Milo

December 13th

What to pray for

Men ought always to pray, and not to faint. Luke 18:1.

You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption; you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings which will only increase their submissive content to being out of touch with God. In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you, before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance. Intercession means filling up “that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ,” and that is why there are so few intercessors. Intercession is put on the line of—‘Put yourself in his place.’ Never! Try to put yourself in God’s place.
As a worker, be careful to keep pace with the communications of reality from God or you will be crushed. If you know too much, more than God has engineered for you to know, you cannot pray, the condition of the people is so crushing that you cannot get through to reality.
Our work lies in coming into definite contact with God about everything, and we shirk it by becoming active workers. We do the things that can be tabulated, but we will not intercede. Intercession is the one thing that has no snares, because it keeps our relationship with God completely open.
The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul is patched up, a soul must get through into contact with the life of God. Think of the number of souls God has brought about our path and we have dropped them! When we pray on the ground of Redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.

December 13

“I will give thee the treasures of darkness.” (Isa. 45:3.)

IN the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. “Thus,” we are told by the guide, “do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light.”
May it not be the same with us in our weaving? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot understand what we are doing. We do not see the web we are weaving. We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience. Yet if we are faithful and fail not and faint not, we shall some day know that the most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.
If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting. God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears.—J. R. Miller.

The shuttles of His purpose move
  To carry out His own design;
Seek not too soon to disapprove
  His work, nor yet assign
Dark motives, when, with silent tread,
  You view some sombre fold;
For lo, within each darker thread
  There twines a thread of gold.

  Spin cheerfully,
  Not tearfully,
He knows the way you plod;
  Spin carefully,
  Spin prayerfully,
But leave the thread with God.

—Canadian Home Journal.

13 DECEMBER (PREACHED 13 DECEMBER 1767)

Foundations under trial

‘And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.’ Isaiah 32:2
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Mark 4:35–41

If the first clause had stood alone, I might have considered it under many particulars, for, not only the first work of conviction, but many things that follow in a believer’s path may be compared to a mighty wind from which they need a strong and safe hiding place and must perish without one. But here are four different views given of this Man, and the benefits derived from him by faith, and we may therefore with more exactness refer some things to one heading and some to another. In the English this seems much the same with the former—a hiding place from the wind and a covert from the storm are not very different, but there is a difference in the Hebrew. The word signifies properly a flood and is so rendered in 28:2 and Psalm 90:5. The wind tries the strength of the building, the flood tries the foundation, and threatens to sweep all before it. Now when a soul has felt the mighty wind of the Spirit and bows in conviction, and sought and found a hiding place in Jesus, the difficulties are not all over. It is not indeed easy to persuade those who are rejoicing in their first love that they shall ever be otherwise, but experience convinces them.
Believers will know more or less of two floods which, if the Lord permits, will make them cry out for a refuge or covert: indwelling sin and temptation.
FOR MEDITATION:
When, like a baneful pestilence,
The angels’ LORD, himself is nigh,
Sin mows its thousands down
To them that love his name;
On every side, without defence,
Ready to save them when they cry,
Thy grace secures thine own.
And put their foes to shame.

Angels, unseen, attend the saints,
Crosses and changes are their lot,
And bear them in their arms;
Long as they sojourn here;
To cheer the spirit when it faints,
But since their Saviour changes not,
And guard the life from harms.
What have the saints to fear?

SERMON SERIES: ISAIAH 32:2, NO. 2 [1/3]

December 12th

Personality

That they may be one, even as we are one. John 17:22.

Personality is that peculiar, incalculable thing that is meant when we speak of ourselves as distinct from everyone else. Our personality is always too big for us to grasp. An island in the sea may be but the top of a great mountain. Personality is like an island; we know nothing about the great depths underneath, consequently we cannot estimate ourselves. We begin by thinking that we can, but we come to realize that there is only one Being Who understands us, and that is our Creator.
Personality is the characteristic of the spiritual man as individuality is the characteristic of the natural man. Our Lord can never be defined in terms of individuality and independence, but only in terms of personality, “I and my Father are one.” Personality merges, and you only reach your real identity when you are merged with another person. When love, or the Spirit of God, strikes a man, he is transformed, he no longer insists upon his separate individuality. Our Lord never spoke in terms of individuality, of a man’s ‘elbows’ or his isolated position, but in terms of personality—“that they may be one, even as we are one.” If you give up your right to yourself to God, the real true nature of your personality answers to God straight away. Jesus Christ emancipates the personality, and the individuality is transfigured; the transfiguring element is love, personal devotion to Jesus. Love is the out-pouring of one personality in fellowship with another personality.

December 12

“The last drops of my sacrifice are falling; my time to go has come. I have fought in the good fight; I have kept the faith.” (2 Tim. 4:6, 7.)

AS soldiers show their scars and talk of battles when they come at last to spend their old age in the country at home, so shall we in the dear land to which we are hastening, speak of the goodness and faithfulness of God who brought us through all the trials of the way. I would not like to stand in the white-robed host and hear it said, “These are they that came out of great tribulation, all except one.”
Would you like to be there and see yourself pointed at as the one saint who never knew a sorrow? Oh, no! for you would be an alien in the midst of the sacred brotherhood. We will be content to share the battle, for we shall soon wear the crown and wave the palm.—C. H. Spurgeon.
“Where were you wounded?” asked the surgeon of a soldier at Lookout Mountain. “Almost at the top,” he answered. He forgot even his gaping wound—he only remembered that he had won the heights. So let us go forth to higher endeavors for Christ and never rest till we can shout from the very top, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

  “Finish thy work, then rest,
     Till then rest never;
  The rest for thee by God
     Is rest forever.”

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.”
Of an old hero the minstrel sang—

  “With his Yemen sword for aid;
  Ornament it carried none,
  But the notches on the blade.”

What nobler decoration of honor can any godly man seek after than his scars of service, his losses for the crown, his reproaches for Christ’s sake, his being worn out in his Master’s service!