Milo

June 15

“For God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” (Gen. 41:52.)

THE summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall be soon breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:

“It isn’t raining rain for me, it’s raining daffodils;
In every dimpling drop I see wild flowers upon the hills.
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
It isn’t raining rain for me: it’s raining roses down.”

Perchance some one of God’s chastened children is even now saying, “O God, it is raining hard for me tonight.

“Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days.”

Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn’t raining rain for you. It’s raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father’s Word, under that beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty as never before grew in that stormless, unchastened life of yours.

You indeed see the rain. But do you see also the flowers? You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is upspringing in your life under those very trials.
You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul.
Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.
It isn’t raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit, which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beget in your innermost soul.—J. M. McC.

SONGS ACROSS THE STORM

“A harp stood in the moveless air,
Where showers of sunshine washed a thousand fragrant blooms;
A traveler bowed with loads of care
Essayed from morning till the dusk of evening glooms
To thrum sweet sounds from the songless strings;
The pilgrim strives in vain with each unanswering chord,
Until the tempest’s thunder sings,
And, moving on the storm, the fingers of the Lord
A wondrous melody awakes;
And though the battling winds their soldier deeds perform,
Their trumpet-sound brave music makes
While God’s assuring voice sings love across the storm.”

15 JUNE

A voice in the wilderness

‘The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’ Isaiah 40:3
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Luke 1:57–80

The general style of the prophets is poetical. Simplicity is the grand, inimitable characteristic of the whole Bible. But the magnificence and variety of imagery, which constitute the life and spirit of poetry, evidently distinguishes the style of the Psalms, Isaiah, and the other poetical books, from that of the historical parts in our common version. The various rules and properties of Hebrew poetry are not, at this distance of time, certainly known. But the present Bishop of London, in his lectures on this subject, and in the discourse prefixed to his translation of Isaiah, has fully demonstrated one property. It usually consists of parallel expressions in which the same thought for substance is repeated in a different manner. I may open the book anywhere, almost, to explain my meaning—as chapters 59, 55 and Psalm 114. The knowledge of this peculiarity may often save us the trouble of enquiring minutely into the meaning of every single word, when one plain and comprehensive sense arises if the whole passage be taken together. Thus in this place, though it be true that John the Baptist was long retired in the wilderness and began to preach in the wilderness of Judea, yet the word does not entirely foretell that circumstance. The expressions are parallel. The prophet, rapt into future times, hears a voice proclaiming the Messiah’s approach. And this is the majestic language: In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. The wilderness and the desert are the same, as likewise in chapter 35, where the happy, the sudden, the unexpected, effects of his appearance, are described.

FOR MEDITATION: Now to see with the eye of faith the glory of the Redeemer in his appearance, to see power divine preparing the way before him, to enter into the gracious and wonderful design of his salvation, to acknowledge, admire and adore him as the Lord, humbly to claim him as our God, affords a pleasure very different from that which the finest music, however well adapted to the words, can possibly give.

SERMON SERIES: MESSIAH, NO. 2 [1/4], ISAIAH 40:3–5

June 14th

Get a move on

In the Matter of Determination. Abide in Me. John 15:4.

The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by the Atonement, then I have to construct with patience the way of thinking that is exactly in accordance with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus, I have to do it myself; I have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. “Abide in Me”—in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. It is not a bandbox life.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances because I say it will hinder my communion with Him? That is an impertinence. It does not matter what my circumstances are, I can be as sure of abiding in Jesus in them as in a prayer meeting. I have not to change and arrange my circumstances myself. With Our Lord the inner abiding was unsullied; He was at home with God wherever His body was placed. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek towards His Father’s dispensations for Him. Think of the amazing leisure of Our Lord’s Life! We keep God at excitement point, there is none of the serenity of the life hid with Christ in God about us.
Think of the things that take you out of abiding in Christ—‘Yes, Lord, just a minute, I have got this to do; Yes, I will abide when once this is finished; when this week is over, it will be all right, I will abide then.’ Get a move on; begin to abide now. In the initial stages it is a continual effort until it becomes so much the law of life that you abide in Him unconsciously. Determine to abide in Jesus wherever you are placed.

June 14

“I have prayed that your own faith may not fail.” (Luke 22:32.)

CHRISTIAN, take good care of thy faith, for recollect that faith is the only means whereby thou canst obtain blessings. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God’s throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes.
Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth to Heaven, on which God’s messages of love fly so fast that before we call He answers, and while we are yet speaking He hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we obtain the promise?
Am I in trouble? I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy? My soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith.
But take faith away, then in vain I call to God. There is no other road betwixt my soul and Heaven. Blockade the road, and how can I communicate with the Great King?
Faith links me with Divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of Jehovah. Faith insures every attribute of God in my defense. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything from the Lord?
Oh, then, Christian, watch well thy faith. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
—C. H. Spurgeon.
We boast of being so practical a people that we want to have a surer thing than faith. But did not Paul say that the promise was by FAITH that it might be SURE? (Romans 4:16.)—Dan Crawford.

Faith honors God; God honors faith.

14 JUNE

Wait patiently?

‘It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.’ Lamentations 3:26
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 54:1–7

The truth of it is good. The word good may be understood in several senses.
First, it is reasonable, considering:
(i) the greatness of this salvation, which is such that you must allow, if the Lord was to suffer you to go on beset with tears and temptations to the last hour of life, if he showed you mercy at last you would have the utmost reason to praise him. You will say, ‘Oh, if I knew this’; but it is reasonable to wait, though you know it not at present, that you may know it hereafter.
(ii) that as a sinner you have no right to make terms. What an inconsistence is it, at one time to confess the Lord might justly send you to hell, and yet perhaps the next hour repine because he makes you wait a while for the blessing.
(iii) that this is, as I have observed, the Lord’s usual way. Search the Scripture: you will find it so. Ask his people who set about before you: they will tell you the same. Why should you expect he will change his methods for you? You want to be sure you are right and yet you are discouraged because you are led in that very path in which you see the footsteps of the flock before.
Secondly, it is profitable.
(i) It makes our waiting more pleasant to wait quietly and to maintain a hope upon the general promise, whereas to give way to another spirit lets in a storm upon the soul and opens a door to the worst temptations.
(ii) It is profitable to others, for they have the same exercises—if by your complaints you bring up an evil report of the good land, you lay a snare in the way of seekers and tempt the world to speak evil of your profession.
Thirdly, it is safe. It is good because those who thus hope and wait shall never be disappointed or ashamed. See such promises as Isaiah 54:7–8.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry’ (Psalm 40:1).

SERMON: LAMENTATIONS 3:26 [3/3]