The Future Life # 3
5. Nature Teaches Immortality
We behold God and His teaching through nature concerning life and death. When we think of the Almighty casting off the grave clothes of winter, truly He has power to raise the dead. Man is a little world in himself. A skillful builder might build a beautiful body in form, but it would lack necessary elements to make a man. This is the place God comes in. God has put in every human being something not found in the earthly. It cannot be found in air, sea or water. It is not carbon, nitrogen, lime, phosphate or iron. But that something is personality. "God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life and man became a living soul." The dust after serving its purpose will return to its kindred dust while the God part enters into the realms of the Spirit with a boundless outlook. Call him not dead; he will be more alive than ever. Paul says, "To die is gain." See that little grain of wheat; how powerless it seems, but bury it in the ground and in proper time it will spring up and bring forth flower and fruit. Yet, your soul enclosed in a sinful body, warped by sin will never reach its finished development until Mortal puts on Immortality. A belief in immortality is universal and age-long. Every attempt to crush out immortality has failed. A divine imprint upon man tells us he is not a creature of time but of eternity.
Men of science falsely so called, have through the years been searching for the missing link and dropped stitch, but their task is yet unfinished. Man was created by God for a higher and nobler destiny than that of earth. Man's powers are almost unlimited. In obedience and recognition of his Maker, he can walk the golden streets, or he can leave God out and tread the road to eternal despair.
Human nature confirms the hope of immortality. This life is a life of incompleteness. We hardly learn to be of use until we have to leave the world. By the time we have gained needed experience, we find ourselves nearing the grave. Our moral imperfections and difficulties here, point toward eternal perfection and immortality by and by. It is here we begin, but we never finish until we are gone. Every man discovers in himself capacities and abilities this world cannot draft into service. Here we only have a portion of time to develop our powers and tests. Everything points to immortality and a fuller life beyond. "Infinite personality called God is foreshadowed by finite personality called man." As we have borne the image of the earthy so shall we also bear the image of the Heavenly.
6. Our Discontent Proves the Immortality of the Soul.
Human nature supplies another argument of immortality! in our discontent. We are the most unsatisfied being's on the face of the earth. Our hearts tell us we were made to be satisfied, yet nothing in this world quite satisfies us. But every other creature finds the limit of its growth here. The ox finds its capacities satisfied and contented in the meadow and stream. The cat is satisfied with a warm place on the hearth. While our feeble ambitions ever yearn and long for sought goals that are never reached. Animals are at home and satisfied but not man. If this life ends man's activities, then a dog runs a more successful career than a man, as it lasts longer, has no risks or accidents to run and never has a broken heart.
7. The Character of God proves the Immortality of the Soul.
Another strong proof of immortality is the character of God. God is justice and goodness, hence immortality is a necessity. When the crippled and suffering child is seen, the question is asked, "Is God good?" Yes, is that child God's complete work? No, God's work is not yet finished in the child. There is another life where God's plan will be revealed and compensation made.
8. The Universal Belief
Another proof of immortality is the universal belief in the doctrine. It is believed in where the Bible has never gone. Tombs of Egypt built 5,000 years ago contain pictures representing the future state of the soul. The laws of the Hindu written a thousand years ago believe in a hereafter. The Romans and the Greeks had their heaven, and hell. The Mexicans have their paradise. The American Indians had their happy hunting ground. Immortality is not a question of argument but a universal belief. Who planted this universal belief in man? God the author of life did it. Will He plant such a belief within us and then disappoint us? Nay. When the heart ceases to beat, the soul takes up its existence in the Great Beyond. John Quincy Adams was walking down a street in Boston, met an old friend who asked, "How are you?" Adams replied, "John Quincy Adams is all right, but the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated." Not long afterward, he received his second and fatal stroke. He said, "This is the last of earth and I am content." Paul says, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."
Another significant evidence of immortality is found in human character. When your dearest friends die you have no argument then against immortality; but you feel it, thirst for it and long after it. Hume, the great writer of metaphysics said when he thought of his mother, he believed in immortality then.
9. Immortality is Proven by the Old Testament Scriptures.
"Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him." Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. David said, "Thou wilt guide me into glory." Daniel said, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Jeremiah speaks of God as the "Heavenly King." Isaiah says, "Neither hath the eye seen a God beside Thee." Again, David said, "In thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore." These passages of Scripture of the Old Testament are sufficient to show that, the saints of God, under a dark dispensation guided by inspiration, looked beyond this vale of tears to the unfolding glories of the resurrection morning.
10. Immortality is Proven by the New Testament Scriptures.
The New Testament is permeated with the blessed truths of immortality.
1. The Incarnation-God manifested in the flesh.
2. The proof that Christ came from eternity with the Father.
3. The mission of Christ to save lost sinners.
4. The teachings of Christ based on the life beyond the grave.
~W. B. Dunkum~
(continued with # 4)
Friday, March 10, 2017
Sunday, March 5, 2017
The Future Life # 2
The Future Life # 2
We see death ends probation forever, and that life does not end all. Man will live on when this earthly frame shall have crumbled into dust. This is the Christian's hope. In the hour death, hope sees a star and dying love hears the rustling of angel's wings. The angel of death makes his way across the river of death coming to the rescue of the Christian.
The Christian hope kindles a smile on the brow of the saint and hangs the rainbow of hope over the grave of our loved ones. The anchor holds in the storms of life and when our feet enter the chilly waters of death, you need to fear no evil, for Christ will lead through the misty stream and will see that the waters shall not overflow. We shall awake in His likeness and climb out over on the other shore and our eyes will catch a glimpse of the King upon His Majestic Throne and behold angels as they welcome to the land of the blessed. Then, we will meet our loved ones who have gone on before and meet to part no more. Brethren, such an experience will "Far exceed our fondest dreams."
Aside from the Resurrection of Christ and what He had to say about it we have no positive proof of the immortality of the soul.
There are various lines of evidences, and no one contains all the truth of the facts under consideration, but each adds to the general weight of proof. Among these arguments are the following:
1. Man's universal feeling about the future life. We would not for a moment think of God deceiving us along this line. As winter approaches and the birds start for a warmer climate,are they deceived? Can you conceive of God who gives that marvelous instinct to the bird and then not give man some intuitive feeling of immortality. Bacon said, "Learning leads to skepticism, but profound philosophy leads to religion." Immortality is the goal in view. Scientists, philosophers, and inventors have believed in a future life. Nature never deceives instinct; such as birds to the air, ducks to the pond, and moles to the ground. The skeptic is like a squirrel or a bee which fails to prepare for winter. Just as surely as God designed fins for the water, light for the eye, and sound for the ear, He also made heaven for the soul. Truly, the Spirit of immortality is divinely implanted in humanity.
Let immortality be the first lesson of the nursery and let it be the motto of every school, college, university and seminary throughout the land; let it be preached from every platform and pulpit in Christendom. Let it be preached everywhere that the soul is immortal, and will live throughout eternity when earthly kingdoms have fallen. The soul may enjoy eternal felicity in the realms of eternal bliss.
2. A sense of our incompleteness. There is a sense of incompleteness in man as far as this life is concerned. The more the student thinks, the more he is convinced that this is a life of incompleteness. In other words, this life is a small part of a great whole. Is all your experience, wealth, and wisdom purchased with the price of pain and discipline to utterly perish at your death? Most good people feel as they stand by an open grave, though they have the frost of winter upon their heads that eternal spring has just begun within their hearts. You frequently hear people say, "I am seventy or eighty years young" and not old. They mean immortality is about to peep from behind the eastern horizon. In spite of distressing and alarming conditions of earth existing as they do about us, the eternal and All-wise God behind the curtain longs and eagerly waits to bless us with heaven's multiplied blessings and in the morning open to us the door of immortality.
3. The continuation of personality proves the immortality of the soul. Let us consider the persistence of mankind, and your own individuality. You have passed through many surprising changes since you first became a self-conscious being. The psychologist tells us that the entire body goes through a complete change every seven years, and some say more frequently than that, yet we are the same identical person. Death is not supposed to destroy the real self which has gone through so many and so great changes. If the body undergoes a change every seven years, then the man seventy years old has had ten bodies and the same soul has shown through them all.
The student of ethics tells us that we take up in the future life where we leave off here. It is an evident fact that the future will be one of misery or happiness because we have such conditions though in less degree in this life. We are punished here for vice and rewarded for virtue and it is reasonable to expect same in the future life. Yet, we are justly or fully rewarded or punished here. If we are religious and heed salvation, we are rewarded, if we are irreligious and do not heed then we must suffer the consequences. God teaches us His approval toward rewarding virtue. So we can be as happy or miserable in eternity as we want to be because our actions here determine our future. Don't forget whether your life is a life of happiness or misery you will begin in yonder's world where you leave off in this world.
4. The certainty of immorality. The certainty of immorality is this, "Now is Christ risen from the dead." We no longer guess and surmise. We know whereof we speak. All of our instinctive feelings and convictions center in the resurrection of Christ. What sort of a Resurrection will it be? A resurrection of identity. He was, and is the same Christ who walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem and the pathless Sea of Galilee. We, too, will be the same absolutely. Death will not change our character whether or impure, justified or guilty. "So them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." It will be a blessed resurrection and glorious change. Just as the life of Jesus after the resurrection was enlarged and glorified, so will be the life of those who partake of His salvation and share in His life. Have you the certainty of a glorious resurrection? Will you rise to everlasting life or to everlasting shame?
Is it not logical to believe in immortality? Man not only believes but longs and thirsts after it, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, barbarian, heathen, civilized, or scientific; they shudder, they quake at the thought of destruction, but with glorious anticipation look forward to immortality.
The soul is the most valuable gem of all God's creation; it is immortal and is capable of happiness or misery here or hereafter. It is an undying creature, more valuable than gold and diamonds, and will live when earthly kingdoms shall have crumbled into dust, will live when the pyramids of Egypt are leveled with the ground, will live when the lofty Alps are swayed by the mighty forces of nature, and will live when the heavens are rolled together as a scroll. Yes, the soul of man will live as long as the Lord God Omnipotent lives and reigns.
Every man is created with a principle in him which will live forever. Job asked the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" He seemed to have felt the feelings of immortality.
We are in this world for preparation, being on trial for the next.
In this world we are to exist for a short time and afterwords, be transplanted into a better and more healthful climate where we shall grow and flourish throughout eternity.
It is a fatal mistake to suppose that the undertaker divorces the Spirit and body; we will need our minds and bodies in the region beyond the grave. They are our property and no one else will have use for them. There will be a glorious reunion in the resurrection morning when we shall have bodies fashioned like unto His glorious body. "Who is the fairest among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely." The mortal must put on immortality and death he swallowed up in life. Then comes the question, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" And a voice from Calvary will be heard saying, "Buried in the bosom of the immaculate Christ."
~W. B. Dunkum~
(continued with # 3)
We see death ends probation forever, and that life does not end all. Man will live on when this earthly frame shall have crumbled into dust. This is the Christian's hope. In the hour death, hope sees a star and dying love hears the rustling of angel's wings. The angel of death makes his way across the river of death coming to the rescue of the Christian.
The Christian hope kindles a smile on the brow of the saint and hangs the rainbow of hope over the grave of our loved ones. The anchor holds in the storms of life and when our feet enter the chilly waters of death, you need to fear no evil, for Christ will lead through the misty stream and will see that the waters shall not overflow. We shall awake in His likeness and climb out over on the other shore and our eyes will catch a glimpse of the King upon His Majestic Throne and behold angels as they welcome to the land of the blessed. Then, we will meet our loved ones who have gone on before and meet to part no more. Brethren, such an experience will "Far exceed our fondest dreams."
Aside from the Resurrection of Christ and what He had to say about it we have no positive proof of the immortality of the soul.
There are various lines of evidences, and no one contains all the truth of the facts under consideration, but each adds to the general weight of proof. Among these arguments are the following:
1. Man's universal feeling about the future life. We would not for a moment think of God deceiving us along this line. As winter approaches and the birds start for a warmer climate,are they deceived? Can you conceive of God who gives that marvelous instinct to the bird and then not give man some intuitive feeling of immortality. Bacon said, "Learning leads to skepticism, but profound philosophy leads to religion." Immortality is the goal in view. Scientists, philosophers, and inventors have believed in a future life. Nature never deceives instinct; such as birds to the air, ducks to the pond, and moles to the ground. The skeptic is like a squirrel or a bee which fails to prepare for winter. Just as surely as God designed fins for the water, light for the eye, and sound for the ear, He also made heaven for the soul. Truly, the Spirit of immortality is divinely implanted in humanity.
Let immortality be the first lesson of the nursery and let it be the motto of every school, college, university and seminary throughout the land; let it be preached from every platform and pulpit in Christendom. Let it be preached everywhere that the soul is immortal, and will live throughout eternity when earthly kingdoms have fallen. The soul may enjoy eternal felicity in the realms of eternal bliss.
2. A sense of our incompleteness. There is a sense of incompleteness in man as far as this life is concerned. The more the student thinks, the more he is convinced that this is a life of incompleteness. In other words, this life is a small part of a great whole. Is all your experience, wealth, and wisdom purchased with the price of pain and discipline to utterly perish at your death? Most good people feel as they stand by an open grave, though they have the frost of winter upon their heads that eternal spring has just begun within their hearts. You frequently hear people say, "I am seventy or eighty years young" and not old. They mean immortality is about to peep from behind the eastern horizon. In spite of distressing and alarming conditions of earth existing as they do about us, the eternal and All-wise God behind the curtain longs and eagerly waits to bless us with heaven's multiplied blessings and in the morning open to us the door of immortality.
3. The continuation of personality proves the immortality of the soul. Let us consider the persistence of mankind, and your own individuality. You have passed through many surprising changes since you first became a self-conscious being. The psychologist tells us that the entire body goes through a complete change every seven years, and some say more frequently than that, yet we are the same identical person. Death is not supposed to destroy the real self which has gone through so many and so great changes. If the body undergoes a change every seven years, then the man seventy years old has had ten bodies and the same soul has shown through them all.
The student of ethics tells us that we take up in the future life where we leave off here. It is an evident fact that the future will be one of misery or happiness because we have such conditions though in less degree in this life. We are punished here for vice and rewarded for virtue and it is reasonable to expect same in the future life. Yet, we are justly or fully rewarded or punished here. If we are religious and heed salvation, we are rewarded, if we are irreligious and do not heed then we must suffer the consequences. God teaches us His approval toward rewarding virtue. So we can be as happy or miserable in eternity as we want to be because our actions here determine our future. Don't forget whether your life is a life of happiness or misery you will begin in yonder's world where you leave off in this world.
4. The certainty of immorality. The certainty of immorality is this, "Now is Christ risen from the dead." We no longer guess and surmise. We know whereof we speak. All of our instinctive feelings and convictions center in the resurrection of Christ. What sort of a Resurrection will it be? A resurrection of identity. He was, and is the same Christ who walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem and the pathless Sea of Galilee. We, too, will be the same absolutely. Death will not change our character whether or impure, justified or guilty. "So them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." It will be a blessed resurrection and glorious change. Just as the life of Jesus after the resurrection was enlarged and glorified, so will be the life of those who partake of His salvation and share in His life. Have you the certainty of a glorious resurrection? Will you rise to everlasting life or to everlasting shame?
Is it not logical to believe in immortality? Man not only believes but longs and thirsts after it, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, barbarian, heathen, civilized, or scientific; they shudder, they quake at the thought of destruction, but with glorious anticipation look forward to immortality.
The soul is the most valuable gem of all God's creation; it is immortal and is capable of happiness or misery here or hereafter. It is an undying creature, more valuable than gold and diamonds, and will live when earthly kingdoms shall have crumbled into dust, will live when the pyramids of Egypt are leveled with the ground, will live when the lofty Alps are swayed by the mighty forces of nature, and will live when the heavens are rolled together as a scroll. Yes, the soul of man will live as long as the Lord God Omnipotent lives and reigns.
Every man is created with a principle in him which will live forever. Job asked the question, "If a man die, shall he live again?" He seemed to have felt the feelings of immortality.
We are in this world for preparation, being on trial for the next.
In this world we are to exist for a short time and afterwords, be transplanted into a better and more healthful climate where we shall grow and flourish throughout eternity.
It is a fatal mistake to suppose that the undertaker divorces the Spirit and body; we will need our minds and bodies in the region beyond the grave. They are our property and no one else will have use for them. There will be a glorious reunion in the resurrection morning when we shall have bodies fashioned like unto His glorious body. "Who is the fairest among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely." The mortal must put on immortality and death he swallowed up in life. Then comes the question, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" And a voice from Calvary will be heard saying, "Buried in the bosom of the immaculate Christ."
~W. B. Dunkum~
(continued with # 3)
Thursday, March 2, 2017
The Future Life # 1
The Future Life # 1
Immortality
Does death end all? Is there a life beyond? Can we obtain any reliable information about it? These are questions of the greatest importance and the deepest interest. They lie at the foundation of all religion. They have aroused the interest and attention of the wisest and best of mankind in every age. A belief in this doctrine is a powerful incentive to the practice of moral and religious duty. To establish the doctrine of immortality we turn to the teaching of inspiration. Hence, the only reliable information is the Word of God. The doctrine of immortality is emphatically a doctrine of Divine Revelation. It is purely and exclusively a Bible doctrine. Advocates of this doctrine have been found in every age. Nature may impart the hope, salvation alone can give the assurance. Christ by His life, death and triumphant resurrection "hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light." Therefore Christianity upon the authority of a direct revelation from heaven is giving us the truth of the doctrine.
We are frequently facing the question of the ages, "If a man die, shall he live again?" It is easy to believe in immortality as we stand by a newly made grave of a friend or loved one. Death does not startle nature or God, but it is the method God uses in changing us from one world to another. The grave is but the gate to life. Death is a visitor with whom we will never become accustomed. Yet, it is nothing uncommon for with every tick of the clock three souls leave this world to meet God.
When stricken with grief we read the Scripture, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Death is the decree of the loving God, the doorway through which we pass to Eternal Day. Death is the best method provided by a loving Lord for exchanging worlds. Jesus Christ tunneled the grave and walked out into liberty, victory, and immorality. What He did, He gives us power to do for He was declared to be the Son of God with power. "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." (1 Corinthians 15:20).
A glance into the other world naturally causes one to ask questions as to their future existence. Is death a gateway to endless sorrow or is it an entrance into endless bliss? Such questions come into the mind of all rational beings from the rich man in his palace to the bum of the street.
"Death is not the end; it is only a new beginning. Death is not the master of the home; he is only the appointed porter to open the gate and let the King's guest into the realm of eternal day." Life is not necessarily enclosed within a limit of three score years and ten. We are sailing upon a great sea. The Great Mediterranean Sea is but a fish pond compared to the sea of life we are sailing upon. We are upon the great waters, yea, we are immortal and are sailing with tomorrow in view.
God made no special attempt to prove our future existence but He gives us this truth as an evident fact.
All nationalities of the past have always had within them a native acknowledgement of the fact of a supreme being. The American Indian called it "The Great Spirit." The woman yonder on the bank of the Ganges River willingly throws her baby to the crocodiles believing there is a God, and she has been taught that by this act she will appease the wrath of her god.
Wicked men will testify to the fact that they have within them something that witnesses to a supreme power.
Nature will prove to you there is a God if you desire to see the truth. God has placed something in your breast which will lead you to the dawn of a beautiful day. God has existed from eternity to eternity, the author of the soul of man. Here, we have a silver watch; we know that back of this watch existed some intelligent being greater than the watch itself. Then, suppose we go back to the factory where it was made, but that fails to satisfy. Hence, we go back to the silver mine, where the silver was obtained. With profound thought we wonder who made the silver and from whence it came, and back of all is an all-wise infinite God. Therefore, man is the climax of all of God's creation. What is man and what can a well developed and well trained man accomplish with the aid of his Maker? Man not only learns by experience and observation but he can obtain a practical education through the wonderful facilities of travel. man is back of nature, empires, laws, codes and constitutions. Man has connected continents and annihilated space until this world has become one great neighborhood. The trained mind takes the lead in civilization, constructing roads, building bridges and tunneling mountains. Man has made scales which will weigh a pencil marks or the smallest hair from the eyebrow. He forecasts the weathers predicts the eclipse and foretells the coming storm. He measures the distance from the earth to the sun and gives us scientific information, concerning the Milky Way. He tells us that two pounds of spider web will go around the earth at the Equator but it will take two tones to reach the nearest star. Yet, with all this power, he can't create even one blade of grass. There must be a first cause back of him. An Omnipotent Being. We see God's mighty handiwork on every hand. His footprints are left on the sand of time. He measures the water in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains with scales and the hills in a balance. Therefore, only a supreme being can do such. When we behold nature and the beauty of God's creation, we will admit that the heavenly artist alone can make and paint things so beautiful!
It was Dr. Mayo of Rochester, Minn., who said, "Man has religious needs and that religion has what man needs and not creeds." The God who created something out of nothing and wasted not a single atom in all His creation, has made provision for a future life in which man's universal longing for immortality will find its realization. I am as sure that you will live again as I am sure you are living now.
God created man just a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor and gave him intellect sensibility, and will, and having the right kind of training and environment he can attain much heavenly knowledge. Does it seem that as all-wise God would create such a being as man with capacities to know, love, and serve Him and then assign him to failure and disappointment? Every power of man's makeup bespeaks the fact that he was made for a more noble existence than is possible for him to attain in this life. Every power we possess proclaims the fact that man is immortal; is created for a sunnier clime than that of earth. The best we can do here is to get where we can bless humanity and then off the stage of action, we go into eternity. Could it be reasonable to think that it is all of life to live and all of death to die? The poet was correct when he said: "Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not it's goal; Dust thou art to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul."
The Almighty has provided a great ship upon which He will carry us across the misty and muddy stream of time and land us safely in the ocean of glory and happiness where we can enjoy eternal bliss. The universal longing of man for immortality can find its realization in the heaven of eternal rest.
We believe in an all-wise and infinite Creator and that in the meantime, He will lift the limitations placed upon us. But if we live a few passing years and then pass away and be no more, why need man such wonderful power? Then why not make him as the ox which has no higher admiration and aspiration than of food to satisfy hunger? Man with lofty powers can look forward to the time when limitations will be removed and mortal put on immortality.
~W. B. Dunkum~
(continued with # 2)
Immortality
Does death end all? Is there a life beyond? Can we obtain any reliable information about it? These are questions of the greatest importance and the deepest interest. They lie at the foundation of all religion. They have aroused the interest and attention of the wisest and best of mankind in every age. A belief in this doctrine is a powerful incentive to the practice of moral and religious duty. To establish the doctrine of immortality we turn to the teaching of inspiration. Hence, the only reliable information is the Word of God. The doctrine of immortality is emphatically a doctrine of Divine Revelation. It is purely and exclusively a Bible doctrine. Advocates of this doctrine have been found in every age. Nature may impart the hope, salvation alone can give the assurance. Christ by His life, death and triumphant resurrection "hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light." Therefore Christianity upon the authority of a direct revelation from heaven is giving us the truth of the doctrine.
We are frequently facing the question of the ages, "If a man die, shall he live again?" It is easy to believe in immortality as we stand by a newly made grave of a friend or loved one. Death does not startle nature or God, but it is the method God uses in changing us from one world to another. The grave is but the gate to life. Death is a visitor with whom we will never become accustomed. Yet, it is nothing uncommon for with every tick of the clock three souls leave this world to meet God.
When stricken with grief we read the Scripture, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Death is the decree of the loving God, the doorway through which we pass to Eternal Day. Death is the best method provided by a loving Lord for exchanging worlds. Jesus Christ tunneled the grave and walked out into liberty, victory, and immorality. What He did, He gives us power to do for He was declared to be the Son of God with power. "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." (1 Corinthians 15:20).
A glance into the other world naturally causes one to ask questions as to their future existence. Is death a gateway to endless sorrow or is it an entrance into endless bliss? Such questions come into the mind of all rational beings from the rich man in his palace to the bum of the street.
"Death is not the end; it is only a new beginning. Death is not the master of the home; he is only the appointed porter to open the gate and let the King's guest into the realm of eternal day." Life is not necessarily enclosed within a limit of three score years and ten. We are sailing upon a great sea. The Great Mediterranean Sea is but a fish pond compared to the sea of life we are sailing upon. We are upon the great waters, yea, we are immortal and are sailing with tomorrow in view.
God made no special attempt to prove our future existence but He gives us this truth as an evident fact.
All nationalities of the past have always had within them a native acknowledgement of the fact of a supreme being. The American Indian called it "The Great Spirit." The woman yonder on the bank of the Ganges River willingly throws her baby to the crocodiles believing there is a God, and she has been taught that by this act she will appease the wrath of her god.
Wicked men will testify to the fact that they have within them something that witnesses to a supreme power.
Nature will prove to you there is a God if you desire to see the truth. God has placed something in your breast which will lead you to the dawn of a beautiful day. God has existed from eternity to eternity, the author of the soul of man. Here, we have a silver watch; we know that back of this watch existed some intelligent being greater than the watch itself. Then, suppose we go back to the factory where it was made, but that fails to satisfy. Hence, we go back to the silver mine, where the silver was obtained. With profound thought we wonder who made the silver and from whence it came, and back of all is an all-wise infinite God. Therefore, man is the climax of all of God's creation. What is man and what can a well developed and well trained man accomplish with the aid of his Maker? Man not only learns by experience and observation but he can obtain a practical education through the wonderful facilities of travel. man is back of nature, empires, laws, codes and constitutions. Man has connected continents and annihilated space until this world has become one great neighborhood. The trained mind takes the lead in civilization, constructing roads, building bridges and tunneling mountains. Man has made scales which will weigh a pencil marks or the smallest hair from the eyebrow. He forecasts the weathers predicts the eclipse and foretells the coming storm. He measures the distance from the earth to the sun and gives us scientific information, concerning the Milky Way. He tells us that two pounds of spider web will go around the earth at the Equator but it will take two tones to reach the nearest star. Yet, with all this power, he can't create even one blade of grass. There must be a first cause back of him. An Omnipotent Being. We see God's mighty handiwork on every hand. His footprints are left on the sand of time. He measures the water in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains with scales and the hills in a balance. Therefore, only a supreme being can do such. When we behold nature and the beauty of God's creation, we will admit that the heavenly artist alone can make and paint things so beautiful!
It was Dr. Mayo of Rochester, Minn., who said, "Man has religious needs and that religion has what man needs and not creeds." The God who created something out of nothing and wasted not a single atom in all His creation, has made provision for a future life in which man's universal longing for immortality will find its realization. I am as sure that you will live again as I am sure you are living now.
God created man just a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor and gave him intellect sensibility, and will, and having the right kind of training and environment he can attain much heavenly knowledge. Does it seem that as all-wise God would create such a being as man with capacities to know, love, and serve Him and then assign him to failure and disappointment? Every power of man's makeup bespeaks the fact that he was made for a more noble existence than is possible for him to attain in this life. Every power we possess proclaims the fact that man is immortal; is created for a sunnier clime than that of earth. The best we can do here is to get where we can bless humanity and then off the stage of action, we go into eternity. Could it be reasonable to think that it is all of life to live and all of death to die? The poet was correct when he said: "Life is real, life is earnest, and the grave is not it's goal; Dust thou art to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul."
The Almighty has provided a great ship upon which He will carry us across the misty and muddy stream of time and land us safely in the ocean of glory and happiness where we can enjoy eternal bliss. The universal longing of man for immortality can find its realization in the heaven of eternal rest.
We believe in an all-wise and infinite Creator and that in the meantime, He will lift the limitations placed upon us. But if we live a few passing years and then pass away and be no more, why need man such wonderful power? Then why not make him as the ox which has no higher admiration and aspiration than of food to satisfy hunger? Man with lofty powers can look forward to the time when limitations will be removed and mortal put on immortality.
~W. B. Dunkum~
(continued with # 2)
Friday, February 24, 2017
Unction, the Mark of True Gospel Preaching
Unction, the Mark of True Gospel Preaching
Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. Remember that God, and not man, must have the glory! If the veil of the world's machinery were lifted off, how much we would find is done in answer to the prayers of God's children." Robert Murray McCheyne
Unction is that indefinable, indescribable something which an old, renowned Scotch preacher describes thus: "There is sometimes somewhat in preaching that cannot be ascribed either to matter or expression, and cannot be described what it is, or from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes immediately from the Word; but if there be any way to obtain such a thing, it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker."
We call it "unction." It is this unction which makes the word of God "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." It is this unction which gives the words of the preacher such point, sharpness, and power, and which creates such friction and stir in many a dead congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness of the letter, smooth as human oil could make them; but no signs of life, not a pulse throb; all as peaceful as the grace and as dead. The same preacher in the meanwhile receives a baptism of this unction, the divine inflatus is on him, the letter of the Word has been embellished and fired by this mysterious power, and the trobbings of life begin - life which receives or life which resists. The unction pervades and convicts the conscience and breaks the heart
This divine unction is the feature which separates and distinguishes true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting the truth, and which creates a wide spiritual chasm between the preacher who has it and the one who has it not. It backs and impregns revealed truth with all the energy of God. Unction is simply putting God in His own word and on His own preachers. By mighty and great prayerfullness and by continual prayerfullness, it is all potential and personal to the preacher; it inspires and clarifies his intellect, gives insight and grasp and projecting power; it gives to the preacher heart power, which is greater than head power; and tenderness, purity, force flow from the heart by it. Enlargement, freedom, fullness of thought, directness and simplicity of utterance are the fruits of this unction.
Often earnestness is mistaken for this unction. He who has the divine unction will be earnest in the very spiritual nature of things, but there may be a vast deal of earnestness without the least mixture of unction.
Earnestness and unction look alike from some points of view. Earnestness may be readily and without detection substituted or mistaken for unction. It requires a spiritual eye and a spiritual taste to discriminate.
Earnestness may be sincere, serious, ardent, and persevering. It goes at a thing with good will, pursues it with perseverance,and urges it with ardor, puts force in it. But all these forces do not rise higher than the mere human. The man is in it - the whole man, with all that he has of will and heart, of brain and genius, of planning and working and talking. He has set himself to some purpose which has mastered him, and he pursues to master it. There may be none of God in it. There may be little of God in it, because there is so much of the man in it. He may present pleas in advocacy of his earnest purpose which please or touch and move or overwhelm with conviction of their importance; and in all this earnestness may move along earthly ways, being propelled by human forces only, its altar made by earthly hands and its fire kindled by earthly flames. It is said of a rather famous preacher of gifts, whose construction of Scripture was to his fancy or purpose, that he "grew very eloquent over his own exegesis." So men grow exceeding earnest over their own plans or movements. Earnestness may be selfishness simulated.
What of unction? It is the indefinable in preaching which makes it preaching. It is that which distinguishes and separates preaching from all mere human addresses. It is the divine in preaching. It makes the preaching sharp to those who need sharpness. It distills as the dew to those who need to be refreshed. It is well described as:
"a two-edged sword
Of heavenly temper keen,
And double were the wounds it made
Wherever it glanced between.
'Twas death to silt; 'twas life
To all who mourned for sin.
It kindled and it silenced strife,
Made war and peace within."
This unction comes to the preacher not in the study but in the closet. It is heaven's distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates,suffuses, softens, percolates,cuts, and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arranger, a revealer, a searcher; makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as the spring opens the leaves. This unction is not the gift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it. No industry can win it. No prelatical hands can confer it. It is the gift of God - the signet set to his own messengers. It is heaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer.
Earnestness is good and impressive: genius is gifted and great. Thought kindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, a more powerful energy than earnestness or genius or thought to break the chains of sin, to win estranged and depraved hearts to God, to repair the breaches and restore the Church to her old way of purity and power. Nothing but this holy unction can do this.
~E. M. Bounds~
(The End)
Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. Remember that God, and not man, must have the glory! If the veil of the world's machinery were lifted off, how much we would find is done in answer to the prayers of God's children." Robert Murray McCheyne
Unction is that indefinable, indescribable something which an old, renowned Scotch preacher describes thus: "There is sometimes somewhat in preaching that cannot be ascribed either to matter or expression, and cannot be described what it is, or from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes immediately from the Word; but if there be any way to obtain such a thing, it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker."
We call it "unction." It is this unction which makes the word of God "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." It is this unction which gives the words of the preacher such point, sharpness, and power, and which creates such friction and stir in many a dead congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness of the letter, smooth as human oil could make them; but no signs of life, not a pulse throb; all as peaceful as the grace and as dead. The same preacher in the meanwhile receives a baptism of this unction, the divine inflatus is on him, the letter of the Word has been embellished and fired by this mysterious power, and the trobbings of life begin - life which receives or life which resists. The unction pervades and convicts the conscience and breaks the heart
This divine unction is the feature which separates and distinguishes true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting the truth, and which creates a wide spiritual chasm between the preacher who has it and the one who has it not. It backs and impregns revealed truth with all the energy of God. Unction is simply putting God in His own word and on His own preachers. By mighty and great prayerfullness and by continual prayerfullness, it is all potential and personal to the preacher; it inspires and clarifies his intellect, gives insight and grasp and projecting power; it gives to the preacher heart power, which is greater than head power; and tenderness, purity, force flow from the heart by it. Enlargement, freedom, fullness of thought, directness and simplicity of utterance are the fruits of this unction.
Often earnestness is mistaken for this unction. He who has the divine unction will be earnest in the very spiritual nature of things, but there may be a vast deal of earnestness without the least mixture of unction.
Earnestness and unction look alike from some points of view. Earnestness may be readily and without detection substituted or mistaken for unction. It requires a spiritual eye and a spiritual taste to discriminate.
Earnestness may be sincere, serious, ardent, and persevering. It goes at a thing with good will, pursues it with perseverance,and urges it with ardor, puts force in it. But all these forces do not rise higher than the mere human. The man is in it - the whole man, with all that he has of will and heart, of brain and genius, of planning and working and talking. He has set himself to some purpose which has mastered him, and he pursues to master it. There may be none of God in it. There may be little of God in it, because there is so much of the man in it. He may present pleas in advocacy of his earnest purpose which please or touch and move or overwhelm with conviction of their importance; and in all this earnestness may move along earthly ways, being propelled by human forces only, its altar made by earthly hands and its fire kindled by earthly flames. It is said of a rather famous preacher of gifts, whose construction of Scripture was to his fancy or purpose, that he "grew very eloquent over his own exegesis." So men grow exceeding earnest over their own plans or movements. Earnestness may be selfishness simulated.
What of unction? It is the indefinable in preaching which makes it preaching. It is that which distinguishes and separates preaching from all mere human addresses. It is the divine in preaching. It makes the preaching sharp to those who need sharpness. It distills as the dew to those who need to be refreshed. It is well described as:
"a two-edged sword
Of heavenly temper keen,
And double were the wounds it made
Wherever it glanced between.
'Twas death to silt; 'twas life
To all who mourned for sin.
It kindled and it silenced strife,
Made war and peace within."
This unction comes to the preacher not in the study but in the closet. It is heaven's distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates,suffuses, softens, percolates,cuts, and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arranger, a revealer, a searcher; makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as the spring opens the leaves. This unction is not the gift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it. No industry can win it. No prelatical hands can confer it. It is the gift of God - the signet set to his own messengers. It is heaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer.
Earnestness is good and impressive: genius is gifted and great. Thought kindles and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, a more powerful energy than earnestness or genius or thought to break the chains of sin, to win estranged and depraved hearts to God, to repair the breaches and restore the Church to her old way of purity and power. Nothing but this holy unction can do this.
~E. M. Bounds~
(The End)
Friday, February 17, 2017
What Do I Still Lack?
What Do I Still Lack?
What percentage of responsibility for my spiritual maturity is the Lord's, and how much of it is mine? To say that I alone am responsible for my soul's development is conceit. To say that all the responsibility is the Lord's is impudence.
I find it humbling, inspiring an challenging to recognize that the greatest saints who ever lived did not have a bigger Bible than I have. They just knew it better! Indeed, they had far less of the divine revelation. Today we have the complete message of God to man.He has nothing more to say to us. As the old hymn says, "What more can He say to you He hath said?" God has no "P.S." to add to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
For years the Holy Scriptures were wrapped up in tongues that only the scholars could read. "There was no open vision in those days" (1 Samuel 3:1). Then, blessed day, the whole counsel of God was released in our own tongue. With this unveiling came the glad news of the priesthood of believers - Hallelujah!
Do you wonder that Bishop Walsham said: "How bursts into song about the Holy Word. "It is a golden casket, where gems of Truth are stored. It is the Heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word." Trees are fascinating to most of us. I like to see the burdened fruit trees showing off their labor. The English like their mighty oaks and the Americans their redwood trees. At the moment, in the area where I write, the peach trees are richly endowed with fruit; but, it does not grow already canned. No! God gave us the fruit; we do the canning. Trees do not grow furniture, even in this scientific age. We have the trees. From them we make the chairs, etc. So it is with the spiritual life. Here is a stunning truth from Second Peter, Chapter one, verse three: "His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness." Paul backs up Peter in this area when he says, "How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). And to top these precious words, here comes Paul again with s staggering statement: "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." Stop there? No, add the remainder: "...if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:16-17).
With all this limitless resource to inherit in this life, why then, O why, do we settle for minimum spirituality? These scriptures just quoted shatter all our excuses for carnal Christianity and explode all our feeble bumper-sticker excuses on bumper-sticker evangelism: "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven." (Some backslider must have written that.)
Sinning is not permitted to believers. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." (1 John 3:9). Not that it is impossible to sin; but it is, by the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, possible not to sin. John again shouts the triumphant note, "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4).
God, then, has made it possible for you and me to have victory over the world, the flesh and the devil!
Here are the Master's commandments to His own. These are not options but imperatives. With His enabling and our striving, we can explore what Lowrey called "the possibilities of Grace." We can leave the playpen in the Spiritual Nursery and "go on unto perfection." (Hebrews 6:1). Here are His commands:
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21).
"Building up yourselves on you most holy faith ..." (Jude 20; Romans 10:27).
"Keep yourselves in the love of God ..." (by obedience to His Word) Jude 21.
"Put on the whole armor of God ..." (equipment for beating satan) Ephesians 6:11.
The Scripture is very clear here: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7).
Christian maturity is not a weekend operation. On the other hand, remember there is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity. While we are in the flesh, we "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:14).
We hear continually about "Weight Watchers." O that we watched our spiritual growth as carefully!
I believe in instant purity: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7). I do not believe in instant maturity. Faith in the finished work of Christ is one thing. To add to your faith, as Peter says in 2 Peter 1:5-7, is something else. As a tree must be pruned regularly to bring it to maturity, so we need pruning. It is easy to sing, "And pour contempt on all my pride." If I do that at all, I will do it conveniently protecting myself from and "bleeding." It is when the Lord does it - or worse still when He uses some other human being (less spiritual than I am) to do the pruning - there can I kiss the rod? This is a process in spiritual growth. Can I take it cheerfully when I am slighted, when my name is cast out as an evil thing (though I am totally innocent)? Can I joyfully help to promote another to a position that I would like and which I am more capable of handling?
I heard a preacher asking another if folks came to the altar at his last meeting. He replied, "Yes, but most of them are altar tramps." It's easier to go to the altar than to get on the Cross. There is no magic in a trip to the altar. You will not grow an inch by walking a few yards to the altar, unless there is a total repentance and a holy vow to God that you will not fall into the same hole again.
That holy hand of "Heroes of Faith" in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews staggers me. They had no Bibles, no millions of cassettes as we have, no Bible seminars, no daily radio Bible teaching, and (fortunate souls) no Gospel T. V. preachers whining about lack of funds. (When did the Lord run out of supplies?) Yet what things these folks in Hebrews 11 accomplished: subdued whole kingdoms - (O that some person rich in faith could subdue the worldwide kingdom of the drug trade) -wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. What miracles, what men, what faith!
These "pattern" folks of our faith did not get to the heights in one leap:
"They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain.
O God, may grace to us be given,
to follow in their train."
Asked why he was used of the Lord so greatly in China, Hudson Taylor replied, "God had looked long for a man weak enough, and He found me." He takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Spiritual wisdom does not come with years; neither does maturity. The key to both is obedience. Whatsoever He saith unto YOU, do it!
An insatiable thirst for God will produce an unquenchable love for holiness (as He is holy), resulting in a passion for the lost.
Remember, friend, you are just as spiritual as you want to be!
~Leonard Ravenhill~
(The End)
What percentage of responsibility for my spiritual maturity is the Lord's, and how much of it is mine? To say that I alone am responsible for my soul's development is conceit. To say that all the responsibility is the Lord's is impudence.
I find it humbling, inspiring an challenging to recognize that the greatest saints who ever lived did not have a bigger Bible than I have. They just knew it better! Indeed, they had far less of the divine revelation. Today we have the complete message of God to man.He has nothing more to say to us. As the old hymn says, "What more can He say to you He hath said?" God has no "P.S." to add to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
For years the Holy Scriptures were wrapped up in tongues that only the scholars could read. "There was no open vision in those days" (1 Samuel 3:1). Then, blessed day, the whole counsel of God was released in our own tongue. With this unveiling came the glad news of the priesthood of believers - Hallelujah!
Do you wonder that Bishop Walsham said: "How bursts into song about the Holy Word. "It is a golden casket, where gems of Truth are stored. It is the Heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word." Trees are fascinating to most of us. I like to see the burdened fruit trees showing off their labor. The English like their mighty oaks and the Americans their redwood trees. At the moment, in the area where I write, the peach trees are richly endowed with fruit; but, it does not grow already canned. No! God gave us the fruit; we do the canning. Trees do not grow furniture, even in this scientific age. We have the trees. From them we make the chairs, etc. So it is with the spiritual life. Here is a stunning truth from Second Peter, Chapter one, verse three: "His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness." Paul backs up Peter in this area when he says, "How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). And to top these precious words, here comes Paul again with s staggering statement: "The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." Stop there? No, add the remainder: "...if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." (Romans 8:16-17).
With all this limitless resource to inherit in this life, why then, O why, do we settle for minimum spirituality? These scriptures just quoted shatter all our excuses for carnal Christianity and explode all our feeble bumper-sticker excuses on bumper-sticker evangelism: "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven." (Some backslider must have written that.)
Sinning is not permitted to believers. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." (1 John 3:9). Not that it is impossible to sin; but it is, by the blood of Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, possible not to sin. John again shouts the triumphant note, "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4).
God, then, has made it possible for you and me to have victory over the world, the flesh and the devil!
Here are the Master's commandments to His own. These are not options but imperatives. With His enabling and our striving, we can explore what Lowrey called "the possibilities of Grace." We can leave the playpen in the Spiritual Nursery and "go on unto perfection." (Hebrews 6:1). Here are His commands:
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:21).
"Building up yourselves on you most holy faith ..." (Jude 20; Romans 10:27).
"Keep yourselves in the love of God ..." (by obedience to His Word) Jude 21.
"Put on the whole armor of God ..." (equipment for beating satan) Ephesians 6:11.
The Scripture is very clear here: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7).
Christian maturity is not a weekend operation. On the other hand, remember there is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity. While we are in the flesh, we "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:14).
We hear continually about "Weight Watchers." O that we watched our spiritual growth as carefully!
I believe in instant purity: "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7). I do not believe in instant maturity. Faith in the finished work of Christ is one thing. To add to your faith, as Peter says in 2 Peter 1:5-7, is something else. As a tree must be pruned regularly to bring it to maturity, so we need pruning. It is easy to sing, "And pour contempt on all my pride." If I do that at all, I will do it conveniently protecting myself from and "bleeding." It is when the Lord does it - or worse still when He uses some other human being (less spiritual than I am) to do the pruning - there can I kiss the rod? This is a process in spiritual growth. Can I take it cheerfully when I am slighted, when my name is cast out as an evil thing (though I am totally innocent)? Can I joyfully help to promote another to a position that I would like and which I am more capable of handling?
I heard a preacher asking another if folks came to the altar at his last meeting. He replied, "Yes, but most of them are altar tramps." It's easier to go to the altar than to get on the Cross. There is no magic in a trip to the altar. You will not grow an inch by walking a few yards to the altar, unless there is a total repentance and a holy vow to God that you will not fall into the same hole again.
That holy hand of "Heroes of Faith" in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews staggers me. They had no Bibles, no millions of cassettes as we have, no Bible seminars, no daily radio Bible teaching, and (fortunate souls) no Gospel T. V. preachers whining about lack of funds. (When did the Lord run out of supplies?) Yet what things these folks in Hebrews 11 accomplished: subdued whole kingdoms - (O that some person rich in faith could subdue the worldwide kingdom of the drug trade) -wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. What miracles, what men, what faith!
These "pattern" folks of our faith did not get to the heights in one leap:
"They climbed the steep ascent to Heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain.
O God, may grace to us be given,
to follow in their train."
Asked why he was used of the Lord so greatly in China, Hudson Taylor replied, "God had looked long for a man weak enough, and He found me." He takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Spiritual wisdom does not come with years; neither does maturity. The key to both is obedience. Whatsoever He saith unto YOU, do it!
An insatiable thirst for God will produce an unquenchable love for holiness (as He is holy), resulting in a passion for the lost.
Remember, friend, you are just as spiritual as you want to be!
~Leonard Ravenhill~
(The End)
Sunday, February 12, 2017
The Burning Bush
The Burning Bush
"He looked, and, behold, the Bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed" (Exodus 3:3)
Wondrous is the sight which here meets our view. It is a bush in flames, but not consumed. Destroying fire fails to destroy. Perishable wood refuses to be fuel. Reader! this surely is no new object to you. But know that it abounds in lessons which your search cannot mine! It must be so. The unsearchable riches of Jesus are in this mine! He, who is the Wonder of Wonders, is the true Wonder of the bush.
Reader! you must see Christ by faith, if ever you would see God and enter heaven. You must know Christ in heart, if ever you would know peace in conscience and hope in death. Ask then the Holy Spirit that He would make the blazing bush to be a blaze of saving light within your soul. The way to the burning bush lies through an avenue of instructive thoughts.
Moses is mercifully rescued from an early grave of waters. Pharaoh's decree dooms to death. But Pharaoh's daughter is the means of life. When God has purposes to work, He can make foes his tools! The oppressor's court becomes the refuge of the oppressed. The Hebrew child is caressed as an Egyptian prince. But the perils of the Nile are scarcely greater to the body; than the perils of the palace to the soul. Worldly pomp is very dazzling. Worldly luxury is very entrancing. Worldly pleasures are very ensnaring. But there is an ark of safety in the flood of vanities, as in the flood of waters. Moses is neither dazzled, nor entranced, nor ensnared. He looks above, and sees a splendor far more bright. He deliberately chooses scorn to be the truest honor - such affliction to be the purest joy - such loss to be the richest gain - such poverty to be the most enduring wealth.
Reader! it is an important principle, that none can tread the world beneath their feet until they see a fairer world above their heads. When the Lord is set before you, your eyes are dim to lower objects. The beauty of the all-beauteous One makes other loveliness unlovely. Moses proves the mighty energy of soul-elevating, soul-purifying faith. This stirring principle turns his whole course from ease and affluence and self, into one stream of daring activities for God. He beholds with aching heart Israel's crushed tribes. He boldly presents himself to avenge their wrongs, and to erect the standard of their freedom. But what is the welcome which awaits him? Alas! he is thrust away with a rejecting taunt, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us?"
Reader! your eyes are open to such pitiable folly. You sigh over a serfdom, which is content to do a tyrant's bidding, rather than defy a tyrant's rage. But such may be your own case. The Gospel, like Moses, approaches men. It tells them that they grind in satan's prison-house. It calls them to arise from the dust, to lift up the head, to burst the fetters, to dare to be free. It shows them Jesus, the Captain of salvation, inviting them to the banner of His Cross. It assures those who this Leader never lost a battle - and never lost a man. It beseeches them to cast off the filthy fetters, and to stride boldly towards the sparkling crown. What answer is returned? Alas! multitudes hate the voice which would arouse them. They hug the bonds which bind them to perdition's cell. They little think how soon each link in that chain will become a deathless scorpion and a quenchless flame!
Then Moses fled at this saying. Reader! take heed. The decree may issue, he is joined to idols; let him alone. An unwelcomed Saviour may depart forever. The wings of love may fly away in judgment.
He was hidden as a stranger in the land of Midian forty years. But the God who was his shield in the crowd, was his "sun" in the desert. It is sad, that the Lord's servant must be earth's outcast. But it is sweet to see how heavenly wisdom can make the hardest usage to yield our choicest blessings. The sweetest honey is from the stony rock. There was work for Moses which required lamb-like meekness with lion-like resolve. He must be calm as the ocean when it sleeps - firm as the rock which smiles at storms. These are the lessons of tribulation's school - therefore, in tribulation he must be schooled. Metal becomes pure by long process in the furnace. The wisdom which is profitable in the busy haunts of busy men, grows in retirement's still shade. In the seclusion of Arabia, Paul drinks calmly of truth's fount. In the wilds of Midian, Moses sits at the feet of God.
At last the appointed time of rescue came. God's works are the reflection of decrees ordained of old. When His purposes were ripe, a marvel startles the shepherd-prophet. A bush blazes before him, each branch, each fiber reddened in the flame. But neither branch nor fiber received hurt. The brittle wood waved an uninjured head. Well might Moses wonder. But wonder deepened into awe, when from the bush a voice was heard, even the voice of God.
Reader! it becomes us now to ask, "What is the Gospel of the burning bush?" Jesus Himself appears in His person, suffering. and all-resisting might.
His Person - He is God, and yet He stoops to be made man. He is man, and yet He continues to be God forever. Withdraw the Godhead, and His blood cannot atone. Withdraw the manhood, and no blood remains. The union gives a Saviour able,and a Saviour fit. Look to the bush! It shows this very union. The wood denotes the poor and feeble produce of earth. It exhibits the tender plant - the "root" out of a dry ground. But it holds God as its inhabitant. The voice out of its midst proclaims, Your God is here.
His Sufferings - Fire wraps the bush. No clearer image can depict the hot assaults of wrath. The life of Jesus knew these well. It was one struggle with keen anguish. Earth was a thorny path. Hell shot its every shaft. Heaven darkened with the horrors of its frowns. All the fierce pains which infinite displeasure could inflict, made Him their prey. He wrung out all, which all the ransomed would have tasted, if hell-agonies had been their doom forever!
His all-resisting might - In vain the fire assailed the bush. It stood unharmed. So every blow recoiled from Jesus. Sustained by His indwelling Deity, He trod all foes beneath His feet. He burst the bands of death. He shivered the grave's gates. He stood victorious on the ruins of hell's empire. He mounted in triumph to the heaven of heavens.
We have next an unquestionable type of the whole family of faith. Persecutions and trials are the fire, which assails them with ceaseless fury. But still they thrive and strengthen and bud and blossom and flourish. How can it be? Deity indwells them! And where Deity resides there must be undecaying life.
The Church's story is a mirror of this truth. How often do we see it as a tiny bark tossed in engulfing waves. The powers of the mighty, the craft of the subtle, the rage of the frantic, have seized it with terrific grasp. Evil men have done their worst - evil spirits have aimed blows - evil fiends have put forth spite. Surely the fragile bush must sink in ruin! But no! It defies all foes. It stands, and will stand forever, verdant and fragrant and fruitful. But the power of resistance is not its own. The Lord is in the midst of it! He has chosen it as His abode forever. They are precious tidings. In the midst of the seven candlesticks is one like unto the Son of man.
It is true that Jesus, as God, holds all space within His hand. His center is everywhere. His circumference is nowhere. But still the Church is the chosen home of His unbounded love. Here His all-protecting might, His all-preserving care, His full delights, repose. He received it from His Father as His spouse - His jewels - His peculiar treasure - His portion - the fullness of His body - the completeness of His mediatorial glory. He is engaged to seat it, as an undiminished family, before the throne. If one member be injured, Christ is marred; if one be absent, Christ is maimed. Hence He is ever with it - all heart to love - all eye to watch - all hand to help - all wisdom to direct - all power to beat back foes. Let then, the fire rage! It must be mightier than Almightiness before the bush can droop to nothingness.
Do these lines meet the eye of one who plots and strives against Zion's (the church's) welfare? Vain man, forbear! The promise ever lives, "Lo, I am with you always." Can you tear the sun from its high seat? Can you beat back ocean with a feather? Can you bind the lightning with a straw? Such task would be easier than to pluck Jesus from the bush. Because He lives there, His people shall live also!
Here, to, another mystery is solved. Grace seems but a tender plant in the believer's heart. It has to contend with nipping frosts and desolating storms. satan's rage burns hot against it. The world brings fuel upon fuel to consume it. The flesh blows fiercely to fan the flame. But grace still thrives! Its roots spread. Its branches rise. Its fruit ripens. Why? Christ walks within His garden - a guardian-God. His hand sowed each seed. The dew of His favor nourishes it. The smile of His love matures it. Hence it overtops all fiery foes, and lifts its head towards heaven.
Believer, think much of the goodwill of Him who dwelt in the bush! Fears then will flee away. If you stood alone, it would be presumption to hope. Because you are not alone, it is offence to tremble.
Look back. Many conflicts are behind, and yet you live. How is it? You reply with Paul, "The Lord stood with me and strengthened me." The bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Your present fight is hot. But you hear a much-loved voice, "Do not fear, for I am with you." The bush burns with fire, and the bush is not consumed.
You look forward. The horizon is dark with clouds of tribulation. But the same voice cheers, "Do not fear, for I am with you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned." The captive youths, a cloud of witnesses, an army of blessed martyrs, wave you forward. They tell that persecuting flames may be divested of all their sting. Rejoice then. The bush shall burn with fire, but it shall not be consumed!
Reader! pause here, and search your conscience. Is your body a temple of Jesus Christ, through the Spirit? Is Christ dwelling in your heart by faith? Is Christ in you, the hope of glory? It it is not so, touch not the comfort of the burning bush. Remember, there are thorns and briers, "whose end is to be burned." No Saviour saves them.Tares must be bound in bundles for wrath's full-heated furnace. A terrible voice wails from the region of the lost, "I am tormented in this flame." The day comes that shall burn as an oven and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble. The smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever.
Reader! here are words by which, through grace, you may be saved. Turn not away to everlasting burnings. If you are so mad, this warning will lie, as a hot coal, upon your soul forever!
~Henry Law~
(The End)
"He looked, and, behold, the Bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed" (Exodus 3:3)
Wondrous is the sight which here meets our view. It is a bush in flames, but not consumed. Destroying fire fails to destroy. Perishable wood refuses to be fuel. Reader! this surely is no new object to you. But know that it abounds in lessons which your search cannot mine! It must be so. The unsearchable riches of Jesus are in this mine! He, who is the Wonder of Wonders, is the true Wonder of the bush.
Reader! you must see Christ by faith, if ever you would see God and enter heaven. You must know Christ in heart, if ever you would know peace in conscience and hope in death. Ask then the Holy Spirit that He would make the blazing bush to be a blaze of saving light within your soul. The way to the burning bush lies through an avenue of instructive thoughts.
Moses is mercifully rescued from an early grave of waters. Pharaoh's decree dooms to death. But Pharaoh's daughter is the means of life. When God has purposes to work, He can make foes his tools! The oppressor's court becomes the refuge of the oppressed. The Hebrew child is caressed as an Egyptian prince. But the perils of the Nile are scarcely greater to the body; than the perils of the palace to the soul. Worldly pomp is very dazzling. Worldly luxury is very entrancing. Worldly pleasures are very ensnaring. But there is an ark of safety in the flood of vanities, as in the flood of waters. Moses is neither dazzled, nor entranced, nor ensnared. He looks above, and sees a splendor far more bright. He deliberately chooses scorn to be the truest honor - such affliction to be the purest joy - such loss to be the richest gain - such poverty to be the most enduring wealth.
Reader! it is an important principle, that none can tread the world beneath their feet until they see a fairer world above their heads. When the Lord is set before you, your eyes are dim to lower objects. The beauty of the all-beauteous One makes other loveliness unlovely. Moses proves the mighty energy of soul-elevating, soul-purifying faith. This stirring principle turns his whole course from ease and affluence and self, into one stream of daring activities for God. He beholds with aching heart Israel's crushed tribes. He boldly presents himself to avenge their wrongs, and to erect the standard of their freedom. But what is the welcome which awaits him? Alas! he is thrust away with a rejecting taunt, "Who made you a prince and a judge over us?"
Reader! your eyes are open to such pitiable folly. You sigh over a serfdom, which is content to do a tyrant's bidding, rather than defy a tyrant's rage. But such may be your own case. The Gospel, like Moses, approaches men. It tells them that they grind in satan's prison-house. It calls them to arise from the dust, to lift up the head, to burst the fetters, to dare to be free. It shows them Jesus, the Captain of salvation, inviting them to the banner of His Cross. It assures those who this Leader never lost a battle - and never lost a man. It beseeches them to cast off the filthy fetters, and to stride boldly towards the sparkling crown. What answer is returned? Alas! multitudes hate the voice which would arouse them. They hug the bonds which bind them to perdition's cell. They little think how soon each link in that chain will become a deathless scorpion and a quenchless flame!
Then Moses fled at this saying. Reader! take heed. The decree may issue, he is joined to idols; let him alone. An unwelcomed Saviour may depart forever. The wings of love may fly away in judgment.
He was hidden as a stranger in the land of Midian forty years. But the God who was his shield in the crowd, was his "sun" in the desert. It is sad, that the Lord's servant must be earth's outcast. But it is sweet to see how heavenly wisdom can make the hardest usage to yield our choicest blessings. The sweetest honey is from the stony rock. There was work for Moses which required lamb-like meekness with lion-like resolve. He must be calm as the ocean when it sleeps - firm as the rock which smiles at storms. These are the lessons of tribulation's school - therefore, in tribulation he must be schooled. Metal becomes pure by long process in the furnace. The wisdom which is profitable in the busy haunts of busy men, grows in retirement's still shade. In the seclusion of Arabia, Paul drinks calmly of truth's fount. In the wilds of Midian, Moses sits at the feet of God.
At last the appointed time of rescue came. God's works are the reflection of decrees ordained of old. When His purposes were ripe, a marvel startles the shepherd-prophet. A bush blazes before him, each branch, each fiber reddened in the flame. But neither branch nor fiber received hurt. The brittle wood waved an uninjured head. Well might Moses wonder. But wonder deepened into awe, when from the bush a voice was heard, even the voice of God.
Reader! it becomes us now to ask, "What is the Gospel of the burning bush?" Jesus Himself appears in His person, suffering. and all-resisting might.
His Person - He is God, and yet He stoops to be made man. He is man, and yet He continues to be God forever. Withdraw the Godhead, and His blood cannot atone. Withdraw the manhood, and no blood remains. The union gives a Saviour able,and a Saviour fit. Look to the bush! It shows this very union. The wood denotes the poor and feeble produce of earth. It exhibits the tender plant - the "root" out of a dry ground. But it holds God as its inhabitant. The voice out of its midst proclaims, Your God is here.
His Sufferings - Fire wraps the bush. No clearer image can depict the hot assaults of wrath. The life of Jesus knew these well. It was one struggle with keen anguish. Earth was a thorny path. Hell shot its every shaft. Heaven darkened with the horrors of its frowns. All the fierce pains which infinite displeasure could inflict, made Him their prey. He wrung out all, which all the ransomed would have tasted, if hell-agonies had been their doom forever!
His all-resisting might - In vain the fire assailed the bush. It stood unharmed. So every blow recoiled from Jesus. Sustained by His indwelling Deity, He trod all foes beneath His feet. He burst the bands of death. He shivered the grave's gates. He stood victorious on the ruins of hell's empire. He mounted in triumph to the heaven of heavens.
We have next an unquestionable type of the whole family of faith. Persecutions and trials are the fire, which assails them with ceaseless fury. But still they thrive and strengthen and bud and blossom and flourish. How can it be? Deity indwells them! And where Deity resides there must be undecaying life.
The Church's story is a mirror of this truth. How often do we see it as a tiny bark tossed in engulfing waves. The powers of the mighty, the craft of the subtle, the rage of the frantic, have seized it with terrific grasp. Evil men have done their worst - evil spirits have aimed blows - evil fiends have put forth spite. Surely the fragile bush must sink in ruin! But no! It defies all foes. It stands, and will stand forever, verdant and fragrant and fruitful. But the power of resistance is not its own. The Lord is in the midst of it! He has chosen it as His abode forever. They are precious tidings. In the midst of the seven candlesticks is one like unto the Son of man.
It is true that Jesus, as God, holds all space within His hand. His center is everywhere. His circumference is nowhere. But still the Church is the chosen home of His unbounded love. Here His all-protecting might, His all-preserving care, His full delights, repose. He received it from His Father as His spouse - His jewels - His peculiar treasure - His portion - the fullness of His body - the completeness of His mediatorial glory. He is engaged to seat it, as an undiminished family, before the throne. If one member be injured, Christ is marred; if one be absent, Christ is maimed. Hence He is ever with it - all heart to love - all eye to watch - all hand to help - all wisdom to direct - all power to beat back foes. Let then, the fire rage! It must be mightier than Almightiness before the bush can droop to nothingness.
Do these lines meet the eye of one who plots and strives against Zion's (the church's) welfare? Vain man, forbear! The promise ever lives, "Lo, I am with you always." Can you tear the sun from its high seat? Can you beat back ocean with a feather? Can you bind the lightning with a straw? Such task would be easier than to pluck Jesus from the bush. Because He lives there, His people shall live also!
Here, to, another mystery is solved. Grace seems but a tender plant in the believer's heart. It has to contend with nipping frosts and desolating storms. satan's rage burns hot against it. The world brings fuel upon fuel to consume it. The flesh blows fiercely to fan the flame. But grace still thrives! Its roots spread. Its branches rise. Its fruit ripens. Why? Christ walks within His garden - a guardian-God. His hand sowed each seed. The dew of His favor nourishes it. The smile of His love matures it. Hence it overtops all fiery foes, and lifts its head towards heaven.
Believer, think much of the goodwill of Him who dwelt in the bush! Fears then will flee away. If you stood alone, it would be presumption to hope. Because you are not alone, it is offence to tremble.
Look back. Many conflicts are behind, and yet you live. How is it? You reply with Paul, "The Lord stood with me and strengthened me." The bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Your present fight is hot. But you hear a much-loved voice, "Do not fear, for I am with you." The bush burns with fire, and the bush is not consumed.
You look forward. The horizon is dark with clouds of tribulation. But the same voice cheers, "Do not fear, for I am with you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned." The captive youths, a cloud of witnesses, an army of blessed martyrs, wave you forward. They tell that persecuting flames may be divested of all their sting. Rejoice then. The bush shall burn with fire, but it shall not be consumed!
Reader! pause here, and search your conscience. Is your body a temple of Jesus Christ, through the Spirit? Is Christ dwelling in your heart by faith? Is Christ in you, the hope of glory? It it is not so, touch not the comfort of the burning bush. Remember, there are thorns and briers, "whose end is to be burned." No Saviour saves them.Tares must be bound in bundles for wrath's full-heated furnace. A terrible voice wails from the region of the lost, "I am tormented in this flame." The day comes that shall burn as an oven and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble. The smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever.
Reader! here are words by which, through grace, you may be saved. Turn not away to everlasting burnings. If you are so mad, this warning will lie, as a hot coal, upon your soul forever!
~Henry Law~
(The End)
Monday, February 6, 2017
Christ's Love For Us # 2
Christ's Love For Us # 2
Had I ten heads, said Henry Voes, they should all be cut off for Christ. If every hair of my head, said John Ardley, martyr, were a man, they should all suffer for the faith of Christ. Let fire, racks, pulleys, said Ignatius, and all the torments of hell come upon me, so I may win Christ. Love made Jerome to say, "O my Saviour, did you die for love of me? - a love sadder than death; but tome a death more lovely than love itself. I cannot live, love you, and be longer from you." George Carpenter, being asked whether he did not love his wife and children, which stood weeping before him, answered, "My wife and children! my wife and children! are dearer to me than all Bavaria; yet, for the love of Christ, I know them not." That blessed virgin being condemned for Christianity to the fire, and having her estate and life offered her if she would worship idols, cried out, "Let money perish, and life vanish, Christ is better than all!" Sufferings for Christ are saints greatest glory; they are those things wherein they have most gloried Your cruelty is our glory,says Tertullian. It is reported of Babylas, that when he was to die for Christ, he desired this favor, that his chains might be buried with him, as the ensigns of his honor. Thus you see with what a superlative love, with what an overtopping love, former saints have loved our Lord Jesus; and can you, Christians, who are cold and low in your love to Christ, read over these instances, and not blush?
Certainly the more Christ has suffered for us, the more dear Christ should be unto us; the more bitter his sufferings have been for us, the more sweet His love should be to us, and the more eminent should be our love to him. Oh, let a suffering Christ lie nearest your hearts; let Him be your manna, your tree of life, your morning star. It is better to part with all than with this pearl of price. Christ is that golden pipe through which the golden oil of salvation runs; and oh, how should this inflame our love to Christ! Oh that our hearts were more affected with the sufferings of Christ! Who can tread upon these hot coals, and his heart not burn in love to Christ, and cry out with Ignatius, "Christ my love is crucified?" If a friend should die for us, how would our hearts be affected with his kindness! and shall the God of glory lay down His life for us, and shall we not be affected with His goodness. Shall Saul be affected with David's kindness in sparing his life, and shall not we be affected with Christ's kindness, who, to save our life, lost His own? Oh, the infinite love of Christ, that He should leave His Father's bosom, and come down from heaven, that He might carry you up to heaven; that He that was a Son should take upon Him the form of a servant; that you of slaves should be made sons, of enemies should be made friends, heirs of wrath should be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; that to save us from everlasting ruin, Christ should stick at nothing, but be willing to be made flesh, to lie in a manger, to be tempted, deserted, persecuted, and to die upon a Cross!
Oh, what flames of love should these things kindle in all our hearts to Christ! Love is compared to fire; in heaping love upon our enemy, we heap coals of fire upon his head. Now the property of fire is to turn all it meets with into its own nature: fire makes all things fire; the coal makes burning coals; and is it not a wonder then that Christ, having heaped abundance of the fiery coals of His love upon our heads, we should yet be as cold as corpses in our love to Him. Ah! what sad metal we are made of, that Christ's fiery love cannot inflame our love to Christ! Moses wondered why the bush consumed not, when he sees it all on fire; but if you please but to look into your own hearts, you shall see a greater wonder; for you shall see that, though you walk like those three children in the fiery furnace, even in the midst of Christ's fiery love flaming round about you; yet there is but little, very little, true smell of that sweet fire of love to be felt or found upon you or in you. Oh, when shall the sufferings of a dear and tender-hearted Saviour kindle such a flame of love in all our hearts, as shall still be a breaking forth in our lips and lives, in our words and ways, to the praise and glory of free grace? Oh that the sufferings of a loving Jesus might at last make us all sick of love! Oh, let Him forever lie between our breasts, who has left His Father's bosom for a time, that He might be embosomed by us forever!
~Thomas Brooks~
(The End)
Had I ten heads, said Henry Voes, they should all be cut off for Christ. If every hair of my head, said John Ardley, martyr, were a man, they should all suffer for the faith of Christ. Let fire, racks, pulleys, said Ignatius, and all the torments of hell come upon me, so I may win Christ. Love made Jerome to say, "O my Saviour, did you die for love of me? - a love sadder than death; but tome a death more lovely than love itself. I cannot live, love you, and be longer from you." George Carpenter, being asked whether he did not love his wife and children, which stood weeping before him, answered, "My wife and children! my wife and children! are dearer to me than all Bavaria; yet, for the love of Christ, I know them not." That blessed virgin being condemned for Christianity to the fire, and having her estate and life offered her if she would worship idols, cried out, "Let money perish, and life vanish, Christ is better than all!" Sufferings for Christ are saints greatest glory; they are those things wherein they have most gloried Your cruelty is our glory,says Tertullian. It is reported of Babylas, that when he was to die for Christ, he desired this favor, that his chains might be buried with him, as the ensigns of his honor. Thus you see with what a superlative love, with what an overtopping love, former saints have loved our Lord Jesus; and can you, Christians, who are cold and low in your love to Christ, read over these instances, and not blush?
Certainly the more Christ has suffered for us, the more dear Christ should be unto us; the more bitter his sufferings have been for us, the more sweet His love should be to us, and the more eminent should be our love to him. Oh, let a suffering Christ lie nearest your hearts; let Him be your manna, your tree of life, your morning star. It is better to part with all than with this pearl of price. Christ is that golden pipe through which the golden oil of salvation runs; and oh, how should this inflame our love to Christ! Oh that our hearts were more affected with the sufferings of Christ! Who can tread upon these hot coals, and his heart not burn in love to Christ, and cry out with Ignatius, "Christ my love is crucified?" If a friend should die for us, how would our hearts be affected with his kindness! and shall the God of glory lay down His life for us, and shall we not be affected with His goodness. Shall Saul be affected with David's kindness in sparing his life, and shall not we be affected with Christ's kindness, who, to save our life, lost His own? Oh, the infinite love of Christ, that He should leave His Father's bosom, and come down from heaven, that He might carry you up to heaven; that He that was a Son should take upon Him the form of a servant; that you of slaves should be made sons, of enemies should be made friends, heirs of wrath should be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; that to save us from everlasting ruin, Christ should stick at nothing, but be willing to be made flesh, to lie in a manger, to be tempted, deserted, persecuted, and to die upon a Cross!
Oh, what flames of love should these things kindle in all our hearts to Christ! Love is compared to fire; in heaping love upon our enemy, we heap coals of fire upon his head. Now the property of fire is to turn all it meets with into its own nature: fire makes all things fire; the coal makes burning coals; and is it not a wonder then that Christ, having heaped abundance of the fiery coals of His love upon our heads, we should yet be as cold as corpses in our love to Him. Ah! what sad metal we are made of, that Christ's fiery love cannot inflame our love to Christ! Moses wondered why the bush consumed not, when he sees it all on fire; but if you please but to look into your own hearts, you shall see a greater wonder; for you shall see that, though you walk like those three children in the fiery furnace, even in the midst of Christ's fiery love flaming round about you; yet there is but little, very little, true smell of that sweet fire of love to be felt or found upon you or in you. Oh, when shall the sufferings of a dear and tender-hearted Saviour kindle such a flame of love in all our hearts, as shall still be a breaking forth in our lips and lives, in our words and ways, to the praise and glory of free grace? Oh that the sufferings of a loving Jesus might at last make us all sick of love! Oh, let Him forever lie between our breasts, who has left His Father's bosom for a time, that He might be embosomed by us forever!
~Thomas Brooks~
(The End)
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