The less you think of yourselves--the more will you esteem Christ!
(Thomas Guthrie)
I wish you to think little, very little of yourselves. Why?
Because the less you think of yourselves--the more will you esteem Christ.
Because the humbler you are in your own eyes--the higher you will stand in God's eyes.
The guest, who, coming modestly in, takes the lowest place at the table--is called up to the seat of honor.
None are so sure to lie in Jesus' bosom--as those who have been lying lowest at Jesus' feet.
Hence, brought by grace to see sin's vileness, and to feel its exceeding evil . . .
the holiest men--have always been the humblest,
the strongest men--have always felt the weakest in themselves,
the best men--have always thought the worst of themselves.
David, the man after God's own heart, said, "I was as a beast before You!"
Job, the most remarkable character of his own or any age for piety and uprightness, said, as he shrank from his own image, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes!"
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The journey which our Divine Lover took
(Thomas Guthrie)
The story of Christ's redeeming love surpasses anything related in the pages of the wildest romances. These tell of a prince, who, enamored with a humble maiden, assumed a disguise. Doffing his crown and royal state for the dress of common life, he left his palace, traveled far, faced danger, and fared hard--to win the heart of a peasant's daughter, and raise her from obscurity to the position of a queen!
Facts are more wonderful than fables. The journey which our Divine Lover took was from Heaven to earth. To win His bride, He exchanged the bosom of the eternal Father--to lie, a feeble infant, on a woman's bosom. The Son of God left the throne of the universe, and assumed the guise of humanity--to be cradled in a feeding trough and murdered on a cross!
In His people, He found His bride deep in debt--and paid it all. Herself under sentence of death--He died in her place. A lost creature, clad in rags--He took off His own royal robes to cover her. To wash her--He shed His blood! To win her--He shed His tears! Finding her poor and miserable and naked, He endowed her with all His goods--and heir of all things. Everything that He possessed as His Father's Son--she was to forever enjoy and share with Himself!
"May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully!" Ephesians 3:19
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Every groan of your wounded heart; your every sigh, and cry, and prayer!
(Thomas Guthrie)
Were Jesus Christ a mere man--how could He guard the interests, and manage the affairs of His innumerable people, scattered far and wide over the face of the habitable globe?
What heart would be large enough to embrace them all?
What eyes could see them all?
What ears could hear them all?
Think of the ten thousand prayers pronounced in a hundred different languages that go up at once, and altogether, to His ear! Yet there is no confusion; none are lost; none are missed in the crowd.
Nor are they heard by Him as, standing on yonder lofty crag, we hear the din of the city that lies stretched out far beneath us, with all its sounds of cries, and rumbling wheels, and human voices--mixed up into one deep, confused, hollow roar--like the boom of the sea's distant breakers.
No! every believer may feel as if he were alone with God--enjoying a private audience with the King in His presence-chamber! Be of good cheer. Every groan of your wounded heart; your every sigh, and cry, and prayer--falls as distinctly on Jesus' ear as if you stood beside His throne, or, nearer still, lay with John on His bosom, and felt the beating of His heart against your own!
"Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:16
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In His humblest works!
(Thomas Guthrie
(Thomas Guthrie
"The earth is full of His unfailing love!" Psalm 33:5
The British Museum possessed in the Portland Vase--one of the finest remains of ancient art. It may be remembered how, some years ago--the world of culture was shocked to hear that this precious relic had been shattered by a maniac's hand.
Without disparaging cultured taste, or this exquisite example of it--I venture to say that there is not a poor worm which we tread upon, nor a sere leaf which dances merrily in its fallen state to the autumn winds--but has superior claims upon our study and admiration. The child who plucks a lily or rose to pieces, or crushes the fragile form of a fluttering insect--destroys an intricate work which the highest human art could not invent, nor man's best skilled hand construct!
There is not a leaf which quivers on the trees of the forest--which does not eclipse the brightest glories of the painter's brush or the sculptor's chisel! A simple flower has no rival among the triumphs of invention, which the silly world flocks to see.
Yes, in His humblest works, God infinitely surpasses the highest efforts of all created skill.
Without disparaging cultured taste, or this exquisite example of it--I venture to say that there is not a poor worm which we tread upon, nor a sere leaf which dances merrily in its fallen state to the autumn winds--but has superior claims upon our study and admiration. The child who plucks a lily or rose to pieces, or crushes the fragile form of a fluttering insect--destroys an intricate work which the highest human art could not invent, nor man's best skilled hand construct!
There is not a leaf which quivers on the trees of the forest--which does not eclipse the brightest glories of the painter's brush or the sculptor's chisel! A simple flower has no rival among the triumphs of invention, which the silly world flocks to see.
Yes, in His humblest works, God infinitely surpasses the highest efforts of all created skill.
"How many are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures!" Psalm 104:24
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge!" Psalm 19:1-2
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge!" Psalm 19:1-2
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Dance and dine with the devil!
(Thomas Brooks, "Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices")
"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us--for we are not ignorant of his evil schemes." 2 Corinthians 2:11
Sin is but a bitter sweet. That seeming sweet which is in sin will quickly vanish--and lasting shame, sorrow, horror, and terror will soon come.
Forbidden profits and pleasures are most pleasing to vain men, who count madness to be mirth. Many long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which do not nourish--but rend and consume the soul which receives them. Many eat that on earth, which they digest in Hell.
Sin's murdering morsels will deceive those who devour them!
Adam's apple was a bitter sweet;
Esau's bowl of stew was a bitter sweet;
the Israelites' quails were a bitter sweet;
Jonathan's honey was a bitter sweet;
Adonijah's dainties were a bitter sweet.
After the meal is ended--then comes the reckoning!
Men must not think to dance and dine with the devil--and then to sup with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven!
Men must not think to feed upon the poison of asps--and yet that the viper's tongue should not slay them!
(Thomas Brooks, "Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices")
"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us--for we are not ignorant of his evil schemes." 2 Corinthians 2:11
Sin is but a bitter sweet. That seeming sweet which is in sin will quickly vanish--and lasting shame, sorrow, horror, and terror will soon come.
Forbidden profits and pleasures are most pleasing to vain men, who count madness to be mirth. Many long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which do not nourish--but rend and consume the soul which receives them. Many eat that on earth, which they digest in Hell.
Sin's murdering morsels will deceive those who devour them!
Adam's apple was a bitter sweet;
Esau's bowl of stew was a bitter sweet;
the Israelites' quails were a bitter sweet;
Jonathan's honey was a bitter sweet;
Adonijah's dainties were a bitter sweet.
After the meal is ended--then comes the reckoning!
Men must not think to dance and dine with the devil--and then to sup with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven!
Men must not think to feed upon the poison of asps--and yet that the viper's tongue should not slay them!
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Turn aside and see this great sight!
(Hugh Dunlop, "Altogether Lovely!")
"When all the people who had gathered to witness that sight saw what took place, they beat their bosoms and went away." Luke 23:48
There have been . . .
many wonderful sights upon the earth,
many sad and sorrowful sights,
many grand and awe-inspiring sights
--but never before or after in all the world's history, such a sight as was seen by the group that gathered around the cross. What a strange and motley group it was! How many kinds of sinners were represented there!
There were the hardened Roman soldiers who gambled for His clothes. There were the mockers, the revilers, the chief priests and scribes who hated Him--the rulers who derided Him--the people who wagged their heads saying, "If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross!"
There were also the weeping women, the trembling disciples, and--best of all--the penitent thief who trusted in Him for salvation in that dread hour, and gave Him a sweet foretaste of the "joy that was set before Him," for which "He endured the cross, despising the shame."
Other spectators also, unseen by human eyes, were doubtless there--Satan and all his horrid hosts, the Victor's baffled foes, watching Him with malignant hate; the holy angels, too, looking on with silent awe; and God Himself, Who was about to "bruise Him and put Him to grief" and "make His soul an offering for sin"--Whose voice even then shook the deep, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd and against the Man who is My Fellow!"
As Moses took his shoes from off his feet, when he drew near to see the burning bush--let us also with reverence and adoring love, now turn aside and see this great sight!
That was a sight of WONDER. What do we see?
The Lord of glory--put to open shame!
The Creator of Heaven and earth--nailed to a cruel cross of wood!
The King of kings and Lord of lords--treated as the vilest malefactor!
The holy Son of God--crucified!
He who was the very Fountain of life, whose life was the light of men--dying!
That was a sight of SORROW. We live in a world of sorrow, a valley of tears. "Man who is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble." "Man is born to trouble--as the sparks fly upward." "The whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now."
But, of all men, Jesus was "a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief." He saw His Father's law broken, His Father's name dishonored, His Father's love despised. "Rivers of water run down My eyes--because they keep not Your law." How His soul must have turned with loathing, from the defilement in the midst of which He walked--while His heart was bursting with pity for the sinners whom He had come to save! Now was the culmination of His woe. His holy nature shrank from the slightest touch of sin--yet now "He bore our sins in His own body on the tree"--and what that meant, God alone can tell.
That was a sight of SIN! What is sin? Its very essence is revolt against the Most High God. And here we see the crowning manifestation of this revolt. God's law had been broken, His commandments disobeyed, His name dishonored by a rebellious world--but never was the enmity of the human heart so intensely shown as when they crucified His beloved Son!
Oh, the malignant hate with which sinners cried "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him, crucify Him!" The awful wickedness with which they closed around His cross, "breathing out cruelty!" The madness that cried, "Not this Man, but Barabbas!" They mocked, they wagged their heads, they railed, they scoffed--and in their puny impotence, defied the God of Heaven!
That was a sight of WRATH. If the crucifixion of the Son of God was the most awful manifestation of the sin of man--so was the cross also the most terrible revelation of divine wrath--the righteous wrath of a holy God! Not all the woe of the lost--not the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, of which God in His compassion warns us in His Word--not all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth of those upon whose heads God's righteous judgments fall--can reveal to us, as does the cross of Christ, the attitude of God toward sin!
In the cross of Christ, we see the burning holiness of God, Who is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and cannot look upon evil."
Here we see the inviolable righteousness of God, who "can by no means clear the guilty."
And here we see the terrible fierceness of His anger, the sword of His justice, the tempest of His wrath! "God is angry with the wicked every day"--but here the whole of His wrath against sin was gathered up and burst forth with relentless fury!
But, hearken!
Against whom did God's anger burn?
Against whom did God's sword awake?
Upon whose head did God's storm of wrath burst?
Not upon the heads of the guilty sinners--but upon the sinless One, the Holy One, the spotless Lamb of God!
That was a sight of LOVE!
What pen can write,
what tongue can tell,
what heart can comprehend
--the infinite love of God? Behind the awful wrath and righteous judgment--was the eternal love. Back in the counsels of eternity "God so loved the world." Why, we cannot understand; only we have heard of "the great love with which He loved us"--and we know of the great redemption which He planned for us. Yes, it was out of the infinite depths of that deep, mysterious love for the souls whom He had made, that the cross of Christ grew!
