Milo

29 SEPTEMBER (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S MORNING, 1770)

An unnatural death

‘I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.’ 1 Corinthians 15:31
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 31:1–24

To die daily: that is, to resign ourselves daily to God in a believing consideration of his adorable attributes such as:
(i) his sovereignty. This sweetly allays all difficulties, fears and objections. So David, My times are in thy hand. Thou art my God, therefore into thy hands I commend my spirit [Psalm 31 verses 15 and 5. As a dying person commits his dearest concerns, the care of an only child perhaps, to his best friend, so to die daily is to commit our soul to God as our rightful, sovereign disperser, and to leave all future events to him.
(ii) his power. I am speaking of an act of faith. It is easy to acknowledge the power of God in words, but O to say upon good grounds, ‘I am persuaded he is able to keep’ [2 Timothy 1:12]. This gives an habitual readiness to depart.
(iii) his faithfulness, with an especial view to his promises—to venture our all upon his word. For his sovereignty is to his people a sovereignty of grace. He has told them it shall be well with them in time and to eternity.
You see these things are not in the natural power of man. If you would die daily you must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and some degree of good hope that your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.

FOR MEDITATION: Lord grant that the uncertain remnant of my days may be devoted to thee, and that the prayer which thou hast permitted me to offer for many years, that my close of life may be without any stain unsuitable to my character as a Christian and a minister, may be answered! Preserve me from pride, envy, jealousy, impatience, and every wrong and hurtful temper. Let me retire as a thankful guest from a full table and rejoice that others are coming forward to serve thee (I hope better) when I can do no more. For the rest, I leave all to thee. Into thy hands I commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth! Thou hast done and wilt do all things well!
Diary, 21 March 1804 (aged 78)

SERMON: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:31 [4/6]

September 28th

The “go” of unconditional identification

One thing thou lackest.… come, take up the cross, and follow Me. Mark 10:21.

The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself—a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute “go” of abandonment to Jesus.
“Then Jesus beholding him loved him.” The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are ‘soft’ with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
“One thing thou lackest …” The only ‘good thing’ from Jesus Christ’s point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.
“Sell whatsoever thou hast …” I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save my soul, (only one thing saves a man—absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) but in order to follow Jesus. “Come, and follow Me.” And the road is the way He went.

September 28

“In me … peace.” (John 16:33.)

THERE is a vast difference between happiness and blessedness. Paul had imprisonments and pains, sacrifice and suffering up to the very limit; but in the midst of it all, he was blessed. All the beatitudes came into his heart and life in the midst of those very conditions.
Paganini, the great violinist, came out before his audience one day and made the discovery just as they ended their applause that there was something wrong with his violin. He looked at it a second and then saw that it was not his famous and valuable one.
He felt paralyzed for a moment, then turned to his audience and told them there had been some mistake and he did not have his own violin. He stepped back behind the curtain thinking that it was still where he had left it, but discovered that some one had stolen his and left that old second-hand one in its place. He remained back of the curtain a moment, then came out before his audience and said:
“Ladies and Gentlemen: I will show you that the music is not in the instrument, but in the soul.” And he played as he had never played before; and out of that second-hand instrument, the music poured forth until the audience was enraptured with enthusiasm and the applause almost lifted the ceiling of the building, because the man had revealed to them that music was not in the machine but in his own soul.
It is your mission, tested and tried one, to walk out on the stage of this world and reveal to all earth and Heaven that the music is not in conditions, not in the things, not in externals, but the music of life is in your own soul.

If peace be in the heart,

The wildest winter storm is full of solemn beauty,
The midnight flash but shows the path of duty,
Each living creature tells some new and joyous story,
The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory,
If peace be in the heart.
—Charles Francis Richardson.

28 SEPTEMBER (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S MORNING, 1770)

Non-accidental death

‘I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.’ 1 Corinthians 15:31
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Acts 20:17–24; 21:7–14

We have but very faint apprehensions of that unseen world which lies beyond the moment of death. We know we must then be separated from all we have seen or known here below, and enter upon an unchangeable state. And we cannot tell how soon the summons may reach. Perhaps the disease that is to remove us may be just at the door—or we may be snatched away without notice by some of those innumerable events which the world, who know not God, call accidents—but though they are accidental to us, with respect to any power we have to foresee or prevent them, they are, in the disposal of God, as fixed and determinate as the rising or the setting of the sun. What then is our wisdom in this situation, while surrounded with so much darkness on every side? Happy they who are enabled to die daily.

John Newton to John Ryland, 26 March 1791, after Mrs Newton’s death:
I hope from henceforth I shall be a pilgrim and a stranger upon earth. The world is too poor to repair my loss. It is a wound which can only be effectually healed by him that made it. And faithful indeed are the wounds of such friend! But what is the death of a fellow worm, however beloved, to the death of Jesus! This is the thought which ought to wean us from the world and to crucify us unto it, and, indeed, which alone is sufficient for the purpose! May we die daily. May we live for ever. Amen.

FOR MEDITATION: Her [Polly’s] patience was wonderful. No complaining or impatient word was heard from her lips. She still found something to be thankful for; that she was preserved from extreme pain, that she could used her hands, though she could not move her body. Her natural spirits were good and cheerful to the last.… Excuse me, I could still run on upon a subject so near my heart. Her sufferings are now over; her tears, I trust, wiped away, and she shall weep no more. She is gone a little before I am following her. Blessed be God, I am satisfied.… if I may but live to him and be enabled to make full proof of my ministry, till his appointed time shall come.
John Newton to William Wilberforce, 24 December 1790

SERMON: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:31 [3/6]

September 27th

The “go” of renunciation

Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. Luke 9:57.

Our Lord’s attitude to this man is one of severe discouragement because He knew what was in man. We would have said—‘Fancy losing the opportunity of winning that man!’ ‘Fancy bringing about a north wind that froze him and turned him away discouraged!’ Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to hurt or offend. Jesus Christ has no tenderness whatever toward anything that is ultimately going to ruin a man in the service of God. Our Lord’s answers are based not on caprice, but on a knowledge of what is in man. If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you may be sure that there is something He wants to hurt to death.
v. 58. These words knock the heart out of serving Jesus Christ because it is pleasing to me. The rigour of rejection leaves nothing but my Lord, and myself, and a forlorn hope. ‘Let the hundredfold come or go, your lodestar must be your relationship to Me, and I have nowhere to lay My head.’
v. 59. This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor to hurt his father. We put sensitive loyalty to relatives in place of loyalty to Jesus Christ and Jesus has to take the last place. In a conflict of loyalty, obey Jesus Christ at all costs.
v. 61. The one who says—‘Yes, Lord, but …’ is the one who is fiercely ready, but never goes. This man had one or two reservations. The exacting call of Jesus Christ has no margin of good-byes, because good-bye, as it is often used, is pagan, not Christian. When once the call of God comes, begin to go and never stop going.