Milo

12 APRIL

Refreshing ointment

‘Thy name is as ointment poured forth.’ Song of Solomon 1:3
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Acts 13:32–52

This ointment was poured forth in the preached gospel. It was appointed for this end. And everything that bears the name of preaching, if it does not diffuse the knowledge of this good ointment, is dry and tedious, unsavoury and unprofitable. But by this foolishness of preaching it is spread abroad. The scene of our Lord’s life was confined to a few places and it was a long while ago—but the ointment thus poured out has reached to distant lands and ages. Countless thousands have experienced its efficacy, and blessed be God, it is still fresh and still flowing. It is poured out amongst us at this day.
Farther, the expression poured forth may signify abundance (there is enough to spare) and freeness (it is not enclosed but open and common to all who know its value, as the light or water).
The Lord has likewise special seasons of pouring it into the hearts of his people. These are called times of refreshment (Acts 3:19): usually at the time of their first conversion; often in an hour of distress and trouble. They may expect it likewise at the hour of death. He often meets them with it in the ordinances—particularly when they approach his table. At this feast he revives them with the savour of his ointment and pours it upon their heads. He anoints them with this oil of joy and gladness above their fellows.

FOR MEDITATION:
Weak is the effort of my heart
And cold my warmest thought;
But when I see thee as thou art,
I’ll praise Thee as I ought.

Till then I would thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath;
And may the music of thy name
Refresh my soul in death.

SERMON: SONG OF SOLOMON 1:3 [5/5]

April 11th

Moral divinity

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Romans 6:5.

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have been through crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a decided likeness to Him. The incoming of the Spirit of Jesus into me readjusts my personal life to God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him authority to impart the life of God to me, and my experimental life must be constructed on the basis of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus now, and it will show itself in holiness.
The idea all through the Apostle Paul’s writings is that after the moral decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus invades every bit of my human nature. It takes omnipotence to live the life of the Son of God in mortal flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a Guest in a house, He invades everything. When once I decide that my “old man” (i.e., the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals. When I have made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to reckon actually that I am dead unto sin, because I find the life of Jesus there all the time. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of Jesus, and it is His holiness that is gifted to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new order spiritually.

April 11

“What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light.” (Matt. 10:27)

OUR Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us things. Into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of some crushing sorrow and disappointment.

Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite; He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to behold the heavenly constellations; and the ear to detect the undertones of His voice, which is often drowned amid the tumult of earth’s strident cries.

But such revelations always imply a corresponding responsibility—“that speak ye in the light—that proclaim upon the housetops.”

We are not meant to always linger in the dark, or stay in the closet; presently we shall be summoned to take our place in the rush and storm of life; and when that moment comes, we are to speak and proclaim what we have learned.

This gives a new meaning to suffering, the saddest element in which is often its apparent aimlessness. “How useless I am!” “What am I doing for the betterment of men?” “Wherefore this waste of the precious spikenard of my soul?”

Such are the desperate laments of the sufferer. But God has a purpose in it all. He has withdrawn His child to the higher altitudes of fellowship, that he may hear God speaking face to face, and bear the message to his fellows at the mountain foot.

Were the forty days wasted that Moses spent on the Mount, or the period spent at Horeb by Elijah, or the years spent in Arabia by Paul?

There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the all-vital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has veiled the material and silenced the stir of human life, and has opened the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should have food.

Thus alone can the sense of God’s presence become the fixed possession of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly, with the Psalmist, “Thou art near, O God.”—F. B. Meyer.

“Some hearts, like evening primroses, open more beautifully in the shadows of life.”

11 APRIL

Filled with his fragrance

‘Thy name is as ointment poured forth.’ Song of Solomon 1:3
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 22:1–31

How poured forth? We read in Mark 14 that the woman brought precious ointment in a box—and when she broke the box, then and not before, the whole house was filled with its fragrance. Thus the grace and virtue of this name was confined and known but to few while our Lord conversed upon earth—but afterwards it was poured forth when he suffered. The precious vessel that contained this precious ointment was broken upon the cross—the savour of his name, his love, his blood, poured out from every wound in his sacred body. See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingling down. From that hour, it was quickly spread and diffused far and near. And here we are still to look for it. When we desire a new savour of this ointment, let us turn our eyes, our thoughts, to Golgotha. To behold him by faith as he hung bleeding and dying, with outstretched arms inviting our regards and saying, See if any sorrow was like to my sorrow. This is a sovereign balm for every wound and a cordial for our care.
FOR MEDITATION:
When on the cross, my Lord I see
Here I forget my cares and pains;
Bleeding to death, for wretched me;
I drink, yet still my thirst remains;
Satan and sin no more can move,
Only the fountain-head above,
For I am all transformed to love.
Can satisfy the thirst of love.

His thorns, and nails, pierce through my heart,
O, that I thus could always feel!
In every groan I bear a part;
LORD, more and more thy love reveal!
I view his wounds with streaming eyes,
Then my glad tongue shall loud proclaim
But see! he bows his head and dies!
The grace and glory of thy name.

Come, sinners, view the Lamb of GOD,
Thy name dispels my guilt and fear,
Wounded and dead, and bathed in blood!
Revives my heart, and charms my ear;
Behold his side, and venture near,
Affords a balm for every wound,
The well of endless life is here.
And Satan trembles at the sound.

SERMON: SONG OF SOLOMON 1:3 [4/5]

April 10th

Moral decision about sin

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Romans 6:6.

Co-Crucifixion. Have I made this decision about sin—that it must be killed right out in me? It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but it is the great moment in my life when I do decide that just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world, so sin must die out in me, not be curbed or suppressed or counteracted, but crucified. No one can bring any one else to this decision. We may be earnestly convinced, and religiously convinced, but what we need to do is to come to the decision which Paul forces here.
Haul yourself up, take a time alone with God, make the moral decision and say—‘Lord, identify me with Thy death until I know that sin is dead in me.’ Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
It was not a divine anticipation on the part of Paul, but a very radical and definite experience. Am I prepared to let the Spirit of God search me until I know what the disposition of sin is—the thing that lusts against the Spirit of God in me? Then if so, will I agree with God’s verdict on that disposition of sin—that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? I cannot reckon myself “dead indeed unto sin” unless I have been through this radical issue of will before God.
Have I entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ until all that is left is the life of Christ in my flesh and blood? “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”