Oct 26
11
The dying love of the Lamb!
(the following is by Don Fortner)
Nothing in all the universe is more wonderful and magnificent in the eyes of God than the death of his dear Son.
Never did the Father more fully love his Son than when he was heaping upon him the fury of his wrath.
The death of our Lord Jesus Christ is the most wonderful, astounding, magnificent event in the history of the universe. Nothing that is, has been, or shall hereafter be, can be compared to it.
He was suffering the wrath of God, bearing the sins of his people, dying as the voluntary Substitute for guilty, hell deserving, hell bent sinners such as we are.
Redeemed sinners on the earth cherish nothing, delight in nothing, marvel at nothing, like we do the death of our Lord Jesus Christ for us.
The ransomed in glory appear to think of nothing and speak of nothing except the dying love of the Lamb in the midst of the throne.
May we become so totally consumed with the crucified Christ, that our hearts, our lives, every fibre of our souls may be constantly dominated
by the death of Christ as our sin atoning Saviour!
A man is never so fit for believing as when he is most unfit. It is unfitness, not fitness that is really required. What is fitness for being washed? Filth! What is fitness for receiving pardon? Guilt! If you are filthy, if you guilty, you have all the fitness that is required. So, come and find in Jesus Christ all that meets your greatest need.
~Charles Spurgeon
This tyrant wields a universal sway!
(Henry Law, “Numbers” 1858)
“For the wages of sin is DEATH, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23
DEATH!
The very sound falls heavily.
What mind can lightly think of it?
What eye unmoved can see it?
The limbs, once full of vigour, stir no more.
Sinews, once elastic in activity, become rigid.
The form, so wondrous in its mechanism,
becomes an inert mass.
The features, once the reflecting mirror of
ten thousand thoughts, are marble monotony.
The vessel, once so proudly merry,
lies a deserted wreck.
The fabric, once so sparkling in beauty,
is a deserted ruin.
DEATH! It is more than animation fled.
Decay draws near, with a polluting touch.
Corruption fastens on its prey.
The friends, most dotingly attached, cannot
but turn loathingly away. A stern necessity
requires, that offensive remains be buried
out of sight.
Reader, here pause and meditate.
This death is pressing at your heels!
It soon will lay you low.
Your weeping friends will hide you in the dust.
A forgetting world will go on merrily,
as though you had not been.
Say, do you joyfully await its touch?
Can you feel, “Death comes as with friendly
hand to open the cage door–that my freed
spirit may fly to its high home?”
Remember, you cannot escape.
This tyrant wields a universal sway!
But in what cradle is DEATH born? Whence
is it armed with that destroying scythe?
DEATH is transgression’s child. Sin is the
womb which bore it. A sinless world would
have been deathless bloom. But the world
is sinful, and therefore is an open tomb.
This earth is one charnel house.
This is a humbling truth. But in this very
darkness there is light. We are not left
bereft of remedy.
The unclean may be cleansed.
All stains may vanish.
There is a fountain opened for all soul filth.
There is full help for foulest need. Where sin
abounds, sin’s cure exceeds. Where pollution
spreads its wide pall, the Savior brings His
wider covering.
“For the wages of sin is DEATH, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23
Weak and helpless and burdened
(John MacDuff, “Family Prayers” 1885)
We come, weak and helpless and burdened, to that cross where alone there is shelter and peace for the guilty. We take refuge anew at the foot of
Your cross, bringing our infinite unworthiness to Your infinite merit and all-sufficiency. Wash us, blessed Saviour, in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. Receive us graciously. Love us freely. Preserve against the world’s snares, and dangers, and temptations. May Your love exercise a paramount influence over us.
Wash me, gracious Lord!
(John MacDuff 1856)
O my God, I desire to approach the footstool of Your throne of grace. Glory be to Your holy name that I can enjoy freedom of access into Your presence, and with the confidence of Your child, unburden and unbosom to You . . .
all my needs and sins,
all my sorrows and infirmities,
all my perplexities and cares.
Lord, how unworthy I am of the least of all Your mercies! What righteous cause have You to cut me down as a cumberer of the ground. How cold my love, how infrequent my prayers! How full is my heart, of pride and vain-glory, self and sin! How little have I habitually realised Your nearness, and sought Your favor as my chief good! There is enough of coldness and formality in my best approaches to Your footstool, to lead You in Your wrath to spurn me forever away!
Let me see all my sin in the light of Calvary’s cross!
I cast myself as a worthless unworthy sinner, at the feet of Jesus. I need daily, hourly washing at that fountain which He has opened for sin and for uncleanness. Wash me, gracious Lord-fully, freely, and forever! Let me know the blessedness of “no condemnation.” I come with all thegreat burden of mygreat guilt-to mygreat Saviour! I seek to bring the unrighteousness of an unworthy creature, to the infinite righteousness and everlasting faithfulness of my loving Redeemer.
You have borne with all my obstinacy, all my perverseness, and waywardness, and ingratitude. I am at this hour, the monument of a divine love-as wondrous, as it is undeserved.
Where would I have been, blessed Jesus-but for You!
All that I am, and all I have-I owe to Your free, sovereign, unmerited grace!
Whom have I in Heaven but You-and there is none in all the earth I desire besides You. You alone can fill up the aching voids of my heart. In vain can I look to a transient world, or to the perishable creature-for solid peace and permanent enjoyment. You are the only refuge for my sin-stricken, woe-worn spirit.
I rejoice in the inexhaustible riches treasured up in You-that Your fullness is adequate to supply all my necessities; and out of that fullness I may still continue receiving, and that forever and ever!
“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Titus 2:14.
There is no victory, over the indwelling power of sin, and there is no pardon for the guilt of sin, but as the soul deals with the blood of Christ. The great end of our dear Lord’s death was to destroy the works of the devil. Sin is the great work of Satan. To overcome this, to break its power, subdue its dominion, repair its ruins, and release from its condemnation, the blessed Son of God suffered the ignominious death of the cross. All that bitter agony which He endured- all that mental suffering- the sorrow of His soul in the garden- the sufferings of His body on the cross- all was for sin. See, then, the close and beautiful connection between the death of Christ, and the death of sin. All true sanctification comes through the cross. Reader, seek it there. The cross brought into your soul by the eternal Spirit will be the death of your sins. Go to the cross- oh, go to the cross of Jesus. In simplicity of faith, go. With the strong corruption, go. With the burden of guilt, go, go to the cross. You will find nothing but love there- nothing but welcome there- nothing but purity there. The precious blood of Jesus “cleanses us from all sin.” And while you are kept low beneath the cross, your enemy dares not approach you, sin shall not have dominion over you, nor shall Satan, your accuser, condemn you.
Octavius Winslow
The more grace a man has,
the more he feels his deficiency of grace.
The best of men are but men at the best, and the brightest saints are still sinners, for whom there is still a fountain open, that even they may still continue, with all their lofty attainments, to wash therein, and to be clean.
Spurgeon, “Micah’s Message for Today”
February 23, 1849
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—It is a mercy amid all one’s coldness, deadness, and hardness sometimes to feel a little revival, and to be blessed in speaking of the Lord’s people. It encourages us to go on in spite of all opposition within and without. I think more of the value and blessedness of the preached gospel than I once did. It often stirs up prayer, shows where we have been wandering, revives the soul, points to Jesus and His precious blood, and encourages us to believe that where sin did and does abound, there grace does much more abound. And, I believe, where the preached gospel is little valued, it arises from deadness and carnality. It is, I believe, a great mercy when the heart of the preacher is enlarged and his mouth opened to set forth the truth as it is in Jesus, and the ear and heart of the people enlarged and opened to receive and feel it. It will detect many snares, make the soul cry at times, “Search me, O Lord, and try me,” and give now and then a little strength to fight against besetting sins and temptations, as well as lead the poor soul at times to the fountain once opened for all sin and uncleanness. I once thought I really would get better before I died; more holy and pure, and strong and spiritual. But I find that these things are only at times and seasons, as the Lord is pleased to work in the soul to will and to do of His good pleasure; and that left to ourselves we are, and ever shall be, sinners of the deepest and blackest dye.
But religion and experience, and all that regards the work of grace in the soul will ever be a mystery; and we not only can know only just as much as we are divinely taught, but seem only then to know it when under the feelings and influences. I can recollect having seen and felt such and such things, and may, perhaps, be able to describe them; but how different this is from being under their power and influence. Then they seem to be really known, and only really then. . .
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. Philpot.
Were it no bigger than a child’s doll
“From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” Ezekiel 36:25
Idolatry takes a wide range. There are ‘respectable’ idols and ‘vulgar’ idols—just as there are marble statues, and other objects of worship made up of shells and feathers. And yet each will still be an idol. Respectable idols we can admire—vulgar idols we detest. But an idol is an idol—however respectable, or however vulgar—however admired, or however despised they may be.
But O how numerous are these respectable idols! Love of money, ambition, craving after human applause, desire to rise in the world—all these we may think are natural desires that may be lawfully gratified. But O, what idols may they turn out to be!
But there are more secret and more dangerous idols. You may have a husband, or wife, or child—whom you love almost as much as yourself—you bestow upon this idol of yours all the affections of your heart. Nothing is too good for it, nothing too dear for it. You don’t see how this is an idol. But, whatever you love more than God, whatever you worship more than God, whatever you crave for more than God, is an idol. It may lurk in the chambers of imagery—you may scarcely know how fondly you love it. But let God take that idol out of your bosom—let Him pluck that idol from its niche—and you will then find how you have allowed your affections to wander after that idol and loved it more than God Himself.
It is when the idol is taken away—removed—dethroned—that we learn what an idol it has been. How we hug and embrace our idols! How we cleave to them! How we delight in them! How we bow down to them! How we seek gratification from them! How little are we aware what affections entwine around them—how little are we aware that they claim what God has reserved for Himself when He said, “My son, give me your heart.”
Many a weeping widow learns for the first time that her husband was an idol. Many a mourning husbandlearns for the first time how too dearly, how too fondly, how too idolatrously he loved his wife. Many a man does not know how dearly he loves money until he incurs some serious loss. Many do not know how dearly they hold name, fame, and reputation until some slanderous blight seems to touch that tender spot. Few indeed seem to know how dear SELF is, until God takes it out of its niche and sets Himself there in its room. Self, pride, reputation, the love of money, the love of name and fame—these idols you cannot take with you into the courts of heaven.How would God be moved to jealousy if you could you carry an idol—were it no bigger than a child’s doll—into the courts above! “From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.”
J.C.Philpot