Speaking the Truth in Love, and Grace, Seasoned with Salt

Posted on December 2, 2022 by The Editor

Proverbs 15:23; Proverbs 25:11; Colossians 4:6; Ephesians 4:14,15

A word spoken in due season, how good it is!

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): After being born to Christ, we ought to grow, so as “not to be children in understanding,” 1 Corinthians 14:20.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Brethren, we have everywhere to battle with falsehood and if we are to bless the world we must confront it with sturdy face and zealous spirit.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): We should not be ashamed of our principles. We should candidly state that we are sinners, deserving of God’s wrath and indignation: that God has sent his only-begotten Son to die for us: that through His precious blood, we hope and believe that we have obtained the forgiveness of all our sins. We should then state our conviction, that sinners redeemed with so inestimable a price, are bound to consecrate themselves to Him, and, above all things, to seek the glory of His great name. We should further avow our full persuasion, that in the day of judgment we shall all be dealt with according to our works; that those who have suffered any thing to stand in competition with their duty to Christ, will assuredly be cast out as wicked and unprofitable servants; but that they who have loved, and served, and honoured Him with their whole hearts, shall be applauded by Him as good and faithful servants, and enter forever into the joy of their Lord.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): It is an important thing to stand for the fundamentals, but as we seek to bear witness to the great fundamental truths, let us never forget that the greatest fundamental of all is love.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The cause of truth itself may be discredited by improper management.

CHARLES SIMEON: As respects the truth itself, we should have no hesitation in declaring it, yet we should be much on our guard against any thing harsh or acrimonious in our manner of declaring it…A Christian on such occasions must bear in mind how much the honour of God is involved in his conduct; and how much, humanly speaking, the salvation of others may depend on him. By an indiscreet mode of vindicating the truth, he may shut the ears, and harden the hearts of many; and so embitter their minds, as to make them determined haters and despisers of vital godliness: but by a meek, modest, affectionate, and prudent statement, he may remove their prejudices, and lead them to a candid examination of their own state before God.

H. A. IRONSIDE: It should always be remembered that in contending for the faith, the soul of the sinner has to be thought of as well.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “A word fitly spoken,”—Or, “a word spoken on its wheels,” as it is in the Hebrew, that proceeds aright, keeps due order, is well circumstanced as to matter, method, time, place, and persons; a discourse well put together, properly pronounced, roundly, easily, and fluently delivered to proper persons, and adapted to their circumstances; and “seasonably” spoken, as many versions render it.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Our Lord witnessed of Himself, as “gifted with the tongue of the learned, that he might know how to speak the word in season,” Isaiah 50:4—a word upon the wheels—not forced or dragged, but rolling smoothly along, like the chariot-wheels. His discourses on the living water and the bread of life arose naturally out of the conversation, and therefore were full of arresting application.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): “Let your speech be alway with grace,” because our converse with men ought to be managed with the greatest circumspection, in imitation of Christ, who entertained those that did converse with Him with “gracious words,” Luke 4:22. Endeavour to speak that the hearers may conceive your discourse proceeds from a gracious spirit, or “grace in the heart,” Colossians 3:16, teaching your mouth “with meekness of wisdom,” James 3:13, “using knowledge aright,” Proverbs 15:2, and being in its tendency gracious, Ecclesiastes 10:12, not as tinctured with gall or venom—but “ministering grace to the hearers,” Ephesians 4:29.

CHRISTMAS EVANS (1766-1838): There is great need of faithfulness and prudence, in defending the truths of Christ, against the errors of the times. Faithfulness indeed will oblige us to do it; but prudence must direct us how to do it.

CHARLES BRIDGES: We may think to relieve our conscience by speaking our mind. But to do it rudely and harshly, may put a stumbling-block in our brother’s way. Under all circumstances our “lips should know what is acceptable,” Proverbs 10:32. Unseemly language makes wholesome truth more unpalatable.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Let them see that love, not wrath, gives the blow.

C. H. SPURGEON: Speak your mind, but still be kind. In being frank some are rough, and this is by no means needful.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): There is a happy medium between harshness and firmness, as there is between sentimentality and tenderness. We are bidden to speak “the truth in love,”—and Christ was doing so as truly when denouncing the Pharisees in Matthew 23:1-39—as when He was comforting His disciples in John 14:1-31. But does that mean that His countenance, the tone of His voice, or His general bearing was the same? He ever spoke the truth in love—but if some would re-read the four Gospels with this particular thought in mind—it might cause them to revise, or at least, to modify their present conception of what “speaking the truth in love” really is. It depends upon the particular fault committed. Mole-hills are not to be magnified into mountains. There are times when it is fitting “to rebuke sharply,” Titus 1:13, as Christ did in Luke 24:25. But for the most part, it should be done in “the spirit of meekness,” Galatians 6:1.

CHRISTMAS EVANS: Wisdom is necessary here to distinguish the different characters, those who require severity, and those who claim tenderness.

CHARLES BRIDGES: A word spoken for everyone, like a coat made for everyone, has no individual fitness. When “the wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment,” Ecclesiastes 8:5, the word is doubly effective…Paul powerfully charged superstition on the Athenians by an inscription on their own altar; and strengthened his reasoning by quoting one of their own poets, Acts 17:22-28. To a corrupt and profligate judge he preached “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” Acts 24:25. In general intercourse much depends, not only upon the word spoken, but upon the occasion and spirit of speaking. We must not only lay ourselves out to do good, but to watch the fittest seasons of doing it. Under affliction, or tender impressions of conviction, “a word fitly spoken” may be as the descent of our gracious Lord to the soul, “like rain upon mown grass,” Psalm 72:6. The plough enters most effectually when the earth is softened.

JOHN NEWTON: But let us be firm and unmoved, and not hesitate to speak the truth in love, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. Go forth, therefore, in the name and strength of the Lord of Hosts, speaking the truth in love; and may He give you a witness in many hearts, that you are taught of God, and favoured with the unction of His Holy Spirit.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): The God of grace and peace grant all His children spirits endeavouring to speak “the truth in love” in these dividing times.

 

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Is it True that “God Loves the Sinner, But Hates the Sin”?

Posted on November 25, 2022 by The Editor

Mark 10:17-22

There came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.

And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.

Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): One of the most popular beliefs of the day is that God loves everybody, and the very fact that it is so popular with all classes ought to be enough to arouse the suspicions of those who are subject to the Word of Truth.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Notice the expression of Jesus beholding this young man, and as it is said, “loved him.”—It should be carefully distinguished what this “love” meant, from the love Jesus beareth to His people.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Remember, this young man already thought himself to be quite good, and that he had kept all of God’s commandments. But listen to the very first words Jesus said unto him—“Why callest me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.” Then Jesus told him to keep the commandments.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “And he answered and said unto Him,”—with a great deal of pertness—“Master, all these have I observed from my youth.”  The sense is, that Jesus looked upon him, when he expressed himself in such a pert manner, and had a compassionate concern for him; He pitied him for his ignorance of the law, in its spirituality and large extent; and for his pride and vanity, his conceit, and his glorying in himself: wherefore, in order to mortify him, and abate these swelling thoughts of himself—“He said unto him, one thing thou lackest…” This young man’s reigning sin seems to have been an overweening affection for the things of this world; his riches were his idol, on which his heart was set, and in which he trusted.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Now the Scripture strongly suggests that this young man never picked up that cross, and followed after Jesus. So then, how did Jesus “love” him? Jesus loved him enough to show him the truth of his sinful condition before God, by revealing his covetous love for the things of this world.

ROBERT HAWKER: The love here spoken of, differs altogether from the special affection the Lord Jesus bears to the persons of His redeemed, which are the gift of his Father, the purchase of His blood, and the objects of the everlasting love of God the Holy Ghost, in whom He puts the influences of His sovereign power and grace to make them wise unto salvation, through the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The other day I saw a little tract bearing this title, “It is certain that God loves you.” And I burned it, for I was afraid that somebody who had no right to it, might see it and believe that it was true. I do not believe that God loves every individual who might pick that tract up in the sense in which such an individual would understand the expression. I know that God loves, in a certain sense, all the creatures that He has made. But such love as that gives me no comfort, as long as I am an unreconciled sinner under condemnation, because I have not believed in God’s dear Son!

A. W. PINK: No matter how a man may live—in open defiance of Heaven, with no concern whatever for his soul’s eternal interests, still less for God’s glory, dying, perhaps with an oath on his lips—notwithstanding, God loves him, we are told. So widely has this dogma been proclaimed, and so comforting is it to the heart which is at enmity with God, we have little hope of convincing many of their error.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): They think God loves them because they love themselves; and though they know they have sin, yet they think God will not be so ill, as to reckon with them; they think they are sure that God loves them, but they cannot give a ground for it.

A. W. PINK: That God loves everybody, is, we may say, quite a modern belief. The writings of the church-fathers, the Reformers, or the Puritans, we believe, will be searched in vain for any such concept…It has been customary to say “God loves the sinner, though He hates his sin.” But that is a meaningless distinction. What is there in a sinner but sin? Is it not true that his “whole head is sick,” and his “whole heart faint,” and that “from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness” in him?” Isaiah 1:5,6. Is it true that God loves the one who is despising and rejecting His blessed Son?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): If ever anyone knew the love of God, if ever “the love of God” was preached and understood by anyone, that one was Jesus Christ.

A. W. PINK: If it be true that God loves every member of the human family then why did our Lord tell His disciples, “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father…If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him,” John 14:21,23? Why say “he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father,” if the Father loves everybody? The same limitation is found in Proverbs 8:17—“I love them that love Me.” Again, we read, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity”—not merely the works of iniquity. Here, then, is a flat repudiation of present teaching that, “God hates sin but loves the sinner;” Scripture says, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity,” Psalm 5:5! “God is angry with the wicked every day,” Psalm 7:11. “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God,”—not “shall abide,” but even now—“abideth on him,” John 3:36. Can God “love” the one on whom His “wrath” abides?

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): So long as our thoughts are cast in the mold of divine truth, by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, we shall be kept from expressions, which, though something like scripture, are not according to it. In these days, we need to watch lest we take up the Lord’s Word with mere natural effort, instead of in heartfelt dependence on the Holy Ghost; and to dread lest we traffic in favourite doctrines, instead of setting forth the infallible testimonies of Holy Scripture. It is a blessed fact that “God commendeth his love toward us,”—His saints—“in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8; but that is very different from going up to an ungodly man, and saying, “God loves you.”

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Our Lord’s method must ever be the pattern and example for all preaching—We are to speak “the truth in love.”

A. W. PINK: With the exception of John 3:16, not once in the four Gospels do we read of the Lord Jesus—the perfect Teacher—telling sinners that God loved them! In the book of Acts, which records the evangelistic labours and messages of the apostles, God’s love is never referred to at all! But, when we come to the Epistles, which are addressed to the saints, we have a full presentation of this precious truth—God’s love for His own. Let us seek to rightly divide the Word of God and then we shall not be found taking truths which are addressed to believers and misapplying them to unbelievers.

 

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A Puritan Thanksgiving

Posted on November 18, 2022 by The Editor

Acts 11:26; 1 Corinthians 4:12,13

And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): In almost every age and country where Christianity has been professed, some hard name or term of reproach has been imposed upon those who ventured to maintain a more evangelical strain of doctrine, or a stricter course of conduct, than was agreeable to the spirit of the times in which they lived. Even the Christian name, honourable as we may now think it, was used by the heathens, when it first obtained, as a stigma, a term of the utmost contempt and hatred; Christians were, by common consent, reputed the off-scouring, and filth of all things…Men of the same spirit were afterwards branded in Protestant nations with the terms Pietist and Puritan.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He that was the old English Puritan was cried out upon as the worst of men.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): There are more baseless and false ideas current about them than about any class of men in British history. The impressions of most people are so ridiculously incorrect, that one could laugh if the subject were not so serious. To hear them talk about Puritans is simply ludicrous. They make assertions which prove either that they know nothing at all of what they are talking about, or that they have forgotten the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The name “Puritan” was the lowest of all. It was the symbol which was always employed by the drunkard and swearer to express a godly man.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Ignorant people use it as a scoff. It should be a crown of glory.

J. C. RYLE: The Puritans, as a body, have done more to elevate the national character than any class of Englishmen that ever lived. Ardent lovers of civil liberty, and ready to die in its defence—mighty at the council board, and no less mighty in the battlefield—feared abroad throughout Europe, and invincible at home while united, great with their pens, and no less great with their swords—fearing God very much, and fearing man very little—they were a generation of men who have never received from their country the honour that they deserve.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The gigantic Republic of the United States of America is in a great measure the result of their migration.

C. H. SPURGEON: What would the United States have been, at this moment, if it had not been for “the men of the Mayflower” in the olden times, and the many pilgrim fathers and pilgrim sons and daughters who have since gone across the Atlantic to be as salt in that part of the earth?

J. C. RYLE: That they were not perfect and faultless, I freely admit. They said, did, and wrote many things which cannot be commended. Some of them, no doubt, were violent, fierce, narrow-minded sectarians; some were half-crazy fanatics―Yet, even then, great allowance ought to be made for the trying circumstances in which they were often placed, and the incessant, irritating persecution to which they were exposed…With all their faults, the leaders of the party were great and good men. With all their defects, the Puritans, as a body, were not the men that some authors and writers in the present day are fond of representing them to have been.

C. H. SPURGEON: Our Puritan forefathers were strong men, because they lived on the Scriptures…Their leader Oliver Cromwell could hardly be called a fool, even by those who stigmatized him as a “tyrant.” Cromwell, and all that were with him, were not all weak-minded persons—surely?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Such men as Goodwin, Owen, Charnock, Flavel, Sibbes, though living in troublous times and suffering fierce persecution, taught the Word more helpfully―in our judgment―and were more used of God than any since the days of the apostles to the present hour. The ministry of the Puritans was an exceedingly searching one.

HORATIUS BONAR (1808-1889): They were men whose doctrines were of the most decided kind, both as respects law and gospel. There is a breadth and power about their preaching—a glow and energy about their words and thoughts, that makes us feel that they were men of might. Their trumpet gave no feeble nor uncertain sound, either to saint or sinner, either to the church or the world. They lifted up their voices, and spared not. There was no flinching, no flattering, or prophesying of smooth things. Their preaching seems to have been of the most masculine and fearless kind, falling on the audience with tremendous power. It was not vehement, it was not fierce, it was not noisy; it was far too solemn to be such; it was massive, weighty, cutting, and piercing―sharper than a two-edged sword.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Nowadays, people make cheap reputations for advanced thought by depreciating their theology.

C. H. SPURGEON: Nothing is so obnoxious as that which has the smell of Puritanism upon it. Every little man’s nose goes up celestially at the very sound of the word “Puritan.”―Ah, how many have there been who have said, “The old Puritan principles are too rough for these times, we’ll tone them down a little.”―The same men who reject the old-fashioned doctrines also rebel against the old-fashioned style of living; loose living generally goes with loose doctrine. There never was an age in which the doctrines of grace were despised but, sooner or later, licentiousness prevailed. On the other hand, when we had Puritan teaching, we had also pure and holy living.

J. C. RYLE: Their commentaries, their expositions, their treatises on practical, casuistical, and experimental divinity, are immeasurably superior to those of their adversaries in the seventeenth century. In short, those who hold up the Puritans to scorn as shallow, illiterate men, are only exposing their own lamentable shallowness, their own ignorance of historical facts, and the extremely superficial character of their own reading. The Puritans were not unlearned and ignorant men. The great majority of them were Oxford and Cambridge graduates―many of them fellows of colleges, and some of them heads or principals of the best colleges in the two Universities. In knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in power as preachers, expositors, writers, and critics, the Puritans in their day were second to none. Unhappily, when they passed away, they were followed by a generation of profligates, triflers, and skeptics; and their reputation has suffered accordingly in passing through prejudiced hands―but, “judged with righteous judgment,” they will be found men of whom the world was not worthy. The more they are really known, the more they will be esteemed.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): If you wish to know what Puritanism really is, don’t read large volumes on the subject by men who may be scholars, but never were Puritans―but rather, read the life-stories of Puritans.

J. C. RYLE: Milton, Selden, Blake, Cromwell, Owen, Baxter, and Charnock were men of which no well-informed Englishman ought ever to speak with disrespect. He may dislike their principles, if he will, but he has no right to despise them. Lord Macaulay, no mean authority in matters of English history, might well say, in his famous essay on John Milton, “we do not hesitate to pronounce the Puritans a brave, a wise and honest, and a useful body.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): We have reason to thank God for them all.

 

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The Courageous Faith of Ann Askew (1521-1546)

Posted on November 11, 2022 by The Editor

Luke 12:4; Luke 21:12-15; Matthew 10:20

Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.

They shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.

For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is very remarkable what wise answers many of the martyrs often gave. Illiterate men, when confronted by the learned ones of the earth, completely baffled them; and weak women nonplused their assailants and judges. A notable instance of that is recorded in the history of the brave Anne Askew.

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): Ann Askew was the second daughter of Sir William Askew, a member of a very ancient Lincolnshire family. Her father had compelled her to marry the son of a rich neighbour. The Holy Scriptures in the English version attracted Ann’s attention, and led by them to a living faith in Jesus Christ, she renounced the Roman Catholic superstitions, and she denied the corporeal presence of the Saviour in the sacrament.

ANNE ASKEW (1521-1546): I had sooner read five lines in the Bible, than hear five masses in the church.

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: The priests, who were greatly annoyed, stirred up her young husband against her, and he, being a rough and staunch Roman Catholic, “violently drove her out of his house.”

J. C. BAYLEY (circa 1884): That young wife, whose previously affectionate husband turned her out of doors because she had imbibed the doctrines of the Reformation, showed a spirit equally undaunted, but a loftier and more serene courage, “unmoved by poisoning wrath.”

ANNE ASKEW: Since, according to 1 Corinthians 7:15, “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases,” I claim my divorce.

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: Ann went to London for the divorce proceedings, where she made the acquaintance of the pious ladies of the court, and of the queen herself. Queen Katheryn frequently received Anne and other Christian women in her private apartments; and there prayer was made and the Word of God expounded by an evangelical minister. King Henry VIII indeed was aware of these secret meetings, but he feigned ignorance. It was a great vexation to the enemies of the Reformation to see persons of the highest rank almost openly professing the evangelical faith. As they did not dare to attack them, they determined to make a beginning with Anne Askew. She was sent to prison.

When she was taken to Sadler’s Hall, the judge, Christopher Dare, asked her, “Do you believe that the sacrament hanging over the altar is really the very body of Christ?” Anne replied, “Wherefore was Stephen stoned to death?” Dare, doubtless, remembered that Stephen had said, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God,” Acts 7:56. From this, it followed that He was not in the sacrament, but Dare preferred to answer, “I cannot tell.”

ANNE ASKEW: No more, then, will I answer your vain question.

C. H. SPURGEON: And there was my Lord Mayor of London—what a fool she made of him! He put to her this question—“Woman, if a mouse were to eat the blessed sacrament which contains the body and blood of Christ, what do you think would become of it?”

ANNE ASKEW: My lord, that is a deep question. I had rather you would answer it yourself. What do you think would become of the mouse that should do that?

C. H. SPURGEON: “I verily believe,” said the Lord Mayor of London, “that mouse would be damned!”

ANNE ASKEW: Alas! poor mouse.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is really marvelous to read how she overcame them…Often a few short words—three or four words—have met the case when the martyrs have waited upon God! And they have made their adversaries seem so ridiculous that I think they might hear a laugh both from Heaven and Hell at once at their foolery, for God’s servants have convicted them of folly and put them to shame!

ANNE ASKEW: They said to me that I was a heretic, and condemned by the law, if I would stand in my opinion. I answered, that I was no heretic, neither yet deserved I any death by the law of God. But, as concerning the faith which I uttered and wrote to the council, I would not, I said, deny it, because I knew it true. Then would they needs know, if I would deny the sacrament to be Christ’s body and blood. I said, Yea: for the same Son of God that was born of the Virgin Mary, is now glorious in heaven, and will come again from thence at the latter day like as he went up. And, as for that ye call your God, it is a piece of bread. For more proof thereof, let it but lie in the box three months, and it will be moldy, and so turn to nothing that is good. Whereupon I am persuaded that it cannot be God.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Anne Askew thus subscribed her confession: “Written by me, Anne Askew, that neither wisheth for death, nor feareth its might; and as merry as one that is bound for heaven.”

ANNE ASKEW: After that, they willed me to have a priest; and then I smiled. Then they asked me, if it were not good; I said, I would confess my faults unto God, for I was sure that He would hear me with favour. And so, we were condemned.

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: At this time, she was twenty five years old. Determined at any cost to obtain information against influential persons at court, they ordered the rack to be applied to the young woman. The torture lasted a long time. She fainted away and was well nigh dead.

ANNE ASKEW: In all my life afore, I was never in such pain…Then was I brought to a house, and laid in a bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job—the Lord strengthen us in the truth. Pray, pray, pray.

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ: Everything was ready for the burning of Anne at Smithfield. They were obliged to carry her to the place of execution, for in her state at that time she was unable to walk. When they reached the pile, she was bound to the post by her waist, with a chain which prevented her from sinking down. Three other evangelical Christians were to die with her. When the fires were about to be lighted, the Lord Chancellor offered Anne the king’s pardon if she would recant.

JOHN TRAPP: How bravely did Anne Askew, Alice Driver, and the other poor women answer them.

ANNE ASKEW: I am not come thither to deny my Lord and Master.

JOHN TRAPP: Was not that the Spirit of the Father speaking in them? “Strength and honour were their clothing,” Proverbs 31:25; and “they rejoiced at the time to come:” they went as merry to die as to dine, and cheered up one another with this, that although they had but a bitter breakfast, yet they should sup with Christ in joy.

JOHN FOXE (1517-1587): Thus the good Anne Askew, being compassed in with flames of fire as a blessed sacrifice unto God, slept in the Lord, July 16, 1546, leaving behind her a singular example of Christian constancy for all men to follow.

 

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An Enlarged Heart

Posted on November 4, 2022 by The Editor

Psalm 119:2,7,11,32

Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.

I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Note how the heart has been spoken of up to this point: “whole heart,” verse 2; “uprightness of heart,” verse 7; “hid in mine heart,” verse 11; “enlarge my heart,” verse 32. There are many more allusions further on, and these all go to show what heart-work David’s religion was.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): “Enlarge my heart.” What does that mean?

ROBERT LEIGHTON (1611-1684): It is said of Solomon, that he had “largeness of heart, as the sand of the sea shore,” 1 Kings 4:29; that is, a vast, comprehensive spirit, that could fathom much of nature, both its greater and lesser things. Thus, I conceive, the enlargement of the heart comprises the enlightening of the understanding. There arises a clearer light there to discern spiritual things in a more spiritual manner; to see the vast difference betwixt the vain things the world goes after, and the true solid delight that is in the way of God’s commandments; to know the false blush of the pleasures of sin, and what deformity is under that painted mask, and not be allured by it; to have enlarged apprehensions of God, His excellency, and greatness and goodness; how worthy He is to be obeyed and served; this is the great dignity and happiness of the soul; all other pretensions are low and poor in respect of this. Here then, is enlargement to see the purity and beauty of His law, how just and reasonable, yea, how pleasant and amiable it is; that His commandments are not grievous, that they are beds of spices; the more we walk in them, still the more of their fragrant smell and sweetness we find.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): The melting of soul, and the enlargement of the heart, are sweet and gracious feelings.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The meaning of the prophet is, that when God shall inspire him with love for His law he will be vigorous and ready, nay, even steady, so as not to faint in the middle of his course. His words contain an implied admission of the inability of men to make any advancement in well-doing until God enlarge their hearts.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The Hebrew word translated as “when,” should be translated as “because;”—Because thou shalt enlarge, or dilate, my heart.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): This enlargement of heart in Scripture is ascribed to wisdom, 1 Kings 4:29, and love, 2 Corinthians 6:11, and joy, Isaiah 60:5—when Thou shalt knock off the fetters of remaining corruption, and give me a more noble and generous disposition towards Thee, and establish me “with thy free spirit,” as expressed in Psalm 51:12. Thus David both owns his duty, and asserts the absolute necessity of God’s grace to the performance of it.

HENRY MELVILL (1798-1871): His wish is that his heart might be enlarged; and this wish amounted to a longing that the whole of himself might act in unison with the heart, so that he might become, as it were, all heart, and thus the heart in the strictest sense be enlarged, through the spreading of itself over body and soul, expanding itself till it embraced all the powers of both. If there be the love of God in the heart, then gradually the heart, possessed and actuated by so noble and stirring a principle, will bring over to a lofty consecration all the energies—and he became, according to the phrase which we are accustomed to employ when describing a character of unwonted generosity and warmth, “all heart.” So that the desire after an enlarged heart you may fairly consider tantamount to a desire that every faculty might be brought into thorough subjection to God.

HUGH B. MOFFAT (circa 1871): It may not unnaturally excite surprise, that “the sweet singer of Israel,” he who was emphatically declared to be “a man after God’s own heart,” Acts 13:22, should nevertheless, in the words of the text, seem to imply that he was not yet “running the way of God’s commandments.’ But dear brethren, the greater an individual’s comparative holiness, the more intense will be his longing for absolute holiness. It was not the walking, but the running “the way of God’s commandments,” to which David aspired.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677):  By running is meant a cheerful, ready, and zealous observance of God’s precepts: it is not go, or walk, but run. They that would come to their journey’s end, must run in the way of God’s commandments. It notes a speedy or a ready obedience, without delay—and it notes earnestness; when a man’s heart is set upon a thing, he thinks he can never do it soon enough. And this is running, when we are vehement and earnest upon the enjoyment of God and Christ in the way of obedience…This running is the fruit of effectual calling. When the Lord speaks of effectual calling, the issue of it is running; when He speaks of the conversion of the Gentiles, “Nations that know not thee shall run unto thee,” Isaiah 55:5; and, “Draw me, and we will run after thee,” Song of Solomon 1:4. When God draws there is a speedy, earnest motion of the soul. This running, as it is the fruit of effectual calling, so it is very needful; for cold and faint motions are soon overborne by difficulty and temptation: “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us,” Hebrews 12:1. When a man hath a mind to do a thing, though he be hindered and jostled, he takes it patiently, he goes on and cannot stay to debate the business. A slow motion is easily stopped, whereas a swift one bears down that which opposeth it; so is it when men run and are not tired in the service of God.

HENRY MELVILL: So long as the dedication is at best only partial, the world retaining some fraction of its empire, notwithstanding the setting up of the kingdom of God, there can be nothing but a slow and impeded progress, a walking interrupted by repeated halting, if not backslidings, by much of loitering, if not of actual retreat; but if the man be all heart, then he will be all life, all warmth, all zeal, all energy, and the consequence of this complete surrender to God will be exactly that which is prophetically announced in Isaiah 40:31, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

THOMAS MANTON: Last of all, the prize calls for running—“So run that ye may obtain,” 1 Corinthians 9:24.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Begin, then, the course which David ran, and prosecute it with the ardour that filled his soul.

C. H. SPURGEON: There is an enlargement of the heart that is very dangerous, but this kind of enlargement of the heart is the most healthy thing that can happen to a man! A great heart, you see, is a running heart. A little heart goes slowly, but an enlarged heart runs in the way of God’s Commandments. Oh, for a heart full of love to God! And then to have that heart made larger, so as to hold more of God’s love! Lord! enlarge my heart in that sense!

 

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The Mighty Men of Prayer of the Protestant Reformation

Posted on October 28, 2022 by The Editor

James 5:16-18; John 15:4,5,7

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing…If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): To abide in Christ means to keep up a habit of constant close communion with Him—to be always leaning on Him, resting on Him, pouring out our hearts to Him, as our Fountain of life and strength, and our chief Companion and best Friend. To have His words abiding in us, is to keep His sayings and precepts continually before our memories and minds, and to make them the guide of our actions and the rule of our daily conduct and behavior. Christians of this stamp, we are told, shall not pray in vain. Whatever they ask they shall obtain, so long as they ask things according to God’s mind. No work shall be found too hard, and no difficulty insurmountable. Asking they shall receive—such men were Martin Luther, the German Reformer, and our own English martyr, Hugh Latimer. Such a man was John Knox.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): Luther and his companions were men of such mighty pleading with God, that they broke the spell of ages, and laid nations subdued at the foot of the Cross. John Knox grasped all Scotland in his strong arms of faith; his prayers terrified tyrants.

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): The Queen of Scots professed she was more afraid of the prayers of John Knox, than of an army of ten thousand men.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Great is the power of faithful prayer…Martin Luther was wont to say that prayer was sort of omnipotent: for whatsoever God can do, that prayer can do.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Prayer is that mightiest of all weapons that created natures can wield—it is ‘bombarda Christianorum,’ the cannon of Christians. It shaketh heaven and earth.

F. W. KRUMMACHER (1796-1868): Prayer burst the fetters of Peter, and broke open the doors of his prison. Prayer rebuked storms, healed the sick, and brought back the dead to life. And what shall I say more of the power, the wonders, and the performances of prayer—the whole Scripture is full of them. But prayer sleeps amongst us; for what we call praying, morning and evening, according to custom—the sleepy, dull, and heartless repetition of devotional language—does not deserve the name of prayer.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Lifeless prayer is no more prayer than the picture of a man is a man. To say a prayer is not prayer.

MARTIN LUTHER: Prayer is the sweat of the soul.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Men who are mighty for God are generally famous for courage with Him. Look at Luther! They say it was wonderful to hear him preach, but a hundred times more so to hear him pray! There was an awful reverence about that heroic man, but there was also such a childlike simplicity of daring that seemed as though he did really lay hold of God.

THEODORA BEZA (1519-1605): I overheard him in prayer—but, good God, with what life and spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence, as if he were speaking to God, yet with so much confidence as if he were speaking to his friend.

C. H. SPURGEON: This is the boldness for which Luther was remarkable…When you can say, as Moses said upon the Mount, “What will Thou do for Thy great name?” When you can plead as Luther did, “Lord, this is no quarrel of mine, it is Thine! Thou knowest that Thou didst put me to speak against Thy foes; and now if Thou dost leave me, where is Thy Truth?” When you can plead with God in this way, surely He will rescue you. You cannot fail when your cause is God’s cause.

J. C. RYLE: We should cultivate the habit of pleading promises in our prayers. We should take with us some promise, and say, “Lord, here is Thine own word pledged. Do for us as Thou hast said.” This was the habit of Jacob, and Moses, and David. The 119th Psalm is full of things asked, “according to Thy word.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Let us learn therefore in a word, that if we will pray to God aright, we must know what His will is, and to understand that, we must know what He hath showed us in His Word; we must frame ourselves to it, we must hear what He saith unto us, and compass all our requests according to His will, and rest ourselves upon His promises.  And then let us not doubt, but when we shall call upon Him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall feel that our prayers shall not be in vain, nor unprofitable.

MARTIN LUTHER: When I get a promise I treat it as a tree in my garden. I know there is rich fruit on it. If I cannot get it, I shake it backwards and forwards by prayer and meditation, until at last the fruit drops into my hand…Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.

C. H. SPURGEON: Methinks, in a spiritual sense, when Luther first bowed his knee the Church began to chant, “Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered,” Psalm 68:1.

JOHN TRAPP: Luther came leaping out of his closet where he had been praying with vicimus, vicimus—“we conquer, we conquer,” in his mouth.

J. C. RYLE: Now, why is there so little power of prayer like this in our own time? Simply because there is so little close communion with Christ, and so little strict conformity to His will. Men do not “abide in Christ,” and therefore pray in vain. Christ’s words do not abide in them, as their standard of practice, and therefore their prayers seem not to be heard. They ask and receive not, because they ask amiss. Let this lesson sink down into our hearts. He that would have answers to his prayers, must carefully remember Christ’s directions. We must keep up intimate friendship with the great Advocate in heaven, if our petitions are to prosper.

C. H. SPURGEON: Lord send us men of the school of Elias, or at least of Luther and Knox!

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): They continued in prayer, spent much time in it, more than ordinary, prayed frequently, and were long in prayer.  They never missed an hour of prayer; they resolved to persevere herein till the Holy Ghost came, according to the promise, “to pray, and not to faint,” Luke 18:1.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): Luther thought three hours a day little enough to spend in prayer.

JOHN FLAVEL: These were mighty wrestlers with God, howsoever condemned and vilified among their enemies. There will a time come when God will hear the prayers of His people who are continually crying in His ears, “How long, O Lord, how long?”

C. H. SPURGEON: “Where is thy God?” Psalm 42:3. This is what Queen Mary said when the Covenanters were obliged to fly to the Highlands. “Where now is John Knox’s God?” But when her French soldiers were afterwards put to the rout by the brave Scots, she found out where God was.

JOHN FLAVEL: The prayer of a single saint is sometimes followed with wonderful effects. What then can a thundering legion of such praying souls do?

 

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A Grievous Plague of Flies

Posted on October 21, 2022 by The Editor

Exodus 8:20,21; Exodus 8:24―Psalm 78:45

The LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh; lo, he cometh forth to the water; and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are…

And the LORD did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt: the land was corrupted by reason of the swarm of flies―He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Pharaoh was early up at his superstitious devotions.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): At the river Nile, either to take his morning’s walk, and to refresh himself at the waterside; or to observe divinations upon the water, as a magician―in the Talmud, it is said, that the Pharaoh in the days of Moses was a magician. Or rather, as Aben Ezra thinks, which he says is a custom of the kings of Egypt, to go out in the months of June and July, when the river increases, to observe how many degrees it has ascended, by which the fruitfulness of the ensuing season was judged of. Or else he went to worship the rising sun, or the Nile, to pay his morning devotions to it―nothing was so much honoured with the Egyptians as the Nile.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): In ancient times, when offal of different kinds permitted to corrupt in the streets and breed vermin, flies multiplied exceedingly, so that we read in ancient authors of whole districts being laid waste by them; hence different people had deities whose office it was to defend them against flies. Among these we may reckon Beelzebub, the “fly-god” of Ekron; Hercules, the “expeller of flies,” of the Romans―and hence Jupiter, the supreme god of the heathens, was supposed to expel flies, and defend his worshippers against them.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Satan, the prince of the power of the air, has gloried in being Beelzebub―the god of flies, Matthew 12:24; but here it is proved that even in that he is a pretender and a usurper, for even with swarms of flies, God fights against his kingdom and prevails…Pharaoh must be made to know that God is “the Lord in the midst of the earth;” and by this it will be known beyond dispute: Swarms of flies, which seem to us to fly at random, shall be manifestly under the conduct of an intelligent mind.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Insects of various annoying kinds came up in infinite hordes, a mixture of biting, stinging, buzzing gnats, mosquitos, flies, beetles, and other vermin.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): “Divers sorts of flies.” A mixture of insects or flies―and doubtless larger and more venomous and pernicious than the common ones were.

JAMES G. MURPHY (1808-1896): “Flies” denote a kind of insect that alights on the skin, or the leaves of plants, by its bite inflicting pain in the one case, and causing destruction in the other. The swarms of flies in Egypt are usually numerous and excessively annoying. They alight on the moist part of the eyelids and nostrils, and inflict wounds that produce great pain, swelling and inflammation. They are also ruinous to the plants in which they lay their eggs. Gnats and mosquitoes are also abundant and virulent. A plague of such creatures would cause immense suffering and desolation.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): These displays of the Lord’s power were so many judgments directed against the false confidences and idolatrous objects of the Egyptians.

MATTHEW HENRY: God can make the weakest, most despicable animals instruments of His wrath when He pleases; what they want in strength may be made up in numbers.

C. H. SPURGEON: As an illustration of the power of flies, we give an extract from Charles Marshall’s Canadian Dominion:* “I have been told by men of unquestioned veracity, that at midday the clouds of mosquitoes on the plains would sometimes hide the leaders in a team of four horses from the sight of the driver. Cattle could only be recognised by their shape; all alike becoming black with an impenetrable crust of mosquitoes. The line of the route over the Red River plains would be marked by the carcasses of oxen stung to death by this insignificant foe.”

THOMAS CROSBY (1840-1914): In Canada’s Fraser Valley,* we were besieged by myriads of mosquitoes, that bred in the marshy places, particularly after high water. They literally swarmed, and some places rose in clouds as one passed―millions of them. I noticed in my preaching journeys on horseback that my little pony, otherwise gentle and manageable, would jump and run at times in an unaccountable fashion. At such times the mosquitoes would strike my face and forehead like a storm of hail. Then it occurred to me that the intelligent little beast only ran when passing through the spots where these insects mostly swarmed, and henceforth, I let him gallop. The settlers tell of dogs and calves being killed by the mosquitoes, and one reputable gentleman maintains that he had in his possession at one time a cow whose tail had been so bitten by these venomous pests that it dropped off.

ADAM CLARKE: In Egypt, “the land was corrupted.” Every thing was spoiled, and many of the inhabitants destroyed, being probably stung to death by these venomous insects.

THOMAS CROSBY: On the Fraser River, I met two Englishmen. It was the height of the mosquito season, and they started off in a canoe to “see the country.” Some days after, I met them in Chilliwack, and the sight they presented was, to say the least, ludicrous. They had evidently been in the water, for the legs of their pants had shrunken until there was quite four inches between the ends of their pants and the tops of their socks. The mosquitoes had been getting in their work, for their necks and legs and wrists were red and swollen.

C. H. SPURGEON: Small creatures become great tormentors―when they swarm they can sting a man till they threaten to eat him up.

THOMAS CROSBY: At one of my visits to Langley, the high water was just going down, and the mosquitoes were very bad. I was invited to stay overnight at the home of settler, who had built a little log house of two rooms on a ridge. They had no mosquito netting, but they had taken a crinoline dress, and hung it up over where my head and face were to be, tacked it to the clothes, and round the pillow. I was told to be careful in getting into bed, and to keep this thing tucked well around. I did as I was told―but, oh! the noise overhead, and all around, until finally the mosquitos found their way inside my shield. I stood the torture for a while, thinking it was but a few stragglers who, when they had had their fill, would leave. They, however, loaded up, and spread their wings with a whirring buzzing, as if to call others to the feast. It seemed as if hundreds accepted the invitation.

C. H. SPURGEON: The plague of flies in Egypt, was perhaps the most terrible that the Egyptians ever felt.

___________________

*Editor’s Note: Charles Marshall’s The Canadian Dominion was published in 1871. In the 1870’s, Thomas Crosby was a itinerant Methodist missionary in British Columbia, Canada. One hundred years later, in the 1970’s, I stayed in a cabin in the Besnard Lake area in Canada’s Northern Saskatchewan. A short walk through the silent pine forest behind the cabin, there was a swampy low spot. As I walked towards that low spot, I began to hear a whining buzz ahead of me, growing louder and louder as I got closer; it was the sound of mosquito wings—millions of them.

 

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Holy Boldness

Posted on October 14, 2022 by The Editor

Exodus 33:12-17

And Moses said unto the LORD, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): There are certain elements that always come out in all the great Biblical prayers, and the first characteristic of Moses’ prayer is its boldness, its confidence. There is no hesitation here. There is a quiet confidence. Oh, there is a “holy boldness.” This is the great characteristic of all prayers that have ever prevailed. It is, of course, inevitable. You cannot pray truly, still less can you intercede, if you have not an assurance of your acceptance, and if you do not know the way into the holiest of all. If, when you get down on your knees, you are reminded of your sins, and are wondering what you can do about them, if you have to spend all your time praying for forgiveness and pardon, wondering whether God is listening or not, how can you pray? How can you intercede, as Moses did here?

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): In Hebrews 4:16, we are encouraged to “come boldly to the throne of grace,” because “we have an high priest entered into the heavens,” Hebrews 4:14.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: “Let us therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”—You notice his ‘therefore’? “Therefore, let us come boldly.” What does it refer to? It refers to the truth about the great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God; that is the only way to be bold in the presence of God. If I look at myself I cannot be bold, I become speechless. With Job, I put my hand upon my mouth―I cannot speak. But I must speak if I am to intercede. How can I do so with confidence and assurance?  There is only one answer—it is to know that my great High Priest is Jesus, the Son of God, and that by His blood I have a right of entry into the holiest of all, and can go there with boldness.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It is no right faith but when we are bold with quiet minds to show ourselves in the presence of God. Which boldness comes from assured confidence in the goodwill of God. It is assuredness that maketh the conscience quiet and cheerful before God.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Now this is absolutely vital to prayer. If we want to have real confidence in prayer, then we must know that we ourselves are accepted by God. As Christian people, we should always approach the throne of God with confidence and, of course, always with reverence and godly fear, because He who is in heaven is our Father. Now, Moses was face to face with God—he was assured, and he was bold with a holy boldness.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): There is an unseemly familiarity in some men’s prayers, which I cannot praise. But there is such a thing as a ‘holy boldness,’ which is exceedingly to be desired. I mean such boldness as that of Moses.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: But there is a second point in Moses’ prayer of Exodus 33:12-17 which is most valuable and interesting, and that is the element of reasoning, and of arguing that comes in. It is very daring, but it is very true. “Moses said unto the Lord, See—which really means that he is arguing with God—“See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said.” He is reminding God of what He had said. He is having an argument with God. “And yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now, therefore,” says Moses, as if he were saying to God, ‘Be logical, be consistent, carry out your own argument. You cannot say this to me and then not do anything.’ “Now, therefore, I pray thee, if—still arguing—“if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.” Then, “For wherein”—if you do not do this—“wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight?  Is it not in that thou goest with us?”

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Faith is the wrestling grace. It comes up close to God; takes hold of God, and will not easily take a denial.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Is it right, someone may ask, to speak to God like that? Is this not presumption? No, these things go together.

GEORGE SEATON BOWES (circa 1820’s-1880’s): A holy boldness, a chastened familiarity, is the true spirit of right prayer.

J. C. RYLE: This is the boldness for which Martin Luther was remarkable. One who heard him praying said, “What a spirit—what a confidence was in his very expressions! With such a reverence he sued, as one begging of God, and yet with such hope and assurance, as if he spoke with a loving father or friend.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Some men fail in reverence for God, but far more fail in holy boldness towards God! Men who are mighty for God are generally famous for courage with Him. They say it was wonderful to hear Luther preach, but a hundred times more so to hear him pray! There was an awful reverence about that heroic man, but there was also such a childlike simplicity of daring that he seemed as though he did really lay hold of God.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness. When I get a promise I treat it as a tree in my garden. I know there is rich fruit on it. If I cannot get it, I shake it backwards and forwards by prayer and meditation, until at last the fruit drops into my hand.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Oh! that is the whole secret of prayer, I sometimes think. Thomas Goodwin in his exposition on the sealing of the Spirit uses a wonderful term. He says, “Sue Him for it, sue Him for it.” Do not leave Him alone. Pester Him, as it were, with His own promise. Tell Him what He has said He is going to do. Quote the Scripture to Him. And you know, God delights to hear us doing it, as a father likes to see this element in his own child who has obviously been listening to what his father has been saying. It pleases Him. The child may be slightly impertinent—it does not matter, the father likes it in spite of that. And God is our Father, He loves us, and He likes to hear us pleading His own promises, quoting His own words to Him.

RICHARD SIBBES (1577-1635): When we hear any promise in the Word of God, let us turn it into a prayer. God’s promises are His bonds. Sue Him on His bond. He loves that we should wrestle with Him by His promises.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: May God grant us this assurance, this holy boldness in prayer, so that whatever our condition, we may take it to the Lord in prayer and do so confidently.

 

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Psalm 136—A Song of Thankful Praise to God for His Mercy

Posted on October 7, 2022 by The Editor

Psalm 136:1-3

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.

O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.

HENRY SMITH (1560-1591): Many sweet things are in the word of God—but the name of mercy is the sweetest word in all the Scriptures, which made David harp upon it twenty-six times in this Psalm, “For his mercy endureth for ever.”

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): The frequent repetition of this sentence shows how greatly the Lord delights in mercy, and deems Himself honoured by the exercise of it: and it teaches us that this attribute should be peculiarly dear to us, being the source of all our hopes and comforts. At every half verse, one half of the choir answers to the other in these words: “For His mercy endureth for ever.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): When the chorus was taken up by the whole of the people, accompanied by a blast of trumpets, this must have been a magnificent hymn of praise.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): And the design of this psalm is to show that blessings of every kind flow from the grace, goodness, and mercy of God, which is constant and perpetual; and to impress a sense of it upon the minds of men.

C. H. SPURGEON: It commences with a three-fold praise to the Triune Lord.

DANIEL CRESSWELL (1776-1844): The three several names of the Deity are commonly rendered Jehovah, God, and Lord, respectively; the first having reference to His essence as self-existent, and being His proper name; the second designating Him under the character of a judge or of an all-powerful being; and the third, representing Him as exercising rule. 

C. H. SPURGEON: If there be any other god, if there can be imagined to be any, our God is infinitely above them all. The gods of the heathen are idols, but our God made the heavens.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): All other mighty beings, false or true, are less than He; and subservient to Him. In the same way He is Lord of lords.

C. H. SPURGEON: There are lords many—but but Jehovah is the Lord of them all. All lordship is vested in the Eternal. He makes and administers law, He rules and governs mind and matter, He possesses in Himself all sovereignty and power. All lords in the plural are summed up in this Lord in the singular: He is more lordly than all emperors and kings condensed into one. For this we may well be thankful, for we know the superior Sovereign will rectify the abuses of the underlings who now lord it over mankind. He will call these lords to his bar, and reckon with them for every oppression and injustice. He is as truly the Lord of lords as He is Lord over the meanest of the land, and He rules with a strict impartiality, for which every just man should give heartiest thanks.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every verse of this psalm outlines God’s wondrous mercy in creation, in providence and power, in judgment and deliverance, and in forgiveness and redemption.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): We are here reminded of the source of our salvation…Thus Peter says, “According to his abundant mercy he hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection from the dead,” 1 Peter 1:3; and Paul says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us,” Titus 3:5. The whole design of our salvation originates in and is secured by the purpose and grace of God.

THOMAS SCOTT: By mercy we understand the Lord’s disposition to compassion and to relieve those whom sin has rendered miserable and base; His readiness to forgive and be reconciled to the most provoking of transgressors, and to bestow all blessings upon them; together with all the provision which He has made for the honour of His name, in the redemption of sinners by Jesus Christ. The counsels of this mercy have been from everlasting; the effects of it will be eternal to all who are interested in it: and the Lord continues, from age to age, equally ready to show mercy to all who seek to Him for it.

ROBERT HARRIS (1578-1658): Mercy pleaseth Him—it is His delight: and we are never weary of receiving, therefore He cannot be of giving it; for it is a more blessed thing “to give than to receive,” Acts 20:35; so God takes more content in the one, than we in the other.

PHILIP HENRY (1631-1696): “Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever: And hath redeemed us from our enemies: for his mercy endureth for ever,” verses 23-24. “And.” If the end of one mercy were not the beginning of another, we were undone.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): My brethren, God’s mercies are from everlasting; and it is a treasure that can never be spent, never exhausted, unto eternity…If God will but continue to be merciful to me, will a poor soul say, I have enough? Why, saith Isaiah, “in His mercies is continuance, and we shall be saved,” Isaiah 64:5. Hath God pardoned thee hitherto? But hast thou sinned again? Can He stretch His goodness and mercy a little further? Why, He will stretch them out unto eternity, unto everlasting; and if one everlasting be not enough, there are twenty-six everlastings in this one Psalm.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): “O give thanks unto the God of heaven, for his mercy endureth for ever,” vs. 26. His mercy in providing heaven for His people is more than all the rest.

EDITOR’S NOTE: But notice what is said immediately before that very last verse of this psalm—“Who giveth food to all flesh, for his mercy endureth for ever,” vs. 25.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): The very air we breathe in, the bread we eat—our common blessings, be they never so mean, we have them all from grace, and all from the tender mercy of the Lord. You have in this psalm the story of the notable effects of God’s mercy, and the Psalmist doth not only ascribe those mighty victories, those glorious instances of His love and power, to his unchangeable mercy, but he traces our daily bread to the same cause. In eminent deliverances of the church we will acknowledge mercy; yea, but we should do it in every bit of meat we eat; for the same reason is rendered all along. What is the reason his people smote Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og the king of Bashan, and that they were rescued so often out of danger? “For his mercy endureth for ever.” And what is the reason he giveth food to all flesh? “For his mercy endureth for ever.” It is not only mercy which gives us Christ, and salvation by Christ, and all those glorious deliverances and triumphs over the enemies of the church; but it is mercy which furnisheth our tables, it is mercy that we taste with our mouths and wear at our backs. It is notable, our Lord Jesus, when there were but five barley loaves and two fishes, John 6:11, “He lift up his eyes and gave thanks.” Though our provision be never so homely and slender, yet God’s grace and mercy must be acknowledged.

C. H. SPURGEON: Let us arouse ourselves to laud our glorious Lord! And let this one reason suffice us for three thanksgivings, or for three thousand—

For His mercy shall endure,

Ever faithful, ever sure.

 

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Alexander the Coppersmith

Posted on September 29, 2022 by The Editor

Acts 19:29-34; 1 Timothy 1:18-20; 2 Timothy 4:14-17

The whole city was filled with confusion: and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre. And when Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not. And certain of the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him, desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theatre. Some therefore cried one thing, and some another: for the assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defence unto the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.

This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works: Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words. At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): The first time we come on Alexander he is a Jew of Ephesus, and a clever speaker to an excitable crowd.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “And would have made his defence unto the people.”—which looks as if he was a Christian, or at least was charged with being one.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Many writers suppose that this was Alexander the coppersmith, who was one of the most violent judaizing Christians, consequently one of the greatest enemies of Paul, and most in favour with the unbelieving Jews, of any who professed Christianity; and, if so, no wonder that the Jews should be desirous of his making his oration to the people.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Alexander was brought forward on this occasion by the Jews, that he might make an oration to the multitude, in order to exculpate the Jews, who were often by the heathens confounded with the Christians; and to cast the whole blame of the uproar upon Paul and his party. Alexander was probably chosen because he was an able speaker.

ALEXANDER WHYTE: Alexander had this temptation, that he was fitted by nature to be much more than a mere coppersmith, he was so clever and so captivating with his tongue. Unless you are a man of a very single heart and a very sound conscience, it is a great temptation to you to be able in a time of public commotion to speak so as to sway the swaying multitude and to command their applause and their support. You rise on a wave of popularity at such a season, and you make use of your popularity for your own chief end in life.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Ah, it is an easy thing to float with the tide of popular opinion.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): There are, as you know, two kinds of popularity: the one, when we hunt after favour from motives of ambition and the desire of pleasing; the other, when by fairness and moderation we gain their esteem so as to make them willing to by taught by us.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): If opposition has hurt many, popularity has wounded more. It is like walking upon ice—while human nature remains in its present state, there will be almost the same connection between popularity and pride, as between fire and gunpowder: they cannot meet without an explosion, at least not unless the gunpowder is kept very damp. So, unless the Lord is constantly moistening our hearts by the influences of His Spirit, popularity will soon set us ablaze. You will hardly find a person who has been exposed to this fiery trial, without suffering loss.

JOHN CALVIN: It is uncertain whether this be that Alexander of whom Paul makes mention elsewhere, yet the conjecture seemeth to me allowable. He mentions both of them to Timothy as persons whom he knew. For my part, I have no doubt that this is the same Alexander that is mentioned by Luke, and who attempted, but without success, to quell the commotion.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Alexander the coppersmith, who was here near to martyrdom, yet afterwards made shipwreck of the faith, and did the apostle much evil.

JOHN CALVIN: What are the “many evils” which Paul complains that Alexander brought upon him?

ADAM CLARKE: “He hath greatly withstood our words.” He had been a constant opposer of the Christian doctrines.

JOHN TRAPP: He greatly withstood not Paul’s person only, but his preachings.

ALEXANDER WHYTE: Alexander followed Paul about wherever he went, poisoning the minds and the hearts of all men to whom his tongue had access. One of our latest and best authorities thinks that Alexander even followed Paul to Rome, and did his best to poison Nero and his court still more against Paul.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): What harm he did to Paul, and where, whether at Ephesus or Rome, it is not said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Timothy had travelled many years with Paul. He knew about the “evil” that Alexander had done previously at Ephesus, and Paul had informed him of Alexander’s excommunication from the church in his first epistle, which had been written either from Macedonia or Laodicea. However, Paul’s second epistle to Timothy was written later from Rome during his second imprisonment, in which Paul was pleading with Timothy to “do thy diligence to come shortly unto me” in Rome “before winter,” 2 Timothy 4:9,21. And the context and tone of Paul’s specific warning to beware of Alexander, suggests that the apostle was speaking of specific evils that Alexander had done to him more recently in Rome, the details of which Timothy did not yet know about.

ANDREW MILLER (1810-1883): The precise charge now made against the apostle, for which he was arrested, we have no means of ascertaining. It may have been simply on the charge of being a Christian. The general persecution against the Christians was now raging with the utmost severity…He was now treated as an evil-doer, as a common criminal—“Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds,”—and very different to the bonds of his first imprisonment, when he dwelt in his own hired house, Acts 28:30. Alexander had evidently something to do with his arrest. He was either one of his accusers, or, at least, a witness against him. “Alexander the coppersmith,” he writes to Timothy, “did me much evil,”—exhibited much evil mindedness towards me.

THOMAS COKE: Some years before this, Paul had delivered over Alexander unto Satan.

ANDREW MILLER: Alexander may now have sought his revenge by laying information against Paul in Rome.

MATTHEW POOLE: Some think that this signified a peculiar power granted the apostles, God confirming regular excommunications, by letting Satan loose upon persons excommunicated to torture them; but we find nothing of this in Scripture. I rather think the sense is no more than, whom I excommunicated, and cast out of the church, making them of the world again, as the world is opposed to the church, and kingdom of Christ, which, for the greater terror, the apostle expresses this notion of being “delivered to Satan,” who is called “the god of this world”—that “they may learn not to blaspheme:”—not that I might ruin and undo them, but that I might amend them by this exercise of discipline, teaching them to take heed of spreading damnable and pernicious errors to the reproach of God.

THOMAS COKE: But the punishment so inflicted had not reclaimed him. And if Alexander was incorrigible, the apostle might justly denounce some greater curse upon him, or rather, foretell his future and final punishment: “the Lord reward him according to his works.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is a prophetical denunciation of the just judgment of God that would befall him.

THOMAS COKE: There is not in it the least degree of revenge on Paul’s part: for the apostle leaves it to the great Searcher of Hearts, to determine what Alexander’s works had been, and what the principle was from which they had proceeded; and then he foretells, or petitions, that God would reward him, according as God Himself knew his works had been: which was really no other than foretelling, that the God and Judge of the earth will do right, or praying him to do so.

 

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