Milo

October 16

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” (Heb. 12:1.)

THERE are weights which are not sins in themselves, but which become distractions and stumbling blocks in our Christian progress. One of the worst of these is despondency. The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.
The failure of Israel to enter the land of promise began in murmuring, or, as the text in Numbers literally puts it, “as it were murmured.” Just a faint desire to complain and be discontented. This led on until it blossomed and ripened into rebellion and ruin. Let us give ourselves no liberty ever to doubt God or His love and faithfulness to us in everything and forever.

We can set our will against doubt just as we do against any other sin; and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt, the Holy Spirit will come to our aid and give us the faith of God and crown us with victory.

It is very easy to fall into the habit of doubting, fretting, and wondering if God has forsaken us and if after all our hopes are to end in failure. Let us refuse to be discouraged. Let us refuse to be unhappy. Let us “count it all joy” when we cannot feel one emotion of happiness. Let us rejoice by faith, by resolution, by reckoning, and we shall surely find that God will make the reckoning real.—Selected.

The devil has two master tricks. One is to get us discouraged; then for a time at least we can be of no service to others, and so are defeated. The other is to make us doubt, thus breaking the faith link by which we are bound to our Father. Look out! Do not be tricked either way.—G. E. M.

Gladness! I like to cultivate the spirit of gladness! It puts the soul so in tune again, and keeps it in tune, so that Satan is shy of touching it—the chords of the soul become too warm, or too full of heavenly electricity, for his infernal fingers, and he goes off somewhere else! Satan is always very shy of meddling with me when my heart is full of gladness and joy in the Holy Ghost.

My plan is to shun the spirit of sadness as I would Satan; but, alas! I am not always successful. Like the devil himself it meets me on the highway of usefulness, looks me so fully in my face, till my poor soul changes color!

Sadness discolors everything; it leaves all objects charmless; it involves future prospects in darkness; it deprives the soul of all its aspirations, enchains all its powers, and produces a mental paralysis!

An old believer remarked, that cheerfulness in religion makes all its services come off with delight; and that we are never carried forward so swiftly in the ways of duty as when borne on the wings of delight; adding, that Melancholy clips such wings; or, to alter the figure, takes off our chariot wheels in duty, and makes them, like those of the Egyptians, drag heavily.

16 OCTOBER (PREACHED 1770)

A taste for heavenly things

‘And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said.’ Luke 9:33
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Mark 9:2–13

Peter’s desire was from a good principle. Grace had changed his heart and given him a taste for heavenly things. He loved his Saviour, and when he saw him transfigured and had a specimen of the glory of heaven in the appearance of Moses and Elijah, he would willingly have bid the world adieu. He wanted to build tabernacles. His motive was right, but his proposal was wrong, and proceeded from ignorance and fear—not knowing what he said, for he was afraid, as is added by Mark [9:6].
His proposal was inconsistent with the design of Christ’s coming. He had been offended at the mention of his cross before (Matthew 16:22). Now he seems quite to forget it. But Peter’s soul and all his hopes depended upon his Master’s not staying there, but returning to his state of humiliation. This is the appointed, both for Head and members, to enter into glory through sufferings. He knew but little of the state of glorified spirits when he thought of tabernacles for Moses and Elijah. It is so with us. We are apt to form low and earthly notions of heavenly things—indeed we can form no others, having no ideas but what we have received by our senses. When we strive to go beyond this, we are soon lost. Peter was ignorant of the design of his own calling. He was not to live upon the mount but to be a fisher of men, to do and to suffer for Christ and to glorify God in the world.

FOR MEDITATION: There is no school like the school of the cross. There men are made wise unto salvation, wise to win souls. In a crucified Saviour are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And the tongue of the truly learned, that can speak a word in season to them that are weary, is not acquired like Greek and Latin by reading great books—but by self-knowledge and soul exercises. To learn navigation by the fireside will never make a man an expert mariner. He must do his business in great waters. And practice will bring him into many situations of which general theory could give him no conception.
John Newton to John Ryland jnr, 26 March 1791

SERMON SERIES: ON THE TRANSFIGURATION, NO. 7 [1/5], LUKE 9:33

October 15th

The key to the missionary message

And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:2.

The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ’s work—the healing phase, the saving and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limitless about those. “The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”—that is limitless. The missionary message is the limitless significance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is one who is soaked in that revelation.
The key to the missionary message is the remissionary aspect of Christ’s life, not His kindness and His goodness, and His revealing of the Fatherhood of God; the great limitless significance is that He is the propitiation for our sins. The missionary message is not patriotic, it is irrespective of nations and of individuals, it is for the whole world. When the Holy Ghost comes in He does not consider my predilections, He brings me into union with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is one who is wedded to the charter of his Lord and Master; he has not to proclaim his own point of view, but to proclaim the Lamb of God. It is easier to belong to a coterie which tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, easier to become a devotee to Divine healing, or to a special type of sanctification, or to the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Paul did not say—‘Woe is unto me, if I do not preach what Christ has done for me,’ but—“Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” This is the Gospel—“The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”

October 15

“By reason of breakings they purify themselves.”
(Job 41:25.)

GOD uses most for His glory those people and things which are most perfectly broken. The sacrifices He accepts are broken and contrite hearts. It was the breaking down of Jacob’s natural strength at Peniel that got him where God could clothe him with spiritual power. It was breaking the surface of the rock at Horeb, by the stroke of Moses’ rod, that let out the cool waters to thirsty people.
It was when the 300 elect soldiers under Gideon broke their pitchers, a type of breaking themselves, that the hidden lights shone forth to the consternation of their adversaries. It was when the poor widow broke the seal of the little pot of oil, and poured it forth, that God multiplied it to pay her debts and supply means of support.
It was when Esther risked her life and broke through the rigid etiquette of a heathen court, that she obtained favor to rescue her people from death. It was when Jesus took the five loaves and broke them, that the bread was multiplied in the very act of breaking, sufficient to feed five thousand. It was when Mary broke her beautiful alabaster box, rendering it henceforth useless, that the pent-up perfume filled the house. It was when Jesus allowed His precious body to be broken to pieces by thorns and nails and spear, that His inner life was poured out, like a crystal ocean, for thirsty sinners to drink and live.
It is when a beautiful grain of corn is broken up in the earth by DEATH, that its inner heart sprouts forth and bears hundreds of other grains. And thus, on and on, through all history, and all biography, and all vegetation, and all spiritual life, God must have BROKEN THINGS.
Those who are broken in wealth, and broken in self-will, and broken in their ambitions, and broken in their beautiful ideals, and broken in worldly reputation, and broken in their affections, and broken ofttimes in health; those who are despised and seem utterly forlorn and helpless, the Holy Ghost is seizing upon, and using for God’s glory. “The lame take the prey,” Isaiah tells us.

O break my heart; but break it as a field
Is by the plough up-broken for the corn;
O break it as the buds, by green leaf sealed,
Are, to unloose the golden blossom, torn;
Love would I offer unto Love’s great Master,
Set free the odor, break the alabaster.

O break my heart; break it victorious God,
That life’s eternal well may flash abroad;
O let it break as when the captive trees,
Breaking cold bonds, regain their liberties;
And as thought’s sacred grove to life is springing,
Be joys, like birds, their hope, Thy victory singing.
—Thomas Toke Bunch.

15 OCTOBER

Don’t provoke your children

‘And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.’ Ephesians 6:4
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 2 Corinthians 1:23–3:6

Provoke them not to wrath, lest they be discouraged. God has given you a great power over them. I have said do not be remiss in using it, but you must likewise beware of the other extreme. Let your children be guards upon your own conduct. Avoid all passionate [volatile] behaviour and harsh language—all severity. And if correction is necessary, let it be accompanied with reasonings, persuasions and endeavour to show them that it is not to gratify your own passions, but from a regard to their welfare. Consider they are but children, therefore especially while they are unawakened, lay not too much upon them. Some good people have wearied their children by expecting conduct from them as if they were experienced Christians, and have thereby given them a disgust and distaste for religion, and made them look upon it as a burden. If you can keep them from sinful ways, and in attendance upon the means of grace, you have reason to be thankful. For the rest—a little advice now and then, always in a spirit of love and not too much at a time, is the best course. They must, they will, have something to engage their thoughts till the Lord shall be pleased to open the eyes of their minds. In a word, parents … I must say of your duty as of my own, Who is sufficient for these things? [2 Corinthians 2:16].

FOR MEDITATION: The other day I was at Deptford and saw a ship launched … my thoughts turned from the ship to my child. It seemed an emblem of your present state: you are now, as it were, in a safe harbour; but by and by you must launch out into the world, which may well be compared to a tempestuous sea. I could even now almost weep at the resemblance; but I take courage; my hopes are greater than my fears. I know there is an infallible Pilot, who has the winds and the waves at his command. Under his care I know you will be safe; he can guide you, unhurt, amidst the storms, and rocks, and dangers, by which you might otherwise suffer, and bring you, at last, to the haven of eternal rest. I hope you will seek him while you are young, and I am sure he will be the friend of them that seek him sincerely.
John Newton to his niece [adopted daughter], 15 October 1782

SERMON SERIES: RELATIVE DUTIES, NO. 4 [4/4], EPHESIANS 6:4