Milo

June 9

“Feed on his faithfulness.” (Psalm 37:3, R. V.)

I ONCE met a poor colored woman, who earned a precarious living by hard daily labor; but who was a joyous triumphant Christian. “Ah, Nancy,” said a gloomy Christian lady to her one day, “it is well enough to be happy now; but I should think the thoughts of your future would sober you.
“Only suppose, for instance, you should have a spell of sickness, and be unable to work; or suppose your present employers should move away, and no one else should give you anything to do; or suppose—”
“Stop!” cried Nancy, “I never supposes. De Lord is my Shepherd, and I knows I shall not want. And, Honey,” she added, to her gloomy friend, “it’s all dem supposes as is makin’ you so mis’able. You’d better give dem all up, and just trust de Lord.”
There is one text that will take all the “supposes” out of a believer’s life, if it be received and acted on in childlike faith; it is Hebrews 13:5, 6: “Be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”—H. W. S.

“There’s a stream of trouble across my path;
  It is black and deep and wide.
Bitter the hour the future hath
  When I cross its swelling tide.
But I smile and sing and say:
  ‘I will hope and trust alway;
I’ll bear the sorrow that comes tomorrow,
  But I’ll borrow none today.’

“Tomorrow’s bridge is a dangerous thing;
  I dare not cross it now.
I can see its timbers sway and swing,
  And its arches reel and bow.
O heart, you must hope alway;
  You must sing and trust and say:
‘I’ll bear the sorrow that comes tomorrow,
  But I’ll borrow none today.’ ”

The eagle that soars in the upper air does not worry itself as to how it is to cross rivers.—Selected.

9 JUNE

For you, the war is over!

‘Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished …’ Isaiah 40:2
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 7:14–8:4

Through and by the Messiah, her warfare will be accomplished. Two ideas are included in the original term: a state of service connected with hardship, like that of the military life, and an appointed time, as it is rendered in Job 14:14.
These ideas equally apply to the Mosaic dispensation. It was a state of comparative servitude, distance, fear and labour. The ceremonial law was a yoke, a burden, which Peter says neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. But the gospel was to supersede it, and to bring in a state of life, liberty and confidence. Such likewise is the time of conviction. The awakened sinner feels terror, distress and bondage—but it is for an appointed time. To such we are commanded to preach comfort, by leading their thoughts to the Messiah. The Lord God, who knows the human heart—its wants, feelings and desires—when he would comfort and speak to the heart, proposes one object, and only one, as the necessary and all-sufficient source of comfort. This is the Messiah. Jesus in his person and offices, known and received by faith, affords a balm for every wound, a cordial for every care.
FOR MEDITATION:
Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat
Be thou my shield and hiding-place!
Where JESUS answers prayer;
That, sheltered near thy side,
There humbly fall beneath his feet,
I may my fierce accuser face,
For none can perish there.
And tell him, thou hast died.

Thy promise is my only plea,
Oh, wondrous love! to bleed and die,
With this I venture nigh;
To bear the cross and shame;
Thou callest burdened souls to thee,
That guilty sinners, such as I,
And such, O LORD, am I.
Might plead thy gracious name.

Bowed down beneath a load of sin,
‘Poor tempest-tossed soul, be still,
By Satan sorely pressed;
My promised grace receive’;
By war without, and fears within,
’Tis JESUS speaks—I must, I will,
I come to thee for rest.
I can, I do believe.

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

June 8th

What next?

Determine to know more than others. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. John 13:17.

If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbour bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbour bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become ‘stodgy’ spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1–2 . It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. “If any man will do …, he shall know.…”

June 8

“For every child of God overcomes the world: and the victorious principle which has overcome the world is our faith.” (1 John 5:4.) (Weymouth.)

AT every turn in the road one can find something that will rob him of his victory and peace of mind, if he permits it. Satan is a long way from having retired from the business of deluding and ruining God’s children if he can. At every milestone it is well to look carefully to the thermometer of one’s experience, to see whether the temperature is well up.
Somtimes a person can, if he will, actually snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat, if he will resolutely put his faith up at just the right moment.
Faith can change any situation. No matter how dark it is, no matter what the trouble may be, a quick lifting of the heart to God in a moment of real, actual faith in Him, will alter the situation in a moment.
God is still on His throne, and He can turn defeat into victory in a second of time, if we really trust Him.

“God is mighty! He is able to deliver;
  Faith can victor be in every trying hour;
Fear and care and sin and sorrow be defeated
  By our faith in God’s almighty, conquering power.

“Have faith in God, the sun will shine,
  Though dark the clouds may be today;
His heart has planned your path and mine,
  Have faith in God, have faith alway.”

“When one has faith, one does not retire; one stops the enemy where he finds him”—Marshal Foch.

8 JUNE

Comfort in Zion

‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.’ Isaiah 40:1–2
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Jeremiah 31:10–14

If, as some eminent commentators suppose, the prophet in this passage had any reference to the restoration of Babylon, it is certain his principal object was much more important. Indeed the history of their return from captivity and their state afterwards seems not to correspond with the magnificent images here used. Though they rebuilt their city and temple, they met with many insults, and much opposition, and continued a tributary and dependent people. I shall therefore waive the consideration of this sense. The prophet’s thoughts seem fixed upon one august personage who was approaching to enlighten and bless a miserable world, and before he describes the circumstances of his appearances, he is directed to comfort the mourners in Zion with an assurance that this great event was sufficient to compensate them for all their sorrows. The state of Jerusalem, the representative name of the people or church of God, was very low in Isaiah’s time. How different from the time of Solomon! Iniquity abounded, security prevailed, and judgements were impending. The words of many were stout against the Lord, but there were a few who feared him, whose eyes affected their hearts, and who mourned the evils they could not prevent. These and these only were strictly the Lord’s people, and to these the message of comfort was addressed: Speak to Jerusalem comfortably, speak to her heart, to her case—there is an answer to all her desires, a balm for all her griefs, in this one consideration: the Messiah is at hand.

FOR MEDITATION: It is needful that we sometimes meet with sharp and painful changes to teach us, by our own experience, what we cannot so sensibly learn from books or sermons, that this is not our rest—that we are and must be dependent upon him, to whom we belong.… But the light of his countenance, which is better than life itself, and which may more especially be hoped for when the streams of creature comfort run low or fail, is a sovereign balm to every wound, a cordial for every care.

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