Milo

June 28

“A door opened in heaven.” (Rev. 4:1.)

YOU must remember that John was in the Isle of Patmos, a lone, rocky, inhospitable prison, for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. And yet to him, under such circumstances, separated from all the loved ones of Ephesus; debarred from the worship of the Church; condemned to the companionship of uncongenial fellow-captives, were vouchsafed these visions. For him, also a door was opened.
We are reminded of Jacob, exiled from his father’s house, who laid himself down in a desert place to sleep, and in his dreams beheld a ladder which united Heaven with earth, and at the top stood God.
Not to these only, but to many more, doors have been opened into Heaven, when, so far as the world was concerned, it seemed as though their circumstances were altogether unlikely for such revelations.
To prisoners and captives; to constant sufferers, bound by iron chains of pain to sick couches; to lonely pilgrims and wanderers; to women detained from the Lord’s house by the demands of home, how often has the door been opened to Heaven.
But there are conditions. You must know what it is to be in the Spirit; you must be pure in heart and obedient in faith; you must be willing to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ; then when God is all in all to us, when we live, move and have our being in His favor, to us also will the door be opened.
—Daily Devotional Commentary.

“God hath His mountains bleak and bare,
  Where He doth bid us rest awhile;
Crags where we breathe a purer air,
  Lone peaks that catch the day’s first smile.

“God hath His deserts broad and brown—
  A solitude—a sea of sand,
Where He doth let heaven’s curtain down,
  Unknit by His Almighty hand.”

28 JUNE (PREACHED 23 JUNE 1776)

Pray for a fresh anointing

‘Brethren, pray for us.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:25
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Galatians 5:16–26

I feel for the congregation’s heart-burnings and grudgings one towards another. Alas, when a little word inadvertently spoken shall be sufficient foundation for a quarrel. When there is a readiness to give offence, a readiness to take offence, a backwardness to reconciliation—these things throw two things in a minister’s way. He cannot but consider them as a sign that grace is low, and a means of keeping it so—that to such persons he is little useful at present and, unless the Lord interpose, he has but a poor hope of being more so. Some or other of these trials are always present to my mind and of late they have brought another troublesome thought upon me. I had not been a month in Olney before the Lord gave me such a regard for the people that it has ever since been the place of my choice. I have ever laboured to decline and avoid what the world calls advantageous offers and at this moment you are upon my heart to live and die with you, if the Lord please. But I am not my own master. And if the gospel should come to be greatly neglected and slighted and a form of godliness take place of that power which once was known here, will there not be some reason to fear lest the Lord should show his displeasure by removing it?
Brethren, pray for us. Pray for me and for yourselves—that the Lord may take away our iniquities, pour a fresh anointing upon minister and people, that I may be strengthened and owned in the work and you may know and prize and improve the privileges you enjoy.
FOR MEDITATION: [for New Year’s Evening 1775]
Preachers may, from Ezekiel’s case,
Like him, around I cast my eye,
Draw hope in this declining day,
And oh! what heaps of bones appear!
A proof like this, of sovereign grace
Like him, by JESUS sent, I’ll try,
Should chase our unbelief away.
For he can cause the dead to hear.

When sent to preach to mouldering bones,
Hear, ye dry bones, the Saviour’s word!
Who could have thought he would succeed?
He, who when dying, gasped, ‘Forgive’,
But well he knew, the LORD from stones
That gracious, sinner-loving LORD,
Could raise up Abram’s chosen seed.
Says, ‘Look to me, dry bones, and live.’

SERMON: 1 THESSALONIANS 5:25 [6/6]

June 27th

The overshadowing personal deliverance

I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 1:8.

God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally—“Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey.” That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are a matter of indifference, we have to sit loosely to all these things; if we do not, there will be panic and heartbreak and distress. That is the inwardness of the overshadowing of personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christ’s errands, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, ‘Do not be bothered with whether you are being justly dealt with or not.’ To look for justice is a sign of deflection from devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will begin to grouse and to indulge in the discontent of self-pity—‘Why should I be treated like this?’ If we are devoted to Jesus Christ we have nothing to do with what we meet, whether it is just or unjust. Jesus says—‘Go steadily on with what I have told you to do and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance.’ The most devout among us become atheistic in this connection; we do not believe God, we enthrone common sense and tack the name of God on to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts.

June 27

“The Lord hath sent strength for thee.” (Psa. 68:28, P.B.V.)

THE Lord imparts unto us that primary strength of character which makes everything in life work with intensity and decision. We are “strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” And the strength is continuous; reserves of power come to us which we cannot exhaust.
“As thy days, so shall thy strength be”—strength of will, strength of affection, strength of judgment, strength of ideals and achievement.
“The Lord is my strength” to go on. He gives us power to tread the dead level, to walk the long lane that seems never to have a turning, to go through those long reaches of life which afford no pleasant surprise, and which depress the spirits in the sameness of a terrible drudgery.
“The Lord is my strength” to go up. He is to me the power by which I can climb the Hill Difficulty and not be afraid.
“The Lord is my strength” to go down. It is when we leave the bracing heights, where the wind and the sun have been about us, and when we begin to come down the hill into closer and more sultry spheres, that the heart is apt to grow faint.
I heard a man say the other day concerning his growing physical frailty, “It is the coming down that tires me!”
“The Lord is my strength” to sit still. And how difficult is the attainment! Do we not often say to one another, in seasons when we are compelled to be quiet, “If only I could do something!”
When the child is ill, and the mother stands by in comparative impotence, how severe is the test! But to do nothing, just to sit still and wait, requires tremendous strength. “The Lord is my strength!” “Our sufficiency is of God.”
—The Silver Lining.

27 JUNE (PREACHED 23 JUNE 1776)

Where is their zeal?

‘Brethren, pray for us.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:25
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Galatians 6:1–10

I feel for the declensions of many. I will lay no stress upon my own personal concern. It is trying to flesh and blood to see any who once professed a warm regard, look shy and cold, and when one loves and studies to show it, to be misapprehended and misrepresented. Blessed be the Lord, if I have something of this kind to complain of, the instances are not many. And were it not for the cause, the effect would sit light upon me. But how many do I know who have carried it unkindly to the Lord, if not to me. O where is their zeal, where is their first love, where is the value they once put upon ordinances, where is that gospel conversation they once aimed at? Once they loved to assemble with the Lord’s people, now they may be often seen with the drunkards. Brethren, pray for me. I fear lest the Lord should be displeased. Would it be believed if I should tell it in London, where I am going, that in such a place as they suppose Olney to be and where there are so many people and where the gospel has been so many years, it should sometimes be difficult to find one man present to set the psalm before sermon on a Thursday evening? I well remember when it was far otherwise.
FOR MEDITATION:
Thus saith the LORD to Ephesus,
‘Recall to mind the happy days
And thus he speaks to some of us;
When thou wast filled with joy and praise;
‘Amidst my churches, lo, I stand,
Repent, thy former works renew,
And hold the pastors in my hand.
Then I’ll restore thy comforts too.

‘Thy works, to me, are fully known,
‘Return at once, when I reprove,
Thy patience, and thy toil, I own;
Lest I thy candlestick remove;
Thy views of gospel truth are clear,
And thou, too late, thy loss lament;
Nor can’st thou other doctrine bear.
I warn before I strike, Repent.’

‘Yet I must blame while I approve,
Hearken to what the Spirit saith,
Where is thy first, thy fervent love?
To him that overcomes by faith;
Dost thou forget my love to thee,
‘The fruit of life’s unfading tree,
That thine is grown so faint to me?
In paradise his food shall be.’

SERMON: 1 THESSALONIANS 5:25 [5/6]