Milo

5 MAY

Black despair turned to hope

‘I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ Genesis 3:10
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 51:9–19

Observe that a sinner that feels the condemning power of the law would never expect or even ask for mercy, if the Lord did not first reveal that there is forgiveness with him. A true law work without any gospel light would shut the soul up in black despair.
Narrative, 10 March 1748:
… almost every passing wave breaking over my head.… Indeed I expected that every time the vessel descended in the sea, she would rise no more; and though I dreaded death now, and my heart foreboded the worst, if the Scriptures, which I had long since opposed, were indeed true; yet still I was but half-convinced, and remained for a space of time in a sullen frame, a mixture of despair and impatience. I thought if the Christian religion were true, I could not be forgiven; and was therefore expecting, and almost at times wishing, to know the worst of it.… Thus, as I have said, I waited with fear and impatience to receive my inevitable doom.

Therefore, we may be sure that those who venture upon general and unscriptural notions of mercy, never truly knew what the word sin means, considered as an offence against the majesty and holiness of God. When a soul has had such a conviction and yet, in the midst of many fears and faintings, continues waiting and hoping for salvation by Jesus, cannot seek it in any other, cannot give over seeking it in him, there is certainly a degree of faith.
Narrative, 10 March 1748:
I now began to think of that Jesus whom I had so often derided: I recollected the particulars of his life, and of his death—a death for sins not his own, but, as I remembered, for the sake of those who in their distress should put their trust in him.… He was pleased to show me at that time, the absolute necessity of some expedient to interpose between a righteous God and a sinful soul. Upon the gospel-scheme I saw at least a peradventure of hope, but on every other side I was surrounded with black unfathomable despair.

FOR MEDITATION: O bless him for Christ—that ever that precious name sounded in your ears.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 9 [3/3], GENESIS 3:8–13

May 4th

Vicarious intercession

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Hebrews 10:19.

Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask. Our approach to God is due entirely to the vicarious identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effectual hindrance to intercession, because it is based on sympathy with that in ourselves and in others that we do not think needs atoning for. We have the notion that there are certain right and virtuous things in us which do not need to be based on the Atonement, and just in the domain of ‘stodge’ that is produced by this idea we cannot intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests in others, we get petulant with God; we are always ready with our own ideas, and intercession becomes the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means the radical alteration of all our sympathies. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to God? Sulky or spiritual? Determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?

May 4

“He maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth and his hands make whole.” (Job 5:18)
The ministry of a great sorrow.

AS we pass beneath the hills which have been shaken by the earthquake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods of perfect repose succeed those of destruction. The pools of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen rocks, the water lilies gleam, and the reeds whisper among the shadows; the village rises again over the forgotten graves, and its church tower, white through the storm twilight, proclaims a renewed appeal to His protection “in whose hand are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of the hills is his also.”—Ruskin.

God ploughed one day with an earthquake,
  And drove His furrows deep!
The huddling plains upstarted,
  The hills were all aleap!

But that is the mountains’ secret,
  Age-hidden in their breast;
“God’s peace is everlasting,”
  Are the dream-words of their rest.

He made them the haunts of beauty,
  The home elect of His grace;
He spreadeth His mornings upon them,
  His sunsets light their face.

His winds bring messages to them—
  Wild storm-news from the main;
They sing it down the valleys
  In the love-song of the rain.

They are nurseries for young rivers,
  Nests for His flying cloud,
Homesteads for new-born races,
  Masterful, free, and proud.

The people of tired cities
  Come up to their shrines and pray;
God freshens again within them,
  As He passes by all day.

And lo, I have caught their secret!
  The beauty deeper than all!
This faith—that life’s hard moments,
  When the jarring sorrows befall,

Are but God ploughing His mountains;
  And those mountains yet shall be
The source of His grace and freshness,
  And His peace everlasting to me.

—William C. Gannett.

4 MAY

Trembling under God’s righteous law

‘And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.… And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’ Genesis 3:9–13
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 51:1–8

At length they are constrained to appear. Adam confesses his fear, but not his sin. He was stubborn, but the Lord followed him closer. Hast thou—is it possible?—hast thou made light of my command? He is forced to own it, but still would find excuse. He lays the fault upon the woman and in effect upon the Lord himself for giving him such an ensnaring companion. The woman in her turn tries to remove the blame to the serpent. Hitherto the Lord had not revealed his gracious purpose of forgiveness—but they stood trembling under the convictions of having broken his righteous law. From hence we may observe that legal convictions will never humble the sinner’s heart to a true and gracious repentance for sin. Nothing that passed as yet reveals the frame of Adam’s mind to have been better than that of the serpent himself. I mention this for the sake of some who are ready to question whether they are right because they have not been in such great terrors as some others. If you felt the terrors of Judas, they could not effect one gracious desire. Again, whatever uneasiness people may sometimes feel on account of sin, if their hearts are not humbled under a sense of its vileness, we cannot be sure that it is the effect of a good work upon their hearts.

FOR MEDITATION: The calling is wrought by the Spirit of God and it lays hold of the spirit of the sinner. It is something more than that alarm and uneasiness which is often felt while the sound of the preacher’s voice is in the ear and from which people quickly recover as soon as they get into the open air. It is more than a half reformation from a few gross sins. It is the voice of God that brings the law to the conscience and the conscience to the bar, that cuts off every plea for hope and brings the soul into the state of a trembling prisoner, till a way of escape is opened by the knowledge of Christ.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 9 [2/3], GENESIS 3:8–13

May 3rd

Vital intercession

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. Eph. 6:18.

As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God’s interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone; we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them, in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible to intercede vitally unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipator of our relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us say—‘I will not allow that thing to happen.’ Instantly we are out of vital connection with God.
Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own ‘sad sweet self.’ The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests in other lives.
Discernment is God’s call to intercession, never to fault finding.