Milo

May 17

“And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness … an angel of the Lord … saying, … now come, I will send thee into Egypt.”
(Acts 7:30–34.)

OFTEN the Lord calls us aside from our work for a season, and bids us be still and learn ere we go forth In again to minister. There is no time lost in such waiting hours.
Fleeing from his enemies, the ancient knight found that his horse needed to be re-shod. Prudence seemed to urge him on without delay, but higher wisdom taught him to halt a few minutes at the blacksmith’s forge by the way, to have the shoe replaced; and although he heard the feet of his pursuers galloping hard behind, yet he waited those minutes until his charger was refitted for his flight. And then, leaping into his saddle just as they appeared a hundred yards away, he dashed away from them with the fleetness of the wind, and knew that his halting had hastened his escape.
So often God bids us tarry ere we go, and fully recover ourselves for the next stage of the journey and work.—Days of Heaven upon Earth.

Waiting! Yes, patiently waiting!
  Till next steps made plain shall be;
To hear, with the inner hearing,
  The Voice that will call for me.

Waiting! Yes, hopefully waiting!
  With hope that need not grow dim;
The Master is pledged to guide me,
  And my eyes are unto Him.

Waiting! Expectantly waiting!
  Perhaps it may be today
The Master will quickly open
  The gate to my future way.

Waiting! Yes, waiting! still waiting!
  I know, though I’ve waited long,
That, while He withholds His purpose,
  His waiting cannot be wrong.

Waiting! Yes, waiting! still waiting!
  The Master will not be late:
He knoweth that I am waiting
  For Him to unlatch the gate.

—J. Danson Smith.

17 MAY

Guidance: divine & DIY

‘And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.’ Genesis 8:11
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Nehemiah 2:11–18

We have the resting of the ark upon a mountain, guided thither by God and not steered by Noah’s prudence. The Lord has times of rest for his people. A convinced sinner is like the ark tossed upon the waves, but in due time guided to the Rock that is higher than he [Psalm 61:2]. When the ark had rested some time, Noah was desirous of intelligence. He saw the tops of the hills from the window of the ark, but was solicitous to know when the earth should be dry and fit to receive him. God had told him the day when the flood should come, but not when it should subside. The knowledge of the one was necessary, the other not so. The one he could not have known but by revelation, but he might in due time discover the other in the use of ordinary means. The knowledge the Lord affords his people is not to indulge their curiosity or to make them indolent, but so graciously managed, that, while nothing truly profitable is held from them, their own diligence and application is still needful.

FOR MEDITATION: I wish I could advise you about your sons, but here likewise I am at a loss. Dispose of your children in any way, you cannot keep them out of the infectious air of the world’s evil atmosphere. When you have made the most prudent use in your power of the means that the providence of the Lord affords, you can do nothing further than to commend them to him by frequent, fervent prayer, and then in faith, patience and hope, wait for the issue: and if you give them up to him (when you have done your part), you must leave him (if you can) to answer his prayers in his own time and way; for he often brings the blind by a way they know not.
John Newton to James Coffin, 19 February 1799

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 18 [2/3], GENESIS 8:11

J

May 16th

The habit of wealth

Partakers of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4.

We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises; then we have to ‘manipulate’ the Divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the first habit to form is the habit of realizing the provision God has made. ‘Oh, I can’t afford it,’ we say—one of the worst lies is tucked up in that phrase. It is ungovernably bad taste to talk about money in the natural domain, and so it is spiritually, and yet we talk as if our Heavenly Father had cut us off with a shilling! We think it a sign of real modesty to say at the end of a day—‘Oh, well, I have just got through, but it has been a severe tussle.’ And all the Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will tax the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will obey Him. What does it matter if external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish God’s riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them.
When God is beginning to be satisfied with us, He will impoverish everything in the nature of fictitious wealth, until we learn that all our fresh springs are in Him. If the majesty and grace and power of God are not being manifested in us (not to our consciousness), God holds us responsible. “God is able to make all grace abound,” then learn to lavish the grace of God on others. Be stamped with God’s nature, and His blessing will come through you all the time.

May 16

“Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days.” (Dan. 10:12, 13)

WE have wonderful teaching here on prayer, and we are shown the direct hindrance from Satan.
Daniel had fasted and prayed twenty-one days, and had a very hard time in prayer. As far as we read the narrative, it was not because Daniel was not a good man, nor because his prayer was not right; but it was because of a special attack of Satan.
The Lord started a messenger to tell Daniel that his prayer was answered the moment Daniel began to pray; but an evil angel met the good angel and wrestled with him, hindering him. There was a conflict in the heavens; and Daniel seemed to go through an agony on earth the same as that which was going on in the heavens.
“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers … against wicked spirits in high places (Eph. 6:12, margin).
Satan delayed the answer three full weeks. Daniel nearly succumbed, and Satan would have been glad to kill him; but God will not suffer anything to come above that we “are able to bear.”
Many a Christian’s prayer is hindered by Satan; but you need not fear when your prayers and faith pile up; for after a while they will be like a flood, and will not only sweep the answer through, but will also bring some new accompanying blessing.—Sermon.
Hell does its worst with the saints. The rarest souls have been tested with high pressures and temperatures, but Heaven will not desert them.—W. L. Watkinson.

16 MAY

Fly to Jesus, the stronghold

‘And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.’ Genesis 8:11
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Genesis 7:24–8:12

Awful have been the effects of sin in every age and country. But never had death such a general triumph over sinners as in the days of Noah. When he and his family were safely shut up, in that very day, the sentence long before denounced was executed, and all mankind, having corrupted their ways before God, were swept away with a flood. What heart can conceive the horror and dismay when destruction presented itself in every quarter, and the ark, which before they had slighted, and which was the only possible way of escape, was shut against them. This is an emblem of a still severer day of vengeance when the wicked shall be destroyed, not by water, but by a deluge of wrath and fire. O think of it in time and fly to Jesus, the stronghold, as prisoners of hope [Zechariah 9:12].
FOR MEDITATION:
Saved by blood, I live to tell
Shame and wonder, joy and love,
What the love of CHRIST hath done;
All at once possessed my heart;
He redeemed my soul from hell,
Can I hope thy grace to prove,
Of a rebel made a son:
After acting such a part?
Oh, I tremble still, to think
‘Thou hast greatly sinned,’ he said,
How secure I lived in sin;
‘But I freely all forgive;
Sporting on destruction’s brink,
I myself thy debt have paid,
Yet preserved from falling in.
Now I bid thee rise and live.’

In his own appointed hour,
Come, my fellow-sinners, try,
To my heart the Saviour spoke,
JESUS’ heart is full of love;
Touched me by his Spirit’s power,
Oh that you, as well as I,
And my dangerous slumber broke.
May his wondrous mercy prove!
Then I saw and owned my guilt,
He has sent me to declare,
Soon my gracious LORD replied;
All is ready, all is free;
‘Fear not, I my blood have spilt,
Why should any soul despair,
’Twas for such as thee I died.’
When he saved a wretch like me?

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 18 [1/3], GENESIS 8:11