Milo

December 31

“Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” (1 Samuel 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.”

“AND AGAIN THEY SAID, HALLELUJAH!” (Rev. 19:3, R. V.)

31 DECEMBER (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S EVENING 1774)

What do you choose?

‘They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.’ Jeremiah 50:5
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Deuteronomy 30:11–20

Some of you I trust are thus minded. You have already, through grace, chosen Jesus as your way and are walking on to Zion. The Lord encourage and strengthen you. See what a blessed hope is set before you. The Lord will guide you and support you. Only remember your own weakness, the strength and power of your enemies, and watch and pray that you may walk answerable to your high calling, that the Lord may have the glory and you the comfort of your profession. I must take it for granted that some of you have long been hearers and have had the advantage of the advice, example and prayers of the godly. Perhaps they who watched for your soul’s good are now gone to a better world. You will see them again. How will you rejoice to meet them if you walk in their way; if not, it will be a dreadful meeting. Some of you are to this hour breaking the hearts of those who wish well to your souls. Behold the Judge standeth at the door. If you still despise this salvation, sermons, friends, ministers, will all aggravate your condemnation. Some of you have been brought up in the neglect of means and under the unhappy influence of bad examples. What have too many parents to answer for! Yet your parents’ sins will not excuse yours. You now hear for yourselves, and it is at the peril of your souls if you do not begin to ask the way to Zion. Say not you are young. How know you but the year you are now entering upon may be your last? And why delay? Why unwilling to be happy too soon? If it is high time for the young, what then for the aged? Let the grey-headed sinner hear—many years you have wasted. Great is the account you have to give for abused mercies. Yet if you will now in good earnest ask the way to Zion, you may find it. One year more the Lord has waited to be gracious. But the sentence, Cut it down [Luke 13:7], cannot be far distant. O today, while it is called today, hear his voice [Hebrews 3].
FOR MEDITATION: [Asking the way to Zion, written to be sung after this sermon]
O Lord, regard thy people’s prayer,
And young and old, by grace prepare,
Thy promise now fulfil;
To dwell on Zion’s hill.

SERMON: JEREMIAH 50:5 [7/7] [TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE]

December 30th

“And every virtue we possess”

All my fresh springs shall be in Thee. Psalm 87:7 (P.B.V.).

Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He remakes the whole man on the inside. “Put on the new man”—see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity. God does not build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that are characteristic of the Lord Jesus.

‘And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.’

December 30

“Peter was kept in prison: but prayer (instant and earnest prayer) was made for him.” (Acts 12:5, margin.)

PETER was in prison awaiting his execution. The Church had neither human power nor influence to save him. There was no earthly help, but there was help to be obtained by the way of Heaven. They gave themselves to fervent, importunate prayer. God sent His angel, who aroused Peter from sleep and led him out through the first and second wards of the prison; and when they came to the iron gate, it opened to them of its own accord, and Peter was free.
There may be some iron gate in your life that has blocked your way. Like a caged bird you have often beaten against the bars, but instead of helping, you have only had to fall back tired, exhausted and sore at heart. There is a secret for you to learn, and that is believing prayer; and when you come to the iron gate, it will open of its own accord. How much wasted energy and sore disappointment will be saved if you will learn to pray as did the Church in the upper room! Insurmountable difficulties will disappear; adverse circumstances will prove favorable if you learn to pray, not with your own faith but with the faith of God (Mark 11:22, margin). Souls in prison have been waiting for years for the gate to open; loved ones out of Christ, bound by Satan, will be set free when you pray till you definitely believe God.—C. H. P.
Emergencies call for intense prayer. When the man becomes the, prayer nothing can resist its touch. Elijah on Carmel, bowed down on the ground, with his face between his knees, that was prayer—the man himself. No words are mentioned. Prayer can be too tense for words. The man’s whole being was in touch with God, and was set with God against the powers of evil. They couldn’t withstand such praying. There’s more of this embodied praying needed.—The Bent-knee Time.
“Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused.”—C. H. Spurgeon.

30 DECEMBER (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S EVENING 1774)

Joined to the Lord

‘They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.’ Jeremiah 50:5
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 2 Timothy 1:1–14

The desire which animates and encourages them is Let us join … in a covenant. This covenant is not the creature’s engagement to the Lord, but a laying hold on the Lord’s covenant engagement to the sinner. This is established in Christ. He engaged to fulfil all righteousness for those who come to him, and to work all their works for them and in them. Our part is to consent to it, to choose it, and to venture ourselves. All promises and resolutions of our own will come to nothing without this. But when this covenant is known, it draws the soul to a willing surrender. Then the sinner gives himself away, and commits himself to the Redeemer, as the Apostle speaks in 2 Timothy 1:12. By accepting, yielding, to this covenant, the soul is joined to the Lord—in one spirit, one interest. Then Christ dwells in the sinner and puts forth his life, power, and grace in the soul, and the sinner dwells in Christ as in a strong tower of defence. This covenant shall not be forgotten. The effects and purposes of it are abiding and unchangeable. The Lord will remember it in every turn of life, at the hour of death and the day of judgement. It will not be forgotten by the soul. The hour, the place, will usually be remembered, the surrender often renewed and ratified. O that this may be the hour and this the place with some of you—that the glory of this covenant may win your hearts before you go hence.

FOR MEDITATION: The anniversary of my great deliverance in 1748 calls for my grateful acknowledgement.… I remember when I stood trembling, to appearance upon the brink of eternity, and thought it impossible I could live a quarter of an hour. Since that memorable day thou hast added twenty-eight years to my life … My time is shortening apace. O that the remainder may be spent for thee. Be my Shepherd, my Saviour, my all, and may all that I have and am be devoted to thee and employed for thee.
Diary, 21 March 1776

[anniversary of John Newton’s conversion in a storm at sea]

SERMON: JEREMIAH 50:5 [6/7] [TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE]