Milo

The past few weeks me and my 2 sons have been struck with the dreaded Covid, it’s like a serious bad cold except on steroids . Makes one appreciate health for sure. “In heaven there is even now no more sin nor sickness nor death, this is the believers hope and future But for now in this sin cursed world we are subject to so many sicknesses, some unpleasant and uncomfortable and many more much more serious, we are born without an ask and many given an ask may just not want to be born into a world like this one, but here we are and not much any of us can do about it, But there is one who has been around forever, our creator God who provided Himself to atone for each of our sins and provide the Way for fellowship with Himself, we are blessed as a race of human beings who have been created fearfully and wonderously , unlike the devil and his following angels who rebelled against God who were also created innocent and yet their judgment is sure and fixed with the wording No Hope, yet human beings have been given Eternal Hope of fellowship with God and He yet has plans for a new heaven and earth where sin will be non existent forever. Man the literal Crown of Creation. I know there will be a great separation at the last judgement but no one who is finally separated from God can say that God did not provide Salvation for them. Today is still the day of grace and anyone who calls upon the Name of the lord will be eternally saved. As the apostles were commissioned to speak in the name of the lord, be reconciled onto God through Jesus the Christ of God. As the book of Ecclesiastes declares through Solomon after he participated of every sin available in his life time and remained miserable “Fear God and keep his commandments” and as Jesus said onto the people of his days “Behold, one Greater than Solomon was in their midst” today Christ still says for us to look to him and we will be reconciled to God for now and for ever.

July 3rd

The concentration of personal sin

Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips. Isaiah 6:5.

When I get into the presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realize the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man will say easily—‘Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,’ but when he gets into the presence of God he cannot get off with that statement. The conviction is concentrated on—‘I am this, or that, or the other.’ This is always the sign that a man or woman is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but the concentration of sin in some personal particular. God begins by convicting us of one thing fixed on in the mind that is prompted by His Spirit; if we will yield to His conviction on that point, He will lead us down to the great disposition of sin underneath. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously in His presence.
This experience of the concentration of sin is true in the greatest and the least of saints as well as in the greatest and the least of sinners. When a man is on the first rung of the ladder of experience, he may say—‘I do not know where I have gone wrong, but the Spirit of God will point out some particular definite thing.’ The effect of the vision of the holiness of the Lord on Isaiah was to bring home to him that he was a man of unclean lips. “And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.” The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

July 3

“Doth the plowman plow all day to sow?” (Isa. 28:24.)

ONE day in early summer I walked past a beautiful meadow. The grass was as soft and thick and fine as an immense green Oriental rug. In one corner stood a fine old tree, a sanctuary for numberless wild birds; the crisp, sweet air was full of their happy songs. Two cows lay in the shade, the very picture of content.
Down by the roadside the saucy dandelion mingled his gold with the royal purple of the wild violet.
I leaned against the fence for a long time, feasting my hungry eyes, and thinking in my soul that God never made a fairer spot than my lovely meadow.
The next day I passed that way again, and lo! the hand of the despoiler had been there. A plowman and his great plow, now standing idle in the furrow, had in a day wrought a terrible havoc. Instead of the green grass there was turned up to view the ugly, bare, brown earth; instead of the singing birds there were only a few hens industriously scratching for worms. Gone were the dandelion and the pretty violet. I said in my grief, “How could any one spoil a thing so fair?”
Then my eyes were opened by some unseen hand, and I saw a vision, a vision of a field of ripe corn ready for the harvest. I could see the giant, heavily laden stalks in the autumn sun; I could almost hear the music of the wind as it would sweep across the golden tassels. And before I was aware, the brown earth took on a splendor it had not had the day before.
Oh, that we might always catch the vision of an abundant harvest, when the great Master Plowman comes, as He often does, and furrows through our very souls, uprooting and turning under that which we thought most fair, and leaving for our tortured gaze only the bare and the unbeautiful.—Selected.
Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh the deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop.—Samuel Rutherford.

3 JULY

Sovereign grace

‘And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.’ Genesis 4:3–5
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 1 Samuel 16:1–13

If any say, ‘Is God then a respecter of persons?’ I answer, God respects not persons of men so as to be influenced by any outward differences between one man and another, which is the proper sense of the word. He does not prefer the rich to the poor, the wise to the ignorant, or the mighty to the mean. The cry of a beggar will enter the ear of the Lord of hosts and obtain a gracious answer as soon as the cry of a king. Yet in the dispensation of his grace he is sovereign, he gives what none has a right to demand, to whom he pleases. Cain and Abel were both born in sin. He might have rejected them both, and in preferring one to the other he exercised his undoubted right to do what he will with his own. This is mortifying doctrine to the pride of man—but as it gives all the glory of salvation to the Lord, so it provides the surest ground of peace to an awakened soul, when taken in connection with the rest of his Word. When you know yourselves, you will soon see that if it was not thus you could not be saved at all.
Observe: though the ways of God are sovereign, they are just and equal. Though he gives not a full account of his matters, yet he reveals enough not only to silence our cavils but to satisfy our doubts.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.… Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?’ (Romans 9:14–16, 19–21).

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 11 [2/4], GENESIS 4:3–5

July 2nd

The conditions of discipleship

If any man come to Me, and hate not …, he cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:26, also 27, 33.

If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a Person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause; He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus Christ. No man on earth has this passionate love to the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Ghost has imparted it to him. We may admire Him, we may respect Him and reverence Him, but we cannot love Him. The only Lover of the Lord Jesus is the Holy Ghost, and He sheds abroad the very love of God in our hearts. Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality, and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is stamped by ‘moral spontaneous originality,’ consequently the disciple is open to the same charge that Jesus Christ was, viz., that of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent to God, and the Christian must be consistent to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men pour themselves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.