Milo

8 OCTOBER

The Lord takes notice

‘And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.’ Genesis 18:20–21
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Numbers 12:1–15

The Lord takes notice of these things. He comes down to see. He has a book of remembrance for his people—so likewise for sinners. There is an awful account kept against them. And he makes his coming down known: to some in a way of providence, visiting them with such rebukes as they may read their sin in their punishment; to some by the power of his convincing Spirit, impressing them with fears which they cannot always shake off, which seize them not only under hearing, but perhaps in the midst of their frantic mirth, or however, find them out when they are by themselves and make them feel that he is angry with them. But let it be remembered that the Lord once came down upon the account of sin, not to destroy, but to save. Let us not speak wholly of the cry of sin, but attend likewise to the cry of the Saviour’s blood. We are not yet in the case of Sodom—there is a respite, there is forgiveness. Sin has abounded, but grace much more abounds [Romans 5:20]. A free salvation is published. Believe—and though your sins have been as scarlet they shall be white as snow [Isaiah 1:18].

FOR MEDITATION: Some of you are like Abraham. The Lord reveals to you how he will deal with impenitent sinners, but you have fled to Jesus and are accepted. It is your part to intercede like Abraham for others—to mourn for sin and to stand in the breach while there is yet hope.
To others like Lot, the Lord has sent a gracious warning. O be thankful, and make good use of the mercy; flee to the hope set before you; have no more fellowship with the wicked—whether they will hear or forbear, do you be mindful of yourselves. And then fear not—he has not called you to disappoint the hopes he has raised in you.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 39 [3/3], GENESIS 18:20–21

October 7th

Reconciliation

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Cor. 5:21.

Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God. The Christian religion bases everything on the positive, radical nature of sin. Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ faced in men was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the Gospel that the message of the Gospel has lost its sting and its blasting power.
The revelation of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took upon Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took upon Himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch. God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint. All through the Bible it is revealed that Our Lord bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He deliberately took upon His own shoulders, and bore in His own Person, the whole massed sin of the human race—“He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,” and by so doing He put the whole human race on the basis of Redemption. Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race; He put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what Our Lord has done on the Cross.
A man cannot redeem himself; Redemption is God’s ‘bit,’ it is absolutely finished and complete; its reference to individual men is a question of their individual action. A distinction must always be made between the revelation of Redemption and the conscious experience of salvation in a man’s life.

October 7

“Who is among you that feareth Jehovah, that obeyeth the voice of his servant? He that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the name of Jehovah and rely upon his God.” (Isa. 50:10, R. V.)

WHAT shall the believer do in times of darkness—the darkness of perplexity and confusion, not of heart but of mind? Times of darkness come to the faithful and believing disciple who is walking obediently in the will of God; seasons when he does not know what to do, nor which way to turn. The sky is overcast with clouds. The clear light of Heaven does not shine upon his pathway. One feels as if he were groping his way in darkness.
Beloved, is this you? What shall the believer do in times of darkness? Listen! “Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and rely upon his God.”
The first thing to do is do nothing. This is hard for poor human nature to do. In the West there is a saying that runs thus, “When you’re rattled, don’t rush”; in other words, “When you don’t know what to do, don’t do it.”
When you run into a spiritual fog bank, don’t tear ahead; slow down the machinery of your life. If necessary, anchor your bark or let it swing at its moorings. We are to simply trust God. While we trust, God can work. Worry prevents Him from doing anything for us. If our minds are distracted and our hearts distressed; if the darkness that overshadows us strikes terror to us; if we run hither and yon in a vain effort to find some way of escape out of a dark place of trial, where Divine providence has put us, the Lord can do nothing for us.
The peace of God must quiet our minds and rest our hearts. We must put our hand in the hand of God like a little child, and let Him lead us out into the bright sunshine of His love.
He knows the way out of the woods. Let us climb up into His arms, and trust Him to take us out by the shortest and surest road.—Dr. Pardington.
Remember we are never without a pilot when we know not how to steer.

“Hold on, my heart, in thy believing—
The steadfast only wins the crown;
He who, when stormy winds are heaving,
Parts with its anchor, shall go down;
But he who Jesus holds through all,
Shall stand, though Heaven and earth should fall.

“Hold out! There comes an end to sorrow;
Hope from the dust shall conquering rise;
The storm foretells a summer’s morrow;
The Cross points on to Paradise;
The Father reigneth! cease all doubt;
Hold on, my heart, hold on, hold out.”

Lettie B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert (Los Angeles, CA: The Oriental Missionary Society, 1925), 291–292.

7 OCTOBER

Learning from very grievous sin

‘And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.’ Genesis 18:20–21
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 1:18–32

The cry of some sinners and in some places is louder than others. The cry and sin of Sodom was great and grievous. Let us see what might concur to increase the cry, that we may learn what are those circumstances and aggravations which make sin particularly provoking to the Lord and expose the sinner to sudden and exemplary vengeance. Observe their height of sinning. A particular instance of wickedness (not to be named without horror) is remarked in the course of their history, as likewise afterwards was found among the Benjamites in Gibeah (Judges 19). But this proves a course of abandoned sinning in other respects. When sinners do not like to retain God in their knowledge, he sometimes righteously gives them up to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient[appropriate] and many who have cast off his fear have sunk far below the level of the beasts that perish. It is to be feared, or rather there is too much ground to speak positively, that there was no abomination practised in Sodom which is not committed in our Christian country. The heart of man under the power of Satan is capable of abominations which cannot with propriety be insisted on in a public discourse, and which charity would hope may be safely omitted here. The great God, to whom the night shineth as the day, knoweth all things, and there is an hour cometh when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. O the blasphemy, the drunkenness, the whoredom, the adultery, under which our land groans.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God’ (1 Corinthians 6:9–11, NIV).

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 39 [2/3], GENESIS 18:20–21

October 6th

The bent of regeneration

When it pleased God, … to reveal His son in me. Gal. 1:15, 16.

If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against? I have a heredity I had no say in; I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must be holy, His teaching plants despair. But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator, One Who can put into me His own heredity of holiness, then I begin to see what He is driving at when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the hereditary disposition that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives are based on that disposition: His teaching is for the life He puts in. The moral transaction on my part is agreement with God’s verdict on sin in the Cross of Jesus Christ.
The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a man is struck by a sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God—“until Christ be formed in you.” The moral miracle of Redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life. When I reach the frontier of need and know my limitations, Jesus says—‘Blessed are you.’ But I have to get there. God cannot put into me, a responsible moral being, the disposition that was in Jesus Christ unless I am conscious I need it.
Just as the disposition of sin entered into the human race by one man, so the Holy Spirit entered the human race by another Man; and Redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin and through Jesus Christ can receive an unsullied heredity, viz., the Holy Spirit.