 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
 |
|
 |
|||||||
 |
This document is not about religion, beliefs or imposing an ideology on anyone, but rather, my heart’s desire is that the information herein contained may contribute some-what to the promotion of individual’s personal beliefs as to whether or not they believe that we were created by accident or is there a Creator; and should a few persons by reading it be encouraged to begin the practice of reverent meditation on the being of God, that will more than repay the labor in the research and writing of the document.
I began writing this document on November 4th 2007 because it is a notable day in English History for two great deliverances wrought by God for us. On this day the plot of the Papists to destroy the Houses of Parliament was discovered on this date in 1605. And secondly, today is the Anniversary of the landing of King William 111, at Torbay, by which the hope of Popish ascendancy was quashed and freedom of spiritual or religious liberty was secured in 1688. This day ought to be celebrated, not by the saturnalia of striplings, but by the songs of saints. Our Puritan forefathers most devoutly made it a special time of thanksgiving. There is extant a record of annual sermons preached by Matthew Henry on this day. Our love of liberty should make us regard its anniversary with holy gratitude. Let our hearts and lips exclaim, “We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which Thou didst in their day, and in the old time before them.” No lips can tell the love of Christ to the heart till Jesus Himself shall speak within. Descriptions all fall flat and tame unless the Spirit of God fills them with life and power; till our Immanuel (God with us) reveals Himself within, the soul sees him not. If you would see the sun, would you gather together the common means on illumination, and seek in that way to behold the orb of day? No, the wise man knoweth that the sun must reveal itself, and only by it own blaze can the mighty lamp be seen. It is so with Christ. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona;” said He to Peter, “for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee.” Purify flesh and blood by any educational process you may select, elevate mental faculties to the highest degree of intellectual power, yet none of these can reveal Christ. The Spirit of God must come with power, and over-shadow the man with His wings, and then in that mystic holy of holies the Lord Jesus must display Himself to the sanctified eye, as He doth not unto the purblind sons of men. Christ must be His own mirror. The great mass of this blear-eyed world can see nothing of the ineffable glories of Immanuel. He stands before them without form or comeliness, a root out of a dry ground, rejected by the vain and despised by the proud. Only where the Spirit has touched the eye with eye-salve, quickened the heart with divine life, and educated the soul to a heavenly taste, only there is He understood. To you who that believe He is precious”; to you He is the chief corner-stone, the Rock of your salvation, your all in all; but to others He is “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” Happy are those to whom our Lord manifests Himself, for His promise to such is that He will make His abode with them. O Jesus, our Lord, our heart is open, come in, and go out no more for ever. Show Thyself to us now! Favor us with a glimpse of Thine all-conquering charms.
The history of mankind will probably show that no people have ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before us is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man or woman is not what he or she at a given time may say or do, but what he or she in the depths of his or her heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only to the individual believer, but of the company of religions that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God. Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the Church will stand tomorrow! Without a doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightiest word in any language is its word for God. Thought and speech are God’s gifts to creatures made in His image; these are intimately associated with Him and impossible apart from Him. It is highly significant that the first word was the Word; “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We may speak because God spoke. In Him, His word and idea are indivisible. NEXUS BETWEEN THE FIRST ADAM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE SECOND ADAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT; The Scripture reads: - “Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord.” Zechariah 3:1 In Joshua the high priest we see a picture of each and every child of God, who has been made nigh by the blood of Christ, and has been taught to minister the holy things, and enter into that which is the veil. Jesus has made us priests and Kings unto God, and even here upon earth we exercise the priesthood of consecrated living and hallowed service. But this high priest is said to be “standing before the angel of the Lord,” that is, standing to minister. This should be the perpetual position of every true believer. Every place is now God’s temple, and His people can as truly service Him in their daily employments as in His house. They are to be always “ministering,” offering the spiritual sacrifice of prayer and praise, and presenting themselves in “living sacrifice.” But notice Joshua stands to minister, it is before an angel of Jehovah. It is only through a mediator that we poor defiled ones can ever become priests unto God. I present what I have before the messenger, the angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ; and through Him my prayers find acceptance wrapped up in His prayers; my praises become sweet as they are bound up with bundles of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia from Christ’s own garden. If I can bring him nothing but my tears, He will put them with His own tears in His own bottle for he once wept; if I can bring Him nothing but my groans and sighs, He will accept these as an acceptable sacrifice, for He once was broken in heart, and sighed heavily in spirit. I myself, standing in Him, am accepted in the beloved; and all my polluted works, though in themselves only objects of divine abhorrence, are so received, that God smelleth a sweet savour. He is content and I am blessed. See, then, the position of the believer – “a priest – standing – before the angel of the Lord.” Let us this day focus our thoughts on children and what we can do for them;
Despairingly the poor disappointed father turned away from the disciples to their Master. His son was in the worst possible condition, and all means had failed, but the miserable child was soon delivered from the evil one when the parent in faith obeyed the Lord. Jesus’ word, “Bring him unto me.” Children are a precious gift from God, but much anxiety comes with them. They may be a great joy or a great bitterness to their parents; they may be filled with the Spirit of God, or possessed with the spirit of evil. In all cases, the Word of God gives one receipt for the curing of all their ills, “Bring them unto me.” Oh for more agonizing prayer on their behalf while they are yet babes! Sin is there; let our prayers begin to attack it. Our cries for the offspring should precede those cries which betoken their actual advent into a world of sin. In the days of their youth we shall see sad tokens of the dumb and deaf spirit which will neither pray aright, nor hear the voice of God in the soul, but Jesus still commands, “Bring them unto me.” When they are grown up they may wallow in sin and foam with enmity against God; then when our hearts are breaking we should remember the great Physician’s words, “Bring them unto me.” Never must we cease to pray until they cease to breathe. No case is hopeless while Jesus lives. The Lord sometimes suffers His people to be driven into a corner that they may experimentally know how necessary He is to them. Ungodly children, when they show us our own powerlessness against the depravity of their hearts, drive us to flee to the strong for strength, and this is a great blessing to us. Whatever our needs may be, let it like a strong current bear us to the ocean of divine love! Jesus can soon remove our sorrow. He delights to comfort us. Let us hasten to Him while He waits to meet us. Each and every day without fail has 24 hours. If we were to look at all of what we find the time to do but yet fail in the most important “thing” that we can do, and that is to be gracious for the One who is so gracious to us, for all of our sustenance, the breath we breathe, our security which lies not in the hands of man but in the munitions of our immutable God, how much time or do we even take the time to utter even one word of thanks!
“In the evening withhold not thy hand.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6) In the evening of the day opportunities are plentiful: men return from their labor, and the zealous soul-winner finds time to tell abroad the love of Jesus. Have I no evening work for Jesus? If I have not, let me no longer withhold my hand from a service which requires abundant labor. Sinners are perishing for lack of knowledge; he who loiters may find his skirts crimson with the blood of souls. Jesus gave both His hands to the nails, how can I keep back one of mine from His blessed work? Night and day he toiled and prayed for me, how can I give to the pampering of my flesh with luxurious ease? Up, idle heart, stretch out thy hand to work, or uplift it to pray; heaven and hell are in earnest, let me be so, and this evening sow good seed for the Lord my God. The evening of life has also its calls. Life is so short that a morning of manhood’s vigor, and an evening of decay, makes the whole of it. To some it seems long, but a four-pence is a great sum of money to a poor man. Life is so brief that no man can afford to loose a day. It has been well said that if a great king should bring us a great heap of gold, and bid us to take as much as we could count in a day, we should make a long day of it; we should begin early in the morning, and in the evening we should not withhold our hand; but to win souls is far nobler work, how is it that we soon withdraw from it? Some are spared to a long evening of green old age; if such be my case, let me use such talents as I still retain, and to the last hour serve my blessed and faithful Lord. By His grace I will die in harness, and lay down my charge only when I lay down my body. Age may instruct the young, cheer the faint, and encourage the desponding; if eventide has less a vigorous heat, it should have more of calm wisdom, therefore in the evening I will not withhold my hand.
Consider with me for a moment of the wonders of the change in the Seasons of the year, its purposes, its beauty and the “Majesty” that Created the Seasons and for which, “nature itself” must obey!
The spouse desires to give to Jesus all that she produces. Our heart has “all manner of pleasant fruits,” both “old and new,” and they are laid up for our Beloved. At this rich autumnal season of fruit, let us survey our stores. We have new fruits. We desire to feel new life, new joy, new gratitude; we wish to make new resolves and carry them out by new labors; our heart blossoms with new prayers, and our soul is pledging herself to new efforts. But we have some new fruits too. There is our first love; a choice fruit that! And Jesus delights in it. There is our first faith; that simple faith by which, having nothing, we became possessors of all things. There is our joy when first we knew the Lord: Let us receive it. We have old remembrances of the promises. How faithful has God been! In sickness, how softly did He make our bed! In deep waters, how placidly did He buoy us up! In the flaming furnace, how graciously did He deliver us! Old fruits indeed! We have many of them, for His mercies have been more than the hairs of our head. Old sins we must regret, but then we have had repentances which He has given us, by which we have wept our way to the cross, and learned the merit of His blood. We have fruits, this 1st day of October both new and old; but here is the point – they are all laid up for Jesus. Truly, those are the best and most acceptable services in which Jesus is the solitary aim of the soul, and His glory, without any admixture whatever, the end of all our efforts. Let our many fruits be laid up only for our Beloved; let us display them when He is with us, and not hold them up before the gaze of men. Jesus, we will turn the key in our door, and none shall enter to rob Thee of one good fruit from the soil which Thou hast watered with Thy bloody sweat. Our all shall be Thine, Thine only, O Jesus, our Beloved! Angels are the unseen attendants of the saints of God; “they bear us up in their hands, lest we dash our foot against a stone.” [Psalm 91] Loyalty to their Lord leads them to take a deep interest in the children of His love; they rejoice over the return of the prodigal to his father’s house below, and they welcome the advent of the believer to the King’s palace above. In olden times the sons of God were favored with their visible appearance, and at this day, although unseen by us, heaven is still opened, and the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of man that they may visit the heirs of salvation. Seraphim still fly with live coals from off the altar to touch the lips of men and women greatly beloved. If our eyes could be opened, we should see horses of fire and chariots of fire about the servants of the Lord; for we have come to an innumerable company of angels, who are all watchers and protectors of the seed-royal. Spenser’s line is no poetic fiction, where he sings – “How oft do they with golden pinions cleave The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant Against foul fiends to aid us militants!”
To what dignity are the chosen elevated when the brilliant courtiers of heaven become their willing servitors! Into what communion are we raised since we have intercourse with spotless celestials! How well are we defended since all the twenty-thousand chariots of God are armed for our deliverance! To whom do we owe all this? Let the Lord Jesus Christ be for ever endeared to us, for through Him we are made to sit in heavenly places far above principalities and powers. He is to whose camp is round about them that fear Him; He is the true Michael whose foot is upon the dragon. All hail, Jesus! Thou Angels of Jehovah’s presence, to Thee this heart offers its vows. Our lives are no different than Kings, Queens, Presidents, Prime Ministers and the Likes, for The Almighty gives Sun, Rain, Light and Darkness to all. See how this mighty man of God handled his troubles during his time on Earth!
Among all the saints whose lives are written in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord. David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has cares, and David handled a shepherd’s crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David, abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried in his friends, his counselor Anithophel forsook him, “ He that eateth bread with me, had lifted up his heel against me.” (Psalm 41) His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honor and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, then he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and billows rolled over him. It is probably from this cause that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of those that “truly” believes in God. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools – the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms, and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel me this day. For many people they make a calculated decision to join a particular religion or they were born into a respective religion. Many attend Churches, Mosques, Temples and what other form of worship they freely choose, but the question is how many people find “religion” and a house of worship that they attend, but “never” find that “Oneness” with God. You can find out if you have found religion or you have found God when affliction strikes. Affliction like God is no respecter of person, be it age, nationality, financial circumstances or anything that is part of this world that we live in. Death comes without any invitation and no amount of wealth can purchase even an additional second of life, for when your spirit (Spirit is derived from the Hebrew word meaning “breath”) is recalled, you must go, and naked as you came into the world, naked you shall go! My soul, begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows and the piercing winds all remind thee that He keeps His covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that He will also keep that glorious covenant which He has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He, who is true to His Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world, will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own well-beloved Son. Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of expectations: He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the once verdant meadows of our joy: He casteth forth His ice like morsels of freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, He is the great Winter King, and He rules in the realms of frost, and therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord’s sending, and come to us with wise design. Frost kill noxious insects, and put a bound to raging disease; they break up the clods, and sweeten the soul. Oh! that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction! How we prize the fire just now! How pleasant is its cheerful glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw nigh to Him and in Him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His promises, and go forth to labors which befit the season, for it were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing. There is a grand hope for those who put their trust in the Lord, for He is our God. See how King Solomon describes the blessings of those who trust in the Lord.
Such is the language of the believer panting after the present fellowship with Jesus, he/she is sick for his/her Lord. Gracious souls are never perfectly at ease, except they are in a state of nearness to Christ; for when they are away from Him they lose their peace. The nearer to Him, the nearer to the perfect calm of heaven; the nearer to Him, the fuller the heart is, not only of peace, but of life and vigor, and joy, for these all depend on constant intercourse with Jesus. What the sun is to the day, the moon is to the night, what the dew is to the flower, such is Jesus Christ to us. What bread is to the hungry, clothing to the naked, the shadow of a great rock to the traveler in a weary land, such is Jesus Christ to us; and, therefore, if we are not consciously one with Him, little marvel if our spirit cries in the words of the Song. The earnest longing after Jesus has a blessing attending it; “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness”; and therefore, supremely blessed are they who thirst after the Righteous One. Blessed is that Hunger since it comes from God: if I may not have the full-blown blessedness of being filled, I would seek the same blessedness in its sweet bud-pining in emptiness and eagerness till I am filled with Christ. If I may not feed on Jesus, it shall be next door to heaven to hunger and thirst after Him. There is hallowedness about that hunger, since it sparkles among the beatitudes of our Lord. But the blessing involves a promise. Such hungry ones “shall be filled” with what they are desiring. If Christ thus CAUSES US TO LONG AFTER Himself, He will certainly satisfy those longings; and when He does come to us, as come He will, oh! How sweet it will be!
We are all fallible and imperfect beings living in an imperfect world. We are souls trying to adjust to a mortal body and if we are honest enough to look into the very depths of our heart and soul, I do believe that we can relate to the “fact” that we are all sinners and without God’s forgiveness, we will continue down the road of perdition, where there are very few U-turns. We must be very careful that when the Spirit of God stands at the door of your heart that we “heed” the voice of God, lest we go pass the last U-turn! Walk the streets by moonlight, if you dare, and you will see sinners then. Watch when the night is dark, and the wind is howling, and the picklock is granting in the door, and you will see sinners then. Go to yon jail, and walk through the wards, and mark the men with heavy over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet at night, and there are sinners there. Go to the Reformatories, and note those who have betrayed a rampant juvenile depravity, and you will see sinners there. God across the seas to the place where a man will gnaw a bone upon which is reeking human flesh, and there is a sinner there. Go where you will, you need not ransack earth to find sinners, for they are common enough; you may find them in every lane and street of every city, and town, and village, and hamlet. It is for such that Jesus died. If you will select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if he be but born of woman, I will have hope of him yet, because Jesus Christ is come to seek and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of the worst to be made the Worthless dross He transforms into pure gold. Redeeming love has set apart many of the worst of mankind to be the reward of the Savior’s passion. Effectual grace calls forth many of the vilest of the vile to sit at the table of mercy, and therefore let none despair. By that love looking out of Jesus’ tearful eyes, by that love streaming from those bleeding wounds, by that faithful love, that strong love, that pure disinterested, and abiding love; by the heart and by the bowels of the Savior’s compassion, we conjure you turn not away as though it were nothing to you; but believe on Him and you shall be saved. Trust your soul with Him and He will bring you to His Father’s right hand in glory everlasting. There is a place in England that still exists, where a dole of bread is served to every passerby who chooses to ask for it. Whoever the traveler may be, he has but to knock at the door of St. Cross Hospital, and there is a dole of bread for him. Jesus Christ so loveth sinners that He has built a St. Cross Hospital, so that whenever a sinner is hungry, he has but to knock and have his wants supplied. Nay, He has done better; He has attached to this Hospital of the Cross a bath; and whenever a soul is black and filthy, it has but to go there and be washed. The fountain is always full, always efficacious. No sinner ever went into it and found that it could not wash away his stains. Sins which were scarlet and crimson have all disappeared, and the sinner has been whiter than snow. As if this were not enough, there is attached to this Hospital of the Cross a wardrobe, and a sinner making application simply as a sinner, may not merely have a garment for ordinary wear, but armor which shall cover him from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. If he asks for a sword, he shall have that given to him, and a shield too. Nothing that is good for him shall be denied him. He shall have spending-money so long as he lives, and he shall have an eternal heritage of glorious treasure when he enters into the joy of the Lord. If all these things are to be had by merely knocking at mercy’s door, O my soul, knock hard this day and ask large things of thy generous Lord. Leave not a throne of grace till all thy wants have been spread before the Lord, and until by faith thou has a comfortable prospect that they shall be all supplied. No bashfulness need retard when Jesus invites. No unbelief should hinder when Jesus promises. No cold-heartedness should restrain when such blessings are to be obtained. Contemplate long and hard – The head and members are of one nature, and not like that monstrous image which King Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. The head was of fine gold, but the belly and thighs were of brass, and the legs of iron, and the feet, part of iron and part of clay. (See Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament) Christ’s mystical body is no absurd combination of opposites; the members were mortal, and therefore Jesus died; the glorified head is immortal, and therefore the body is immortal too, for thus the record stands, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” As in our loving Head, such is the body and every member in particular. A chosen Head and chosen members; and accepted Head, and accepted members; a living Head, and living members. If the head be pure gold, all the parts of the body are pure gold also. Thus is there a double union of nature as a basis for the closest communion. Pause here, devout soul, and see if thou canst without ecstatic amazement, contemplate the infinite condescension of the Son of God in thus exalting thy wretchedness into blessed union with His glory. Thou art so mean that in remembrance of thy mortality, thou mayest say to corruption, “Thou art my father,” and to the worm, “Thou art my sister”; and yet in Christ thou art so honored that thou canst say to the Almighty, “Abba, Father,” and to the Incarnate God, “Thou art my brother and my husband.” Surely if relationships to ancient and noble families make men think highly of themselves, we have whereof to glory over the heads of them all. Let the poorest and most despised believer lay hold upon this privilege; let not a senseless indolence make him negligent to trace his pedigree, and let him suffer no foolish attachment to present vanities to occupy his thoughts to the exclusion of this glorious, this heavenly honor of union with Christ. [Additional pages will be provided to you as this labor of love continues, however, during the interim, may God cause His face to shine upon you and keep you in perfect peace, and with a sincere and contrite heart, desire that The Mighty Right Hand of the Lord – “open thine spiritual eyes!”] |
 |
|||||||
 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
