Studying Bible Characters

Posted on September 10, 2021 by The Editor

Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11-13

Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): The study of the men and women of the Bible has been to me one of the most intense interest. The ways of God with different men, in different periods, and under different circumstances, yet always revealing the same wisdom, love and power, have filled me with wonder and with praise.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I have sometimes heard very foolish professors speak slightingly of the historical parts of Scripture. Remember that the historical books were almost the only Scriptures possessed by the early saints; and from those they learned the mind of God.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): There is nothing new about this condition of ours; one of the central fallacies of today is to think that we have an entirely new problem. This creeps into the life and the thinking of Church with all the talk about the post-war world, scientific age, atomic age, post-Christian era, etc. It is just nonsense; it is not new at all. God does not change—and man does not change; he is exactly what he has always been ever since he fell and has the same problems.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Christians stand in the same relation to Him now, as the Jews of old. And are we better than they? In no wise. And were not God’s dealings with them designed to be typical of His dealings with us? They were: and in reading their history, we may peruse our own.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: When you read about these characters in the Old Testament, David and so on, you’re not reading a history book, you’re reading about yourself. You say, “That’s me! It’s all very well; it looks terrible in David, but I’ve got that sort of thing in me.”

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): The study of Scripture characters is very instructive: for, in them, we see human nature in all its diversified conditions, not artificially delineated by a brilliant fancy or warm imagination, but as really existing, and exhibited to our view—because, in presenting real scenes, they bring before us circumstances of daily occurrence, or which, at least, are well adapted to show us how to act, when such circumstances do occur.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Biography is a species of history peculiarly interesting and useful. And in this the Bible excels. The sacred writers describe to the very life. They fear no displeasure; they conceal no imperfection; they spare no censure. And while they discover their impartiality, they equally prove their wisdom and prudence. This appears from the examples they delineate. And the sacred writers always show their impartiality. They always record things just as they occurred, regardless of consequences; their only aim is truth.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In the unrivalled honesty of its penmen we have yet another evidence that they wrote by Divine inspiration…The Holy Spirit has painted the portraits of Scripture characters in the colours of nature and truth. He has given a faithful picture of the human heart such as is common to all mankind.

ROBERT HALDANE (1764-1842): In those histories, the thoughts and secret motives of men are often unfolded.

RICHARD STEELE (1629-1692): Histories, which are the more instructive, as they not only relate the external actions of men, but the internal motives from whence the actions proceeded, free from all fiction and falsehood.

WILLIAM JAY: Here we are led into private life; we contemplate ordinary scenes; we see goodness in our own relations and circumstances; we behold blemishes which we are to avoid, excellencies which we are to pursue, advantages which we are to acquire.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: A wise man always learns from the mistakes of others—he sees a man going to disaster, and he asks, “Well, what exactly did that man do that he should not have done? Where did he go wrong, where did he make a mistake? Ah,” he says, “it was at this or that point. Very well, I am going to watch that point.” Now that is wisdom…We can learn, and learn tremendously, from the Old Testament. Let us make use of it, let us read it, let us take it in; and it will make us strong. As we see warnings, and the dangers, we are strengthened, we are on guard, and we are ready to quit ourselves as men.

D. L. MOODY: As I have been studying some Bible characters that illustrate humility, I have been ashamed of myself—when I put my life beside the life of some of these men, I say, “Shame on the Christianity of the present day.” If you want to get a good idea of yourself, look at some of the Bible characters that have been clothed with meekness and humility, and see what a contrast is your position before God and man.

WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): Incidentally, we obtain here a lesson on the interpretation of Scripture. Some would confine themselves to the leading facts and principles, setting aside as unimportant whatever pertains merely to the manner of the communication.

JOHN WYCLIFFE (1330-1384): It shall greatly help to understand Scripture if thou mark, not only what is spoken or written, but of whom, to whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, and with what circumstances, considering what goes before and what follows afterwards.

ROBERT HALDANE: In the Scriptures there are many things which, considered only in themselves, appear to be of no value, or, at least, of very little importance; but in reality the Bible contains nothing superfluous.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Compare Scripture with Scripture.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): There is such a harmony in Divine truth, that a proper view of any one branch of it will lead on to a discovery of others.*

C. H. SPURGEON: Let us learn to read our Bibles with our eyes open, to study them as men do the works of great artists, studying each figure and each sweet variety of light and shade.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: We know nothing yet as we ought, we are but beginners, paddlers on the very edge of this mighty, boundless ocean of truth.

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*Editor’s Note: This week I received a personal reminder of the truth of Andrew Fuller’s comment, when I was looking at the last two incidents of Elijah’s public ministry after God humbled him on Mount Horeb. That day on the mountain, it seemed that Elijah had not yet fully grasped the lesson that God wanted him to learn (see last week’s post). But until this week, I did not understand how the next two incidents related to what happened on Mount Horeb in God’s personal dealings with Elijah.

In the first subsequent incident, 1 Kings 21:28,29, after Elijah delivered a message from God to Ahab, the LORD specifically asked Elijah: “Seest how Ahab humbleth himself before Me?” Then, in a demonstration of James 4:6, God deferred His judgment upon Ahab until the days of Ahab’s son. In the second incident, 2 Kings 1-17, God again demonstrated that same point on humility to Elijah: in judgment, God sent fire from heaven upon two captains sent by Ahab’s son; but, in grace, after witnessing the humility of the third captain, God withheld that fire.

In grace, God deferred the judgment He had made upon Elijah (1 Kings 19:16), and Elijah continued in his prophetic office for some time. Then, after this incident, Elijah was taken up to heaven in a “chariot of fire,” and Elisha took up the ministry in Elijah’s stead, 2 Kings 2:11-13.

 

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Elijah & Obadiah

Posted on September 3, 2021 by The Editor

1 Kings 18:5,7-16

And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts…And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah?

And he answered him, I am: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here.

And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the LORD shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the LORD from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the LORD, how I hid an hundred men of the LORD’s prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me.

And Elijah said, As the LORD of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely shew myself unto him to day. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Obadiah’s godliness was recognized by the believers of the day. I feel sure of that, because he said to Elijah, “Was it not told my lord how I hid the Lord’s Prophets?” Obadiah was a little astonished that somebody had not told the Prophet about his deed. Though his act may have been concealed from Jezebel and the Baalites, it was well known among the servants of the living God. It was whispered among them that they had a friend at court—therefore, the Prophets of God felt secure in giving themselves up to his care. They knew that he would not betray them to bloodthirsty Jezebel.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): Had not Obadiah greatly feared the Lord, he would not have been able to do this, especially as the case stood with him, and the church, for Jezebel sought to slay all that feared the Lord—Obadiah ventured her displeasure, his place, and neck, and all; and the persecution prevailed so much, that even Elijah thought that she had killed all but himself.

C. H. SPURGEON: I suspect that Elijah did not think very much of Obadiah. He does not treat him with any great consideration, but addresses him more sharply than one would expect from a fellow believer. Elijah seems to ignore Obadiah as if he were of small account in the great struggle. I suppose it was because this Prophet of fire and thunder, this mighty servant of the Most High, set small store by anybody who did not come to the front and fight like he did.

WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): Judgment characterizes Elijah’s ministry.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A judgmental attitude is clearly evident in Elijah’s curt manner to Obadiah, as if Elijah thought that Obadiah was trying to serve two masters. When Obadiah falls on his face before him, saying, “Art thou my lord Elijah,” Elijah replies coldly, “I am. Go tell thy lord—Behold, Elijah is here.” Surely Obadiah recognized the tone of rebuke in Elijah’s words, because he asks, “What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me?” Then Elijah abruptly dismissed Obadiah by swearing a personal oath to quiet his fears.

WILLIAM N. TOMKINS (1839-1918): Was it wrong of Obadiah to wish not to throw away his life needlessly?

C. H. SPURGEON: Elijah must not deal harshly with Obadiah.

WILLIAM KELLY: He was equally, if not more careful of his own life.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Later, after Elijah slew all Baal’s prophets at Kishon, he told Ahab to get his chariot down from Mount Carmel before the rain stopped him.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): “And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab’s chariot to the entrance of Jezreel,” 1 Kings 18:44-46. In this instance the “hand of the Lord” communicated supernatural strength and fleetness of foot to the Prophet, so that he covered the eighteen miles so swiftly as to overtake and pass the chariot—God then withdrew His strength for the moment, that Elijah might be seen in his native weakness.

EDITOR’S NOTE: When Jezebel sent a message threatening Elijah’s life, his courage instantly deserted him; he fled to the wilderness, and lay under a juniper bush in despair. After an angel strengthened him with “a cake baken on the coals and a cruse of water,” he fled to Mount Horeb: “And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there.” 1 Kings 19:1-9.

J. A. VON POSECK (1816-1896): Was this the place for a prophet of God?

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Obadiah hid them in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.

A. W. PINK: “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?” Elijah had turned aside from the path of duty, and his Master knew it.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): That question, “What doest thou here?” can scarcely be freed from a tone of rebuke. A true answer would have been, “I was afraid of Jezebel.”

J. A. VON POSECK: And what was the prophet’s reply to the heart-searching question of his divine Master? Does he humble himself, confessing his want of faithfulness, courage, and faith? No. His language is that of self-elevation and accusing others—Elijah says, “I have been very jealous for Jehovah, the God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away,” 1 Kings 19:10.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: He forgets the national acknowledgment of Jehovah at Mount Carmel, 1 Kings 18:39; and the hundred prophets protected by good Obadiah.

WILLIAM KELLY: Besides those, there were seven thousand known to God who had not bowed the knee to Baal…Elijah was then instructed to “go forth” from the cave where he had retreated, and stand on the mount before the Lord.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): “And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice,” 1 Kings 19:11,12. These first terrible apparitions might well be to humble the prophet, and to prepare him to hearken more heedfully to the still small voice, and to whatsoever God should say unto him, who could have confounded him, but is content to deal more gently with him: accounting the execution of “judgment”—set forth here by these dreadful representations—“his work, his strange work,” Isaiah 29:21.

C. H. SPURGEON: God will repeat his questions to His people if they have not due effect the first time, for He is very tender, and pitiful, and patient.

J. A. VON POSECK: Again, that voice of longsuffering grace spoke, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” It was the same voice that said in Paradise, “Adam, where art thou?” Alas! Again we hear the same lamentable reply, “I have been very zealous, etc.—and I, even I only am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”—The prophet had learned little or nothing.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): “Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are,” James 5:17—naturally as weak and sinful as we are.

WILLIAM KELLY: God, who is as faithful in discipline as in grace, bids Elijah anoint another in his place.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: God is no respecter of persons.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): It is evident that from this time of faith’s failure, Elijah was largely set aside. Only once or twice again does he appear.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,” Matthew 7:1,2. We see how all flatter themselves, and every man passes a severe censure on others—yet by our own fault we draw upon ourselves that very thing which our nature so strongly detests, for which of us is there, who does not examine too severely the actions of others?

 

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Obadiah’s Fear of God

Posted on August 27, 2021 by The Editor

1 Kings 18:12; 1 Kings 18:3,4

I thy servant fear the LORD from my youth.

And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly: For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)

WILLIAM N. TOMKINS (1839-1918): Obadiah was the governor of Ahab’s house, a king who did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him! But as if to guard our minds against entertaining unworthy thoughts about Obadiah, the Holy Spirit is careful to tell us, “Now Obadiah feared Jehovah greatly.” We may well, therefore, pause before we pass judgment on him, for “the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments,” Psalm 111:10.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): How could he and some other Israelites be said to fear the Lord, when they did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, as God had commanded?

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): God bore with him, though he hazarded not his life and liberty for the legal ceremonies.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Though he did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, which ceremonial service was dispensed with in him, yet he did not worship the calves, nor Baal, but served the Lord.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): We may be sure it was not made necessary to qualify him for preferment that he should be of the king’s religion, that he should conform to the “statutes of Omri,” or the “law of the house of Ahab.” Obadiah would not have accepted the place if he could not have had it without bowing the knee to Baal, nor was Ahab so impolitic as to exclude those from offices that were fit to serve him, merely because they would not join with him in his devotions. That man that is true to his God will be faithful to his prince.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): There is nothing wrong in a child of God holding a position of influence if he can do so without the sacrifice of principle. Indeed, it may enable him to render valuable service to the cause of God. Obadiah was undoubtedly in a most difficult and dangerous position, yet so far from bowing his knee to Baal, he was instrumental in saving the lives of many of God’s servants.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): He was a sincere and zealous worshipper of the true God, and his conduct towards the persecuted prophets was a full proof both of his piety and humanity.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Few great men are good men, and in a corrupt court, piety is not to be expected: yet God has His chosen ones in the worst times and most dangerous places.

JOHN TRAPP: Such as was also Jacob to Laban, Joseph to Pharaoh, Naaman to Benhadad, Mordecai to Ahashuerus, and Nehemiah to Artaxerxes.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): We cannot but notice that every man of God spoken of in the Bible was a man of prayer.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): But the house of the wicked Ahab, and his still more wicked consort Jezebel, must have been a painful school for the righteous soul of Obadiah.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): He must have had to walk very delicately and watch his words most carefully. He came to be extremely prudent and looked on things round about so as neither to compromise his conscience nor jeopardize his position. It took an uncommonly wise man to do that…Obadiah’s religion was intense within him—it dwelt deep within his soul and others knew it. Jezebel knew it, I have no doubt whatever. She did not like him, but she had to endure him; she could not dislodge him. Ahab had learned to trust him and could not do without him…Possibly Ahab liked to retain him just to show Jezebel that he could be obstinate if he liked and was still a man! I have noticed that the most yielding husbands like to indulge in some notion that they are not quite governed by their spouses.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: What Obadiah did for the Lord was done by stealth. He was afraid to act openly and decidedly; yet “He took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.” This was a most precious token of devotedness of heart to the Lord—a blessed triumph of divine principle over the most untoward circumstances.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): What was it that moved so upon his heart, as to cause him to do this thing? Why, it was this blessed grace of the fear of God—yea, had he not greatly feared him, he would not have been able to do this thing. Every saint fears the Lord, but every saint does not greatly fear Him. O, there are but few Obadiahs in the world, among the saints on earth—So it was with Job, “There is none like him in the earth, one that feareth God,” Job 1:8. There was even none in Job’s day that feared God like him in all the earth, but doubtless there were more in the world that feared God; but this fearing of him greatly, in that he did outstrip his fellows. It is also said of Hananiah, that “he was a faithful man, and feared God above many,” Nehemiah 7:2.

MATTHEW HENRY: Obadiah “feared the Lord from his youth.” He began early to be religious and had continued long. Early piety, it is to be hoped, will be eminent piety.

C. H. SPURGEON: Obadiah, with his early grace and persevering decision, became a man of eminent piety. Nor was he carried away by the fashion of those evil times. To be a servant of Jehovah was thought to be a mean thing, old-fashioned, ignorant—a thing of the past. The worship of Baal was the “modern thought” of the hour. All the court walked after the god of Sidon and all the courtiers went in the same way. But Obadiah told Elijah, “I, thy servant, have feared Jehovah from my youth,” 1 Kings 18:12.

WILLIAM N. TOMKINS: Let us admire the grace that could maintain the man in such a king’s palace.

A. W. PINK: Though surrounded by so many temptations he preserved his integrity.

C. H. SPURGEON: To continue gracious during a long life of temptation is to be gracious, indeed! Obadiah was not even affected by the absence of the means of grace. The priests and Levites had fled into Judah and the Prophets had been killed or hidden away—there was no public worship of Jehovah in Israel! He had no opportunity of hearing anything that could strengthen him, yet he held on his way. I wonder how long some professors would keep up their profession if there were no places of worship, no Christian associations, no ministrations of the Word? But this man’s fear of the Lord was so deep that the absence of that which is usually needed for the sustenance of piety did not cause him to decline. Indeed, this is a wonder of grace!

JOHN BUNYAN: Now then, seeing this grace admits of degrees, and is in some stronger, and in some weaker, let us all be awakened to this grace also. That like as you abound in everything—in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.

 

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The Wisdom of Ants

Posted on August 20, 2021 by The Editor

Proverbs 30:25; Proverbs 6:6-11

The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The ant is a remarkable creature for foresight, industry, and economy.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): What is weaker than an ant? a multitude of them may be destroyed at once, with the crush of a foot—“yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” What diligence and industry it uses in providing its food; which, though a small, weak, feeble creature, yet will travel over flints and stones, climb trees, enter into towers, barns, cellars, places high and low, in search of food; prepare little cells to put their provisions in, which are so built as to secure them from rain.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Ants are very industrious in gathering proper food, and have a strange sagacity to do it in the summer, the proper time. This is so great a piece of wisdom that we may learn of them to be wise.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): “Consider her ways, and be wise.” Let us be so, but especially in spirituals.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): If you would know a sluggard in the things of heaven, compare him with one that is slothful in the things of this world: He that is slothful is loath to set about the work he should follow: so is he that is slothful for heaven. He that is slothful is one that is willing to make delays: so is he that is slothful for heaven. He that is a sluggard, any small matter that cometh in between, he will make it a sufficient excuse to keep him off from plying his work: so it is also with him that is slothful for heaven. He that is slothful doth his work by the halves; and so it is with him that is slothful for heaven. He may almost, but he shall never altogether obtain perfection of deliverance from hell; he may almost, but he shall never, without he mend, be altogether a saint.

MATTHEW HENRY: The more a slothful temper is indulged the more it prevails.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): A quickening sermon do these little insects preach to us! They make preparation for the coming winter. Improve, after this pattern, the summer and harvest season—the time of youth, the present, perhaps the only moment.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Dream not of a more convenient season, lest that season never arrive. Procrastination is the ruin of thousands—of millions. It is Satan’s grand device for keeping you from God.

MATTHEW HENRY: The advantages which we have of learning this lesson above what the ant has, will aggravate our slothfulness and neglect if we idle away our time.

CHARLES BRIDGES: The ant hath “no guide.” But how many guides have you? Conscience—the Bible—ministers! She has “no overseer.” You are living before Him, whose “eyes are as a flame of fire,” Proverbs 15:3; Revelation 1:14. She has no “ruler” calling her to account. But “every one of us must give account of himself unto God,” Romans 14:12. What must be the thoughtlessness of making no provision for the coming eternity! “How long then wilt thou sleep, O Sluggard?” is the solemn remonstrance of thy God.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): This procrastination is irrational.

WILLIAM MASON (1719-1791): If we put off repentance another day, we have a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in.

THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661): You cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late.

JOHN BUNYAN: They that are slothful, do usually lose the season in which things are to be done: and thus it is also with them that are slothful for heaven, they miss the season of grace.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Nothing is so dangerous as procrastination: how many souls have perished, by putting off to a more convenient season what present duty required!

CHARLES SIMEON: With multitudes who once heard the word of reconciliation, the day of grace is passed: they are now gone into that world where offers of mercy are never sent. And how soon may this be the case with you! Many who, but year ago, were as likely to live as you, have been summoned into the presence of their God in the past year; and many who are now in health will, before another year, be called to follow them: but who they shall be we know not: the young and vigorous have no more security than the weak and sickly: it is of the present hour only that we can speak with any measure of certainty; and it is of that only that we can say, “It is the day of salvation.”

F. W. KRUMMACHER (1796-1868): “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” So spake the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, to the thousands of Israel, Psalm 95:7,8; and again, by the apostle, to the Christian church, Hebrews 3:15; and let us, dear brethren, seriously lay these words to heart.

CHARLES SIMEON: It is possible that you may still be preserved in life, and the Gospel be yet sounding in your ears, and your day of salvation may have actually already come to a close. We may, by our obstinate rejection of mercy, provoke God to withdraw his Holy Spirit, who alone can make those offers effectual for our good. He has said, “my Spirit shall not always strive with man,” Genesis 6:3. And when He sees us obstinately bent on our own evil ways, He may say of us, as He did of Israel of old, “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone,” Hosea 4:17. He has given us many awful warnings on this subject, see Proverbs 1:23-33; and fearful examples of the judgment actually inflicted—see Hebrews 3:11,18,19 and Luke 14:24. Surely, this should lead us all to “seek the Lord  whilst he may be found, and to call upon him whilst he is near,” Isaiah 55:6.

JOHN BUNYAN: What shall I say? Time runs; and will you be slothful?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It seems but yesterday that the rivers were locked in ice. Soon we saw the flowers peeping up from the soil and now we have reached midsummer—and shall soon be looking for the appointed weeks of harvest! And it will not be long before winter will be here again.

CHARLES BRIDGES: Can you bear the thought of that desponding cry of eternal remorse, Jeremiah 8:20—“The harvest is passed; the summer is ended—and I am not saved?”

JOHN BUNYAN: Your souls are worth a thousand worlds; and will you be slothful? The day of death and judgment is at the door; and will you be slothful? The curse of God hangs over your heads; and will you be slothful? Besides, the devils are earnest, laborious, and seek by all means every day, by every sin, to keep you out of heaven, and hinder you of salvation; and will you be slothful? Your neighbours are diligent for things that will perish; and will you be slothful for things that will endure for ever?

CHARLES SIMEON: Go then to the ant, and learn wisdom of her.

 

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Systematic Bible Reading

Posted on August 13, 2021 by The Editor

Matthew 22:31; Luke 10:26

Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God?

How readest thou?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): There is grave reason to believe that much of the Bible reading and study of the last few years has been of no spiritual profit to those engaged in it—that this has been so is evident by the fruits produced.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): I am afraid that most Christian congregations nowadays do their systematic and prayerful study of the New Testament by proxy, and expect their ministers to read the Bible for them and to tell them what is there.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The causes of this deficiency of Scriptural knowledge are numerous and various. In many cases, the lack of a biblical education contributes to it…There is, with many, a more culpable cause; I mean a systematic neglect of the Scriptures. “What!” they exclaim, “will head knowledge do for us? we are for experience; experience is everything in religion.” What kind of experience that is, which is not founded on knowledge, I am at a loss to conceive! With such people, ignorance appears to be the mother of devotion.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is too seldom that people read the Bible. There certainly is not that reading of it that there used to be.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Reading the Bible is essential to the attainment of sound Christian knowledge.

BROWNLOW NORTH (1810-1875): Never neglect daily private Bible reading.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): I have found it good to appoint set times for reading the Scriptures; and none have been so profitable as part of the season appropriated to private devotions, as rising in the morning. The mind at this time is reinvigorated and unencumbered.

C. H. SPURGEON: Have you no time to read your Bible?

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Get up a quarter of an hour earlier and you will have time to read your Bible. It will be well worth the sacrifice, if it is a sacrifice.

THOMAS BRADBURY (1831-1905): You read your Bible every day, you say? Well! that is good so far as it goes.

J. C. RYLE: How do you read it?

A. W. PINK: No verse of Scripture yields its meaning to lazy people—it is only by carefully and earnestly searching the Scriptures, by a systematic and continuous pondering of them, that we can discover “all the counsel of God.”

J. C. RYLE: I fear there are many parts of the Word which some people never read at all. This is, to say the least, a very presumptuous habit. To this habit may be traced that want of broad, well-proportioned views of truth, which is so common in this day. Some people’s Bible reading is a system of perpetual dipping and picking. They do not seem to have an idea of regularly going through the whole book.

C. H. SPURGEON: Is there any part of what the Lord has written you have never read?

J. C. RYLE: Read all the Bible, and read it in an orderly way.

GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): It is of immense importance for the understanding of the Word of God, to read it in course, so that we may read every day a portion of the Old Testament, and a portion of the New Testament, going on where we previously left off. This is important because: It throws light upon the connection; and a different course or reading, according to which one habitually selects particular chapters, will make it utterly impossible to ever understand much of the Scriptures.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end; and, when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to Him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment. The course of reading today will prepare some lights for what we shall read tomorrow, and throw a farther light upon what we read yesterday. Experience only can prove the advantage of this method, if steadily persevered in.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I am afraid we do not read the Bible like that any longer, do we? We want just a little word to help us. We want a nice little thought to start the day. We just want something before we offer up our brief and hurried prayer, before we rush off.

J. C. RYLE: I believe it is by far the best plan to begin the Old and New Testaments at the same time—to read each straight through to the end, and then begin again. This is a matter in which every one must be persuaded in his own mind. I can only say it has been my own plan for nearly forty years, and I have never seen cause to alter it.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: I am a great advocate of schemes of Bible reading, but we have to be careful that in our use of such schemes we are not content just to read the portion for the day and then to rush off without thought and meditation. That can be quite profitless.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Beware of reading the Bible as a dead form—as a piece of religious routine.

J. C. RYLE: The mere formal reading of so many chapters as a task and duty, without a humble desire to be taught of God, is little better than a waste of time. Let us read our Bibles in private more, with more pains and diligence.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: It takes time to read Scripture properly. You must stop, and look, and think.

JOHN NEWTON: Join frequent assiduous reading with close and awakened meditation.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): We should read with a view to self-application—inquiring how it bears upon our own character and condition.

C. H. SPURGEON: Have we, any of us, omitted to do this? Let us begin at once.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.

GEORGE MÜLLER: It often astonishes me that I did not see the importance of meditation upon Scripture earlier in my Christian life.  As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man.  What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God—not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our own hearts…To read a part of Scriptures, previous to prayer, I have found to be very useful. As reading assists prayer, so prayer assists reading.

ANDREW FULLER: I have also felt the advantage of being able to pause, and think, as well as pray; and to inquire how far the subject is applicable to my case, and conduct in life.

THOMAS BROOKS: Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul.

 

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Christian Courage

Posted on August 6, 2021 by The Editor

Psalm 31:24; Joshua 23:11; Joshua 1:9

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.

Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): What is this Christian courage?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Courage is frequently thought of by some as the absence of fear in the presence of danger. By others it is seen as the act of bravery in spite of a sense of fear.

THOMAS MANTON: There is a great deal of difference between the courage of wicked men, and the faith and fortitude of good Christians.

SIMEON ASHE (1595-1662): The common nature of it is an undaunted audacity. This is common both unto men and to some brutes. The lion is said to be the strongest among beasts, that turneth not away from any, Proverbs 30:30. And there is an elegant description of the war horse in regard of boldness, Job 39:19-25.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): There is a boldness and intrepidity natural to the temper of some men, which make them easily undertake, and often achieve great things; which give them such assurance and reliance upon themselves, that they overlook the dangers and difficulties at which others stand nerveless and amazed.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): In this respect different persons differ very widely, even from their birth. Some appear to be constitutionally timid, mild, gentle, quiet, affectionate, and yielding; while others are bold, boisterous, restless, irritable, and obstinate—persons, who have such a temper, are not infrequently bold, resolute, and unyielding, and it is easy for them to be firm, zealous, and courageous in the cause of Christ; and they may easily mistake their constitutional courage for holy boldness and Christian zeal. But let them beware of this mistake.

THOMAS COKE: The courage of the Christian is very different from that of the natural man; it arises from other considerations, and is supported by other hopes and expectations. Glory and success are the proper incitements of human courage; reproach and afflictions are the necessary exercises of Christian fortitude.

THOMAS MANTON: There is military valour and Christian valour. The one consists in doing, the other in suffering, great things. Peter, at Christ’s death, had more of the military valour and fierceness than of the passive valour, for he that could venture on a band of men, was foiled by a damsel’s question.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Thus may persons who appear to set death and danger at defiance in the hour of battle, while they are animated by the examples of those around them, and instigated by a fear of the punishment or shame they would incur if they deserted their post. But upon a change of situation—as for instance, on a bed of sickness, they discover no traces of the heroism for which they were before applauded, but tremble at the leisurely approach of death, though they were thought to despise it under a different form.

THOMAS MANTON: The one dependeth on hastiness of temper, greatness of blood and spirits; the other upon faith and submission to God’s will.

SIMEON ASHE: Christian courage may thus be described. It is the undaunted audacity of a sanctified heart in adventuring upon difficulties and undergoing hardships for a good cause upon the call of God…Some conceive our English word “courage” to be derived from cordis actio, the very acting of the heart. A valiant man is described in 2 Samuel 17:10 to be a man whose heart is as the heart of a lion. And the original Hebrew translated as “courageous” in Amos 2:16, may most properly be rendered “a man of heart.” Beloved, valour doth not consist in a piercing eye, in a terrible look, in big words; but it consists in the mettle, the vigour that is within the bosom. Sometimes a coward may dwell at the sign of a roaring voice and of a stern countenance; whereas true fortitude may be found within his breast whose outward deportment promises little or nothing in that kind.

A. W. PINK: The word ‘courageous’ suggests more than bravery; it intimates that which makes one brave. The word in its various usages implies the confirmation of truth that produces strength of conviction.

SIMEON ASHE: Note the qualification: I said a sanctified heart; I am not now speaking of fortitude as a moral virtue, whereof heathens that have not God are capable, and for which many that are not Christians, have been worthily commended. I am speaking of courage as a theological virtue, as a gracious qualification upon the people of God by special covenant. And there are three things that characterize it, and which distinguish it from the moral virtue of fortitude. The root, whence it ariseth; the rule, whereby it is directed; and the end, to which it is referred.

THOMAS COKE: Christian courage and resolution arises from a sure trust in God, a fear of Him, and a perfect submission to His will.

SIMEON ASHE: The root, from whence it ariseth, is love to God: all the saints of God that love the Lord be of good courage. ‘The love of Christ constraineth me to make these bold and brave adventures,’ saith the apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 5:14. The rule, whereby it is directed, is the Word of God—what the Lord hath pleased to leave on record for a Christian’s guidance in holy pages. “Only the Lord give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God. Then shalt thou prosper, if thou takest heed to fulfil the statutes and judgments which the Lord charged Moses with concerning Israel: be strong, and of good courage: dread not, nor be dismayed,” I Chronicles 22:12,13. ‘Be a man of mettle, but let thy mettle be according to my mind, according to this rule.’ And the end, to which it refers, is God. For every sanctified man, being a self-denying and a God-advancing man, his God is his centre, wherein his actings, his undertakings rest; and his soul is not—yea, it cannot be satisfied but in God.

THOMAS MANTON: Stephen “being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,” Acts 7:55. It is spoken when the people gnashed on him with their teeth—then he was full of the Holy Ghost. There is the habit of fortitude, and the act of it when led on.

JOHN NEWTON: This greatness of mind is essential and peculiar to the character of the Christian—I mean the Christian who deserves the name. His ends are great and sublime, to glorify God, to obtain nearer communion with Him, and to advance in conformity to His holy will,—undisturbed and unwearied by difficulty, danger, or pain, and equally indifferent to the censure or scorn of incompetent judges.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Courage is the salt of character: put your fears in this brine. Have you the courage to profess unfashionable truth?

EDWARD PAYSON: Let them not conclude they have made much progress in the work of sanctification, until their zeal and boldness are guided by knowledge, tempered with gentleness, and prompted by love…When this is done, they will resemble their Master, who united in Himself the apparently inconsistent qualities of the lion and the lamb, the serpent and the dove—and will be of all Christians the most amiable, exemplary, and useful.

 

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One Woman’s Perceptive Garden Sign: Free Weeds, Pick Your Own

Posted on July 30, 2021 by The Editor

Proverbs 24:30-32; Luke 6:44; Song of Solomon 1:6

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction.

Of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.

Mine own vineyard have I not kept.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): The vineyard of the slothful man is not fuller of briars, nettles, and stinking weeds, than he that is slothful for heaven, who hath his heart full of heart-choking and soul-damning sin.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Our souls are our fields and vineyards, which we are every one of us to take care of, to dress, and to keep—and a great deal of care and pains it is requisite that we should take about them. These fields and vineyards are often in a very bad state, not only no fruit brought forth, but all overgrown with thorns and nettles—scratching, stinging, inordinate lusts and passions, pride, covetousness, sensuality, malice—those are the thorns and nettles, the wild grapes, which the unsanctified heart produces.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. “Can a fig tree,” saith James, “bear olive berries? or a vine, figs?” James 3:12. Should not every man in like manner bear his own fruit, proper to his calling? Do his own work? Weed his own gardens?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Every gardener should kill his own weeds…A great many men think they know the plague of other people’s hearts and there is a great deal of talk in the world about this family, that person and the other. I pray you think of your own evils…He would be a poor gardener who used his hoe on other men’s weeds and not on his own—if we could bring ourselves to feel that weeding our own garden, watering our own plants and fulfilling our own vocation is what God requires of us, how much better it would be for the entire Church of Christ!

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Before the plants and flowers will flourish in the garden, weeds must be rooted up, otherwise all the labours of the gardener will come to naught. As the Lord Jesus taught so plainly in the Parable of the Sower, where the “thorns” are permitted to thrive, the good Seed, the Word, is “choked.” He defined those choking “thorns” as “the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches; the lust of other things and pleasures of this life,” Mark 4:19; Luke 8:14. If those things fill and rule our hearts, our relish for spiritual things will be quenched, our strength to perform Christian duties will be sapped, and our lives will be fruitless—the garden of our souls being filled with briars and weeds.

JOHN TRAPP: Earthly mindedness sucketh the sap of grace from the heart, as the ivy doth from the oak, and maketh it unfruitful. Correct therefore this choke-weed.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Remember that there are many kinds of evil.

C. H. SPURGEON: All land will grow weeds, but you will not find the same sort of weed equally abundant in every soil—so in one heart the deadly nightshade of ignorance chokes the seed—and in another the prickly thistle of malice crowds out the wheat. It is well if each of us, in examining himself, has found out what is his own peculiar transgression. It is well to know what evil weeds flourish most readily in the soil of our heart…Covetousness, discontent and murmuring, are as natural to man as thorns are to the soil.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Covetousness, or the greedy clutching at more and more of earthly good, has its roots in us all, and unless there is the most assiduous weeding, it will overrun our whole nature. So Jesus puts great emphasis into the command, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness,” Luke 12:15; which implies that without much ‘heed’ and diligent inspection of ourselves, there will be no guarding against the subtle entrance and swift growth of the vice. We may be enslaved by it, and never suspect that we are.

THOMAS COKE: Hypocrisy among professors is the most common and deadly weed—and this being the character which God especially abhors, we should be the more jealous over our own souls, that this rank weed of bitterness spring not up under the profession of godliness, and mar the whole.

C. H. SPURGEON: Pride grows apace like other ill weeds. Even in the renewed heart it all too readily takes root…Of all creatures in the world, the Christian is the last man who ought to be proud and yet, alas, we have had mournful evidence both in past history and in our own observation—and worst of all in our own personal experience—that Christian men may become lifted up to their own shame.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Depend upon it, nothing is more odious in the sight of God. When a child of God is tempted, after many humblings, by reason of sin, yet still to take up with the supposed idea of somewhat good in him. This dreadful weed, which is the very ground-soil of our nature is rooted in our very inmost affections. And the humblest of God’s people too often discover, when grace enables them to discern spiritually, the buddings forth again and again of the baleful blossom.

C. H. SPURGEON: Certain weeds may be indigenous to the soil of your nature and therefore it may be doubly difficult to extirpate them, but the work must be done.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Every vice—if allowed in the mind, will, as weeds, choke up the good seed.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Did you ever try to cure some trivial bad habit? You know what infinite pains and patience and time it took you to do that, and do you think that you would find it easier if you once set yourself to cure that lust, say, or that petulance, pride, passion, dishonesty, or whatsoever form of selfish living in forgetfulness of God may be your besetting sin? If you will try to pull the poison fang up, you will find how deep its roots are. It is like the yellow charlock in a field, which seems only to spread in consequence of attempts to get rid of it—as the rough rhyme says; “One year’s seeding, seven years’ weeding.”

C. H. SPURGEON: Unbelief is one of those things that you cannot destroy. “It has,” says John Bunyan, “as many lives as a cat.” You may kill it over and over again, but still it lives. It is one of those ill weeds that sleep in the soil even after it has been burned and it only needs a little encouragement to grow again…If you throw up the soil from 10 or 20 feet deep there will be found the seeds from which weeds grow. Now those seeds cannot germinate until they are put in a convenient place. Then let the sun shine and the dew fall—and these weeds begin to show themselves. There may be many weeds in our nature, deep down, out of sight—but should they be thrown up by some change of circumstances we shall find in ourselves evils we never dreamt of. Oh, let no man boast! Let no man say, “I should never fall into that particular sin.” How do you know, my Brother?

A. W. PINK: He who does not cultivate the garden of his soul, will quickly find it grown over with weeds.

C. H. SPURGEON: True revivals must begin at home. If you want to kill weeds, take the hoe into your own garden.

 

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God’s Special Providences

Posted on July 23, 2021 by The Editor

Exodus 1:22; Exodus 2:1-10

And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.

And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. Then said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother.

And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): If Pharoah had not been transported with wrath and struck with blindness, he would have seen that the hand of God was against him; but the tyrant, finding that his snares and deceit availed nothing, now shakes off fear and flies to open violence, commanding the little ones to be torn from the breasts of their mothers and to be cast into the river. Lest there should be any lack of executioners, he gives this charge to all the Egyptians, whom he knew to be more than ready for the work.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): This was, most probably, enjoined under severe penalties, and not only upon the Egyptians, who were to see the order executed; but also upon the Israelites, who were to execute it themselves.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): Here a mother’s love is seen scheming for the life of her child.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We ought to recognize God’s hand in everything.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Are we to suppose, for a moment, that this “ark” was the invention of mere nature? Was it nature’s mere thought that devised it, or nature’s ingenuity that constructed it? Was the babe placed in the ark at the suggestion of a mother’s heart, cherishing the fond but visionary hope of thereby saving her treasure from the ruthless hand of death? Impossible.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The writer of Hebrews lifts it beyond the category of instinctive maternal affection up to the higher level of faith, “By faith Moses when he was born was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment,” Hebrews 11:23.

THOMAS COKE: The tender mother laid the ark in the flags or reeds, which grew in abundance by the side of the Nile; hoping, possibly, that they would detain it, so that she might come occasionally and suckle the child; or, if otherwise, that it would be borne safely down the stream, and would preserve the infant from drowning. They were not without hope, as the watch they set intimated, that in some way God might save him.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Had Moses been left to lie there, he must have perished in a little time with hunger, if he had not been sooner washed into the river or devoured by a crocodile.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Observe the gracious interposition of God. Moses shall not only be preserved in the moment of danger, but preserved by the very daughter of the man who sought his life.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): She was brought hither at this time by a special providence, to do that which she little dreamed of.

MATTHEW HENRY: Had he fallen into any other hands than those he did fall into, either they would not, or dared not, have done otherwise than have thrown him straightway into the river; but Providence brings no less a person than Pharaoh’s daughter just at that juncture, guides her to the place where this poor forlorn infant lay, and inclines her heart to pity it, which she dares do when none else dared. Never did a poor child cry so seasonably, so happily, as this did: The babe wept, which moved the compassion of the princess, as no doubt his beauty did.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: She sees the child is a Hebrew. Her quick wit understands why it has been exposed, and she takes its part—still, it was bold to override the strict commands of such a monarch. But it was not a self-willed sense of power, but the daring of a compassionate woman, to which God committed the execution of His purposes.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Little did she think that she was helping forward the purpose of “the Lord God of the Hebrews.” How little idea had she that the weeping babe, in that ark of bulrushes, was yet to be Jehovah’s instrument in shaking the land of Egypt to its very centre!

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: The great lesson of this incident is the presence of God’s wonderful providence, working out its designs by all the play of human motives. Around that frail ark, half lost among the reeds, is cast the impregnable shield of His purpose. All things serve that Will. The current in the full river, the lie of the flags that stop it from drifting, the hour of the princess’s bath, the direction of her idle glance, the cry of the child at the right moment, the impulse welling up in her heart, the swift resolve, the innocent diplomacy of the sister, the shelter of the happy mother’s breast, the safety of the palace—all these and a hundred more trivial and unrelated things are spun into the strong cable wherewith God draws slowly but surely His secret purpose into act.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: The beautiful faith of Moses’ mother here meets its full reward; Satan is confounded; and the marvelous wisdom of God is displayed…The devil was foiled by his own weapon, inasmuch as Pharaoh, whom he was using to frustrate the purpose of God, is used of God to nourish and bring up Moses, who was to be His instrument in confounding the power of Satan. Remarkable providence! Admirable wisdom!

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: It was needful that the deliverer should come from the heart of the system from which he was to set his brethren free. The same principle that sent Saul of Tarsus to be trained at the feet of Gamaliel, and made Martin Luther a monk in the Augustinian convent at Erfurt, planted Moses in Pharaoh’s palace and taught him the wisdom of Egypt, against which he was to contend. It was a strange irony of Providence that put him so close to the throne which he was to shake. For his future work he needed to be lifted above his people, and to be familiar with the Egyptian court and Egyptian learning. If he was to hate and to war against idolatry, and to rescue an unwilling people from it, he must know the rottenness of the system.

ROBERT HAWKER: May all believers learn from this how certain God’s purposes are!

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): How great a pleasure is it to discern how the most wise God is providentially steering His people’s happiness, whilst the whole world is busily employed in managing the sails, and tugging at the oars, with a quite opposite design and purpose! To see how they promote His design by opposing it, and fulfill His Will by resisting it.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): What exactly do we mean by providence? I cannot think of a better definition than this: “Providence is that continued exercise of the divine energy whereby the Creator preserves all His creatures, is operative in all that comes to pass in the world, and directs all things to their appointed end.”*

ZACHARIAS URSINUS (1534-1583): What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by His providence doth still uphold all things? That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from His love; since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.**

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*Editor’s Note: Lloyd-Jones is quoting from Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof.

**Editor’s Note: Zacharias Ursinus is quoted from the Heidelberg Catechism. John Trapp’s mention of God’s providence concerning Pharaoh’s daughter, also notes this example of special Providence: “When Heidelberg was taken by the Imperialists, the copy of Ursinus’s Heidelberg Catechism enlarged by Pareus was among many other papers carried away by a plundering soldier; but happily it was dropped in the streets, and found the next day by a young student, who, knowing his master’s hand, restored it to his son Philip Pareus, who afterwards published that golden book, to the great glory of God, who had so graciously preserved it.”

 

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A Practical Lesson in True Wisdom

Posted on July 16, 2021 by The Editor

Exodus 1:8-21

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.

Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty. And it came to pass, because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The policy of the new Pharaoh was politically selfish. He attempted to stay the growth and break the power of the people.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Reasons of state were suggested for their dealing hardly with Israel. Pharaoh’s project was secretly to engage the midwives to stifle the male children as soon as they were born.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “But if it be a daughter, then she shall live.” This the king chose to have done, having nothing to fear from them, being of the feeble sex, and that they might serve to gratify the lust of the Egyptians, and that they might be married and incorporated into Egyptian families, there being no Hebrew males; and so, by degrees, the whole Israelite nation would be mixed with, and swallowed up in the Egyptian nation, which was what was aimed at.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Suppose this effort succeeded, what then? Why, the channel through which the promised Redeemer was to come would have been destroyed. If all the male children of the Hebrews were destroyed there had been no David, and if no David, no David’s Son. Just as Revelation 12:4 gives us to behold Satan working behind and through the wicked edict of Herod, Matthew 2:16, so we may discern him here working behind and through Pharaoh.

MATTHEW HENRY: When men deal wickedly, it is common for them to imagine that they deal wisely.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): In Pharaoh’s case, we see that he could accurately recount the various contingencies of human affairs, the multiplying of the people, the falling out of war, their joining with the enemy, their escape out of the land. All these circumstances he could, with uncommon sagacity, put into the scale; but it never once occurred to him that God could have anything whatever to do in the matter. Had he only thought of this, it would have upset his entire reasoning, and have written folly upon all his schemes. All this is the reasoning of a heart that had never learnt to take God into its calculations.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The order itself was inhuman enough; but it becomes, if possible, ten times more so, by making the midwives the executioners; thus obliging them not only to be savagely bloody, but basely perfidious in the most tender trust.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Reverence towards God had greater influence with them.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): They feared God more than the king, and therefore chose to obey God rather than the king…they would not offend God by murdering the children, which they might have done many times secretly, and therefore it was only the fear of God which restrained them from it.

JOHN CALVIN: We must also observe the antithesis between the fear of God and the dread of punishment, which might have deterred them from doing right. Although tyrants do not easily allow their commands to be despised, and death was before their eyes, they still keep their hands pure from evil. Thus, sustained and supported by reverential fear of God, they boldly despised the command and the threatenings of Pharaoh. Wherefore those, whom the fear of men withdraws from the right course, betray by their cowardice an inexcusable contempt of God, in preferring the favour of men to His solemn commands.

MATTHEW HENRY: Note, If men’s commands be any way contrary to the commands of God, we must obey God and not man, Acts 4:19, Acts 5:29. No power on earth can warrant us, much less oblige us, to sin against God, our chief Lord. Again, Where the fear of God rules in the heart, it will preserve it from the snare which the inordinate fear of man brings.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Is it not a mark of grace in these women?

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Certain persons have spoken very unguardedly against this inspired record, saying, “The Hebrew midwives told palpable lies, and God commends them for it; thus we may do evil that good may come of it, and sanctify the means by the end.”

JOHN CALVIN: I hold, that whatever is opposed to the nature of God is sinful; and on this ground all dissimulation, whether in word or deed, is condemned.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): I see no sufficient reason to suppose, that there was the least prevarication in the midwives: for is it not natural to believe, that the same Divine Providence which so miraculously interposed for the multiplication of Israel, might grant an easy deliverance to the Hebrew women, and cause them to dispense with the assistance of midwives?

ROBERT HAWKER: I think it probable that the Hebrew women were distinguished with peculiar marks of divine favour in those seasons of child-bearing.

ADAM CLARKE: General experience shows that women, who during the whole of their pregnancy are accustomed to hard labour, especially in the open air, have comparatively little pain in parturition. The whole Hebrew nation, men and women, were in a state of slavery, and obliged to work in mortar and brick, and all manner of service in the field; and this at once accounts for the ease and speediness of their travail. With the strictest truth the midwives might say, “The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women:” the latter fare delicately, are not inured to labour, and are kept shut up at home, therefore they have hard, difficult, and dangerous labours; but the Hebrew women are lively, are strong, hale, and vigorous, and therefore are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

MATTHEW POOLE: And so it might be—or, because the Hebrew women, understanding their danger, whereof they seem to have gotten notice, would not send for the midwives, but committed themselves to God’s providence. So here was nothing but truth, though they did not speak the whole truth, which they were not obliged to do.

ADAM CLARKE: The midwives boldly state to Pharaoh a fact—had it not been so, he had a thousand means of ascertaining the truth. And they state it in such a way as to bring conviction to his mind on the subject of his oppressive cruelty on the one hand, and the mercy of Jehovah on the other…Here then is a fact, boldly announced in the face of danger; and we see that God was pleased with this frankness of the midwives, and He blessed them for it.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: The closing verses present an edifying lesson in the conduct of those God-fearing women, Shiphrah and Puah. They would not carry out the king’s cruel scheme, but braved his wrath, and hence, God made them houses. “Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed,” 1 Samuel 2:30. May we ever remember this, and act for God under all circumstances!

JOHN BOYS (1619-1625): Now, then: What is the most high and deep point of wisdom?

DANIEL de SUPERVILLE (1657-1728): “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,” Psalm 111:10. It is not only the beginning of wisdom, but the middle and the end. It is indeed the Alpha and Omega, the essence, the body and the soul, the sum and substance. He that hath “the fear of God,” is truly wise.

 

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Jacob’s Wrestling Match

Posted on July 9, 2021 by The Editor

Psalm 147:10,11; Genesis 32:24-31

He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh.

And [Jacob] said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Such manifestations of God under the angelic or human form were not uncommon in the earlier parts of the Jewish history: and it is generally thought the Lord Jesus Christ was the person who assumed these appearances—that it was not a mere man who withstood Jacob, is clear, from his being expressly called “God.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I suppose our Lord Jesus Christ did here, as on many other occasions preparatory to His full incarnation, assume a human form, and came thus to wrestle with Jacob. We generally lay the stress upon the thought that Jacob wrestled with the Angel. No doubt he did, but the Bible does not say so—it says, “There wrestled a Man with him.”

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): It was not Jacob wrestling with a man; but a man wrestling with Jacob. This scene is very commonly referred to as an instance of Jacob’s power in prayer. That it is not, is evident from the simple wording of the passage. My wrestling with a man, and a man wrestling with me, present two totally different ideas to the mind. In the former case I want to gain some object from him; in the latter, he wants to gain some object from me. Now, in Jacob’s case, the divine object was to bring him to see what a poor, feeble, worthless creature he was. When Jacob so pertinaciously held out against the divine dealing with him, “he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him.”

C. H. SPURGEON: It was brave of Jacob thus to wrestle, but there was too much of self about it all. It was his own sufficiency that was wrestling with the God-man, Christ Jesus. Now comes the crisis which will make a change in the whole of Jacob’s future life. What can Jacob do now that the main bone of his leg is put out of joint? He cannot even stand up any longer in the great wrestling match; what can he do?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Jacob was now brought to the end of his own resources. One swift stroke from the Divine hand and he was rendered utterly powerless.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is evident that, as soon as he felt that he must fall, he grasped the other “Man” with a kind of death-grip, and would not let him go.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: This is a turning point in the history of this very remarkable man. To be left alone with God is the only true way of arriving at a just knowledge of ourselves and our ways…We have seen Jacob planning and managing during his twenty years sojourn with Laban; but not until he “was left alone,” did he get a true idea of what a perfectly helpless thing he was in himself. Then, the seat of his strength being touched, he learned to say, “I will not let Thee go.” This was a new era in the history of the supplanting, planning, Jacob. Up to this point he had held fast by his own ways and means; but now he is brought to say, “I will not let Thee go.” Now, Jacob did not express himself thus until “the hollow of his thigh was touched.” This simple fact is quite sufficient to settle the true interpretation of the whole scene. God was wrestling with Jacob to bring him to this point.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): It was done that Jacob might see that was not his own strength, but only God’s grace which got him this victory, and could give him the deliverance which he hoped for.

C. H. SPURGEON: Now, in his weakness, he will prevail. While he was so strong, he won not the blessing; but when he became utter weakness, then did he conquer. “And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob,” that is, a “supplanter,” as poor Esau well knew. “And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel,” that is, “a prince of God.” “For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” The simple meaning then is, that he saw God in an unusual and extraordinary manner.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: I would remark that the book of Job is, in a certain sense, a detailed commentary on this scene in Jacob’s history. Throughout the first thirty-one chapters, Job grapples with his friends, and maintains his point against all their arguments; but in Job 32, God, by the instrumentality of Elihu, begins to wrestle with him; and in Job 38, He comes down upon Him directly with all the majesty of His power, overwhelms him by the display of His greatness and glory, and elicits from him the well-known words, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,” Job 42:5,6. This was really touching the hollow of Job’s thigh. And mark the expression, “mine eye seeth thee.” He does not say, “I see myself,” merely; no; but “Thee.” Nothing but a view of what God is, can really lead to repentance and self-loathing.

A. W. PINK: And this is the purpose God has before Him in His dealings with us. One of the principal designs of our gracious heavenly Father in the ordering of our path, in the appointing of our testings and trials, in the discipline of His love, is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to show us our own powerlessness, to teach us to have no confidence in the flesh, that His strength may be perfected in our conscious and realized weakness.

JOHN CALVIN: It is only when our weakness becomes apparent, that God’s strength is duly perfected. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness,” 2 Corinthians 12:9.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): It was not in his own strength that Jacob wrestled, nor by his own strength that he prevails; but by strength derived from heaven. That of Job illustrates this, Job 23:6—Will He plead against me with his great power? No.”—Had the angel done so, Jacob had been crushed; “but he would put strength in me.” And by that strength Jacob had power over the angel, Hosea 12:3,4.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): This is certainly a story of Jacob’s victory, but it was a victory won when, conscious of a superior power, he yielded and, with strong crying and tears, out of weakness was made strong. Jacob’s limp was a lifelong disability, but it was also the patent of his nobility.

C. H. SPURGEON: Jacob was the prince with the disjointed limb, and that is exactly what a Christian is. He wins, he conquers, when his weakness becomes supreme, and he is conscious of it. “The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people,” Psalm 68:35. He is strong, and makes strong: blessed are they who draw from His resources, they shall renew their strength. While the self-sufficient faint, the All-sufficient shall sustain the feeblest believer.

 

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