Much of our best work

(J.R. Miller)

We cannot measure spiritual results, as we can those that are physical.

The artist sees the picture growing upon his canvas as he works day by day.
The builder sees the wall rising as he lays stone upon stone.

But the spiritual builder is working with invisible blocks, and rearing a fabric whose walls he cannot see.

The spiritual artist is painting away in the unseen. His eyes cannot behold the impressions, or the touches of beauty which he makes.

Sometimes the results of our work may be seen . . .
  in the conversation of the ungodly,
  in the comforting of sorrow,
  in the uplifting and ennobling of the downcast and degraded.

Yet much of our best work must be done in simple faith. And perhaps in Heaven it will be seen that the best results of our lives, have been from their unconscious influences; and our most fruitful efforts, were those which we considered done in vain.

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain!" 1 Corinthians 15:58

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The Breaker

By J.C. Philpot


Preached at Providence Chapel, Oakham, on Tuesday Evening, May 12, 1846

"The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them." Micah 2:13

I should not do justice to my conviction of the meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures if I did not state that I believe this passage has a prophetical as well as an experimental meaning. Let us give a glance at the context. We read in the preceding verse, "I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold; they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up before them." Now as to the prophetical meaning of this Scripture, it appears to my mind to point to a day not yet arrived, to "the latter day" of which the Old Testament prophets speak so much. When the Lord shall set his hand a second time to gather the remnant spread abroad on the earth, then this prophecy of Micah will be literally fulfilled: for there will be those difficulties in the way which none but "the Breaker" going before can remove. But the Scriptures are written with that mysterious wisdom that there is not only in the Old Testament prophecies what is strictly prophetical, but also experimental. We are not to discard the prophetical meaning as some do, for God has given it, and every word of God is pure. But on the other hand, it is the spiritual and experimental part which is food for the church of God. Therefore though we dare not pass by the literal meaning, yet we confine our attention chiefly to the spiritual. And in this way, with God's blessing, I shall view it this evening, taking the words much in the order as they now lie before me.

"The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them."

There are two main things here:

First. The people of whom these things are said.

Secondly. That wondrous Individual who is here pointed out by the expression, "The breaker."

I. The people here spoken of are the people of God, the remnant according to the election of grace, God's own beloved family. But we gather from the words used that they had great difficulties, for why need they to have a breaker go before them unless they were in such difficulties as nothing but an almighty hand could break down and remove? Thus we gather that the people to whom this promise is made are in such straits and difficulties, that they can never succeed in making a passage for themselves: but that this wondrous Person, this Immanuel, God with us, is to go before them; and for that reason he is called "the breaker," because with his almighty hand he breaks up and breaks down these difficulties that lie in their path, and which they themselves could not by any wisdom or strength of their own remove out of the way.

Let us look at this a little more closely, and open it a little more in detail. When the Lord is first pleased to quicken a soul dead in sin, he sets before him the narrow gate; he shews him that his sins merit eternal wrath and punishment, and he raises up in his heart a desire to flee from the wrath to come. However the circumstances of the new birth may vary, there will always be this leading feature accompanying the work of the Spirit in the heart--a fleeing from the wrath to come; a cry in the soul, "What shall I do to be saved? God be merciful to me a sinner." As Bunyan sweetly sets forth in the Pilgrim's Progress, a quickened soul, like Christian, immediately begins to run. All the difficulties that encompass him are nothing compared to the burden on his back. Wife, child, family, money, all are considered less than nothing compared with the salvation of his soul. Therefore he begins to run, setting his face Zionward, earnestly desiring to be found saved at last with an everlasting salvation.

But no sooner does he begin to run, and move onward in the heavenly way than he begins to find difficulties. The way to heaven is described as "a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen" (Job 28:7) . "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matt. 7:14). We must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." The Lord, therefore, knowing the difficulties of the way, on one occasion, when he saw great multitudes following him, turned and said to them, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26, 27). As though he would check this rash forwardness by shewing them that no one could run in that way except he denied himself and took up his cross; implying that the way to heaven is one of continual self-denial, a path of daily crucifixion. And what is the object of this? It is to teach a soul this great lesson--that he cannot by any wisdom, any strength, any righteousness, or any goodness of his own obtain eternal life. We are very slow learners in this school. The pride of our heart, our ignorance, and our unbelief, all conspire to make us diminish the difficulties of the way. But the Lord has to teach us by painful experience that the road to heaven is so difficult that a man can only walk in it as he is put in and kept in it by an almighty hand.

When these difficulties first begin to rise, they startle him that is first running in Zion's way. For instance, the discovery of a broken law, and of the curse that flames from Mount Sinai is an obstacle insuperable in the way to glory; for if a sinner has to get to glory by the burning mount, he must be consumed as he passes over it, for from that mount nothing but wrath comes. Again, he is startled by the discovery of the corruptions of his heart, the workings of that inward iniquity, which before was hidden from him. He now becomes aware of secret sins that before he was utterly unacquainted with. He becomes aware too that there is such a thing as living faith, and that without faith it is impossible to please God; and he finds he has not this living faith, and is unable to raise it up in his own heart. He finds love also spoken of; and he finds he cannot by any power of his own raise up this love to God or to his people. He finds hope too spoken of; and he is sinking in the waves of despondency. He finds prayer spoken of; and he feels utterly unable to pour out his heart before God. He finds submission to God's will spoken of; and he perhaps feels little else but repining and hard thoughts of God. He finds an inward knowledge of Jesus spoken of, and the revelation of Christ to the soul; and he finds darkness and gloom within. He cannot bring this knowledge of Christ into the heart. A man may have all the religion of the world in his head, in the theory, and never meet with one difficulty. But if once he is put into the strait way by the hand of God, he will meet with difficulties; nay, he will feel the whole scene to be more or less a scene of difficulties. Now this prepares a man for the knowledge of "the breaker." "The breaker," we read in the text, "is gone up before them." But what use is the breaker if there be nothing to break down? no obstacles in the way? no rocks or stones in the road, all a smooth, grassy meadow with nothing to obstruct the course? The very circumstances of a breaker being wanted implies there are such difficulties in the way as nothing but an almighty hand can break down. There was a custom in primitive times which throws a still further light on the text. In those times there were no great highways as there are now. When kings wanted to go out on an expedition, men went before them to clear the way, to fill up the hollows, and dig down the mountains in order to make a path for the king. So this divine breaker has to go before, and as he goes before he breaks down those difficulties and obstacles that lie in the path.

II. But who is this breaker? Need I say it is the Lord of life and glory; Immanuel, God with us? Why is he called a breaker? This is one of his titles. But why is this title given him? Because he breaks down those obstacles that lie in the road. For you will observe if you read the text, it speaks of a people coming up, and passing through the gate, and journeying onward, and the king passing before them, and the LORD, that is Jehovah, being at the head of them. And you will observe also that this breaker is Jehovah: for it is the LORD in capital letters, which always implies Jehovah. The LORD that is Jehovah "is at the head of them," implying that the breaker is Jehovah, and he is called a breaker because he breaks down the difficulties that lie in the path. For instance, there is the law; and how are we to get by that obstacle? Bunyan represents this in that invaluable work, the Pilgrim's Progress. When Christian was drawn aside from the path through the persuasion of Mr. Legality, and was going to the city pointed out to him, he saw a mountain that overhung the road, and thunder and lightning flashed from it, and he was afraid it would fall on his head. There Bunyan shews that there will be these flashes of God's wrath from the law, and the mountain will appear as if it would fall upon him, so that he dare not go by that road. But the breaker has travelled that way; he endured the curse of the law for us. He so to speak broke down its curse against God's people. As the Scripture speaks: "He took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;" and thus he so removed it that it should not be a covenant of condemnation to his dear family. In this sense he is a breaker. But not only is the law against them, but also God's holiness, majesty, justice and purity, what God is as an eternal Jehovah--all these things have to be removed out of the way. But when Jesus died upon the cross, he satisfied justice, and all the claims of God's holy law. By suffering himself he made such a propitiation for sin as God the Father could accept.

But besides these external difficulties that lie in the road there are internal difficulties. The Lord's people find internal difficulties as great and heavy to grapple with as external difficulties. For instance, there is an unbelieving heart; and what a difficulty an unbelieving heart is! If you are one that is journeying Zionward, do you not know experimentally the workings of unbelief? And is not this sometimes the sincere cry of your soul?

O could I but believe,
Then all would easy be;
I would, but cannot; Lord, relieve,
My help must come from thee.

Micah 2:12-13

12 I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.

13 The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them.

"Faith is the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. xi. 1).

  
Days of Heaven Upon Earth

      "Faith is the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. xi. 1).
     
      True faith drops its letter in the post-office box, and lets it go. Distrust holds on to a corner of it, and wonders that the answer never comes.
     
      I have some letters in my desk that have been written for weeks, but there was some slight uncertainty about the address or the contents, so they are yet unmailed. They have not done either me or anybody else any good yet. They will never accomplish anything until I let them go out of my hands and trust them to the postman and the mail.
     
      This is the case with true faith. It hands its case over to God, and then He works.
     
      That is a fine verse in the thirty-seventh Psalm: "Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He worketh." But He never worketh until we commit.
     
      Faith is a receiving, or still better, a taking of God's proffered gifts. We may believe, and come, and commit, and rest, but we will not fully realize all our blessing until we begin to receive and come into the attitude of abiding and taking.

"Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; Jeremiah 15:16

  
J. C. Philpot - Daily Portions

      "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart; for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts." Jeremiah 15:16
     
      There is a sweetness in the promises which captivates the heart; a beauty in Christ which wins the soul; a saving unction and power in the word of God, when applied, which draws forth toward it every secret and sacred affection. Can you not sometimes look up and say, "Blessed Jesus, I do love thee?" And when the word of God is opened up, applied, and made sweet and precious, have you not felt sometimes as if you could kiss the sacred page, as conveying such sweetness into your soul? This is embracing a promise in love--throwing our arms round it, drawing it near to our breast, kissing it again and again with kisses of love and affection, and taking that sweet delight in it with which the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, as now all his own--at times almost lost, but now wooed and won, no more to be parted. This is rejoicing in the word of God, delighting in a blessed Jesus and in the promises which testify of, and centre in him. 

Have you not felt these sweet embracements in your soul of the truth as it is in Jesus as so precious, so suitable, so encouraging, and so adapted to every want and woe? Then you are a believer; then you are a child of God; then there is a work of grace upon your heart; then you know the truth for yourself by divine teaching and divine testimony. 

You may still not have had that full deliverance, that blessed revelation, that overpowering manifestation whereby all your doubts and fears have been swept away, and your soul settled in a firm enjoyment of the liberty of the gospel. You may have had it or may have had it not. But if you have this character stamped upon you that you have seen the promises afar off and been persuaded of them, and embraced them in faith, hope, and love, you have a mark of being a partaker of the faith of God's elect.

Live near to God

(Robert Murray M'Cheyne)

Prayer is the link that connects earth with Heaven! Live near to God, and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities!

When you gaze upon the sun — it makes everything else dark. When you taste honey — it makes everything else tasteless. Likewise, when your soul feeds on Jesus — it takes away the sweetness of all earthly things — pride, pleasure, fleshly lusts, all lose their sweetness.

"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus!" Hebrews 12:2. Keep a continued gaze! So will the world be crucified to you — and you unto the world!

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Do we understand what love is?

(J.R. Miller, "Help for the Day")

Do we understand what love is? We like to be loved, that is, to have other people love us, and live for us, and do things for us. We like the gratifications of love. But that is only miserable selfishness, if it goes no further. It is a desecration of the sacred name, to think that love, at its heart, means getting, receiving. Nay, love gives.

That is what God's love does — it finds its blessedness in giving. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." That is what Christ's love does — it pours out its very lifeblood, to the last drop!

The essential meaning of loving must always be giving, not receiving.

"Christ loved the church, and gave Himself up for her" Ephesians 5:25

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"With You is the fountain of life." Psalm 36:9

Morning and Evening

by Charles Spurgeon

"With You is the fountain of life." Psalm 36:9

There are times in our spiritual experience, when human counsel or sympathy, or religious ordinances, fail to comfort or help us. Why does our gracious God permit this? Perhaps it is because we have been living too much without Him—and therefore He takes away every prop upon which we have been in the habit of depending, that He may drive us to Himself! It is a blessed thing to live at the fountain-head. While our water-bottles are full, we are content, like Hagar and Ishmael, to go into the wilderness; but when those are dry—nothing will serve us but our God.

We are like the prodigal, we love the swine-troughs—and forget our Father's house! Remember, we can make swine-troughs and husks—even out of the forms of religion. They are blessed things—but we may put them in God's place, and then they are of no value. Anything becomes an IDOL—when it keeps us away from God! Even the brazen serpent is to be despised as "Nehushtan!" if we worship it instead of God. The prodigal was never safer—than when he was driven to his father's bosom, because he could find sustenance nowhere else.

Our Lord favors us with a famine—that it may make us seek after Himself the more. The best position for a Christian—is living wholly and directly on God's grace—still abiding where he stood at first, "Having nothing, and yet possessing all things." Let us never for a moment think that our acceptance with God—is in our sanctification, our mortification, our graces, or our feelings. But know that because Christ offered a full atonement, therefore we are saved; for we are complete in Him. Having nothing of our own to trust to—but resting solely upon the merits of Jesus—His passion and holy life furnish us with the only sure ground of confidence. Beloved, when we are brought to a thirsting condition—we are sure to turn to the fountain of life with eagerness!

How Long Can You Wait?

By Warren Wiersbe

Read Psalm 13:1-6 

Have you ever been impatient with God? Impatience is one of my big problems. I always get into the wrong lane on a toll road. Someone's in front of me with foreign currency, trying to buy his way through the tollbooth. I get into the wrong line at the airport, thinking, This line is a good line; it's going to move. But it doesn't because somebody in the line has lost his passport. And I get irritated.

It's one thing for us to be impatient with ourselves or with others. But when we become impatient with God, we should watch out! "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul?" (vv. 1,2). Four times David asked, "How long?" We're so time conscious today. We have watches that show us split seconds. But what do we do with those split seconds? If we save three minutes by taking a shortcut, what significant thing will we accomplish with the three minutes we save?

We expect God to do what we want Him to do--and right now! But He doesn't always act immediately. Abraham had to wait for 25 years after God's promise before Isaac was born. Isaac had to wait 20 years for his children. Joseph had to wait 13 years before he was set free and put on the throne. Moses had a wait of 80 years. You see, God's schedule is not the same as ours. Sometimes He waits so that He can do more for us than we expect. When He heard that Lazarus was dying, our Lord waited until his friend's death before He came. But when He came, He brought a greater miracle and received greater glory. The hardest thing to do is to wait on the Lord. But we can if we will trust Him and rest on His Word.

Some of your greatest blessings come with patience. When you must wait for God to act, you can be confident that He knows what is best for you and what will best glorify Him. Are you waiting for God to act on your behalf? Align with His timing and rest on the promises of His Word.

Who touched Me?

(J.R. Miller, "Miller's Year Book — a Year's Daily Readings")

"Who touched Me? Jesus asked." Luke 8:45

The people were crowding against Jesus, and many people touched Him; but there was one touch different from the others. There was aheart's cry in it — a pleading, a piteous supplication. It was a touch of faith, inspired by a deep sense of need. It was not an accidental touch, a mere touch of nearness; it was intentional.

This incident illustrates what is going on all the time, around Christ. We cannot move without pressing up against Him. Sometimes in our heedlessness, we jostle Him rudely. But when among all earth's millions, one person intentionally reaches out a hand to feel after Christ, to touch Him with a purpose, to seek for some blessing, to crave some help — Jesus instantly knows the pressure of that touch, and turns to answer it. He knows when any heart wants Him — no matter how obscure the person, how poor, how hidden away in the crowd.

Blessing came that day to none in that crowd, so far as we know — except to this poor, sick woman, who touched Christ's clothes. It came to her, because she had a burden on her heart — and sought Christ's help.

Just so, in every company there are some who are close to Jesus, and yet receive no blessing, because there is no faith in their touching. Then there are those who are no nearer — but who reach out their hands in faith, and touch Christ's clothes — and go away helped, comforted.

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The yoke of Christ

(James Smith, "The Easy Yoke" 1860)

"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:29-30

The "yoke" symbolizes subjection and obedience.

The yoke of Jesus includes the subjection of the understanding to His teaching. We must receive the kingdom of God as little children. All that He says — we must believe; and all that He commands — we must do.

The yoke of Jesus includes the subjection of the conscience to His authority. He must be sole Lord of conscience. As cleansed by His blood, enlightened by His truth, and sanctified by His Spirit — the conscience must bow to Him, be zealous for Him, and maintain His honor.

The yoke of Jesus includes the subjection of the will to His pleasure. We must prefer His will to our own, and make His pleasure ours.

The yoke of Jesus includes the subjection of the heart to His love. His love must inflame, regulate, and elevate the heart. He must become the object of its highest, warmest love. Love to Him must rule our thoughts, words, and actions.

The yoke of Jesus includes the subjection of our abilities to His service. For Him, the duties of life must be performed. To Him, every power must be dedicated. His glory must be the end in all things sought.

Unless, therefore, we submit . . .
  the understanding to His teaching,
  the conscience to His authority,
  the will to His pleasure,
  the heart to His love, and
  the abilities to His service —
we do not take His yoke upon us.

The yoke of Christ may be represented by the subjection of . . .
  the child to its parents,
  the servant to his master, and
  the scholar to his tutor.
In each case, the authority within its proper sphere is absolute. Authority on the one side, and subjection on the other — are the ideas suggested by these relations.

The yoke of Christ includes . . .
  allegiance to Him as our King,
  reliance on Him as our Savior,
  confidence in Him as our Guide,
  imitation of Him as our Example, and
  attachment to Him as our best Friend.

The yoke of Christ is EASY. Compare it with . . .
the yoke of Satan, which we wore in our natural state;
the yoke of Moses, as worn by the Jews of old;
the yoke of superstition, as worn by pagans and papists now.

It is easy, because connected with it,
  for every trial — there is assistance;
  for every temptation — there is support;
  for every difficulty — there is help;
  for every sorrow — there is solace;
  for every trouble — there is tranquility;
  for every loss — there is unspeakable gain; and
  for every service — there is a rich and eternal reward!

"Take My yoke upon you . . . for My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

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Applying the Test of Biblical Accuracy

By A.W. Tozer


The tests for spiritual genuineness are two: First, the leader must be a good man and full of the Holy Ghost. Christianity is nothing if not moral. . . . But the test of moral goodness is not enough. Every man must submit his work to the scriptural test. It is not enough that he be able to quote from the Bible at great length or that he claim for himself great and startling experiences with God. Go back to the law and to the testimony. If he speak not according to the Word it is because there is no light in him. 

We who are invited to follow him have every right, as well as a solemn obligation, to test his work according to the Word of God. We must demand that every claimant for our confidence present a clean bill of health from the Holy Scriptures; that he do more than weave in a text occasionally, or hold up the Bible dramatically before the eyes of his hearers. His doctrines must be those of the Scriptures. The Bible must dominate his preaching. He must preach according to the Word of God. 

The price of following a false guide on the desert may be death. The price of heeding wrong advice in business may be bankruptcy. The price of trusting to a quack doctor may be permanent loss of health. The price of putting confidence in a pseudo-prophet may be moral and spiritual tragedy. Let us take heed that no man deceive us.

Our plans and dreams

(J.R. Miller)

"In his heart a man plans his course — but the LORD determines his steps." Proverbs 16:9

"Many are the plans in a man's heart — but it is the LORD's purpose which prevails." Proverbs 19:21

There are few entirely unbroken lives in this world; there are few men who fulfill their own hopes and plans, without thwarting or interruption at some point. Now and then, there is one who in early youth marks out a course for himself — and then moves straight on in it to its goal.

But most people's lives turn out very different from their own early dreams. Many find at the close of their life, that in scarcely one particular, have they realized their own life-dreams; at every point God has simply set aside their plans — and substituted His own. There are some people whose plans are so completely thwarted, that their story is most pathetic. Yet we have but to follow it through to the end, to see that the broken life was better and more effective, than if their own plans had been carried out.

"We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose!" Romans 8:28
 

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The Separating Power Of Things Present

  
George H. Morrison - Devotional Sermons

      The Separating Power Of Things Present
     
      Things present--Rom 8:38
     
      It is notable that in his enumeration of things which might dim the love of God to us, the apostle should make mention of things present, and by things present I take it that he means the events and trials of the present day. Many of us know how things to come may tempt us to doubt the love of God. The anxieties and forebodings of tomorrow often cloud the sunshine of today. But Paul, who knew all that as well as we do, for his apostleship gave no exemptions, knew also the separating power of things present. The task in which we are presently engaged, the thronging duties of the common day, the multitude of things we must get through before we go to bed at night, these, unless we continually watch, are apt to blind us to the great realities and to separate us from the love of God in Christ.
     
      Things Present May Blind Us to the Brilliance of Things Distant
     
      In part that separating power arises from the exceeding nearness of things present. Things which are very near command our vision and often lead to erroneous perspective. When I light the lamp in my quiet study, the moon may be riding through the sky, the stars may be glittering in heavenly brilliance, proclaiming that the hand which made them is divine. But the lamp is near me, at my side, and I read by it and write my letters by it, and most often the stars are quite forgotten. Things present are things near, and near things have a certain blinding power. You can blot the sun out with a penny if you only hold it near enough to the eye. And yet the sun is a majestic creation, beautifier and conserver of the world, and the penny is but a worn and trifling coin. For most of us each day that dawns brings its round of present duties. They absorb us, commanding every energy, and so doing may occasionally blind us. And that is why, in busy crowded lives where near things are so swift to tyrannize, we all require moments of withdrawal. To halt a moment and just to say "God loves me"; to halt a moment and say "God is here"; to take the penny from the eye an instant that we may see the wonder of the sun, that, as the apostle knew so well, is one of the secrets of the saints, to master the separating power of things present.
     
      Things Present Are Difficult to Understand
     
      Another element in that separating power is the difficulty of understanding present things. It is always easier to understand our yesterdays than to grasp the meaning of today. Often in the Highlands it is difficult to see the path just at one's feet. Any bunch of cowberries may hide it or any bush of overarching heather. But when one halts a moment and looks back, generally it is comparatively easy to trace the path as it winds across the moor. So we begin to understand our past, its trials, its disappointments, and its illnesses; but such things are very hard to understand in their actual moment of occurrence, and it is that, the difficulty of reading love in the dark characters of present things, which constitutes their separating power. Many a grown man thanks God for the discipline of early childhood. But as a child it was often quite unfathomable, and he doubted if his mother loved him. And we are all God's children, never in love with the discipline of love, and in that lies the separating power of things present.
     
      Things Present Distract Us
     
      Another element of that separating power is found in the distraction of things present. "Life isn't a little bundle of big things: it's a big bundle of little things. "I read somewhere of a ship's captain who reported that a lighthouse was not shining. Inquiries were made, and it was found that the light was burning brightly all the night. What dimmed the light and made it as though it were not to the straining eyes of the captain on the bridge was a cloud of myriads of little flies. "While thy servant was busy here and there, the man was gone." What things escape us in our unending busyness! Peace and joy, and the power of self-control, and the serenity that ought to mark the Christian. And sometimes that is lost, which to lose is the tragedy of tragedies--the sense and certainty of love divine. Preoccupied, it fades out of our heaven. The comfort and the calm of it are gone. The light is there "forever, ever shining," but the cloud of flies has blotted out the light. Nobody knew better than the apostle did, in the cares that came upon him dally, the separating power of things present.
     
      Through Christ We Overcome the Separating Power of Things Present
     
      Of spiritual victory over present things, the one perfect example is our Lord. It is He who affords to us a perfect picture of untiring labor and unruffled calm. He gained the conquest over things to come. When Calvary was coming, He was joyous. He set His face steadily towards Jerusalem where the bitter cross was waiting Him. But, wonderful though that victory was over everything the future had in store, there was another that was not less wonderful. Never doubting the love of God to Him, certain of it in His darkest hour, through broken days, through never-ending calls when there was not leisure so much as to eat, not only did He master things to come, but He did what is often far more difficult --He mastered the separating power of things present. Do not forget He did all that for us. His victories were all achieved for us. In a deep sense we do not win our victories: we appropriate the victories of Christ. That is why the apostle in another place says, "All things are yours --things present, or things to come--and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

The Value of Being Pronouncedly the Lord's

By T. Austin-Sparks


Reading: Acts 27.

"Acts" is a book of principles. This whole story, and a great deal more in the life of Paul, is a commentary upon, and exposition of, verse 23 - "God whose I am, whom also I serve". Paul might have been the Lord's on this voyage and kept silent. The power and the value of his being there at that time was due to his being pronouncedly the Lord's, and letting it be known without any uncertainty. That power and value is recognizable in different connections.

Divine Overruling of Human Mistakes

First of all, it constituted a link with, and made possible the action of, the Divine sovereignty. There were not lacking those things which could have been the ground of some real misgiving in Paul's life at that time, for this whole thing was directly the outcome of his going to Jerusalem, when, in the first instance, the Lord had told him quite plainly that it was no use his going back to the Jews. The Lord had said, "They will not receive of thee testimony concerning me... Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles" (Acts 22:18,21). Moreover, his brethren besought him not to go, and warned him in the Lord's Name what would happen to him if he did (see Acts 21:11). But Paul went, and when he got there he was caught in a trap, resulting in his being taken prisoner. Then came his appeal to Caesar, and Agrippa said, "This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar" (Acts 26:32). Paul had all that to reflect upon, and the Devil had good ground to try and bring him under condemnation and to say, You disobeyed the Lord, you flouted your brethren, you appealed to Caesar - a carnal thing to do, thinking that you would get your liberty that way. 

Now the Lord has let you have your own way, and you have got yourself into trouble. The Devil does take up anything he can get of our own mistakes, and builds upon that to paralyse us and make us believe that the trouble that is on us is because the Lord has left us. But with all that, if it was a mistake, Paul was so pronouncedly the Lord's that there really was no personal interest at any point in this going up to Jerusalem. He did not go there for something for himself. It was all a way of suffering and sacrifice, even though there was a certain amount of self-propulsion, not the leading of God. He was so utterly the Lord's that, having no self-interest in view, it linked him with the Divine sovereignty so that even his mistakes could be taken hold of by the Lord and turned to glorious account. When barrenness and disaster come in, it is because there has been some personal interest, something of ourselves, governing. There was none of that with Paul, though he made mistakes.

It is something to remember. We are not going to be faultless or infallible. No, but if the life is the Lord's, and we are not keeping quiet about it - if we are pronouncedly the Lord's, He will look after our mistakes, take responsibility for our imperfections, and even use them to His own end. That is what happened here. This linked Paul with the Divine sovereignty, and that got the better of all Satan's accusations and all Paul's misgivings and the results of all his mistakes. Is it not something to encourage us? We look back on our lives and say, If I had my time over again, I would not do this and that. But if we are really the Lord's and there is no reservation about it, He is working good even through those mistakes, and will get Divine ends even by means of them.

Moral Power with Men in an Hour of Crisis

Notice a second thing about the strength and value of being pronouncedly the Lord's - the moral power of this in an hour of crisis. There was no mistake about where Paul stood and what his relationship to the Lord was. For a time the others ignored him. But an hour of crisis came; and now the one man in whom they hoped was this man whom they had rejected. He was the key to the situation.

This is how it often works out today - the moral power and value of being pronouncedly the Lord's. You may have to wait for your day, until things have worked up to a crisis, and for the time being you may be ignored; but if you stand there in relation to God, and it is known, the others will be very glad some day that you let it be known, and they will seek your help because they know that you know God. There is a great power in being pronouncedly the Lord's. Sooner or later the day of such will come.

Divine Sovereignty Acting in Relation to Other Lives

But there is something still more in this story - the tremendous power that lies behind such a position in relation to the mysterious placings of God's representatives by His foreknowledge. God knew, before ever that ship was built, the people who would be on board on that voyage, and He had His eye in foreknowledge upon them for the saving of their lives. From Acts 27:6 we infer that the ship would have set sail for Italy in any case. What would have been the fate of those on board if Paul had not been with them? Would they have been saved from death? The inference is that they might not, for the angel's message to Paul was "God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee" (v. 24). God gave them to Paul. And so it would seem that Paul had to be on that ship and go through that harrowing experience because in the foreknowledge of God there were lives which were to be saved from drowning.

If you think that is an over-statement, go back to your New Testament. Paul came to Corinth and found an awful situation in that city of sin and worldliness. It must have been a terrible situation, because when writing later he said, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling" (1 Cor. 2:3). But the Lord stood by Paul in Corinth and said: "Be not afraid, but speak... for I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:9); they are not saved yet, but "I have much people in this city". God knows who in the city will respond to the Gospel. He has got them, in effect, because He lives in the eternal present, and the future is now with Him. With God there is not to be another soul added to the Church; He has the total secured already. And on the ship came a similar message: "Fear not, Paul... God hath granted thee all them that sail with thee". What a wonderful thing that in spite of Paul's failures there is the working of this sovereignty in putting him there on that ship! He was not there by accident but in the foreknowledge of God in relation to an issue in other lives.

Sometimes we may be in a situation like that. We do not know why we are in the place that we are in. Everything seems so difficult, so contrary, and then we see things begin to break up. It looks like calamity, and in the end there is something secured for God. But it necessitates our being there pronouncedly the Lord's to secure it. This does not just happen. We can be there and hide our light, and think it will all work out. No; for this, pronounced proprietorship of the Lord is a necessary factor. There is a great deal bound up with our being unmistakably for God on this earth; the foreknowledge and sovereignty of God operate through us, the moral power of that position operates. The strategic opportunities are put into our hands when we are there for the Lord and people know it. So from every standpoint it is a position of strength, of value, of possibility.


Human Weakness Need Not Limit Utterness for the Lord

But you may say, Paul was a superman; I am not. But look again. Why should the Lord have to say to him such things as: Fear not, Paul? Evidently he was very human after all, capable of being afraid. Most of us are capable of being silenced by fear, or by pride - and pride can be just another form of fear: fear of losing something, fear of losing 'face', reputation, influence. More often than not, it has been those people who are very human, knowing weakness in themselves, who, trusting in the Lord, have been the ones whom He has used most mightily. The secret is just this - they are the Lord's, and they are His a hundred percent, and everybody knows it. What He is needing is not just that we should belong to Him, but pronouncedly so, and that those around us should know it; and the hour will very likely come when the Lord will put them into our hands, because they know that we are the only ones who have what they then need. It is a matter of being faithful to the Lord unto such a day. He may hold us in a place and not let us go until that testimony is there established, and then perhaps He will give the situation, or those there, into our hands. We may know nothing at present about them or the Lord's designs in their lives, but they will be delivered into our hands for the Lord. Then perhaps that voyage will be over and there will be another phase of things for us. The Lord help us to be faithful.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1946, Vol 24-5

In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given, his writings are not copyrighted. Therefore, we ask if you choose to share them with others, please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of changes, free of charge and free of copyright.

All the children of God have a cross to carry

(J.C. Ryle)

"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me." Matthew 16:24

All the children of God have a cross to carry. They have trials, troubles, and afflictions to go through for the Gospel's sake. They have . . .
  trials from the world,
  trials from the flesh,
  trials from the devil.

They have trials from relations and friends — hard words, hard conduct, and hard judgment.

They have trials in the matter of character — slander, misrepresentation, mockery, suggestion of false motives — all these often rain thick upon them.

They have trials from their own hearts.

They have each generally their own thorn in the flesh, which is their worst foe.

This is the experience of the children of God. Some of them suffer more — and some less. Some of them suffer in one way — and some in another. God measures out their portions like a wise physician, and cannot err. But never, I believe, was there one child of God, who reached Heaven without a cross!

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Especially beautified

(William Plumer, "Vital Godliness: A Treatise
 on Experimental and Practical Piety" 1864)

"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility." 1 Peter 5:5

Humility is lowliness of mind — the opposite of pride and
arrogance. It belongs to the essence of experimental
religion. A humble spirit is the opposite of a lofty one.
True humility is an inward grace based on a view of our
own guilt, weakness, vileness, and ignorance — as
compared with the infinite excellence and glory of God.

Humility is one of the most lovely of all the traits of a
child of God. It is opposed to all ostentation. It hides
the other graces of the Christian from the gaze of
self-admiration. Its aim is not to be thought humble,
but to be humble. The godly man loves to lie low — and
cares not to have it known.

Humility will not disfigure, but adorn you. As Rebecca
was not the less lovely, but the more so, when she took
a veil and covered her beauty and all her jewels; so the
child of God is especially beautified when arrayed in
humbleness of mind.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Nehushtan

By G. Campbell Morgan


He brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. 2 Kings 18:4

We at once realize what an astonishing statement the Chronicler makes here concerning king Hezekiah. Hezekiah ascended the throne of Judah in the third year of the reign of Hoshea, king of Israel, a young man twenty-five years of age; and immediately--undoubtedly acting under the influence of Isaiah, the great evangelical prophet of the old economy--he commenced a work of reformation. One of the first acts of the reign of the new king was that of smashing to fragments one of the most valuable and historic relics in his kingdom.

So strange an action is in itself worthy of our closest attention, and I think we shall find in our meditation a revelation of some of the great facts of human nature and of some perils threatening men in the region of the most sacred things of their lives; and, consequently, a revelation of principles of perpetual value and of immediate application.

Let us first attempt to put ourselves back into the days when, with what must have appeared to be the strangest disregard of cherished prejudices, Hezekiah commenced his reformation by this act of iconoclasm. I need hardly tarry to remind you of the facts concerning this brazen serpent. 

In order that we may have our memory refreshed we read the simple story as it is contained in the book of Numbers. However, it may be well to notice one fact. According to the story as there told, it is not suggested, neither was it suggested to the people at the time, if we follow and accept the words as here recorded as being correct, that there was any healing virtue in the brazen serpent. No suggestion was made to the people of Israel that the serpent itself could produce any mystic effect. To read the story simply is to see to its very heart. The sin of the people had been their departure from the attitude of absolute submission to the government of God. In the midst of this rebellious people now punished by God, the brazen serpent was erected, and the word of God which Moses was commanded to speak to them was a declaration that if any man, bitten and in peril, would look at the uplifted serpent he would be healed. 

That was God's word. No explanation of the relation between the looking and the life was given. We sing, "There is life for a look at the Crucified One," and in so doing we may be singing what is perfectly true, or we may be singing that which is entirely false. What brought these men back to life was the fact that they returned to submission to the government of God, as, for the moment, that government was focused in that wonderful and yet simple provision. The healing virtue came from God, and was operative in answer to that act of submission in which men, no longer arguing as to the wisdom of the method, submitted to the Divine command. 

Because men in rebellion must be dealt with as children--there must always be a picture, something that appeals to the eye--God in infinite grace said to these men, Take a serpent of brass and set it on a standard, and let the word of My government for the moment be My command to look. Men looked because God commanded, and looking because God commanded, they turned by that act to the Divine government and were healed. This is the history.

It was in itself a remarkable thing that the serpent of brass should have been so long preserved. Between that event in the wilderness and this iconoclasm of Hezekiah at least seven hundred years had elapsed. Think how carefully it had been preserved--by Moses during all the years he remained with these people, all through those tedious and perilous journeys through the great and terrible wilderness; by Joshua through all his forty years of campaign and settlement as he led the people into the land; during the strange and troubled period when the judges as dictators were raised up to govern the people according to immediate necessities; during the splendor of the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon; and through all the troublous and turbulent times of the kings succeeding to Solomon on both sides of the border, in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Somewhere this brazen serpent had been preserved. I repeat that for over seven hundred years it had been a relic, historic, interesting, and essentially valuable, in that to illuminated eyes and waiting souls it was forevermore a reminder of their own sin in the past, of the judgment which fell on them in consequence of that sin, and of the deliverance which God had provided for them.

In process of time interest grew into veneration, until this very symbol was set up in the midst of the people as an object of worship. At last they actually burnt incense to this brazen serpent. This was the deification of a symbol, the turning from the veneration of a relic for the sake of its essential values to the veneration of that relic on the supposition that it had some virtue resident in itself.

We immediately see that this story is not old, as at first it appears to be. Indeed, almost absurd as it seems, this very idea persists to this hour under the shadow of what is named after Christ. In the Church of St. Ambrose, in Milan, they will show you this brazen serpent. In the year 971 a Milanese envoy in Constantinople was asked to take some treasure of the city as a gift, and he chose a brazen serpent which the Greeks assured him was made out of the very pieces of the serpent which Hezekiah broke into fragments. That certainly is in a country still enslaved by Roman superstitions, but the same things are practiced among us, if in more subtle forms.

Looking back to the ancient story, I ask you to notice that this deification of the brazen serpent, this setting it up as an object of worship, and this burning of incense to it, was in itself a most significant sign of the condition of the people at that time. It was, first, a revelation of their loss of consciousness of God. These people never could have burned incense to the serpent if the presence of God had been recognized and realized.

 One goes back in memory to the solemn days in the history of these people in the wilderness, when it was necessary to erect this serpent, days when they had before them the outward symbols of the presence of God in the Tabernacle, with all its suggestiveness, and when they had no right to sin. Yet they had sinned, and had been punished by God, and had turned back to Him. We call to mind also the whole history of these Hebrew people, not to dwell on any single detail, but to make this general statement: in hours when they were supremely conscious of God setting up such an object for worship would have been absolutely impossible. It is patent that the sight of these people gathered together around the brazen serpent for the purpose of burning incense to it, making this particular relic of their past history an object of worship, demonstrated the fact that they had lost the consciousness of God.

Yet their action proved more than that. I see a people hungering after what they have lost. An idol always means this. An idol created by the fingers of men, or chosen by men and appointed to the place of a god, is forevermore a revelation of the sense of need, the sense of lack. It is an evidence that the deepest thing in the human heart is its cry after God. This is not to defend idolatry, not to defend the action of these people in the deification of the brazen serpent, but to say that when people lose their consciousness of God they do not lose their sense of need for God. Whereas I look back on these people in this hour and say they have lost their vision of God, have lost the sense of His nearness, have wandered far away from that spiritual communion with Him which is in itself a fire and a force, I say also that having lost the vision and having lost the sense, they are restless. When the one true and living God, having been revealed and known, is lost to consciousness the heart will clamantly cry for that which is lost. This worship of the serpent was certainly a revelation of the hunger of the people after God.

There is one other matter which I think this event reveals. Having lost their vision of God, and still being conscious of the necessity for some object of worship around which their spiritual life could gather, their deification of the serpent was a revelation of the utmost confusion. It was history misinterpreted. A blessing of the olden days was made a curse in the present moment by that misinterpretation of their own history. Setting up the brazen serpent as an object of worship suggested that the serpent itself had been the means of their healing on the past occasion. Their vision of God lost, and the cry of their souls after such a God, and the blundering confusion of a people who, looking back at their own history, emphasized it wrongly, interpreted it falsely, and treated the serpent as though it had been the means of their healing in the past--such was the abuse of the brazen serpent.

When Hezekiah came to the throne he did two things. First of all, he named the serpent "Nehushtan," a piece of brass, or, with fine contempt, a thing of brass. Then he broke it in pieces.

The naming of the serpent thus was intended to be a revelation to the people of their unutterable folly: they were burning incense to a thing of brass! It was intended to be a revelation to the people of their unutterable sin: These people whose worship had been of the unseen and eternal God, Who had demonstrated Himself to them by all the wonder of their history, were actually worshiping a thing of brass! There was a fine contempt in this naming of the brazen serpent, undoubtedly intended by the king to reveal to men their unutterable folly and the absolute wickedness of their idolatry.

Now, what will this king do with this thing of brass? No blame can be attached to the people for having preserved it; there was no sin in their preservation of the serpent; it was something which, coming up out of their past history, ought to have reminded them of God and the spiritual lessons they had learned in that hour of sin and of judgment and wondrous deliverance.

Hezekiah took this sacred relic and broke it in pieces, its associations notwithstanding. This he did because, with true insight, he understood that it was a source of danger to the people and therefore he could make no compromise with it. It was an act of true reform. It was the act of a man who would make no peace with that most sacred thing, a thing which in itself was not an evil thing, which in itself had no virtue and no vice, but which had become a source of danger to the people. It must therefore be destroyed. That is the story. Now let us make certain applications of it to our own day.

The first I suggest is this: God's very gifts to men may be so abused as to become positively injurious. Anything to which we are burning incense merely because of the sacredness of its past associations is a peril to our spiritual life, and ought to be destroyed. Let me be pertinent and practical. What are some of the things to which we are in danger of burning incense today?

I have known Christian congregations burn incense to the very building in which they assembled for worship, as though it were sacred in itself, as though to pass its threshold and be under its roof were to be in the very house of God and at the gate of heaven. That in itself is idolatry. We may so revere a building as to make a true worship of God impossible inside it. This is a strange paradox, and I shall ask you to bear quite patiently with me as I give you a very simple illustration out of my own past experience. 

I remember twenty-five years ago it had been arranged that I was to go to a certain church--of what denomination and in what town is of no matter--to conduct special mission services for fifteen days. As the time drew near I had a letter from the officers of the church saying that while they still felt the need of such services, the church had been recently renovated, and they had decided to abandon the mission in case the paint should be injured by strangers coming in! 

That is cold history. We may say that we should not do such a foolish thing as that; but we need to remember that the attitude of mind which made such an action possible is a perpetual peril. We call bricks and mortar a church. There is a sense in which that is true; but there is a sense in which a material building may become a grave and a terrible menace to the spiritual life of a church. We burn incense to our buildings and imagine that when we have passed into them we are separated to the worship of God. It is possible for a man to sit in this building from beginning to end of the service and never draw near to the true place of worship.

Then there are the exercises of public worship; we may burn incense to them, and make our form of service so ornate, so regular, so beautiful, that the very Spirit of God Who, like a breath of wind, would pass over the congregation, would not be able to find room to enter. We may burn incense to order, and so create the gravest disorder.

We may burn incense to the ministry considered as a caste. It may be that here we are in no danger of doing that. It may be that those of us who belong to the Free Church are in no danger of that particular form of idolatry, yet the peril lingers even among us. I know men who do not care to take the sacrament unless some ordained man preside. That is priestcraft. I would be quite content to take the bread and wine from the hands of some godly mother in Israel.

We still burn incense to the individual man, and though we have never used the word nor do we think of using it, our attitude is that of the deification of the individual. We have an idea that the whole Kingdom of God will fall if a certain man fails us, or moves to some other sphere of work. A subtle idolatry threatens us in spiritual things, sacred things. The danger that threatens us is that we may worship that which is the means rather than the God Who reaches us through those means.

It is possible to burn incense to a creed, to systematized theology. It is possible to crib, cabin and confine spiritual growth by loyalty to some dead hand of orthodoxy. I venture to say with all boldness that I am the right man to say that kind of thing. This Divine Library is final in authority; but not your interpretation of it, nor mine, nor that of any man. No creeds that have been drawn up by honest souls in the past are final interpretations of the literature of the heavens. This Bible is as wonderful as the Spirit of God, forevermore breaking, annulling, destroying human interpretations, and blossoming into new beauty, singing itself out into new poetry, making poor the finest utterances of past interpretation. Yet there are men who ask me to sign a creed, and subscribe to a dogma, and contribute to systematized theology. They are burning incense to a creed. They are making a creed, which is a thing of men's hands, devout and sincere in itself, an object of worship.

I have even known men to burn incense to a trust deed and allow the work of God to be interfered with and spoiled because of the terms that lie within some such deed, drawn up amid some conditions that long since have passed away. There was a need for a certain wording of the trust deed at the time; but that is no warrant for saying that a trust deed must hold men today and prevent them from going forward and doing the work to which God is calling them, work which the age demands and which the mental mood of the hour is calling them to do. In many ways we are doing what these Hebrews did, lifting a serpent of brass and burning incense to it.

It is possible to be idolatrous in the matter of prayer, and in the matter of the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and baptism. It is possible to treat all these things which are means of grace as though they were grace. It is possible to treat these things which are Divinely appointed ordinances, symbols, signs, sacraments, outward and visible signs of the inward and invisible grace, as though they in themselves were channels of the invisible grace. That is sacerdotalism. Not merely the claim of the priest of Greek, Roman, or Anglican ordination, but the worship of the sacrament by men who profess to have escaped from all such bondage. That is burning incense to an idol.

I have known men who were worshipers of the day of their conversion. I know men who tell me that ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, here or there, they were born again; and today they are dead in trespasses and sins, but still burn incense to the old experience, imagining that to be true worship. The memory of an hour of illumination, of clear shining, may change the volition and transfigure the life, I admit it; but such a memory has no value today unless today the light is shining, the soul is poised toward God, and the attitude of the life is what it ought to be toward our fellow men. Yet we burn incense to these dead things. They were living things at the moment, they had their place and their value, they were God's own means of blessing to us; but today we gather about them and worship them and have no dealing with God.

Of all such action, looking back at the ancient story, I will say that such abuse of things in themselves sacred and right and God-appointed can come only out of spiritual degeneracy. Loyalty to God will maintain all these in their true place and true proportion. The serpent was never the depository of virtue, nor is any one of these I have mentioned.

The only way of virtue, using the word in its broadest and best sense as meaning strength and sanctity--the only way of virtue is the way of immediate dealing with God. So surely as men are burning incense to the brazen serpent, to creeds, to human instrumentalities, to ordinances, even God-appointed ordinances, so surely it is because they have lost the power of commerce with heaven and communion with God. No man will ever burn incense to any of these things who lives and works in the light and hears the voice of God within his own soul. The man who hears the voice of God within his own soul can find Bethel in the railway train, on the highway. It is loss of the vision of God that is demonstrated by the deification of anything less than God.

Yet, blessed be God, this deification of the little is demonstration of the fact that man cannot find rest except in God Himself. If you have lost the vision and the true spiritual communion, then you must worship something, you must put something back in its place. That, as I said before, is not to defend idolatry, it is not to say the final word concerning the activity, for if it be true that idolatry demonstrates capacity for God, it is equally true that idolatry ultimately destroys the capacity for God. If it be true that having lost God, I put this idol in His place, so surely as I do I shall presently become like the idol I make, and having eyes I shall see not, and having ears I shall hear not, and having hands I also like my idol shall not be able to feel, I shall become insensate. Deification of anything less than God demonstrates the capacity for worship and is a revelation of hunger; but it issues in the destruction of the very capacity it demonstrates.

What is the right attitude toward all such things? I suggest that our right attitude is first to name the things rightly. Look and see that this cunning artifice of brass is not a serpent, it is brass. Then name it Nehushtan, a thing of brass. Call the church a building of bricks and mortar. Call the minister a man, and remember that he is none other, and if he is other he ought not to be in the ministry. Call the exercises of worship forms, remembering that form without power is in itself a curse. Call creeds and systematized theology human opinion, and respect it as human opinion and in no other way. Call the trust deed paper or parchment, as the case may be. Call prayer words. Call the day of your conversion past.

If any or all of these things are coming between your soul and God Himself break them in pieces. Not merely the idols which your fathers had before the flood, not merely the idols which you found in the land, but the idol which is one of your sacred things which in a past hour of need was God's provision for your well-being. If it has become an idol, then must it be broken in pieces.

Let us bring our most sacred things to the test, and let us remember that to whatever we burn incense we must destroy if the burning of the incense has resulted in the loss of the vision of God and issued in inability to commune with God. Infinitely better to be stripped of every means of grace, and to come to worship as a naked spirit with God alone, than to allow these things which He has instituted to help us to such worship, to stand between us and Himself. That is the teaching.

Yet a final word is this; the true attitude of the soul is that of the retention of all these things in their true place and in their true proportion. The true attitude of the soul is that in which it looks back to the day when life began in Christ and rejoices in it, but immediately brings that past experience into expression in the living present. The great autobiographical passage of the Apostle Paul in the Philippian letter has often been quoted; let us hear it once again. Writing to his Philippian children from prison and reviewing the process of his Christian life, looking back to the hour on the Damascus road when he was apprehended by his Master, he said, "Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ." That counting was at least thirty years before, but there was no virtue in that. A little further on he added, "Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss." The "I counted" of yesterday is of no value unless it be carried into the "I count" of today. If today I count all things but loss, then I shall never undervalue that past experience on the way to Damascus; but the light that shone on me on the way to Damascus, or in the midst of that revival of thirty years ago, is of no value today unless there shines on my soul this morning the light of God, and I answer it.

So with prayer. Savonarola declared on one occasion that when prayer reaches its ultimate height words are impossible, that when the soul has come to terms of communion with God words are left behind. I think every Christian man and woman who knows anything of the secret place knows how true that is. There is another application of the great truth concerning prayer that we often lose sight of. 

In my experience the prayers that have most profoundly touched my soul and moved me, the prayers that I have felt have most perfectly taken hold of God, were prayers that broke down in the middle, that could not be continued, but ended in blundering articulation and half-finished sentences, and then a sob and silence. That is prayer. If the sense of God that produces such an attitude in the soul of man is absent, then elegance of diction is blasphemy, and beauty of phrasing is impertinence, and we are burning incense to a thing of brass rather than worshiping God. 

The true attitude of the soul is that which--to use the word of the old economy--brings with it words, and pours out thought in speech before the throne of God, setting no value on the form of the words, but all value on the grip of the soul on God, and the touch of God on the soul.

Not to proceed further with these things already referred to, the final thing is this; let us keep this serpent of brass, let us learn to keep it by making the necessity for its destruction unnecessary. Let us retain it and let it speak to our hearts its true lesson. Let it say to us forevermore: I remind you of the hour of sin; beware of sin; I remind you of the hour of swift judgment which must come again if you sin; I remind you of the hour of deliverance. If we so keep it, and let it thus speak to us, we shall never burn incense to it, but when it has thus spoken we shall forget it as we worship God.

Painted holiness

(Thomas Brooks, "The Crown and Glory of Christianity,
or, HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness", 1662)

"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make
long prayers; therefore you shall receive the greater
damnation." Matthew 23:14

Who had a greater name for holiness, and who made a
greater show of holiness, and who did more despise and
insult other men for the lack of holiness—than the Scribes
and Pharisees? And who so miserable now—as they?

Pretended holiness will double-damn souls at last!

None have so large a portion in hell as hypocrites have.
No man at last will be found so miserable, as he who has
the name of a saint upon him—but not the divine nature
in him; who has a profession of holiness upon him—but no
principles of holiness in him; who has a form of godliness
—but not the power; who can cry up godliness—but in
practice denies it; who is a professor outwardly—but
an atheist, a pagan, a devil inwardly.

Artificial sanctity is double iniquity. He who professes
piety without being pious, and godliness without being
godly; he who makes counterfeit holiness a cloak to
impiety, and a midwife to iniquity; he who is . . .
a Jacob without—and an Esau within,
a David without—and a Saul within,
a John without—and a Judas within,
a saint without—and a Satan within,
an angel without—and a devil within,
is ripened for the worst of torments!

Sirs, do not deceive your own souls!
A painted sword shall as soon defend a man, and
a painted mint shall as soon enrich a man, and
a painted fire shall as soon warm a man, and
a painted friend shall as soon counsel a man, and
a painted horse shall as soon carry a man, and
a painted feast shall as soon nourish a man, and
a painted house shall as soon shelter a man—as
a painted holiness shall save a man! He who
now thinks to put off God with a painted holiness,
shall not fare so well at last—as to be put off with
a painted happiness. The lowest, the hottest, and
the darkest habitation in hell will be his portion,
whose religion lies all in shows and shadows.

Well, spiritual counterfeits, remember this—it will
not be long before Christ will unmask you; before
He will uncloak you; before He will disrobe you;
before He will take off your masks, your cloaks,
and turn your rotten insides outward—to your
eternal shame and reproach before all the world!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Killing lust

(Henry Law, "Christ is All" 1854)

You pant to be conformed to the image
of Christ. This is well. But holiness can
be learned only at the cross. It is a sight
of the dying Jesus—which kills lust. It is
the shadow of the cross—which causes
evil to wither.

"They will look on Me whom they have
pierced and mourn for Him as for an
only son." Zechariah 12:10


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Marthas and Marys

(J. C. Ryle, Mary & Martha, Luke 10:38-42)

Observe how different the characters and
personalities of true Christians may be. The
two sisters of whom we read in this passage
were faithful disciples. Both had believed. Both
had been converted. Both had honored Christ
when few gave Him honor. Both loved Jesus,
and Jesus loved both of them. Yet they were
evidently women of very different character.

Martha was active, stirring, and impulsive,
feeling strongly, and speaking out all she felt.
Mary was quiet, still, and contemplative,
feeling deeply, but saying less than she felt.

Martha, when Jesus came to her house, rejoiced
to see Him, and busied herself with preparing a
suitable refreshment. Mary, also, rejoiced to
see Him, but her first thought was to sit at His
feet and hear His word.

Grace reigned in both hearts, but each showed
the effects of grace in different ways.

We shall find it very useful to ourselves to remember
this lesson. We must not expect all believers in Christ
to be exactly like one another. We must not set down
others as having no grace, because their experience
does not entirely tally with our own.

The sheep in the Lord's flock have each their own peculiarities.

The trees in the Lord's garden are not all precisely alike.

All true servants of God agree in the principal
things of religion. All are led by one Spirit.
All feel their sins, and all trust in Christ.
All repent, all believe, and all are holy.

But in minor matters, they often differ widely.

Let no one despise another on this account.

There will be Marthas and there will be Marys
in the Church, until the Lord comes again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Genuine assurance

(Thomas Brooks, "The Crown and Glory of Christianity,
or, HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness", 1662)

Genuine holiness will yield you a heaven hereafter; but
genuine assurance will yield you a heaven here. He
who has holiness and knows it, shall have two heavens
—a heaven of joy, comfort, peace, contentment, and
assurance here—and a heaven of happiness and
blessedness hereafter.

Genuine assurance will be a spring of joy and comfort
in you. It will make heavy afflictions light, long afflictions
short, and bitter afflictions sweet. It will make you frequent,
fervent, constant, and abundant in the work of the Lord. It
will strengthen your faith, raise your hope, inflame your love,
increase your patience, and brighten your zeal. It will make
every mercy sweet, every duty sweet, every ordinance sweet,
and every providence sweet. It will rid you of all your sinful
fears and cares. It will give you ease under every burden,
and make death more desirable than life. It will make you
more strong to resist temptation, more victorious over
opposition, and more silent in every difficult condition.

Genuine assurance will turn . . .
every winter night into a summer's day,
every cross into a crown, and
every wilderness into a paradise.

Genuine assurance will be . . .
a sword to defend you,
a staff to support you,
a cordial to strengthen you,
a medicine to heal you, and
a star to lead you.

Well, remember this—next to a man's being saved, it is the
greatest mercy in this world—to know that he is saved.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~