Milo

January 16

“And there arose a great storm.” (Mark 4:37.)

SOME of the storms of life come suddenly: a great sorrow, a bitter disappointment, a crushing defeat. Some come slowly. They appear upon the ragged edges of the horizon no larger than a man’s hand, but, trouble that seems so insignificant spreads until it covers the sky and overwhelms us.
Yet it is in the storm that God equips us for service. When God wants an oak He plants it on the moor where the storms will shake it and the rains will beat down upon it, and it is in the midnight battle with elements that the oak wins its rugged fibre and becomes the king of the forest.
When God wants to make a man He puts him into some storm. The history of manhood is always rough and rugged. No man is made until he has been out into the surge of the storm and found the sublime fulfillment of the prayer: “O God, take me, break me, make me.”
A Frenchman has painted a picture of universal genius. There stand orators, philosophers and martyrs, all who have achieved pre-eminence in any phase of life; the remarkable fact about the picture is this: Every man who is pre-eminent for his ability was first pre-eminent for suffering. In the foreground stands that figure of the man who was denied the promised land, Moses. Beside him is another, feeling his way—blind Homer. Milton is there, blind and heart-broken. Now comes the form of one who towers above them all. What is His characteristic? His Face is marred more than any man’s. The artist might have written under that great picture, “The Storm.”
The beauties of nature come after the storm. The rugged beauty of the mountain is born in a storm, and the heroes of life are the storm-swept and the battle-scarred.
You have been in the storms and swept by the blasts. Have they left you broken, weary, beaten in the valley, or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood and womanhood? Have they left you with more sympathy with the storm-swept and the battle-scarred?
—Selected
The wind that blows can never kill
The tree God plants;
It bloweth east, it bloweth west,
The tender leaves have little rest,
But any wind that blows is best.
The tree that God plants
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still,
Spreads greater boughs, for God’s good will
Meets all its wants.

There is no storm hath power to blast
  The tree God knows;
No thunderbolt, nor beating rain,
Nor lightning flash, nor hurricane;
When they are spent, it doth remain,
  The tree God knows,
Through every tempest standeth fast,
And from its first day to its last
  Still fairer grows.

—Selected

Cowman, L. B. (1925). Streams in the Desert (pp. 18–19). Los Angeles, CA: The Oriental Missionary Society.

January 15

“And the Lord appeared unto Isaac the same night.” (Gen. 26:24.)

APPEARED the same night,” the night on which he went to Beer-sheba. Do you think this revelation was an accident? Do you think the time of it was an accident? Do you think it could have happened on any other night as well as this? If so, you are grievously mistaken. Why did it come to Isaac in the night on which he reached Beer-sheba? Because that was the night on which he reached rest. In his old locality, he had been tormented. There had been a whole series of petty quarrels about the possession of paltry wells. There are no worries like little worries, particularly if there is an accumulation of them. Isaac felt this. Even after the strife was past, the place retained a disagreeable association. He determined to leave. He sought change of scene. He pitched his tent away from the place of former strife. That very night the revelation came. God spoke when there was no inward storm. He could not speak when the mind was fretted; His voice demands the silence of the soul. Only in the hush of the spirit could Isaac hear the garments of his God sweep by. His still night was his starry night.
My soul, hast thou pondered these words, “Be still, and know”? In the hour of perturbation, thou canst not hear the answer to thy prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come long after! The heart got no response in the moment of its crying—in its thunder, its earthquake, and its fire. But when the crying ceased, when the stillness fell, when thy hand desisted from knocking on the iron gate, when the interest of other lives broke the tragedy of thine own, then appeared the long-delayed reply. Thou must rest, O soul, if thou wouldst have thy heart’s desire. Still the beating of thy pulse of personal care. Hide thy tempest of individual trouble behind the altar of a common tribulation and, that same night, the Lord shall appear to thee. The rainbow shall span the place of the subsiding flood, and in thy stillness thou shalt hear the everlasting music.—George Matheson.

Tread in solitude thy pathway,
  Quiet heart and undismayed.
Thou shalt know things strange, mysterious,
  Which to thee no voice has said.

While the crowd of petty hustlers
  Grasps at vain and paltry things,
Thou wilt see a great world rising
  Where soft mystic music rings.

Leave the dusty road to others,
  Spotless keep thy soul and bright,
As the radiant ocean’s surface
  When the sun is taking flight.

—(From the German of V. Schoffel) H. F.

Cowman, L. B. (1925). Streams in the Desert (pp. 17–18). Los Angeles, CA: The Oriental Missionary Society.

January 14

“He putteth forth his own sheep.” (John 10:4.)

OH, this is bitter work for Him and us—bitter for us to go, but equally bitter for Him to cause us pain; yet it must be done. It would not be conducive to our true welfare to stay always in one happy and comfortable lot. He therefore puts us forth. The fold is deserted, that the sheep may wander over the bracing mountain slope. The laborers must be thrust out into the harvest, else the golden grain would spoil.
Take heart! it could not be better to stay when He determines otherwise; and if the loving hand of our Lord puts us forth, it must be well. On, in His name, to green pastures and still waters and mountain heights! He goeth before thee. Whatever awaits us is encountered first by Him. Faith’s eye can always discern His majestic presence in front; and when that cannot be seen, it is dangerous to move forward. Bind this comfort to your heart, that the Savior has tried for Himself all the experiences through which He asks you to pass; and He would not ask you to pass through them unless He was sure that they were not too difficult for your feet, or too trying for your strength.
This is the Blessed Life—not anxious to see far in front, nor careful about the next step, not eager to choose the path, nor weighted with the heavy responsibilities of the future, but quietly following behind the Shepherd, one step at a time.

Dark is the sky! and veiled the unknown morrow!
Dark is life’s way, for night is not yet o’er;
The longed-for glimpse I may not meanwhile borrow;
But, this I know, HE GOETH ON BEFORE.

Dangers are nigh! and fears my mind are shaking;
Heart seems to dread what life may hold in store;
But I am His—He knows the way I’m taking,
More blessed still—HE GOETH ON BEFORE.

Doubts cast their weird, unwelcome shadows o’er me,
Doubts that life’s best—life’s choicest things are o’er;
What but His Word can strengthen, can restore me,
And this blest fact; that still HE GOES BEFORE.

HE GOES BEFORE! Be this my consolation!
He goes before! On this my heart would dwell!
He goes before! This guarantees salvation!
HE GOES BEFORE! And therefore all is well.
—J. Danson Smith.
The Oriental shepherd was always ahead of his sheep. He was down in front. Any attack upon them had to take him into account. Now God is down in front. He is in the tomorrows. It is tomorrow that fills men with dread. God is there already. All the tomorrows of our life have to pass Him before they can get to us.—F. B. M.

“God is in every tomorrow,
  Therefore I live for today,
Certain of finding at sunrise,
  Guidance and strength for the way;
Power for each moment of weakness,
  Hope for each moment of pain,
Comfort for every sorrow,
  Sunshine and joy after rain.”

Cowman, L. B. (1925). Streams in the Desert (pp. 15–16). Los Angeles, CA: The Oriental Missionary Society.

January 13

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37.)

THIS is more than victory. This is a triumph so complete that we have not only escaped defeat and destruction, but we have destroyed our enemies and won a spoil so rich and valuable that we can thank God that the battle ever came. How can we be “more than conquerors”? We can get out of the conflict a spiritual discipline that will greatly strengthen our faith and establish our spiritual character. Temptation is necessary to settle and confirm us in the spiritual life. It is like the fire which burns in the colors of mineral painting, or like winds that cause the mighty cedars of the mountain to strike more deeply into the soil. Our spiritual conflicts are among our choicest blessings, and our great adversary is used to train us for his ultimate defeat. The ancient Phrygians had a legend that every time they conquered an enemy the victor absorbed the physical strength of his victim and added so much more to his own strength and valor. So temptation victoriously met doubles our spiritual strength and equipment. It is possible thus not only to defeat our enemy, but to capture him and make him fight in our ranks. The prophet Isaiah speaks of flying on the shoulders of the Philistines (Isa. 11:14). These Philistines were their deadly foes, but the figure suggested that they would be enabled not only to conquer the Philistines, but to use them to carry the victors on their shoulders for further triumphs. Just as the wise sailor can \use a head wind to carry him forward by tacking and taking advantage of its impelling force; so it is possible for us in our spiritual life through the victorious grace of God to turn to account the things that seem most unfriendly and unfavorable, and to be able to say continually, “The things that were against me have happened to the furtherance of the Gospel.”—Life More Abundantly.

A noted scientist observing that “early voyagers fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up the great circles of the Atoll Islands to afford themselves protection in the inner parts” has disproved this fancy by showing that the insect builders can only live and thrive fronting the open ocean, and in the highly aerated foam of its resistless billows. So it has been commonly thought that protected ease is the most favorable condition of life, whereas all the noblest and strongest lives prove on the contrary that the endurance of hardship is the making of the men, and the factor that distinguishes between existence and vigorous vitality. Hardship makes character.—Selected.

“Now thanks be unto God Who always leads us forth to triumph with the Anointed One, and Who diffuses by us the fragrance of the knowledge of Him in every place.” (2 Cor. 2:14, literal translation.)

31 JANUARY

An angel of light

‘… Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.’ 2 Corinthians 11:14
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: 2 Kings 10:15–31

Sometimes Satan transforms himself into an angel of light:
(i) by abuse of gospel principles. He will, upon some occasions, bear a testimony to the truth—but always to serve a wicked end. He will allow and plead for the atonement and righteousness of Jesus Christ—does he not look like an angel of light? But his end is to depreciate holiness. He will at other times preach up duties and good works, sanctification; this looks well, but O he is only transformed. His design is to set forwards such things in opposition to the blood of Christ, and the work of the Spirit. He will cry up free grace and prove from God’s word that we can do nothing. This is a truth even in Satan’s mouth, but his conclusions from it show who he is. He means to make sinners [feel] secure and careless and negligent of the means.
(ii) by a false humility. He is very troublesome to sincere souls this way, persuading them that such great sinners as they ought not to believe.
(iii) by a false zeal—that makes a show and sets up self, under a pretence of God’s glory, as in the case of Jehu [2 Kings 10:31].
(iv) by false comforts—working upon their passions and imaginations, while their own hearts are yet buried in the love of sin and the world.
What need to pray to be kept! What good news that Jesus is revealed to destroy the works of the devil!

FOR MEDITATION: I now see more clearly than ever the reason of my former small proficiency, and of my frequent relapses into folly: I see that I had not that perfect dependence on Jesus my Saviour and him only for justification and acceptance, as I thought I had. I see that I was inclined insensibly to exalt my own wretched self, to the prejudice of his honour and grace, and was in some things under the influence of a legal spirit; and that was sufficient cause for my Lord to keep back his influence, and to leave me to weave my spider’s webs to my own shame and confusion. Yet he was determined not to forsake me wholly, for his love is everlasting and unchangeable, and blessed be his name, I trust he has shown me my error, and will by his grace prevent me falling grossly into it again.
Diary, 5 July 1754 [after meeting Capt. Alexander Clunie in St Kitts]

SERMON: 2 CORINTHIANS 11:14 [2/2]