Milo

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]

April 3rd

If thou hadst known!

If thou hadst known … in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. Luke 19:42.

Jesus had entered into Jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of Pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a ‘whited sepulchre.’
What is it that blinds me in this my day? Have I a strange god—not a disgusting monster, but a disposition that rules me? More than once God has brought me face to face with the strange god and I thought I should have to yield, but I did not do it. I got through the crisis by the skin of my teeth and I find myself in the possession of the strange god still; I am blind to the things which belong to my peace. It is an appalling thing that we can be in the place where the Spirit of God should be getting at us unhinderedly, and yet increase our condemnation in God’s sight.
“If thou hadst known”—God goes direct to the heart, with the tears of Jesus behind. These words imply culpable responsibility; God holds us responsible for what we do not see. “Now they are hid from thine eyes”—because the disposition has never been yielded. The unfathomable sadness of the ‘might have been’! God never opens doors that have been closed. He opens other doors, but He reminds us that there are doors which we have shut, doors which need never have been shut, imaginations which need never have been sullied. Never be afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the ‘might have been’ into a wonderful culture for the future.

April 2nd

The glory that excels

The Lord … hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight. Acts 9:17.

When Paul received his sight he received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ—“I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” No attraction was ever allowed to hold the mind and soul of Paul save the face of Jesus Christ.
We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of Jesus Christ.
The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of God. The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God’s own heart.
Never allow anything to deflect you from insight into Jesus Christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you.

‘Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus,
I’ve lost sight of all beside,
So enchanted my spirit’s vision,
Gazing on the Crucified.’

April 3

“Glorify ye the Lord in the fires.” (Isa. 24:15)

MARK the little word “in”! We are to honor Him in the trial—in that which is an affliction indeed and though there have been cases where God did not let His saints feel the fire, yet, ordinarily, fire hurts.
But just here we are to glorify Him by our perfect faith in His goodness and love that has permitted all this to come upon us.
And more than that, we are to believe that out of this is coming something more for His praise than could have come but for this fiery trial.
We can only go through some fires with a large faith; little faith will fail. We must have the victory in the furnace.
—Margaret Bottome.

A man has as much religion as he can show in times of trouble. The men who were cast into the fiery furnace came out as they went in—except their bonds.
How often in some furnace of affliction God strikes them off! Their bodies were unhurt—their skin not even blistered. Their hair was unsinged, their garments not scorched, and even the smell of fire had not passed upon them. And that is the way Christians should come out of furnace trials—liberated from their bonds, but untouched by the flames.
“Triumphing over them in it.” (Col. 2:15.)
That is the real triumph—triumphing over sickness, in it; triumphing over death, dying; triumphing over adverse circumstances, in them. Oh, believe me, there is a power that can make us victors in the strife. There are heights to be reached where we can look down and over the way we have come, and sing our song of triumph on this side of Heaven. We can make others regard us as rich, while we are poor, and make many rich in our poverty. Our triumph is to be in it. Christ’s triumph was in His humiliation. Possibly our triumph, also, is to be made manifest in what seems to others humiliation.
—Margaret Bottome.

Is there not something captivating in the sight of a man or a woman burdened with many tribulations and yet carrying a heart as sound as a bell? Is there not something contagiously valorous in the vision of one who is greatly tempted, but is more than conqueror? Is it not heartening to see some pilgrim who is broken in body, but who retains the splendor of an unbroken patience? What a witness all this offers to the enduement of His grace!—J. H. Jowett.

“When each earthly prop gives under,
  And life seems a restless sea,
Are you then a God-kept wonder,
  Satisfied and calm and free?”

April 2

“They looked … and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.” (Exod. 16:10)

GET into the habit of looking for the silver lining of the cloud and when you have found it, continue to look at it, rather than at the leaden gray in the middle.

Do not yield to discouragement no matter how sorely pressed or beset you may be. A discouraged soul is helpless. He can neither resist the wiles of the enemy himself, while in this state, nor can he prevail in prayer for others.
Flee from every symptom of this deadly foe as you would flee from a viper. And be not slow in turning your back on it, unless you want to bite the dust in bitter defeat.
Search out God’s promises and say aloud of each one: “This promise is mine.” If you still experience a feeling of doubt and discouragement, pour out your heart to God and ask Him to rebuke the adversary who is so mercilessly nagging you.
The very instant you whole-heartedly turn away from every symptom of distrust and discouragement, the blessed Holy Spirit will quicken your faith and inbreathe Divine strength into your soul.
At first you may not be conscious of this, still as you resolutely and uncompromisingly “snub” every tendency toward doubt and depression that assails you, you will soon be made aware that the powers of darkness are falling back.
Oh, if our eyes could only behold the solid phalanx of strength, of power, that is ever behind every turning away from the hosts of darkness, God-ward, what scant heed would be given to the effort of the wily foe to distress, depress, discourage us!
All the marvelous attributes of the Godhead are on the side of the weakest believer, who in the name of Christ, and in simple, childlike trust, yields himself to God and turns to Him for help and guidance.—Selected.
On a day in the autumn, I saw a prairie eagle mortally wounded by a rifle shot. His eye still gleamed like a circle of light. Then he slowly turned his head, and gave one more searching and longing look at the sky. He had often swept those starry spaces with his wonderful wings. The beautiful sky was the home of his heart. It was the eagle’s domain. A thousand times he had exploited there his splendid strength. In those far away heights he had played with the lightnings, and raced with the winds, and now, so far away from home, the eagle lay dying, done to the death, because for once he forgot and flew too low. The soul is that eagle. This is not its home. It must not lose the skyward look. We must keep faith, we must keep hope, we must keep courage, we must keep Christ. We would better creep away from the battlefield at once if we are not going to be brave. There is no time for the soul to stampede. Keep the skyward look, my soul; keep the skyward look!

  “Keep looking up—
The waves that roar around thy feet,
Jehovah-Jireh will defeat
  When looking up.

  “Keep looking up—
Though darkness seems to wrap thy soul;
The Light of Light shall fill thy soul
  When looking up.

  “Keep looking up—
When worn, distracted with the fight;
Your Captain gives you conquering might
  When you look up.”

We can never see the sun rise by looking into the west.
—Japanese Proverb.