Milo

April 14th

Inspired invincibility

Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me. Matthew 11:29.

“Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.” How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us into the place where we can have communion with Him, and we groan and say—‘Oh Lord, let me be like other people!’ Jesus is asking us to take one end of the yoke—‘My yoke is easy, get alongside Me and we will pull together.’ Are you identified with the Lord Jesus like that? If so, you will thank God for the pressure of His hand.
“To them that have no might He increaseth strength.” God comes and takes us out of our sentimentality, and our complaining turns into a psalm of praise. The only way to know the strength of God is to take the yoke of Jesus upon us and learn of Him.
“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Where do the saints get their joy from? If we did not know some saints, we would say—‘Oh, he, or she, has nothing to bear.’ Lift the veil. The fact that the peace and the light and the joy of God are there is proof that the burden is there too. The burden God places squeezes the grapes and out comes the wine; most of us see the wine only. No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.
If you have the whine in you, kick it out ruthlessly. It is a positive crime to be weak in God’s strength.

April 14

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thess. 4:16, 17)

IT was “very early in the morning” while “it was yet dark,” that Jesus rose from the dead. Not the sun, only the morning-star shone upon His opening tomb. The shadows had not fled, the citizens of Jerusalem had not awaked. It was still night—the hour of sleep and darkness, when He arose. Nor did his rising break the slumbers of the city. So shall it be “very early in the morning while it is yet dark,” and when nought but the morning-star is shining, that Christ’s body, the Church, shall arise. Like Him, His saints shall awake when the children of the night and darkness are still sleeping their sleep of death. In their arising they disturb no one. The world hears not the voice that summons them. As Jesus laid them quietly to rest, each in his own still tomb, like children in the arms of their mother; so, as quietly, as gently, shall He awake them when the hour arrives. To them come the quickening words, “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust” (Isa. 26:19). Into their tomb the earliest ray of glory finds its way. They drink in the first gleams of morning, while as yet the eastern clouds give but the faintest signs of the uprising. Its genial fragrance, its soothing stillness, its bracing freshness, its sweet loneliness, its quiet purity, all so solemn and yet so full of hope, these are theirs.

Oh, the contrast between these things and the dark night through which they have passed! Oh, the contrast between these things and the grave from which they have sprung! And as they shake off the encumbering turf, flinging mortality aside, and rising, in glorified bodies, to meet their Lord in the air, they are lighted and guided upward, along the untrodden pathway, by the beams of that Star of the morning, which, like the Star of Bethlehem, conducts them to the presence of the King. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”—Horatius Bonar.

“While the hosts cry Hosanna, from heaven descending,
With glorified saints and the angels attending,
With grace on His brow, like a halo of glory,
Will Jesus receive His own.”
“Even so, come quickly.”

A soldier said, “When I die do not sound taps over my grave, but reveillé, the morning call, the summons to rise.”

14 APRIL

The King of Glory

‘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: Psalm 24:1–10

He shall fill this house with his glory. When he visited it he displayed his glory. The blind and the lame came thither to him and he healed them. Children felt this power and sang, Hosanna to the Son of David, and when the Pharisees rebuked them he said, If these held their peace, the stones would cry out [Luke 19:40]. As the Lord in his own house, he purged the temple and drove out those who profaned it. And when he left it the last time, with sovereign authority he denounced that awful sentence which was soon after executed both upon the temple and the nation. His glory filled the temple when he was an infant, so that Simeon and Anna then acknowledged his character and spoke of him to those who were waiting for the consolation of Israel. Especially, his glory was manifested when he proclaimed himself the fountain of life and invited every thirsty, weary sinner to come to him to drink and live [John 7:37–38].
The temple has long been destroyed. But he has still a house—a house not made with hands. This house is his church, his people. He dwells in each individually. He dwells among them collectively in their societies and solemn assemblies. But before he takes possession of a heart, there is usually a shaking. He shakes the heavens and the earth; their former views of God and themselves are changed. All that they have been building in religion is shaken to the ground—their vain hopes are shaken to the foundation. This makes way for the perception of his glory as a Saviour. In this day of his power, the heart is willing to throw open its gates that the King of Glory may come in [Psalm 24:7–10].

FOR MEDITATION: ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God’ (Revelation 19:1, NIV).

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

April 13th

What to do under the conditions

Cast thy burden upon the Lord. Psalm 55:22.

We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt, but there are burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off, He wants us to roll them back on Him. “Cast that He hath given thee upon the Lord.” (R.V. marg.) If we undertake work for God and get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility will be overwhelmingly crushing; but if we roll back on God that which He has put upon us, He takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realization of Himself.
Many workers have gone out with high courage and fine impulses, but with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, and before long they are crushed. They do not know what to do with the burden, it produces weariness, and people say—‘What an embittered end to such a beginning!’
“Roll thy burden upon the Lord”—you have been bearing it all; deliberately put one end on the shoulders of God. “The government shall be upon His shoulder.” Commit to God “that He hath given thee”; not fling it off, but put it over on to Him and yourself with it, and the burden is lightened by the sense of companionship. Never dissociate yourself from the burden.

April 13

“And the hand of the Lord was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth unto the plain, and I will there talk with thee.” (Ezek. 3:22)

DID you ever hear of any one being much used for Christ who did not have some special waiting time, some complete upset of all his or her plans first; from St. Paul’s being sent off into the desert of Arabia for three years, when he must have been boiling over with the glad tidings, down to the present day?

You were looking forward to telling about trusting Jesus in Syria; now He says, “I want you to show what it is to trust Me, without waiting for Syria.”

My own case is far less severe, but the same in principle, that when I thought the door was flung open for me to go with a bound into literary work, it is opposed, and doctor steps in and says, simply, “Never! She must choose between writing and living; she can’t do both.”

That was in 1860. Then I came out of the shell with “Ministry of Song” in 1869, and saw the evident wisdom of being kept waiting nine years in the shade. God’s love being unchangeable, He is just as loving when we do not see or feel His love. Also His love and His sovereignty are co-equal and universal; so He withholds the enjoyment and conscious progress because He knows best what will really ripen and further His work in us.—Memorials of Frances Ridley Havergal.

I laid it down in silence,
  This work of mine,
And took what had been sent me—
  A resting time.
The Master’s voice had called me
  To rest apart;
“Apart with Jesus only,”
  Echoed my heart.

I took the rest and stillness
  From His own Hand,
And felt this present illness
  Was what He planned.
How often we choose labor,
  When He says “Rest”—
Our ways are blind and crooked;
  His way is best.

The work Himself has given,
  He will complete.
There may be other errands
  For tired feet;
There may be other duties
  For tired hands,
The present, is obedience
  To His commands.

There is a blessed resting
  In lying still,
In letting His hand mould us,
  Just as He will.
His work must be completed.
  His lesson set;
He is the higher Workman:
  Do not forget!

It is not only “working.”
  We must be trained;
And Jesus “learnt” obedience,
  Through suffering gained.
For us, His yoke is easy,
  His burden light.
His discipline most needful,
  And all is right.

We are but under-workmen;
  They never choose
If this tool or if that one
  Their hands shall use.
In working or in waiting
  May we fulfill
Not ours at all, but only
  The Master’s will!

—Selected.

God provides resting places as well as working places. Rest, then, and be thankful when He brings you, wearied to a wayside well.