Milo

20 SEPTEMBER (PREACHED OLNEY FAIR DAY)

The book of life

‘And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.’ Revelation 20:11–12
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Matthew 25:31–46

How dreadful when they shall be found sinners against the law, and judgement given against them according to these books. What is the sentence? Read Matthew 25. But will this be the end of all mankind, seeing all have sinned against God? This is what we have all deserved, but we are told of another book: the book of life. What is this, but the revelation of God’s love and mercy by Jesus Christ and his purpose to pardon and accept and bless all who are found believers in his name.
Be not afraid, you that have fled to Jesus for refuge. He, your Saviour, will be your Judge—and he himself will with strict justice overrule every charge against you. It will then appear, and you will not be backward to own it, that you have been great sinners, great debtors, but Jesus will put in a plea in arrest of judgement, and say, Deliver them from going down to the pit, I have found ransom [Job 33:24]. The more you think of the terrors of that, you will see the more cause to bless and praise him.

FOR MEDITATION:
But the book of life I see,
May my name be written there!
Then from guilt and danger free,
Glad I’ll meet him in the air:
That’s the book I hope to plead,
’Tis the gospel opened wide;
Lord, I am a wretch indeed!
I have sinned, but thou hast died.

SERMON: REVELATION 20:11–12 [5/6] [EASTER MONDAY EVENING]

September 19th

Do you continue to go with Jesus?

Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations. Luke 22:28.

It is true that Jesus Christ is with us in our temptations, but are we going with Him in His temptations? Many of us cease to go with Jesus from the moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God shifts your circumstances, and see whether you are going with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh and the devil. We wear His badge, but are we going with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him.” The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going with Jesus in the life we are living now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings round us. Never! God engineers circumstances, and whatever they may be like we have to see that we face them while abiding continually with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. The honour of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life. Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things which beset His life in you?
Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice, “Follow Me.”

September 19

“My Father is the husbandman.” (John 15:1.)

IT is comforting to think of trouble, in whatever form it may come to us, as a heavenly messenger, bringing us something from God. In its earthly aspect it may seem hurtful, even destructive; but in its spiritual out-working it yields blessing. Many of the richest blessings which have come down to us from the past are the fruit of sorrow or pain. We should never forget that redemption, the world’s greatest blessing, is the fruit of the world’s greatest sorrow. In every time of sharp pruning, when the knife is deep and the pain is sore, it is an unspeakable comfort to read, “My Father is the husband-man.”
Doctor Vincent tells of being in a great hothouse where luscious clusters of grapes were hanging on every side. The owner said, “When my new gardener came, he said he would have nothing to do with these vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk; and he did, and we had no grapes for two years, but this is the result.”
There is rich suggestiveness in this interpretation of the pruning process, as we apply it to the Christian life. Pruning seems to be destroying the vine, the gardener appears to be cutting it all away; but he looks on into the future and knows that the final outcome will be the enrichment of its life and greater abundance of fruit.
There are blessings we can never have unless we are ready to pay the price of pain. There is no way to reach them save through suffering.—Dr. Miller.

“I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

“I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When sorrow walked with me.”

19 SEPTEMBER (PREACHED OLNEY FAIR DAY)

Open books

‘… And the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.’ Revelation 20:12
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Joshua 1:1–9

When the Judge is seated, and the multitude assembled, the trial will begin. The books were opened—this you will understand is spoken after the manner of men. The Lord needs no book, but it is to represent to us the exactness of his knowledge and the impartiality of his proceedings. But what are these books? There is:
(i) the statute book, the book of the law. Some of you perhaps have this in your houses and it lies by shut up from week to week. You think it not worthy your notice, but it will be opened then and you must hear its contents.
(ii) the book of God’s remembrance. Because he exercises longsuffering now, poor blinded sinners think he regards them not. They say in their heart, at least, Psalm 73:11 [How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?]. But what says the Lord? Jeremiah 23:24 [Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD]; Psalm 50:21 [These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes]. Then they will find it so.
(iii) the book of conscience. Sinners strive to keep it shut now and too often prevail; they get but a little glance of its contents—they cannot bear to read it—but it is filling every day and O how will they be astonished when they are fully acquainted with its contents! When all their secret sins, their wicked works and words, are revealed to their view. Then they will be struck dumb.
FOR MEDITATION:
When the list shall be produced
Conscience then, compelled to read,
Of the talents I enjoyed;
Must allow the charge is true;
Means and mercies, how abused!
Say, my soul, what canst thou plead
Time and strength, how misemployed!
In that hour, what wilt thou do?

SERMON: REVELATION 20:11–12 [4/6] [EASTER MONDAY EVENING]

September 18th

His temptation and ours

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15.

Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is that mentioned by St. James—“Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” But by regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, viz., the kind of temptations Our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus do not appeal to us, they have no home at all in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours move in different spheres until we are born again and become His brethren. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a man, but the temptations of God as Man. By regeneration the Son of God is formed in us, and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us to do wrong things; he tempts us in order to make us lose what God has put into us by regeneration, viz., the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come on the line of tempting us to sin, but on the line of shifting the point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means the test by an alien power of the possessions held by a personality. This makes the temptation of Our Lord explainable. After Jesus in His baptism had accepted the vocation of bearing away the sin of the world, He was immediately put by God’s Spirit into the testing machine of the devil; but He did not tire. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and retained the possessions of His personality intact.