Milo

23 JANUARY (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S EVENING 1770)

Serving God

‘… Serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts …’ 1 Chronicles 28:9
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Deuteronomy 10:12–22

Serve with a perfect heart and a willing mind, otherwise you cannot serve him at all. You cannot serve two masters. He says, My son, give me thy heart [Proverbs 23:26]. If you will serve God you must renounce the service of sin and glorify him in your body and spirit which are his. And this service must be free, not by force or any constraint but by the constraint of love. A formal service, urged by slavish fears and performed for merely selfish ends, is not accepted. Without faith you cannot please him [Hebrews 11:6]. To draw near him with your lips is not enough. Therefore if you think of serving God, consider the argument—to pray for a perfect heart and willing mind. He searcheth and understandeth. He has a perfect knowledge of you, from your birth to this hour—your hearts and ways are all open to him. I am persuaded the best and the worst of you would blush and tremble to have some things of which your conscience reminds you, exposed to the view of this congregation—and yet what are we? Worms like yourselves! But thus you are exposed to the view of the heart-searching God. Do you not then see a necessity of his grace? And will not such a conviction engage you to give yourselves wholly to him? You may deceive men, and even yourselves, but not him. There is comfort as well as caution in this thought—he knows your fears, your wants, your disappointments, how long and how often you have been seeking happiness where it is not to be found. Therefore he invites, calls you, to know and serve him, which is life and peace. Unworthy and sinful as he sees you are, yet he opens a door of mercy and says, Seek ye my face and live.

FOR MEDITATION: May my heart be divested of all prepossession and self-seeking; may I be enabled to see and follow my duty; and may I maintain the comfortable testimony of a sincere, teachable and obedient conscience in thy sight. O may thy Spirit witness in my heart, and my conversation witness in the world, that I am indeed thy disciple, thine without reserve, thine and not another’s, thine and not my own—Amen.
Miscellaneous Thoughts, Friday 23 June 1758

SERMON: 1 CHRONICLES 28:9 [3/5] [FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE]

22 JANUARY (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S EVENING 1770)

Knowing God

‘And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.’ 1 Chronicles 28:9
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Jeremiah 23:23–24

You must know the Lord before you can serve him, and you will serve him if you know him. You are as Solomon: the means by which God is known are afforded you. To these you must attend. In the knowledge of God is eternal life—and you must know Christ as the way, for none knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. You are not called to attempt this by your own power. O that you could be sensible of your inability, then a great point would be gained. He has revealed himself in his word, yet still you need the Spirit of his Son.
What is it to know God?
(i) To be duly impressed with a sense of his awesome majesty and greatness—such a sense as may abase us before him, and teach us to fear him.
(ii) To know the way in which he holds communion with sinners. If you think of him as One who can suffer you to approach in any way but by faith in Christ, or who will afford you any pardon or spiritual good but through the atoning blood, you know him not aright.
(iii) To conceive of him as the only desirable portion of your souls, who alone is capable of making you happy.
(iv) To know him as reconciled—as your God and Father, who has accepted you in the beloved. This is the knowledge which brings peace into the soul and gives strength for his service.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent’ (John 17:3).

SERMON: 1 CHRONICLES 28:9 [2/5] [FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE]

21 JANUARY (PREACHED NEW YEAR’S EVENING 1770)

Bridging the generation gap

‘And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind …’ 1 Chronicles 28:9
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Deuteronomy 11:1–25

David was a man of great experience, and though upon some occasions he showed himself to be a poor, sinful man like others, yet the prevalence of his zeal and spirituality gave him the honourable title of the man after God’s own heart. He was warmly devoted to the Lord, preferred the light of his countenance to all earthly joys, and felt a concern for the honour of his name, worship and people, to the close of his life. The Lord greatly prospered him in many respects, and yet exercised him with many sharp trials. The sharpest of these were perhaps those he met with in his own family. One of his sons, Amnon, wickedly defiled his own sister, which afterwards cost him his life at a drunken feast. Absalom, another of his sons, rose up in rebellion against his own father. A third, Adonijah, attempted by fraud to possess the kingdom. The history of David’s family affords a caution to parents, not to connive at sin in their children, and a caution to youth, not to give way to their headstrong and ungoverned passions.
We have only the names of several of his children, but his principal hope and comfort was Solomon. The words I have read are his dying charge to this dear child. He was soon to take upon him the care and government of a great people, in the discharge of which he would need much wisdom, and a peculiar blessing. The death of his father would soon leave him at full liberty, and at the same time deprive him of an affectionate and experienced guide. But in my text David points out to him a resource for every difficulty, a supply for every want: Know thou the God of thy father and serve him and it shall be well with thee.
FOR MEDITATION: [written to be sung after this sermon]
O David’s Son, and David’s LORD!
Like David, when this life shall end,
From age to age thou art the same;
We trust in thee sure peace to find;
Thy gracious presence now afford,
Like him, to thee we now commend
And teach our youth to know thy name!
The children we must leave behind.

SERMON: 1 CHRONICLES 28:9 [1/5] [FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE]

20 JANUARY

Paradise lost

‘And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ Genesis 2:16–17
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 7:5–13

The great God had a just right to make such an exception: when he of his mere bounty had given everything else to his creature, man was furnished with sufficient strength to obey and warned of the danger if he rebelled.
The prohibition: Thou shalt not eat—to remind him:
(i) of his state of dependence on God, and that he was not absolute Lord of himself.
(ii) that God was his chief good, and nothing truly desirable but in subordination to him.
(iii) to intimate that he was not as yet established in happiness, but in a state of probation.
The sanction or condition with which this prohibition was attended:
(i) The penalty of disobedience—death:
(a) spiritual, which immediately took place when he had transgressed.
(b) temporal, to which he became immediately subject though the execution was deferred. And,
(c) eternal, which is necessarily opposed to that life which is by the gospel (Romans 6:23) and which is inflicted upon impenitent sinners and was therefore included in the first penalty, for we cannot suppose the righteous Judge would inflict a greater punishment than he had threatened.
(ii) Since he was not to die unless he sinned, a promise of continuance in life and happiness was necessarily implied (Romans 10:5).
This is what is frequently called the ‘Covenant of Works’.
FOR MEDITATION:
LORD, what is man! extremes how wide,
Divine at first, a holy flame
In this mysterious nature join!
Kindled by the Almighty’s breath;
The flesh, to worms and dust allied,
Till, stained by sin, it soon became
The soul, immortal and divine!
The seat of darkness, strife and death.

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 4 [2/2], GENESIS 2:15–17

19 JANUARY

Paradise gained

‘And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ Genesis 2:15–17
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Luke 4:1–13

We have reason to believe that before sin brought a curse upon the creation, the whole earth was a Garden of Eden in comparison of[with] what it is now. Yet when all was good, it pleased God to make a further display of his goodness in favour of man, and to enrich and beautify a peculiar spot for his residence. In this paradise man was placed with a general permission of the right and use of all that he could desire—with only the one exception mentioned in my text where we may note the name: the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
On the conduct of our first parents (for they were both included, see 3:2) with respect to this tree, depended their knowledge of that good for which they were created, or the evil which was yet unknown that would be the consequence of disobedience. Note that Adam’s whole duty to God consisted in abstinence from the forbidden fruit—for we have shown that his being made in the divine image signified that he had the law of love, holiness and righteousness written in his heart. But his ability to maintain communion with his Maker was suspended upon his observation of this positive precept.

FOR MEDITATION: ‘I go to prepare a place for you’ (John 14:2).
‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God’ (Revelation 2:7).
‘In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him’ (Revelation 22:2–3).

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 4 [1/2], GENESIS 2:15–17