Page 151 Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day, and soon, for each of us, life's curfew will toll the knell of parting day; for, "here have we no continuing city." [Hebrews 13:14] With right, death has been called the King of Terrors. [Job 18:14] The human heart ever seeks a name, a portion, and a center in the earth! Man is a groveling creature, - alienated from heaven, and allied to earth. A self-seeking, self-exalting, God excluding creature, throughout. He even seeks to shut out God and exalt himself. "If thou wilt return, O Israel, return to me." [Jeremiah 4:1] It is thus that God restores, and it would be unworthy of himself to do anything else. He will either not restore at all, or else restore in such a way as to magnify and glorify the riches of His grace. When the prodigal… Page 152 … returned, he was set down at the table with the father. [Luke 15:11-32] When Peter was restored, he was able to stand before the men of Israel and say, "ye denied the Holy One, and the Just," the very thing which he had done himself, under the most aggravated circumstances. God always brings the soul back to himself, in the full power of grace and the full confidence of faith. "If thou wilt return, return to me." [Jeremiah 4:1] By what motives are we actuated, and by what objects are we animated? The hidden chambers of the heart's affection and desires. Genuine faith, while it always renders us independent, never renders us indifferent. It will never wrap itself up in its fleece while a brother shivers in the cold. God's infallible faithfulness. Page 153 The ensnaring scenes around us. Family jars contain the fruit of discontent. {German Writing} God, in Christ, has stooped to the very lowest point of man's moral condition, that by stooping He might raise man to the very highest point of blessedness in fellowship with himself. "Followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises" [Hebrews 6:12] God makes a promise: faith believes it, hope anticipates it; patience waits quietly for it. "Walk before me, and be thou perfect." [Genesis 17:1] This means that he should be perfect as regards the object before His heart, - that His hopes and expectations were to be perfectly and undividedly centered in the Almighty God. Page 154 The Christian has sin in him, but not on him. Why? Because Christ who had no sin in Him, ever [2 Corinthians 5:21], had sin on Him when He was nailed to the cross. To be a child is one thing, to be an obedient child is quite another. She had been beset with problems unknown to the average person and exceedingly difficult to cope with. {German Writing} The children of God are the happy subjects of His unslumbering guardianship. God sees His people in Christ. Page 155 Nature can never do aught for God. The Lord must "visit," and the Lord must "do," and faith must wait, and nature must be still; you must be entirely set aside as a dead, worthless thing, and then the divine glory can shine out, and faith find all its right and sweet reward. Long-deferred hope. yield unhesitating obedience Abraham's unalloyed confidence vested on one solid pedestal, viz., God himself The word and oath of the living God should put an end to all the stirrings and workings of the human will, and from the immovable anchor of the soul amid all the tossing and tumult of this stormy world. The bargain-making Jacob meets… Page 156 … with bargain-making Laban, and they are last seen as it were, straining every nerve to outwit each other. [Genesis 30:37-43, 31:1-21] Laban exhibits a grasping, groveling Spirit. When God speaks of "vessels of wrath," He simply says, "fitted to destruction." [Romans 9:22] He does not say "that God fitted" them. Where as, on the other hand, when He refers to "the vessels of mercy" [Romans 9:23] He says, "whom He had afore prepared unto glory." This is most marked. When the king addresses those on His right hand He says, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Matth 25,34. But when He address those on His left, He says, "Depart from me, ye cursed." He does not say, "cursed of My Father." And further He says,… Page 157 … "into everlasting fire, prepared" not for you, but "for the devil and his angels" v. 41. Praying and planning will never do together. If I plan, I am leaning more or less on my plan; but when I pray, I should lean exclusively upon God. Hence, the two things are perfectly incompatible, they virtually destroy each other. We must repose in full confidence upon God. We must not look at things through a hazy mist. Earth and heaven were at issue in reference to Christ; and they are at issue still. Man crucified Him; but God raised Him from the dead. Man placed Him on a cross between two thieves; God set Him at His own right hand in the heavens. Man gave Him the very lowest place on earth; God gave Him the very highest place in heaven in brightest majesty. Page 158 An outcast and offscouring of society. Raised to highest eminence. Divinely wrought conviction. Israel within the blood-sprinkled door-posts was God's redeemed, blood-bought people. [Exodus 12:22] We can only have life though death. The blood of the unblemished lamb of God's own-providing could cleanse from sin. The inspired penman. It is God's prerogative to bring good out of evil. Infidel-reasoning of the skeptic mind. Faith rests not upon the ever-shifting sands of human affairs but upon the unmovable rock of God's eternal word. Page 159 The foundation-truth. The wildest mistake which a man can possible fall into is to act without taking God into His account. At best, every thing that is undertaken independently of God, can last but for the present time. It cannot by any possibility, stretch itself into eternity. Satan has the power of death [Hebrews 2:14]; but God is the God of the living [Mark 12:27]; and He gives life [John 6:33] beyond the reach and power of death, a life which Satan can not touch. The Quickener of the dead is behind the dark cloud, and faith beholds Him there, gilding heaven's side of that cloud with His bright and life-giving beams. The iron grasp of the king of terrors. Page 160 Faith takes its stand upon the top of the Rock of Ages, and listens, in holy triumph, while the surges of death are lashing its base. The infinite grace and exhaustless patience of God. The servants of Christ must have their hearts individually occupied with His person, and their eyes steadily fixed upon His advent. guilty hell-deserving sinners rigid self-judgement The mansion of unfading light. He was our representative. He died, "the just for the unjust." [1 Peter 3:18] "He was made sin for us." The world and the Christian should have absolutely nothing in common; … Page 161 … nor will they, except so far as the Christian denies his Lord and Master. You can hardly define worldliness. It is as some one has said: "shaded off gradually from white to jet black." This is most true. You cannot place a bound and say, "here is where worldliness begins," but the keen and exquisite sensibilities of the divine nature recoil from it; and all we need is, to walk in the power of that nature, in order to keep aloof from every form of worldliness. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." Where the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my heart, my life, my all. No man is his own master, he is either governed by Christ or governed by Satan. Page 162 {German Writing} We have been delivered not only from the guilt and consequences of sin, but also from the practice of it, the power of it, and the love of it. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." [Isaiah 64:6] It is not said that; "all our wickedness," merely, "are filthy rags." This would, at once, be admitted. But the fact is, that the very best fruit which we can produce, in the shape of religiousness and righteousness, is represented, on the page of eternal truth, as "dead works," and "filthy rags." He got our deserts that that we might get His. The clean took, for a time, the place of the unclean, in order that the unclean might take forever the place of the clean. The heart of man is a little hell. What boundless mercy, to be delivered from its terrible depths! Page 163 Oh! to grace how great a debtor. Daily I'm constrained to be: Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to thee! The same waters which formed a wall for God's redeemed, formed a grave for Pharaoh and his hosts. [Exodus 14:21] The wilderness afforded not one blade of grass nor one drop of water for the Israel of God. In Jehovah alone was their pension. Most touching illustration of God's pilgrim people in this wilderness world! They have nothing here. Their life, being heavenly, can only be sustained by heavenly things. Though in the world, they are not of it, for Christ has chosen them out of it. As a heaven-born people, they are on their way to their birth-place, and sustained by food sent from thence. There is an upward and an onward course. Page 164 It would be out of character to tell us not to let sin reign, if it were not actually dwelling in us. There is a great difference between dwelling and reining. It dwells in a believer, but it reigns in an unbeliever. We may search from end to end of the legal ritual, and not find those two precious words, "draw nigh." [Psalm 69:18][Hebrews 7:19][James 4:8] The words, "afar off," [Psalm 10:1][Jeremiah 51:50] are a characteristic of the law, as "draw nigh" are of the gospel. There were communications between the cross of Calvary and the throne of God, which lay far beyond the highest range of creased intelligence. The cross was the place where Christ's love to the Father was told out in language which only the Father could hear and understand. Page 165 Unswerving fidelity. Bold-faced or heavy type. The page of human history has ever been a sadly blotted one. It is a record of failure from first to last. Amid all the delights of Eden, man hearkened to the tempter's lie. The by-path has ever seemed to present resistless charms to the poor human heart. The beyond is called: "a bourne whence no traveler returns" goal, end This despisal of God's goodness brought upon them the fiery serpents of whose bites many died. [Numbers 21:6-7] Jesus is the First-fruits of them that sleep. This demands our attentive consideration. Page 166 Now the laborer's task is o'er; Now the battle-day is past; Now upon the farther shore Lands the voyager at last. Father, in Thy gracious keeping Leave we now Thy servant sleeping. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey. Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Eternity to God's children is the golden age unconfined by the bound of time. The small body grew apace, in fact, by leaps and bounds. And certainly no one will have the hardihood to deny that Christ taught the doctrine of redemption. {German Writing} There are two kinds of men in … Page 167 … the world, those who sail and those who drift; those who choose the ports to which they will go, and skillfully and boldly shape their course across the sea with the wind or against it, and those who let winds and tides carry them where they will. David as the slayer of Goliath was not man's choice but God's. {German Writing} Go-with-the-swim editors. As the death agony beaded on his brow. The news was bruited about. We need direction through the tangled path. Numberless trespasses against God and man. Page 168 The blood of Christ meets heaven's highest claims, and man's deepest necessities. The same stroke that slew the Lamb rent the veil from top to bottom. [Matthew 27:51][Mark 15:38][Luke 23:45] The way into the holiest was then laid open, and Christ, with all His blood-washed ones, entered into the immediate presence of God, without a veil. You must be either in Christ or out of Him. There is no such a thing as being partly in Christ. If there is a single hair's-breadth between you and Christ, you are in an actual state of wrath and condemnation. There are no degrees in justification. The babe in Christ stands in the same justification as the saint of fifty year's experience. There is no such thing as progress in justification. John 13,10. Page 169 Question His unspotted humanity, and you have opened the floodgate for a desolating tide of deadly error to rush in. That which is pure could never coalesce with that which is unpure. {German Writing} Suffering as a righteous One, standing amongst men, on God's behalf, is one thing; and suffering instead of man under the hand of God, is quite another. Page 170 The Lord Jesus suffered for righteousness, during His life. He suffered for sin, in His death. What must Christ, the Holy and Perfect One have suffered, in passing through such a world as this. He beheld the human family struggling beneath the ponderous weight of guilt and wretchedness; He beheld the whole creation growing under the yoke; the coy of the prisoner fell upon His ear; the tear of the widows met His view; bereavement and poverty touched His sensitive heart; sickness and death made Him "groan in the spirit;" His sympathetic sufferings were beyond all human conception. Matth. 8,16;17. "He took our infirmities, and bare our sickness." None but a perfect man could have done this. We may feel for and with each other; but only Jesus could make human infirmity and sickness His own. When we see entire freedom, both personally… Page 171 … and relatively, from human misery and that which produced it, we can enter into that perfect grace and compassion which led Him to "take our infirmities, and bear our sicknesses," in the power of true sympathy. There is, therefore, a very manifest difference between Christ's sufferings as a voluntary sympathizer with human misery, and His sufferings as the sinners substitute. The former are apparent throughout His entire life; the latter are confined to His death. In Gethsemane He was anticipating the cross! at Calvary, He was actually enduring it. In Gethsemane, "there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him," [Luke 22:43] at Calvary, He was forsaken of all. There was no angelic ministry there. In Gethsemane He addresses God as "Father," [Matthew 26:39] thus enjoying the full communion of that ineffable relationship; but at Calvary He cries:… Page 172 … "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" [Matthew 27:46][Mark 15:34] Here the Sin-bearer looks up, and beholds the throne of eternal Justice enveloped in dark clouds, and the countenance of inflexible Holiness averted from Him because He was being "made sin for us." Christ's heart beats with a deathless and changeless love for us. The Father will have the prodigal feeding upon the fatted calf [Luke 15:11-32], in fellowship with himself. He will not assign him a lower place than at his own table, nor any other portion than that on which he feeds himself. The language of the peace offering is, "it is meet that we should make merry and be glad." [Luke 15:32] "Let us eat and be merry." [Luke 15:23] There is sin in us, but not on us. 1 John 1,8-10. Page 173 Our old nature is not recognized as existing before God. [Romans 6:6] He counts it dead and so should we. It is dead to God - dead, to faith. It must be kept in the place of death. It is not by improving our old nature that we get into the divine presence; but as the possessors of a new nature. It was not by repairing the rags of his former condition that the prodigal got a place at the father's table, but by being clothed in a robe which he had never seen or thought of before. The father had it and gave it. [Luke 15:11-32] It is our privilege so to walk in the power of the new nature that the "sin" which dwells in us may not manifest itself in the form of "sins." The Christian's position is one of victory and liberty. He is not only delivered from the guilt of sin, but also from sin as a ruling principle in his life. Rom. 6,6-14. Page 174 Sin is there in all its native vileness; but the believer is "dead to it." [Romans 6:2] How? He died in Christ. By nature he was dead in sin. By grace he is dead to it. Though sin is a dweller in us, it is not a ruler over us. But "if any man sin," [1 John 2:1] what is to be done? The inspired apostle furnishes a full and most blessed answer. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 Joh. 1,9 "If we confess, God is faithful and just to forgive." There is an immense moral difference between praying for forgiveness, and confessing our sins. God has already judged our sins in the person of our Substitute,… Page 175 … "on the tree" [1 Peter 2:24]; and, in the act of confession, we judge ourselves. This is essential to divine forgiveness and restoration. The very smallest unconfessed, unjudged sin, on the conscience, will entirely mar our communion with God. Sin in us need not do this; but if we suffer sin to remain on us, we cannot have fellowship with God. Confession involves self-judgement. This is one of the most valuable and helpful exercises of the Christian life. To attempt to have fellowship with God in our sins, would involve the blasphemous insinuation that He could walk in companionship with sin. 1 Joh. 1,6. Christ took our position with all its consequences, in order that we might get His position with all its consequences. |