Milo

25 MAY

Gracious living

‘And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.’ Genesis 12:2
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Ephesians 4:17–5:21

And thou shalt be a blessing: blessed in thyself and a blessing to others. Believers indeed are by the world accounted a burden, as Lot was in Sodom, yet each one is a public blessing. Thus they are compared to light, to salt, and so forth. Consider:
(i) their usefulness. The grace of God teaches them benevolence and usefulness. If any professor [of the faith] lives to himself it is a bad sign. I hope we have not so learnt Christ.
(ii) their example. They cannot do all they would, yet their example has some good effect, to restrain the boldness of sin and to draw others to seek after the Lord likewise (1 Peter 3:1).
(iii) their prayer. If Sodom had not been dreadfully abandoned, the prayer of Abraham would have saved it; and had there been ten of these blessings found in it, it would have escaped destruction.
(iv) [their protection]—by their interests and concerns being interwoven at present in the world. They are the wheat, for whose sake the tares are so long spared. If the world could have its wish and the people whom they hate were quite removed, they would not be suffered to go on long with impunity.

FOR MEDITATION: Tempus fugit very fast indeed. I am already more than three months in my seventy-second year. So the almanac tells me, otherwise I should scarcely perceive it. I preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, and tell my hearers that if they love him for his great love to them, they ought to love one another. I have nothing to do with controversies. Church folks, dissenters, methodists of all sorts come to hear me, and they are all welcome, and all sit very quietly. I am waiting for my dismission, which I trust I shall receive at the best time. I have some longing (though I am not impatient) to be at home—there to see my dear Mary and Eliza—and above all to see him, whom having not yet seen, I trust is the Lord and beloved of my heart. To see him as he is, and to be like him. This is worth dying for, and worth living for, till he shall say, Come up hither.
John Newton to John Ryland, 26 November 1796

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 23 [3/3], GENESIS 12:2

May 24th

The delight of despair

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. Rev. 1:17.

It may be that like the apostle John you know Jesus Christ intimately, when suddenly He appears with no familiar characteristic at all, and the only thing you can do is to fall at His feet as dead. There are times when God cannot reveal Himself in any other way than in His majesty, and it is the awfulness of the vision which brings you to the delight of despair; if you are ever to be raised up, it must be by the hand of God.
“He laid His right hand upon me.” In the midst of the awfulness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. The right hand not of restraint nor of correction nor of chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it is ineffable peace and comfort, the sense that “underneath are the everlasting arms,” full of sustaining and comfort and strength. When once His touch comes, nothing at all can cast you into fear again. In the midst of all His ascended glory the Lord Jesus comes to speak to an insignificant disciple, and to say—“Fear not.” His tenderness is ineffably sweet. Do I know Him like that?
Watch some of the things that strike despair. There is despair in which there is no delight, no horizon, no hope of anything brighter; but the delight of despair comes when I know that “in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.” I delight to know that there is that in me which must fall prostrate before God when He manifests Himself, and if I am ever to be raised up it must be by the hand of God. God can do nothing for me until I get to the limit of the possible.

May 24

“Sarah bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.” (Gen. 21:2.)

THE counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11). But we must be prepared to wait God’s time. God has His set times. It is not for us to know them; indeed, we cannot know them; we must wait for them.
If God had told Abraham in Haran that he must wait for thirty years until he pressed the promised child to his bosom, his heart would have failed him. So, in gracious love, the length of the weary years was hidden, and only as they were nearly spent, and there were only a few more months to wait, God told him that “according to the time of life, Sarah shall have a son.” (Gen. 18:14.)
The set time came at last; and then the laughter that filled the patriarch’s home made the aged pair forget the long and weary vigil.
Take heart, waiting one, thou waitest for One who cannot disappoint thee; and who will not be five minutes behind the appointed moment: ere long “your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”
Ah, happy soul, when God makes thee laugh! Then sorrow and crying shall flee away forever, as darkness before the dawn.—Selected.
It is not for us who are passengers, to meddle with the chart and with the compass. Let that all-skilled Pilot alone with His own work.—Hall.

“Some things cannot be done in a day. God does not make a sunset glory in a moment, but for days may be massing the mist out of which He builds His palaces beautiful in the west.”

“Some glorious morn—but when? Ah, who shall say?
The steepest mountain will become a plain,
And the parched land be satisfied with rain.
The gates of brass all broken; iron bars,
Transfigured, form a ladder to the stars.
Rough places plain, and crooked ways all straight,
For him who with a patient heart can wait.
These things shall be on God’s appointed day:
It may not be tomorrow—yet it may.”

24 MAY

The inheritance

‘And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.’ Genesis 12:2
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Colossians 2:1–15

I will bless thee. Here we say, Whoso the Lord blesses shall be blessed. To this purpose the touching petition of Jabez—O that thou wouldst bless me indeed [1 Chronicles 4:10], for thou only art able. For the sum of this blessing see Genesis 15:1—I will preserve thee from all evil and satisfy thee with all good. How safe are they who have the Almighty for their defence; how rich who have the all-sufficient God for their portion. Thus it is with all his people. Then why fear, or why complain? Sure they may be willing to leave the world to those who have no God.
And make thy name great. Abraham’s name has been recorded with honour—and there is an honour to all his people. What is it that gives people a great name in the world?
(i) A noble descent. But the lowliest believer is of more honourable birth than the greatest king, if not partaker of grace. He is born from above, born of God—sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.
(ii) Great possessions. Here likewise they have the advantage. They are joint heirs of Christ and all things are theirs.
(iii) Great actions. Thus captains and warriors who are skilful and successful in destroying mankind, are renowned. But the believer is engaged in a more important and difficult warfare and by the power of grace he overcomes the devil, the world and himself. He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he who taketh a city (Proverbs 16:32). We have in Hebrews 11 a specimen of the mighty acts of faith, and each believer’s exploits shall at last be made known before angels and men. Then their name shall be great indeed, though now by an unbelieving world cast out as evil (Daniel 11:32).

FOR MEDITATION: ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time’ (1 Peter 1:3–5, NIV).

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 23 [2/3], GENESIS 12:2

May 23rd

Careful infidelity

Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Matthew 6:25.

Jesus sums up commonsense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will press through and say—‘Now where does God come in in this relationship, in this mapped-out holiday, in these new books?’ He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.
“Take no thought …”—don’t take the pressure of forethought upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always. I will not trust where I cannot see, that is where infidelity begins. The only cure for infidelity is obedience to the Spirit.
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.