Milo

April 6

“I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me.” (Hab. 2:1)

THERE is no waiting on God for help, and there is no help from God, without watchful expectation on our part. If we ever fail to receive strength and defense from Him, it is because we are not on the outlook for it. Many a proffered succour from heaven goes past us, because we are not standing on our watch-tower to catch the far-off indications of its approach, and to fling open the gates of our heart for its entrance. He whose expectation does not lead him to be on the alert for its coming will get but little. Watch for God in the events of your life.
The old homely proverb says: “They that watch for Providence will never want a providence to watch for,” and you may turn it the other way and say, “They that do not watch for providences will never have a providence to watch for.” Unless you put out your water-jars when it rains you will catch no water.
We want to be more business-like and use common sense with God in pleading promises. If you were to go to one of the banks, and see a man go in and out and lay a piece of paper on the table, and take it up again and nothing more—if he did that several times a day, I think there would soon be orders to keep the man out.
Those men who come to the bank in earnest present their checks, they wait until they receive their gold, and then they go; but not without having transacted real business.
They do not put the paper down, speak about the excellent signature, and discuss the excellent document; but they want their money for it, and they are not content without it. These are the people who are always welcome at the bank, and not triflers. Alas, a great many people play at praying They do not expect God to give them an answer, and thus they are mere triflers. Our Heavenly Father would have us do real business with Him in our praying.—C. H. Spurgeon.

“Thine expectation shall not be cut off.”

6 APRIL (PREACHED THURSDAY 6 APRIL 1774)

Is the King in you?

‘Now why dost thou cry out aloud? Is there no king in thee? Is thy counsellor perished? For pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.’ Micah 4:9
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Micah 4:6–13

He checks the excess of their grief and reproves their unbelief. Observe reproof and consolation joined. Is there no king …? Two comfortable views of the Lord Jesus are here presented: our King, our Counsellor. The soul over whom he reigns as King must be safe and happy. The soul for whom he pleads as Advocate will surely gain its cause.
Is there no king in thee? If there is, you have no reason to sorrow without hope, for he is mighty to save. A king has great power—but none like the King and saints (Matthew 28:18). He has power over the heart, the world and the devil. A king is sovereign. If he will pardon, who will condemn? It is spoken of as Nebuchadnezzar’s prerogative (Daniel 5:19). Much more, is it true of Jesus. Though you owe ten thousand talents, this King can clear you by an act of grace. A king is rich and can easily make his friends so. What a change did Pharaoh’s favour make for Joseph. But you will say, ‘It is good news for some, but if I am asked, I fear I must say, No, he is not in me—at least, I know it not. How shall I be sure?’ There is no end of reasoning with unbelief. What would satisfy you?
The King has described those in whom he is: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word (Isaiah 66:2). What can you oppose to this, but those things which the Scripture declares is common to all the people of God? What can you say, more than St Paul has said of himself (Romans 7)?

FOR MEDITATION: I long to hear that you are entered into the peace and liberty of the gospel. Why will you rather listen to an enemy who grudges you peace, and who you know beforehand was a liar from the beginning? He aims to distress you. The chief point of the gospel is very simple and plain—it is only to believe that Jesus died and rose again, and is now preparing a place in his kingdom and that all he did and suffered, with all the blessed effects of his atonement and mediation, is for your sake, if you put your trust in him.
John Newton to Mrs Jean Coffin, 27 June 1793

SERMON: MICAH 4:9 [1/2]

April 5th

His agony and our fellowship

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, … tarry ye here, and watch with Me. Matthew 26:36, 38.

We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin. We know nothing about Gethsemane in personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique; they are the gateway into Life for us.
It was not the death on the cross that Jesus feared in Gethsemane; He stated most emphatically that He came on purpose to die. In Gethsemane He feared lest He might not get through as Son of Man. He would get through as Son of God—Satan could not touch Him there; but Satan’s onslaught was that He would get through as an isolated Figure only; and that would mean that He could be no Saviour. Read the record of the agony in the light of the temptation: “Then the devil leaveth Him for a season.” In Gethsemane Satan came back and was again overthrown. Satan’s final onslaught against Our Lord as son of Man is in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Saviour of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal all it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ is a triumph for the son of Man. It was not only a sign that Our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Every human being can get through into the presence of God now because of what the Son of Man went through.

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