Milo

November 28th

The bounty of the destitute

Being justified freely by His grace … Romans 3:24.

The Gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a certain pride in man that will give and give, but to come and accept is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom, I will give myself in consecration, I will do anything, but do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.
We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there Our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves; we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit. The gift of the nature of God is made effectual in us by the Holy Spirit; He imparts to us the quickening life of Jesus, which puts ‘the beyond’ within, and immediately the beyond has come within, it rises up to ‘the above,’ and we are lifted into the domain where Jesus lives. (John 3:5.)

November 28

“Thou makest the outgoing of the morning and evening to rejoice.” (Psa. 65:8.)

GET up early and go to the mountain and watch God make a morning. The dull gray will give way as God Pushes the sun towards the horizon, and there will be tints and hues of every shade, that will blend into one perfect light as the full-orbed sun bursts into view. As the King of day moves forth majestically, flooding the earth and every lowly vale, listen to the music of heaven’s choir as it sings of the majesty of God and the glory of the morning.”

In the holy hush of the early dawn
I hear a Voice—
“I am with you all the day,
Rejoice! Rejoice!”
The clear, pure light of the morning made me long for the truth in my heart, which alone could make me pure and clear as the morning, tune me up to the concert-pitch of the nature around me. And the wind that blew from the sunrise made me hope in the God who had first breathed into my nostrils the breath of life; that He would at length so fill me with His breath, His mind, His Spirit, that I should think only His thoughts, and live His life, finding therein my own life, only glorified infinitely. What should we poor humans do without our God’s nights and mornings?—George MacDonald.

“In the early morning hours,
’Twixt the night and day,
While from earth the darkness passes
Silently away;

“Then ’tis sweet to talk with Jesus
In thy chamber still—
For the coming day and duties
Ask to know His will.

“Then He’ll lead the way before you,
Mountains laying low;
Making desert places blossom,
Sweet’ning Marah’s flow.

“Would you know this life of triumph,
Victory all the way?
Then put God in the beginning
Of each coming day.”

28 NOVEMBER (PREACHED CHRISTMAS MORNING 1769)

Precious is the death of his saints

‘And Jacob called unto his sons and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.’ Genesis 49:1
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Genesis 48:1–49:2

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints; the season and every circumstance is under the appointment of his wisdom and love. Our times are in his hands and to him we may cheerfully refer them. Some have an early dismission and perhaps are suddenly called away. These escape many a trouble and pain, and when the state is safe, and we are firmly assured of his interest in the covenant, we might be ready to say, if we think only of ourselves, ‘May this be my lot’. But they likewise are highly honoured, who, after having borne testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of God in the sense of a long life, are enabled to administer to the edification and comfort of others in their dying moments. The sun in his noonday height does not behold a more glorious spectacle than that of an aged believer, strengthened in the close of life to declare his own full assurance of faith, and, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, advising and blessing his family and surrounding friends, and commending them with his latest breath to the care and keeping of his God and their God—which was good old Jacob’s deathbed scene. In the presence of his children and dependants he expressed the confidence with which he waited for the Lord’s salvation. And being endued not only with the Spirit of grace but of prophecy, he delivered in a few comprehensive words the future history of the twelve tribes.

FOR MEDITATION: Mr Webb is gone—fully ripe I doubt not, like a shock of corn in due season. I knew him chiefly as a Christian; as such I thought him eminent, solid, humble, spiritual, peaceful in himself, and of course a friend of peace. Grace reigned in his heart, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth spoke. In his last illness he did not speak of any remarkable consolations, but expressed an edifying, encouraging example of a calm, unshaken confidence in Jesus Christ crucified, as the alone and sufficient ground of his hope. I have lost for a season a valuable friend, but I hope by and by to see him again. Blessed are the dead who die thus in the Lord, they rest from their labours and conflicts, and are now before the throne.324

SERMON: GENESIS 49:10–12 [1/3] [ALSO PREACHED CHRISTMAS 1780]

November 27th

The consecration of spiritual energy

by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Gal. 6:14.

If I brood on the Cross of Christ, I do not become a subjective pietist, interested in my own whiteness; I become dominantly concentrated on Jesus Christ’s interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor an ascetic, He did not cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. He was so much in the ordinary world that the religious people of His day called Him a glutton and a wine-bibber. Our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual energy.
The counterfeit of consecration is the conscious cutting off of things with the idea of storing spiritual power for use later on, but that is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has spoiled the sin of a great many, yet there is no emancipation, no fullness in their lives. The kind of religious life we see abroad to-day is entirely different from the robust holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” We are to be in the world but not of it; to be disconnected fundamentally, not externally.
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual energy. Consecration is our part, sanctification is God’s part; and we have deliberately to determine to be interested in that only in which God is interested. The way to solve perplexing problems is to ask—‘Is this the kind of thing which Jesus Christ is interested in, or the kind of thing the spirit that is the antipodes of Jesus is interested in?’

November 27

“For with God nothing shall be impossible.” (Luke 1:37.)

FAR up in the Alpine hollows, year by year God works one of His marvels. The snow-patches lie there, frozen with ice at their edge from the strife of sunny days and frosty nights; and through that ice-crust come, unscathed, flowers that bloom.
Back in the days of the by-gone summer, the little soldanelle plant spread its leaves wide and flat on the ground, to drink in the sun-rays, and it kept them stored in the root through the winter. Then spring came, and stirred the pulses even below the snow-shroud, and as it sprouted, warmth was given out in such strange measure that it thawed a little dome in the snow above its head.
Higher and higher it grew and always above it rose the bell of air, till the flower-bud formed safely within it: and at last the icy covering of the air-bell gave way and let the blossom through into the sunshine, the crystalline texture of its mauve petals sparkling like snow itself as if it bore the traces of the flight through which it had come.
And the fragile thing rings an echo in our hearts that none of the jewel-like flowers nestled in the warm turf on the slopes below could waken. We love to see the impossible done. And so does God.
Face it out to the end, cast away every shadow of hope on the human side as an absolute hindrance to the Divine, heap up all the difficulties together recklessly, and pile as many more on as you can find; you cannot get beyond the blessed climax of impossibility. Let faith swing out to Him. He is the God of the impossible.—Selected.