Milo

November 15

“Pressed out of measure.” (2 Cor. 1:8.)
“That the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Cor. 12:9.)

GOD allowed the crisis to close around Jacob on the night when he bowed at Peniel in supplication, to bring him to the place where he could take hold of God as he never would have done; and from that narrow pass of peril, Jacob became enlarged in his faith and knowledge of God, and in the power of a new and victorious life.
God had to compel David, by a long and painful discipline of years, to learn the almighty power and faithfulness of his God, and grow up into the established principles of faith and godliness, which were indispensable for his glorious career as the king of Israel.
Nothing but the extremities in which Paul was constantly placed could ever have taught him, and taught the Church through him, the full meaning of the great promise he so learned to claim, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”
And nothing but our trials and perils would ever have led some of us to know Him as we do, to trust Him as we have, and to draw from Him the measures of grace which our very extremities made indispensable.
Difficulties and obstacles are God’s challenges to faith. When hindrances confront us in the path of duty, we are to recognize them as vessels for faith to fill with the fullness and all-sufficiency of Jesus; and as we go forward, simply and fully trusting Him, we may be tested, we may have to wait and let patience have her perfect work; but we shall surely find at last the stone rolled away, and the Lord waiting to render unto us double for our time of testing.—A. B. Simpson.

15 NOVEMBER

The Lord hears

‘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. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.’ Malachi 3:16–17
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 65:17–25

Methinks the principal motive I can urge for speaking often to one another should be that in my text: the Lord’s gracious and condescending acceptance. He—he!—hearkened and heard. It is mentioned as giving him pleasure. Though encompassed with the songs of angels he does not disdain our poor remembrance of him. A book was written. This is spoken after the manner of men, who write what they would not have forgot. We forget what passes upon these occasions, but he will not. He acknowledges it as a mark of his children: they shall be mine, says the LORD. Surely if this will not stir us up, nothing will. The Lord hears our discourses and sees all intimacies. Let them trouble that spend their time in vain company and vain conversation. He has a book for you too, and it will be opened against you in the great day. Now you laugh and play, but then you shall mourn and weep. If you do not fear the Lord now, you will fear him then. Though you think not of his name at present, you will think of him when he calls you to give an account of every idle word.
FOR MEDITATION:
When sinners utter boasting words,
For they, by faith, a day descry,
And glory in their shame;
And joyfully expect,
The LORD, well-pleased, an ear affords
When he, descending from the sky,
To those who fear his name.
His jewels will collect.

They often meet to seek his face,
Assembled worlds will then discern
And what they do, or say,
The saints alone are blest;
Is noted in his book of grace
When wrath shall like an oven burn,
Against another day.
And vengeance strike the rest.

SERMON: MALACHI 3:16–17 [3/5]

November 14th

Discovering divine designs

I being in the way, the Lord led me.… Genesis 24:27.

We have to be so one with God that we do not continually need to ask for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God, and the natural life of a child is obedience—until he wishes to be disobedient, then instantly there is the intuitive jar. In the spiritual domain the intuitive jar is the monition of the Spirit of God. When He gives the check, we have to stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind in order to make out what God’s will is. If we are born again of the Spirit of God, it is the abortion of piety to ask God to guide us here and there. “The Lord led me,” and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design, which, if we are born of God, we will credit to God.
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God’s appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs anywhere. Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions instead of being devoted to God. ‘I shall never do that’—in all probability you will have to, if you are a saint. There never was a more inconsistent Being on this earth than Our Lord, but He was never inconsistent to His Father. The one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life. It is the Divine life which continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God.

November 14

“Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it remains a single grain, but if it dies away in the ground, the grain is freed to spring up in a plant bearing many grains.” (John 12:24.)

GO to the old burying ground of Northampton, Mass., and look upon the early grave of David Brainerd, beside that of the fair Jerusha Edwards, whom he loved but did not live to wed.
What hopes, what expectations for Christ’s cause went down to the grave with the wasted form of that young missionary of whose work nothing now remained but the dear memory, and a few score of swarthy Indian converts! But that majestic old Puritan saint, Jonathan Edwards, who had hoped to call him his son, gathered up the memorials of his life in a little book, and the little book took wings and flew beyond the sea, and alighted on the table of a Cambridge student, Henry Martyn.
Poor Martyn! Why should he throw himself away, with all his scholarship, his genius, his opportunities! What had he accomplished when he turned homeward from “India’s coral strand,” broken in health, and dragged himself northward as far as that dreary khan at Tocat by the Black Sea, where he crouched under the piled-up saddles, to cool his burning fever against the earth, and there died alone?
To what purpose was this waste? Out of that early grave of Brainerd, and the lonely grave of Martyn far away by the splashing of the Euxine Sea, has sprung the noble army of modern missionaries.—Leonard Woolsey Bacon.

“Is there some desert, or some boundless sea,
Where Thou, great God of angels, wilt send me?
Some oak for me to rend,
Some sod for me to break,
Some handful of Thy corn to take
And scatter far afield,
Till it in turn shall yield
Its hundredfold
Of grains of gold
To feed the happy children of my God?

“Show me the desert, Father, or the sea;
Is it Thine enterprise? Great God, send me!
And though this body lies where ocean rolls,
Father, count me among all faithful souls.”

14 NOVEMBER

Speak often one to another

‘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: Hebrews 10:19–39

When those who are drawn by the Lord are brought to fear him, the world (who are stout against the Lord) will be stout against them. What then shall they do? Why, they are constrained to cry to the Lord in secret and they are glad, as opportunity offers, to speak often one to another. If your lot was settled in some distant part of the kingdom, and you were to meet one of your own townsfolk or old schoolfellows, you would be glad to speak to them upon that single account. If you were in some more distant country whereby you could not understand the language of the people, a man’s having been born in England would recommend him to your regard. Thus it is with the Lord’s people, they are strangers in a strange land—they talk a language which none can understand but themselves—and therefore when sin and Satan do not prevent, they are glad to run together and to speak often. This is their privilege. It happens sometimes that an awakened soul lives alone for a season before he has freedom or opportunity to make himself known to others. And this is usually a great hindrance. While they carry their sorrows within them they are burdened. Satan has advantage of them, perplexes them with fears and doubts and troubles—he knows that if they could freely communicate their case to those who have been in the same way, they would probably receive assistance, and therefore he labours all he can to stop their mouths. O rejoiced have some of you been, when you have been enabled to break through these snares, and the Lord has brought you to have sweet and free communion with his children. You have found that as iron sharpeneth iron, so you have been stirred up by friendly converse.

FOR MEDITATION: Bless God then for the privilege and be careful to improve it. Consider it is not only your pleasure, but your duty. It is amongst the means which he has appointed to bless for your comfort and usefulness (1 Thessalonians 5:14). It has been the practice of the saints in all ages (Psalm 66:16; Luke 24:34–35). Gratitude demands it (Psalm 28:7).

SERMON: MALACHI 3:16–17 [2/5]