Milo

May 11

“We went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.” (Psa. 66:12)

PARADOXICAL though it be, only that man is at rest who attains it through conflict. This peace, born of conflict, is not like the deadly hush preceding the tempest, but the serene and pure-aired quiet that follows it.
It is not generally the prosperous one, who has never sorrowed, who is strong and at rest. His quality has never been tried, and he knows not how he can stand even a gentle shock. He is not the safest sailor who never saw a tempest; he will do for fair-weather service, but when the storm is rising, place at the important post the man who has fought out a gale, who has tested the ship, who knows her hulk sound, her rigging strong, and her anchor-flukes able to grasp and hold by the ribs of the world.

When first affliction comes upon us, how everything gives way! Our clinging, tendril hopes are snapped; and our heart lies prostrate like a vine that the storm has torn from its trellis; but when the first shock is past, and we are able to look up, and say, “It is the Lord,” faith lifts the shattered hopes once more, and binds them fast to the feet of God. Thus the end is confidence, safety, and peace.—Selected.

The adverse winds blew against my life;
  My little ship with grief was tossed;
My plans were gone—heart full of strife,
  And all my hope seemed to be lost—
“Then He arose”—one word of peace.
“There was a calm”—a sweet release.

A tempest great of doubt and fear
  Possessed my mind; no light was there
To guide, or make my vision clear.
  Dark night! ’twas more than I could bear—
“Then He arose,” I saw His face—
“There was a calm” filled with His grace.

My heart was sinking ’neath the wave
  Of deepening test and raging grief;
All seemed as lost, and none could save,
  And nothing could bring me relief—
“Then He arose”—and spoke one word,
“There was a calm!” IT IS THE LORD.

—L. S. P.

11 MAY

Seeds of perpetual warfare

‘And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ Genesis 3:15
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 1 Peter 1:3–12

The name of Christ includes both head and members in one mystical body (1 Corinthians 12:12). As all who believed in Christ are in him denominated as the seed of the woman and the seed of the promise, so the seed of the serpent includes all the wicked, according to John 8:44 and 1 John 3:8. There is an opposition, a war between these respective seeds—an irreconcilable war in which each party is supported and strengthened by its proper head. The carnal mind is enmity against God, his Christ, his truth and his people. And though the Lord’s seed do not hate the persons of wicked men, yet his grace enables them to set their ways, practices and spirit at defiance, so that they will by no means make peace and league with them. In the course of this warfare they are made conformable to their Head. The serpent and his seed occasion them much trouble, sorrow and suffering and thus bruise their heel—but can do no more than wound them in their present concerns in this mortal state. And they, by his strength, finally bruise his head, overcome all assaults by his blood and the word of his testimony, and are made more than conquerors through him who has loved them.

FOR MEDITATION: And I greatly need a blessing for myself, for though the Lord mercifully supports me in public, I am far from having attained those privileges in my retired walk, which he has given me an idea of as belonging to my profession. I still find a warfare. The foundation of my peace and hope stands firm, but I mourn under a languor and distance of spirit, which I am sometimes ready to think peculiar to myself. I trust he will continue to support me, and that when he has tried me I shall come forth like gold. Though my conscious feelings are faint, I trust Jesus is precious to my soul. I account his favour better than life, and see nothing truly worth living for, but to seek his face and to be employed in his service.
John Newton to John Thornton, 18 May 1775

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 10 [3/4], GENESIS 3:15

May 10th

Take the initiative

Add to your faith virtue … (“Furnish your faith with resolution.”) (MOFFATT) 2 Peter 1:5.

“Add” means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, God does that; but God will not give us good habits, He will not give us character, He will not make us walk aright. We have to do all that ourselves, we have to work out the salvation God has worked in. “Add” means to get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages it is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning, to instruct yourself in the way you have to go.
Beware of the tendency of asking the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative, stop hesitating, and take the first step. Be resolute when God speaks, act in faith immediately on what He says, and never revise your decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do a thing, you endanger your standing in grace. Take the initiative, take it yourself, take the step with your will now, make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you—‘I will write that letter’; ‘I will pay that debt.’ Make the thing inevitable.
We have to get into the habit of hearkening to God about everything, to form the habit of finding out what God says. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we know that the habit has been formed. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not.

May 10

“I had fainted unless …!” (Psalm 27:13)
“FAINT NOT!”

HOW great is the temptation at this point! How the soul sinks, the heart grows sick, and the faith staggers under the keen trials and testings which come into our lives in times of special bereavement and suffering.
“I cannot bear up any longer, I am fainting under this providence. What shall I do? God tells me not to faint. But what can one do when he is fainting?”
What do you do when you are about to faint physically? You cannot do anything. You cease from your own doings. In your faintness, you fall upon the shoulder of some strong loved one. You lean hard. You rest. You lie still and trust.
It is so when we are tempted to faint under affliction. God’s message to us is not, “Be strong and of good courage,” for He knows our strength and courage have fled away. But it is that sweet word, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Hudson Taylor was so feeble in the closing months of his life that he wrote a dear friend: “I am so weak I cannot write; I cannot read my Bible; I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God’s arms like a little child, and trust.”
This wondrous man of God with all his spiritual power came to a place of physical suffering and weakness where he could only lie still and trust.
And that is all God asks of you, His dear child, when you grow faint in the fierce fires of affliction. Do not try to be strong. Just be still and know that He is God, and will sustain you, and bring you through.
“God keeps His choicest cordials for our deepest faintings.”

“Stay firm and let thine heart take courage.” (Psa. 27:14—After Osterwald.)

Stay firm, He has not failed thee
  In all the past,
And will He go and leave thee
  To sink at last?
Nay, He said He will hide thee
  Beneath His wing;
And sweetly there in safety
  Thou mayest sing.

—Selected

10 MAY

Sin’s guilt removed

‘And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ Genesis 3:15
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 6:1–14

The nature of the Redeemer’s work is set forth by a conflict with the serpent and his seed, in which:
(i) Christ should be completely victorious, removing the guilt of sin, the curse of the law from his people; that he should destroy death and him that had the power of death (that is the devil). These great things he has already done. Sin is expiated—God is reconciled, death is disarmed of its sting and Satan is a vanquished enemy who can do nothing but by permission. And there is a day appointed which will openly solemnize this triumph and bruise this enemy finally under his feet.
(ii) He should conquer by suffering. Yet great as these were in the garden and upon the cross, his bloody agony and bloody death, only his heel was affected—his human nature and that life which he took on purpose that he might lay it down. His head was invulnerable; his divine nature and his life that he had in himself were out of the enemy’s reach (Romans 6:9; Revelation 1:18).
FOR MEDITATION:
I saw one hanging on a tree,
Alas! I knew not what I did,
In agonies and blood;
But now my tears are vain;
Who fixed his languid eyes on me,
Where shall my trembling soul be hid?
As near his cross I stood.
For I the LORD have slain.

Sure, never till my latest breath,
A second look he gave, which said,
Can I forget that look;
‘I freely all forgive;
It seemed to charge me with his death,
This blood is for thy ransom paid,
Though not a word he spoke.
I die, that thou may’st live.’

My conscience felt, and owned the guilt,
Thus, while his death my sin displays,
And plunged me in despair;
In all its blackest hue;
I saw my sins his blood had spilt,
(Such is the mystery of grace)
And helped to nail him there.
It seals my pardon too.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 10 [2/4], GENESIS 3:15