Dec 25
30
Ebenezer!
(John MacDuff, “Ripples in the Twilight” 1885)
“Then Samuel took a stone, and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and
called the named of it ‘Ebenezer’, saying, Hitherto hath the
Lord helped us!” 1 Samuel 7:12
What a retrospect will that be at the end of life’s journey! The rough paths,
the jagged precipices, the valleys of humiliation — all will be seen to have
been bathed in the luminous light of God’s love and wisdom. There will be
nothing more but to erect earth’s farewell monument, and to carve
upon it, “Ebenezer!“
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.!” Romans 8:28
A medicine essential for our spiritual health and happiness!
(Isaiah 51:12), “I, even
I, am He who comforts you!”
How does God comfort us? Suppose you are in some great trouble – how will God
comfort you?
God comforts us by showing us the necessity of that trouble.
Do you ever think of this: that there is NO CHANCE? Not a pang can pierce the
heart of His redeemed child, for which there is not a needs-be!
Not an ache can gnaw the frame;
not a grief can pierce the heart;
not a shadow can darken the soul,
which is not permitted because there was a needs-be!
It is comfort to know that no affliction is random, that no
bereavement is by accident – but that each is sent because
it was a medicine essential for our spiritual
health and happiness. Thus God comforts us.
God comforts us in affliction, by revealing to us what is the source of
trouble. We are told that not a trouble can befall us
that has not been first in God’s bosom; that not a tear can
start in the eye that He has not first planned, and estimated, and weighed, and
pronounced to be expedient for us.
Admit for one moment, that CHANCE is the parent of your troubles – that accident is
the author of your bereavements – and what a gloomy place must this world be!
What a sad heart must the mourner’s be! What an unhappy man must the victim of
trouble be!But when we know that the blow that strikes the heaviest, is from
our Father’s hand; that the sorrow that pierces the heart with the keenest
agony, lay in His bosom before it received its mission to touch us –
then surely it is a truth, “I, even I, am He who comforts
you!” God comforts us by showing us the end of that
trouble. If the sorrows, bereavements, disappointments, griefs, secret and
open, had no end, and no grand object, and no
great purpose to accomplish – then they would be intolerable.
But He tells us, “Though no tribulation for the present seems joyous, but
grievous – yet afterwards it works out the peaceable fruits of righteousness to
those who are exercised thereby.” He tells us that, “Our light
afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding,
even an eternal weight of glory.” “And we know that God causes all
things to work together for good, to those
who love God, to those who are called according
to His purpose.”
And therefore the necessity, the source, and the end of
our troubles, revealed to us by God – take away the edge of them, and make at
least tolerable that which, if inexplicable, would be altogether intolerable.
Lastly, He will comfort us by delivering us from all our troubles, and
introducing us into a glorious rest –
more bright and beautiful than eye has seen, or ear has heard, or man’s heart
in its happiest imaginings has ever conceived!
John Cumming (1807-1881)
CHRIST, THE END OF THE LAW FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
Man may work from sun to sun,
But for those in Christ the work is done!
He rescued His sheep at His Father’s request
Caused them to lie down and gave them rest
In Him shall all nations of the Earth be blessed,
Christ, the end of the law for righteousness!
Man may work from sun to sun,
Yet merit nothing from the Holy One!
For the people of God Christ fulfilled the law,
Atoned for their sin and paid it all
In Him shall all nations of the Earth be blessed,
Christ, the end of the law for righteousness!
Man may work from sun to sun,
But God’s people count all their works as dung,
The work of Christ does their heart enthrall
They rejoice in their Savior, for He is all!
In Him shall all nations of the Earth be blessed,
Christ, the end of the law for righteousness!
Gregory Cooper
“The Heavens Do Rule
Daniel 4:26
Sooner or later God is going to make everyone see and acknowledge what he taught the proud king of Babylon – “THE HEAVENS DO RULE!” You may, in your great depth of imaginary wisdom, presume that you could run this world better than God does. Could not the Almighty easily put an end to sickness, poverty and war, crime and disease, famine, earthquakes and death? Indeed, he could. But God almighty will not be dictated to by us! Who are we to dare set ourselves up as instructors to the all-wise God? He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.”
1. GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS MYSTERIOUS (Rom. 11:33-36).His judgments are a great deep. His ways are past finding out. But I know this – God always has his way. His ways are not our ways. But his way is always right and best. We simply must not question his will, his ways, or his works.
2. GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS MINUTE (Matt. 10:30). “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Imagine that! So minute is the providence of God that he, before the world began, numbered and determined the hairs which would be on your head at every stage of your existence, from infancy to the grave! Divine providence is all inclusive! God rules everything, great and small, everywhere, and always! He is in control of all inanimate matter. He who created the world out of nothing, commanded a flood to drown all who lived upon the earth at one time. He divided the waters of the Red Sea with the wind. God caused the earth to swallow up the sons of Korah. He dried up the Jordan river to make a path for his people. He made the fiery furnace a cool fire for his servants. Our God has his way in the whirlwind and everywhere else! Our great God is in total control of all irrational creatures. The flies, frogs, and locusts came and went at the will of God. He prepared a great fish to swallow up his servant Jonah and carry him to Nineveh. He caused an ass to speak to Balaam and a rooster to crow on cue for Peter. “The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; his kingdom ruleth over all!” Our God and heavenly Father controls, (absolutely and totally), all rational creatures too. He controls all men and women everywhere, good and bad, in the good they do and in the evil they perform. All angels, all demons, and Satan himself are under the total control of our God. (Psa. 76:10; Isa. 14:24-27). Many have a lot of trouble with this. They do not understand that God truly is God, as fully in control of hell as he is in heaven, as totally in control of wickedness as of righteousness (Prov. 16:4, 33; 21:1; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28).
3. GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS GOOD! “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” All things work together for good to God’s elect eternally, spiritually, and collectively. Whatever God uses to accomplish the salvation of his people is good! At your leisure, read Psalm 107 again. There we are given a detailed view of God’s providence. “All things work together for good.” Our God is King in Heaven. And “the heavens do rule!” That is exactly as it should be.
Don Fortner
Walking dunghills!
from Spurgeon’s sermon, “EBENEZER!”
Brethren, let us Recollect Our Sins.
They will serve as a black foil on which the
mercy of God shall glisten the more brightly.
That God should be so good is marvellous, but that he should
be so good to you and to I, who are so rebellious, is a miracle
of miracles! I know not a word which can express the surprise
and wonder our souls ought to feel at God’s goodness to us!
Our hearts playing the harlot;
our lives far from perfect;
our faith so feeble,
our unbelief often prevailing;
our pride lifting up its accursed head;
our patience a poor sickly plant,
almost nipped by one night’s frost;
our courage little better than cowardice;
our love lukewarmness;
and our ardor but as ice.
Oh, my dear brethren, if we will but think what a mass of Sin we
are, if we will but reflect that we are after all, walking dunghills,
we should indeed be surprised that the sun of divine grace should
continue so perpetually to shine upon us, and that the abundance
of heaven’s mercy should be revealed in us.
It is the Lord’s rule to bring good out of evil,
and so to prove his wisdom and magnify his grace.
Hitherto!
(Charles Spurgeon)
“Then Samuel took a stone, and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and
called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, “Hitherto has
the Lord helped us.” 1 Samuel 7:12
The word “hitherto” seems like a hand pointing in the
direction of the past.
Twenty years or seventy, and yet, “hitherto the Lord has helped us!”
Through poverty and through wealth,
through sickness and through health,
at home and abroad,
on the land and on the sea,
in honour and in dishonour,
in perplexity and in joy,
in trial and in triumph,
in prayer and in temptation,
“Hitherto has the Lord helped us!”
We delight to look down a long avenue of trees. It is delightful to gaze from
end to end of the long vista, a sort of verdant temple, with its branching
pillars and its arches of leaves.
In the same way, look down the long aisles of your years, at the
green boughs of mercy overhead, and the strong pillars of loving-kindness and
faithfulness which bear up your joys. Are there no birds in yonder branches
singing? Surely there must be many, and they all sing of mercy received
“hitherto.”
But the word hitherto also points forward. For
when a man gets up to a certain mark and writes “hitherto,” he is not
yet at the end, there is still a distance to be traversed.
More trials and more joys;
more temptations and more triumphs;
more prayers and more answers;
more toils and more strength;
more fights and more victories;
and then come sickness, old age, disease and death!
Is it over now?
No! there is more yet:
awakening in Jesus’ likeness,
glorious thrones,
heavenly harps and songs,
white clothing,
the face of Jesus,
the society of saints,
the glory of God,
the fullness of eternity,
the infinity of bliss!
O be of good courage, believer, and with grateful confidence raise your
“Ebenezer,” for He who has helped you hitherto-will help you all your
journey through! When read in Heaven’s light, how glorious and marvellous a
prospect will your “hitherto” unfold to your grateful eye!
Life is like a painted
dream!
(Octavius Winslow, “This God is Our God”)
“For this God is our God forever and ever: He will be our guide even unto
death.” Psalm 48:14
“The world passes away.”
Everything here in this present world is changing.
“Life is like a painted dream,
Like the rapid summer stream,
Like the fleeting meteor’s ray,
Like the shortest winter’s day,
Like the fitful breeze that sighs,
Like the waning flame that dies,
Darting, dazzling on the eye,
Fading in eternity.”
A rope of sand,
a spider’s web,
a silken thread,
a passing shadow,
an ebbing wave,
are the most fitting and expressive emblems of all things belonging to this
present time’s state.
The homes that sheltered us in childhood we leave.
The land which gave us birth we leave.
Thelovedoneswho encircled
our hearths pass away.
The friends of early years depart.
And the world that was so sunny, and life that was so sweet, is all beclouded
and embittered; the whole scenery of existence changed into wintry gloom.
Such are the saddening, depressing effects of life’s vicissitudes.
But in the midst of all, “This God is our God FOREVER AND EVER!”
All beings change, but God.
All things change, but Heaven.
The evolutions of time revolve, the events of earth go onward-but He upon whom
all things hang, and by whom all events are shaped and controlled, moves not.
“I, the Lord, do not change.”
Our affairs may alter.
Our circumstances may change.
Our relations and friends may depart one by
one.
Our souls in a single day pass through many fluctuations of
spiritual feeling.
But He who chose us to be His own, and who has kept us to the present
moment, is our covenant God and Father forever and ever, and will
never throw us off and cast us away.
“For this God is our God forever and ever-He will be our guide even to the
end!” Psalm 48:14
So mighty — yet so
loving!
(John MacDuff, “Ripples in the Twilight” 1885)
What a wonderful Saviour! So mighty — yet so loving!
Spurning, indeed, all baseness and vileness, all mere lip-homage and
hypocrisy.
Upsetting all false human ideals and empty philosophies.
At war with conventional empty religious rituals.
Denouncing every white-washed sepulcher that serves only to screen spiritual
rottenness.
But welcoming . . .
many of those who were looked at askance by their fellows;
some who were the subjects of social ostracism;
those deemed fit only to be trampled, as bruised battered flowers,
underneath the feet;
the repentant harlot and sinner, the prodigal, the outcast, the lost.
His heart is a very hive of tenderness . . .
washing His disciples’ feet in token of humility;
standing by the grave of buried affection;
wiping away the tear of bereavement;
calming the paroxysms of untold sorrow;
arrested by the penitential sighings of the contrite spirit.
In a word, imparting . . .
rest to the weary and heavy-laden,
hope to the desponding,
sympathy to the mourner,
healing to the brokenhearted; and
finally showing, in the scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary which
crowned that Incarnation of suffering love — what He the
Divine Man could do and dare for perishing sinners.
The kindness of the kindest on earth has a limit — His had
none.
Human affection and love may come and go — but His flows on forever!
“Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with
lovingkindness have I drawn you!” Jeremiah 31:3