Milo

7 NOVEMBER

Ground for prayer

‘Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ Genesis 18:24–25
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: John 17:1–26

As to the manner of the prayer, observe the ground upon which Abraham went: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? He thought that the Righteous Judge would not destroy the righteous with the wicked. But was there not sin enough in the righteous to justify the Lord if he had suffered them to fall in the common calamity? Abraham was a believer; he did not trust in his own righteousness himself. He knew that strictly speaking there was not a righteous person upon earth. But those are righteous who are justified and accepted of God and who walk in his fear. As the threatened judgement was to manifest God’s displeasure in a remarkable way upon daring sinners, Abraham humbly hoped that the Lord would make a difference between those who feared him and those who feared him not. And the Lord allowed this plea. Had he been strict to mark what is amiss, he might have left even Lot to perish, for taking up his abode in such a place as Sodom. But he is gracious, and showed himself disposed not only to spare those who feared him, but to spare Sodom likewise for their sakes, if they were found to be so many as Abraham was willing to hope. And yet these were few. Abraham himself could not hope there were more than fifty and this number he diminished till he brought it to ten.
We may observe how truly those who fear the Lord are the salt of the earth. I think we may infer that neither London or Olney would long stand if the Lord had not a remnant in them. The world think little of this, that they are indebted for their preservation to those whom they despise.

FOR MEDITATION: They who have access to God by Jesus Christ have more power and influence than the greatest monarch upon earth. Mighty things have been done by prayer; and however little thought of by statesmen, I believe … it is the only effectual bulwark of our sinful nation.
John Newton to William Wilberforce, 2 October 1794

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 40 [2/3], GENESIS 18:32

November 6th

Programme of belief

Believest thou this? John 11:26.

Martha believed in the power at the disposal of Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been present He could have healed her brother. She also believed that Jesus had a peculiar intimacy with God and that whatever He asked of God, God would do; but she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha’s programme of belief had its fulfilment in the future; Jesus led her on until her belief became a personal possession, and then slowly emerged into a particular inheritance—“Yea, Lord, I believe that Thou art the Christ …”
Is there something like that in the Lord’s dealings with you? Is Jesus educating you into a personal intimacy with Himself? Let Him press home His question to you—“Believest thou this?” What is your ordeal of doubt? Have you come, like Martha, to some overwhelming passage in your circumstances where your programme of belief is about to emerge into a personal belief? This can never be until a personal need arises out of a personal problem.
To believe is to commit. In the programme of mental belief I commit myself, and abandon all that is not related to that commitment. In personal belief I commit myself morally to this way of confidence and refuse to compromise with any other; and in particular belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ, and determine in that thing to be dominated by the Lord alone.
When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me—“Believest thou this?” I find that faith is as natural as breathing, and I am staggered that I was so stupid as not to trust Him before.

November 6

“As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.” (Rev. 3:19.)

GOD takes the most eminent and choicest of His servants for the choicest and most eminent afflictions. They who have received most grace from God are able to bear most afflictions from God. Affliction does not hit the saint by chance, but by direction. God does not draw His bow at a venture. Every one of His arrows goes upon a special errand and touches no breast but his against whom it is sent. It is not only the grace, but the glory of a believer when we can stand and take affliction quietly.—Joseph Caryl.

If all my days were sunny, could I say,
“In His fair land He wipes all tears away”?

If I were never weary, could I keep
Close to my heart, “He gives His loved ones sleep”?

Were no graves mine, might I not come to deem
The Life Eternal but a baseless dream?

My winter, and my tears, and weariness,
Even my graves, may be His way to bless.

I call them ills; yet that can surely be
Nothing but love that shows my Lord to me!
—Selected.
“The most deeply taught Christians are generally those who have been brought into the searching fires of deep soul-anguish. If you have been praying to know more of Christ, do not be surprised if He takes you aside into a desert place, or leads you into a furnace of pain.”
Do not punish me, Lord, by taking my cross from me, but comfort me by submitting me to Thy will, and by making me to love the cross. Give me that by which Thou shalt be best served … and let me hold it for the greatest of all Thy mercies, that Thou shouldst glorify Thy name in me, according to Thy will.—A Captive’s Prayer.

6 NOVEMBER

Compassionate prayer

‘And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake.’ Genesis 18:32
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Matthew 5:43–48

When the Lord had intimated to Abraham his purpose concerning Sodom, it prompted Abraham to pray for the place. The occasion, the manner and the force of this prayer are very instructive. The occasion, or rather the motive, was compassion to sinners. No doubt Abraham thought of Lot, but he does not directly mention him. He knew Lot’s character and hoped there were more like him. But he is not content to plead for the righteous only, but rather uses them as a plea for the preservation of the whole place. Though the men of Sodom were great sinners, Abraham prayed for them; though he was safe himself, he pitied them. This is a right spirit. May the Lord cause it to abound more in his people. We are by nature even as others and the grace that has saved us is able to save the vilest. We should not look on them with indifference, or give them up absolutely as reprobates. Secret things belong to the Lord, but it is our duty to pray and hope. We cannot be too much displeased with their sins; we cannot be too compassionate to their persons.
FOR MEDITATION: [for the Fast Day, Friday 13 December 1776]
His grace despised, his power defied,
The LORD, displeased, has raised his rod;
And legions of the blackest crimes,
Ah where are now the faithful few
Profaneness, riot, lust and pride,
Who tremble for the ark of GOD,
Are signs that mark the present times.
And know what Israel ought to do?

LORD, hear thy people everywhere, Who meet to mourn, confess and pray;
The nation and thy churches spare, And let thy wrath be turned away.

O may a blessing be on this day’s work throughout the kingdom. Lord, if thou awaken thy people to pray, thou wilt surely incline thy ear to hear. And we may expect more from the prayer of faith, than from fleets and armies, and all that politicians account wisdom.
Diary, 13 December 1776

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 40 [1/3], GENESIS 18:32

November 5th

Partakers of His sufferings

Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. 1 Peter 4:13.

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all; they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across. ‘Oh, I can’t deal with that person.’ Why not? God gave you ample opportunity to soak before Him on that line, and you ‘barged off’ because it seemed stupid to spend time in that way.
The sufferings of Christ are not those of ordinary men. He suffered “according to the will of God,” not from the point of view we suffer from as individuals. It is only when we are related to Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. It is part of Christian culture to know what God’s aim is. In the history of the Christian Church the tendency has been to evade being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ; men have sought to procure the carrying out of God’s order by a short cut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering, the way of the ‘long, long trail.’
Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp our personal ambitions right out? Are we prepared for God to destroy by transfiguration our individual determinations? It will not mean that we know exactly why God is taking us that way; that would make us spiritual prigs. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through; we go through it more or less misunderstandingly; then we come to a luminous place and say—‘Why, God has girded me, though I did not know it!’