10.04. Volume 4 cont'd
"You are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed." Revelation 3:17-18 The only qualification is a deep feeling of our necessity, our nakedness and our shame—and a feeling that there is no other covering for a needy, naked, guilty soul, but the robe of the Redeemer’s spotless righteousness. And when the soul is led to His divine feet, full of guilt, shame, and fear—abhorring, loathing, and mourning over itself—and comes in the actings of a living faith—in the sighs and cries of a broken heart—in hungerings, thirstings, and longings—desiring that the Lord would bestow upon him that rich robe, then the blessed exchange takes place—then there is a ’buying’—then the Lord brings out of His treasure-house, where it has been locked up, the best robe—puts it upon the prodigal, and clothes him from head to foot with it!
Sweet buy! Blessed exchange! Our nakedness—for Christ’s justifying robe! Our poverty—for Christ’s riches! Our helplessness and insufficiency—for Christ’s power, grace, and love!
God’s will is "perfect." In it, there is no spot, no stain, no weakness, no error, no instability. It is and indeed must necessarily be as perfect as God Himself—for it emanates from Him who is all perfection, and is a discovery of His mind and character. But when God’s perfect will sets itself against our flesh—thwarts our dearest hopes—overturns our fondest schemes—we cannot see that it is a perfect will, but rather, are much disposed to fret, murmur, and rebel against it.
God’s perfect will may snatch a child from your bosom—strike down a dear husband—tear from your arms a beloved wife—strip you of all your worldly goods—put your feet into a path of suffering—lay you upon a bed of pain and languishing—cast you into hot furnaces or overwhelming floods—make your life almost a burden to yourself!
How can you, under circumstances so trying and distressing as these, acknowledge and submit to God’s perfect will—and let it reign and rule in your heart without a murmur of resistance to it? Look back and see how God’s perfect will has, in previous instances, reigned supreme in all points, for your good. It has ordered or overruled all circumstances and all events, amid a complication of difficulties in providence and grace. Nothing has happened to your injury—but all things have worked together for your good. Whatever we have lost, it was better for us that it was taken away. Whatever property, or comfort, or friends, or health, or earthly happiness we have been deprived of, it was better for us to lose, than to retain them. Was your dear child taken away? It might be to teach you resignation to God’s sacred will. Has a dear partner been snatched from your embrace? It was that God might be your better Partner and undying Friend. Was any portion of your worldly substance taken away? It was that you might be taught to live a life of faith in the providence of God. Have your fondest schemes been marred—your youthful hopes blighted—and you pierced in the warmest affections of your heart? It was to remove an idol, to dethrone a rival to Christ, to crucify the object of earthly love—so that a purer, holier, and more enduring affection might be enshrined in its stead. To tenderly embrace God’s perfect will is the grand object of all gospel discipline. The ultimatum of gospel obedience is to lie passive in His hand, and know no will but His. "That good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Which is the more obnoxious to God
"The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ’God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’" Luke 18:11-12
Man unites in himself, what at first sight seem to be completely opposite things. He is the greatest of sinners—and yet the greatest of Pharisees. Now, what two things can be so opposed to each other as sin and self-righteousness? Yet the very same man who is a sinner from top to toe, with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint—who is spiritually nothing else but a leper throughout—how contradictory it appears that the same man has in his own heart a most stubborn self-righteousness!
Now, against these two evils God, so to speak, directs His whole artillery—He spares neither one nor the other. But it is hard to say which is the greatest rebellion against God—the existence of sin in man and what he is as a fallen sinner—or his Pharisaism, the lifting up his head in pride of self-righteousness. It is not easy to decide which is the more obnoxious to God—the drunkard who sins without shame—or the Pharisee puffed up with how pleasing he is to God. The one is abhorrent to our feelings—and, as far as decency and morality are concerned, we would rather see the Pharisee. But when we come to matters of true religion, the Pharisee seems the worst! At least our Lord intimated as much when He said the publicans and harlots would enter the kingdom of God before them. "But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ’God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone that exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 18:13-14
1. We need the application of Christ’s precious blood to our conscience, to take away the guilt of sin. 2. We need the Spirit of Christ to sanctify and to wash the soul in the fountain, to cleanse from the filth of sin. 3. We need the love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts, to take away the love of sin. 4. We need the power of Christ, to rescue us from the dominion of sin. 5. We need the grace of Christ, to preserve us from the practice of sin.
It is feeling sin in its various workings, which makes us value Christ! Strange mysterious way! O, strange path! that to be exercised with sin, is the path to the Savior! Very painful, very mysterious, very inexplicable—that the more you feel yourself a wretched, miserable sinner—the more you long after Jesus, who is able to save you to the uttermost! Thus, we shall find that we need all that Christ is. For we are no little sinners—and He is no little Savior! We are great sinners! He is a Savior—and a great one! "He is able also to save them to the uttermost." Hebrews 7:25
"O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans 7:24
If a person were to tell me he did not love sin in his carnal mind, I would say with all mildness, "You do not speak the truth!" If your carnal mind does not love sin—Why do you think of it? Why do you secretly indulge it in your imagination? Why do you play with it? Why do you seek to extract a devilish sweetness out of it?
O, what a mercy it would be, if there were not this dreadful love of sin in our heart! This is the struggle—that there should be this traitor in the camp—that our carnal mind should be so devilish as to love that which made the blessed Jesus die—as to love that which crucified the Lord of glory, and to love it with a vehement love!
It is I who formed you in the womb, and brought you forth into your present existence. It is I, the Lord your God, who has fed you, and clothed you from that hour up to the present moment. It is I, the Lord your God, who has preserved you on every side. When you were upon a sick bed, it was I, the Lord your God, who visited your soul, raised up your body, and gave you that measure of health which you do now enjoy. It is I, the Lord your God, who placed you in the situation of life which you do now occupy. It is I, the Lord your God, who deals out to you every trial—who allots you every affliction—who brings upon you every cross—who works in you everything according to My own good pleasure. When we can thus believe that the Lord our God is about our bed and our path, and spying out all our ways—when we can look up to Him, and feel that He is the Lord our God, there is no feeling more sweet, more blessed, more heavenly! "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid!" That sweet grace
"Remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you." Deuteronomy 8:2
We learn humility by a deep discovery of what we are—by an opening up of the corruption, the weakness, the wickedness, of our fallen nature. The Lord’s way of teaching His people humility is by placing them first in one trying spot, and then in another—by allowing some temptation to arise—some stumbling block to be in their path—some besetting sin to work upon their corrupt affections—some idol to be embraced by their idolatrous heart—something to take place to draw out the sin which is in their heart—and thus make it manifest to their sight. As a general rule, we learn humility, not by hearing ministers tell us what wicked creatures we are—nor by merely looking into our bosoms and seeing a whole swarm of evils working there—but from being compelled by painful necessity to believe that we are vile, through circumstances and events time after time bringing to light those hidden evils in our heart, which we once thought ourselves pretty free from. We learn humility, not merely by a discovery of what we are, but also by a discovery of what Jesus is. We need a glimpse of Jesus—of His love—of His grace—of His blood. When these two feelings meet together in our bosom—our shame, and the Lord’s goodness—our guilt, and His forgiveness—our wickedness, and His superabounding mercy—they break us, humble us, and lay us, dissolved in tears of godly sorrow and contrition, at the footstool of mercy! And thus we learn humility—that sweet grace—that blessed fruit of the Spirit in real, vital, soul-experience.
"And they may recover themselves out of the devil’s snare, having been taken captive by him to his will." 2 Timothy 2:26 In our natural state, we are all the slaves of Satan! We love our foul master, hug his chain, and delight in his servitude, little thinking what awful wages are to follow. This mighty conqueror has with him a numerous train of captives! This haughty master, the ’god of this world,’ has in his fiendish retinue, a whole array of slaves who gladly do his behests. They obey him cheerfully, though he is leading them down to the bottomless pit! For though he amuses them while here in this world with a few toys and baubles, he will not pay them their wages until he has enticed and flattered them into that ghastly gulf of destruction, in which he himself has been weltering for ages. "The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them." 2 Corinthians 4:4 Trials, temptations, sorrows, perplexities
"There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted excessively. Concerning this thing I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. He has said to me, ’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:7-9
Depend upon it, the Lord’s family have to go through much tribulation on their way to heaven. So says the unerring word of truth, and so speaks the experience of every God-taught soul. Now, in these seasons of trouble, in these painful exercises, in these perplexing trials, the Lord’s people need strength—yet the Lord sends these trials in order to drain and exhaust them of ’creature strength.’ Such is the ’self-righteousness’ of our heart—such the ’legality’ intertwined with every fiber of our natural disposition—that we cleave to our own righteousness as long as there is a thread to cleave to—we stand in our own strength as long as there is a point to stand upon—we lean upon our own wisdom as long as a particle remains! In order, then, to exhaust us, drain us, strip us, and purge us of this pharisaic leaven, the Lord sends trials, temptations, sorrows, perplexities. What is their effect? To teach us our weakness, and bring us to that one and only spot where God and the sinner meet—the spot of creature helplessness. In order, therefore, to bring us to this spot, to know experimentally the strength of Christ, and feel it to be more than a doctrine, a notion, or a speculation—to know it as an internal reality, tasted by the inward palate of our soul—to have this experience wrought into our hearts with divine power, we must be brought to this spot—to feel our own utter weakness.
Love not the world
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15
If the love of the Father is in us, we will not love the world—nor will the world love us! If your heart and spirit are still in the world—and you are not separated from its society, its amusements, its pursuits, its pleasures, its delights, its men, its maxims—you certainly lack any evidence of a divine change having been wrought in your soul. "Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world, makes himself an enemy of God."
Paul’s highest attainment "Though I am nothing." 2 Corinthians 12:11 This was Paul’s highest attainment in the knowledge of self. To be a daily pauper living on alms is humbling to proud nature, which is always seeking to be something, and to do something. If this self-nothingness was wrought in us, we would be spared much pain, in wounded pride. People are building up religion all over the country, but there is not one of a thousand who has yet learned the first lesson—to be nothing. Of all this noisy crowd, how few lie at Jesus’ feet, helpless and hopeless, and find help and hope in Him! If you can venture to be nothing, it will save you a world of anxiety and trouble! But proud, vain, conceited flesh wants to be something—to preach well, to make a name for one’s self, and be admired as a preacher. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." "[I am] less than the least of all the saints."
It is our mercy, if we only feel and groan under corruption inwardly, without it breaking forth outwardly—to wound our own souls, grieve the people of God, and gladden our enemies. Let God but take the cover off the boiling cauldron of our corrupt nature, and the filthy scum would surface in the sight of all men! "Hold me up, and I shall be safe!
"While we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18
How really empty and worthless are all human cares and anxieties, as well as all human hopes and pleasures, when viewed in the light of a vast and endless eternity! In twenty years, today’s price of oil will probably mean little to you. But it will matter much whether your soul is in heaven or hell. When the cold winds are whistling over your grave, or the warm sun resting on it—what will it matter whether sheep sold badly or well at the market? Could we realize eternal things more, we would be less anxious about temporal things. It is only our unbelief and carnality which fetter us down to the poor things of time and sense. This world is fading away, along with everything it craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever.
We are overrun with a shallow, superficial ministry, which is destitute of all life, savor, and power. A dry, dead-letter scheme of doctrine, as mathematically correct as the squares of a chess-board, prevails, where what is called "truth" is preached. And to move Bible texts on the squares as pawns, is called "the art of preaching."
How simple is truth! Man’s misery—God’s mercy. The aboundings of sin—the superaboundings of grace. The depths of the fall—the heights of the recovery. The old man—the new man. The diseases of the soul—the balm of a Savior’s blood. These lessons are learned in the furnace of inward experience. How different from the monkish austerity of the Ritualist—the lip service of the Pharisee—and the dry Calvinistic formulary! What a dreadful lack is there of true preaching now! I look round and see so few men qualified to feed the church of God. We are overrun with parsons, but, oh dear! what are they? I cannot but attribute much of the low state of the churches to the ministers! Ezekiel 34:1-31 is a true picture of the false shepherds. My desire is My desire is—
1. To exalt the grace of God.
2. To proclaim salvation alone through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. To declare the sinfulness, helplessness, and hopelessness of man in a state of nature.
4. To describe, as far as I am able, the living experience of the saints of God in their trials, temptations, and sorrows—and in their consolations and blessings.
It is a great and inestimable mercy when our various trials and troubles are made a means of driving us to the Lord, as our only hope and help. Those circumstances, outward or inward, temporal or spiritual, which stir up an earnest spirit of prayer—make us cease from the creature—beat us out of all false refuges—wean us from the world—show us the vileness and deceitfulness of our hearts—lead us up to Jesus—and make Him near, dear, and precious—must be considered blessings.
It is true, troubles rarely come to us as such, or at the time appear as such—no, they usually appear as if they would utterly swallow us up! But we must judge of them by their fruits and effects. Job could not see the hand of God in his troubles and afflictions. But it was made plain after he was brought to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes. I am very sure, if we are in the right way, we shall find it a rough way, and have many trials and troubles. God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
I have been much puzzled by those in the professing church. Most have a great assurance and unwavering confidence—unaccompanied by godly fear, and the other fruits and graces of the Spirit. I see this as presumption or delusion. Where the Holy Spirit works faith, He also works sorrow for sin, deadness to the world, tenderness of conscience, brokenness of spirit, humility, simplicity, sincerity, meekness, patience, spiritual affections, holy and heavenly desires, true hope, and love toward the Lord and His people. Where we see these fruits and graces of the Spirit lacking, or sadly deficient, there we must conclude that true faith, the root from which they all grow, is lacking or deficient likewise.
There are no ’freaks’ in the kingdom of heaven. I mean such as have ’little hearts’ and ’large heads’—active legs and withered hands—nimble tongues and crippled arms. Such monsters are more fit for a traveling circus than the Church of the living God. To fear God, to tremble at His word, to be little and lowly in our own eyes, to hate sin and ourselves as sinners, to pour out our hearts before the Lord, to seek His face continually, to lead a life of faith and prayer, to be dead to the world, to feel Jesus to be precious, to behold His dying love by the eyes of living faith—these realities are almost despised and overlooked by many ’great professors’ in our day!
Many think that a minister is exempt from such coldness, deadness, and barrenness, as private Christians feel. And the hypocritical looks and words of many of Satan’s ministers favor this delusion. Holiness is so much on their tongues, and on their faces, that their deluded hearers necessarily conclude that it is in their hearts. But, alas! nothing is easier or more common, than an apostolic face and a Judas heart.
Most pictures that I have seen of the "Last Supper" represent Judas with a ferocious countenance. Had painters drawn a holy, meek-looking face, I believe they would have given a truer resemblance. Many pass for angels in the pulpit, who if the truth were known, would be seen to be devils and beasts in heart, lip, and life at home. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Matthew 23:25; Matthew 23:28
A languishing body is a heavy cross. Sickness often depresses our spirits, shatters our nerves, and casts a gloom over our minds. But it is good thus to be weaned and detached, and gradually loosened from the strong ties that bind us to earth. I was ill once for many months, and many thought I would never recover. I found it a heavy trial, but I believe it was profitable to my soul. May the Lord make all your bed in your sickness, give you many testimonies of His special favor—and when He sees fit to take down your earthly tabernacle, remove you to that happy country where the inhabitant shall never say, "I am sick," where tears are wiped away from all faces, and sorrow and sighing flee away. May the Lord speedily grant your desires, and visit your soul with looks of love, rays of mercy, and beams of tender kindness, so as to smile you into humility, resignation, patience, gratitude, contrition, love, and godly sorrow.
Yours affectionately in the bonds of the gospel,
J. C. Philpot, February 1, 1840
"Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, they have become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17
What a wonderful revolution is effected by divine teaching and heavenly visitations! The soul is brought to live in a new world and breathe a new element. Old things pass away, and behold, all things become new. New desires, feelings, hopes, fears, and exercises arise, and the soul becomes a new creature. The world appears in its true colors, as a painted bauble, and as its pleasures are valued at their due worth, so its good opinion is little cared for or desired. What is this poor vain world with all its gilded clay, deceptive honors and respectability, and soap-bubble charms—compared to one smile from our loving Savior? "And this world is fading away, along with everything it craves!" 1 John 2:17
I am quite sick of modern religion—it is such a mixture, such a medley, such a compromise. I find much, indeed, of this religion in my own heart, for it suits the flesh well—but I would not have it so, and grieve it should be so. The religion which I want is that of the Holy Spirit. I know nothing but what He teaches me. I feel nothing but what He works in me. I believe nothing but what He shows me. I only mourn when He smites my rocky heart. I only rejoice when He reveals the Savior. This religion I am seeking after, though miles and miles from it—but no other will satisfy or content me. When the blessed Spirit is not at work in me, and with me, I fall back into all the darkness, unbelief, earthliness, idleness, carelessness, infidelity, and helplessness of my Adam nature. True religion is a supernatural and mysterious thing.
It will matter little when I lie in my coffin!
What does it really matter where we spend the few years of our pilgrimage here below? Life is short, vain, and transitory—and if I live in comfort and wealth, or in comparative poverty, it will matter little when I lie in my coffin! This life is soon passing away, and an eternal state fast coming on! It will greatly matter whether our religion was natural or spiritual—our faith human or divine—our hope a heavenly gift or a spider’s web! But our blind, foolish hearts are so concerned about things which are but the dust of the balance, and so little anxious about our all in all. There is no greater inheritance than to be a son or daughter of the Lord Almighty. To have a saving interest in the electing love of the Father—the redeeming blood of the Son—and the sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit—is worth a million of worlds! Without such, we must be eternally miserable—and with it eternally happy. "For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for His children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay!"
How mysterious is the life of God in the soul. It seems like a little drop of purity in the midst of impurity. We shall always find sin to be our worst enemy, and self our greatest foe. We need not fear anything but sin—nothing else can do us any real injury. Though the Lord in tender mercy forgives His erring wandering children, yet He makes them all deeply feel that indeed it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against Him.
I hope I can rejoice in the Lord’s blessing the labors of other good men. It is indeed a sad spirit when ministers are jealous of each other, and would rather cavil and find fault with each other, instead of desiring that the blessing of God might rest upon them and their labors. Oh that miserable spirit of detraction and envy, which would gladly pull others down, that we might stand as it were, a little higher upon their bodies! Where is there any true humility of mind—simplicity of spirit—brotherly love—or an eye to God’s glory when this wretched spirit is indulged? If Mr. Pride gets a wound in the head, it will not be the worse for the grace of humility.
I am more afraid of myself—my lusts and passions, and strong and horrible corruptions—than of anybody in the whole world! SELF is and ever will be our greatest enemy. And all our enemies would be as weak as water against us, were we not such vile wretches in ourselves! The end will make amends for all!
What a world it is of sin and sorrow! How everything serves to remind us that we are all passing away! I feel for you in your trials and afflictions—so various, painful, and multiplied. But dare I wish you free from what the all-wise, all-gracious Lord lays upon you? Could He not in a moment remove them all? Our Father sees fit in His wisdom and mercy to afflict His children, and we know that He would not do so unless it were for the good of their soul. What can we say then? All we can do is to beg of the Lord that He would support, comfort, and bless them.
It is in the furnace that we learn our need of realities, and our own helplessness and inability. The furnace also brings to our mind the shortness of life, and how vain all things are here below. Afflictions are sent to wean from this world—make life burdensome—and death desirable. I well know that the poor coward flesh is fretful and impatient under afflictions, and would gladly have a smoother, easier path. But we cannot choose our own trials, nor our own afflictions. All are appointed in fixed weight and measure—and the promise is that all things shall work together for good to those who love God.
Wherever we go, and wherever we are, we must expect trials to arise. But it will be our wisdom and mercy to submit to what we cannot alter, and not fret or repine under the trial—but accept it as sent for our good. We need trial upon trial, and stroke upon stroke to bring our soul out of carnality. We slip insensibly into carnal ease, but afflictions and trials of body and mind stir us up to some degree of earnestness in prayer—show us the emptiness and vanity of earthly things—make us feel the suitability and preciousness of the Lord Jesus. The path in which you have been led so many years is a safe way, though a rough and rugged way. The end will make amends for all!
We are no longer young. Life is, as it were, slipping from under our feet! It is a poor life to live to sin, self, and the world—but it is a blessed life to live unto the Lord. I never expect to be free from trial, temptation, pain, and suffering of one kind or another, while in this valley of tears. It will be my mercy if these things are sanctified to my soul’s eternal good. I cannot choose my own path, nor would I wish to do so, as I am sure it would be a wrong one. I desire to be led of the Lord Himself into the way of peace, and truth, and righteousness—to walk in His fear, live to His praise, and die in the sweet experience of His love. I have many enemies, but fear none so much as myself. O may I be kept from all evil and all error, and do the things which are pleasing in God’s sight. Our days are hastening away swifter than a runner. Soon with us it will be time no longer, and therefore how we should desire to live to the Lord, and not to self!
There is a great difference between the afflictions of the godly, and the afflictions of the ungodly. To the godly afflictions are a blessing—but to the ungodly afflictions are a curse. Afflictions soften the heart of the godly—but they harden the heart of the ungodly. In the case of the godly, afflictions stir up the grace of prayer, wean the heart from the world, bring us to Word of God, make us consider our latter end, give power and reality to divine things, show us the emptiness of all creature religion, make us look more simply and believingly to the blessed Lord, to feel how suitable He is to every want and woe—and that in Him, and in Him alone, is pardon, acceptance, and peace. But the afflictions of the ungodly only produce sullenness, self-pity, and rebellion.
How I see men deluded and put off with a vain show, and how few there are, whether ministers or people, who seem to know anything of the transforming efficacy of real religion and vital godliness. We desire to be more separated from the world in heart, spirit, and affection—to be spiritually-minded, and to know more of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And though we find sin still working in us, and sometimes as bad as ever, yet our desire is to have it subdued in its power, as well as purged away in its guilt and filth. We have lived to see what the world can do for us—and found it can only entangle—and what sin can do—which is to please for a moment and then bite like an adder. And we have seen also a little of the Person and work, blood and righteousness, grace and glory, blessedness and suitability of the Son of God—and He has won our heart and affections, so as at times to be the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely One. May you experience the sweetness and blessedness of calmly relying on the faithfulness of God, and lying like a little child in the arms of eternal love.
Blessed are those chastenings and those teachings which bring us to the feet of Christ, and by which He is made precious to the soul. This is the end of God in all His doings and dealings with His people—to strip and empty them wholly of self, and to manifest and make His dear Son feelingly and experimentally their All in all. In Him and in Him alone can we, do we, find either rest or peace.
All the vain applause of mortals, and all that is called popularity, I think little of. It leaves an aching void, and often a guilty conscience. The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and all else is poverty, rags, and shame. Not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends. God’s smile, not man’s, is the only smile worth having.
Dead & dark seasons
All Christians, even the most eminent servants of God, have their dead and dark seasons—when the life of God seems sunk to so low an ebb as to be hardly visible—so hidden is the stream by the mud-banks of their fallen nature. By these very dark and dead seasons, the people of God are instructed. They see and feel what ’the flesh’ really is—how alienated from the life of God. They learn in whom all their strength and sufficiency lie. They are taught that in them, that is, in their flesh, dwells no good thing—that no exertions of their own can maintain in strength and vigor the life of God—and that all they are, and have—all they believe, know, feel, and enjoy—with all their ability, usefulness, gifts, and grace—flow from the pure, sovereign grace—the rich, free, undeserved, yet unceasing goodness and mercy of God! They learn in this hard school of painful experience, their emptiness and nothingness—and that without Christ they can do nothing. They thus become clothed with humility—that rare, yet lovely garb—cease from their own strength and wisdom, and learn experimentally that Christ is, and ever must be, all in all to them, and all in all in them.
Standing at the cross of our adorable Lord, we see the law thoroughly fulfilled—its curse fully endured—its penalties wholly removed—sin eternally put away—the justice of God amply satisfied—all His perfections gloriously harmonized—His holy will perfectly obeyed—reconciliation completely effected—redemption graciously accomplished—and the church everlastingly saved! At the cross we see sin in its blackest colors—and holiness in its fairest beauties. At the cross we see the love of God in its tenderest form—and the anger of God in its deepest expression. At the cross we see the blessed Redeemer lifted up, as it were between heaven and earth, to show to angels and to men the spectacle of redeeming love, and to declare at one and the same moment, and by one and the same act of the suffering obedience and bleeding sacrifice of the Son of God—the eternal and unalterable displeasure of the Almighty against sin, and the rigid demands of His inflexible justice—and yet the tender compassion and boundless love of His heart to the elect. At the cross, and here alone, are obtained pardon and peace. At the cross, and here alone, penitential grief and godly sorrow flow from heart and eyes. At the cross, and here alone, is sin subdued and mortified—holiness communicated—death vanquished—Satan put to flight—and happiness and heaven begun in the soul. O what heavenly blessings, what present grace, as well as what future glory, flow through the cross! What a holy meeting-place for repenting sinners and a sin-pardoning God! What a healing-place for guilty, yet repenting and returning backsliders! What a door of hope in the valley of Achor for the self-condemned and self-abhorred! What a blessed resting-place for the whole family of God in this valley of grief and sorrow!
"These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." Matthew 15:8
How many, O how many of those who sit in our chapels amid the people of God are perishing in their sins with the Bible and hymn-book before their eyes—the sound of the gospel in their ears—the doctrines of grace on their lips—but the love of the world in their hearts! "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
"In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." Ephesians 1:7 As no heart can sufficiently conceive, so no tongue can adequately express, the state of wretchedness and ruin into which sin has cast guilty, miserable man. In separating him from God, it has severed him from the only Source and fountain of all happiness and all holiness. It has ruined him, body and soul. The body it has filled with sickness and disease. The soul it has defaced, and destroyed the image of God in which it was created. It has shattered all his mental faculties—broken his judgment—polluted his imagination—alienated his affections. It has made him love sin—and hate God. It has filled him from top to toe with pride, lust, and cruelty, and has been the prolific parent of all those crimes and abominations under which earth groans, the bare recital of some of which has filled so many hearts with disgust and horror. These are the more visible fruits of the fall. But nearer home, in our own hearts, in what we are or have been, we find and feel what wreck and ruin sin has made! There can be no greater mark of alienation from God than willfully and deliberately to seek pleasure and delight in things which His holiness abhors. But who of the family of God has not been guilty here? Every movement and inclination of our natural mind, every desire and lust of our carnal heart, was, in times past, to find pleasure and gratification in something abhorrent to the will and word of the living Jehovah.
There are few of us who, in the days of our flesh, have not sought pleasure in some of its varied but deceptive forms. The theater, the race-course, the dance, the sports, the card-table, the midnight revel, "the pleasures of sin" were resorted to by some of us. Our mad, feverish, thirst after excitement—the continued cry of our wicked flesh, "Give, give!"—our miserable recklessness or headlong, daring determination to ’enjoy ourselves,’ as we called it, cost what it would, plunged us again and again into the sea of sin, where, but for sovereign grace, we would have sunk to rise no more!
Or, if the ’restraints of morality’ put their check upon gross and sinful pleasures, there still was a seeking after such "allowable amusements" (as we deemed them), as change of scene and place, foreign travel, the reading of novels and works of fiction, fine dress, visiting, building up airy castles of love and romance, studying how to obtain human applause, devising plans of self-advancement and self-gratification, occupying the mind with cherished studies, and delighting ourselves in those pursuits for which we had a natural taste, as music, drawing, poetry, or, it might be, severer studies and scientific researches.
We have named these middle-class pursuits as less obvious sins, than such gross crimes as drunkenness and vile debauchery in the lower walks of life. But, viewed with a spiritual eye, all are equally stamped with the same fatal brand of death in sin. The moral and the immoral, the refined and the unrefined, the polished few or the crude many, are alike "without God and without hope in the world."
We are often met with this question—"What harm is there in this pursuit, or in that amusement?" The harm is, that the amusement is delighted in for its own sake—that it occupies the mind, and fills the thoughts, shutting God out—that it renders spiritual things distasteful—that it sets up an idol in the heart, and is made a substitute for God. Now this we never really know nor feel, until divine light illuminates the mind, and divine life quickens the soul. We then begin to see and feel into what a miserable state sin has cast us—how all our life long we have done nothing but what God abhors—that every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts has been evil, and only evil continually—that we have brought ourselves under the stroke of God’s justice, under the curse of His righteous law, and now there appears nothing but death and destruction before our eyes, and unless we poor slaves of sin, Satan, and death were redeemed, we could not be reconciled to God. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace."