Milo

April 5

“Thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons.” (2 Kings 4:4)

THEY were to be alone with God, for they were not dealing with the laws of nature, nor human government, nor the church, nor the priesthood, nor even with the great prophet of God, but they must needs be isolated from all creatures, from all leaning circumstances, from all props of human reason, and swung off, as it were, into the vast blue inter-stellar space, hanging on God alone, in touch with the fountain of miracles.
Here is a part in the programme of God’s dealings, a secret chamber of isolation in prayer and faith which every soul must enter that is very fruitful.
There are times and places where God will form a mysterious wall around us, and cut away all props, and all the ordinary ways of doing things, and shut us up to something Divine, which is utterly new and unexpected, something that old circumstances do not fit into, where we do not know just what will happen, where God is cutting the cloth of our lives on a new pattern, where He makes us look to Himself.
Most religious people live in a sort of treadmill life, where they can calculate almost everything that will happen, but the souls that God leads out into immediate and special dealings, He shuts in where all they know is that God has hold of them, and is dealing with them, and their expectation is from Him alone.
Like this widow, we must be detached from outward things and attached inwardly to the Lord alone in order to see His wonders.—Soul Food.
In the sorest trials God often makes the sweetest discoveries of Himself.—Gems.

“God sometimes shuts the door and shuts us in,
That He may speak, perchance through grief or pain,
And softly, heart to heart, above the din,
May tell some precious thought to us again.”

5 APRIL

A great shaking

‘For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.’ Haggai 2:6–7
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Exodus 19:16–25

God shook the earth when he proclaimed his law to Israel from Sinai. The description, though very simple, presents to our thoughts a scene unspeakably majestic and grand, but unspeakably awful likewise (Exodus 19:16–19). The mountain was in flames at the top and trembled to its basis. Dark clouds, thunderings and lightnings filled the air. Not only the mountain, but the hearts of the people, of the whole people, trembled, and Moses himself said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Then, as the apostle referring to this passage observes in Hebrews 12:26, The voice of the Lord shook the earth. But the prophet speaks of another, a greater, a more important and extensive concussion. Yet once more I shake not the earth only but the heaven. If we really believe that the Scriptures are true, that the prophecies were delivered by holy men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and that not one jot or tittle shall fail, how studious should we be to attain a right understanding of passages and events in which we are nearly [closely] interested, so as to be duly and properly affected by them.
FOR MEDITATION: On the earthquake, 8 September, 1775
But if these warnings prove in vain,
Should the deep-rooted hills be hurled,
Say, sinner, canst thou tell,
And plunged beneath the seas;
How soon the earth may quake again,
And strong convulsions shake the world,
And open wide to hell?
Your hearts may rest in peace.

But happy they who love the LORD
JESUS, your Shepherd, LORD, and Chief,
And his salvation know;
Shall shelter you from ill;
The hope that’s founded on his word,
And not a worm or shaking leaf
No change can overthrow.
Can move, but at his will.

SERMON SERIES: MESSIAH, NO. 3 [1/5], HAGGAI 2:6–7

April 4th

Those borders of distrust

Behold, the hour cometh, … that ye shall be scattered. John 16:32.

Jesus is not rebuking the disciples, their faith was real, but it was disturbed; it was not at work in actual things. The disciples were scattered to their own interests, alive to interests that never were in Jesus Christ. After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities. We shall be scattered, not into work, but into inner desolations and made to know what internal death to God’s blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is not that we choose it, but that God engineers our circumstances so that we are brought there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is bolstered up by feelings and by blessings. When once we get there, no matter where God places us or what the inner desolations are, we can praise God that all is well. That is faith being worked out in actualities.
“… and shall leave Me alone.” Have we left Jesus alone by the scattering of His providence? Because we do not see God in our circumstances? Darkness comes by the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do as He likes with us—prepared to be separated from conscious blessings? Until Jesus Christ is Lord, we all have ends of our own to serve; our faith is real, but it is not permanent yet. God is never in a hurry; if we wait, we shall see that God is pointing out that we have not been interested in Himself, but only in His blessings. The sense of God’s blessing is elemental.
“Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Spiritual grit is what we need.

April 4

“Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.” (2 Kings 6:17)

THIS is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, “Lord, open our eyes that we may see”; for the world all around us, as well as around the prophet, is full of God’s horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are thus opened, we shall see in all events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful or sad, a “chariot” for our souls.
Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such; and, on the other hand, even the smallest trial may be a Juggernaut car to crush us into misery or despair if we consider it.
It lies with each of us to choose which they shall be. It all depends, not upon what these events are, but upon how we take them. If we lie down under them, and let them roll over us and crush us, they become Juggernaut cars, but if we climb up into them, as into a car of victory, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward, they become the chariots of God.—Hannah Whitall Smith.
The Lord cannot do much with a crushed soul, hence the adversary’s attempt to push the Lord’s people into despair and hopelessness over the condition of themselves, or of the church. It has often been said that a dispirited army goes forth to battle with the certainty of being beaten. We heard a missionary say recently that she had been invalided home purely because her spirit had fainted, with the consequence that her body sunk also. We need to understand more of these attacks of the enemy upon our spirits and how to resist them. If the enemy can dislodge us from our position, then he seeks to “wear us out” (Daniel 7:25) by a prolonged siege, so that at last we, out of sheer weakness, let go the cry of victory.

4 APRIL (PREACHED EASTER EVENING, 4 APRIL 1779)

Don’t be deceived

‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ Galatians 6:7
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Obadiah 1–17

There is a lamentable proneness in mankind to deceive themselves in matters of the highest importance. Indeed in worldly affairs they are quite unwilling to be imposed upon. If they have a purchase to make, how cautious are they lest there should be a flaw or mistake in the title. But with regard to the salvation of their souls, any poor pretence or show of a hope will content them. Their hearts are deceitful, and Satan the great deceiver is dextrous in putting cheats upon them. Against this, we are now warned. May the Lord impress the warning upon every heart. Let us consider some of the ways in which men are deceived:
(i) by the love of the world. The Scripture pronounces it all vanity, but it appears something to a carnal eye. Satan tempted our Lord this way. To avoid this deceit, consider Matthew 16:26.
(ii) by the love of sin. Sin is called deceitful; it blinds the eyes and hardens the heart. How many are convinced in their cooler hours, but when the temptation presents itself powerfully again, they forget what they knew.
(iii) by trusting to their own strength. When they have made a few hasty resolutions, or perhaps only purposed to resolve, they think they shall stand. How often have some of you been deceived thus!
(iv) by vain hopes, founded on the general mercy of God, their own righteousness and a formal profession of the gospel.
FOR MEDITATION:
How David, when by sin deceived,
When sin deceives it hardens too,
From bad to worse went on!
For though he vainly sought
For when the Holy Spirit’s grieved,
To hide his crimes from public view,
Our strength and guard are gone.
Of GOD he little thought.

His eye on Bathsheba once fixed,
Let those who think they stand beware,
With poison filled his soul;
For David stood before;
He ventured on adultery next,
Nor let the fallen soul despair,
And murder crowned the whole.
For mercy can restore.

SERMON: GALATIANS 6:7 [1/1]