Milo

22 NOVEMBER (PREACHED 1770)

True comforts have a humbling nature

‘While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud.’ Luke 9:34
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 6:1–7

By this you may try your comforts. Many sincere souls are fearful lest their spiritual comforts are not of the right kind. Such fears are often the fruit of unbelief. Yet it is a good sign to be cautious and unwilling to be deceived. There are such things as false comforts. One of the best marks of the true, is that they are of a humbling nature and tend to fill our hearts with a fear and reverence of the great God from whom they proceed. If people talk of the Lord’s presence and display a light, trifling, self-confident and careless disposition of spirit, I confess I do not understand them. The stony-ground hearers had a joy [Mark 4:5], but it was not of the right sort; it was not accompanied with gracious fruits and soon came to nothing. But if when you have most comfort, the sense of your sin is lively and your heart is led to bemoan and abase yourself before the Lord and to rejoice only in Christ, then you need not fear. What thus leads us to him undoubtedly comes from him.

FOR MEDITATION: Since there was so wonderful, so precious and expensive atonement for sin provided by God, it follows that there can be no other, no more cheap or easy way under heaven by which man may be saved: whatever schemes people may propose to themselves, it will appear at length that all who refuse to build upon the rock of salvation, Jesus Christ, are only setting up empty notions in express opposition to the work of infinite wisdom: for if any inferior satisfaction could have been sufficient, our blessed Lord would never have been manifested in so extraordinary a manner, and made a spectacle to angels and to men. Lord, impress these thoughts effectually on me.… grant me humility, charity and faith; and enable me carefully to study the pattern thou didst set me upon earth, as the only method by which I can attain the happiness thou reservest in heaven for such as shall approve themselves thy real disciples. Make me rich in good work and poor in spirit, and whatever blessings or attainments thou bestowest on me, give me grace therewith to subscribe myself less than the least of all thy mercies.
Diary, 1 February 1752

SERMON SERIES: ON THE TRANSFIGURATION, NO. 8 [5/5], LUKE 9:34

November 21st

It is finished

I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. John 17:4.

The death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very mind of God. There is no room for looking on Jesus Christ as a martyr; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented. His death was the very reason why He came.
Never build your preaching of forgiveness on the fact that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. It is untrue to Jesus Christ’s revelation of God; it makes the Cross unnecessary, and the Redemption “much ado about nothing.” If God does forgive sin, it is because of the death of Christ. God could forgive men in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted to be Saviour because of His death. “We see Jesus … because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.” The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ—“It is finished.” That is the last word in the Redemption of man.
Anything that belittles or obliterates the holiness of God by a false view of the love of God, is untrue to the revelation of God given by Jesus Christ. Never allow the thought that Jesus Christ stands with us against God out of pity and compassion; that He became a curse for us out of sympathy with us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by the Divine decree. Our portion of realizing the terrific meaning of the curse is conviction of sin, the gift of shame and penitence is given us; this is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the wrong in man, and Calvary is the estimate of His hatred.

November 21

“Roll on Jehovah thy way.” (Psalm 37:6, margin.)

WHATEVER it is that presses thee, go tell the Father; put the whole matter over into His hand, and so shalt thou be freed from that dividing, perplexing care that the world is full of. When thou art either to do or suffer anything, when thou art about any purpose or business, go tell God of it, and acquaint Him with it; yes, burden Him with it, and thou hast done for matter of caring; no more care, but quiet, sweet, diligence in thy duty, and dependence on Him for the carriage of thy matters. Roll thy cares, and thyself with them, as one burden, all on thy God.—R. Leighton.

Build a little fence of trust
Around today;
Fill the space with loving work
And therein stay.
Look not through the sheltering bars
Upon tomorrow;
God will help thee bear what comes
Of joy or sorrow.
—Mary Butts.

We shall find it impossible to commit our way unto the Lord, unless it be a way that He approves. It is only by faith that a man can commit his way unto the Lord; if there be the slightest doubt in the heart that “our way” is not a good one, faith will refuse to have anything to do with it. This committing of our way must be a continuous, not a single act. However extraordinary and unexpected may seem to be His guidance, however near the precipice He may take you, you are not to snatch the guiding reins out of His hands. Are we willing to have all our ways submitted to God, for Him to pronounce judgment on them? There is nothing a Christian needs to be more scrutinizing about than about his confirmed habits and views. He is too apt to take for granted the Divine approbation of them. Why are some Christians so anxious, so fearful? Evidently because they have not left their way with the Lord. They took it to Him, but brought it away with them again.—Selected.

21 NOVEMBER (PREACHED 1770)

Reverence and humility before God

‘While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud.’ Luke 9:34
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Job 42:1–6

The disciples feared as they entered the cloud. From hence I would take occasion to observe that the manifestations of the Lord’s presence have a tendency to humble and abase the Lord’s people, to convince them of their nothingness and unworthiness before him, and at the same time that they are comforted with a sense of his love, they are awed with the consideration of his glorious majesty. By this you may try your spirits. There is a confidence and liberty promised in the gospel—they who have access to God by Christ may come with boldness, they may draw near as children to a father, they may use a holy importunity in prayer—yet when faith is indeed in lively exercise and this liberty is most improved, there will be likewise great reverence and humiliation before God. When God dealt familiarly with Abraham and conversed with him as a friend, Abraham fell on his face before him. When the Lord appeared to vindicate Job and to comfort him after his sorrows, he abhorred himself in dust and ashes. That we can often approach the Most High God with a kind of indifference, as if it were a thing of course, is a proof rather of the hardness of our hearts, than of the strength of our faith. The angels are represented as hiding their faces before him—with what humility then should we poor, sinful dust and ashes take his holy name upon our polluted lips!

FOR MEDITATION: Give me a humbling sense of my sins, give me a humbling view of thy glory, give me a humbling taste of thy love, for surely nothing humbles like these. All my pride springs from ignorance. Grant me to know myself, to know thee, to know my relation to thee, and my dependence upon thee, my unprofitableness and insufficiency before thee; and the extent and importance of the mercies I continually receive from thee.
Miscellaneous Thoughts, 1758

SERMON SERIES: ON THE TRANSFIGURATION, NO. 8 [4/5], LUKE 9:34

November 20th

The forgiveness of God

In whom we have … the forgiveness of sins. Eph. 1:7.

Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God—God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favour is through the Cross of Christ, and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God. Never accept a view of the Fatherhood of God if it blots out the Atonement. The revelation of God is that He cannot forgive; He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God by the Atonement. God’s forgiveness is only natural in the super-natural domain.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is slight. Sanctification is simply the marvellous expression of the forgiveness of sins in a human life, but the thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin. Paul never got away from this. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.