Milo

16 JUNE

The wilderness becomes a garden of the Lord

‘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: Psalm 105:1–45

When the eastern monarchs travelled, harbingers [forerunners] went before to give notice that the king was upon the road, and proper persons likewise to prepare the way and to remove obstacles. Some of them, if we may depend upon history, in the affectation of displaying their pomp and power, effected extraordinary things upon such occasions. For man, though vain, would appear wise; though a mere worm he would fain be great. We read of their having actually filled up valleys, and levelled hills to make a commodious way for themselves or their armies through places otherwise impassable. The prophet thus illustrates great things by small, and accommodates the language and usages of men to divine truth. The Messiah is about to visit a wilderness world, and those parts of it which he blesses with his presence shall become the garden of the Lord. Till then it is all desolate—rocky, wild and barren. But his way shall be prepared, mountainous difficulties shall sink before him into plains, in defiance of hindrances and difficulties; his glory shall be revealed in the wilderness and all flesh shall see it, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.

FOR MEDITATION: They say the times are very dark: they seem so to us; clouds and darkness are about his throne, but light will in due time shine out. He is carrying on his work by a straight line. If you or I were engaged in a plan which we had much at heart, we would not suffer anything to hinder our purpose, if we could prevent it: much less he, who has all power in heaven and earth.… The times are dark; but perhaps they were darker in England sixty years ago. Some of those places were as a wilderness in my remembrance, and now they are gardens of the Lord. I am not sure that in the year 1740 there was a single parochial minister, who was publicly known as a gospel preacher, in the whole kingdom: now we have, I know not how many, but I think no fewer than four hundred.
John Newton to John Campbell, 18 July 1795

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

June 15th

Get a move on

In the Matter of Drudgery. And beside this, … add. 2 Peter 1:5.

You have inherited the Divine nature, says Peter (v. 4), now screw your attention down and form habits, give diligence, concentrate. “Add” means all that character means. No man is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; he has to make character. Nor are we born with habits; we have to form habits on the basis of the new life God has put into us. We are not meant to be illuminated versions, but the common stuff of ordinary life exhibiting the marvel of the grace of God. Drudgery is the touchstone of character. The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we will look for big things to do. “Jesus took a towel …, and began to wash the disciples’ feet.”
There are times when there is no illumination and no thrill, but just the daily round, the common task. Routine is God’s way of saving us between our times of inspiration. Do not expect God always to give you His thrilling minutes, but learn to live in the domain of drudgery by the power of God.
It is the ‘adding’ that is difficult. We say we do not expect God to carry us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we did! The tiniest detail in which I obey has all the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I do my duty, not for duty’s sake, but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience the whole superb grace of God is mine through the Atonement.

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.