Milo

August 18th

Have you ever been expressionless with sorrow?

And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. Luke 18:23.

The rich young ruler went away expressionless with sorrow; he had not a word to say. He had no doubt as to what Jesus said, no debate as to what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow that had not any words. Have you ever been there? Has God’s word come to you about something you are very rich in—temperament, personal affinity, relationships of heart and mind? Then you have often been expressionless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, He will not plead, but every time He meets you on that point He will simply repeat—“If you mean what you say, those are the conditions.’
“Sell all that thou hast”—undress yourself morally before God of everything that might be a possession until you are a mere conscious human being, and then give God that. That is where the battle is fought—in the domain of the will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His hard sayings that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is hard, it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His disposition. Beware of allowing anything to soften a hard word of Jesus Christ’s.
I can be so rich in poverty, so rich in the consciousness that I am nobody, that I shall never be a disciple of Jesus; and I can be so rich in the consciousness that I am somebody—that I shall never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute of the sense that I am destitute? This is where discouragement comes in. Discouragement is disenchanted self-love, and self-love may be love of my devotion to Jesus.

August 18

“Alone.” (Deut. 32:12.)

“The hill was steep, but cheered along the way
By converse sweet, I mounted on the thought
That so it might be till the height was reached;
But suddenly a narrow winding path
Appeared, and then the Master said, ‘My child,
Here thou wilt safest walk with Me alone.’

“I trembled, yet my heart’s deep trust replied,
‘So be it, Lord.’ He took my feeble hand
In His, accepting thus my will to yield Him
All, and to find all in Him.
One long, dark moment,
And no friend I saw, save Jesus only.

“But oh! so tenderly He led me on
And up, and spoke to me such words of cheer,
Such secret whisperings of His wondrous love,
That soon I told Him all my grief and fear,
And leaned on His strong arm confidingly.

“And then I found my footsteps quickened,
And light ineffable, the rugged way
Illumined, such light as only can be seen
In close companionship with God.

“A little while, and we shall meet again
The loved and lost; but in the rapturous joy
Of greetings, such as here we cannot know,
And happy song, and heavenly embraces,
And tender recollections rushing back
Of pilgrim life, methinks one memory
More dear and sacred than the rest, shall rise,

“And we who gather in the golden streets,
Shall oft be stirred to speak with grateful love
Of that dark day when Jesus bade us climb
Some narrow steep, leaning on Him alone.”

“There is no high hill but beside some deep valley. There is no birth without a pang.”—Dan Crawford.

18 AUGUST

Accounted righteous

‘And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.’ Genesis 15:5–6
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Luke 19:1–9

Two things affirmed of Abraham:
(i) he believed in the Lord. The Lord had before given him the promise—of a child and a numerous seed—on which Abraham rested, not without some solicitude when the accomplishment was so long delayed. The Lord now confirmed his hope; he bid him look at the stars and said, So shall thy seed be.
(ii) it was accounted to him for righteousness. He was dealt with upon the footing of a sinner who had nothing of his own to plead and was justified by a righteousness accounted, or imputed, to him.
The question is, what was imputed to him for righteousness? Or, in what was his believing or his faith so imputed? We are assured that the seed emphatically promised to Abraham was Christ, or the Messiah, who was to be born of his family according to the flesh (Galatians 3). And we are assured that he so understood, for our Lord says, Abraham rejoiced to see my day [John 8:56]. The promise of numerous children of Abraham—compared to the stars—was not merely applicable to the posterity which should spring from his loins, but especially respected the company of believers who should partake of Abraham’s faith. Thus Zacchaeus was a son of Abraham by believing [Luke 19:9], and the woman of Canaan, though a Gentile and not a Jew by birth, proved to be one of the lost sheep of the house of Israel [Matthew 15:24]. The Jews, though they boasted that Abraham was their father [John 8:39], were strangers to the true commonwealth of Israel. And John the Baptist told them that God was able to raise up children to Abraham in their room, from the very stones [Matthew 3:9].
FOR MEDITATION:
When a guilty sinner sees him,
Soon this sight from anguish frees him,
While he looks his soul is healed;
And imparts a pardon sealed.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 31 [1/2], GENESIS 15:5–6

August 17th

Are you discouraged in devotion?

Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast … and come, follow Me. Luke 18:22.

“And when he heard this …” Have you ever heard the Master say a hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say anything. Jesus Christ says a great deal that we listen to, but do not hear; when we do hear, His words are amazingly hard.
Jesus did not seem in the least solicitous that this man should do what He told him, He made no attempt to keep him with Him. He simply said—‘Sell all you have, and come, follow Me.’ Our Lord never pleaded, He never cajoled, He never entrapped; He simply spoke the sternest words mortal ears ever listened to, and then left it alone.
Have I ever heard Jesus say a hard word? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened? Not something I can expound or say this and that about, but something I have heard Him say to me? This man did understand what Jesus said, he heard it and he sized up what it meant, and it broke his heart. He did not go away defiant; he went away sorrowful, thoroughly discouraged. He had come to Jesus full of the fire of earnest desire, and the word of Jesus simply froze him; instead of producing an enthusiastic devotion, it produced a heart-breaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him, He let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly that when once His word is heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. The terrible thing is that some of us prevent it bearing fruit in actual life. I wonder what we will say when we do make up our minds to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is certain, He will never cast anything up at us.

August 17

“I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.” (Acts 27:25.)

IWENT to America some years ago with the captain of a steamer, who was a very devoted Christian. When off the coast of Newfoundland he said to me, “The last time I crossed here, five weeks ago, something happened which revolutionized the whole of my Christian life. We had George Mueller of Bristol on board. I had been on the bridge twenty-four hours and never left it. George Mueller came to me, and said, “Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec Saturday afternoon.” “It is impossible,” I said. “Very well, if your ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chart-room and pray.”
I looked at that man of God, and thought to myself, what lunatic asylum can that man have come from? I never heard of such a thing as this. “Mr. Mueller,” I said, “do you know how dense this fog is?” “No,” he replied, “my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life.”
He knelt down and prayed one of the most simple prayers, and when he had finished I was going to pray; but he put his hand on my shoulder, and told me not to pray. “First, you do not believe He will answer; and second I BELIEVE HE HAS, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it.”
I looked at him, and he said, “Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get audience with the King. Get up, Captain and open the door, and you will find the fog gone.” I got up, and the fog was indeed gone. On Saturday afternoon, George Mueller was in Quebec for his engagement.—Selected.

“If our love were but more simple,
  We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine,
  In the sweetness of our Lord.”