Milo

September 1

“I will lay thy stones with fair colors.” (Isa. 54:11.)

THE stones from the wall said, “We come from the mountains far away, from the sides of the craggy hills. Fire and water have worked on us for ages, but made us only crags. Human hands have made us into a dwelling where the children of your immortal race are born, and suffer, and rejoice, and find rest and shelter, and learn the lessons set them by our Maker and yours. But we have passed through much to fit us for this. Gunpowder has rent our very heart; pickaxes have cleaved and broken us, it seemed to us often without design or meaning, as we lay misshapen stones in the quarry; but gradually we were cut into blocks, and some of us were chiseled with finer instruments to a sharper edge. But we are complete now, and are in our places, and are of service.
You are in the quarry still, and not complete, and therefore to you, as once to us, much is inexplicable. But you are destined for a higher building, and one day you will be placed in it by hands not human, a living stone in a heavenly temple.

“In the still air the music lies unheard;
In the rough marble beauty hides unseen;
To make the music and the beauty needs
The master’s touch, the sculptor’s chisel keen.

“Great Master, touch us with Thy skillful hands;
Let not the music that is in us die!
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; nor let,
Hidden and lost, thy form within us lie!”

1 SEPTEMBER

Peace shaken

‘Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.’ Isaiah 38:17
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Job 1:1–22

One of the chief differences observable in the experience of the Lord’s people is with regard to the season and means of their establishment in the faith. Some, after their first convictions, go mourning for years, tried by the Lord but fettered by Satan, and, though secretly supported, have little sensible comfort, but are perhaps still expecting to perish at last. At length the Lord’s time of deliverance comes, and afterwards they have generally a smoother part; and though they may continue to meet with many difficulties, they are seldom brought to question the foundation any more. Others pass through but little trouble at first; the Lord draws them by love, gives them liberty soon, and continues their peace till they are ready to think they shall see no changes. But by and by they are suddenly brought into darkness and depths, are at their wits’ end, and can hardly be persuaded they were ever right. They find things both within and without so different from what they were aware of. Job was an instance of this. We have the best evidence (the testimony of God himself) that he was a gracious man before his troubles—but how rudely was he shaken—not in outward things only, but his joy and peace in believing was taken away.

Then to his saints I often spoke; Of what his love had done;
But now my heart is almost broke, For all my joys are gone.

He had only the root of faith left—the exercise was gone, so that in the anguish of his spirit he cursed the day of his birth. But when the Lord returned, Job came out of the furnace purified like gold. He had seen more of his own heart, more of the power and majesty of God, than ever he had done before.

FOR MEDITATION: O Lord, what shall I say? I am the very wretch that was once an outcast in Africa; how dost thou comfort and honour me on every side, though I am still most ungrateful.
Diary, 19 July 1774

SERMON: ISAIAH 38:17 [1/2]

August 31st

My joy … your joy

That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. John 15:11.

What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. “I delight to do Thy will.” Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had. The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances. The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke God’s word. Before we know where we are, we are caught up in the shows of things. All that God has done for us is the mere threshold; He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim Who Jesus is.
Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a centre for Jesus Christ to pour living water through. Stop being self-conscious, stop being a sanctified prig, and live the life hid with Christ. The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.

August 31

“Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29.)

HOW strong is the snare of the things that are seen, and how necessary for God to keep us in the things that are unseen! If Peter is to walk on the water he must walk; if he is going to swim, he must swim, but he cannot do both. If the bird is going to fly it must keep away from fences and the trees, and trust to its buoyant wings. But if it tries to keep within easy reach of the ground, it will make poor work of flying.
God had to bring Abraham to the end of his own strength, and to let him see that in his own body he could do nothing. He had to consider his own body as good as dead, and then take God for the whole work; and when he looked away from himself, and trusted God alone, then he became fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able to perform. That is what God is teaching us, and He has to keep away encouraging results until we learn to trust without them, and then He loves to make His Word real in fact as well as faith.—A. B. Simpson.

I do not ask that He must prove
  His Word is true to me,
And that before I can believe
  He first must let me see.
It is enough for me to know
  ’Tis true because He says ’tis so;
On His unchanging Word I’ll stand
  And trust till I can understand.

—E. M. Winter.

31 AUGUST (PREACHED 30 AUGUST 1767)

Meekness towards others

‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.’ Matthew 5:5
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 2 Samuel 16:5–14

Meekness is daily exercised in our conversation with men:
(i) in lowliness of mind, if the providence of God has favoured us with any outward distinction. The meek person is not lifted up, but knows that he is unworthy of bread and water, much more of so many comforts. Hence he knows how to condescend to men of low estate.
(ii) the meek are not stiff and stubborn in their temper and manners. They speak with diffidence of themselves, are sensible that they are fallible and prone to mistake, therefore will hear reason. A want of this is often observable in religious disputes.
(iii) the meek are not easily angry. They remember that the Lord is concerned, let who will be the instrument, so David in the affair of Shimei [2 Samuel 16:11].
(iv) the meek are easily reconciled. They owe 10,000 talents and therefore dare not stand out for a few pence.
(v) the meek, as they are not hasty in taking offence, so they are desirous to avoid giving offence. What they feel in their own hearts makes them unwilling to lay provocations in the way of others, or to do anything which they themselves would dislike from others in their own case.
How is the promise to be understood, when in fact we see little of the earth comes to the share of such? They shall have as much as the Lord sees good; and meekness, as I have hinted, cuts short the desire of more. What they have, they have with the Lord’s blessing, and this makes a little go a great way, and every sweet sweeter. They are freed from those hurrying passions which, when unrestricted, spoil the relish of every situation in life. They have an inheritance on high, of which every good here is an earnest. Here is a ground of examination for all, of humiliation for the best, yet, I hope, of comfort to many. If these things are begun, you are blessed of the Lord, and you shall be blessed.

FOR MEDITATION: Thou wert meek and lowly; O let this mind be also in me.
Miscellaneous Thoughts, Monday 3 July 1758

SERMON: MATTHEW 5:5 [2/2]