Nov 20
9
Nevertheless I am continually with thee Psalms 73:23.
My dear child, when you look at the sun, I wish it may lead your thoughts to him who made it, and who placed it in the firmament, not only to give us light but to be the brightest, noblest emblem of himself: there is but one son, and their needs not another; so there is but one Saviour; but he is complete and all sufficient, the Sun of righteousness, the fountain of life and comfort; his beams, wherever they reach, bring healing, strength, peace, and joy to the soul. Pray to him, my dear, to shine forth, and reveal himself to you. Oh, how different is he from all that you have ever seen with your bodily eyes! He is the son of the soul, and he can make you as sensible of his presence as you are of the sunshine at noon day; and, when once you obtain a clear sight of him, a 1000 little things, which have hitherto engaged your attention, will in a manner disappear.
I entreat, I charge you, to ask him every day to show himself to you. Think of him as being always with you; about your path by day, about your bed by night, nearer to you than any object you can see, though you see him not; whether you are sitting or walking, in company or alone. People often consider God as if he saw them from a great distance: but this is wrong; for, though he be in heaven, the heaven of heavens cannot contain him; he is as much with us as with the Angels; in him we live, and move, and have our being; as we live in the air which surrounds us, and is within us, so that it cannot be separated from us a moment. And whatever thoughts you can obtain of God from the Scripture, as great, holy, wise, and good, endeavoured to apply them all to Jesus Christ, who once died upon the cross, for he is the true God, and eternal life, with whom you have to do; and, though he be the King of Kings, and Lord of lords, and rules over all, he is so condescending and compassionate, that he will hear and answer the prayer of a child. Seek him, you shall find him; whatever else you seek, you may be disappointed, but he is never sought in vain.
Letter from John Newton to his adopted daughter.
This wily devil!
J.C.Philpot
What a foe to one’s peace is one’s own spirit!
What shall I call it? It is often an infernal spirit.
Why? Because it bears the mark of Satan upon it.
The pride of our spirit,
the presumption of our spirit,
the hypocrisy of our spirit,
the intense selfishness of our spirit,
are often hidden from us.
This wily devil, SELF, can wear such
masks and assume such forms!
This serpent, SELF, can so creep and crawl,
can so twist and turn, and can disguise itself
under such false appearances—that it is often
hidden from ourselves.
Who is the greatest enemy we have to fear? We all
have our enemies. But who is our greatest enemy?
He whom you carry in your own bosom—your daily,
hourly, and unmovable companion, who entwines
himself in nearly every thought of your heart—who . . .
sometimes puffs up with pride,
sometimes inflames with lust,
sometimes inflates with presumption, and
sometimes works under pretend humility and fleshly holiness.
God is determined to stain the pride of human glory.
He will never let SELF, (which is but another word for
the creature,) wear the crown of victory. It must be
crucified, denied, and mortified
If you are going to command a lame man to take the first step…if you are going to call upon dead sinners to live…if you are going to insist that a maniac make a right decision…you had better have a Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation, or else you mock the souls of men. You had better be speaking for the One, of the One, and with the power and blessing of the One Who is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by Him. Salvation is not in the ability of the preacher, nor is it contingent upon what men will do, but it is sure to all of God’s elect, because of Christ and what He did do. Christ does not taunt the lame with the bargain that if they will only take a step, He will save them. He saves them, by the preaching of the Gospel, and then they leap and shout and praise God. – Chris Cunningham
Law and Grace
Here are a few contrasts between law and grace. Law manifests what is in man – sin; Grace manifests what is in God – love; Law demands righteousness from men; Grace brings righteousness to men; Law sentences a living man to death; Grace brings a dead man to life; Law speaks of what men must do for God: Grace tells of what Christ has done for men; Law gives a knowledge of sin; Grace puts away sin; Law brings God out to men; Grace brings men into God. ~Scott Richardson
He says, “turn,” and we say, “Lord, turn us.” He says, “son, walk,” and we say, “Lord, direct our steps.” He says, “pray,” and we say, “Lord, teach us.” He says, “stand,” and we cry, “Lord, keep us”
~Chris Cunningham
How can they escape?
J.C.Philpot
“He will keep the feet of His saints.”
1 Samuel 2:9
The Lord sees His poor scattered pilgrims
traveling through a valley of tears—journeying
through a waste-howling wilderness—a path
beset with baits, traps, and snares in every
direction.
How can they escape?
Why, the Lord ‘keeps their feet’. He carries them
through every rough place—as a tender parent
carries a little child. When about to fall—He
graciously lays His everlasting arms underneath
them. And when tottering and stumbling, and
their feet ready to slip—He mercifully upholds
them from falling altogether.
But do you think that He has not different ways
for different feet? The God of creation has not
made two flowers, nor two leaves upon a tree
alike—and will He cause all His people to walk
in precisely the same path? No. We have . . .
each our path,
each our troubles,
each our trials,
each peculiar traps and snares laid for our feet.
And the wisdom of the all-wise God is shown by His
eyes being in every place—marking the footsteps of
every pilgrim—suiting His remedies to meet their
individual case and necessity—appearing for them
when nobody else could do them any good—watching
so tenderly over them, as though the eyes of His
affection were bent on one individual—and carefully
noting the goings of each, as though all the powers
of the Godhead were concentrated on that one
person to keep him from harm!
The cure!
The following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
The Great Physician and His Patients.
No. 618 Matthew 9:12.
Man cannot cure himself of sin.
He may reform, he may drive the disease
inward, and prevent its coming out upon
the skin; He may so model, and guide, and
restrain himself, that the coarser forms of
sin which are condemned among men may
not appear in him.
But the virus, the essential poison of sin,
no man can ever extract from his own
heart, nor can another man do it for him.
Jehovah Rophi, the healing Lord,
must manifest his omnipotent power.
The utmost religiousness, the most devout
prayers, the greatest possible prudence in
living, will not avail to remove the taint of sin,
if they spring from an unrenewed heart.
The carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not
reconciled to God, neither, indeed, can it be.
Teach a horse astronomy?
I never try to teach a horse astronomy; and to
teach an unconverted man spiritual truth and
experience would be a folly of the same sort.
“… people who aren’t Christians can’t understand
these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish
to them because only those who have the Spirit
can understand what the Spirit means.” 1 Cor. 2:14
The anointing
J.C.Philpot
“But the anointing which ye have received of
Him abideth in you.” 1 John 2:27
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
SIN
The following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
“The Smoke of Their Torments”
No. 602. Genesis 19:27, 28.
See the blackness of your sin by the light of hell’s fire!
Hell is the true harvest of the sowing of iniquity.
Come, lost sinner, I charge you to look at hell–
Hell is what sin brings forth.
Hell is the full-grown child.
You have dandled your sin.
You have kissed and fondled it.
But see what sin comes to.
Hell is but sin full-grown, that is all.
You played with that young lion; see how it roars and how
it tears in pieces now that it has come to its strength.
Did you not smile at the azure scales of the serpent?
See its poison; see to what its stings have brought those
who have never looked to the brazen serpent for healing.
Do you account of sin as a peccadillo, a flaw
scarcely to be noticed, a mere joke, a piece of fun?
But see the tree which springs from it.
There is no joke there- no fun in hell.
You did not know that sin was so evil.
Some of you will never know how evil it is until the
sweetness of honey has passed from your mouth,
and the bitterness of death preys at your vitals.
You will count sin harmless until you
are hopelessly stricken with its sting!
My God, from this day forward help me to see through the
thin curtain which covers up sin, and whenever Satan tells
me that such-and-such a thing is for my pleasure, let me
recollect the pain of that penalty wrapped up in it. When
he tells me that such a thing is for my profit, let me know
that it can never profit me to gain the whole world and lose
my own soul. Let me feel it is no sport to sin, for only a
madman would scatter firebrands and death, and say it is sport.
The poison fang of sin!
J.C.Philpot
We must go down into the depths of the fall
to know what our hearts are, and what they are
capable of—we must have the keen knife of God
to cut deep gashes in our conscience and lay
bare the evil that lies so deeply imbedded in
our carnal mind—before we can enter into and
experience the beauty and blessedness of
salvation by grace.
“From the sole of the foot even unto the head
there is no soundness in it—but wounds, and
bruises, and putrefying sores—they have not
been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified
with ointment.” Isaiah 1:6
When the Church of God fell in Adam, she fell with
a crash which broke every bone and bruised her
flesh with wounds which are ulcerated from head to toe.
Her understanding, her conscience, and her
affections were all fearfully maimed . . .
her understanding was blinded;
her conscience stupefied;
her affections alienated.
Every mental faculty thus became perverted and distorted.
When Adam fell into sin and temptation—sin rushed
into every faculty of body and soul—and penetrated
into the inmost recesses of his being.
As when a man is bitten by a poisonous serpent,
the venom courses through every artery and vein,
and he dies a corrupted mass from head to foot;
so did the poison fang of sin penetrate into
Adam’s inmost soul and body, and infect him
with its venom from the sole to the crown.
But it is only as sin’s desperate and malignant
character is opened up by the Holy Spirit that it
is really seen, felt, grieved under, and mourned
over as indeed a most dreadful and fearful reality.
“The whole head is sick—and the whole heart faint.”
Every thought, word, and action is polluted by sin.
Every mental faculty is depraved . . .
the will chooses evil;
the affections cleave to earthly things;
the memory, like a broken sieve,
retains the bad and lets fall the good;
the judgment, like a bribed or drunken judge,
pronounces heedless or wrong decisions;
the conscience, like an opium eater, lies
asleep and drugged in stupefied silence.