Oct 25
28
My Beloved!
(From Octavius Winslow’s, “None Like Christ”)
“What is thy beloved more than another beloved?”
Song of Solomon 5:9
My Beloved bore my sins, and opened in his heart
a fountain in which I am washed whiter than snow.
My Beloved….
sustains my burdens,
counsels my perplexities,
heals my wounds,
dries my tears,
supplies my needs,
bears with my infirmities,
upholds my steps, and
cheers my pathway to the tomb.
My Beloved will be with me in the valley of the shadow
of death, and with his presence I shall fear no evil.
My Beloved has gone to prepare a place for me in
the many mansioned house of my Father, and will
come again and receive me to himself, that were
he is, I may be also.
My Beloved will walk with me the gold paved streets
of the new Jerusalem, and will lead me to fountains
of living waters, and will wipe every tear from my eyes.
I find no love so soothing as his, no friendship
so true, so gentle as his. Jesus is my all in all.
This is my Beloved, and this is my friend!
Yes, My Beloved is altogether lovely!
Simply Preach HIM
The message of the Gospel is a very narrow message that encompasses the breadth or the span of God himself. It is narrow in the sense that Christ is its only object. There is nothing that I can preach from the Scriptures that will not find its beginning and end all redounding to the glory and honour of Christ. Any message that focuses on anything but Him misses the Gospel.
Marvin Stalnaker
NEEDING THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD
My prayer nearly every time I step into the pulpit is the prayer of Moses in Exodus 33:15: “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” That should be the believer’s prayer about everything that we do because we are not sufficient to handle anything on our own. Before we go into the worship service, our prayer should be, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Before we go to work in the morning, our prayer should be, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Before we come home in the evening, our prayer should be, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Before we spend time with loved ones, before we make any decision, before we go anywhere or do anything, our prayer should be, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Sooner or later we will learn that we can do without many things we hold dear in this life, but we cannot do without the presence of the Lord with us.
Frank Tate
What man needs
(Horatius Bonar)
It is not ‘opinions’ which man needs—it is TRUTH!
It is not ‘theology’ which man needs—it is GOD!
It is not ‘religion’ which man needs—it is CHRIST!
“Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the
fruit of their doings.” Isaiah 3:10
In spiritual things, all your temptation, all your darkness, all your
wanderings God will overrule. It shall be well with you. There shall never
be a night, but that morning shall come; there shall never be a day of trouble,
but a day of prosperity shall follow; there shall never be an emptying, but
there shall be a filling; there shall never be a bringing down, but that He will
raise you up again. Let it be either darkness or light, sorrow or grief, night or
day, life or death, time or eternity, “It shall be well with the righteous.”
~ Pastor Scott Richardson
The Message of Hope
The hearing of the gospel is vital to a man’s salvation.
Faith, the gift of God, comes through the hearing of this glorious good
news of God’s purpose to redeem those that He has eternally loved.
Sitting under a consistent message that points men to the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, tells of His obedience to the law of God, and sets Him forth
as the only mediator between God and men, IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO
SALVATION.
This message which the Spirit of God blesses to the salvation of sinners
is the food throughout the life of a redeemed man.
A child of God never goes any farther than the message of hope he heard
in the beginning.
From the moment that sinner is brought to see something of his need of a
substitute until he lies dying on the bed of death, his desire shall be the hearing
of the Christ that sovereignly became his sacrificial lamb.
Marvin Stalnaker
The one, precious, all absorbing theme!
(Octavius Winslow, “The
Precious Things of God”)
The Word of God must ever be
transcendently precious to the believer. The Bible is, from its commencement to
its close, a record of the Lord Jesus. Around Him the divine and glorious Word
centres; all its wondrous types, prophecies and facts gather.
His Promise and Foreshadowing,
His holy Incarnation, Nativity and Baptism,
His Obedience and Passion,
His Death, Burial and Resurrection,
His Ascension to Heaven,
His Second coming to judge the world—
are the grand and touching,
the sublime and tender,
the priceless and precious
truths interwoven with the whole texture of the Bible, to which the Two
Witnesses of Revelation, the Old and the New Testaments bear their harmonious
and solemn testimony.
Beloved, let this be the one and chief object in your
study of the Bible—the knowledge of Jesus!
The Bible is not a history, a book of science or a poem—it is a record of
Christ. Study it to know more of Him—His nature, His love, His work. With the
magnanimous Paul, “count all things but loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord.”
Then will God’s Word become increasingly precious to your soul, and its truths
unfold.
In every page you will:
trace the history of Jesus,
see the glory of Jesus,
admire the work of Jesus,
learn the love of Jesus, and
hear the voice of Jesus!
The whole volume will be redolent of His name, and luminous with His beauty!
Oh, what is the Bible to us apart from its revelation of a Saviour!
Is there not great danger . . .
of studying it merely intellectually and scientifically,
of revelling among its literary beauties and its grandeur
—blind to its true value, and without any desire to know . . .
that precious Saviour who died for sinners,
that Divine Redeemer who purchased the ransom of
His Church with His own blood;
that Friend who loves us;
that Brother who sympathises with us,
that enthroned High Priest who intercedes for us within the
veil?
Do we study the “Word of Christ” spiritually and honestly—as those
whose souls hunger and thirst for this, the bread and water of life?
Do we search it diligently and earnestly as for hidden treasure—treasure beyond
all price?
Can we say with David, “O how love I Your law! It is my meditation all the
day!”
Do we:
read it with a child-like mind,
receive it with a believing heart,
bow to its teaching with reverence of soul, and
receive its decisions in all questions of faith and practice as decisive
and ultimate?
In a word, do we search the Scriptures humbly,
prayerfully, depending upon the guidance of the Spirit—to find Jesus in them?
Of these Scriptures He is . . .
the Alpha and the Omega,
the substance,
the sweetness,
the glory,
the one, precious, all absorbing theme!
Yes, Lord! Your word is precious to our souls, because it reveals to us Your
glory, and tells us of Your love!
Pride
Pride is a groundless thing. We have reasons for almost everything, but we have no reason to be proud. Pride should be unnatural to us, for we have nothing to be proud of. Our CREATION ought to humble us, for we are frail creatures who are here today and gone tomorrow. Our IGNORANCE should be sufficient to lay us low. We spend a lifetime trying to learn a few things in part; then, in old age, we can’t remember where we left our glasses. Our SINS should lay us in the dust, for it would be embarrassing for the most trusted friend to view our hearts. Our BLESSINGS ought to humble us; for the more we have, the more we are in debt to God who makes us to differ. A great debtor has no cause for pride. Certainly a believer has no cause for pride, for our SALVATION is all by grace! Mephibosheth accurately summed up our confession, “What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?” Let us pray to be delivered from pride, for it is such a subtle enemy that only the Lord can deliver us; but we MUST be delivered, for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.
~Henry Mahan (1926-2019)
Paul’s hobby-horse!
(1 Corinthians 2:2), “I
resolved to know nothing while I was with you, except Jesus Christ and
Him crucified.”
The world is full of distractions, and even within the church, countless voices
clamour for attention. But Paul, that faithful minister of the gospel,
had one great theme that eclipsed all others: Jesus Christ and
Him crucified! This was not a passing interest or occasional emphasis–it was
his constant, unwavering focus. If Paul had a “hobby-horse,” it was
Christ crucified. He rode it in every letter, proclaimed it
in every sermon, and treasured it at all times.
Paul had deep theological knowledge, an unmatched intellect, and a rich grasp
of Old Testament Scriptures. Yet when he came to Corinth–a city dazzled by
eloquence and puffed up with human wisdom–he deliberately laid aside every
other topic. He determined, he resolved, to make the
cross of Christ his singular subject. Why? Because the cross
reveals both the vileness of human sin, and the marvelous grace of God in
salvation. The cross . . .
manifests the sinfulness of man,
exalts the glory of God,
and unveils the only way of redemption.
To preach “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is to proclaim the eternal
plan of God, the willing sacrifice of the Son, and the effectual
power of the Spirit in saving those for whom Jesus died. It is to
declare that totally depraved and spiritually dead sinners, can be reconciled
to the holy and righteous God, only through the substitutionary death of the
Lord Jesus. No philosophy or moral reform can accomplish this. Only the blood
of the Lamb can cleanse and justify ungodly sinners.
In a world of theological fads and spiritual
shallowness, we need more men like Paul–men who will
refuse to drift from the centrality of the cross. The cross must not be
reduced to a mere entry point of the Christian life. It is . .
the very heart of the gospel,
the foundation of all doctrine,
and the fuel for sanctification.
As believers, we never outgrow our need to hear again and again, of our Savior
who loved us and gave Himself for us!
Let Paul’s holy obsession be ours. Let Christ crucified be our boast,
our theme, our delight, and our message! May we, too, resolve to know nothing
except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through
which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!” (Galatians
6:14).
C.H.Spurgeon
“Wilt Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?” Psalm 85:6
Octavius Winslow
A fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit forms the great secret of all personal
revival. This a declining soul needs more than all beside. Possessing this in a
large degree, he possesses every spiritual blessing; it includes and is the
pledge of every other. Our dear Lord sought to impress this, His last consoling
doctrine, upon the drooping minds of His disciples: His bodily presence in
their midst, He taught them, was to be compared with the spiritual and
permanent dwelling of the Spirit among them. The descent of the Holy Spirit was
to bring all things that He had taught them to their remembrance; it was to
perfect them in their knowledge of the supreme glory of His person, the
infinite perfection of His work, the nature and spirituality of His kingdom,
and its ultimate and certain triumph, in the earth. The descent of the Spirit,
too, was to mature them in personal holiness, and more eminently fit them for
their arduous and successful labor in His cause, by deepening their
spirituality, enriching them with more grace, and enlarging them with more
love; and fully did the baptism of the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost,
accomplish all this: the apostles emerged from His influence, like men who had
passed through a state of re-conversion; and this is the state, dear reader,
you must pass through, would you experience a revival of God’s word in your
soul—you must be re-converted, and that through a fresh baptism of the Holy
Spirit. Nothing short of this will quicken your dying graces, and melt your
frozen love, and restore your backsliding heart. You must be baptized afresh
with the Spirit; that Spirit whom you have so often and so deeply wounded,
grieved, slighted, and quenched, must enter you anew, and seal, and sanctify,
and re-convert you. Oh, arise, and pray and agonize for the outpouring of the
Spirit upon your soul; give up your lifeless religion, your form without the
power, your prayer without communion, your confessions without brokenness, your
zeal without love. And oh, what numerous and precious promises cluster in God’s
word, all inviting you to seek this blessing! “He shall come down as rain
upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth.” “Come, let us
return unto the Lord; for He has torn, and He will heal us; He has smitten, and
He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will
raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow
on to know the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall
come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.”
Seek, then, above and beyond all other blessings, the renewed baptism of the
Holy Spirit. “Be filled with the Spirit;” seek it earnestly—seek
under the deep conviction of your absolute need of it—seek it
perseveringly—seek it believingly: God has promised, “I will pour out my
Spirit upon you;” and asking it in the name of Jesus you shall receive.