Milo

September 25th

The “go” of relationship

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Matthew 5:41.

The summing up of Our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the head of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice. No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left—‘I am here for God to send me where He will.’ Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.
The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfil the Sermon on the Mount.
If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally; as long as we have the dead-set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. “I have chosen you.” That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins. Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always.

September 25

“Why go I mourning?” (Psalm 42:9.)

CANST thou answer this, believer? Canst thou find any reason why thou art so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy anticipations? Who told thee that the night would never end in day? Who told thee that the winter of thy discontent would proceed from frost to frost, from snow and ice, and hail, to deeper snow, and yet more heavy tempest of depair? Knowest thou not that day follows night, that flood comes after ebb, that spring and summer succeed winter? Hope thou then! Hope thou ever! for God fails thee not.
—C. H. Spurgeon.

“He was better to me than all my hopes;
He was better than all my fears;
He made a bridge of my broken works,
And a rainbow of my tears.

“The billows that guarded my sea-girt path,
But carried my Lord on their crest;
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march
I can lean on His love for the rest.

“He emptied my hands of my treasured store,
And His covenant love revealed,
There was not a wound in my aching heart,
But the balm of His breath hath healed.
Oh, tender and true was the chastening sore,
In wisdom, that taught and tried,
Till the soul that He sought was trusting in Him,
And nothing on earth beside.

“He guided by paths that I could not see,
By ways that I have not known;
The crooked was straight, and the rough was plain
As I followed the Lord alone.
I praise Him still for the pleasant palms,
And the water-springs by the way,
For the glowing pillar of flame by night,
And the sheltering cloud by day.

“Never a watch on the dreariest halt,
But some promise of love endears;
I read from the past, that my future shall be
Far better than all my fears.
Like the golden pot, of the wilderness bread,
Laid up with the blossoming rod,
All safe in the ark, with the law of the Lord,
Is the covenant care of my God.”

25 SEPTEMBER (PREACHED 22 SEPTEMBER 1782)

The value of a soul

‘Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.’ Judges 5:18
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 10:1–15

Methinks I have a still more important and prevailing argument to excite your benevolence to provide Bibles for those who make jeopardy of their lives in fighting our battles, if we consider their situation as it respects themselves. They hazard their lives, they rush into danger—they fight, they die—cut off in a moment, they launch into an invisible, an unchangeable state—who can estimate the consequence? Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord [Revelation 14:13]; though they should fall by sword, pestilence or famine, they are blessed. The righteous hath hope in his death, but hope, to deserve the name, must be built by faith on the Word of God. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? Indeed they often hear of the name of Jesus, but it is only when they hear it blasphemed. If they knew the dignity of his person, the greatness of his love to sinners, the nature and design of his sufferings—if they knew the greatness of his power and the riches of his grace—surely they would blaspheme him no longer. Furnish them with the means of this knowledge. Procure them Bibles and accompany your gift with your prayers. Whenever you succeed, you will be instrumental in saving a soul from death. This is an endeavour worthy of your ambition. To save a soul from death is of more real importance than to save a kingdom, or many kingdoms, from temporal ruin. Can you estimate the value of a soul? It is beyond the reach of natural members to express. It consists chiefly in two things—an immense capacity—an endless duration. Capable of possessing the power of God, or of being filled with an exquisite sense of his wrath, and that, for ever. It is not only the bodily life, but the precious soul is exposed to jeopardy in the high places of war. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall he give in exchange for his soul?

FOR MEDITATION: ‘For every living soul belongs to me …’ (Ezekiel 18:4).
‘… and he who wins souls is wise’ (Proverbs 11:30, NIV).

SERMON: JUDGES 5:18 [4/4] [FOR THE BIBLE SOCIETY AT ALDGATE]

September 24th

The “go” of preparation

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there thou rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Matthew 5:23, 24.

It is easy to imagine that we shall get to a place where we are complete and ready, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished, it is a process steadily maintained. It is dangerous to get into a settled state of experience. It is preparation and preparation.
The sense of sacrifice appeals readily to a young Christian. Humanly speaking, the one thing that attracts to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and the scrutiny of Our Lord’s words suddenly brings this tide of enthusiasm to the test. “First be reconciled to thy brother.” The “go” of preparation is to let the word of God scrutinize. The sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit is detecting in you is the disposition that will never work in His service. No one but God can detect that disposition in you. Have you anything to hide from God? If you have, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin, confess it, not admit it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never discard a conviction. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to have brought it to your mind, it is that thing He is detecting. You were looking for a great thing to give up. God is telling you of some tiny thing; but at the back of it there lies the central citadel of obstinacy: ‘I will not give up my right to myself’—the thing God intends you to give up if ever you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

September 24

“After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.” (Acts 16:7.)

WHAT a strange prohibition! These men were going into Bithynia just to do Christ’s work, and the door is shut against them by Christ’s own Spirit. I, too, have experienced this in certain moments. I have sometimes found myself interrupted in what seemed to me a career of usefulness. Opposition came and forced me to go back, or sickness came and compelled me to retire into a desert apart.
It was hard at such times to leave my work undone when I believed that work to be the service of the Spirit. But I came to remember that the Spirit has not only a service of work, but a service of waiting. I came to see that in the Kingdom of Christ there are not only times for action, but times in which to forbear acting. I came to learn that the desert place apart is often the most useful spot in the varied life of man—more rich in harvest than the seasons in which the corn and wine abounded. I have been taught to thank the blessed Spirit that many a darling Bithynia had to be left unvisited by me.
And so, Thou Divine Spirit, would I still be led by Thee. Still there come to me disappointed prospects of usefulness. Today the door seems to open into life and work for Thee; tomorrow it closes before me just as I am about to enter.
Teach me to see another door in the very inaction of the hour. Help me to find in the very prohibition thus to serve Thee, a new opening into Thy service. Inspire me with the knowledge that a man may at times be called to do his duty by doing nothing, to work by keeping still, to serve by waiting. When I remember the power of the “still small voice,” I shall not murmur that sometimes the Spirit suffers me not to go.
—George Matheson.

“When I cannot understand my Father’s leading,
And it seems to be but hard and cruel fate,
Still I hear that gentle whisper ever pleading,
God is working, God is faithful, ONLY WAIT.”