[b]April 19th - The Kingdom Shall Be The Lord's[/b]
When we come into the New Testament we encounter that tremendous phrase describing Esau, and applicable to all his descendants, and the attitude of life which he represented, "that profane person Esau." Profane here does not refer to careless or lewd speech. It means, quite literally, against the Temple. The profane person is one who has no spiritual conception, whose life is that of pure materialism. The man who says, I do not want God; I am independent of God; that is pride of heart. If that conception does not shock us it is because in our thinking today we have come to lay emphasis on certain sins, and shudder when we hear of them, failing to recognize that underlying all sin there is this root sin, the pride of heart that says this life is sufficient in itself, without any relationship to God. That pride expressed itself in Edom as she climbed to the height of rocky fastnesses and said, "Who shall bring me down?" Mounting high as the eagle, making her nest among the stars, she was guilty of self deification. The whole thing is illustrated by the fact of the case at the time of this prophecy. The Edomites were living in a rocky district which we have now come to call Petra, and they felt that their position was absolutely invincible. Moreover, it was a long time before anyone was able to break through their fastnesses and overcome them. They were the very embodiment then of practical defiant godlessness, expressing itself in the deification of self, and the conviction that self was sufficient, and that the fastnesses which it had made for its own protection were enough to protect it against all opposition.

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 20th - Universal Saviour Be The Lord's[/b]
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE IS THAT OF THE Universal Saviour. In it, Jesus is seen as Man, and His work is dealt with in its widest application. The true ideal of God's ancient people Israel is recognized. Messiah is revealed as of the stock of Abraham, and yet as the Saviour of all men. The song of Mary, the prophecy of Zacharias, the chanting of the angels, and the speech of Simeon, all sacred and beautiful utterances peculiar to the Gospel, recognize Jesus both as the Messiah of the ancient people according to their prophecies; and as the Saviour of all such as put their trust in Him, without regard to nationality. The benefits accruing to the chosen people are recognized, but they are ever seen flowing through them to all peoples. In the song of Zacharias, which our text is found, Jehovah the God of Israel is declared as visiting, redeeming, and raising up a horn of salvation in the house of David; but the purpose of this visitation of His ancient people is that the light may shine on them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death. In order to perform this wider mission, the Messiah brings to His own people "salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He should swear to Abraham our father, to grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies should serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days."

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 21st - Human Nature[/b]
I am what I am, not by my own choice, not by the choice of my parents after the flesh, but by the choice and election of God. That is fundamentally true of human nature. I am speaking of human nature essentially, not as we know it experientially, but of what it is in itself. In the deep, essential fact of human nature there is intimate first hand relationship to God. The underlying fact of every human life, the spirit, has an immediate relationship with God, which is independent of everything that has gone before. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, "We had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" I have nothing to do now with his question, or this argument; I have something to do with the essential conception of humanity which there finds incidental expression. It is that the individual has had a parentage on this earth which is of the flesh, but that the individual in the deepest, essential fact of his or her personality has but one Father, who is God. In an infinite mystery, God has united Himself with the human race in the process of its procreation, so that wherever a child is begotten, God acts, and creates its spirit life. It is equally true that each human being has relationship with God in capacity. The capacity of the individual is partial, but it also is definite. Every man has something that he is qualified to do naturally; every woman has something she is qualified to do naturally. Happy is the man or woman who has discovered the one thing he or she can do, and is doing that one thing well. It does not matter whether it is working in a carpenter's shop, or preaching the everlasting Gospel, or sewing with deft fingers - the great thing is to know the capacity, and remember that it is a Divinely bestowed gift.

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 22nd - God of Judgment[/b]
You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, Wherein have we wearied Him? When you say, Everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He delighted in them; or where is the God of judgment?" Mal 2:17 What did he mean? "Our God is a God of love; there is no judgment. That man you say is evil, is good if you only knew it. God delights in him.” That is beyond weariness and snuffing, that is treason of the very worst form. That is countenancing and excusing of sin. That is an attempt to gloss over evil, that there is no judgment; then he is committing high treason. That again is the sin of our own day. Find me anywhere a people who are weary of a strong robust Christianity and seek aesthetic worship, and I find you a people who cannot bear to be told of the judgment of God. What are such people doing? Lowering the standard of Divine government and the moment a man within a Church is guilty of that, he is flagrantly guilty of high treason against God. All this talk about God being such a God of love that passes lightly over sin, is the misunderstanding of what love is. Love is the sworn foe of sin forever, and the instant God begins to excuse sin, as we are too rashly doing, He proves He does not love man. If God excuse sin in me, and lets me go on just saying, “Well he is frail and infirm, it does not matter,” God Himself by such action ensures my ruin. It is because He is a consuming fire to sin, and never signs a truce with it within the sphere of His Kingdom, or in the world anywhere, that He is a God of love. When people begin to say "Where is the God of Judgment?" they are guilty of high treason, and I believe that has been the peculiar sin of many years. The men of our own times, whom God has signally used, have been sons of fire as well as sons of consolation. Who were the sons of consolation? They were Boanerges, the sons of thunder, and no man is a true son of consolation unless he is also a son of thunder. A man must have a keen, clear vision of sin, as an enormity of the ages never to be excused, if he is to be tender and compassionate toward the man who is a sinner. That is a false conception of love which imagines God is not a God of judgment."

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 23rd - In Sanctification Of The Spirit[/b]
The two outstanding figures in the book of the Acts of the Apostles are Peter and Paul. Each in his respective sphere was a pioneer in the great Christian campaign springing from the Pentecostal effusion. The phrase which suggests the line of our evening meditation is found in the writings of each of these men. Peter employed it in writing to Christian Jews of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Paul made use of it writing to Gentile Christians of Thessalonica. The phrase refers to a great purpose of God in the life of men, sanctification. Moreover, the phrase reveals to us the fact that this purpose is possible of fulfillment in the life of men through the ministry of the Holy Spirit: "In sanctification of the Spirit." I am perfectly well aware that this is not a sentence; it is not a statement. I am equally well aware that I take it from its context, but I trust that in our meditation on the things that it suggests we shall do no violence to that context. When, perchance, at your leisure you turn again to the paragraph read in your hearing by way of lesson, you will discover that the great theme of Peter and of Paul was salvation, and in this connection, dealing with the subject in different ways and from different standpoints, but with one purpose, each of these outstanding figures in the book of the Acts of the Apostles makes use of the phrase, "In sanctification of the Spirit."

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 24th - Every Believer Is A Saint[/b]
Sanctification is entire separation of the life to God; consequently, it is the cleansing of the life to the condition of holiness or spiritual health. Every new born soul is sanctified. Every believer is a Saint. Christian people will often say, the sincerest of them, those who are most truly and really attempting to follow their Lord: We do not profess to be Saints. That saying is born of that fear of the doctrine of sanctification to which I have made reference. Let me repeat, therefore, that which I have already said, but in another form. If you are a Christian man you are a Saint. If you are a believer in Christ Jesus you are already sanctified. Perhaps the speediest way in which to emphasize the truth is to remember that Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, commenced his first letter - almost wholly a letter of correction - by describing those to whom he wrote as "Saints," and yet, within a few paragraphs, after having so described them, he said, "I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal." Yet they were Saints, they were sanctified. It is quite evident that the Apostolic reference in the opening of that letter was to the Divine purpose, and not to the perfected experience of these people. They were Saints, they were sanctified; but they were not living as became Saints, they had not entered into the full experience of sanctification. In that we have at once a distinction and a difference which it is important that we should recognize. To call men to sanctification who are already Christians as though they were not sanctified is to lose the most powerful argument for sanctification possible. It is when we realize that the man who has yielded himself to God by one volitional act of faith has become a Saint that we have the right to appeal to him to enter into the experience of sanctification, because by failing to do so he is robbing God of that which is God's by sovereign and redeeming right. Sanctification is not a privilege offered to the few within the Christian economy. It is a privilege, but it is also a responsibility devolving on every soul who has yielded to Christ. Saints within the Christian Church are not an aristocracy of spiritual souls - they are the whole commonwealth of the new born. We owe a persistent and pernicious misinterpretation of the great doctrine of sanctification to the Roman Church, with its calendar of Saints.

_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 25th - Esau[/b]
When we come into the New Testament we encounter that tremendous phrase describing Esau, and applicable to all his descendants, and the attitude of life which he represented, "that profane person Esau." Profane here does not refer to careless or lewd speech. It means, quite literally, against the Temple. The profane person is one who has no spiritual conception, whose life is that of pure materialism. The man who says, I do not want God; I am independent of God; that is pride of heart. If that conception does not shock us it is because in our thinking today we have come to lay emphasis on certain sins, and shudder when we hear of them, failing to recognize that underlying all sin there is this root sin, the pride of heart that says this life is sufficient in itself, without any relationship to God. That pride expressed itself in Edom as she climbed to the height of rocky fastnesses and said, "Who shall bring me down?" Mounting high as the eagle, making her nest among the stars, she was guilty of self deification. The whole thing is illustrated by the fact of the case at the time of this prophecy. The Edomites were living in a rocky district which we have now come to call Petra, and they felt that their position was absolutely invincible. Moreover, it was a long time before anyone was able to break through their fastnesses and overcome them. They were the very embodiment then of practical defiant godlessness, expressing itself in the deification of self, and the conviction that self was sufficient, and that the fastnesses which it had made for its own protection were enough to protect it against all opposition.

_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 26th - God or Mammon[/b]
Christ does suggest two possibilities which are in opposition. The one, that man can serve mammon. The other, that he can serve God. What is it to serve God? To be His bond slave, yielding all to His absolute supremacy. The abandonment of everything to which the name of God connotes, purity, peace, and all those other facts of which we spoke. That is a possibility for every man and nation. There is the other possibility, to serve mammon. To be the bond slave of material possessions, and every poor man can be that; to yield wholly to the sway of the things which are only material; the abandonment of the life to husks. Jesus declared the possibilities to be mutually exclusive, To serve God and be His bond slave. To serve mammon and be its bond slave. To serve God is to command mammon, not to serve it. To be wholly yielded to God is to be the master of all material things, not to be bound in slavery thereto. To state the case from the other side. To serve mammon - to live saying only, What shall I eat, what shall I drink, wherewithal shall I be clothed, and how shall I possess these things, is to dethrone God. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Take two illustrations. First, an individual one. Here is a man standing at the parting of the ways, facing a moral crisis. He knows perfectly well that two ways are stretching out from the point where he stands. He knows perfectly well that he is at a moral crisis in his life. What are these two ways? There is the way of temporal advantage, and there is the way of eternal advantage. These things are not always, necessarily, forever antagonistic to each other, but the hour comes in which they are in opposition. Which will the man do? That is the hour of crisis. We leave him at that point.

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 27th - Righteousness Or Revenue[/b]
Has Christ anything to say to us, to England? Who am I? I am but a voice crying in the wilderness. How can I speak to England, or to governments? I may not be able to do so, but I must speak as I can. I say here tonight solemnly in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the word of Christ to this Government and to this nation at this moment is no other than this, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." If we serve God we shall prefer righteousness to revenue. If we serve mammon, we shall put revenue before righteousness. If we do that, then it would be for the benefit of the world and all the coming ages that we should cease to talk about God. It is this attempt to persuade ourselves that we can still be Christian and worship God, while we persist in the wrong and shameful thing for the sake of revenue, that is harming the Kingdom of God and flinging a blight o'er all the earth. The issue is clear cut and definite. To serve God is to cooperate with Him, and to have done at all costs with the thing that is blighting another people. To serve mammon is eventually to be destroyed by God. We need to be saved from our national pride, from this actual devilish conviction that neither God nor man can harm us. Already the judgment of the moth and rottenness - to use the language of one of the old Hebrew prophets - is upon us. Already, everywhere there are evidences of weakness. I say again, I have said it in other connections, our safety is not in the two power standard. I am tired of the monotony of the phrase. Our safety is not in the new territorial army. If we do wrong persistently, we are doomed as the nations of the past have been. Now is the hour of the Church. She should be gathering everywhere in assembly for prayer and humiliation, and insistence upon this great truth. Half the resolutions passed in our denominational assemblies and Free Church Council Federations are of little importance in the light of this. What we need is to come to the knowledge of the fact that we stand nationally at the parting of the ways. When I have said all, I have not said half that should be said. When I have said all, the last thing and the best thing is that I should get down, and that you should get down before God, taking the sin of our nation into our own hearts. We make our boast that we are of Great Britain. Her shame is ours also. Let us get down before Him in humiliation. Let us cry to Him that He will at this moment guide, direct, and deliver us from this shame, to the glory of His name.

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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

[b]April 28th - Sanctification[/b]
What, then, is sanctification? The root idea of the word so translated in the New Testament signifies something which is awful, that which fills the soul with awe, not necessarily with dread, for there is a vital difference between dread and awe. Dread is of the nature of slavish fear; awe is of the nature of reverence. There should be no dread in the soul of man when he draws near to God. No man ought to draw near to God save with a sense of awe. The thought of the word is that of something awful, filling the soul with awe. Its use in the New Testament is always of separation to God, and therefore of holiness, The vessels of the sanctuary in the old economy were holy, they were sanctified; they were set apart to sacred uses, and, consequently, they were necessarily maintained in cleanliness by ceremonial ablutions, and that because they were dedicated and consecrated to the service of God alone. In the word "sanctification," then, both as to its root intention and its common use in the New Testament, we have these simple ideas. Sanctification is entire separation of the life to God; consequently, it is the cleansing of the life to the condition of holiness or spiritual health. Every new born soul is sanctified. Every believer is a Saint. Christian people will often say, the sincerest of them, those who are most truly and really attempting to follow their Lord: We do not profess to be Saints. That saying is born of that fear of the doctrine of sanctification to which I have made reference. Let me repeat, therefore, that which I have already said, but in another form. If you are a Christian man you are a Saint. If you are a believer in Christ Jesus you are already sanctified. Perhaps the speediest way in which to emphasize the truth is to remember that Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, commenced his first letter - almost wholly a letter of correction - by describing those to whom he wrote as "Saints," and yet, within a few paragraphs, after having so described them, he said, "I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal." Yet they were Saints, they were sanctified. It is quite evident that the Apostolic reference in the opening of that letter was to the Divine purpose, and not to the perfected experience of these people. They were Saints, they were sanctified; but they were not living as became Saints, they had not entered into the full experience of sanctification. In that we have at once a distinction and a difference which it is important that we should recognize. To call men to sanctification who are already Christians as though they were not sanctified is to lose the most powerful argument for sanctification possible. It is when we realize that the man who has yielded himself to God by one volitional act of faith has become a Saint that we have the right to appeal to him to enter into the experience of sanctification, because by failing to do so he is robbing God of that which is God's by sovereign and redeeming right. Sanctification is not a privilege offered to the few within the Christian economy. It is a privilege, but it is also a responsibility devolving on every soul who has yielded to Christ. Saints within the Christian Church are not an aristocracy of spiritual souls - they are the whole commonwealth of the new born. We owe a persistent and pernicious misinterpretation of the great doctrine of sanctification to the Roman Church, with its calendar of Saints

_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon