Milo

21 AUGUST

An atoning sacrifice

‘And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ Genesis 15:8–9
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Hebrews 12:1–3

We have Abraham’s request—he wanted a sign:
(i) for the confirmation of his own faith. When we believe, there is still unbelief in us.
(ii) for the sake of his posterity. What the Lord put now in Abraham’s heart to ask, was recorded in his Word for those who should come after. Believers of old had but few footsteps to follow, but we have a beaten path before us—the advantage of their experiences.
In the Lord’s command we may observe a sacrifice and a sign.
(i) A sacrifice. The animals mentioned were the same as were principally used after Moses. The death of Christ was thus set forth from the beginning to intimate that without shedding of blood there is no remission. All the promises of God are made and confirmed in the death of Christ. Here is our only right to them, and in this way they are sure.
(ii) A sign. The division of the beasts was the customary form of a covenant (Jeremiah 34:18–19). And between these the smoking furnace and the lamp afterwards passed.
FOR MEDITATION:
The GOD who once to Israel spoke
The holy Moses quaked and feared
From Sinai’s top, in fire and smoke,
When Sinai’s thundering law he heard;
In gentler strains of gospel grace
But reigning grace, with accents mild,
Invites us, now, to seek his face.
Speaks to the sinner, as a child.

He wears no terrors on his brow,
Hark! how from Calvary it sounds;
He speaks, in love, from Zion, now;
From the Redeemer’s bleeding wounds!
It is the voice of JESUS’ blood
‘Pardon and grace, I freely give,
Calling poor wanderers home to GOD.
Poor sinner, look to me, and live.’

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 32 [2/3], GENESIS 15:7–11

August 20th

Completeness

And I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28. Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peace. Take every element of disintegration as something to wrestle against, and not to suffer. Say—‘Lord, prove Thy consciousness in me’, and self-consciousness will go and He will be all in all. Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is Satanic. ‘Well, I am not understood; this is a thing they ought to apologize for; that is a point I really must have cleared up.’ Leave others alone and ask the Lord to give you Christ-consciousness, and He will poise you until the completeness is absolute.

The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is. The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God. When there has been the slightest deviation from the will of God, we begin to ask—‘What is Thy will?’ A child of God never prays to be conscious that God answers prayer, he is so restfully certain that God always does answer prayer.
If we try to overcome self-consciousness by any commonsense method, we develop it tremendously. Jesus says “Come unto Me and I will give you rest,” i.e., Christ-consciousness will take the place of self-consciousness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest, the rest of the perfection of activity that is never conscious of itself.

August 20

“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.” (Gen. 32:24.)

GOD is wrestling with Jacob more than Jacob is wrestling with God. It was the Son of man, the Angel of the Covenant. It was God in human form pressing down and pressing out the old Jacob life; and ere the morning broke, God had prevailed and Jacob fell with his thigh dislocated. But as he fell, he fell into the arms of God, and there he clung and wrestled, too, until the blessing came; and the new life was born and he arose from the earthly to the heavenly, the human to the divine, the natural to the supernatural. And as he went forth that morning he was a weak and broken man, but God was there instead; and the heavenly voice proclaimed, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”
Beloved, this must ever be a typical scene in every transformed life. There comes a crisis-hour to each of us, if God has called us to the highest and best, when all resources fail; when we face either ruin or something higher than we ever dreamed; when we must have infinite help from God and yet, ere we can have it, we must let something go; we must surrender completely; we must cease from our own wisdom, strength, and righteousness, and become crucified with Christ and alive in Him. God knows how to lead us up to this crisis, and He knows how to lead us through.
Is He leading you thus? Is this the meaning of your deep trial, or your difficult surroundings, or that impossible situation, or that trying place through which you cannot go without Him, and yet you have not enough of Him to give you the victory?
Oh, turn to Jacob’s God! Cast yourself helplessly at His feet. Die to your strength and wisdom in His loving arms and rise, like Jacob, into His strength and all-sufficiency. There is no way out of your hard and narrow place but at the top. You must get deliverance by rising higher and coming into a new experience with God. Oh, may it bring you into all that is meant by the revelation of the Mighty One of Jacob!—But God.

“At Thy feet I fall,
Yield Thee up my ALL,
TO SUFFER, LIVE, OR DIE
For my Lord crucified.”

20 AUGUST

Plucked as a brand out of the fire

‘And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.’ Genesis 15:7
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Zechariah 3:1–10

In this passage we have the Lord’s word to Abraham by way of remembrance: I brought thee from Ur of the Chaldees—from idolaters, plucked thee as a brand out of the fire [Zechariah 3:2]. Thus he reminds all his people. It is said the night when Israel left Egypt was a night much to be remembered [Exodus 12:42]. Believers surely will never forget the mercy which called them. It was a special mercy. Many [were] left when Abraham was called. How many of your companions have been left? Some of you were brought from places at a great distance, like Abraham, and it was a foundation mercy—how much depended upon it. As it is farther said: to give thee this land—a type of the heavenly Canaan. The Lord did not call Abraham to leave him by the way. If you are called out of sin and the world, brought to Jesus, it is because the Lord designs to give you the good land—for his gifts and callings are without repentance.
FOR MEDITATION:
With Satan, my accuser near,
At his rebuke the tempter fled;
My spirit trembled when I saw
Then he removed my filthy dress;
The Lord in majesty appear,
‘Poor sinner take this robe,’ he said,
And heard the language of his law.
‘It is thy Saviour’s righteousness.

In vain I wished and strove to hide
And see, a crown of life prepared!
The tattered filthy rags I wore;
That I might thus thy head adorn;
While my fierce foe, insulting cried,
I thought no shame or suffering hard,
‘See what you trusted in before!’
But wore, for thee, a crown of thorn.’

Struck dumb, and left without a plea,
O how I heard these gracious words!
I heard my gracious Saviour say,
They broke and healed my heart at once;
‘Know, Satan, I this sinner free,
Constrained me to become the Lord’s,
I died to take his sins away.
And all my idol-gods renounce.

‘This is a brand which I in love,
Now, Satan, thou hast lost thy aim,
To save from wrath and sin design;
Against this brand thy threats are vain;
In vain thy accusations prove,
Jesus has plucked it from the flame,
I answer all, and claim him mine.’
And who shall put it in again?

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 32 [1/3], GENESIS 15:7–11

August 19th

Self-consciousness

Come unto Me. Matthew 11:28.

God means us to live a fully-orbed life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside, and we tumble into a way of introspection which we thought had gone. Self-consciousness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of the life in God, and self-consciousness continually produces wrestling. Self-consciousness is not sin; it may be produced by a nervous temperament or by a sudden dumping down into new circumstances. It is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured by being ignored, but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ-consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him.
Never allow the dividing up of your life in Christ to remain without facing it. Beware of leakage, of the dividing up of your life by the influence of friends or of circumstances; beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Nothing is so important as to keep right spiritually. The great solution is the simple one—“Come unto Me.” The depth of our reality, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is tested by these words. In every degree in which we are not real, we will dispute rather than come.