Milo

June 17th

The uncritical temper

Judge not, that ye be not judged. Matthew 7:1.

Jesus says regarding judging—Don’t. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual domain nothing is accomplished by criticism. The effect of criticism is a dividing up of the powers of the one criticized; the Holy Ghost is the One in the true position to criticize, He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into communion with God when you are in a critical temper; it makes you hard and vindictive and cruel, and leaves you with the flattering unction that you are a superior person. Jesus says, as a disciple, cultivate the uncritical temper. It is not done once and for all. Beware of anything that puts you in the superior person’s place.
There is no getting away from the penetration of Jesus. If I see the mote in your eye, it means I have a beam in my own. Every wrong thing that I see in you, God locates in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17–20 ). Stop having a measuring rod for other people. There is always one fact more in every man’s case about which we know nothing. The first thing God does is to give us a spiritual spring-cleaning; there is no possibility of pride left in a man after that. I have never met the man I could despair of after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

June 17

“And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.” (Ezek. 1:25.)

WHAT is the letting down of the wings? People so often say “How do you get the voice of the Lord?” Here is the secret. They heard the voice when they stood and let down their wings.
We have seen a bird with fluttering wings; though standing still, its wings are fluttering. But here we are told they heard the voice when they stood and had let down their wings.
Do we not sometimes kneel or sit before the Lord and yet feel conscious of a fluttering of our spirits? Not a real stillness in His presence.
A dear one told me several days ago of a certain thing she prayed about, “But,” said she, “I did not wait until the answer came.”
She did not get still enough to hear Him speak, but went away and followed her own thought in the matter. And the result proved disastrous and she had to retrace her steps.
Oh, how much energy is wasted! How much time is lost by not letting down the wings of our spirit and getting very quiet before Him! Oh, the calm, the rest, the peace which come as we wait in His presence until we hear from Him!

Then, ah then, we can go like lightning, and turn not as we go but go straight forward whithersoever the Spirit goes. (Ezek. 1:1, 20.)

“Be still! Just now be still!
Something thy soul hath never heard,
Something unknown to any song of bird,
Something unknown to any wind, or wave, or star,
A message from the Fatherland afar,
That with sweet joy the homesick soul shall thrill,
Cometh to thee if thou canst but be still.

“Be still! Just now be still!
There comes a presence very mild and sweet;
White are the sandals of His noiseless feet.
It is the Comforter whom Jesus sent
To teach thee what the words He uttered meant.
The willing, waiting spirit, He doth fill.
If thou would’st hear His message,
Dear soul, be still!”

17 JUNE

Withstanding Messiah’s progress

‘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. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.’ Isaiah 40:3–4
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 5:1–7

The state of the Jewish church and nation and the heathen when our Lord came: a wilderness. Israel, once the beloved people, was now, with a few exceptions, totally degenerated. The Lord’s vineyard brought only wild grapes. They had the temple, the Scripture, the name of Abraham’s seed. The prophet’s lamentation (in 1:21) was still more applicable afterwards: How is the faithful city become an harlot!
The heathen world is described as sitting in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death. Philosophers had talked of wisdom and morality from age to age. But their speculations were mere swelling words of vanity, and did no real good. There were philosophers, poets, painters, musicians, eminent in their way, but the world was buried in idolatry and abominable wickedness (Romans 1:23 to the end). Everything was diametrically opposite to the design and spirit of that kingdom the Messiah was about to set up, and therefore disposed, as the event proved, to withstand his progress.
FOR MEDITATION:
Happy are they, to whom the LORD
Though men despise them, or revile,
His gracious name makes known!
They count the trial small;
And by his Spirit, and his word,
Whoever frowns, if JESUS smile,
Adopts them for his own!
It makes amends for all.

Then mountains sink at once to plains,
Though meanly clad, and coarsely fed,
And light from darkness springs;
And, like their Saviour, poor;
Each seeming loss improves their gains,
They would not change their gospel bread
Each trouble comfort brings.
For all the worldling’s store.

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

June 16th

What do you make of this

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend … I have called you friends. John 15:13, 15.

Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said—“I will lay down my life for Thy sake,” and he meant it; his sense of the heroic was magnificent. It would be a bad thing to be incapable of making such a declaration as Peter made; the sense of our duty is only realized by our sense of the heroic. Has the Lord ever asked you—“Wilt thou lay down thy life for My sake?” It is far easier to die than to lay down the life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling. We are not made for brilliant moments, but we have to walk in the light of them in ordinary ways. There was only one brilliant moment in the life of Jesus, and that was on the Mount of Transfiguration; then He emptied Himself the second time of His glory, and came down into the demon-possessed valley. For thirty-three years Jesus laid out His life to do the will of His Father, and, John says, “we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” It is contrary to human nature to do it.
If I am a friend of Jesus, I have deliberately and carefully to lay down my life for Him. It is difficult, and thank God it is difficult. Salvation is easy because it cost God so much, but the manifestation of it in my life is difficult. God saves a man and endues him with the Holy Spirit, and then says in effect—‘Now work it out, be loyal to Me, whilst the nature of things round about you would make you disloyal.’ “I have called you friends.” Stand loyal to your Friend, and remember that His honour is at stake in your bodily life.

June 16

“My expectation is from him.” (Psalm 62:5.)

OUR too general neglect of looking for answers to what we ask, shows how little we are in earnest in our, Petitions. A husbandman is not content without the harvest; a marksman will observe whether the ball hits the target; a physician watches the effect of the medicine which he gives; and shall the Christian be careless about the effect of his labor?
Every prayer of the Christian, made in faith, according to the will of God, for which God has promised, offered up in the name of Jesus Christ, and under the influence of the Spirit, whether for temporal or for spiritual blessings, is, or will be, fully answered.
God always answers the general design and intention of His people’s prayers, in doing that which, all things considered, is most for His own glory and their spiritual and eternal welfare. As we never find that Jesus Christ rejected a single supplicant who came to Him for mercy, so we believe that no prayer made in His name will be in vain.
The answer to prayer may be approaching, though we discern not its coming. The seed that lies under ground in winter is taking root in order to a spring and harvest, though it appears not above ground, but seems dead and lost.
—Bickersteth.
Delayed answers to prayer are not only trials of faith, but they give us opportunities of honoring God by our steadfast confidence in Him under apparent repulses.—C. H. Spurgeon.