Milo

8 NOVEMBER

Access by faith in 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: Psalm 20:1–9

We may take notice of the issue:
(i) the Lord continued to answer, so long as Abraham continued to ask. It was his own Spirit encouraged and enabled Abraham to carry his suit so far. But he found no liberty to press it farther. Abraham could not but acknowledge the justice of the sentence against Sodom, if ten righteous persons could not be found in it. It may be right in us to pray far in such cases, when we cannot be sure what the Lord’s purpose may be, but at length he will overrule and direct his people’s desires so that they shall be brought to acquiesce in his will.
(ii) the Lord withdrew and Abraham returned humbled and thankful for the honour he had received. O it is wonderful—that dust and ashes should converse with the great God. Yet such honour have all his saints. This is the honour that cometh of God only—access by faith in prayer.
Abraham could not obtain mercy for Sodom. But there is One who by his intercession can prevail to save to the uttermost [Hebrews 7:25]. May the Spirit of the Lord enable poor sinners to put their cause into the hands of Jesus, so shall they be saved in the day of anger.
FOR MEDITATION: Ask what shall I give thee
Come, my soul, thy suit prepare,
With my burden I begin,
JESUS loves to answer prayer;
LORD, remove this load of sin!
He himself has bid thee pray,
Let thy blood, for sinners spilt,
Therefore will not say thee nay.
Set my conscience free from guilt.

Thou art coming to a King,
LORD! I come to thee for rest,
Large petitions with thee bring;
Take possession of my breast;
For his grace and power are such,
There thy blood-bought right maintain,
None can ever ask too much.
And without a rival reign.

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

November 7th

The undetected sacredness of circumstances

All things work together for good to them that love God. Romans 8:28.

The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say—‘I am going to be my own providence here; I must watch this, and guard that.’ All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize the commonsense circumstances God puts you in, and the commonsense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God’s throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them: In this way God is going to sweep the whole world with His saints.
Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being indefinite, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession, and the human side is the circumstances I am in and the people I am in contact with. I have to keep my conscious life as a shrine of the Holy Ghost, then as I bring the different ones before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them.
Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, but the Holy Ghost makes intercession in our particular lives, without which intercession someone will be impoverished.

November 7

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” (Phil. 3:7.)

WHEN they buried the blind preacher, George Matheson, they lined his grave with red roses in memory of his love-life of sacrifice. And it was this man, so beautifully fully and significantly honored, who wrote,

“O Love that wilt not let me go,
  I rest my weary soul in Thee,
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
  May richer, fuller be.

“O Light that followest all my way,
  I yield my flickering torch to Thee,
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
  May brighter, fairer be.

“O Joy that seekest me through pain,
  I cannot close my heart to Thee,
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
  That morn shall tearless be.

“O Cross that liftest up my head,
  I dare not ask to fly from Thee,
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red,
  Life that shall endless be.”

There is a legend of an artist who had found the secret of a wonderful red which no other artist could imitate. The secret of his color died with him. But after his death an old wound was discovered over his heart. This revealed the source of the matchless hue in his pictures. The legend teaches that no great achievement can be made, no lofty attainment reached, nothing of much value to the world done, save at the cost of heart’s blood.

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.