Milo

July 11

“It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”
(1 Kings 17:7.)

WEEK after week, with unfaltering and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched that dwindling brook; often tempted to stagger through unbelief, but refusing to allow his circumstances to come between himself and God. Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air; but faith puts God between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him. And so the dwindling brook became a silver thread; and the silver thread stood presently in pools at the foot of the largest boulders; and the pools shrank. The birds fled; the wild creatures of field and forest came no more to drink; the brook was dry. Only then to his patient and unwavering spirit, “the word of the Lord came, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath.”
Most of us would have gotten anxious and worn with planning long before that. We should have ceased our songs as soon as the streamlet caroled less musically over its rocky bed; and with harps swinging on the willows, we should have paced to and fro upon the withering grass, lost in pensive thought. And probably, long ere the brook was dry, we should have devised some plan, and asking God’s blessing on it, would have started off elsewhere.
God often does extricate us, because His mercy endureth forever; but if we had only waited first to see the unfolding of His plans, we should never have found ourselves landed in such an inextricable labyrinth; and we should never have been compelled to retrace our steps with so many tears of shame. Wait, patiently wait!—F. B. Meyer.

Lettie B. Cowman, Streams in the Desert (Los Angeles, CA: The Oriental Missionary Society, 1925), 205.

11 JULY (PREACHED THURSDAY 11 JULY 1776)

The all-sufficient God

‘And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.’ Genesis 17:1
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 89:1–18

The Lord’s appearance to Abraham in the former chapter was some time before the birth of Ishmael; this was thirteen years after his birth. Abraham had some special visits of love but his ordinary walk was, I suppose, by faith and dependence—the Lord did not appear to him every day. The time was not yet at hand when Isaac should be born and now the covenant is again confirmed. This text is of general application. We have the Lord’s character and his people’s duty [see 2/2].
The Lord’s character: God Almighty, or All-sufficient. O who can expound the fullness of this glorious name? Happy are his people who know him in Christ. This name is applicable to all their circumstances. In him they have an all-sufficiency:
(i) of righteousness—so the songs in Isaiah 12 and Psalm 27. They are accepted and no charge shall be heard against them. Herein they may glory all the day long (Psalm 89:16).
(ii) of strength—and that both in them and for them. In them: to enable them for suffering and for service (2 Corinthians 12:9), so that they shall not faint, but shall endure to the end. Their strength is not in themselves, but is renewed by waiting upon him. For them: to control and subdue all their enemies. Herein is their safety. Many fight against them, but cannot prevail, for if God be for us … (Romans 8:31).
(iii) of happiness. He is their portion, all-sufficient—in time—affording by his presence such a joy as the world cannot give—and he will be their portion for ever.
FOR MEDITATION: ‘And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness …’ (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Strange and mysterious is my life,
The rule of grace, the power of sin:
What opposites I feel within!
Too often I am captive led,
A stable peace, a constant strife,
Yet daily triumph in my Head.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 35 [1/2], GENESIS 17:1

July 10th

The spiritual sluggard

Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Hebrews 10:24–25 .

We are all capable of being spiritual sluggards; we do not want to mix with the rough and tumble of life as it is, our one object is to secure retirement. The note struck in Hebrews 10 is that of provoking one another and of keeping together—both of which require initiative, the initiative of Christ-realization, not of self-realization. To live a remote, retired, secluded life is the antipodes of spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it.
The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritual sluggards. We want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of retirement. We utilize God for the sake of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, but only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things are effects and we try to make them causes.
“I think it meet,” said Peter, “… to stir you up by putting you in remembrance.” It is a most disturbing thing to be smitten in the ribs by some provoker of God, by someone who is full of spiritual activity. Active work and spiritual activity are not the same thing. Active work may be the counterfeit of spiritual activity. The danger of spiritual sluggishness is that we do not wish to be stirred up, all we want to hear about is spiritual retirement. Jesus Christ never encourages the idea of retirement—“Go tell My brethren …”

July 10

“I called upon him, but he gave me no answer.” (S. of Sol. 5:6)

THE Lord, when He hath given great faith, hath been known to try it by long delayings. He has suffered His servants’ voices to echo in their ears as from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained unmovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, “Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.” Thus have true saints continued long in patient waiting without reply, not because their prayers were not vehement, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is a Sovereign, and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it pleases Him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall He not do as He will with His own!
No prayer is lost. Praying breath was never spent in vain. There is no such thing as prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God, and some things that we count refusals or denials are simply delays.—H. Bonar.
Christ sometimes delays His help that He may try our faith and quicken our prayers. The boat may be covered with the waves, and He sleeps on; but He will wake up before it sinks. He sleeps, but He never oversleeps; and there are no “too lates” with Him.—Alexander Maclaren.

Be still, sad soul! lift thou no passionate cry,
But spread the desert of thy being bare
To the full searching of the All-seeing eye;
Wait! and through dark misgiving, black despair,
God will come down in pity, and fill the dry
Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air.
—J. C. Shairp.

10 JULY

A great salvation

‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation …?’ Hebrews 2:3
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Hebrews 1:1–2:4

The love of God towards sinners is most amazing and wonderful. When they deserved death and misery, he revealed unto them a great salvation. The wonders of his grace afford a wonderful proof of man’s depravity. This salvation, so great, so necessary, so undeserved, has been, and is, too generally neglected. Consider the danger of this neglect. How shall we escape? You may observe a comparison between the Jewish and the gospel dispensation in the preceding verses. The Israelites had seen the Lord’s salvation—he freed them from bondage, maintained them in the wilderness, gave them his covenant, and placed them in Canaan. Yet many of [them] neglected their salvation, despised the word given by angels, and were for their disobedience destroyed. And all that happened to them was written for our instruction (1 Corinthians 10:11). Their salvation was typical of ours, but fell short in every respect—so that this is emphatically called a great salvation:
(i) with respect to the objects: miserable sinners, who might justly have been left to perish, groaning under worse than Egyptian bondage, upon the very brink of hell, as brands in the burning (Romans 5:6, 8).
(ii) with respect to the means: the deliverance from Egypt was only a display of divine power, but this salvation was the price of blood, the blood of God (Acts 20:28; Revelation 5:9). He saved others, himself he could not save.
(iii) the application of this salvation to a sinner’s heart is a great work, compared to creation (2 Corinthians 4:6), raising the dead (Ephesians 2:5; Colossians 2:13).
(iv) with respect to the end. What is a temporal Canaan, if compared with spiritual blessings—children of God here and heirs of glory hereafter?

FOR MEDITATION: I recommend it as a great salvation—sufficient to pardon the greatest sins (Isaiah 1:18); sufficient to save the greatest sinners—instance in Paul, Mary Magdalene, the malefactor. We are assured by our Lord himself in John 6:37, Isaiah 45:22 and Matthew 11:28. Do not think it humility to say, My sins are too great to be forgiven. It is unbelief, pride and a direct affront to the truth and power of Christ.

SERMON: HEBREWS 2:3 [1/1]