Dec 15
19
The anointing
“But the anointing which you have received from
Him abides in you.” 1 John 2:27 J.C.Philpot
All the powers of earth and hell are combined against
this holy anointing, with which the children of God are
so highly favored. But if God has locked up in the bosom
of a saint one drop of this divine unction, that one drop
is armor against . . .
all the assaults of sin,
all the attacks of Satan,
all the enmity of self, and
all the charms, pleasures, and amusements of the world.
Waves and billows of affliction may roll over the soul—
but they cannot wash away this holy drop of anointing oil.
Satan may shoot a thousand fiery darts to inflame all
the combustible material of our carnal mind—but all his
fiery darts cannot burn up that one drop of oil which
God has laid up in the depths of a broken spirit.
The world, with all its charms and pleasures, and its
deadly opposition to the truth of God, may stir up waves
of ungodliness against this holy anointing—but all the
powers of earth combined can never extinguish that
one drop which God has Himself lodged in the depths
of a believer’s heart.
And so it has been with all the dear saints of God.
Not all their . . .
sorrows,
backslidings,
slips,
falls,
miseries, and
wretchedness,
have ever—all combined, drunk up the anointing that
God has bestowed upon them. If sin could have done
it—we would have sinned ourselves into hell long ago;
and if the world or Satan could have destroyed it or
us—they would long ago have destroyed both. If our
carnal mind could have done it—it would have swept
us away into floods of destruction.
But the anointing abides sure, and cannot be destroyed;
and where once lodged in the soul, it is secure against
all the assaults of earth, sin, and hell.
“But the anointing which you have received from
Him abides in you.” 1 John 2:27
True faith!
The following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
“The Trial of Your Faith” #2055. 1Peter 1:7
True faith is, in every case, the operation
of the Spirit of God. Its nature is purifying,
elevating, heavenly.
Wherever true faith is found, it is:
the sure mark of eternal election,
the sign of a blessed condition, and
the forecast of a heavenly destiny.
Faith is
the eye of the renewed soul,
the hand of the regenerated mind,
the mouth of the newborn spirit.
Faith is
the evidence of spiritual life,
the mainspring of holiness,
the foundation of delight,
the prophecy of glory, and
the dawn of endless knowledge.
If you have true faith, you have infinitely
more than he who has all the world.
Faith is
the assurance of sonship;
the pledge of inheritance;
the grasp of boundless possession;
the perception of the invisible.
Within your faith there lies glory, even
as the oak sleeps within the acorn.
Time would fail me to tell of
the powers,
the privileges,
the possessions and
the prospects of faith.
He that has faith is blessed, for
he pleases God,
he is justified before the throne of holiness,
he has full access to the throne of grace and
he has the preparation for reigning with Christ forever.
THE PROMISES OF GOD
“For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in him.” 2 Cor. 1:20
God has made a Will, or Testament, in behalf of His people! It is signed and sealed. It cannot be altered- nothing can divest us of our inheritance. The bequest is His own “exceeding great and precious promises.” What a heritage! All that the sinner requires- all that the sinner’s God can give. In this testamentary deed there are no contingencies- no peradventures. The testator commences it with the sure guarantee for its every jot and tittle being fulfilled, “Verily, verily, I say unto you!” He endorses every promise, and every page, with a “Yes, and Amen.” “God, willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath.” But, who provided such a rich Promise Treasury? What is the source, where is the fountain-head, from which these streams of mercy flow to the Church? “In HIM.” Believer! from Jesus every promise is derived- in Jesus every promise centers. Pardon, peace, adoption, consolation, eternal life- all “in Him.” In Him you are “chosen,” “called,” “justified,” “sanctified,” and “glorified.” You have in possession all the blessings of present grace; you have in reserve all the happiness of coming glory. And “He is faithful that promised.”
Your friend may deceive you- the world has deceived you- He never will! Myriads in glory, are there to tell how not one thing has failed of all that the Lord their God has spoken. Rely on this faithfulness. He gave His Son for you. After the greater blessing, surely, for subordinate ones, you may trust Him. And where do these promises beam most brightly? Like the stars, it is in the night! In the midnight of trial- when the sun of earthly prosperity has set- when deep is calling to deep, and wave to wave; when tempted, bereaved, beaten down with “a great fight of afflictions,” the spiritual firmament with its galaxy of Promises is brightest and clearest!
“Oh! who could bear life’s stormy doom,
Did not Your Word of Love
Come brightly bearing through the gloom
A palm branch from above?
Then sorrow touched by You grows bright,
With more than rapture’s ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day!”
But do not be deceived; the night of sorrow cannot ‘in itself’ give you the comfort of the Divine Promises. It may be night, and yet the stars invisible. It is only “in Him” these promises can be discerned in their luster. Reader! if you are “out of Christ,” these stars of Gospel promise shine in vain to you; they have, to the unspiritual eye, no beauty or brightness. In the midnight battle of Barak, “the stars in their course fought against Sisera.” They shone on Israel, but denied their light to the enemies of God. The guiding pillar, so lustrous to the chosen people, was a column of portentous gloom to Pharaoh’s host. But “in Him,” as “heirs of God,” you are inheritors of “all the promises.” All the promises! Oh! with such a pillow whereon to rest your aching head, you may well resume your nightly song– “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8 – John MacDuff
EVERLASTING LOVE
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you!” Jeremiah 31:3
Believer! are you tempted now to doubt His love? Are His footsteps lost amid the night shadows through which He is now conducting you? Remember He had His eye upon you before the birth of time; yes, from all eternity! What appears to you now some sudden capricious exercise of His power or sovereignty, is determination and decree of “everlasting love.” “I have loved you,” He seems to say, “suffering one, into this affliction; I will love you through it; and when My designs regarding you are complete, I will show you that the love which is ‘from everlasting is, to everlasting!'”
Child of God if there is a ripple now agitating the surface of the stream, trace it up to this fountain-head of love. God is faithful. He cannot deny Himself. If some dark clouds are now intercepting those gracious beams, He must have some wise end to subserve.
“For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will bring you back. In a moment of anger I turned my face away for a little while. But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord, your Redeemer. “Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth and destroy its life, so now I swear that I will never again pour out my anger on you. For the mountains may depart and the hills disappear, but even then I will remain loyal to you. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you. Isaiah 54:7-10
God sets His rainbow in the dark sky; and as if it were not enough that His people should look upon it and take comfort in its many and varied promises; He himself graciously becomes a party in gazing on the covenant pledge, “And the rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I shall look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant!” (Genesis 9:16) He puts himself (so to speak) in mind of His own everlasting love! In His saint’s dark and cloudy day, when they imagine that their eyes are alone resting on the tokens of covenant faithfulness, the eye of a covenant keeping God is resting upon them too. “I will look upon my own promises,” He seems to say. “They shall be memorials to Myself of my purposes of unchanging mercy.” Nor is this love merely a general indiscriminate affection. The verse speaks of each individual member of the Covenant family, “I have loved you!” “O my Father”, says Madam Guyon, “it seems to me sometimes as if You did forget every other being in order to think only of my faithless and ungrateful heart.”
Let us seek to view our trials as so many cords of loving-kindness, by which our God is seeking to draw us, yes, and will draw us nearer Himself. Who knows what mercy may be bound up in what may seem to us dark and mysterious dispensations? We are apt to misname and misinterpret His ways. We call His dealings severe trials. He calls them “loving-kindness.” Drooping saint! let your eyes rest on the rainbow over-arching the throne of God, spanning from eternity to eternity; and read for your comfort the gracious declaration, “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him.” John Mac Duff
THE ATTITUDE OF THE SAINTS
When the children of God see, hear, and are confronted with the “damnable heresies” of false prophets (2 Peter 2), they should have thoughts of pity and compassion, both for the deceivers and the deceived. And when these pitiful, perishing religionists will not receive us, nor our doctrine, nor our sovereign and gracious Lord, it is not ours to seek their personal destruction, to call down fire upon their heads. That is not the spirit and attitude of the saints (Luke 9:51-56).
If we be stoned like Stephen, that is alright; but we shall die with no stones in our hands. We shall leave these “Sauls of Tarsus” to the pleasure of our sovereign Lord. He just might make a “Paul” out of some of them. However, like Stephen, we shall, as God grants grace and the opportunity, speak plainly and boldly, both of them and to them, of their “stiff-necked” resistance and opposition to the truth, exposing, as best we can, their “damnable heresies” which destroy men’s souls. And, we will not assist them (silence does assist them!), wish them well, or even permit them into our homes, it they come bringing and spreading their false religion (2 John 10-11).
We dare not help a man purchase a shotgun to blow our neighbor’s head off, nor do we assist in doing that which is infinitely worse — murder and destroy the immortal souls of men and women and boys and girls with lies and deception! Why is it that men find this so hard to understand? Why are they horrified and repulsed by physical murder, while showing total indifference to the spiritual slaughter of men’s precious souls? Must it not be because they do not really believe? Is it not because spiritual and eternal things to them are merely dead doctrines, rather than living realities?
Pastor Maurice Montgomery