Milo

December 29th

Deserter or disciple?

From that time many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. John 6:66.

When God gives a vision by His Spirit through His word of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into servitude to a point of view which Our Lord never had. Disobedience in mind to the heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ. Do not look at someone else and say—‘Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why cannot I?’ You have to walk in the light of the vision that has been given to you and not compare yourself with others or judge them, that is between them and God. When you find that a point of view in which you have been delighting clashes with the heavenly vision and you debate, certain things will begin to develop in you—a sense of property and a sense of personal right, things of which Jesus Christ made nothing. He was always against these things as being the root of everything alien to Himself. “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth.” If we do not recognize this, it is because we are ignoring the undercurrent of Our Lord’s teaching.
We are apt to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we have had. If there is one standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God and you do not come up to it, and do not feel inclined to come up to it, that is the beginning of backsliding, because it means your conscience does not answer to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ, or for going back as a deserter.

December 29

“Arise … for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good; and are ye still? Be not slothful to go, and enter to possess the land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth.” (Judges 18:9, 10.)

ARISE! Then there is something definite for us to do. Nothing is ours unless we take it. “The children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance.” (Joshua 16:4.) “The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.” (Obad. 17.) “The upright shall have good things in possession.”
We need to have appropriating faith in regard to God’s promises. We must make God’s Word our own personal possession. A child was asked once what appropriating faith was, and the answer was, “It is taking a pencil and underscoring all the me’s and mine’s and my’s in the Bible.”
Take any word you please that He has spoken and say, “That word is my word.” Put your finger on this promise and say, “It is mine.” How much of the Word has been endorsed and receipted and said “It is done.” How many promises can you subscribe and say, “Fulfilled to me.”
“Son, thou art ever with Me, and all that I have is thine.” Don’t let your inheritance go by default.

“When faith goes to market it always takes a basket.”

29 DECEMBER (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S EVENING 1774)

Set your faces Zion-ward

‘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: 1 Timothy 4:9–16

They ask, with their faces thitherward. Too many are content with talking of the way, but they may talk themselves into hell, while they amuse themselves with talking about Zion. They who are sincere will set their faces Zion-ward. That is:
(i) they will give all diligence to make their calling sure, by attending to the means.
(ii) they will abstain from the wicked ways in which they once walked. While the perishing pleasures of sin are desired, and the company of the ungodly chosen, people cannot be in earnest in asking the way to Zion.
(iii) though they meet (as they surely will) discouragements from within and without, they will keep their faces the right way and dread the thoughts of turning back.

Diary, Saturday 18 December 1773:
I desire to be kept from a party spirit but I hope I may and I think ought endeavour to prevent the young ones of the flock from being staggered and puzzled by fine words and artful speech, which are employed to turn them out of the way in which the Lord has led them. Some of my leisure employed in hymn making.

FOR MEDITATION: [Asking the way to Zion, written to be sung after this sermon]
Come, set your faces Zion-ward,
The sacred road enquire;
And let a union to the LORD
Be henceforth your desire!

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

December 28th

Continuous conversion

Except ye be converted, and become as little children.… Matthew 18:3.

These words of Our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continuously converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust to our wits instead of to God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Immediately our bodies are brought into new conditions by the providence of God, we have to see our natural life obeys the dictates of the Spirit of God. Because we have done it once is no proof that we shall do it again. The relation of the natural to the spiritual is one of continuous conversion, and it is the one thing we object to. In every setting in which we are put, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered but we have to “put on the new man.” God holds us responsible every time we refuse to convert ourselves, our reason for refusing is wilful obstinacy. Our natural life must not rule, God must rule in us.
The hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will not be continually converted, there are ‘wadges’ of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says—‘I won’t.’ We deify independence and wilfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength. There are whole tracts of our lives which have not yet been brought into subjection, and it can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

December 28

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.”
(Phil. 4:4.)

“Sing a little song of trust,
  O my heart!
Sing it just because you must,
  As leaves start;
As flowers push their way through dust;
Sing, my heart, because you must.

“Wait not for an eager throng—
  Bird on bird;
’Tis the solitary song
  That is heard.
Every voice at dawn will start,
Be a nightingale, my heart!

“Sing across the winter snow,
  Pierce the cloud;
Sing when mists are drooping low—
  Clear and loud;
But sing sweetest in the dark;
He who slumbers not will hark.”

“An’ when He hears yo’ sing, He bends down wid a smile on His kin’ face an’ listens mighty keerful, an’ He says, ’Sing on, chile, I hears, an’ I’s comin’ down to deliber yo’: I’ll tote dat load fer yo’; jest lean hawd on Me and de road will get smoother bime by.’ ”