it up with his volume, and the whole edition sold. Any thing
men will think of rather than death — any fiction, any lie. But this stern
reality, this master truth, he puts away, and will not suffer it to enter his
thoughts. Charles
Haddon Spurgeon - 1860
"Is it not a glorious thing to know that, no difference how unjust a thing may be, or how absolutely it may seem to be from Satan, by the time it reaches us it is God's will for us, and will work for good to us?
God’s promises are meant to be tried and proved!
There is nothing
Christ dislikes more than for His people to make a show-thing of Him, and not
to use Him. He loves to be employed by us. Covenant blessings are not meant to
be looked at only, but to be appropriated. Even our Lord Jesus is given to us
for our present use. Thou dost not make use of Christ as thou oughtest to do.
O man, I beseech
you do not treat God's promises as if they were curiosities for a museum; but
use them as every day sources of comfort. Trust the Lord whenever your time of
need comes on.
--C. H. Spurgeon
Revelation 5
In ch. 4, if these represent saints of the church age,16 then we have another piece of evidence in favor of a pretribulational rapture: “Here then is yet another proof that the Church shall not pass through the Tribulation, for we find these singers in Heaven before the beginning of the judgments.”17
As John beholds certain subjects of redemption, robed, and
crowned, and enthroned, as priests and kings in heaven, we here have (let it be
noted) positive demonstration, that, at the time to which this vision relates,
a resurrection and a translation have already taken place . . . .They occupy
these thrones, while yet the closed book, which brings forth the seals and
trumpets, lies untouched in the hand of Him that sits upon the throne. They see
it there, and they vote the Lamb worthy to open it. They behold Him taking it
up, and fall down and worship as He holds it. They are in their places when
heaven receives the accession of the multitude which come
“out of the great tribulation” (Rev. Rev. 7:11-14+). They have their own distinct positions when the
still later company of the hundred and forty-four thousand gather round the
Lamb on
I have been
through the valley of weeping,
The valley of
sorrow and pain;
But the 'God of
all comfort' was with me,
At hand to
uphold and sustain.
As the earth
needs the clouds and sunshine,
Our souls need
both sorrow and joy;
So He places us
oft in the furnace,
The dross from
the gold to destroy.
When he leads
thro' some valley of trouble
His omnipotent
hand we trace;
For the trials
and sorrows He sends us,
Are part of His
lessons in grace.
Oft we shrink
from the purging and pruning,
Forgetting the
Husbandman knows
That the deeper
the cutting and paring,
The richer the
cluster that grows.
Well He knows
that affliction is needed;
He has a wise
purpose in view,
And in the dark
valley He whispers,
"Hereafter Thou'lt know what I do."
As we travel
thro' life's shadow'd valley,
Fresh springs of
His love ever rise;
And we learn
that our sorrows and losses,
Are blessings
just sent in disguise.
So we'll follow
wherever He leadeth,
Let the path be
dreary or bright;
For we've proved
that our God can give comfort;
Our God can give
songs in the night.
______________________________________________
O the Spirit
filled life; is it thine, is it thine?
Is thy soul wholly filled with the Spirit Divine?
O thou child of the King, has He fallen on thee?
Does He reign in thy soul, so that all men may see
The dear Savior's blest image reflected in thee?
Has He swept through thy soul like the waves of the sea?
Does the Spirit of God daily rest upon thee?
Does He sweeten thy life, does He keep thee from care?
Does He guide thee and bless thee in answer to prayer?
Is it joy to be led of the Lord anywhere?
Is He near thee each hour, does He stand at thy side?
Does He gird thee with strength, has He come to abide?
Does He give thee to know that all things may be done
Through the grace and the power of the Crucified One?
Does He witness to thee of the glorified Son?
Has He purged thee of dross with the fire from above?
Is He first in thy thoughts, has He all of thy love?
Is His service thy choice, and is sacrifice sweet?
Is the doing His will both thy drink and thy meat?
Dost thou run at His bidding with glad eager feet?
Has He freed thee from self and from all of thy greed?
Dost thou hasten to succor thy brother in need?
As a soldier of Christ dost thou hardness endure?
Is thy hope in the Lord everlasting and sure?
Hast thou patience and meekness, art tender and pure?
O the Spirit filled life may be thine, may be thine,
In thy soul evermore the Shekinah may shine;
It is thine to live with the tempests all
stilled,
It is thine with the blessed Holy Ghost to be
filled;
It is thine, even thine,
for thy Lord has so willed.
When the musician presses the black
keys on the great organ, the music is as sweet as when he touches the white
ones, but to get the capacity of the instrument he must touch them all.
----
We once saw a man draw some black dots.
We looked and could make nothing of them but an irregular assemblage of black
dots. Then he drew a few lines, put in a few rests, then a clef at the
beginning, and we saw these black dots were musical notes. On sounding them we
were singing,
"Praise God
from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below."
There are many black dots and black
spots in our lives, and we cannot understand why they are there or why God
permitted them to come. But if we let God come into our lives, and adjust the
dots in the proper way, and draw the lines He wants, and separate this from
that, and put in the rests at the proper places; out of the black dots and
spots in our lives He will make a glorious harmony.
Let us not hinder Him in this glorious work!
SAYING VERSUS DOING,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 1ST, 1879.
“A certain man had two sons;
and he came to the first, and said,
Son, go work to day in my
vineyard. He answered and said, I will
not: but afterward he
repented, and went. And he came to the
second, and said likewise. And
he answered and said, I go, sir: and
went not”—Matthew 21:28-30.
THE father had a right to the services of both his sons, for
they were,
according to the strict rendering of the word, children, or
young men under
age. They depended upon him for everything, so they were
bound to obey
his commands. He did not lay upon them any very heavy tax.
He simply
asked that they should set to work in his vineyard, and go
at once, seeing
that, probably, there was need for the vines there and then
to have their
earnest attention. “Son,” said he to the first, “‘go work
to-day in my
vineyard,’—do not toil for a stranger, nor for some master
at a distance,
but, work in my vineyard. You are my son, you have a share
in the fruit of
the vineyard, so go at once, while your services will be
the most valuable,
and work in my vineyard.” The son replied, “I won’t;” for
that expression,
in its bluntness and brevity, gives more nearly the sense
of the Greek than
even our rendering, “I will not.” “I won’t;” that is a
straight, positive, plain
refusal. Notice that there is not even the word “sir” to
soften the reply. The
second son said, “I go, sir;” but this first one did not
say, “I will not, sir;”
But just, “I won’t; and there is an end of it.” “But
afterward,” though he
had thus spoken so rudely, unkindly, and wilfully against! his father, “he
repented, and went;” and I daresay, by his zeal and
industry, he
accomplished a good day’s work. Though the day began so
badly, it ended
all right.
Now, I feel persuaded that there are here some persons like
this elder son;
here and there is one or another who, has said, “I won’t.”
As plainly and as
rudely as they could, from their very childhood, they cast
off parental
restraint; and when they became more completely masters of
themselves,
and the gospel was preached to them, each of them very
distinctly said, “I
won’t.” Some said, “We won’t hear it.” They became
Sabbath-breakers.
Others, who heard it, said, “We won’t believe it.” They
became hearers
only, rejecters of what they heard. Conscience came, and
said to them,
“You are very wrong in acting thus;” but they had, all the
while, one short,
straight answer, which they did not stammer in giving; they
said distinctly,
“We won’t.” There are some here who used to say this by wilful
transgression. There was scarcely any sin which they did
not attempt to
commit if it ministered any pleasure to them. They were
greedy after it; and
even when there was no pleasure apart from the sin of it,
they found a
pleasure in the very sinfulness of the sin. They said, “We
won’t,” most
plainly; there was no hypocrisy about them; there was no
mincing the
matter with them; they were as bold as brass against the
Most High.
But it has happened to some of us that there has come an “afterward”
as it
did in the case of this elder son. Thought followed upon
indifference; we
were led to consider our ways, and then we began to say to
ourselves,
“Have we treated our
God rightly?” Then the Holy Spirit came—that
blessed Spirit, without whom there is no right,
consideration,—to teach us
reason, and to make our hearts to be what hearts should
be,—not stony
things, but hearts of flesh; and we said to ourselves, “This
disobedience
will never do; it is not just or right. Neither does
standing idle minister any
comfort to us; and, moreover, Satan has already found some
mischief for
our idle hands to do.” We, thought, that we should probably
slide from one
sin to another, and grow gradually worse and worse; and we
were startled
at such a thought, so we repented. By the gracious working
of the Spirit of
God, we were led to cry for mercy upon our obdurate hearts,
and to ask
for him to renew us, crying, “Turn us, O God, and we, shall
be turned;”
and it came to pass that we “repented and went,” and happy
was the day’
when that happened. It is a good many years with some of us
since we
“repented and went,” but we have never repented of that
repentance, nor
ever wished that we had not entered the vineyard. We have
begun to taste
the clusters, and we have been more than repaid for all the
service that we
have rendered by the sweetness of the fruit, and our prayer
is that we, may
continue laboring in that vineyard till our Heavenly Father
shall call us
home. We would like to have a long day of toil if it shall
please him; as
long as we have any degree of strength, we wish to labor in
his service, for
it has become perfect freedom for us now, and his yoke is
easy, and even
his burden is light. We have a sacred pleasure in his
service; and you may
guess, therefore, what pleasure we shall have in his rest.
“If
life be long, I will be glad
That I
may long obey:
If
short,—yet why should I be sad
To soar
to endless day?”
Now we are moved to great anxiety concerning some of our
fellow-men
who talk as we used to do. I must confess that I do not at
all look with
despair upon a man who says,—”I won’t.” I am sorry there he
should be
so hard of heart, but I am somewhat glad that he does not
try hypocritically
to put on the appearance of sensitiveness and of obedience.
I do not quite
agree with the Quaker, who, when he heard a man swearing,
said to him,
“Swear away, friend, swear it all out of thee, far thou
canst never go to
heaven while there is any of that in thee.” I am afraid
that the swearing
process does not get the evil out of a man, but rather
increases the quantity
that is in him. That which comes out of a man defiles him,
and makes him
even worse than he was before. Such open sin can never be a
good thing;
still, I could almost wish that some people, when they do
reject the Savior,
Would do it openly. I could almost wish that I could bring
them to a point
where they must; avow their decision, so that they would
have to say,
either “I won’t,” or “I will;” for, peradventure, the very
echo of their
rebellious voice might be blessed by the Spirit of God to
their awakening.
It might seem to them, though it really is not, but it
might seem to them a
more solemn thing to say,” I won’t,” than it is not to go;
for, often, the
actual doing of a wrong thing is easy to a man, but the
saying that he
means to do it, or even the confession that he has done it,
is not quite so
easy. The ear does not so soon get accustomed to the
declaration
concerning sinning as the heart does to the existence of
the sin itself.
Now, my brother, you have said, “I won’t.” Let me ask you
to stop and
consider a little. Do you not know that many an one, who at
first said, “I
won’t,” has afterwards come to Christ? If it were a proper
thing to do, I
could point out, with my finger, numbers of persons, who
are sitting here,
who often vowed that they would never enter this place; but
here they are,
and they often come. There are others, who had a most
contemptuous
opinion of the preacher, for whom, at this moment, they
have the greatest
affection. They said they would never be found amongst
those whom they
called “canting Methodists.” Well, they are exactly
where they said they
never would be, though we do not cant, and we are not
Methodists; and
others are now describing them by that very name which once
they
abhorred. I have heard it said, though I do not think it
can be so, that
almost all true love begins with a little aversion; but
this I know, that true
love to Christ often springs up in the hearts of men who
had a very great
deal of aversion to him.
If I can get, a man to think enough about Christ distinctly
to avow that he
will not yield to him, I have much more hope of him than of
that man who
will not think at all,—I mean the one who passes Christ by
with even
greater disdain, and who says there is nothing in him that
is worthy of his
consideration. Ah, my dear friend, I should like to hear you
when you
stand up to preach the gospel,—you who now deny the
cardinal truths of
the gospel. When the Lord brings you out of your present
sinful state, oh,
how boldly you will declare his saving grace, and his
wondrous power! I
should like also to hear you preach, my friend,—you who now
find all your
delight in sensuality and who ridicule the very thought of
righteousness.
What a miracle of mercy you will be, and how sweetly you
will tell to
others how the Lord passeth by
iniquity, transgression, and sin! I know you
think it will never be the case with you; but I trust it
will be; and, in order
that it may be, I pray the Ho1y Spirit to lead you to
reconsider that
ignorant determination of yours,—for I venture to call it
so,—that foolish
resolution, Which sprang from your old corrupt nature; that
you may
afterwards repent, and do the Lord’s will.
I have not any more to say upon that part of my text, for I
am going to
spend the rest of the time; allotted for discourse in
dealing with the other
character. The father afterwards went to his second son,
and said to him
what he had said to his brother; “and he answered and said,
I go, sir: and
went not.”
You will notice, in your Bibles, that the word “go” is
printed in italics, to
show that it is not in the Greek. It was very properly
supplied, by the
translators, to give the sense of the original; but I can
give you the meaning
without that word. His father says to him, “Son, go work
to-day in my
vineyard;” and his answer is, “I, sir;” as! much as to say,
“Even if nobody
else goes, I will; I am your man.” You know how we commonly
put it, “I’ll
be there, sir. Oh, yes! you bid me go; just so; I’ll go.”
You scarcely need to
say the word “go,” but just, “I, I, sir; I am your
man; you may depend
upon me.”
And you will also notice that the second son used the word
“sir” by way of
respect. There was very little respect in his heart, but
there was a good deal
on his lip. He said, “I, sir,” as if he was so prompt that
he had not time to
pat all the words together, and so deferential that, even
when he was in a
haste to speak, he did not leave out the term denoting
respect, but said, “I,
sir.” Now, as soon as
you heard him speak so cheerfully, so promptly, so
respectfully, you expected to see him shoulder his tools,
and get away
among the vines; you are sorely disappointed to find that,
although he said,
“I, sir,” he “went not.”
I am going to speak, first, about a nominal consent to
the gospel;
secondly, about that actual disobedience which spoils
the nominal
consent; and then,
thirdly, about the special danger to which people of this
sort are exposed, those
who so readily say, “I go, sir,” yet who go not. I
feel sure that there are some here who belong to that class
of persons, and
therefore I would like to speak very plainly and very
personally, because I
want you to be converted by God’s eternal Spirit. I pray
that he may, this
very hour, turn you from merely swing “I go,” and make you
to become
one of those who really do go to work heartily
in the vineyard of the Lord.
(The above is the introduction)
______________________________________________________________
I will be still, and I will behold in my dwelling place (Isaiah 18:4, RV).
Assyria was
marching against
Is not this a
marvelous conception of God--being still and watching? His stillness is not
acquiescence. His silence is not consent. He is only biding His time, and will
arise, in the most opportune moment, and when the designs of the wicked seem on
the point of success, to overwhelm them with disaster. As we look out on the
evil of the world; as we think of the apparent success of wrong-doing; as we
wince beneath the oppression of those that hate us, let us remember these
marvelous words about God being still and beholding.
Use in reference
to the undermining of society by gay marriage – CY - 2015
------------------------------------------------------
The situation
the Israelites were in at the
Have you come to the
Where, in spite of all you can do,
There is no way out, there is no way back,
There is no other way but through?
Then wait on the Lord with a trust serene
Till the night of your fear is gone;
He will send the wind,
He will heap the floods,
When He says to your soul, "Go on."
And His hand will lead you through—clear through--
Ere the watery walls roll down,
No foe can reach you, no wave can touch,
No mightiest sea can drown;
The tossing billows may rear their crests,
Their foam at your feet may break,
But over their bed you shall walk dry shod
In the path that your Lord will make.
In the morning watch, 'beneath the lifted cloud,
You shall see but the Lord alone,
When He leads you on from the place of the sea
To a land that you have not known;
And your fears shall pass as your foes have passed,
You shall be no more afraid;
You shall sing His praise in a better place,
A place that His hand has made.
--Annie Johnson Flint
------------------------------------
As we never find
that Jesus Christ rejected a single supplicant who came to Him for mercy, so we
believe that no prayer made in His name will be in vain.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Delayed answers
to prayer are not only trials of faith, but they give us opportunities of
honoring God by our steadfast confidence in Him under apparent repulses.
—C. H. Spurgeon
At every turn in the road one can find something that
will rob him of his victory and peace of mind, if he permits it. Satan is a
long way from having retired from the business of deluding and ruining God’s
children if he can. At every milestone it is well to look carefully to the
thermometer of one’s experience, to see whether the temperature is well up.
Sometimes a person can, if he will, actually snatch
victory from the very jaws of defeat, if he will resolutely put his faith up at
just the right moment.
Faith can change any situation. No matter how dark it is,
no matter what the trouble may be, a quick lifting of the heart to God in a
moment of real, actual faith in Him, will alter the situation in a moment.
God is still on His throne, and He can turn defeat into
victory in a second of time, if we really trust Him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To know Jesus Christ is life’s greatest attainment.
The reality of Jesus comes as a result of secret prayer,
and a personal study of the Bible that is devotional and sympathetic. Christ
becomes more real to the one who persists in the cultivation of His presence.
--------------------------------------------------------------
But when the cup is put away, and these feelings are
stifled or unheeded, a greater injury is done to the soul that can ever be
amended. For no heart can conceive in what surpassing love God giveth us this myrrh; yet this which we ought to receive to
our souls' good we suffer to pass by us in our sleepy indifference, and nothing
comes of it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The pressure of hard places makes us value life. Every
time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it is like a new
beginning, and we learn better how much it is worth, and make more of it for
God and man. The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits
us to help and sympathize with them.
God may send you, dear friends, some costly packages. Do
not worry if they are done up in rough wrappings. You may be sure there are
treasures of love, and kindness, and wisdom hidden within. If we take what He
sends, and trust Him for the goodness in it, even in the dark, we shall learn
the meaning of the secrets of
(Psalm 25:14)
Not until each loom is silent,
And the shuttles cease to fly,
Will God unroll the pattern
And explain the reason why
The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand,
As the threads of gold and silver
For the pattern which He planned.
He that is mastered by Christ is the master of every circumstance.
Does the circumstance press hard against you? Do not push it away. It is the
Potter's hand. Your mastery will come, not by arresting its progress, but by
enduring its discipline, for it is not only shaping you into a vessel of beauty
and honor, but it is making your resources available
We can sing our
cares away easier than we can reason them away.
And it shall
come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be
delivered (Joel 2:32).
Why do not I call on His name? Why do I run to this
neighbor and that when God is so near and will hear my faintest call? Why do I
sit down and devise schemes and invent plans? Why not at once roll myself and
my burden upon the Lord?
Straightforward is the best runner--why do not I run at
once to the living God? In vain shall I look for "deliverance anywhere
else; but with God I shall find it; for here I have His royal shall to make it
sure. I need not ask
whether I may call on Him or not, for that word "Whosoever" is a very
wide and comprehensive one. Whosoever means me, for it means anybody and
everybody who calls upon God. I will therefore follow the leading of the text,
and at once call upon the glorious Lord who has made so large a promise.
My case is urgent, and I do not see how I am to be
delivered; but this is no business of mine. He who makes the promise will find
ways and means of keeping it. It is mine to obey His commands; it is not mine
to direct His counsels. I am His servant, not His solicitor. I call upon Him,
and He will deliver.
--C. H. Spurgeon
______________________________________________________________________________
There is no
short cut to the life of faith,
which is the all-vital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have
periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should
have their mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the
shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has
veiled the material and silenced the stir of human life, and has opened the
view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should
have food.
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
"Jesus Christ is no security
against storms, but He is perfect security in storms. He has never promised you an easy passage,
only a safe landing."
God puts Himself within our reach in
His promises; and when we can say to Him, "Thou saidst,"
He cannot say nay. He must do as He has said.
Christ is building
His kingdom with earth’s broken things. Men want only the strong, the
successful, the victorious, the unbroken, in building their kingdoms; but God
is the God of the unsuccessful, of those who have failed. Heaven is filling
with earth’s broken lives, and there is no bruised reed that Christ cannot take
and restore to glorious blessedness and beauty. He can take the life crushed by
pain or sorrow and make it into a harp whose music shall be all praise. He can
lift earth’s saddest failure up to heaven’s glory.
—J. R. Miller
Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow" (Isa. 50:11).
What a solemn warning to those who
walk in darkness and yet who try to help themselves out into the light. They
are represented as kindling a fire, and compassing themselves with sparks. What
does this mean?
Why, it means that when we are in
darkness the temptation is to find a way without trusting in the Lord and
relying upon Him. Instead of letting Him help us out, we try to help ourselves
out. We seek the light of nature, and get the advice of our friends. We try the
conclusions of our reason, and might almost be tempted to accept a way of
deliverance which would not be of God at all.
All these are fires of our own
kindling; rushlights that will surely lead us onto
the shoals. And God will let us walk in the light of those sparks, but the end
will be sorrow.
Beloved, do not try to get out of a
dark place, except, in God's time and in God's way. The time of trouble is
meant to teach you lessons that you sorely need. Premature deliverance may
frustrate God's work of grace in your life. Just commit the whole situation to
Him. Be willing to abide in darkness so long as you have His presence.
Remember that it is better to walk in
the dark with God than to walk alone in the light.
--The Still Small Voice
Cease meddling with God's plans and
will. You touch anything of His, and you mar the work. You may move the hands
of a clock to suit you, but you do not change the time; so you may hurry the
unfolding of God's will, but you harm and do not help the work. You can open a
rosebud but you spoil the flower. Leave all to Him. Hands down. Thy will, not
mine.
--Stephen Merritt
HIS WAY
God bade me go
when I would stay
('Twas cool within the wood);
I did not know
the reason why.
I heard a
boulder crashing by
Across the path
where I stood.
He bade me stay
when I would go;
"Thy will
be done," I said.
They found one
day at early dawn,
Across the way I
would have gone,
A serpent with a
mangled head.
No more I ask
the reason why,
Although I may
not see
The path ahead,
His way I go;
For though I
know not, He doth know,
And He will
choose safe paths for me.
--The Sunday School Times
Don’t be afraid, despised insignificant Jacob, men of
Could any two things be in greater contrast than a worm
and an instrument with teeth? The worm is delicate, bruised by a stone, crushed
beneath the passing wheel; an instrument with teeth can break and not be
broken; it can grave its mark upon the rock. And the mighty God can convert the
one into the other. He can take a man or a nation, who has all the impotence of
the worm, and by the invigoration of His own Spirit, He can endow with strength
by which a noble mark is left upon the history of the time.
And so the “worm” may take heart. The mighty God can make
us stronger than our circumstances. He can bend them all to our good. In God’s
strength we can make them all pay tribute to our souls. We can even take hold
of a black disappointment, break it open, and extract some jewel of grace. When
God gives us wills like iron, we can drive through difficulties as the iron
share cuts through the toughest soil. “I will make thee,” and shall He not do
it?
—Dr. Jowett
Sitting down to
brood over our sorrows, the darkness deepens about us and creeps into our
heart, and our strength changes to weakness. But, if we turn away from the
gloom, and take up the tasks and duties to which God calls us, the light will
come again, and we shall grow stronger.
—J. R. Miller
Believe God’s
word and power more
than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it
is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.
—Samuel Rutherford
Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked (Eccles. 7:13).
Often God seems to place His children in
positions of profound difficulty, leading them into a wedge from which there is
no escape; contriving a situation which no human judgment would have permitted,
had it been previously consulted. The very cloud conducts them thither. You may
be thus involved at this very hour.
It does seem perplexing and very serious to
the last degree, but it is perfectly right. The issue will more than justify
Him who has brought you hither. It is a platform for the display of His
almighty grace and power.
He will not only deliver you; but in doing
so, He will give you a lesson that you will never forget, and to which, in many
a psalm and song, in after days, you will revert. You will never be able to
thank God enough for having done just as He has.
--Selected
We may wait till He explains,
Because we know that Jesus reigns.
It puzzles me; but, Lord, Thou understandest,
And wilt one day explain this crooked thing.
Meanwhile, I know that it has worked out Thy best--
Its very crookedness taught me to cling.
Thou hast fenced up my ways, made my paths crooked,
To keep my wand'ring eyes fixed on Thee;
To make me what I was not, humble, patient;
To draw my heart from earthly love to Thee.
So I will thank and praise Thee for this puzzle,
And trust where I cannot understand.
Rejoicing Thou dost hold me worth such testing,
I cling the closer to Thy guiding hand.
--F.E.M.I.
We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the
treasure-chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is
admitted into the bullion vault of a bank, and told to help himself, and comes
out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor? Whose fault is it that Christianpeople generally have such scanty portions of the
free riches of God?
---------
Fret not thyself (Psalms
37:1).
Do not get into
a perilous heat about things. If ever heat were justified, it was surely
justified in the circumstances outlined in the Psalm. Evil-doers were moving
about clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day.
"Workers of iniquity" were climbing into the supreme places of power,
and were tyrannizing their less fortunate brethren. Sinful men and women were
stalking through the land in the pride of life and basking in the light and
comfort of great prosperity, and good men were becoming heated and fretful.
"Fret not
thyself." Do not get unduly heated! Keep cool! Even in a good cause,
fretfulness is not a wise help-meet. Fretting only heats the bearings; it does
not generate the steam. It is no help to a train for the axles to get hot;
their heat is only a hindrance. When the axles get heated, it is because of
unnecessary friction; dry surfaces are grinding together, which ought to be
kept in smooth co-operation by a delicate cushion of oil.
And is it not a
suggestive fact that this word "fret" is closely akin to the word
"friction," and is an indication of absence of the anointing oil of
the grace of God? In fretfulness, a little bit of grit gets into the
bearings--some slight disappointment, some ingratitude, some discourtesy--and
the smooth working of the life is checked. Friction begets heat; and with the
heat, most dangerous conditions are created.
Do not let thy
bearings get hot. Let the oil of the Lord keep thee cool, lest by reason of an
unholy heat thou be reckoned among the evil-doers.
--The Silver Lining
----------
Nothing happens that has not been
appointed with consummate care and foresight.
God has stored within us the great
strength of His own indwelling!
Got any rivers they say are uncrossable,
Got any mountains they say "can't tunnel through"?
We specialize in the wholly impossible,
Doing the things they say you can't do.
--Song of the
The worth of the “non-productive classes” of the community,
however high their
social position, has been said to be less than that of the
man who “makes
two blades of grass to grow where only one
grew before.” (Pulpit Commentary)
I can still
believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it may be, when we
shall understand; when these tragedies, that now blacken and darken the very
air of heaven for us, will sink into their places in a scheme so august, so
magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for wonder and delight.
--Arthur Christopher Bacon
Thou art the
Workman, I the frame.
Lord, for the glory of Thy Name,
Perfect Thine image on the same.
_____________
I entitle this:
“Ode to Mamer”
(thinking of my grandmother – Clara
Moreland Simpson Yahnig)
Sit still, my
daughter! Just sit calmly still!
Nor deem these days--these waiting days--as ill!
The One who loves thee best, who plans thy way,
Hath not forgotten thy great need today!
And, if He waits, 'tis sure He waits to prove
To thee, His tender child, His heart's deep love.
Sit still, my daughter! Just sit calmly still!
Thou longest much to know thy dear Lord's will!
While anxious thoughts would almost steal their way
Corrodingly within, because of His delay
Persuade thyself in simple faith
to rest
That He, who knows and loves, will do the best.
Sit still, my daughter! Just sit calmly still!
Nor move one step, not even one, until
His way hath opened. Then, ah then, how sweet!
How glad thy heart, and then how swift thy feet
Thy inner being then, ah then, how strong!
And waiting days not counted then too long.
Sit still, my daughter! Just sit calmly still!
What higher service could'st thou for Him fill?
'Tis hard! ah yes! But choicest things must cost!
For lack of losing all how much is lost!
'Tis hard, 'tis true! But then--He giveth grace
To count the hardest spot the sweetest place.
--J. D. Smith
Everything in Paul's life and
experience that could be shaken had been shaken, and he no longer counted his
life, or any of life's possessions, dear to him. And we, if we will but let God
have His way with us, may come to the same place, so that neither the fret and
tear of little things of life, nor the great and heavy trials, can have power
to move us from the peace that passeth understanding,
which is declared to be the portion of those who have learned to rest only on
God.
--Hannah Whitall Smith
When God is in the midst of a kingdom
or city He makes it as firm as
--Archbishop
Leighton
I am jealous
over you with God's own jealousy (2
Corinthians 11:2)
How an old harper
dotes on his harp! How he fondles and caresses it, as a child resting on his
bosom! His life is bound up in it. But, see him tuning it. He grasps it firmly,
strikes a chord with a sharp, quick blow; and while it
quivers as if in pain, he leans over intently to catch the first note that
rises. The note, as he feared, is false and harsh. He strains the chord with
the torturing thumb-screw; and though it seems ready to snap with the tension,
he strikes it again, bending down to listen softly as before, till at length
you see a smile on his face as the first true tone trembles upward.
So it may be that God is dealing with
you. Loving you better than any harper loves his
harp, He finds you a mass of jarring discords. He wrings your heartstrings with
some torturing anguish; He bends over you tenderly, striking and listening;
and, hearing only a harsh murmur, strikes you again, while His heart bleeds for
you, anxiously waiting for that strain--"Not my will, but thine be done" -- which is melody sweet to His ear as
angels' songs. Nor will He cease to strike until your chastened soul shall
blend with all the pure and infinite harmonies of His own being.
--Selected
Oh, the
sweetness that dwells in a harp of many strings,
While each, all
vocal with love in a tuneful harmony rings!
But, oh, the
wail and the discord, when one and another is rent,
Tensionless,
broken and lost, from the cherished instrument.
For rapture of
love is linked with the pain or fear of loss,
And the hand
that takes the crown, must ache with many a cross;
Yet he who hath
never a conflict, hath never a victor's palm,
And only the
toilers know the sweetness of rest and calm.
Only between the
storms can the Alpine traveller know
Transcendent
glory of clearness, marvels of gleam and glow;
Had he the brightness
unbroken of cloudless summer days,
This had been
dimmed by the dust and the veil of a brooding haze.
Who would dare
the choice, neither or both to know,
The finest
quiver of joy or the agony thrill of woe!
Never the
exquisite pain, then never the exquisite bliss,
For the heart
that is dull to that can never be strung to this.
_________________________________________________________
Stablish, strengthen, settle you (1 Peter
5:10).
In taking Christ in any new
relationship, we must first have sufficient intellectual light to satisfy our
mind that we are entitled to stand in this relationship. The shadow of a
question here will wreck our confidence. Then, having seen this, we must make
the venture, the committal, the choice, and take the place just as definitely
as the tree is planted in the soil, or the bride gives herself away at the marriage altar. It
must be once for all, without reserve, without recall.
Then there is a season of
establishing, settling and testing, during which we must "stay put"
until the new relationship gets so fixed as to become a permanent habit. It is
just the same as when the surgeon sets the broken arm. He puts it in splints to
keep it from vibration. So God has His spiritual splints that He wants to put
upon His children and keep them quiet and unmoved until they pass the first
stage of faith. It is not
always easy work for us, "but the God of all grace, who hath called us
unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after that ye have suffered awhile, stablish, strengthen, settle you."
--A. B. Simpson
There is a natural law in sin and
sickness; and if we just let ourselves go and sink into the trend of
circumstances, we shall go down and sink under the power of the tempter. But
there is another law of spiritual life and of physical life in Christ Jesus to
which we can rise, and through which we can counterpoise and overcome the other
law that bears us down.
But to do this requires real
spiritual energy and fixed purpose and a settled posture and habit of faith. It
is just the same as when we use the power in our factory. We must turn on the
belt and keep it on. The power is there, but we must keep the connection; and
while we do so, the higher power will work and all the machinery will be in
operation.
There is a spiritual law of choosing,
believing, abiding, and holding steady in our walk with God, which is essential
to the working of the Holy Ghost either in our sanctification or healing.
__________________________________________________________________________
But the dove found no rest for or the
sole of her foot, and she returned unto him... And the dove came in to him in
the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf (Genesis
8:9-11).
God knows just when to withhold from
us any visible sign of encouragement, and when to grant us such a sign. How
good it is that we may trust Him anyway! When all visible evidences that He is
remembering us are withheld, that is best; He wants us to realize that His
Word, His promise of remembrance, is more substantial and dependable than any
evidence of our senses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old
Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word
faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind
or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference
more to a truth believed or a thing expected.
Do not fret, or set your teeth, or
wait doggedly for the suffering to pass; but get out of it all you can, both
for yourself and for your service to your generation, according to the will of
God.
____________
The conviction of God’s jurisdiction often comes too late. Men ignore
God’s presence and God’s interference in human affairs, until events force
upon them the fact that they are fighting, not simply against their fellows,
nor
contending against adverse circumstance, but are verily fighting
against
God. IN TIME, out of THE CHAOS OF ATHEISTIC THOUGHTS,
there looms the form and features of THE LIVING GOD! But the knowledge
COMES TOO LATE! They only know
FOE, whereas they might have known HIM AS A GRACIOUS FRIEND!
Pulpit
Commentary on Ezekiel 35:15
It is the very
time for faith to work when sight ceases. The greater the difficulties, the
easier for faith!
(George Mueller)
I give Thee back the life I owe,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee,
I lay in dust life's glory dead, (George
Matheson)
“God has but to withdraw His hand which bears us, to
plunge us
back into THE ABYSS OF NOTHINGNESS, as a stone
suspended in the air fails by its own weight the moment it
ceases to be held.”
(Fenelon)
No calamity can
be to us an unmixed evil if we carry it in direct and fervent prayer to
God, for even as one in taking shelter from the rain beneath a tree may find on
its branches fruit which he looked not for, so we in fleeing for refuge beneath
the shadow of God's wing, will always find more in God than we had seen or
known before.
--------------------------------------
The capacity
for knowing God enlarges as we are brought by Him into circumstances which
oblige us to exercise faith;
so, when difficulties beset our path let us thank God that He is taking trouble
with us, and lean hard upon Him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Do
not say in thine heart what thou wilt or wilt not do,
but wait upon God until He makes known His way. So long as that way is hidden
it is clear that there is no need of action, and that He accounts Himself
responsible for all the results of keeping thee where thou art.
______________________________________
Sadness
discolors everything; it leaves all objects charmless;
it involves future prospects in darkness; it deprives the soul of all its
aspirations, enchains all its powers, and produces a mental paralysis!
The
devil has two master tricks. One is to get us discouraged; then for a time at
least we can be of no service to others, and so are defeated. The other is to
make us doubt, thus breaking the faith link by which we are bound to our
Father. Lookout! Do not be tricked either way.
Complaint
and discontent often blossom and ripen into rebellion and ruin.
There
are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot accept and endure suffering.
There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are revealings of Divine truth which we can get only when
earth's lights have gone out. There are harvests which can grow only after the
plowshare has done its work.
___________________________________________________________________________
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her
beloved?" (S. of
Sol. 8:5).
Some
one gained a good lesson from a Southern prayer meeting. A
brother asked the Lord for various blessings--as you and I do, and thanked the Lord
for many already received--as you and I do; but he closed with this unusual
petition: "And, O Lord, support us! Yes support us Lord on every leanin' side!"
Have
you any leaning sides? This humble man's prayer pictures them in a new way and
shows the Great Supporter in a new light also. He is always walking by the
Christian, ready to extend His mighty arm and steady the weak one on
"every leanin' side."
"Child of My love, lean hard,
And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child. I shaped it;
Poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion
In its weight to thine unaided strength,
For even as I laid it on, I said,
'I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,
This burden shall be Mine, not hers;
So shall I keep My child within the circling arms
Of My Own love.'
Here lay it down, nor fear
To impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds.
Yet closer come: Thou art not near enough.
I would embrace thy care;
So I might feel My child reposing on My breast.
Thou lovest Me? I knew it.
Doubt not then;
But Loving Me, lean hard."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the
promise" (Heb. 6:15).
Abraham
was long tried, but he was richly rewarded. The Lord tried him by delaying to
fulfill His promise. Satan tried him by temptation; men tried him by jealousy,
distrust, and opposition; Sarah tried him by her peevishness. But he patiently
endured. He did not question God's veracity, nor limit His power, nor doubt His
faithfulness, nor grieve His love; but he bowed to Divine Sovereignty,
submitted to Infinite Wisdom, and was silent under delays, waiting the Lord's
time. And so, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
God's
promises cannot fail of their accomplishment. Patient waiters cannot be
disappointed. Believing expectation shall be realized. Beloved, Abraham's
conduct condemns a hasty spirit, reproves a murmuring one, commends a patient
one, and encourages quiet submission to God's will and way.
Remember,
Abraham was tried; he patiently waited; he received the promise, and was
satisfied. Imitate his example, and you will share the same blessing.
--Selected
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stay alert, stand firm in the faith, show courage, be
strong. (1 Cor 16:13)
Do
not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal
to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your
work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.
—Phillips Brooks
We
must remember that it is not in any easy or self-indulgent life that Christ
will lead us to greatness. The easy life leads not upward, but downward. Heaven
always is above us, and we must ever be looking up toward it. These are some
people who always avoid things that are costly, that require self-denial, or
self-restraint and sacrifice, but toil and hardship show us the only way to
nobleness. Greatness comes not by having a mossy path made for you through the
meadow, but by being sent to hew out a roadway by your own hands. Are you going
to reach the mountain splendors?
—Selected
Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle; face it. ’Tis God’s gift.
Be strong!
Say not the days are evil—Who’s to blame?
And fold the hands and acquiesece—O shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, In God’s name.
Be strong!
It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long,
Faint not, fight on! Tomorrow comes the song.
—Maltbie D. Babcock
__________________________________
And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be
gracious unto you... blessed are all they that wait for him (Isaiah
30:18).
We must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful still, of God's waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us, will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give us unspeakable confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. Let us seek even now, at this moment, in the spirit of waiting on God, to find out something of what it means.
He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His children. And you ask, "How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the. help I seek, but waits on longer and longer?" God is a wise husbandman, "who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it." He cannot gather the fruit till it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessings, is as needful.
Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it
is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years,
till the fullness of time, ere He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands; He
will avenge His elect speedily; He will make haste for our help, and not delay
one hour too long.
--Andrew Murray
“And therefore will the Lord wait, that He
may be gracious unto you…..blessed are all they that wait for Him.” (Isaiah
30:18
We
must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful
still, of God's waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us, will give new
impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give us unspeakable
confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. Let us seek even now, at this
moment, in the spirit of waiting on God, to find out something of what it
means.
He
has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His children. And
you ask, "How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come
and wait upon Him, He does not give the. help I seek, but waits on longer and
longer?" God is a wise husbandman, "who waiteth
for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it." He
cannot gather the fruit till it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready
to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of
His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud
of trial, that breaks in showers of blessings, is as needful.
Be
assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the
blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, till the fullness of
time, ere He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands; He will avenge His elect
speedily; He will make haste for our help, and not delay one hour too long.
--Andrew Murray
_________________________________________________________________________
No
praying man or woman accomplishes so much with so little expenditure of time as
when he or she is praying
“GOD
MEANT IT UNTO GOOD” (Gen. 50:20).
“God meant it unto good”—O blest assurance,
Falling like sunshine all across life’s way,
Touching with Heaven’s gold earth’s darkest storm clouds,
Bringing fresh peace and comfort day by day.
’Twas not by chance the hands of
faithless brethren
Sold Joseph captive to a foreign land;
Nor was it chance which, after years of suffering,
Brought him before the monarch’s throne to stand.
One Eye all-seeing saw the need of thousands,
And planned to meet it through that one lone soul;
And through the weary days of prison bondage
Was working towards the great and glorious goal.
As yet the end was hidden from the captive,
The iron entered even to his soul;
His eye could scan the present path of sorrow,
Not yet his gaze might rest upon the whole.
Faith failed not through those long, dark days of waiting,
His trust in God was recompensed at last,
The moment came when God led forth his servant
To succour many, all his sufferings past.
“It was not you but God, that sent me hither,”
Witnessed triumphant faith in after days;
“God meant it unto good,” no “second causes”
Mingled their discord with his song of praise.
“God means it unto good” for thee, beloved,
The God of Joseph is the same today;
His love permits afflictions strange and bitter,
His hand is guiding through the unknown way.
Thy Lord, who sees the end from the beginning,
Hath purposes for thee of love untold.
Then place thy hand in His and follow fearless,
Till thou the riches of His grace behold.
There, when thou standest in the Home
of Glory,
And all life’s path ties open to thy gaze,
Thine eyes shall see the hand which now thou trustest,
And magnify His love through endless days.
—Freda Hanbury Allen
I entreat you, give no place to despondency.
This is a dangerous temptation—a refined, not a gross temptation of the
adversary. Melancholy contracts and withers the heart, and renders it unfit to
receive the impressions of grace. It magnifies and gives a false coloring to
objects, and thus renders your burdens too heavy to bear. God’s designs
regarding you, and His methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely
wise.
--Madame Guyon
_____________________
And they were singing a new song before the
throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one was able to
learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been
redeemed from the earth. (Rev 14:3)
There are songs which can only be learned in
the valley. No art can teach them; no rules of voice can make them perfectly
sung. Their music is in the heart. They are songs of memory, of personal
experience. They bring out their burden from the shadow of the past; they mount
on the wings of yesterday.
No angel, no archangel can sing it so sweetly
as I can. To sing it as I sing it, they must pass through my exile, and this
they cannot do. None can learn it but the children of the Cross.
And so, my soul, thou art receiving a music
lesson from thy Father. Thou art being educated for the choir invisible. There
are parts of the symphony that none can take but thee.
There are chords too minor for the angels.
There may be heights in the symphony which are beyond the scale—heights which
angels alone can reach; but there are depths which belong to thee, and can only
be touched by thee.
Thy Father is training thee for the part the
angels cannot sing; and the school is sorrow. I have heard many say that He
sends sorrow to prove thee; nay, He sends sorrow to educate thee, to train thee
for the choir invisible.
In the night He is preparing thy song. In the
valley He is tuning thy voice. In the cloud He is deepening thy chords. In the
rain He is sweetening thy melody. In the cold He is moulding
thy expression. In the transition from hope to fear He is perfecting thy
lights.
Despise not thy school of sorrow, O my soul;
it will give thee a unique part in the universal song.
—George Matheson
“Is the midnight closing round you?
Are the shadows dark and long?
Ask Him to come close beside you,
And He’ll give you a new, sweet song.
He’ll give it and sing it with you;
And when weakness lets it down,
He’ll take up the broken cadence,
And blend it with His own.
“And many a rapturous minstrel
Among those sons of light,
Will say of His sweetest music
’I learned it in the night.’
And many a rolling anthem,
That fills the Father’s home,
Sobbed out its first rehearsal,
In the shade of a darkened room.”
__________________________
Not by wrestling, but by clinging to God can
we get the blessing.
____________
The pressure of hard places makes us value
life. Every time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it is like a
new beginning, and we learn better how much it is worth, and make more of it
for God and man. The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and
fits us to help and sympathize with them.
A. B. Simpson
The adverse winds blew against my life;
My little ship with grief was tossed;
My plans were gone--heart full of strife,
And all my hope seemed to be lost--
"Then He arose"--one word of peace.
"There was a calm"--a sweet release.
A tempest great of doubt and fear
Possessed my mind; no light was there
To guide, or make my vision clear.
Dark night! 'twas more than I could bear--
"Then He arose," I saw His face--
"There was a calm" filled with His
grace.
My heart was sinking 'neath
the wave
Of deepening test and raging grief;
All seemed as lost, and none could save,
And nothing could bring me relief--
"Then He arose"--and spoke one word,
"There was a calm!" IT IS THE LORD.
--L. S. P.
Unfaltering faith will always prove the
faithfulness of God? It is always so, and
always will be. "They that are of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham."
We can sing our cares away easier than we can
reason them away. Sing in the morning. The birds are the earliest to sing, and
birds are more without care than anything else that I know of. Sing at evening.
Singing is the last thing that robins do. When they have done their daily work;
when they have flown their last flight, and picked up their last morsel of
food, then on a topmost twig, they sing one song of praise.
Oh, that we might sing morning and evening,
and let song touch song all the way through.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Be
filled with the Spirit... Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.
--Ephesians 5:18-19
In
these verses, the apostle Paul urges us to use singing as inspiration in our
spiritual life. He warns his readers to seek motivation not through the body
but through the spirit, not by stimulating the flesh but by exalting the soul.
-------
But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks
back, I take no pleasure in him. (Heb
10:38)
Seemings and feelings are often substituted for
faith. Pleasurable emotions and deep satisfying experiences are part of the
Christian life, but they are not all of it. Trials, conflicts, battles and testings lie along the way, and are not to be counted as
misfortunes, but rather as part of our necessary discipline.
In
all these varying experiences we are to reckon on Christ as dwelling in the
heart, regardless of our feelings if we are walking obediently before Him. Here is where many get
into trouble; they try to walk by feeling rather than faith.
One
of the saints tells us that it seemed as though God had withdrawn Himself from
her. His mercy seemed clean gone. For six weeks her desolation lasted, and then
the Heavenly Lover seemed to say:
“Catherine,
thou hast looked for Me without in the world of sense, but all the while I have
been within waiting for thee; meet Me in the inner chamber of thy spirit, for I am there.”
Distinguish
between the fact of God’s presence, and the emotion of the fact. It is a happy
thing when the soul seems desolate and deserted, if our faith can say, “I see
Thee not. I feel Thee not, but Thou art certainly and graciously here, where I
am as I am.”
Keep
your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of Christ’s finished work and
righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe, look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as
you look to him, hoist your sails and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not
remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive
repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another
like vessels idly moored in a harbor. The religious life is not a brooding over
emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of
hope through the oozy tide mud as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze.
Away! With your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him, who rules the
raging of the waters. The safety of the tinted bird is to be on the wing. If
its haunt be near the ground—if it fly low—it exposes itself to the fowler’s
net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low
ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand
meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. “But surely in vain
the net is spread in the sight of THAT WHICH HATH A WING” (marginal reading Prov. 1:17). Hope thou in God.
—J. R. Macduff