True Liberty

Posted on July 3, 2020 by The Editor

John 8:32; John 8:36; 2 Corinthians 3:17

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Liberty is the birthright of every man—Liberty is the heirloom of all the sons and daughters of Adam. But where do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? True it is that all men have a right to liberty, but it is equally true that you do not meet it in any country except where you find the Spirit of the Lord. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” I have commenced with this idea because I think worldly men ought to be told that if religion does not save them, yet it has done much for them—that the influence of religion has won them their liberties.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): This fact is so very plain and undeniable, that I cannot but think that, were men to consider it fairly, they would soon be convinced how much they are indebted to the revelation of the Gospel.

C. H. SPURGEON: This land is the home of liberty. But why is it so? I take it, it is not so much because of our institutions as because the Spirit of the Lord is here—the spirit of true and hearty religion! There was a time, remember, when England was no more free than any other country, when men could not speak their sentiments freely, when kings were despots, when Parliaments were but a name. Who won our liberties for us? Who has loosed our chains? Under the hand of God, I say the men of religion—men like the great and glorious Oliver Cromwell, who would have liberty of conscience, or die—men who, if they could not reach kings’ hearts because they were unsearchable in cunning, would strike kings low, rather than they would be slaves. We owe our liberty to men of religion—to men of the stern Puritan school—men who scorned to play the coward and yield their principles at the command of man.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): How did the United States of America ever come into being? It would have never come into being were it not for the Protestant Reformation. The Puritan fathers who crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower were men who were products of the Reformation, and it was the desire not only for religious liberty, but also for democratic liberty, that drove them to face the hazards of crossing the Atlantic at that time and to establish a new life, a new state, and a new system of government in the New World. You cannot explain the story of the United States of America except in terms of the Protestant Reformation.

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): The necessity of liberty for the Gospel, and of the Gospel for liberty, is now acknowledged by all thoughtful men.

C. H. SPURGEON: And if we are ever to maintain our liberty—as God grant we may—it shall be kept by religious liberty—by religion! This Bible is the Magna Charta of old Britain! Its Truths, its Doctrines have snapped our fetters and they never can be riveted on again, while men with God’s Spirit in their hearts, go forth to speak its Truths. In no other land, save where the Bible is unclasped—in no other realm, save where the Gospel is preached—can you find liberty! Roam through other countries, and you speak with bated breath. You are afraid. You feel you are under an iron hand. The sword is above you. You are not free. Why? Because you are under the tyranny engendered by a false religion—you have not free Protestantism there and it is not till Protestantism comes, that there can be freedom! It is where the Spirit of the Lord is that there is liberty and nowhere else.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): This is the book on which the well-being of nations has always hinged, and with which the best interests of every nation in Christendom at this moment are inseparably bound up. Just in proportion as the Bible is honoured or not, light or darkness, morality or immorality, true religion or superstition, liberty or despotism, good laws or bad, will be found in a land.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): We breathe the air of civil liberty―It cost our forefathers many struggles to bring forward and establish this national blessing; but we have enjoyed it so long, and so quietly, that we seem almost to forget its value, how it was obtained, or how only it can be preserved.

AUGUSTUS TOPLADY (1713-1778): Were liberty to perish from any part of the English speaking world, the whole would soon be deluged by the black sea of arbitrary power.

J. C. RYLE: These verses show us, lastly, the nature of true liberty. Our Lord declares this to the Jews in one comprehensive sentence. He says, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”—Yet, after all our boasting, there are many so-called free men who are nothing better than slaves. There are many who are totally ignorant of the highest, purest form of liberty. The noblest liberty is that which is the property of the true Christian. Those only are perfectly free people, whom the Son of God “makes free.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  The Gospel is a proclamation of liberty…Christ not only proclaims liberty to the captives, but He sets at liberty them that are bruised, Isaiah 61:1. Jesus Christ, as one having authority, as one that has “power on earth to forgive sins,” came to set at liberty.

C. H. SPURGEON: The text speaks of spiritual liberty—and now I address the children of God. Let us now examine, a little more closely, in what our liberty consists. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the bondage of sin; and liberty from the penalty of sin. What is it? Eternal death and torment forever—that is the sad penalty of sin. But there is one fact more startling than both of these things—there is liberty from the guilt of sin—the Christian is positively not guilty any longer the moment he believes…Furthermore, the Christian, while delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin, is likewise delivered from the dominion of it. Every living man, before he is converted, is a slave to lust.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Many can say, “I was once a slave to sin, and led captive by the devil at his will: but now the Son of God has made me free; and I am free indeed: He has brought my soul out of prison, and set my feet at liberty.”

C. H. SPURGEON: Once more—“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” in all holy acts of love…There is much virtue which is like the juice of the grape—it has to be squeezed before you get it. It is not like the generous drop of the honeycomb, distilling willingly and freely. I am bold to say that if a man is destitute of the Grace of God, his works are only works of slavery, he feels forced to do them. But—to conclude, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the fear of death.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): A Christian knows that death shall be the funeral of all his sins, his sorrows, his afflictions, his temptations, his vexations, his oppressions, his persecutions. He knows that death shall be the resurrection of all his hopes, his joys, his delights, his comforts, his contentments.

C. H. SPURGEON: What is death?

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): Death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace.

 

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Philemon

Posted on June 26, 2020 by The Editor

Philemon 1:1-3,10,11

Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, and to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house: Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ…I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): This epistle stands alone among Paul’s letters in being addressed to a private Christian, and in being entirely occupied with a small though very singular private matter.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The occasion of it was this: Philemon had a servant named Onesimus, who having purloined his goods, ran away from him, and in his flight came to Rome, where Paul was then a prisoner for the gospel. Providentially coming under Paul’s preaching there, by the blessing of God, Onesimus was converted, after which he ministered awhile to the apostle in bonds, and might have been further useful to him. But, understanding him to be another man’s servant, Paul would not, without his consent, detain him, but sends him back with this letter-commendatory, wherein he earnestly sues for his pardon and kind reception.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Philemon seems to have been an inhabitant of Colosse, and rather to have been a Gentile than a Jew; he was a rich and hospitable man, and greatly respected, and therefore called “our dearly beloved” by Paul and Timothy, not only as being a believer, but as being also generous and useful in his station, and likewise as he was a minister of the Gospel; for so the next phrase, “and fellow labourer,” seems to import; though such are sometimes said to be labourers and fellow helpers with the apostle, who assisted in carrying on the interest of Christ, with their purses, and prayers, and private conversation.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): There is a peculiarity in the use of proper names in this epistle which is not found in any other part of Paul’s writings. The names to which we refer are Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, and Onesimus. Philemon means “affectionate or beloved,” from φιλημα, a “kiss;” this led the apostle to say: “Unto Philemon our dearly beloved.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): This good man had a wife of the same character; for she, too, not without reason, is commended by Paul.

JOHN GILL: “Beloved Apphia.” This is a woman’s name; and it is thought that she was the wife of Philemon, since she is placed next to him, and before Archippus, a minister of the word, and very prudently is she wrote to, and justly commended, in order to engage her to use her interest with her husband to receive his servant again, who otherwise might have stood against it, and been a very great hinderance to a reconciliation.

MATTHEW HENRY: She is set before Archippus, as more concerned and having more interest.

THOMAS COKE: Archippus has been generally thought to be Philemon’s son; probably he was one of Paul’s assistants, who had some gifts of the Spirit, and had devoted himself very much to the work of the ministry in Colosse.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: A greeting is sent, too, to “the Church in thy house.”—It is natural that they should be addressed; for Onesimus, if received by Philemon, would naturally become a member of the group, and therefore it was important to secure their good will.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): It may be well to point out that so far as we have any record Paul had never been to Colosse.

ADAM CLARKE: It is evident, from verse 19 of this epistle, that Philemon was converted to the Christian faith by Paul; but as some suppose that the apostle had not visited Colosse previously to the writing of this epistle, they think it probable that he might have met with him at Ephesus, or in same other part of Asia Minor, where he formed an acquaintance with him, and became the means of his conversion.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): As Paul had been the means of Philemon’s conversion, so he was immeasurably in debt to the apostle; but in verse 19, Paul only gently reminds him of the fact as a reason why he should deal kindly with Onesimus for his sake.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): God, in the course of His wise providence, had so ordered it, that Onesimus’s going to Rome had been the happy occasion of his becoming a Christian. Philemon, therefore, could not be angry at such an event, unless he had a mind to quarrel with Divine Providence, the progress of the gospel, the conversion and welfare of Onesimus, and what would in the end prove his own advantage…It may not be improper to attend to the apostle’s soft and tender manner of expressing this in verses 15 and 16: “For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?” The word Εχωρισθη we have translated “he departed;”—which is softer than to have said, he ‘absconded,’ or ‘ran away’ like a criminal; but the Greek word signifies “he was separated,” which is still softer.

ADAM CLARKE: We must take the term “flesh” here, as referring to the right which Philemon had in him. He was a part of his property and of his family; as a slave, this was his condition; but he now stood in a twofold relation to Philemon: According to “the flesh,” as above explained, he was one of his family; and “in the Lord,” he was now also a member of the heavenly family, and of the Church at Philemon’s house. Philemon’s interest in him was now doubled, in consequence of his conversion to Christianity…Onesimus means “useful or profitable;” from ονημι, “to help.” The import of this name led the apostle Paul to play upon the word thus: “I beseech thee for any son Onesimus—which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and me.”

JOHN GILL: Grace, of an unprofitable man, makes a profitable one…If only a private believer, he is often profitable to others, by relating the work of God upon his soul; and he is serviceable to the interest of Christ, for the support of the ministry, and supply of the poor; useful by his good examples, and prayers, in the neighbourhood, town, city, or nation, in which he dwells. This argument from profit, the apostle knew would be an engaging one.

MATTHEW HENRY: There may be something further in all this. By way of allusion, it is applicable to the mediation and intercession of Christ for poor sinners. We, like Onesimus, were revolters from God’s service, and had injured Him in His rights. Jesus Christ finds us, and by His grace works a change in us, and then intercedes for us with the Father, that we may be received into His favour and family again, and past offences may be forgiven; and we are sure that “the Father heareth him always.” There is no reason to doubt but Paul prevailed with Philemon to forgive and receive Onesimus.

ADAM CLARKE: Some think that Paul hints to Philemon that he should free Onesimus.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): The letter Paul sent with Onesimus to his injured master Philemon, is one of the most touching ever written. Looking at it simply as such, we are at a loss whether most to admire the warmth and earnestness of his affections, the delicacy and justness of his thoughts, or the sublime dignity which pervades the whole epistle.

 

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Jesus Christ, Our Father From Everlasting—To Everlasting

Posted on June 19, 2020 by The Editor

Isaiah 9:6; Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 63:16; Habakkuk 1:12; Proverbs 8:23; John 8:58

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One?

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Our Lord here, in the strongest terms, asserts His Divinity, declaring Himself to be what John more largely expresses, the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, who is, and who was, and who is to come; the Almighty,” Revelation 1:8.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): It is therefore undoubtedly to be understood of Christ’s eternal existence.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): God is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting; the “Ancient of days,” Daniel 7:9,13,22―before all things, and all time; which is, and was, and is to come: the same is true of Christ, who is the everlasting Father, or Father of eternity, the true God, and eternal life; as appears from His nature, having the whole fullness, all the perfections of deity in Him; from His office, as Mediator, in which He was set up from everlasting; from His concern in eternal election, in the everlasting covenant, and in the creation of all things out of nothing.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): As He is the “mighty God,” so He is “the everlasting Father.” Can such a title be ascribed to any whose being depends upon the will of another, and may be dashed out at the pleasure of a superior? As the eternity of God is the ground of all religion, so the eternity of Christ is the ground of the Christian religion.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): “The everlasting Father.” This has puzzled many. It need not.

JOHN GILL: The “everlasting Father” does not design any relation of Christ in the Godhead. There is but one Father in the Godhead, and that is the first Person; indeed Christ and the Father are one, and the Father is in Him, and He is in the Father, and He that has seen the one has seen the other. And yet they are distinct.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): This title respects not His relation to the Deity―for with respect to that, He is the Son and not the Father―but rather His relation to His spiritual seed, whom He has begotten by His Word and Spirit.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK: He is particularly called the “everlasting,” or “eternal Father;” not the Father in the Trinity, but a Father to us.

JOHN GILL: Some render the words, “the Father of eternity”―the Author of eternal life, Who has procured it for His people, and gives it to them; or to Whom eternity belongs, Who inhabits it, and is possessed of it, Who is the everlasting I AM, and was before all persons and things, was set up in an office capacity from everlasting, and had a glory with the Father before the world was, in Whom is eternal election, and with Whom the everlasting covenant, were made.

CHARLES SIMEON: But perhaps the words should rather have been translated, “The Father of the everlasting age.” The Jewish dispensation was intended to continue but for a limited time; but the Christian dispensation was never to be succeeded by any other: hence it is called “the last times;” and may be considered as “the everlasting age.” Of this Christ is the Author; it owes its existence to Him as its parent; it is preserved by His guardian care; and the whole family in heaven and earth who participate its blessings, both bear His image, and inherit His glory.

A. W. PINK: Christ is the “everlasting Father” because from everlasting He had “children!”

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): And of all these it must be said, that every individual of Christ’s seed was in Christ from all eternity, for they were chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world,” Ephesians 1:3,4.

THOMAS COKE: As Adam was the first man that God created, so he was the first father and progenitor of all other men, who are every one born in his image as they come into the world of nature, and breathe the vital air. Just so, from Jesus Christ, the everlasting Father, all who come into the world of grace derive their spiritual being; His image they bear, 1 Corinthians 15:49, and from Him “the whole family in heaven and earth is named,” Ephesians 3:15…So all the saints are descendants from Jesus Christ, their everlasting Father.

JOHN GILL: These bear His name, are called “Christians” from Him.

MATTHEW HENRY: (1662-1714): It was from everlasting in the counsels of it; and will be, to everlasting, in the consequences of it.

JOHN GILL: His seed and offspring shall endure forever.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Think for a little.

MATTHEW HENRY: The everlasting Father became a child of time―the Ancient of days became an infant of a span long.

C. H. SPURGEON: Remember that He who became an infant of a span long was no less than the King of Ages, the “everlasting Father” Who was from eternity, and is to be to all eternity…He is the mighty God! He that made the heavens and stretched them out like a tent to dwell in—He Who speaks and it is done—the everlasting Father—is anything too hard for Him?

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Want we grace and His image to be renewed and increased in us? He is “the everlasting Father”―a father to beget His likeness in us, and everlasting to maintain it ever, when it is begun once: He is made “sanctification” to us, 1 Corinthians 1:30. Want we wisdom to guide us? He is the ‘Counsellor,’ and is made wisdom to us. All we want He hath; even as all He hath, we want.

RALPH ERSKINE (1685-1752): Do you need his fatherly pity? His name is the everlasting Father; “As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him,” Psalm 103:13. Plead His pity, for His name’s sake.

ROBERT HAWKER: Surely Jesus is the everlasting Father of His people.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting”―from eternity, and on to eternity― “and let all the people say, Amen,” Psalm 106:48.

 

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A Covid-19 Message From God’s Word, Confirmed By Science

Posted on June 12, 2020 by The Editor

Exodus 20:8-11; Ezekiel 20:19,20; Leviticus 26:27,28,31-35

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.

And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury…And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.*

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We believe that God sends all pestilences, let them come how they may; and that He sends them with a purpose—And we conceive that it is our business as ministers of God to call the people’s attention to God in the disease and teach them the lesson which God would have them learn.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The pestilence is God’s messenger.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We live in days when anything like strict Sabbath observance is loudly denounced, in some quarters, as a remnant of Jewish superstition. We are boldly told by some persons, that to keep the Sabbath holy is legal, and that to enforce the fourth commandment on Christians, is going back to bondage.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Is it not tragic beyond words to witness not only the general indifference of the vast majority of professing Christians unto the claims of the Holy Sabbath and to the world’s awful profanation of it, but also to find that many influential men among the reputedly orthodox sections of Christendom should oppose those who are striving for the preservation of this spiritual heritage? These men are seeking to destroy its very foundations by teaching that the Sabbath is only a Jewish institution, and therefore is not binding upon us today.

J. C. RYLE: Let us settle it in our minds, that the fourth commandment has never been repealed by Christ, and that we have no more right to break the Sabbath day, under the Gospel, than we have to murder and to steal.

A. W. PINK: The Christian Sabbath is specifically designated “the Lord’s Day” in Revelation 1:10…To be guilty of desecrating the Holy Sabbath is therefore no light matter. The violation of the Fourth Commandment is a sin of the gravest and blackest kind; yet, sad to say, the profanation of the Lord’s Day has become one of the most common crimes of our perverse generation. So general is its pollution that few have any conscience on the matter, but placidly take it as a matter of course. The world has turned the Holy Day into a holiday, and even the majority of professing Christians join hands with them therein. No wonder God is displeased with us as a people, and is more and more evidencing His displeasure against us.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Oh! ye ministers of the sanctuary and faithful magistrates of the people, may the Lord encourage your hearts and hands to bring back the hallowed Sabbaths of the Lord to their original sanctity.

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL (1635-1711): We sin when we make a workday out of this day, if we occupy ourselves with the work of our profession; and we sin when we transform this day into a market day; this pertains to buying and selling. And we sin when we make this day a day of worldly pleasure. The sabbath is a delight—however, a “delighting in the Lord.” It is a dreadful desecration of this day, however, when we abuse it by delighting ourselves in worldly things and in the lusts of the flesh, or to the entertaining of one’s self with such things that are lawful at the appropriate time and place, in the appropriate company, and with the appropriate objective.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): They are no benefactors to the community who seek to break down and relax the stringency of the prohibition of labour. If once the idea that Sunday is a day of amusement takes root, the amusement of some will require the hard work of others, and the custom of work will tend to extend, till rest becomes the exception, and work the rule. There never was a time when men lived so furiously fast as now. The pace of modern life demands Sunday rest more than ever. If a railway car is run continually it will wear out sooner than if it were laid aside for a day or two occasionally; and if it is run at express speed it will need the rest more. We are all going at top speed; and there would be more breakdowns if it were not for that blessed institution which some people think they are promoting the public good by destroying a seventh day of rest.

A. W. PINK: It is an incontestable fact that the times when the Sabbath’s sanctity was most faithfully proclaimed and maintained in the British Isles—and we may add, in the U.S.A.—were those in which true spirituality was healthiest and vital godliness was in its most flourishing state…A right observance of the Lord’s Day lies at the foundation of national happiness and prosperity. So prolific of good is this blessed day that its powerful influences on the well-being of our country vitally affects its spiritual intelligence, the morality of its social order, and the liberties of its people…The Lord is very jealous of its sanctity, honouring the nation which respects it and visiting His indignation upon those who pollute it.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): No nation has ever prospered that has trampled the Sabbath in the dust. Show me a nation that has done this and I will show you a nation that has got in it the seeds of ruin and decay. I believe that Sabbath desecration will carry a nation down quicker than anything else. Adam brought marriage and the Sabbath with him out of Eden, and neither can be disregarded without suffering. When the children of Israel went into the Promised Land, God told them to let their land rest every seven years, and He would give them as much in six years as in seven, (Leviticus 25:3-6, 18-22). For four hundred and ninety years they disregarded that law. But mark you, Nebuchadnezzar came and took them off into Babylon, and kept them seventy years in captivity, and the land had its seventy sabbaths of rest. Seven times seventy is four hundred and ninety. So they did not gain much by breaking this law.*

A. W. PINK: A yet more decisive consideration is found in our Lord’s words, “The Sabbath was made for man,” Mark 2:27. This cannot mean less than that the Sabbath was made for man’s observance and for his benefit…God has graciously sanctified it for the good of the whole world.*

D. L. MOODY: You can give God His day, or He will take it.*

_________________________

*Editor’s Note on Scientific Confirmation: According to an April 2, 2020 article in The Atlantic magazine, the earth experienced 30-50 percent less seismic activity during the world-wide shutdown due to the Covid-19 virus. The drop was immediate, and even the oceans were quieter as shipping traffic decreased; “researchers working in Canada’s Bay of Fundy found that over the course of just a few days, when the noisy waters calmed, right whales in the bay experienced a drop in their stress-level hormones.” Air pollution also dropped dramatically, and satellites detected “a significant decrease in the concentration of nitrogen dioxide, which enters the atmosphere through emissions from cars, trucks, buses, and power plants.” That decrease is estimated to have saved tens of thousands of children and elderly people from deaths “resulting from stroke, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses.”

When mankind ceased its labours by a shutdown imposed in response to God’s providential pestilence, all the economic gains of many years were lost, while “the land rested, and enjoyed her Sabbaths;” a Sabbatical rest long denied to the earth because of modern man’s disobedience to God’s commandment to keep His weekly Sabbath day of rest. And Christians are not blameless in that sin. Do we not often buy and sell, and indulge in worldly pleasures and holidays on the Lord’s day? Therefore God’s judgment must begin with us; and have not the Covid-19 restrictions on our Lord’s Day church services brought our “sanctuaries into desolation?”

 

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God’s Animal Rights Legislation

Posted on June 5, 2020 by The Editor

Deuteronomy 22:6,7

If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): We are amazed to find the Most High God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Sustainer of the vast universe, condescending to legislate about the matter of a bird’s nest; and yet why should we be amazed when we know that it is just the same to Him to provide for a sparrow as to feed a thousand millions of people daily?

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): But doth God take care for birds?

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): Birds? Yes, God takes care of them, and feeds them, and is with them when they die, Matthew 6:26; Matthew 10:29.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): This is one of those merciful constitutions in the law of Moses, which, inspiring the minds of His people with a regard for the animal creation, tended much to humanize their hearts, to breed in them a sense of the Divine Providence extending its care to all its creatures; and to teach them to exercise their dominion over that animal creation with gentleness.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: Men were charged to act in kindness even toward the birds.

MATTHEW HENRY: Perhaps to this law our Saviour alludes, Luke 12:6, “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?” This law, forbids us to be cruel to the brute-creatures, or to take a pleasure in destroying them. Though God has made us “wiser than the fowls of heaven,” and given us “dominion over them,” yet we must not abuse them nor rule them with rigour.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): But we may look for a humane precept in this law. The young never knew the sweets of liberty; the dam did: they might be taken and used for any lawful purpose, but the dam must not be brought into a state of captivity.

MATTHEW HENRY: The dam could not have been taken if her concern for her eggs or young had not detained her upon the nest when otherwise she could easily have secured herself by flight. Now, since it is a thousand pities that she should fare the worse for that which is her praise, the law takes care that she shall be let go. The remembrance of this may perhaps, some time or other, keep us from doing a hard or unkind thing to those whom we have at our mercy.

ADAM CLARKE: They who can act otherwise must be either very inconsiderate or devoid of feeling; and such persons can never be objects of God’s peculiar care and attention, and therefore need not expect that it shall be well with them, or that they shall prolong their days on the earth. Every thing contrary to the spirit of mercy and kindness the ever blessed God has in utter abhorrence. And we should remember a fact—that he who can exercise cruelty towards a sparrow or a wren, will, when circumstances are favorable, be cruel to his fellow creatures.

THOMAS COKE: To this law Moses adds an exhortation; “that it may be well with thee,” as much as to say, “This humanity, this compassion, is one of the things which will very much contribute to draw down upon you the blessing of God.”

MATTHEW HENRY: The Jews say, “This is the least of all the commandments of the law of Moses,” and yet the same promise is here made to the observance of it, that is made to the keeping of the fifth commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” Exodus 20:12, which is one of the greatest—“that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days;” for, as disobedience in a small matter shows a very great contempt of the law, so obedience in a small matter shows a very great regard to it. He that let go a bird out of his hand (which was worth two in the bush) purely because God bade him, in that made it to appear that he “esteemed all God’s precepts concerning all things to be right,” and that he could deny himself rather than sin against God.

ADAM CLARKE: This passage may be understood literally. If they destroyed both young and old, must not the breed soon fail, and would it not in the end be ill with them; and by thus cutting off the means of their continual support, must not their days be shortened on the land?

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): This law was made partly to preserve the species of birds…This law does not prohibit the taking of her in any other place but in her nest.

THOMAS COKE: There is a fixed season for every thing, Ecclesiastes 3:1…The law seems also to regard posterity; for, by letting the dam go free, the breed may be continued; and as the reason of the law subsists now as well as then, it is doubtless obligatory upon us.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Regard was had, indeed, to the preservation of the breed; but, still there is no question but that it was God’s intention to accustom His people to study humanity. For, if there be one drop of compassion in us, it will never enter into our minds to kill an unhappy little bird, which so burns either with the desire of offspring, or with love towards its little ones, as to be heedless of its life, and to prefer endangering itself to the desertion of its eggs, or its brood. Wherefore, it is not to be doubted but that in this elementary lesson, God prohibited His people from savageness and cruelty.

JOHN GILL: Wherefore the intention of this law is to teach humanity, compassion, and pity in men to one another, and to forbid cruelty, covetousness, and such like vices; as also to instruct in the doctrine of Providence, which has a respect to birds.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): If a gracious God judged it proper to give such a demonstration of His mercy, over all His works, so as to issue such a precept to His people to be merciful—what an argument is this for believers in Jesus to repose themselves with full confidence on a God so gracious and merciful.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: It teaches us, in a manner peculiar to itself, the marvellous way in which God provided for everything connected with His people. Nothing escaped His gracious notice; nothing was too trivial for His tender care. No mother could be more careful of the habits and manners of her little child, than the Almighty Creator and moral Governor of the universe was of the most minute details connected with the daily history of His people.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): God does not forget the sparrows, but He regards you with far greater interest and care, for He counts the very hairs of your head. He not only knows that there is such a person, but he knows the minutest details of your life and being…And, surely, there is a great force in that truth. Your Heavenly Father knows you so completely that He has counted the hairs of your head: “Fear not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows,” Luke 12:7.

MATTHEW HENRY: He who feeds His birds will not starve His babes.

 

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The Essential Illumination of the Holy Spirit

Posted on May 29, 2020 by The Editor

John 3:27; John 14:26; John 16:13-15; Corinthians 2:12-14

A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from Heaven.

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself…He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Let no man hesitate to acknowledge, that he is incapable of understanding the mysteries of God, any further than he has been illuminated by Divine grace.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): What is the reason that you shall see some things in a chapter at one time, and not at another; have some grace in your hearts at one time, and not at another; have a sight of spiritual things at one time and not at another?  The eye is the same, but it is the Holy Ghost that openeth and shutteth this dark lantern, as I may so call it; as He openeth it wider, or contracts it, or shutteth it narrower, so do we see more or less: and sometimes He shutteth it wholly, and then the soul is in darkness, though it have never so good an eye.

GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): In our day, as well as in former times, He is the teacher of His people.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Can any man understand the Scriptures without the Spirit of God helps him? Jesus Christ must open our understanding to understand the Scriptures, and the Spirit of God must take of the things of Christ, and show them unto us.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Believe one who is speaking from experience—the Bible cannot be understood simply by study or talent; you must count only on the influence of the Holy Spirit. Your first duty, then, is to begin with prayer. Entreat the Lord that He will in His great mercy deign to grant you the true knowledge of His Word. There is no other interpreter of the Word of God than the Author of that Word, according as it is said, “They will all be taught of God,” John 6:45.

BROWNLOW NORTH (1810-1875): You have got Bibles, read them. You cannot understand them unless the Holy Spirit teach you—therefore, pray for the Holy Spirit.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and that wait on Him continually; to these He will shew His covenant, not notionally, but experimentally. A few minutes of the Spirit’s teaching will furnish us with more real useful knowledge, than toiling through whole folios of commentators and expositors: they are useful in their places, and are not to be undervalued―but it will be our wisdom to deal less with the streams, and be more close in applying to the fountain head. The Scripture itself, and the Spirit of God, are the best and the only sufficient expositors of Scripture. Whatever men have valuable in their writings, they got it from hence; and the way is as open to us as to any of them. There is nothing required but a teachable humble spirit; and learning, as it is commonly called, is not necessary in order to this.

GEORGE MÜLLER: It was my beginning to understand this latter point in particular, which had a great effect on me; for the Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience, by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply reading the Word of God and studying it. The result of this was, that the first evening that I shut myself into my room, to give myself to prayer and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I had done during a period of several months previously. But the particular difference was that I received real strength for my soul in doing so.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): There is nothing that so abides with us as what we receive from God; and the reason why Christians at this day are at such a loss as to some things is, because they are content with what comes from men’s mouths, without searching and kneeling before God, to know of Him the truth of things. Things that we receive from God’s hand come to us as things from the minting house, though old in themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us if they come to us with the smell of heaven upon them.

JOHN NEWTON: We learn more, and more effectually, by one minute’s communication with Him through the medium of His written Word, than we could from an assembly of divines, or a library of books.

JOHN CALVIN: Here we must remember, that the Scripture is not only given us, but that interpreters and teachers are also added, to be helps to us…Some, which trust too much in their own wit, will vouchsafe to hear no man, and they will read no commentaries. But God will not have us to despise those helps which He offers unto us.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It seems to be the besetting sin of mankind and one of the most terrible results of the Fall, that there is nothing difficult as to maintain a balance. In correcting one thing we go to such an extreme as to find ourselves in an equally dangerous position.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Richard Cecil says his plan was, when he laid a hold of a Scripture, to pray over it, and get his own thoughts on it, and then, after he had so done, to take up the ablest divines who wrote upon the subject, and see what their thoughts were. If you do not think and think much, you will become slaves and mere copyists. The exercise of your own mind is most healthful to you, and by perseverance, with divine help, you may expect to get at the meaning of every understandable passage. So to rely upon your own abilities as to be unwilling to learn from others is clearly folly; so to study others as not to judge for yourself is imbecility.

JOHN ROBINSON (1575-1625): Make use of the commentaries and expositions of such special instruments, as God in mercy hath raised up for the opening of His Word, and edifying the Church thereby: remembering always, that “the word of God neither came from him nor to him alone,” 1 Corinthians 14:36.  He that depends too much upon other men’s judgment, makes it as if the Word of God came not to himself at all: he that neglects it, as if it came to him only.

JOHN NEWTON: I am glad to be beholden to such helps, either to explain what I do not understand, or to confirm me in what I do.

HULDRYCH ZWINGLI (1484-1531): I study them with the same feelings with which one asks a friend, “What do you understand by this?”

J. W. ALEXANDER (1804-1859): As the Bible is the best of books, so the next best is that which is most like it, which teaches the same thing, or explains the Bible.

 

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Jesus Christ’s Triumphant Ascension Into Heaven

Posted on May 22, 2020 by The Editor

Luke 24:50,51; Acts 1:9; Psalm 24:7-10

He led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

While they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): There is somewhat very gracious, that Jesus, while in the act of blessing his Church, should be parted from them, and carried up into heaven. Yes! this was not without significancy. The blessing of Jesus is continued. It is one great whole. There is no interruption—our Great High Priest ascended therefore, while blessing, as if to say that His blessing is forever. Those that looked on, when Jesus gradually went up from the Mount of Olives, in presence of the many who were gathered together, saw, and wondered as they beheld, and were no doubt absorbed in contemplation, until the clouds received Him out of their sight. But they knew not what was going on in heaven, but which this scripture of Psalm 24 records.

CHRISTMAS EVANS (1766-1838): In Psalm 24, we have an account of the actual entrance of Christ into heaven.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The pomp and triumph of His ascension were displayed in the invisible world…We conceive of Him therefore, from this sublime passage in Psalm 24, as ascending to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God, accompanied with a train of worshipping angels.

ROBERT HAWKER: Perhaps angels; or perhaps the church of the redeemed above, who had died in the faith of Christ before the wonders of His redemption had been wrought; perhaps both angels and the spirits of just men made perfect, were those who demanded the gates and everlasting doors to lift up their heads, at the approach of the almighty Conqueror. For angels, we are told, are at the gates of the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:12. And, surely, the souls of the redeemed in glory, who had gained entrance there by virtue of Christ’s blood and righteousness, must have been longing with holy desires for the return of the Lord Jesus.

JOHN NEWTON: The question is asked, who is he that claims this honour? An answer is given, asserting His character, His victories, and the justice of His claims—“The Lord of hosts, the Lord strong in battle, he is the King of glory.”—It was the Lord of hosts whom Isaiah saw, seated upon a throne, his train filling the temple, Isaiah 6:1. The vision filled him with astonishment, and he cried out, “Woe is me, I am undone; for mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts.” But the apostle John assures us, that when Isaiah said these things, he saw Jesus Christ’s glory and spake of Him, John 12:41.

ROBERT HAWKER: What a sublimity there is in these blessed words; and what a rich treasure they contain, in reference to the person and glory of our almighty Mediator!

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): The character here given of Him deserves more attentive consideration. The essential dignity of our Lord is that first mentioned, as “the King of glory,” and “the Lord of glory,” He could claim heaven as His own. There He had from all eternity been “in the bosom of the Father,” John 1:18; there He had “had a glory with the Father before the worlds were made,” John 17:5. “From thence he had descended,” for the purpose of executing the Father’s will, John 6:38. Though He had assumed our nature, and “was found in fashion as a man,” yet was He from all eternity “in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God,” Philippians 2:6,8. He was “the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person,” Hebrews 1:3. He was “one with God,” in glory equal, in majesty co-eternal: in a word, He was “the mighty God,” Isaiah 9:6; “the great God and our Saviour,” Titus 2:13; “God over all, blessed for ever,” Romans 9:5. Well therefore might His attendant angels call on the hosts of heaven to open wide the portals of those glorious mansions for His admission; since the heaven of heavens were from all eternity His proper, His peculiar residence.

JOHN BOYS (1619-1625): For that all honour and glory belong properly to Him—His is “the kingdom, the power, and the glory,” Matthew 6:13, called in this respect, “The Lord of glory,” 1 Corinthians 2:2,8.

GEORGE ABBOT (1603-1649): Why, He is the Almighty God, of power all-sufficient to preserve and defend His people and church.

JOHN BOYS: If the Lord of hosts, strong and mighty in battle, be the King of glory, then Christ, having conquered all His enemies, and made them His footstool, triumphing over death, and the devil which is the founder of death, and sin which is the sting of death, and the grave which is the prison of death, and hell itself which is the proper dominion of the devil and death, is doubtless in Himself, “the King of glory.”

CHARLES SIMEON: True indeed, He Himself received a wound in the engagement; “his heel was bruised,” but He inflicted a deadly wound on “the head” of His enemy, Genesis 3:15, and vanquished him for ever.

HENRY PENDLEBURY (1626-1695): Christ is gone to heaven as a victor; leading sin, Satan, death, hell, and all His enemies in triumph at His chariot wheels. He has not only overcome His enemies for Himself, but for all His people, whom He will make conquerors, yea, “more than conquerors.”

JOHN BOYS: For that Christ maketh us partakers of His glory, termed in this respect our glorious Lord Jesus, James 2:1…Heaven’s gates are called “everlasting,” because they shall endure for ever, or because they be the doors unto the life which is everlasting.

JOHN KEBLE (1792-1866): Why are the everlasting gates invited to lift up their heads a second time?

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): The same verse is repeated again, partly to shame and awaken the dullness of mankind.

ROBERT HAWKER: Is there not, besides Christ’s entrance into glory, another beautiful sense of these words capable of being made of them? Doth not the Lord Jesus demand admission into the hearts of His people, when, as He saith Himself, “Behold I stand at the door and knock?” Revelation 3:20. Doth He not find in every individual instance of His redeemed, the door resolutely shut against Him? And unless He who demands entrance puts in His hand by the hole of the door, and opens for Himself, would not the heart remain everlastingly shut and bolted against him to all eternity? Song of Solomon 5:4, John 1:11,12.

JOHN BOYS: And for as much as He died for our sins, and is risen for our justification, and is ascended on high to give gifts unto men—in this life grace, in the next, glory—what is He less than a “King of glory” towards us.

ROBERT HAWKER: Blessed Jesus, how precious is it to know Thee to be both King of grace, and King of glory!

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): And do not forget that there is another possible application of these words lying in the future, to the conquering Christ who shall come again arrayed in flashing brightness, and the visible robes of His imperial majesty. Again will He appear, mighty in battle, when “in righteousness He shall judge and make war,” Revelation 19:11. For a Christian, one great memory fills the past—Christ has come; and one great hope brightens the future—Christ will come.

 

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God’s Conditional Promise For Times of Pestilence

Posted on May 15, 2020 by The Editor

Psalm 91:1-3, 5-7, 9,10

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence…Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday…Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The triumphant assurances of this psalm, “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,”—“the pestilence shall smite thousands and ten thousands beside thee, but not come nigh thee,”—seem to be entirely contradicted by experience which testifies that “there is one event to the evil and the good,” Ecclesiastes 9:2; and that, in epidemics or other widespread disasters, we all, the good and the bad, God-fearers and God-blasphemers, do fare alike, and that the conditions of exemption from physical evil are physical and not spiritual. It is of no use trying to persuade ourselves that this is not so. We shall understand God’s dealings with us, and get to the very throbbing heart of such promises as these in this psalm far better, if we start from the certainty that whatever it means, it does not mean that, with regard to external calamities and disasters, we are going to be God’s petted children, or to be saved from the things that fall upon other people. No! no! we have to go a great deal deeper than that.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): This is a Psalm written for comfort, but it is not addressed to all mankind—neither I venture to say, to all believers, but only those who are described in the first verse. There are some that abide in Christ and His words abide in them. They live near to God. They receive therefore choicer favours than those who do but come and go. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High.”

ROBERT HORN (Circa 1628): That which is here translated “dwelleth,” is as much in weight as sitteth, or is settled; and so, our dwelling in God’s secret place, is as much as our sitting down in it; the meaning is, we must make it our rest, as if we should say, Here will we dwell. From whence we learn, that God’s children should not come to God’s secret place as guests to an inn, but as inhabitants to their own dwellings.

C. H. SPURGEON: He who has learnt to stand in the holy of holies, near the blood-besprinkled mercy-seat, to whom prayer is a constant privilege and enjoyment—he dwells in the secret place. Such a man, living near to God, “shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”

MARY B. M. DUNCAN (1807-1867): This is an expression which implies great nearness. We must walk very close to a companion, if we would have his shadow fall on us. Can we imagine any expression more perfect in describing the constant presence of God with His chosen ones, than this—they shall abide under His shadow? In Solomon’s beautiful allegory, the Church, in a time of special communion with Christ, says of Him, “I sat down under his shadow with great delight,” Song of Solomon 2:3—“sat down,” desiring not to leave it, but to abide there for ever. And it is he who chooses to dwell in the secret place of the most High, who shall “abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” There is a condition and a promise attached to it. The condition is, that we “dwell in the secret place”—the promise, that if we do so we “shall abide under the shadow.” It is of importance to view it thus.

C. H. SPURGEON: So there must be great access to God—great familiarity with Him; there must be something of the assurance of faith, before we shall be able to grip such a Word as that which follows in this Psalm. Read it again, and if you have not attained to it, labour after it.

MARY B. M. DUNCAN: He wishes us to know Him, and by His Word and His Spirit, He puts Himself before us. Ah! it is not his fault if we do not know him. It is our own carelessness.

JEREMIAH DYKE (1584-1639): Our safety lies not simply upon this, because God is a refuge, and is an habitation, but “Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee,” It is therefore the making of God our habitation, upon which our safety lies; and this is the way to make God an habitation, thus to pitch and cast ourselves by faith upon His power and providence.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Though God is the judge of the whole world, yet he would have His providence to be especially acknowledged in the government of His own Church—He indeed puts forth his hand indifferently against His own people and against strangers; for we see that both are in common subjected to adversities.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): It may befall a saint to share in a common calamity; as the good corn and weeds are cut down together, but for a different end and purpose.

JOHN CALVIN: He restores by corrections His own children, for whom He has a care, to the right way, whenever they depart from it. In this sense it is that Peter says that judgment begins at the house of God, 1 Peter 4:17; for judgment includes all those punishments which the Lord inflicts on men for their sins, and whatever refers to the reformation of the world. “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”

JOHN TRAPP: A good man may die of the plague, as did John Oecolampadius, and many others; Hezekiah is thought to have had it, so had Theodore Beza—his family was four different times visited herewith, and he was much comforted under that and other heavy afflictions by this sweet psalm, which, therefore, he hugged and held most dear all the days of his life.

THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY (ANNOTATIONS, 1658): Most dangerous then and erroneous is the inference of some men, yea, of some expositors upon these words of the Psalmist, that no godly man can suffer by the plague, or pestilence…Most interpreters conclude here, that the godly are preserved in time of public calamities; which, in a right sense, may be true; but withal they should have added, that all godly men are not exempted at such times, to prevent rash judgments.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): God doth not say here that no afflictions shall befall us, but no evil.

C. H. SPURGEON: As for His saints, it is their consolation that their death is entirely in His hands. In the midst of fever and pestilence, we shall never die until He wills it!

JOHN RYLAND (1753-1825): Plagues and deaths around me fly,

Till He bids I cannot die:

Not a single shaft can hit,

Till the God of love thinks fit.

 

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When Men Act Like Babies, God Raises Up Mothers in Israel

Posted on May 8, 2020 by The Editor

Judges 4:4-9

Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh-naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the LORD God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun? And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude; and I will deliver him into thine hand.

And Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the LORD shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): This is, I believe, the first instance of female government on record. Deborah seems to have been supreme both in civil and religious affairs; and Lapidoth, her husband, appears to have had no hand in the government.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Who Lapidoth was, or what is meant by the name, is not certain; most take it to be the name of her husband, which seems best, but who he was is not known—some render the words, “a woman of Lapidoth,” taking it for the name of her native place or habitation; but where there was a place of this name no account can be given.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Some have thought that, as Lapidoth is not a very common name for a man,* and means light, and illumination, the expression is symbolical, for the extraordinary degree of grace imparted to Deborah, and particularly on this occasion, of delivering Israel.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): 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. According to the normal, the 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.

RICHARD ROGERS (1550-1618): We have heard Deborah’s message to Barak—now follows Barak’s answer to her message in the eighth verse: “If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.” This answer of his seems to yield little to God’s commandment, sent to him by Deborah’s ministry, neither to ascribe anything to God’s promise; and therefore it shows how he profited not from those two strong persuasions to lead him to his duty, but proves that he ascribes more to her presence, then to God’s promise; which, would it be less than a great blemish in him? Besides, she was offended with him—and this she said, “I will go with thee, but it shall not be for thine honour.” Wherein she finds fault with him, and tells him that he should suffer the punishment of his infidelity, while the glory which he might otherwise have had thereby, should be given to a woman, meaning Jael [who killed Sisera], and not in the least part to herself.

JOHN GILL: Now, till Deborah arose, there was no perfect salvation and deliverance wrought for them—until it pleased God to raise her up, and endow her in a very wonderful and extraordinary manner with gifts qualifying her to be a nursing mother to Israel, to teach and instruct them in the mind and will of God, to administer judgment and justice to them, to protect and defend them—in all which, she discovered a maternal affection for them. And as a good judge and ruler of a people may be called the father of them, so she, being a woman, is with propriety called a mother in Israel, having an affectionate concern for them as her children.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Deborah is called “a mother in Israel,” for the same reason as every deliverer of his country is called the “father” of it.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Barak, like a ‘hind let loose,’ was at first timid of responding to Deborah’s call. He had not dared to go forth with his little handful of men unless Deborah had sent for him and assured him of success. The battle was not of Barak’s choosing; it was forced upon him by Deborah.

RICHARD ROGERS: Why then is he afterward so highly commended for his faith?

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Barak’s offer to go with her shows the truth of his faith, for which he is praised [in Hebrews 11:32]; but his refusal to go without her shows the weakness of his faith, that he could not trust God’s bare Word, as he ought to have done, without the pledge of the presence of His prophetess, whom he thought God would preserve and deliver, and himself for her sake.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Women sometimes lend superior courage to men, and the weaker sex proves itself the stronger.

A. W. PINK: Read verses 10 to 24, and note the hind-like swiftness of Barak’s onslaught down the slopes of Mount Tabor. It is significant that the name “Barak” means “lightning,” and, like lightning he burst as a storm on the startled hosts of Sisera, which were scattered by the hand of God at his unexpected approach. Note Judges 4:14: “So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him,” not “with him”—he was running ahead of them all!

C. H. SPURGEON: Look at Barak! After he has once believed in the power of God he marches to the fight and wins the victory! And he is commemorated in soul-stirring words by the poetess, “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake, utter a song; arise, Barak, and lead your captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.” If you would grow, you must believe your God! He that gets close to God and leans wholly upon God, shall have Divine strength imparted to him.

A. W. PINK: Christians ought to grow and become strong in the Lord. They are exhorted to “be not children in understanding,” 1 Corinthians 14:20. They are bidden to “stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong,” 1 Chronicles 16:13.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Oh! it is a crying shame and sin that in all Christian communities there should be so many grey-headed babies, men who have for years and years been professing to be Christ’s followers, and whose faith is but little, if at all.

C. H. SPURGEON: You know the good Methodist woman’s outcry at the funeral sermon when the minister said, “Now that this eminent servant of the Lord is departed, we know of no one to fill his place. The standard-bearers are removed and we have none left at all to be compared with them. It seems as if the glory were departing and the faithful failing from among men.” A worthy mother in Israel called out from the aisle, “Glory be to God, that’s a lie!” Well, I have often felt inclined to say the same when I have heard a wailing over the absence of good and great men—and melancholy prophecies of the awful times to come! “Glory be to God, He will never let His Church die out for lack of leaders! He has a grand reserve somewhere!”

RICHARD ROGERS: Let this be briefly added, that Deborah yielding to, and helping the weakness of Barak in going with him, teaches us to regard, help, and encourage our weak brethren, by counsel, travail, and example.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): If others fail in their duty to us, this does not discharge us from our duty to them, nor take off the obligations we lie under to seek their welfare.

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*Editor’s Note: According to Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary (#3941, from #3940), ‘Lapidoth’ is the feminine plural of an unused Hebrew root word probably meaning to shine. Proper names often have spiritual significance (see Hebrews 7:1,2). Perhaps the name of Deborah’s husband is in the feminine form to emphasize that she was the shining spiritual light in their marriage, and that her husband was either unconverted, or a weak man not governing his household as he should. She was certainly more prominent and distinguished than him. And it is plural, either because as married they are one flesh in God’s eyes, but still remain two very different people; or because such was the general spiritual condition of Israel at the time.

 

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The Equitable Poetic Justice of God’s Judgments

Posted on May 1, 2020 by The Editor

Jeremiah 17:10; Proverbs 11:5; Esther 7:9,10: Proverbs 26:27

I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

The wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.

Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.

Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): These are proverbial expressions, teaching men to be wise and cautious, lest by their conduct they bring mischief upon themselves; as it often is, the one that digs a pit for another, falls into it himself―or, any man that devises mischief against another, frequently so it is that the same befalls them; as Haman, who prepared a gallows for Mordecai, was hanged on it himself.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Haman was justly hanged on the very gallows he had unjustly prepared for Mordecai. If he had not set up that gallows, perhaps the king would not have thought of ordering him to be hanged. In the morning Haman was designing himself for the robes, and Mordecai for the gallows; but the tables are turned: Mordecai has the crown, Haman the cross.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Was it not an act of what men term, poetic justice?

MATTHEW HENRY: The Lord is known by such judgments. “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead,” Proverbs 11:8.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The nets of evil plotting and malicious enterprise swing far out in the tides of human life, but never far enough to enmesh God. He remains beyond them all, and gathering them in the hands of His power, He makes them include the men who weave them to destroy others…It was a fierce and terrible judgment, and yet characterized by poetic justice.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): And what a display is made of the Lord’s providential superintendence.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): “I cannot pass over the wonderful harmony of Providence,” says Josephus, “without a remark upon the Almighty power and admirable justice of the wisdom of God, not only in bringing Haman to his deserved punishment, but in entrapping him in the very snare which he had laid for another, and turning a malicious invention upon the head of the inventor.” Well says the heathen poet, “No law is more just, than that the workers of wickedness should perish by the means of their own subtilty.”

ROBERT HAWKER: Pause and contemplate the sure end of the ungodly.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Sin and punishment are inseparable companions…Every man shall be sure to reap as he sows, to drink as he brews, to receive according to that he hath done in the flesh, whether good or evil, 2 Corinthians 5:10―as sure as the night followeth the day, a day of account will come, and God will render unto each man reward or punishment according to his works.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): We are not to suppose that our good works are put in one scale, and our evil works in another; and that, according to the scale which preponderates, our fate shall be. Nor are we to imagine that, when we have done a certain number of good works, the merits of Christ shall be cast, as it were, into the scale, in order to procure acceptance for them. The way of salvation is widely different from either of these. We all, without exception, are sinners, deserving of God’s wrath and indignation. But He has given His only-begotten Son to die for us; and will accept to mercy all who come to Him in His Son’s name. Those who have believed in Christ will in that day be approved as having embraced the proffered salvation: and those who have rejected the Saviour, will be rejected of their God. But still there will be a great difference as to the measure of misery or of happiness which these different parties will inherit. Amongst the righteous, “one star will differ from another star in glory;” and amongst the wicked, some will be “beaten with many stripes, and others with few,” according as circumstances have occurred to extenuate or aggravate their guilt.

MATTHEW HENRY: Sooner or later, in this world or in that to come, He will cause every man to find according to his ways. This is the standing rule of distributive justice, to give to every man according to his work. “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with them: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with them: for the reward of his hands shall be given him,” Isaiah 3:10,11. If services persevered in now go unrewarded, and sins persisted in now go unpunished, yet there is a day coming when God will fully render to every man according to his works, with interest for the delay.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): God ever will do justice.

MATTHEW HENRY: Though He does not always do this visibly in this world, yet He will do it in the day of recompence.

CHARLES SIMEON: He records every thing in the book of His remembrance—The thoughts as well as the words of men are recorded in this book, Malachi 3:16; and out of these books shall they be judged, Revelation 20:12,13. Indeed, they are all “sealed up, as it were, in a bag,” in order to be then brought forth as grounds of God’s decision, and as evidences of His equity. Nothing will escape His observation.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  When the ungodly are secure, let us know that God’s judgment is indeed hidden, but yet certain, and will shortly overtake them; for when they say, “Peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them,” 1 Thessalonians 5:3…If the judgments of God be so dreadful in this life, how dreadful will He be when He shall come at last to judge the world!

CHARLES SIMEON: Behold, then, What an awful prospect is here opened to the ungodly! There is not a day or an hour in which an ungodly man is not providing misery for himself, and “treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.”

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Evil shall fall on the heads of its own authors.

A. W. PINK: Note how an exact retribution―“poetic justice” worldlings would call it―overtook Jezebel: “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth,” who was murdered at the orders of that wicked queen, there was her corpse consumed by dogs, 2 Kings 9:36.

 

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