Milo

17 NOVEMBER

Watch over one another in love

‘Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.’ Malachi 3:16
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Ephesians 4:1–16

To those who are stronger and more established: you remember the time when the conversation of the people of God was exceedingly helpful to you, and you were glad to be admitted among them. If you think you can do without it now, yet remember there are some at this time in the same state as you were then. Should not then a remembrance of your own case awaken your compassion and diligence to seek out and assist others? Again, when you used to have free communion with another, was it not good? Have you not often met a blessing and a comfort? Have not your minds been composed and refreshed and strengthened for every service you were called to? Why then is the habit discontinued? Why do any of you live alone, and to yourselves? Have you forgot that you are members one of another, and that you are not your own? Do you plead business and families? These things are to be attended to, but perhaps you had such engagements in times past and you did not neglect them, though you could find time to speak often one to another. If these are your hindrances it argues that all is not right. A ready and willing heart will find times and seasons and be content to suffer some inconveniencies for the sake of speaking often one to another. Take heed lest dryness and leanness insensibly steal upon your souls. What, shall it be said that the Lord hearkens and hears with pleasure, that he writes our conferences in his book? Has he given us so many causes to speak of his goodness and exhorted and charged us to watch over one another in love, and shall we like men in a storm shift each for ourselves, think we need no assistance from our brethren, or express no desire to be helpful to our faith? I hope this will not be the case. Away with our sinful backwardness and selfish excuses and let us join heart and hand; let us speak one to another—we have enough to talk of.

FOR MEDITATION: Let us exhort one another today, while it is called today, lest any of us be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin [Hebrews 3:13].

SERMON: MALACHI 3:16–17 [5/5]

November 16th

Still human!

Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31.

The great marvel of the Incarnation slips into ordinary childhood’s life; the great marvel of the Transfiguration vanishes in the devil-possessed valley; the glory of the Resurrection descends into a breakfast on the sea-shore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.
The tendency is to look for the marvellous in our experience; we mistake the sense of the heroic for being heroes. It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, no one paying the remotest attention to us. If we do not want medieval haloes, we want something that will make people say—‘What a wonderful man of prayer he is!’ ‘What a pious, devoted woman she is!’ If you are rightly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the sublime height where no one ever thinks of noticing you, all that is noticed is that the power of God comes through you all the time.
‘Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!’ It takes Almighty God Incarnate in us to do the meanest duty to the glory of God. It takes God’s Spirit in us to make us so absolutely humanly His that we are utterly unnoticeable. The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the aim; the aim is to manifest the glory of God in human life, to live the life hid with Christ in God in human conditions. Our human relationships are the actual conditions in which the ideal life of God is to be exhibited.

November 16

“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb … and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Rev. 12:11.)

WHEN James and John came to Christ with their mother, asking Him to give them the best place in the kingdom, He did not refuse their request, but told them it would be given to them if they could do His work, drink His cup, and be baptized with His baptism.
Do we want the competition? The greatest things are always hedged about by the hardest things, and we, too, shall find mountains and forests and chariots of iron. Hardship is the price of coronation. Triumphal arches are not woven out of rose blossoms and silken cords, but of hard blows and bloody scars. The very hardships that you are enduring in your life today are given by the Master for the explicit purpose of enabling you to win your crown.
Do not wait for some ideal situation, some romantic difficulty, some far-away emergency; but rise to meet the actual conditions which the providence of God has placed around you today. Your crown of glory lies embedded in the very heart of these things—those hardships and trials that are pressing you this very hour, week and month of your life. The hardest things are not those that the world knows of. Down in your secret soul unseen and unknown by any but Jesus, there is a little trial that you would not dare to mention, that is harder for you to bear than martyrdom.
There, beloved, lies your crown. God help you to overcome, and sometime wear it.—Selected.

“It matters not how the battle goes,
  The day how long;
Faint not! Fight on!
  Tomorrow comes the song.”

16 NOVEMBER

Advice to those weak in the faith

‘Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.’ Malachi 3:16
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:13

My chief business is at present with those who are awakened and seeking the Lord’s salvation. I would earnestly advise you to be after speaking one to another. I address myself to those who are weak in the faith. You have many complaints, fears and troubles, but is not their increase and continuance owing to your fault? If you were to mix freely with the Lord’s people you would find many helps which you now deprive yourselves of. You would find that the trials which you think peculiar to yourselves, are common to others. You would be helped by the advice and the prayers of those who know how to pity you. Many are kept by a false humility. They are deceived; there is much of self-will in it. Some are afraid of making a profession, but what a poor excuse is this—not intend, never, to make a profession! Surely you have not considered our Lord’s words in Luke 12:8 [Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God]. But perhaps you are afraid, lest after joining more publicly you should fall back and dishonour the gospel. I think a fear of bringing a reproach upon God’s ways is a good fear and a good sign—but if you are really afraid of falling back you ought rather to join with those who might be helpful to you. Do you expect to be stronger or more comfortable by yourselves?
FOR MEDITATION:
Often thy public means of grace,
But we from such assaults are freed,
Thy thirsty people’s watering place,
Can pray, and sing, and hear, and read,
The archers have beset;
And meet, and part, in peace:
Attacked them in thy house of prayer,
May we our privileges prize,
To prison dragged, or to the bar,
In their improvement make us wise,
When thus together met.
And bless us with increase.

SERMON: MALACHI 3:16–17 [4/5]

November 15th

What is that to thee?

Lord, what shall this man do?… What is that to thee? Follow thou Me. John 21:21, 22.

One of our severest lessons comes from the stubborn refusal to see that we must not interfere in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s order for others. You see a certain person suffering, and you say—‘He shall not suffer, and I will see that he does not.’ You put your hand straight in front of God’s permissive will to prevent it, and God says—“What is that to thee?” If there is stagnation spiritually, never allow it to go on, but get into God’s presence and find out the reason for it. Possibly you will find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another; proposing things you had no right to propose; advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit; your part is to be so rightly related to God that His discernment comes through you all the time for the blessing of another soul.
Most of us live on the borders of consciousness—consciously serving, consciously devoted to God. All this is immature, it is not the real life yet. The mature stage is the life of a child which is never conscious; we become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters in. When we are consciously being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, there is another stage to be reached, where all consciousness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint; a saint is consciously dependent on God.