Milo

30 JULY

Look up with hope

‘And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.’ Isaiah 62:12
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 1 Samuel 30:1–6

Not forsaken. This may be argued from his purpose, his covenant, his promise, and is to be pleaded against:
(i) Satan. He often threatens like Rabshakeh before Jerusalem.
(ii) unbelief. This musters and magnifies the difficulties in the way and says, ‘Ah, what shall we do?’ But infinite wisdom, power and love will not be disappointed.
(iii) guilt. For sin the Lord will often hide his face and permit dark clouds to hang over us. Yet we must not give way. We cannot recover ourselves but by believing. To keep at a distance and despond makes bad worse. So David encouraged himself when greatly distressed (1 Samuel 30:6 [And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God]). So also 12:20–22. Let the poor backslider look up with hope—he knew what his poor people would prove. Let this subject lead us to admire Jesus for his love, his power, his patience—praise him and trust him.

FOR MEDITATION: Tonight I attended an eclipse of the moon. I thought, my Lord, of thine eclipse. The horrible darkness which overwhelmed thy mind when thou saidst, Why hast thou forsaken me?’ Ah, sin was the cause—my sin. Diary, 30 July 1776 [prompting the following hymn]

Fain would my thankful heart and lips
Dark, like the moon without the sun,
Unite in praise to thee;
I mourn thine absence, LORD!
And meditate on thy eclipse,
For light or comfort have I none,
In sad Gethsemane.
But what thy beams afford.

Thy people’s guilt, a heavy load!
But lo! the hour draws near apace,
(When standing in their room)
When changes shall be o’er;
Deprived thee of the light of GOD,
Then shall I see thee face to face,
And filled thy soul with gloom.
And be eclipsed no more.

SERMON: ISAIAH 62:12 [3/3]

July 29th

What do you see in your clouds?

Behold, He cometh with clouds. Rev. 1:7.

In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of God. It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were no clouds, we should have no faith. ‘The clouds are but the dust of our Father’s feet.’ The clouds are a sign that He is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow and bereavement and suffering are the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near without clouds, He does not come in clear shining.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials; through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. God’s purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child—God and my own soul, other people are shadows. Until other people become shadows, clouds and darkness will be mine every now and again. Is the relationship between myself and God getting simpler than ever it has been?
There is a connection between the strange providences of God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Unless we can look the darkest, blackest fact full in the face without damaging God’s character, we do not yet know Him.
“They feared as they entered the cloud.…” Is there anyone “save Jesus only” in your cloud? If so, it will get darker; you must get to the place where there is “no one any more save Jesus only.”

July 29

“Hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the day of trouble?” (Job 38:22, 23.)

OUR trials are great opportunities. Too often we look on them as great obstacles. It would be a haven of rest and an inspiration of unspeakable power if each of us would henceforth recognize every difficult situation as one of God’s chosen ways of proving to us His love and look around for the signals of His glorious manifestations; then, indeed, would every cloud become a rainbow, and every mountain a path of ascension and a scene of transfiguration.
If we will look back upon the past, many of us will find that the very time our Heavenly Father has chosen to do the kindest things for us, and given us the richest blessings, has been the time we were strained and shut in on every side. God’s jewels are often sent us in rough packages and by dark liveried servants, but within we find the very treasures of the King’s palace and the Bridegroom’s love.—A. B. Simpson.
Trust Him in the dark, honor Him with unwavering confidence even in the midst of mysterious dispensations, and the recompense of such faith will be like the moulting of the eagle’s plumes, which was said to give them a new lease of youth and strength.—J. R. Macduff.

“If we could see beyond today
As God can see;
If all the clouds should roll away,
The shadows flee;
O’er present griefs we would not fret.
Each sorrow we would soon forget,
For many joys are waiting yet
For you and me.

“If we could know beyond today
As God doth know,
Why dearest treasures pass away
And tears must flow;
And why the darkness leads to light,
Why dreary paths will soon grow bright;
Some day life’s wrongs will be made right,
Faith tells us so.

“ ‘If we could see, if we could know,’
We often say,
But God in love a veil doth throw
Across our way;
We cannot see what lies before,
And so we cling to Him the more,
He leads us till this life is o’er;
Trust and obey.”

29 JULY

The Lord who seeks

‘And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.’ Isaiah 62:12
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Exodus 3:1–10

The Lord seeks his people. Hence they are compared:
(i) to stones in a quarry which must lie in that state, till they are selected and removed from the rest (Isaiah 51:1 [Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged]).
(ii) to wandering sheep (Luke 15) who never can find the way to the fold of themselves.
(iii) to people in the dark who cannot tell where to set a foot (Matthew 4).
It is true that in time they all seek him, but not till he has found them first (Psalm 27). Till then they know not the two chief motives of seeking:
(i) for pardon of sin. They are insensible of the nature, abounding and desert of sin, till he shows them. And therefore he is to them as a physician to them who are in health.
(ii) for happiness. This indeed they desire and seek but not from him, till he puts it into their hearts. In this sense the world is their God. But he seeks them. He gives them light, he gives them a heart to pray, he teaches, leads them to a throne of grace, then he reveals himself and says, Behold me.
This to be insisted on:
(i) for the humiliation of believers and the praise of his grace.
(ii) for the encouragement of seekers.
(iii) for encouragement of ministers to preach the gospel to sinners. The Lord knows them that are his.
FOR MEDITATION: [for New Year’s Evening 1771]
Let us adore the grace that seeks
Though filled with awe, before his throne
To draw our hearts above!
Each angel veils his face;
Attend, ’tis GOD the Saviour speaks,
He claims a people for his own
And every word is love.
Amongst our sinful race.

SERMON: ISAIAH 62:12 [2/3]

July 28th

After obedience—what?

And straightway He constrained His disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side.… Mark 6:45–52 .

We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.
What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process—that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.
God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end.
God’s end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; but if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.