Milo

June 1

“This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing.” (Isa. 28:12)

WHY dost thou worry thyself? What use can thy fretting serve? Thou art on board a vessel which thou couldst not steer even if the great Captain put thee at the helm, of which thou couldst not so much as reef a sail yet thou worriest as if thou wert captain and helmsman. Oh, be quiet; God is Master!
Dost thou think that all this din and hurly-burly that is abroad betokens that God has left His throne?
No, man, His coursers rush furiously on, and His chariot is the storm; but there is a bit between their jaws, and He holds the reins, and guides them as He wills! Jehovah is Master yet; believe it; peace be unto thee! be not afraid.—C. H. Spurgeon.

  “Tonight, my soul, be still and sleep;
  The storms are raging on God’s deep—
  God’s deep, not thine; be still and sleep.

  “Tonight, my soul, be still and sleep;
  God’s hands shall still the tempter’s sweep—
  God’s hands, not thine; be still and sleep.

  “Tonight, my soul, be still and sleep;
  God’s love is strong while night hours creep—
  God’s love, not thine; be still and sleep.

  “Tonight, my soul, be still and sleep;
  God’s heaven will comfort those who weep—
  God’s heaven, not thine; be still and sleep.”

I entreat you, give no place to despondency. This is a dangerous temptation—a refined, not a gross temptation of the adversary. Melancholy contracts and withers the heart, and renders it unfit to receive the impressions of grace. It magnifies and gives a false coloring to objects, and thus renders your burdens too heavy to bear. God’s designs regarding you, and His methods of bringing about these designs, are infinitely wise.
—Madame Guyon.

1 JUNE (PREACHED 25 AUGUST 1776)

Only lip service

‘Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.’ Exodus 20:7
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Isaiah 58:1–14

Some would applaud themselves and think themselves clear thus far, but are there no other ways of taking God’s name in vain? Yes, many do it as often as they pray. See Matthew 15:8. Do you ask what you do not desire and confess what you do not feel? Is not this to take the name of God in vain? Does it not prove that you think him altogether such a one as yourselves, nay, more easily imposed on, more safely to be trifled with, than a poor fallible mortal? Strange it is to think that many not only content themselves with this lip service, but make it the meritorious ground of their hope, and fancy themselves religious because they come so often to church to mock the power that made them. But hardly can any wickedness be imagined more daring and provoking to the most high than such a religion as this. Farther, as many of you as choose to be called Christians and live in the allowed practice of known sin, your whole lives may be considered as one continual breach of this command. In all you say and do, you blaspheme that holy name by which you are called—and still more so, if you are professed friends and favourers of the gospel. By your means the ways of truth are evil spoken of. You give occasion to those offences of which it is said, Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh [Matthew 18:7]. You injure the cause, stumble the weak, grieve the Lord’s people and make his enemies rejoice. Better it would be never to have known the way of righteousness, than thus to abuse your knowledge. Your case is awfully dangerous indeed.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you’ (Matthew 6:5–6, NIV).

SERMON: EXODUS 20:7 [3/3]

May 31st

God first

Put God First in Trust. Jesus did not commit Himself unto them, … for He knew what was in man. John 2:24–25 .

Our Lord trusted no man; yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man because He put God first in trust; He trusted absolutely in what God’s grace could do for any man. If I put my trust in human beings first, I will end in despairing of everyone; I will become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be—absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else.

Put God’s Needs First. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. Hebrews 10:9.
A man’s obedience is to what he sees to be a need; Our Lord’s obedience was to the will of His Father. The cry to-day is—‘We must get some work to do; the heathen are dying without God; we must go and tell them of Him.’ We have to see first of all that God’s needs in us personally are being met. “Tarry ye until.…” The purpose of this College is to get us rightly related to the needs of God. When God’s needs in us have been met, then He will open the way for us to realize His needs elsewhere.

Put God’s Trust First. And whoso receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth Me. Matthew 18:5.
God’s trust is that He gives me Himself as a babe. God expects my personal life to be a ‘Bethlehem.’ Am I allowing my natural life to be slowly transfigured by the indwelling life of the Son of God? God’s ultimate purpose is that His Son might be manifested in my mortal flesh.

May 31

“Like a shock of corn fully ripe.” (Job 5:26)

A GENTLEMAN, writing about the breaking up of old ships, recently said that it is not the age alone which improves the quality of the fiber in the wood of an old vessel, but the straining and wrenching of the vessel by the sea, the chemical action of the bilge water, and of many kinds of cargoes.
Some planks and veneers made from an oak beam which had been part of a ship eighty years old were exhibited a few years ago at a fashionable furniture store on Broadway, New York, and attracted general notice for the exquisite coloring and beautiful grain.
Equally striking were some beams of mahogany taken from a bark which sailed the seas sixty years ago. The years and the traffic had contracted the pores and deepened the color, until it looked as superb in its chromatic intensity as an antique Chinese vase. It was made into a cabinet, and has today a place of honor in the drawing-room of a wealthy New York family.
So there is a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived flabby, self-indulgent, useless lives, and the fiber of those who have sailed all seas and carried all cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men.
Not only the wrenching and straining of life, but also something of the sweetness of the cargoes carried get into the very pores and fiber of character.—Louis Albert Banks.
When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set; the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure. And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight. Such a man cannot die out of this world. When he goes he leaves behind him much of himself. Being dead, he speaks.—Beecher.
When Victor Hugo was past eighty years of age he gave expression to his religious faith in these sublime sentences: “I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are livelier than ever. I am rising toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but Heaven lights me with its unknown worlds.
“You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple.”

31 MAY (PREACHED 25 AUGUST 1776)

Trivial escapes

‘Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.’ Exodus 20:7
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Colossians 3:1–17

What shall we say of the throng of profane swearers, who wound our ears and pollute our language by a horrid mixture of execrations and blasphemies in their common conversation? Their throats are an open sepulchre—their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, the poison of asps is under their lips [Romans 3:13–14]. The Lord will not hold them guiltless. In vain their thoughtless plea, ‘they mean no harm’. In vain their presumptuous comparison of themselves with others—as though those were trivial escapes that did not affect the peace of society. If these were small sins singly, their frequency would make a vast amount. But is it a small sin, to rush against the bosses of God’s buckler [a small shield: Job 15:26], to despise so terrible a threatening as this! A habit of swearing is a sure sign not only of an unsanctified heart, but of a conscience hardened and, as it were, seared with a hot iron, callous and insensible [1 Timothy 4:2]. May the Lord awaken such.
Will any that live in a Christian land and have the Bible at hand plead ignorance of this in the great day? Surely no! Let your future lives be devoted to him who loved you.

FOR MEDITATION: I stood in need of an almighty Saviour, and such a one I found described in the New Testament. I heartily renounced my former profaneness.… I was quite freed from the habit of swearing, which seemed to have been deeply rooted in me as a second nature.
Narrative, 1764, Letter 9

‘With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be’ (James 3:9–10, NIV).
‘… revere this glorious and awesome name …’ (Deuteronomy 28:58, NIV).

SERMON: EXODUS 20:7 [2/3]