Milo

December 16

“And there was Anna, a prophetess … which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.” (Luke 2:36, 37.)

NO doubt by praying we learn to pray, and the more we Pray the oftener we can pray, and the better we can I pray. He who prays in fits and starts is never likely to attain to that effectual, fervent prayer which availeth much.
Great power in prayer is within our reach, but we must go to work to obtain it. Let us never imagine that Abraham could have interceded so successfully for Sodom if he had not been all his lifetime in the practice of communion with God.
Jacob’s all-night at Peniel was not the first occasion upon which he had met his God. We may even look upon our Lord’s most choice and wonderful prayer with his disciples before His Passion as the flower and fruit of His many nights of devotion, and of His often rising up a great while before day to pray.
If a man dreams that he can become mighty in prayer just as he pleases, he labors under a great mistake. The prayer of Elias which shut up heaven and afterwards opened its floodgates, was one of long series of mighty prevailings with God. Oh, that Christian men would remember this! Perseverance in prayer is necessary to prevalence in prayer.
Those great intercessors, who are not so often mentioned as they ought to be in connection with confessors and martyrs, were nevertheless the grandest benefactors of the Church; but it was only by abiding at the mercy-seat that they attained to be such channels of mercy to men. We must pray to pray, and continue in prayer that our prayers may continue.
—C. H. Spurgeon.

16 DECEMBER

Inimitable

‘Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.’ Isaiah 7:14
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 55:6–13

The Lord God has impressed a signature upon his works, which evidently distinguishes them from the feeble imitations of men. Not only the splendour of the sun, but the glimmering of the glow-worm proclaims his glory. The structure and growth of a blade of grass are the effects of the same power which produced the fabric of the heavens and the earth. In his Word likewise he is inimitable. He has a style and manner peculiarly his own. What he declares in Isaiah 55 is confirmed by the whole Scripture, My thoughts are not your thoughts … The superiority of his thoughts to ours causes a proportionable difference in his manner of operation. His ways are above, and often contrary to, our conceptions. He sometimes produces great effects by means which, to us, appear unsuitable and weak. Thus he gave Gideon a complete victory, not by providing him an army equal to that of the enemy, but by 300 men armed only with earthen pitchers and lamps.
We have but slight thoughts of holiness and therefore are but slightly affected by the evil of sin. But though he is rich in mercy, no wisdom but his own could have proposed an expedient by which the exercise of mercy towards sinners could be made to correspond with his justice and truth and the honour of his government. But infinite wisdom and infinite love provided a way in which mercy and truth meet together, and his inflexible righteousness is displayed in perfect harmony with the peace of those who have transgressed his holy laws, and God appears not only gracious, but just, in restoring rebels to favour. This is the greatest of all his works and exhibits the most glorious revelations of his perfections which creatures are capable of conceiving. The means are answerable to the grandeur of the design.… Behold—attend, admire and believe—a virgin shall conceive …
FOR MEDITATION:
Salvation! what a glorious plan,
Truth, Wisdom, Justice, Power and Love,
How suited to our need!
In all their glory shone;
The grace that raises fallen man,
When JESUS left the courts above,
Is wonderful indeed!
And died to save his own.

SERMON SERIES: MESSIAH, NO. 5 [1/6], ISAIAH 7:14

December 15th

Approved unto God

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Tim. 2:15.

If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle to get expression experimentally, then there will come a time when that expression will become the very wine of strengthening to someone else; but if you say lazily—‘I am not going to struggle to express this thing for myself, I will borrow what I say,’ the expression will not only be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to re-state to yourself what you implicitly feel to be God’s truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.
Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been struggling for utterance in you.

December 15

“Trust also in him.” (Psalm 37:5.)

THE word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.
Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us “trust also in him,” through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seemings, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still “trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.” The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.

“Trust and rest when all around thee
  Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
  Wait for God and trust and rest.

“Trust and rest with heart abiding,
  Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
  Fold thy wings and trust and, rest.”

15 DECEMBER (PREACHED 13 DECEMBER 1767)

A refuge from the floods of temptation

‘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: 2 Corinthians 4:1–18

Temptation may be compared to a flood—so it is expressed in Isaiah 57 and 59:19 [When the enemy shall come in like a flood …]. Indeed it is by this influence the other flood rises so high. I shall not say much of this. It is not needful to those who have felt it, and would not be well understood by those who do not. But, as by all temptations Satan’s aim is to overturn the foundation of faith, they may be compared to a flood. Now in these floods or storms Jesus is a covert or refuge.
With regard to sin: his atonement—there is forgiveness; his intercession (Luke 22:32); his power and promise (Isaiah 41:10).
So against temptation: his experimental sympathy (Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15); his gracious promise (Isaiah 43:2); his engagement to interpose, as set forth (Zechariah 3:2).
You that are setting out—be not secure, be not discouraged. You that have found him faithful—go on trusting him. You shall soon be out of reach of storms and floods. You that know him not are exposed to a flood of wrath.
FOR MEDITATION:
Unless the LORD had been my stay
Loud in my ears a charge he read,
(With trembling joy my soul may say)
(My conscience witnessed all he said)
My cruel foe had gained his end:
My long black list of outward sin;
But he appeared for my relief,
Then bringing forth my heart to view,
And Satan sees, with shame and grief,
Too well what’s hidden there he knew,
That I have an almighty Friend.
He showed me ten-times worse within.

O, ’twas a dark and trying hour,
’Tis all too true, my soul replied,
When harassed by the tempter’s power,
But I remember JESUS died,
I felt my strongest hopes decline!
And now he fills a throne of grace;
You only who have known his arts,
I’ll go, as I have done before,
You only who have felt his darts,
His mercy I may still implore,
Can pity such a case as mine.
I have his promise, ‘Seek my face.’

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