Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Luke 11:1; Job 37:19; Romans 8:26,27

And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

Teach us what we shall say unto him; for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I am sure we need take no time emphasizing the vital importance of this whole subject of prayer. In many ways there is nothing more important for us in this life and pilgrimage than that we should be well instructed in this matter. Yet there is nothing perhaps that seems to give people so much trouble and perplexity.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Observe our weakness in prayer: “We know not what we should pray for as we ought.  As to the matter of our requests, we know not what to ask…As to the manner, we know not how to pray as we ought.  It is not enough that we do that which is good, but we must do it well, to seek it in a due order.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): I have often been struck with how often preachers and others misquote, “Lord, teach us to pray,” by inserting “teach us how to pray.” Man is occupied with the “how,” but God with the “pray”—which is often an inarticulated groan!

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Prayer is not easy; prayer, because we are what we are, is difficult and we need instruction. If we have never felt what our Lord’s disciples felt when they turned to Him one afternoon and said, “Lord, teach us to pray,” it is probably because we have never really prayed at all.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): “An easy thing to pray!” Who that has made the trial, and is concerned for the result of it, exclaims with Elihu, “Teach us what we shall say unto Him; for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness,” or, with the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Mark the grand characteristic of true prayer—in the Holy Ghost.

MATTHEW HENRY: We must pray in the Spirit―our spirits must be employed in the duty, and we must do it by the grace of God’s good Spirit.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): What is it to pray “in the Spirit?”

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: An incident within my own experience demonstrates this to perfection. I remember being in a prayer meeting that I used to attend regularly every week. On this occasion it was a hot summer’s evening toward the end of June or the beginning of July. We started at 7:15, and I asked somebody to open the meeting by reading the Scriptures and praying. He did so, and one or two others took part in prayer. Everything was just as usual―it was always a good prayer meeting, always a benediction to one’s soul. But then an older man stood up to pray, a man who normally stumbled in his praying. He was a man who knew his duty and he took part in prayer, but, we draw these distinctions, do we not?―there was nothing very inspiring about the way he normally prayed.

But this night, before he had spoken two or three sentences, I and everybody else present became conscious of the fact that something was happening. He was an entirely different man. His voice deepened, and he was speaking with freedom and liberty and an eloquence such as I had not only never heard from him, but perhaps had never heard from anybody else in prayer. He was a transformed man―entirely transformed―and the words were pouring from his mouth in perfect order and with warmth and freedom and power and liberty. The effect of that was that all the others felt the same power and the same freedom, and they went on praying non-stop, one after another, without anybody being called and without any intermission until about ten minutes to ten. We were all conscious that we were in the realm of the eternal and the spiritual. What was that? That was praying “in the Spirit.” It was the liberty and freedom of the Holy Spirit. And that is what I am referring to. It can happen in a prayer meeting, or it can happen you individually, in private, when you are led out, as it were. The Spirit takes hold of you, and you are praying in the Spirit with glorious freedom and liberty.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): By the greater part of those who call themselves Christians, the whole of this subject is accounted visionary and absurd. They have no idea of one person being filled with the Spirit any more than others: and all the joyous frames arising from His presence in the soul, they deem the very essence of enthusiasm. But what, then, can be meant by all those directions which are given us to “live in the Spirit,” “walk in the Spirit,” and “pray in the Spirit,” and to “bring forth the fruits of the Spirit?” And why has our blessed Lord so encouraged us to pray for the gift of His Spirit, if no such communication is to be expected by us?

WILLIAM GURNALL: Christ Himself assures as much. Take it from His own mouth: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? ” A father may deny his wanton child bread to play with and throw under his feet, but not his starving child who cries for bread to preserve his life. God can, and will, deny him that asks the Spirit to pride himself with his gifts, but not the hungry soul, that, pinched with his want of grace, humbly yet vehemently cries, “Lord, give my Thy Spirit, or else I starve, I die.” Nay, let me tell you, your strong cries and earnest prayers for the Spirit would be sweet evidence to you that you have Him already with you.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): The very ability to pray in the Holy Ghost is a sweet and sure sign of salvation.

WILLIAM GURNALL:  Prayer, you see, is not a work of nature, but a gift of grace; not a matter of will and parts got by human skill and art, but taught and inspired by the Holy Ghost.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those that were endued habitually with the powers of the Holy Ghost still had occasion for fresh supplies of the Spirit, according to the various occurrences of their services. We have here an instance of the performance of that promise, that “God will give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him,” Luke 11:13, for it was in answer to prayer that they were filled with the Holy Ghost: “When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness,” Acts 4:31. God gave them greater degrees of His Spirit, which was what they prayed for.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Let me exhort you to pray for the Spirit above all, and to bless God for this Holy Spirit, as one of the greatest blessings of all.

JOHN TRAPP: A very grave divine writeth thus: “Yea, I had rather God should give me the gift of prayer than, without that gift, the whole world besides.”

A. W. KRUMMACHER (1796-1868): Pray in the Spirit―in the Holy Ghost, and not in your own self-sufficiency, and you will pray with power.

 

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Experiential, or Experimental Understanding

Psalm 34:8; Hosea 6:3; Isaiah 7:9; Hebrews 10:32-34

O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used…and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): In matters of divinity we must first believe, and then know; not know, and then believe. In human sciences it is otherwise. Men are brought to assent and believe by experience, knowledge, and sense; as to believe that fire is hot—but here, belief and assent go before experimental knowledge, sense, and use.

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): There are two sorts of knowledge among men; one traditional, the other experimental: this last the apostle calls a “knowing in ourselves,” Hebrews 10:34, and opposes it to that traditional knowledge which may be said to be without ourselves, because borrowed from other men.  Now this experience we have of the power of religion in our souls is that only which fixes a man’s spirit in the ways of godliness; it made the Hebrews take joyfully the spoiling of their goods; no arguments or temptations can wrest truth out of the hand of experience.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The Lord alone can give us the true, vital, comfortable, and useful knowledge of His own truths. We may become wise in notions, and so far masters of a system, or scheme of doctrine, as to be able to argue and fight in favor of our own hypothesis, by dint of application, and natural abilities; but we rightly understand what we say no farther than we have a spiritual perception of it wrought in our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost.

JOHN TRAPP: This makes knowledge to become experimental, as in Psalm 116:6, Romans 8:1,2; this is to “follow on to know the Lord,”—as without this men’s knowledge is but a flash, and may end in ignorance and profaneness, because never formed and seated in their hearts, never digested by due meditation and application to their own consciences―it is notional knowledge, not experimental and practical…Men should get a Bible stamped in their heads, and another in their hearts, as David had, Psalm 119:11—“Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” Knowledge that swims in the head only, and sinks not down into the heart, does no more good than rain on the surface.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Experience is very different from theory; and when we are taught of God, we have other views of those things of which we have read and heard before…And there is such a thing as experience, or an acquaintance with divine things derived from trial, in addition to testimony, which is peculiarly satisfactory.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): One grain of the truth of God experienced in the heart is more valuable and precious than the whole system in the head only. And so, to deepen their knowledge of the truth, to ground and settle them in it, to bring it out in all its practical power, a good, covenant God often places His children in sore trials and temptations. The mariner becomes practiced in his trade in the storm and the hurricane, amid rocks and shoals. All that he knew before he launched his vessel on the ocean or encountered the storm was only theory—but a single tempest or one escape from shipwreck imparts more experiential knowledge than years of merely theoretical work. So learns the believer. How theoretical and defective his views of divine truth; how little his knowledge of his own heart, his deep corruptions, perfect weakness and little faith; how imperfect his acquaintance with Jesus and His fullness, value, all-sufficiency, and sympathy, until the hand of God falls upon him! When messenger after messenger brings news of blasted gourds or broken cisterns, when brought down and laid low, they are constrained to confess like Job, “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.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): He is precious to us by experience because He has helped us in many a dark hour of trial.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW: Welcome whatever makes you more acquainted with God; despise nothing that will deepen your intimacy with God in Christ. Welcome the cross, though it may be heavy; welcome the cup, though it may be bitter; welcome the chastening, though it may be severe; welcome the wound, though it may be deep. Welcome to your heart whatever increases your knowledge of God. Receive it as an advantage sent to you from your Father; receive it as a heavenly message to your soul. Listen to the voice that is in that rod: “My child, I want you to know Me better, for in knowing Me better you will love Me better, and in loving Me better, you will serve Me better. I send this chastening, this loss, this cross, only to draw you closer and closer to My embrace—only to bring you nearer and nearer to Me.”

C. H. SPURGEON: O taste and see.” Make a trial, an inward, experimental trial of the goodness of God. You cannot see except by tasting for yourself; but if you taste you shall see, for this, like Jonathan’s honey (1 Samuel 14:29) it enlightens the eyes, “that the Lord is good.” You can only know this really and personally by experience. There is the banquet with its oxen and fatlings; its fat things full of marrow, and wines on the lees well refined; but their sweetness will be all unknown to you except you make the blessings of grace your own, by a living, inward, vital participation in them. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” Faith is the soul’s taste; they who test the Lord by their confidence always find Him good, and they become themselves blessed.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious,” 1 Peter 2:1-3. Regenerate persons have tasted that He is so: an unregenerate man has no spiritual taste; his taste is vitiated by sin, and not being changed, sin is a sweet morsel in his mouth, and He disrelishes everything that is spiritual. But one that is born again savours the things of the Spirit of God; sin is exceeding sinful to him, and Christ exceeding precious; He, and His fruit, His promises, and blessings of grace, His Word and ordinances, are sweet unto His taste—and the taste he has is not a mere superficial one, such as hypocrites may have of the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come; but such a taste of Christ, and of His grace, as by a true faith, to eat His flesh, and drink His blood, and so have everlasting life. Such have a saving and experimental knowledge of Christ, an application of Him, and His saving benefits to them, a revelation of Him in them, so that they find and feel that He dwells in them, and they in Him; such receive out of Christ’s fullness, and grace for grace, and live by faith upon Him, and receive nourishment from Him.

AUGUSTINE (354-430): If you do not believe you will not understand.

 

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The Key to a Happy New Year

Psalm 90:12; Proverbs 3:13; Proverbs 29:18

Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.

He that keepeth the law, happy is he.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Though every day be a New Year’s Day, still the alteration in our dates and our calendars should set us all thinking of that continual lapse of the mysterious thing—the creature of our own minds, which we call time, and which is bearing us all so steadily and silently onwards.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): To be happy is the universal desire; but while all pursue this as their aim, few comparatively attain the accomplishment of their wishes: and the reason is evident; they mistake wherein man’s true happiness consists, and the means which lead to it: consequently, they are ever bewildered in a fruitless search, and tormented with continual disappointment.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Wherein is happiness to be found?

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): True happiness lies in being united to God. And hence we may infer what is the true happiness of men. It is, when God enlightens our understandings, so that we embrace the salvation which has been revealed to us in Christ. For, so long as we are destitute of that knowledge, we are at the greatest possible distance from happiness.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): O Lord, thou art my God,” Isaiah 25:1―Not by creation and providence only, but by covenant and grace. This is the first and foundation blessing of grace, and secures all the rest; in this true happiness consists, and is preferable to every other enjoyment. “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom.”―By wisdom is meant Christ, and a saving knowledge of Him by means of His Gospel.

JOHN CALVIN: Paul says that “He is made unto us wisdom,” 1 Corinthians 1:30, by which he means, that we obtain in Him an absolute perfection of wisdom, inasmuch as the Father has fully revealed Himself to us in Him…There is a similar passage in Colossians 2:3—“In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

JOHN GILL:And the man that getteth understanding,” gets Jesus Christ and a spiritual understanding of Him: this is not a proper acquisition of a man’s own; an interest in Christ is not gotten by anything of man’s; not by his good works, which are the fruits of grace; nor by faith and repentance, which are gifts of grace themselves; but it is given unto a man: and “getting” here signifies the possession and enjoyment of Christ, as God’s pure gift—as a man that is said to obtain the favour of God, when he enjoys it, and the effects of it, in consequence of finding Christ.

JOHN CALVIN: We ought also to bear in mind that saying of the Psalmist, “Blessed are the people whose God is Jehovah,” Psalm 144:15. It confirms what I have just said, that a happy life is complete in all its parts, when God promises to be a God to us and takes us as His people. The Prophets, therefore, do not without reason so often inculcate this truth; for though nothing else might be wanting to us that could be expected to make us happy, yet until we feel assured that God is a Father to us, and that we are His people, whatever happiness we may have, it will only end in misery.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Suppose a man to possess the whole world, there will still be in his bosom an aching void, a secret something unpossessed. But the man who can look up to the Lord Jesus Christ, and say, “This is my Friend, and my Beloved;” “My Beloved is mine, and I am His,” can never wish for any thing beyond.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): So the apostle Paul judged it. So upon a trial he found it. All the world’s show, all his former valuable “gain, he counted as dung and dross” for the true wisdom—“the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord,” Philippians 3:4-8.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Nothing can make that man truly miserable that hath God for his portion, and nothing can make that man truly happy that wants God for his portion. God is the author of all true happiness; He is the donor of all true happiness; He is the maintainer of all true happiness, and He is the centre of all true happiness; and, therefore, he that hath Him for his God, and for his portion, is the only happy man in the world.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Thus it must ever be—if we want to be happy, we must be occupied with God.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): True happiness is found in hearing the glad tidings of salvation by Christ Jesus, and keeping them in a holy heart—and, practicing them in an unblamable life…Those are truly blessed, or happy, whose hearts are devoted to God, and who live in the habit of obedience. Those, whom the general tenor of their life is not conformed to the will of God, have no true happiness

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is piety only that will secure men’s true happiness.

JOHN CALVIN: It is then our true happiness when we acknowledge that we are not our own, and allow God, by His sovereign power, to rule us as He pleases. But we ought to begin with the law of God. Hence, then, it is that we are said to bear the yoke of God, when we relinquish our own judgment, and become wise through God’s Word, and when, with our affections surrendered and subdued, we hear what God commands us, and receive what He commands. True happiness, with its accompaniments, consists in obedience to God. It amounts therefore to this—that they who obey God, and submit to Jesus Christ as their king, shall be blessed.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): That this conformity to His image and obedience to His commands, are pleasing to Christ and excite His affection, is evident from His own language. “I have not called you servants,” says He to His disciples, “but I have called you friends; and then are ye my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you,” John 15:14,15. The fruits of holiness thus produced by His people on earth, imperfect as they are, are on some accounts more pleasing to Him even than those produced by the angels in heaven.

ADAM CLARKE: Live to His glory, as this is the sure way to be happy in this life, and in that which is to come.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: As thou art crossing the threshold of another New Year, be sure that thou commence it with a heart undivided for Him. We know of no happiness for a new year, or for any day in all the year, but in the fullest, sweetest, fellowship with Him. All happiness without Christ is vapid and worthless, and must soon pass away, as time rolls on rapidly.

ADAM CLARKE: The world by wisdom―its wisdom, never knew God, 1 Corinthians 1:21.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Let thy first business then, be the salvation of thy soul through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

JOHN CALVIN: Seek Him without delay.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: That all our readers may have a Happy New Year, in the richest and truest sense, and one of happy service and communion with the Lord, is our most earnest and fervent prayer.

 

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A Lowly Manger, But A Glorious Majesty

Luke 2:8-14

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The meanest circumstances of Christ’s humiliation were all along attended with some discoveries of His glory, to balance them, and take off the offence of them; for even when He humbled Himself, God did in some measure exalt Him and give Him earnests of His future exaltation.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Thus, in the incarnation of our Lord, there was a meanness, which seemed unsuitable to such an occasion; and at the same time a majesty, that was worthy the person and character of the new-born infant: He was born, not in a palace, but a stable, and had only a manger for his reception: yet did an angel come from heaven to announce His birth; and a multitude of the heavenly host attended to proclaim His praise.

MATTHEW HENRY: When we saw Him wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, we were tempted to say, “Surely this cannot be the Son of God?” But see His birth attended, as it is here, with a choir of angels, and we shall say, “Surely it can be no other than the Son of God, concerning Whom it was said, when He was “brought into the world, Let all the angels of God worship him,” Hebrews 1:6.

CHARLES SIMEON: The angels had doubtless seen much of the Divine glory before: they had seen God’s wisdom, power, and goodness in the creation and government of the world. But they never before had such a view of His condescension and grace as when they beheld Him lying in the manger, a helpless babe. Now also the design of God to glorify all His perfections in the work of redemption was more clearly unfolded. Hence the whole multitude of the heavenly choir began to sing, “Glory to God in the highest.”

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): This strange blending of opposites—the glory in the lowliness, and the abasement in the glory—is the keynote of this singular event. He lies in a manger, but a star hangs trembling above it, and leads sages from afar with their myrrh, and incense, and gold.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Amid the deeper humiliation of Jesus, some bright displays of His uncreated glory still broke forth.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: The blending of these two is one of the remarkable features in the New Testament portraiture of Jesus Christ. Wherever in our Lord’s life any incident indicates more emphatically than usual the lowliness of His humiliation, there, by the side of it, you get something that indicates the majesty of His glory—He submits Himself to the baptism of repentance, but the heavens open and a voice proclaims, “This is My beloved Son!” He sits wearied, on the stone coping of the well, and craves for water from a peasant woman; but He gives her the Water of Life. He lies down and sleeps, from pure exhaustion, in the stern of the little fishing-boat, but He wakes to command the storm, and it is still. He weeps beside the grave, but He flings His voice into its inmost recesses, and dead Lazarus comes forth. He well-nigh faints under the agony in the garden of Gethsemane, but an angel from Heaven strengthens Him. He stands a prisoner at a human bar, but He judges and condemns His judges. He dies, and that hour of defeat is His hour of triumph, and the union of shame and glory is most conspicuous in that hour when on the Cross the “Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”

CHARLES SIMEON: The circumstances of our Saviour’s birth characterize in a measure, the dispensation which he came to introduce. The Gospel exhibits a plain, yet profound, scheme of salvation: while its great outlines are intelligible to the meanest capacity, it abounds with the most sublime, and inscrutable mysteries.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: If you want to understand Bethlehem, you must go back to a time before Bethlehem. The meaning of Christ’s birth is only understood when we turn to John, that Evangelist who does not narrate it. For the meaning of it is here: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father,” John 1:14. The surface of the fact is the smallest part of the fact. They say that there is seven times as much of an iceberg under water as there is above the surface. And the deepest and most important fact about the nativity of our Lord is that it was not only the birth of an Infant, but the Incarnation of the Word…We have to travel back and recognise that that life did not begin in the manger. We have to travel back and recognize the mystery of godliness—“God manifest in the flesh.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): He that was born in Bethlehem’s manger was the Infinite, as well as the Infant.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): No wonder that angels should desire to look into these things. No wonder that they left heaven in multitudes to visit our world when their Creator and their Lord lay an infant in a manger. No wonder that raptures and ecstasies unfelt before swelled their bosoms, and called for new songs to express them.

CHARLES SIMEON: And if their hosannas increased with their discoveries of the Divine glory, should not ours also? Have not we also abundant reason to magnify our incarnate God; and to exalt our thoughts of Him in proportion as He has debased Himself for our sakes?

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: When we look far beyond the manger of Bethlehem into the depths of Eternity and see God so loving the world as to give His Son, we cannot but recognize that He has intervened in the course of human history and that the mightiest force in the development of man, is the eternal Son Whom He sent to save the world.

EDWARD PAYSON: The wonder is, that man—stupid, insensible man, should be no more affected by this event; that he should regard it without interest, and almost fall asleep while he hears it described. It is not thus, when events comparatively trifling solicit his attention. Let the President of the United States come among us, and every house pours out its inmates to gaze. Let a comet blaze athwart the sky, and thousands of sleepless eyes are open to watch. But let the Creator, the Eternal Sovereign of the universe—by whom and for whom all things were made, come in the most interesting form, how few are found who even trouble themselves to ask whence He comes, or what is His object; how much fewer to give Him the welcome which He had a right to expect! My hearers, how strange is this: and how strange it is, that we cannot see and blush at our own stupidity. Why is this event, which will cause the name of our world to resound through the whole created universe of God, and to be had in everlasting remembrance, regarded with such indifference?

THOMAS COKE: Such is man’s fallen nature…They who are offended at the meanness of Jesus in the manger, will tremble before Him when He shall come again at the head of His angelic hosts.

 

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The Treasures of the Snow

Job 38:22; Proverbs 25:11

Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?

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

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): This is an elegant figure to represent the golden fruit of the gospel set forth by the word of the Spirit.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): One day, I once witnessed a most unusual occurrence in the largest orange-growing district of southern California; something, indeed, that none remembered as having taken place previously. A fairly heavy fall of snow occurred during the height of the orange harvest. The trees everywhere were covered with the silvery down. As the lovely view spread out before me, and I noticed the great yellow globes hanging among the whitened boughs and leaves, I exclaimed, “Apples of gold in pictures of silver!

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I remember how God once preached to me by a similitude in the depth of winter. The earth had been black and there was scarcely a green thing or a flower to be seen. As you looked across the field, there was nothing but blackness—bare hedges and leafless trees and black, black earth, wherever you looked. On a sudden God spoke and unlocked the treasures of the snow and white flakes descended until there was no blackness to be seen—all was one sheet of dazzling whiteness. It was at that time I was seeking the Saviour and it was then I found Him. And I remember well that sermon which I saw before me—“Come now and let us reason together; though your sins are as scarlet they shall be as snow, though they are red like crimson they shall be whiter than wool,” Isaiah 1:18.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Where in the New Testament is there a word, which—for pure grace, exceeds “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow?

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): “Can you tell me of anything that is whiter than snow?” asked a teacher, who was addressing a Sunday school. “The soul that has been washed in the blood of Jesus,” was the satisfactory answer of a little girl…Is there any way by which a crimson sinner can be made whiter than snow? Yes—in Christ Jesus, and through His blood.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): I think how many souls there are, and have been, and shall be, in the world. Think of the innumerable criminals of the most abandoned kind—the murderers, robbers, conquerors, and blasphemers, adulterers, harlots—the impious, hardened wretches who neither fear God nor regard man, that have been, and still are, to be found among mankind. What an ocean of mercy is necessary to wash away their sins, to make the deep crimson white as snow. What an omnipotence of grace is requisite to fit such wretches for admission into a heaven of spotless purity, and make them holy as God. Yet all such Christ invites, all such He is able to save, all such He would save, would they come to Him. Who then can describe, who can conceive the ten thousandth part of that grace and mercy which must be in Christ; or of the love which renders Him thus willing to scatter that grace and mercy round Him upon the worthless and undeserving.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): It is not the greatness or number of our crimes, but impenitence and unbelief, that will prove our ruin—No, were our sins more in number than the hairs of our head, or of a deeper die than the brightest scarlet; yet the merits of the death of Jesus Christ are infinitely greater, and faith in His blood shall make them white as snow—Having much to be forgiven, despair not; only believe.

C. H. SPURGEON: Is the Holy Spirit making you conscious of sin? He does so that you may be conscious of pardon! Do you feel condemned? The Lord condemns you, now, that you may not be condemned with the world! Are you evil, foul and vile in your own sight? It is that you may wash and be whiter than snow through the Lord Jesus!

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): ’Tis the work of God alone;

An emblem of the pow’r

By which He melts the heart of stone,

In His appointed hour.

H. A. IRONSIDE: If you are ready to come now into the presence of God, you must come with all your sins upon you. You can not get rid of them otherwise. You cannot cleanse your own heart. Job says, “If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me,” Job 9:30,31. It is absolutely impossible for you to cleanse yourself, to wash out the stains of sin. But thank God, if you are ready to come to Him in repentance—and repentance involves a complete change of attitude in regard to sin—if you are ready to come now, earnestly desiring the forgiveness of sins, there is forgiveness with Him, thank God. For “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” 1 John 1:9.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: One act of true faith in Christ, justifies you forever and ever; and He has not promised you what He cannot perform.

HUGH HENRY SNELL (1817-1892): Jeremiah plainly states, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” Jeremiah 31:34. Hear the prophet Isaiah saying, “I, I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” Isaiah 43:25. Hezekiah also—“Thou hast, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” Isaiah 38:17. The Psalmist says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us,” Psalm 103:12.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: A believer, then, is cleansed from all sin by the blood of Christ, and made the righteousness of God in Christ who is risen and ascended—all on the principle of faith.

CHARLES STANLEY (1821-1890): He has not half washed us in His precious blood. No, our sins are all forgiven, and we “are justified from all things,” Acts 13:38, 39. But it is “through Jesus.” It was Jesus “who died for our sins,” 1 Corinthians 15:3. It was Jesus “who was raised from the dead for our justification,” Romans 4:25; who said, “It is finished,” John 19:30. It was Jesus who showed them His hands and His side, and said, “Peace be unto you,” John 20:21. It was Jesus. Yes, yes! Jesus hath done all things well.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: The work of redemption is finished, all is done. Thou hast only to yield thy heart to His love, believe His word, and trust the blood that can make thee whiter than snow. If you are a believer, you are washed—yes, whiter than snow.

ELVINA M. HALL (1818-1889) Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow!

 

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Whole Hearted Seeking

Proverbs 23:26; Jeremiah 29:13; 1 Chronicles 22:19; Psalm 119:58

My son, give me thine heart.

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.

I intreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Whoever would seek God aright, they must seek Him with their whole heart. What doth this imply?

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The whole heart is taken for an upright or sincere heart, which is opposed to a double heart.

THOMAS MANTON: It implies sincerity and integrity; for it is not to be taken in the legal sense with respect to absolute perfection, but in opposition to deceit. “Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord,” Jeremiah 3:10.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): If you do not, like David, seek the favour of God with your whole heart, you will never have it. You may more rationally think to reach the top of the highest mountain on earth without labour, than to imagine you can reach heaven without effort. If you suppose a few wishes or a little exertion will do, you are mistaken; and the sooner you are undeceived the better.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): Trust Him with your whole heart, for “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” Romans 10:10…I am tired and sick of half-heartedness. I don’t like a half-hearted man. I don’t care for anyone to love me half-heartedly. And the Lord won’t have it. If we are going to seek for Him and find Him, we must do it with all our hearts.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): A half heart is no heart at all…You cannot give Christ a piece of a heart, for a heart that is halved is killed. A heart that has even a little bit taken off is a dead heart.

THOMAS MANTON: He that gives but part to God doth indeed give nothing. The Devil keeps an interest as long as one lust remains unmortified, and one corner of the soul is kept for him. As Pharaoh stood haggling with Moses, Exodus 7, he would have some pawn of their return: either leave your children behind; no, no, they must go and see the sacrifices, and be trained up in the way of the Lord; or he would have their flocks and herds left behind; he knew that would draw their hearts back again. So Satan must have either this lust or that; he knows by keeping part all will fall to his share in the end. A bird that is tied in a string seems to have more liberty than a bird in a cage; it flutters up and down though it be held fast: so many seem to flutter up and down and do many things, as Herod, Mark 6:20; but his Herodias drew him back again into the fowler’s net.

C. H. SPURGEON: The devil does not mind having half your heart. He is quite satisfied with that because he is like the woman to whom the child did not belong—he does not mind if it is cut in halves. The true mother of the child said, “Oh, spare the child! Do not divide it!” And so Christ, who is the true Lover of hearts, will not have the heart divided.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): He loathes a divided heart: Psalm 51:17; James 1:8. God neither loves halting nor halving; He will be served truly and totally. The royal law is, “Thou shalt love and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.” Among the heathens, when the beasts were cut up for sacrifice, the first thing the priest looked upon was the heart, and if the heart was naught, the sacrifice was rejected. Verily, God rejects all those sacrifices wherein the heart is not.

C. H. SPURGEON: Some seekers are divided as to the object of their trust. They trust in Jesus Christ, but they also trust a little in themselves. They believe His blood has a great deal to do with it, but they think their prayers have something, too, and so they stand with one foot on the land and the other on the sea and, therefore, they fall! They are relying upon self in part and upon Christ in part, and so they will assuredly come to destruction, for Christ will never be a part Saviour! It must be all or nothing! He never entered into partnership with sinful worms to help save them—He is the sole Foundation—and other foundation can no man lay. Alas, upon this matter, how many have their hearts divided! They are trusting to their Baptism, or to their Confirmation, or to their “sacraments”—all false foundations—and yet they are trying to trust in Christ at the same time! Their heart is divided and now they are held guilty…To believe is to trust with your whole heart—and whoever trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ with his whole heart has the promise of eternal life.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Justifying faith is seated in the whole heart, as Philip said in Acts 8:37— “If thou believest with all thine heart,” thou shalt be saved.

D. L. MOODY: “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Those who seek for Him with all their hearts, find Christ. Did you ever hear of anyone calling upon Christ with the whole heart, that Christ didn’t answer?

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): They sought Him with their whole desire, and He was found of them; and the Lord gave them rest round about,” 2 Chronicles 15:15. The words express in simplest form what should be the chief desire of our hearts and occupation of our lives, and what will then be our peaceful experience.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Give yourselves wholly to Him; and so shall that promise be fulfilled to you; “I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,” 2 Corinthians 6:18.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): His mercy shall be shown to all those who have fled for refuge to the hope that is set before them in the Gospel…Feeling that he deserved nothing but wrath, that he had no right to any good, he cries for mercy in the way that God had promised to convey it: “Be merciful unto me!” And to this he is encouraged only by the promise of God; and therefore prays, “Be merciful unto me—according to thy Word.”

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): This is the sum of his petition, and must be the main of ours.

C. H. SPURGEON: You will have the Saviour when your whole heart and soul are after Him…The heart is united in itself when it is united to the Lord! Even as the Lord has said by the mouth of the Prophet, “I will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart,” Jeremiah 24:7…Again, remember that you who seek the Lord with a divided heart condemn yourselves. When you stand before the Judgment Seat you won’t be able to say, as some will, “Lord, we did not know of this salvation.”

 

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Searching for Wisdom in a Foolish World

James 3:17; Job 28:20; Proverbs 1:1-7

The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: to understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): The word “wisdom” occurs thirty-seven times in the book of Proverbs.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The title of this book, and the following six verses contain what we today would speak of as preface. That preface first declares the purpose of the book in terms so simple as to need no comment. Then follows a statement of method, which is necessary to a right use of the whole book.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): In the three sacred books written by Solomon, he sends each forth under three different titles. Here he calls himself “the son of David, king of Israel.” The book of Ecclesiastes, he styles “the words of the Preacher,” and therein he takes the name of “the King of Jerusalem.” And in the Song of Solomon, after speaking in the title page of the excellency of it, he only puts his name of Solomon.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): They are the “proverbs of Solomon.” His name signifies peaceable.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Proverbs, or, Master sentences; maxims, axioms, speeches of special excellence and predominance; received rules that must overrule matters, and mightily prevail in the minds of men.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Solomon is recorded as the wisest of men; a man of wisdom, because he was a man of prayer, 1 Kings 3:1-14; compare Proverbs 2:1-9. His extraordinary wisdom was the admiration of the world, 1 Kings 3:28; 1 Kings 4:34.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The queen of Sheba is also to be admired in that, wishing to learn from Solomon, she asked him many questions—not simply one or two, but many, 1 Kings 10:1-9. Some people say, though I do not know how true it is, that curiosity is largely developed in women. In this case, however, the woman’s curiosity was wise and right, that when she was in the presence of such a man of wisdom, to try to learn all that she could from him and, therefore, she questioned him about all sorts of things.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Proverbs are ancient, wise, and short sayings in common use; whereof some are plain and easy, others are intricate and obscure.

ROBERT HAWKER: A proverb is said to be a “dark saying,” intimating that there is much more in it than might at first sight be supposed. Therefore, through the whole of the proverbs, we are taught to be looking beyond the surface for the grand substance that is concealed. And this, if I do not greatly err, we shall find to be Christ. He is the wisdom which is here spoken of, and for which the proverbs are given.

CHARLES BRIDGES: Valuable as are Solomon’s maxims for their wisdom—exceeding the sages of his own or any other time, 1 Kings 4:29-31, they claim our reverence upon infinitely higher ground: “Behold! A greater than Solomon is here,” Matthew 12:42.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The son of David, king of Israel. These titles are such as belong to the Messiah, Solomon’s antitype, one that is greater than he.

C. H. SPURGEON: Though Solomon was wise, he was not Wisdom itself, and that Jesus is. In the Book of Proverbs Jesus is referred to under the name of Wisdom.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Wisdom, in the Proverbs, is put for the person of Christ Himself—see Proverbs Chapter 8. So also Luke 11:49 compared with Luke 7:34,35, wherein Christ, speaking of Himself, says in Luke 11:49, “Therefore also said the Wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles…”—and in Luke 7:34,35, He expressly says, this “Wisdom” is He who was the Son of man.

C. H. SPURGEON: Paul tells us that “He is made of God unto us wisdom,” 1 Corinthians 1:30. They who really know Him know something of how wise He is and how truly He may be called Wisdom. Because He is with the Father and knows the Father, He has such wisdom as no one else can have. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him,” Matthew 11:27. He knows the deep things of God, for He came down from Heaven bringing His Father’s greatest secrets in His heart. To Him, therefore, men ought to come if they wish to be wise, and ought we not to wish for wisdom? To whom else can we go if we go not to Him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge?” Colossians 2:3.

WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): What is the relation which subsists between the fear of the Lord and true wisdom? The one is the foundation, the other the imposed superstructure; the one is the sustaining root, the other the sustained branches; the one is the living fountain, the other the issuing stream. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,”—the meaning is, he who does not reverentially trust in God, knows nothing yet as he ought to know.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: The facts of God, and man’s relation to Him, must be taken for granted if there is to be any true wisdom.

MATTHEW HENRY: Fools—atheists, who have no regard to God—“despise wisdom and instruction;” having no dread at all of God’s wrath, nor any desire of His favour. Those who say to the Almighty, “Depart from us,” who are so far from fearing Him that they set Him at defiance, can excite no surprise if they desire not the knowledge of His ways, but despise that instruction.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): What is wisdom to them?

MATTHEW HENRY: Those are fools who do not fear God and value the scriptures; and though they may pretend to be admirers of wit they are really strangers and enemies to wisdom…They talk of their wisdom, but, “Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord;” they would not be governed by it, would not follow its direction, would not do what they knew; and then “what wisdom is in them?” None to any purpose; none that will be found to their praise at the great day, however much it is found to their pride now.

C. H. SPURGEON: They despise the wisdom of Christ. If you probe them, you will discover that they were never willing to learn of Him. His own words are, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,” Matthew 18:3. The wisdom of Christ cannot be known by those who refuse to be disciples—that is, learners.

H. A. IRONSIDE: Wisdom is “skillfulness”—the ability to use knowledge correctly.

CHARLES BRIDGES: The great end of this inestimable book of Proverbs is to teach, not secular or political wisdom—though many excellent rules of each are interspersed—but that knowledge of God, which, while it “maketh wise unto salvation,” perfects and “furnishes the man of God unto all good works,” 2 Timothy 3:15-17. Its glowing privileges are set forth, Proverbs 3:13-18. It is pressed upon us with intense earnestness, as “the principal thing,” Proverbs 4:7; and our very “life,” Proverbs 4:13,20-23.

JOHN GILL: Moreover, a man who thoroughly understands the things in this book is fit to be a counsellor of others in things human and divine; in things moral, civil, and spiritual.

 

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Women Preaching

1 Timothy 2:11-14; 1 Corinthians 14:34-36

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): The root trouble, even among good Evangelicals, is our failure to heed the plain teaching of Scripture. We accept what Scripture teaches as far as doctrine is concerned; but when it comes to practice, we very often fail to take the Scriptures as our only guide. When we come to the practical side we employ human tests instead of scriptural ones. Instead of taking the plain teaching of the Bible, we argue with it. “Ah, yes,” we say, “since the Scriptures were written, times have changed.” Dare I give an obvious illustration? Take the question of women preaching, and being ordained to public ministry.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Scripture is very plain as to the place of the woman. The spirit and teaching of the New Testament are against any such practise.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The apostle Paul, in writing to Timothy, prohibits it directly. He says quite specifically that he does not allow a woman to teach or preach. “Ah, yes,” we say, as we read that letter, “he was only thinking of his own age and time; but you know times have changed since then, and we must not be bound. Paul was thinking of certain semi-civilized people in Corinth and places like that.” But the Scripture does not say that. It says, “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

JOHN KNOX (1514-1572): And why, I pray you? Was it because that the apostle thought no woman to have any knowledge? No, he gives another reason, saying, Let her be subject, as the law saith.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Paul’s reasoning is simple—that authority to teach is not suitable to the station that a woman occupies, because, if she teaches, she presides over all the men, while it becomes her to be under subjection.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: “Ah, but that is only temporary legislation,” they say. But Paul does not say that it was only for the time being; he takes it right back to the Fall and shows that it is an abiding principle. It is something that is true, therefore, of the age in which we live. But thus, you see, we argue with Scripture. Instead of taking its plain teaching, we say that times have changed—when it suits our thesis we say it is no longer relevant.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Some have objected that Paul was an old bachelor and did not like women, but we need to remember that he was the inspired servant of God and wrote as directed by the Holy Spirit.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): How often we have heard different ones claim that the Spirit moved them to perform such an act, as for example, a woman to preach, which is forbidden. The Spirit quickens and empowers—but He never prompts to anything contrary to Scripture.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: It will perhaps be said in reply, that God uses the preaching and praying of women, for the blessing of souls. Well, what does this prove? The rightness of female preaching? No; but the sovereign goodness of God—God is sovereign, and may work where and by whom He pleases; we are servants and must do what He tells us…To reason from results may lead us into the grossest error. It ought to be sufficient, for every one who bows to the authority of Scripture, to know that the Holy Ghost strictly commands the woman to keep silent in a public assembly. And truly we may say, ‘Doth not even nature itself teach’ the moral unfitness of a woman’s appearing in a pulpit or on a platform? Unquestionably.

JOHN CALVIN: If any one bring forward, by way of objection, Deborah and others of the same class, of whom we read that they were at one time appointed by the command of God to govern the people, the answer is easy. Extraordinary acts done by God do not overturn the ordinary rules of government, by which He intended that we should be bound.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: In the history of Israel, it was always a proof of the nation’s low condition when the female was thrown into prominence. It was Barak’s backwardness that threw Deborah forward, Judges 4:6-9. According to the normal divine idea, the man is the head. This is seen, in perfection, in Christ and the Church. Here is the true model on which our thoughts are to be formed.

A. W. PINK: The Lord Jesus Christ has not committed His Gospel into the hands of women. There were none among the twelve, nor among the seventy whom He chose and sent forth. The preaching of the Gospel is a man’s job.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: There are many and varied ways in which women can “labour in the gospel” without the unseemliness of public preaching.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Paul’s preaching is very plain upon the subject of female preaching. He does not allow a woman to preach; but this by no means bars her from bearing testimony in her own way—and here she can do God’s work quite as effectually as if she occupied the pulpit! A woman was the founder of the Church in Samaria, which was afterwards multiplied by Christ’s teaching, John 4:28-30…The first person baptized in Europe was a woman, Acts 16:14,15; therefore let none of our Sisters in Christ exempt themselves from bearing witness for Jesus Christ! Neither let them think that their witness is unimportant.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): They may teach in private, in their own houses and families; Timothy, no doubt, received much advantage, from the private teachings and instructions of his mother Eunice, and grandmother Lois; but then women are not to teach in the church; for that is an act of power and authority.

A. W. PINK: The part allotted to the sisters—and an important part it is—is to hold up the hands of their ministering brethren by prayer and supplication.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): I do not think it necessary to swell our pages by a comment on what is so plain as to need none.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Note that Paul doesn’t rebuke the women, but he rebukes the men for their weakness in allowing women to preach and teach in their church services, saying, “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” Therefore, all who argue in favour of this unscriptural practice of women preaching, spiritually cut these “commandments of the Lord” out of the New Testament. But first they had better read Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:19.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: We do not, of course, expect that persons who are bent on carrying out their own thoughts; whose will has never been broken—who reason instead of submitting to the authority of Scripture, and who say, “I think,” instead of seeing what God thinks—we do not expect that any such will approve or appreciate what we have advanced.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” Note: It is just with God to leave all those who willfully shut out the light, to the blindness of their own minds.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): When women keep their places, and men manage their worshipping of God as they should, we shall have better days for the church of God in the world.

 

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A Lesson From a Leper

Luke 17:11-19

It came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.

And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): What a rare thing is thankfulness. We are told that of all the ten lepers whom Christ healed, there was only one who turned back and gave Him thanks. The words that fell from our Lord’s lips upon this occasion are very solemn: “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Christ keeps count how many favours men receive from Him, and will call them to a particular account thereof.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Our Lord had cured nine Jews: yet not one of them returned thanks, but with the view of obliterating the remembrance of their disease, they privately stole away. One man only—a Samaritan, acknowledged his obligation to Christ. There is, therefore, on the one hand, a display of Christ’s divine power; and, on the other hand, a reproof of the impiety of the Jews, in consequence of which so remarkable a miracle as this received scarcely any attention.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): This is particularly remarked by the evangelist, because the Samaritans were reckoned by the Jews to be ignorant and irreligious persons, and no better than Heathens; and yet this man behaved as a religious good man, who had a sense of his mercy, knew his duty, and his obligations, and performed them; when the other nine, who very likely were all Jews, acted a very stupid and ungrateful part.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): In this view we should not be too forward to condemn the Jews;—for have we not too much reason to doubt whether, of the multitudes who are indebted to the divine goodness, one in ten has a becoming sense of it.

J. C. RYLE: The lesson before us is humbling, heart-searching, and deeply instructive. The best of us are far too like the nine lepers. We are more ready to pray than to praise, and more disposed to ask God for what we have not, than to thank Him for what we have. Murmurings, and complainings, and discontent abound on every side of us. Few indeed are to be found who are not continually hiding their mercies under a bushel, and setting their wants and trials on a hill. These things ought not so to be. But all who know the church and the world must confess that they are true. The wide-spread thanklessness of Christians is the disgrace of our day. It is a plain proof of our little humility.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): How little time we usually take in telling the Lord how grateful we are for what He has done for us. This is so important. Take that little prayer our Lord taught His disciples in Matthew 6:9-13: Have you noticed that about two-thirds of it is taken up with worship—and only one-third with petitions?

JOHN CALVIN: Let us learn that this complaint is brought generally against all of us, if we do not at least repay the divine favours by the duty of gratitude.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This man appears to have been very hearty and affectionate in his thanksgivings: “With a loud voice he glorified God,” acknowledging it to come originally from Him; and he lifted up his voice in his praises, as he had done in his prayers.

JOHN TRAPP: He was as earnest in praises as he had been in prayers.

MATTHEW HENRY: He also made a particular address of thanks to Christ: “He fell down at his feet,” put himself into the most humble reverent posture he could, and “gave him thanks.” We ought to give thanks for the favours Christ bestows upon us, and particularly for recoveries from sickness; and we ought to be speedy in our returns of praise, and not defer them, lest time wear out the sense of the mercy. It becomes us also to be very humble in our thanksgivings, as well as in our prayers.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): But the most remarkable feature to be noticed in this miracle, as it related to this man, is that the Lord Jesus said unto him, his faith had made him whole. How is this? The whole ten were healed by Christ: and was there then anything special in this man’s case? I would not be understood as speaking decidedly upon the subject; but I am inclined to think that there was, and that those persons differed widely in their characters, and in the mercy received. What leprosy is to the body, such is sin to the soul. They were all healed of the leprosy of the body; but this man only of both leprosy of soul and body. And hence the different effects. When the ten felt their cure, nine of them had all they desired, all they asked for. But in this man, grace had entered his soul, and healed a far deeper and more dreadful leprosy there; and therefore, led by that awakening grace in the heart, he had forever done with Jewish priests and legal sacrifices, and fled to Christ, the Author and Finisher of his salvation. If my views be right, we see at once the effect of distinguishing grace.

H. A. IRONSIDE: Notice what it says: “One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet.” When you have a pronoun like that, you must have a noun as a precedent of it. The noun that precedes that “His” pronoun—is “God.” He realized that God was there in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and so he glorified God and fell down at the feet of God manifested in the flesh, to worship and adore Him. He realized that only God could cleanse a leper, and that Jesus was worthy of worship and adoration. This man, who might have been considered the very worst of the whole company, manifested more spiritual insight than the rest, who were Israelites.

ROBERT HAWKER: Nine lepers, if only healed in body, will rise from beds of sickness the same as they lay down, never discerning the hand of that Lord, whose name is Jehovah Rophe—I am “the Lord that healeth thee,” Exodus 15:26. But the poor sinner, who feels and knows the leprosy of the soul, no sooner finds that Jesus Christ hath made him whole, but falls at His feet with a loud voice of thankfulness.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The simple reason is, Those who have much forgiven will love much, Luke 7:47.

J. C. RYLE: This, after all, is the true secret of a thankful spirit. It is the man who daily feels his debt to grace, and daily remembers that in reality he deserves nothing but hell—this is the man who will be daily blessing and praising God. Thankfulness is a flower which will never bloom well except upon a root of deep humility!

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The question of Jesus, “Where are the nine?” becomes arresting and revealing, showing, as it does, that He waits for the worship of healed souls, and often is robbed of it.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): If He has made us clean from our leprosy of sin, we are not commanded to conceal it. On the contrary, it is our duty to publish it abroad.

 

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Job’s Diligent Search for God

Job 23:8-10, 13-15

Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him. But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold…

But he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): With the Jewish commentators in general, we are to understand places by these various expressions; even the parts of the world—east, west, north, and south; which Job went through, and surveyed in his mind, to find God in, but to no purpose; for, when a man stands with his face to the rising sun, the east is before him, and, if he goes forward, he goes eastward; and behind him is the west, and, if he goes that way, he goes backward; so the eastern sea is called the former sea, and the western Mediterranean sea, the hinder sea, Zechariah 14:8; and a man, in this position, will have the north on his left hand, and the south on his right; now Job says that he went “forward,” that is, eastward. But, says he of God, “he is not there,” or “is not;” meaning not that He did not exist; for Job most firmly believed in the existence of God—In the east Job now lived, and had been the greatest man in it; but now God did not appear to him, not in a kind and gracious manner; nor could he find Him at His throne of justice. He was there, though Job saw him not, for He is everywhere.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Look at Job—he hunts for God everywhere—forward, backward, on the left hand, on the right hand. He leaves no quarter unvisited. No part of the earth is left without being searched over that he might find his God.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Really? Job was searching all over the earth for God?

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): What does it mean then?

JOHANNES COCCEIUS (1603-1669): By “forward” and “backward,” are meant times future and past; the sense is that Job looked into the future times of the Messiah, and the grace promised him in His living Redeemer, that should stand on the earth in the latter day, Job 19:25-27; and he looked back to the ages before him, and to the first promise made to Adam; but he could not understand by either the reason why good men were afflicted. By the “right” hand and “left” hand, he meant the different dispensations of God to men, granting protection with His right hand, and distributing the blessings of His goodness by it; and with His left hand laying afflictions and evils upon them; yet, neither from the one nor the other could he learn the mind and will of God concerning men, since love and hatred are not to be known by these things, Ecclesiastes 9:1,2.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cocceisus gets closer to the truth of it. But I think it’s more personal. In his chastening affliction, Job looked forward to the future, seeking to understand God’s purpose in it, but he could not discern it; and he looked backward, searching his own ways for any cause that God might have to afflict him, but he saw no cause for it. Then, trying to perceive God’s reasons for these afflictions, he looked to God’s left hand, where God doth work judgment in His providences—and still it was hid from him. Lastly, he looked to God’s right hand, symbolic of God’s gracious blessings, but despite his faith in God, Job couldn’t see how all this continuing misery could possibly work together to his future good. And although Job knew that all these terrible afflictions came upon him from God’s hands, yet he could not “perceive Him,” or “see Him,” in them—neither in God’s purpose, nor for what cause or reason, nor could he see how a blessing could ever come as a result of it.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): When God afflicts us, He contends with us, and when He contends with us, there is always a reason.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It is justly said that “God’s judgments are a great deep,” Psalm 36:6…It behooves us to mark, that God’s judgments are oftentimes hidden from us. But yet must we not therefore think them strange, or say that there is no reason in them. Let us rather acknowledge that God’s righteousness is too high a thing for such rudeness that is in us, and that it is too great a presumptuousness for us to desire to attain thereto. This, say I, must we be fully resolved of—that God’s judgments are very secret, and when we have fought, searched, and ransacked to the uttermost that we can, we shall be confounded: but it doth not follow therefore, that God hath no rule of Himself. No. And why? Let us make a comparison between Him and us, and what a difference is there. “My ways,” saith He, “are further off from yours, than heaven is from earth,” Isaiah 55:8,9.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Romans 11:33. God’s judgments are a great deep, and His ways past finding out; but the issues of all are to the glory of His wisdom and grace, and to the eternal happiness of all who trust in Him.

JOHN CALVIN: What remaineth then? We must honour God’s secrets when they be hidden from us, and confess that all His doings are disposed with infinite wisdom, uprightness, and goodness.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Thus Job found it. In the midst of his afflictions, he accounted God his enemy; but not so when he saw the termination of them. Thus we, under our trials, are ready to say, “All these things are against me:” but in how many instances have we seen reason to be ashamed of our precipitancy and unbelief! In how many instances have we found our trials to be the richest blessings in disguise, and have been constrained to acknowledge them all as the fruits of parental love! Let us, then, wait for the issue of our trials, before we presume to judge hardly of God on account of them. The history of Job was particularly intended to teach us this lesson, and to reconcile us to afflictive dispensations of whatever kind: “Behold, we count them happy that endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy,” James 5:11.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Remember the words of our Lord Jesus to His disciples, “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter,” John 13:7.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Whatever veil now covers the deep things of God, it will shortly be done away with; though we know not now, the faithful shall know hereafter, and forever admire and adore the perfection, excellence, and beauty of all His works and ways—in creation, providence, and grace, and not a flaw to be found.

CHARLES SIMEON: Let it be our endeavour to walk more by faith and less by sight; according to that direction of the prophet, “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God,” Isaiah 50:10.

 

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