Walking in Love

Posted on February 14, 2020 by The Editor

Jude 1:21; Galatians 5:25; Ephesians 4:30-5:2

Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): How affectionately the Church is called upon to follow God; and the way, in which they are to follow Him—not as children only, but as dear children.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): We should set up God’s love, not as a pattern only to us, but as an incentive to inflame us; and therefore he adds these words, ‘as dear children.’ The words are in the original ὡς τέκνα ἀγαπητά.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Having called on us to imitate God, he now calls on us to imitate Christ, who is our true model. We ought to embrace each other with that love with which Christ has embraced us, for what we perceive in Christ is our true guide.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): What a path to walk in! “Walk in love.” What a well-paved way it is! What a blessed Person for us to follow in that divinely royal road! It would have been hard for us to tread this way of love, if it had not been that His blessed feet marked out the track for us. We are to love as Christ also hath loved us and the question which will often solve difficulties is this, “What would Jesus Christ do in my case? What He would have done, that we may do: “Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us.” And if we want to know how far that love may be carried, we need not be afraid of going too far in self-denial; we may even make a sacrifice of ourselves for love of God and men, for here is our model: “As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour.”

JOHN CALVIN: This was a remarkable proof of the highest love. Forgetful, as it were, of Himself, Christ spared not His own life, that He might redeem us from death. If we desire to be partakers of this benefit, we must cultivate similar affections toward our neighbours. Not that any of us has reached such high perfection, but all must aim and strive according to the measure of their ability…He, by not sparing His own life, testified how much He loved us…Christ presents to us, in a summary view, the way and manner of fulfilling this precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” Matthew 22:39.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): True brotherly love is a reflection of God’s love for us, and He loves His people not for their native attractiveness, but for Christ’s sake; and therefore does He love them in spite of their ugliness and vileness. God is “longsuffering to us-ward,” 2 Peter 3:9, bearing with our crookedness, pardoning our iniquities, healing our diseases, and His word to us is, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love.” We are to love the saints for what we can see of Christ in them; yes, love them, and for that reason—in spite of all their ignorance, perverseness, ill-temper, obstinacy, fretfulness. It is the image of God in them not their wealth, amiability, social position—which is the magnet that attracts a renewed heart toward them.

C. H. SPURGEON: Because iniquity abounds even in the professing Church, the love of many is growing cold today. What a sermon one might preach upon this!

A. W. PINK: Remember, dear brother, God suffers our love for one another to be tried and tested—as He does our faith—or there would be no need for this exhortation “forbearing one another in love,” Ephesians 4:2. The most spiritual Christian on earth is full of infirmities, and the best way of enduring them is to frequently and honestly remind yourself that you also are full of faults and failings.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): If ye are converted, and become as little children, then for God’s sake take care of doing what children often do; they are too apt to quarrel one with another. O love one another; “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him,” 1 John 4:16. Ye are all children of the same Father, ye are all going to the same place; why should ye differ? The world has enough against us, the devil has enough against us, without our quarreling with each other; O walk in love. If I could preach no more, if I was not able to hold out to the end of my sermon, I would say as John did, when he was grown old and could not preach, “Little children, love one another.” If ye are God’s children, then love one another.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): “The fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance,” These virtues almost exclusively refer to our fellow-creatures; yet they are the fruits of the Spirit—The man who cherishes in his bosom the spirit of love to his fellow-creatures, from a deep sense of God’s love to him in Christ, and who is enabled to make some tolerable proficiency in learning of Jesus, who is “meek end lowly in heart,” has more of the living power of the Holy Spirit in his soul, than he who is dissolved in tears, or rapt in ecstasy under the burning, melting words and tones of some eloquent preacher. Never can it be repeated too often, or expressed too emphatically, that “to walk in the Spirit,” is to walk in love.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Let every act of life be dictated by love to God and man.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): This is all-important. To pretend to great zeal for the truth of the one body while failing to manifest the love of the Spirit is to put the emphasis in the wrong place. Doctrinal correctness will never atone for lack of brotherly love. It is far more to God who is Himself love, in His very nature, that His people walk in love one toward another, than that they contend valiantly for set forms of truth, however scriptural.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): And to “walk” in love, is not merely to talk of it, but to exercise it; and to do all that is done for God, and Christ, and the saints, from a principle of love.

JOHN CALVIN: Whatever is devoid of love is of no account in the sight of God.

 

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King Asa’s Old Age

Posted on February 7, 2020 by The Editor

2 Chronicles 16:1-10,12

In the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah, and built Ramah, to the intent that he might let none go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. Then Asa brought out silver and gold out of the treasures of the house of the LORD and of the king’s house, and sent to Benhadad king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, There is a league between me and thee, as there was between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent thee silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me.

And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the LORD thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen? yet, because thou didst rely on the LORD, he delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time…

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): This is a very sad chapter, telling as it does the story of the lapse of a man who, considering the conditions under which he lived, had for six and thirty years been so remarkably true to God.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): That Asa was a pious man is clear from 2 Chronicles 14:2, where we are told that he “did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.” Alas, like many whose early life promised well, it expired amid the shadows. And wherein was it that he failed so lamentably?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Notice the grave error into which Asa fell—the foolishness for which the Prophet rebuked him. He was threatened by Baasha, the king of the neighbouring territory of Israel. He was not directly assailed by war, but Baasha began to build a fortress which would command the passages between the two countries—and prevent the people of Israel from coming to settle in the land of Judah, or making their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Now, one would naturally have expected, from Asa’s former conduct, that he would either have thought very little of Baasha, or else that he would have taken the case to God, as he did before in the matter of the Ethiopians, 2 Chronicles 14:9-11. And this was a smaller trouble altogether, and somehow I fancy it was because it was a smaller trouble, that Asa thought that he could manage it very well himself by the help of an arm of flesh. In the case of the invasion by countless hordes of Ethiopians, Asa must have felt that it was of no use calling in Benhadad, the king of Syria, or asking any of the nations to help him, for with all their help he would not have been equal to the tremendous struggle. Therefore he was driven to God. But this, being a smaller trial, he does not seem to have been so thoroughly divorced from confidence in man.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Now here was a man of God who had committed the very common sin of making alliance with the world. He made a league with Ben-hadad, king of Syria―he relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on Jehovah.

C. H. SPURGEON: According to God’s mind, the king’s course was evil, but it did not turn out badly for him politically. Now, many people in the world judge actions by their immediate results. If a Christian does a wrong thing and it prospers, then at once they conclude he was justified in doing it; but, ah, Brothers and Sisters, this is a poor, blind way of judging the actions of men.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: Things which appear successful may be in the life of faith most disastrous. How perpetually men defeat their own ends when either through lack of faith, or overconfidence, which are practically the same thing, they attempt to do by policy what God is prepared to do for them in answer to their obedient belief.

C. H. SPURGEON: Oh, the tricks, plots, deceptions, equivocations and intrigues of diplomacy! Asa, I have no doubt, thought that all was fair in war. He took the common rule, the common standard of mankind, and went upon that. Whereas, as a child of God, he ought to have scorned anything that was dishonourable or untrue. And as to saying to a heathen king, “Break your league with Baasha and make a league with me”—why, if he had been in a right state of heart, he would sooner have lost his tongue than have uttered such disgraceful words! But, child of God as he was, when he once got off the plain simple way of believing in God and taking his trouble to God, there was no telling what he would do.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: When once a man allows himself to slip aside from the position in which faith would keep him, there is no accounting for the extremes into which he may run.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: The story is the sadder in that the king seems to have had no repentance for his wrong. He persecuted the prophet, flinging him into prison.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time; by fines and imprisonments, such as perhaps expressed their disapprobation of his league with the king of Syria, and of his ill usage of the prophet.”

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Alas! what an awful picture is this of Asa. Oh! how evident it is when men grow cool towards God that they grow impatient of reproof.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The old also think, that wrong is in a manner done them when they are reproved.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): “Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished,” Ecclesiastes 4:13. That is, he will not suffer any counsel or admonition to be given him―no one about him dares contradict him, or, he will not hearken to the counsel and admonition that are given him…Folly and wilfulness commonly go together, and those that most need admonition can worst bear it.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Thus he added sin to sin, as the best shall do if God restrain them not.

MATTHEW HENRY: Is this Asa? Is this he whose heart was perfect with the Lord all his days? Well, let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. A wise man, and yet in a rage! An Israelite, and yet in a rage with a prophet! A good man, and yet impatient of reproof, and that cannot bear to be told of his faults! Lord, what is man, when God leaves him to himself?

C. H. SPURGEON: For a man to trust himself in the beginning of his Christian career is very unwise, for Scripture warns him against it! But for him to trust himself after he has been 20 or 30 years a Christian is surely insanity, itself—a sin against common sense! If we have spent only a few years in the Christian life, we ought to have learned from our slips, follies, failures, ignorance and mistakes, that we are less than nothing! The college of experience has done nothing by way of instructing us if it has not taught us that we are weakness, itself―Are you an aged Christian and yet self-confident? Surely this cannot be!

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): And are we in no danger of this? Read the Scriptures. See the falls of good men, and men eminently good.

 

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An American “New & Improved” Gospel

Posted on January 31, 2020 by The Editor

Galatians 1:6,7

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In twentieth century evangelism, there has been a woeful ignoring of the solemn truth of the total depravity of man―a complete underrating of the desperate case and condition of the sinner. Very few indeed have faced the unpalatable fact that every man is thoroughly corrupt by nature, that he is completely unaware of his own wretchedness, blind and helpless, and dead in trespasses and sins. Because such is his case, his heart is filled with enmity against God.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): As for the system which men have substituted in its place, it is indeed “another Gospel,” which the Apostles never knew, and which God never revealed.

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): Leave out the holy character of God, the holy excellence of His law, the holy condemnation to which transgressors are doomed, the holy loveliness of the Saviour’s character, the holy nature of redemption, the holy tendency of Christ’s doctrine, and the holy tempers and conduct of all true believers: then dress up a scheme of religion of this unholy sort—represent mankind as in a pitiable condition, rather through misfortune than by crime: speak much of Christ’s bleeding love to them, of His agonies in the garden and on the cross without showing the need, or the nature, of the satisfaction for sin: speak of His present glory, and of His compassion for poor sinners; of the freeness with which He dispenses pardons; of the privileges which believers enjoy here, and of the happiness and glory reserved for them hereafter: clog this with nothing about regeneration and sanctification, or represent holiness as somewhat else than conformity to the holy character and law of God: and you make up a plausible ‘gospel,’ calculated to humour the pride, soothe the consciences, engage the hearts, and raise the affections of natural men, who love nobody but themselves.

A. W. PINK: Declare that the sinner has simply to accept Christ as his personal Saviour—though his heart be still unhumbled, without contrition and thoroughly in love with the world—and eternal life is now his.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I do not want to be unfair, but I say that a gospel which merely says “Come to Jesus”, and offers Him as a Friend, and offers a marvellous new life, without convicting of sin, is not New Testament evangelism.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): Do not the generality of men consider God as their friend? Nor can you persuade them that they are under His displeasure.

THOMAS SCOTT: And now no wonder if this ‘gospel’―which has nothing in it affronting, offensive, or unpalatable, but is perfectly suited to the carnal unhumbled sinner, and helps him to quiet his conscience, dismiss his fears, and encourage his hopes―incurs no opposition amongst ignorant persons, meets with a hearty welcome, and makes numbers of supposed converts, who live and die as full as they can hold of joy and confidence, without any fears or conflicts.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: I can think of an old man who often used the following expression: “You know, friends, I decided for Christ forty years ago, and I have never regretted it.” What a terrible thing to say!  “Never regretted it!” But that is the kind of thing people say who have been brought up under this teaching and approach.

THOMAS SCOTT: What wonder if, when all the offensive part is left out, the gospel gives no offence? What wonder if, when it is made suitable to carnal minds, carnal minds fall in love with it? What wonder if, when it is calculated to fill the unrenewed mind with false confidence and joy, it has this effect?  What wonder if, when the true character of God is unknown and a false character of Him is framed—a God all love and no justice, very fond of such believers as his favourites—they have warm affections towards him?

ANDREW FULLER: Yet, this has no tendency to remove their enmity. What they hate in God is that from which their hearts are wholly averse, and that is, His true character.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Evangelistic preaching should be more, rather than less theological, than any other, and for this good reason. Why is it that you call people to repent? Why do you call them to believe the gospel? You cannot deal properly with repentance without dealing with the doctrine of man, the doctrine of the Fall, the doctrine of sin and the wrath of God against sin…Evangelism which is not theological is not evangelism at all in any true sense. It may be a calling for decisions, it may be a calling on people to come to religion, or to live a better kind of life, or the offering of some psychological benefits; but it cannot by any definition be regarded as Christian evangelism, because there is not true reason for what you are doing apart from these great theological principles.

A. W. PINK: “Coming to Christ” is a far, far different thing from raising your hand to be prayed for by some Protestant “priest,” coming forward and taking some cheap-jack evangelist’s hand, signing some “decision” card, uniting with some “church,” or any of the “many inventions” of man (Ecclesiastes 7:29).

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: No sinner ever really “decides for Christ.” That term “decide” has always seemed to me to be quite wrong…A sinner does not “decide” for Christ; the sinner flies to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying—“Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Saviour, or I die.” No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God’s holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory—the convicted sinner no more “decides for Christ” than the poor drowning man “decides” to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape.  The term is entirely inappropriate.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): These people think it unnecessary to attend to the trifle of heart work―they dare to omit the most vital part of the matter. They attend a revival meeting, and they declare themselves saved, though they have not been renewed in heart, and possess neither repentance nor faith. They come forward to avow a mere emotion. They have nothing better than a resolve; but they flourish it as if it were the deed itself.

THOMAS SCOTT: I cannot but avow my fears that Satan has propagated much of this false religion, among many widely different classes of religious professors; and it shines so brightly in the eyes of numbers who “take all for gold that glitters” that―unless the fallacy be detected―it bids fair to be the prevailing religion in many places.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): The world will have such wolf’s preaching, and indeed desires no better, because it hears not Christ nor regards Christ. It is no wonder that true Christians and their pastors are so few.

 

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Phebe

Posted on January 24, 2020 by The Editor

Romans 16:1,2

I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: That ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910):  Note the person here disclosed. A little rent is made in the dark curtain through which we see, as with an incandescent light concentrated for a moment upon her, one of the many good women who helped Paul.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): But still, we find very little about her.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: This is an outline picture of an else wholly unknown person. She, like most of the other names mentioned in the salutations in Romans chapter sixteen, has had a singular fate. Every name, shadowy and unreal as it is to us, belonged to a human life filled with hopes and fears, plunged sometimes in the depths of sorrows, struggling with anxieties and difficulties; and all the agitations have sunk into forgetfulness and calm.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): She is recommended as a sister―“our sister”―not in a natural, but spiritual relation; one that was a member of the church at Cenchrea, and in full communion with it; for as it was usual to call the men brethren, it was common to call the women sisters. Elderly men were called fathers, younger men brethren; elderly women were styled mothers, and younger women sisters, who were partakers of the grace of God, and enjoyed the fellowship of the saints. As she dwelt at Cenchrea, it is probable she was a Grecian, as is her name. With the Heathen poets, Pheobus was the sun, and Phoebe the moon. Though it is not unlikely that she might be a Jewess, since there were many of them in those parts; and this was a name in use among them.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Where, do you think, stood this same Cenchrea?

JOHN GILL: This place was a seaport of the Corinthians, distant from Corinth about eight or nine miles.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Corinth was situated on the isthmus that connects Peloponnesus to Attica…It was most advantageously situated for trade; for, by its two ports, the Lecheum and Cenchreae, it commanded the commerce both of the Ionian and Aegean Sea—Cenchrea was a sea-port on the east side of the isthmus which joined the Morea to Greece, as the Lechaeum was the sea-port on the west side of the same isthmus. These were the only two havens and towns of any note, next to Corinth, that belonged to this territory. As the Lechaeum opened the road to the Ionian sea, so Cenchrea opened the road to the Aegean; and both were so advantageously situated for commerce that they were very rich.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: But if we take into account the hideous immoralities of Corinth, we shall deem it probable that the port of Cenchrea, with its shifting maritime population, was, like most seaports, a soil in which goodness was hard put to it to grow, and a church had much against which to struggle. To be a Christian at Cenchrea can have been no light task.

JOHN GILL: In the way to this place from the Isthmus was the temple of Diana, and a very ancient sculpture; and in Cenchrea itself was the temple of Venus, and a wooden image; and near the flow of the sea was a Neptune of brass. But now, in this place, there was a church of Jesus Christ.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: She was a “servant”―or, as the margin preferably reads, a “deaconess of the Church which is at Cenchrea.”

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Deacons were officers employed in distributing the church’s stock among the necessitous. They were to be persons of an eminent character, 1 Timothy 3:8-11, and therefore their service in the church might not consist only in relieving the poor, but in visiting the sick, in exhorting, comforting, and teaching, as occasion required…According to the customs of that country, men could not well be allowed to perform those good offices to the women: for men to have visited and conversed with women, would have been counted a very great indecency, and must have brought a scandal upon the Christian profession.

JOHN GILL: Not that she was a teacher of the word, or preacher of the Gospel, for that was not allowed of by the apostle in the church at Corinth, that a woman should teach—see 1 Corinthians 14:34; and therefore would never be admitted at Cenchrea. Rather, as some think, she was a deaconess appointed by the church, to take care of the poor sisters of the church; though as they were usually poor, and ancient women; that were put into that service, and this woman, according to the account of her, being neither poor, nor very ancient; it seems rather, that being a rich and generous woman, she served or ministered to the church by relieving the poor; not out of the church’s stock, as deaconesses did, but out of her own substance.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: And, in that capacity, by gentle ministrations and the exhibition of purity and patient love, as well as by the gracious administration of material help, had been a “succourer of many.” There is a whole world of unmentioned kindnesses and a life of self-devotion hidden away under these few words. Possibly the succour which she administered was her own gift. She may have been rich and influential, or perhaps she but distributed the Church’s bounty; but in any case the gift was sweetened by the giver’s hand, and the succour was the impartation of a woman’s sympathy more than the bestowment of a donor’s gift.

JOHN GILL: And she received the ministers of the Gospel, and all strangers, into her house, which was open to all Christians; and so was exceeding serviceable to that church, and to all the saints that came thither.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Sometime or other, and somehow or other, she had had the honour and joy of helping Paul, and no doubt that opportunity would be to her a crown of service.

J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): We are apt to overlook the minor actors in Scripture stories in our absorbed interest in the prominent ones. Yet often these lesser people are just as important in their own place, and their service is just as essential to the final success of the whole as the greater ones.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Remember our Lord’s teaching? That the giver of “a cup of cold water in the name of a prophet” in some measure shares in the prophet’s work, and will surely share in the prophet’s reward, Matthew 10:41. She who helped Paul must have entered into the spirit of Paul’s labours―Paul and Phœbe were one in ministry and one in its recompense―Little did Phœbe dream that her name would have an eternal commemoration of her unnoticed deeds of kindness and aid, standing forth to later generations and peoples of whom she knew nothing, as worthy of eternal remembrance. For those of us who have to serve unnoticed and unknown, here is an instance which may stimulate and encourage: It matters little whether our work be noticed or recorded by men, so long as we know that it is written in the Lamb’s book of life and that He will one day proclaim it “before the Father in heaven and His angels.”

 

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Holy Boasting

Posted on January 17, 2020 by The Editor

Jeremiah 9:23,24; Psalm 34:1-4

Let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord who exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight.

I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Boasting is generally annoying. Even those that boast themselves cannot endure that other people should boast.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Ungodly men love to boast of themselves—There is no man who has not some imaginary excellencies whereof to boast. If we possess any natural endowment either of mind or body, we are forward to bring it into notice, and to arrogate something to ourselves on account of it. One values herself upon her beauty; another boasts of his strength or courage; another prides himself in his wit, his penetration, or his judgment. Rather than pass unnoticed, the ungodly will boast of their iniquities and excesses; yea, strange to say!―of iniquities they have not committed, and of excesses to which they have never arrived.

C. H. SPURGEON: But there is one kind of boasting that even the humble can bear to hear―nay, they are glad to hear it. That must be boasting in God—a holy glorying and extolling the Most High with words sought out with care that might magnify His blessed name.

CHARLES SIMEON: A sense of gratitude to God for His mercies will ever abide in some measure on the soul of a true believer. But there are special occasions whereon he is so impressed with the Divine goodness, that he feels as if he never could forget it, and as if he would have the whole creation join with him in his devout acknowledgments. This was the frame of David’s mind, when [he wrote Psalm 34].

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): It showeth a heart full of joys unspeakable and full of glory.

CHARLES SIMEON: Let us proceed then to consider what is the true and sufficient ground of glorying…We may glory in this knowledge of God, because it comprehends and unfolds to our view wisdom, power, and riches that are indeed infinite. Jeremiah particularly directs us to consider God as exercising loving-kindness—to His friends; and judgment—to His enemies; and righteousness or justice in the distribution both of His rewards and punishments. Now this is a view of God which we have not any where, but in the Gospel of Christ. In His dealings towards the fallen angels we behold only His judgments; but in His dealings with man we behold the exercise of mercy and loving-kindness, because He accepted the mediation of His Son on our behalf. The Apostle Paul directs us therefore to look for the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 1:30,31.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Glory in this―that thou knowest Him.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord,”―in my relation to Him, my interest in Him, and expectations from Him.” It is not vainglory to glory in the Lord…We may glory in this—that wherever we are, we have an acquaintance with an interest in a God that exercises lovingkindness, and judgment, and righteousness in the earth, that is not only just to all His creatures and will do no wrong to any of them, but kind to all His children and will protect them and provide for them. For in these things I delight―God delights to show kindness and to execute judgment Himself, and is pleased with those who herein are followers of Him as dear children.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): James in the same manner bids the lowly to glory that they had been adopted by the Lord as His children (James 1:9)―Since it is incomparably the greatest dignity to be introduced into the company of angels, nay, to be made the associates of Christ, he who estimates this favour of God aright, will regard all other things as worthless.

CHARLES SIMEON: It was He who purchased eternal life for us: none can claim any part of His glory in this respect: “His life was the ransom paid for us;” and by His obedience unto death we obtain righteousness and life. Moreover it is He who imparts eternal life to us: we receive it from Him, who “is exalted to give it,” and from “whose fulness alone it can be received.” As we cannot merit it, so neither can we obtain it, by any efforts of our own: it is purely the gift of God through Christ…Yea, we declare that every sin we have ever committed is actually forgiven, the very instant we truly believe in Christ: even “the little children in Christ” may glory in this, as a truth on which they may most confidently rely, that on their believing in Christ, they not only shall be, but actually, “are justified from all things, (Acts 13:38,39; 1 John 2:12)―Say, beloved, is not here a ground of glorying? and, if the believer did not glory in this privilege, would not the very stones cry out against him?

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): My soul shall glory in this—that I have so powerful and so gracious a Lord and Master.

C. H. SPURGEON: The exultation of this verse is no mere tongue bragging, “the soul” is in it―the boasting is meant and felt before it is expressed. What scope there is for holy boasting in Jehovah! His person, attributes, covenant, promises, works, and a thousand things besides, are all incomparable, unparalleled, matchless; we may cry them up as we please, but we shall never be convicted of vain and empty speech in so doing. Truly he who writes these words of comment has nothing of his own to boast of, but much to lament over, and yet none shall stop him of his boast in God so long as he lives.

CHARLES SIMEON: The godly know, by bitter experience, that in themselves dwelleth no good thing, yea, nothing but what furnishes matter for the deepest humiliation. But they see in God sufficient to excite their devoutest adoration. Whether they contemplate the perfections of His nature, or the works of His hands, the wonders of His providence, or the riches of His grace, they are filled with wonder and astonishment; and, pouring contempt on all created excellencies, they exclaim, “O God! who is like unto thee?” “Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ.”

SIR RICHARD BAKER (1568-1644): Can any boasting be greater than to say, “I can do all things?” Yet in this boasting there is humility when I add, “In him that strengtheneth me,” Philippians 4:13. For though God likes not of boasting, yet He likes of this boasting, which arrogates nothing to ourselves, but ascribes all to Him.

C. H. SPURGEON: You will never exaggerate when you speak good things of God. It is not possible to do so―the more it were indulged the better.

 

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The Audible Difference Between Wisdom & Folly

Posted on January 10, 2020 by The Editor

Proverbs 14:3; Proverbs 14:8; Proverbs 14:16

In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride.

The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.

A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Lord Francis Bacon renders this verse thus: “A wise man is wary of his way; a cunning fool seeks evasion.” “There be two sorts of wisdom,” says he; “the one true and sound, the other counterfeit and false;” which last Solomon hesitates not to call folly. He who applies himself to the former takes heed to his own ways and footings; foreseeing dangers, studying remedies, using the assistance of good men, and fortifying himself against the wicked: wary how he enters upon a business, and not unprepared for a handsome retreat: attentive to advantages, courageous against impediments, with innumerable other things relating to the government of his own ways and actions. But that other kind is made up altogether of fallacies and cunning devices, and relies wholly upon the hopes of circumventing others, and framing them as it lists.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): The wit of ungodly men, which, though they account their wisdom, is really their folly, is employed only in finding out ways of overreaching and deceiving others, and themselves too.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): It is distrustful conduct.

THOMAS COKE: This wisdom the parable rejects, not only as wicked, but as foolish; for, first, it is not in the number of things which are in our own power, nor is it directed by any constant rule; but new stratagems must be every day devised, the old failing and growing useless. And secondly, as soon as a man hath got the name and opinion of a cunning crafty companion, he hath deprived himself utterly of the principal instrument for the management of his affairs; which is, trust; and so he will find, by experience, all things go cross to his desires: for, lastly, these arts and shifts, however they promise fair, and much please such as practise them; yet they are commonly frustrated, and, which is worse, end sadly.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He passes from sin to sin like a madman, and yet persuades himself that all shall do well.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  He puts a cheat upon himself. He does not rightly understand his way; he thinks he does, and so misses his way, and goes on in his mistake: “The folly of fools is deceit;” it cheats them into their own ruin.

MATTHEW POOLE: The fool—the wicked man; for such are commonly and justly called fools every where in Scripture, and that purposely to meet with their false, yet, common, conceit of themselves, as if they were the only wise men, and all others were fools.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): His character is here drawn to life: He “rageth, and is confident.” Such a fool was Rehoboam, when his self-willed confidence rejected the counsel of wisdom and experience, 2 Chronicles 10.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): His speech betrays him―As the words may be rendered, “he goes on confidently,” nothing can stop him; he pushes on, regardless of the laws of God or men, of the advices and counsels of his friends.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): The lips only utter what the mind conceives.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  Matthew 12:34: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;” agreeably to the old proverb, which declared the tongue to be the index of the mind. And, indeed, whatever hidden and crooked recesses may exist in the heart of man, and whatever may be the amazing contrivances by which every man conceals his vices, yet the Lord extorts from each of them some kind of confession, so that they discover by the tongue their natural disposition and hidden feelings.

JOHN TRAPP: What is in the well will be in the bucket―so what is in the heart will be in the mouth.

MATTHEW HENRY: See here a proud fool exposing himself. Where there is pride in the heart, and no wisdom in the head to suppress it, it commonly shows itself in the words: In the mouth there is pride, proud boasting, proud censuring, proud scorning, proud commanding and giving law; this is the rod, or branch of pride―it grows from that root of bitterness which is in the heart; it is a rod from that stem. The root must be plucked up, or we cannot conquer this branch, or it is meant of a smiting beating rod, a rod of pride which strikes others. The proud man with his tongue lays about him and deals blows at pleasure, but it will in the end be a rod to himself; the proud man shall come under an ignominious correction by the words of his own mouth, not cut as a soldier, but caned as a servant; and he will be beaten with his own rod, Psalm 64:8.

THOMAS COKE: Fools often bring upon themselves, by their ungoverned tongues, the correction due to their crimes, their pride, and arrogance.

CHARLES BRIDGES: “The mouth of fools poureth out foolishness,” Proverbs 15:2. There is a time for everything—the wise man elsewhere writes—“a time to keep silence, and a time to speak,” Ecclesiastes 3:7. It is a mark of true wisdom to discern the times. Indeed the want of discipline, upon the “little member,” is a sound test of character. The man, who speaks hastily and with conceit, will be put to shame in his folly.

MATTHEW HENRY: He is a fool, for he acts against his reason and his interest, and his ruin will quickly be the proof of his folly.

CHARLES BRIDGES: He might have been “counted” wise in his silence. But silence is beyond his power—he “uttereth all his mind,” Proverbs 29:11—he tells all he knows, thinks, or intends, and runs on, until he has “poured out all his foolishness.” It is sometimes thought a proof of honesty to utter all our mind. But it is rather a proof of folly. For how many things it would be far better never to speak; indeed to suppress the very thought―Oh! for wisdom to govern the tongue! For want of sound wisdom, fools only open their mouths for their own mischief, in profane rebellion, groveling selfishness, ungodly worldliness, or hateful pride.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): There are some persons who have undergone such a process of self-deception that if the angels of God were to tell them the truth they would not believe it, nor be able to comprehend it.

CHARLES BRIDGES: To be deaf to the voice that would save us from ruin is a most fearful error—the proof of a foolish and unhumbled heart, and the certain forerunner, if not corrected, of irremediable destruction.

 

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A Motto for Every New Year

Posted on January 3, 2020 by The Editor

Psalm 119:89; Psalm 119:11

Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven.

Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Dear reader, we want you to accept a little motto for the year on which you have just entered. We think you will find it a precious motto for every year during which your Lord may see fit to leave you on this earth. It consists of two short but most weighty passages from Psalm 119. The first is this: “Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven,” and the second is, “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” These are golden sentences for the present moment. They set forth the true place for the Word—“settled in heaven” and “hidden in the heart.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): According to the most eminent scholars, the opening sentence should be read—“Forever Thou art, O Lord; Thy Word is settled in Heaven.”

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): The Word of God is as unchangeable and everlasting as His own existence. It is established “in the heavens,” beyond the reach of the revolutions of this lower world: and its accomplishment is as certain, as the motions of the heavenly bodies, which are not at all affected by the convulsions and vicissitudes of the earth and its inhabitants.

C. H. SPURGEON: As God changes not, so the Word which He has spoken to His servants changes not. If the foundations of the faith could be removed, what would the righteous do? What would any of us do? But, with an eternally fixed Word of God, we have something solid to build upon, a foundation on which we may confidently rest our everlasting hopes.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): His purposes are all settled above, and they shall all be fulfilled below.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Our salvation, being shut up in God’s Word, is not subject to change, as all earthly things are, but is anchored in a safe and peaceful haven. The same truth the Prophet Isaiah teaches in somewhat different words: “The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field…The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever,” Isaiah 40:6,8.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): It is eternal and perpetual, neither can it be vacated or abolished by the injury of time or endeavours of tyrants.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): “The Scriptures cannot be broken,” John 10:35. They are called “the Scriptures of truth,” Daniel 10:21; and “the true sayings of God,” Revelation 19:9; and also the fear of the Lord, for every jot and tittle thereof is forever settled in heaven, and stand more steadfast than doth the world. “Heaven and earth,” saith Christ, “shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away, Matthew 24:35. Those, therefore, that are favoured by the Word of God, those are favoured indeed, and that with the favour that no man can turn away.

C. H. SPURGEON: God will uphold His Truth that is in this Book and the men that hold that Truth shall be upheld. And similar eternal settlements are made for all whose hope is fixed upon that Word! No truth of it can fail, no promise of it can be broken. What a joy this is to our hearts! There is something sure, after all—We can say, “this is not mere opinion; this is not the judgment of a wise man, this is not the decree of councils; this is the Master’s own declaration.” Not one of His Words shall ever fall to the ground. There is in His authority no change—His Word is forever settled in Heaven and He is, in Himself, the same yesterday, today and forever…No promise of God ever changes—“His Truth endureth to all generations,” Psalm 100:5.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It could not be otherwise, for “He is faithful that promised,” Hebrews 10:23. None has ever laid hold of a divine promise and found it to fail, and none ever will…How comforting is this to the children of God. Unto us are given “exceeding great and precious promises,” 2 Peter 1:4; and these are the promises of Him who can not lie. Rest, then, with implicit confidence on the sure Word—forever settled in heaven—of the Lord our God.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: But let us remember the counterpart: “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” There are three special points suggested, namely, What have I hid? Where have I hid it? Why have I hid it?

C. H. SPURGEON: As one has well said, Here is the best thing—“Thy Word;” hidden in the best place—“in my heart;” for the best of purposes—“that I might not sin against thee.”

A. W. PINK: God has bidden us, “My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart,” Proverbs 7:1-3. This cannot be done by reading the Bible for a few minutes, and then an hour later forgetting what has been read. Shame on us that we should treat God’s Word so lightly.

JOHN BUNYAN: There wanteth even in the hearts of God’s people a greater reverence of the Word of God than this day appeareth among us—and this let me say, that want of reverence of the Word is the ground of all disorders that are in the heart, life, conversation, and in Christian communion. Besides, the want of reverence of the Word layeth men open to the fearful displeasure of God. “Whoso despiseth the Word shall be destroyed; but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded,” Proverbs 13:13. All transgression beginneth at wandering from the Word of God…First, then, be sure thou keep close to the Word of God; for that is the revelation of the mind and will of God, both as to the truth of what is either in Himself or His ways; and also as to what He requireth and expecteth of thee, either concerning faith in, or obedience to, what He hath so revealed.

ADAM CLARKE: If God’s word be only in his Bible, and not also in his heart, he may soon and easily be surprised into his besetting sin.

JOHN CALVIN: Our true safeguard, then, lies not in a slender knowledge of His law, or in a careless perusal of it, but in hiding it deeply in our hearts.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Nothing can touch the eternal truth of God, and, therefore, what we want, at all times, is to give that truth its proper place in our hearts, to let it act on our conscience, form our character, and shape our way.

A. W. PINK: Unless we do so, we shall never be able to say, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.”

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The Word, if hid in the heart, will certainly be manifest in the life.

 

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A Matter of Time

Posted on December 30, 2019 by The Editor

Galatians 4:4,5; Titus 2:11-13

When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Few people stop to inquire for an explanation of one of the most amazing facts which is presented to the notice of everybody, namely, the fact that all civilized time is dated from the birth of Jesus Christ…To have some common measure of time is, of course, a necessity of organized society, but where shall we find an adequate starting point for the calendar—one which will be acceptable to all civilized nations? A world-shattering victory, the founding of some many-centuried city, the birth of a dynasty, the beginning of a revolution: some such event, it might reasonably be expected, would give time a new starting point. But no conqueror’s sword has ever cut deep enough on Time to leave an enduring mark.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The chief landmark in all time to us is the wondrous life of Him who is the Light of the world! We date from the birth of the Virgin’s Son—we begin with Anno Domini—A.D.—“in the year of our Lord.” All the rest of time is before Christ, and is marked off from the Christian era. Bethlehem’s manger is our beginning. The dense darkness of the heathen ages begins to be broken when we reach the first appearing—and the dawn of a glorious day begins!

A. W. PINK: The Coming of Christ to this world changed its chronology, for all civilized time is now by common consent dated from the Bethlehem manger—from the birth of a Jew, who, according to the view of Infidels, if He ever existed, was a peasant in an obscure province, who was the author of no wonderful invention, who occupied no throne, who died when, as men count years, He had scarcely reached His prime, and Who died the death of a criminal. And how is that strange yet startling fact to be explained? It was imposed neither by the authority of a conqueror, the device of priests, the enactment of a despot, nor even by Constantine; but by slow and gradual consent. The Lord of time has indelibly written His signature across time itself; the years of the modern world being labeled by common consent the years of our Lord! Every dated letter you receive, though penned by an atheist, every newspaper carrying the date of its issue, even though published by Communists, bears testimony to the historicity of Christ!

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  He is the Lord of time, and will be so, till day and night shall come to an end, and the stream of time be swallowed up in the ocean of eternity.

A. W. PINK: As the result of the first Advent a new era was inaugurated, a new prospect was set before the sons of men, the door of mercy was flung wide open, and command was given that the glad tidings should be made known to every creature. Heaven itself was stirred at the miraculous birth of the God-Man. Unto the angels was entrusted the honorous commission of announcing the birth of the Saviour. Heathendom was affected, the good news being conveyed to Chaldea by means of a mysterious “star” which heralded the birth of the King of the Jews. It is impossible for us to fully estimate the tremendous importance of the first Advent of Christ to this earth. The Divine Incarnation is without a parallel in the annals of the human race. But wondrous and blessed as was the first Advent of our Lord in many respects, His Second Coming will be even more momentous.

C. H. SPURGEON: The Apostle Paul in his epistle to Titus describes our position. The people of God stand between two appearances. In the 11th verse of Titus Chapter 2, he tells us, “The Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” And then he says, in the 13th verse, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” We live in an age which is an interval between two appearings of the Lord from Heaven.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): I believe that the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is the great event which will wind up the present dispensation, and for which we ought daily to long and pray.

C. H. SPURGEON: Brothers and Sisters, we look forward to a second appearing! Our outlook for the close of this present era is another appearing—an appearing of Glory rather than of Grace. After our Master rose from the brow of Olivet, His disciples remained for a while in mute astonishment. But soon an angelic messenger reminded them of prophecy and promise by saying, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into Heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven,” Acts 1:11. We believe that our Lord, in the fullness of time, will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the trumpet of the archangel and the voice of God. We look from Anno Domini, in which He came the first time, to that greater Anno Domini, or year of our Lord, in which He shall come a second time, in all the splendor of His power, to reign in righteousness and break the evil powers as with a rod of iron!

A. W. PINK: The need of the world for a competent and righteous Ruler was never as apparent as now.

J. C. RYLE: In a day like this there is no comfort like that of looking forward to Christ coming again—there is a time coming when sin shall be cast out from this world.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Yea, the day is appointed when this judgment will proceed by Him, and He is at the door.

A. W. PINK: When He was here before He was “despised and rejected of men,” but when He comes back again every knee shall bow before Him and every tongue confess His Lordship.

J. C. RYLE: Christ Himself shall be King. He shall return to this earth, and make all things new—His dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

C. H. SPURGEON: See, then, where we are—we are compassed about, behind and before, with the appearings of our Lord. Behind us is our trust. Before us is our hope. Behind us is the Son of God in humiliation. Before us is the great God, our Saviour, in His Glory. To use an ecclesiastical term, we stand between two Epiphanies—the first is the manifestation of the Son of God in human flesh in dishonor and weakness. The second is the manifestation of the same Son of God in all His power and Glory!

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): And time shall be swallowed up in eternity.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): May the Lord give to thee, my dear reader—thus to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ before this year closes; and we can promise you truly, a divinely Happy New Year.

 

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Manger Meditations

Posted on December 20, 2019 by The Editor

Luke 2:12

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): That very Jesus, Who once lay in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and Who, at His birth had no other mansion than a stable, no other cradle than a manger—that same Jesus, was “God manifest in the flesh,” 1 Timothy 3:16.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): What spiritual lessons are we intended to learn from His being placed in a manger?

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Thus He would answer the type of Moses, the great prophet and lawgiver of the Old Testament, who was in his infancy cast out in an ark of bulrushes, as Christ in a manger.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I think it was intended thus to show forth His humiliation.

CHARLES SIMEON: What can we conceive more degrading than for the Saviour of the world to be born in a stable, and to be laid in a manger?

C. H. SPURGEON: He came, according to prophecy, to be “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” He was to be “without form or comeliness, a root out of a dry ground,” Isaiah 53:2,3. Would it have been fitting that the man who was to die naked on the cross should be robed in purple at his birth? Would it not have been inappropriate that the Redeemer who was to be buried in a borrowed tomb should be born anywhere but in the humblest shed, and housed anywhere but in the most ignoble manner?

A. W. PINK: He was laid in a manger to demonstrate the extent of His poverty. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich,” 2 Corinthians 8:9. How “poor” He became, was thus manifested at the beginning.

MATTHEW HENRY: The word which we render “swaddling clothes” some derive from a word that signifies to rend, or tear, and these infer that He was so far from having a good suit of child-bed linen, that His very swaddles were ragged and torn.

C. H. SPURGEON: He is to wear through life a peasant’s garb; He is to associate with fishermen; the lowly are to be His disciples.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): When He grew up, He probably wrought with His father as a carpenter; and afterwards, while He executed the duties of His ministry, He was so poor, that He had not a place where to lay His head, but lived on the bounty of His friends.

C. H. SPURGEON: The cold mountains are often to be His only bed; He is to say, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head,” Luke 9:58.

MATTHEW HENRY: His being born in a stable and laid in a manger was an instance of the poverty of His parents. Had they been rich, room would have been made for them; but, being poor, they must shift as they could—that a woman in reputation for virtue and honour should be used so barbarously. If there had been any common humanity among them, they would not have turned a woman in travail into a stable.

CHARLES SIMEON: One would have thought that a person in Mary’s situation would have found a thousand females ready to receive her into their houses.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): They put Him in a manger from which the cattle were accustomed to get their food.

A. W. PINK: He was laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. They provided no better accommodation than a manger for His cradle. How solemnly this brings out the world’s estimate of the Christ of God. There was no appreciation of His amazing condescension. He was not wanted. It is so still. There is no room for Him in the schools, in society, in the business world, among the great throngs of pleasure seekers, in the political realm, in the newspapers, nor in many of the churches.

THOMAS COKE: Thus, by going before men in the thorny path of poverty and affliction, He has taught them to be contented with their lot in life, however mean and humble.

C. H. SPURGEON: Nothing, therefore, could be more fitting than that in His season of humiliation, when He laid aside all His glory, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and condescended even to the meanest estate, He should be laid in a manger. And there I perceive a choice Glory in the mind of God, for He evidently despises the pomp and glory of the world which little minds esteem so highly. He might have been born in marble halls and wrapped in imperial purple, but He scorns these things and, in the manger among the oxen, we see a Glory which is independent of the trifles of luxury and parade. The Glory of God in the Person of Jesus asks no aid from the splendor of courts and palaces.

MATTHEW HENRY: Christ would hereby put a contempt upon all worldly glory, and teach us to slight it.

THOMAS COKE: Upon this humiliating circumstance of our Saviour’s birth in a stable, we may observe, how much the blessed Jesus, through the whole course of His life, despised the things most esteemed by men; for though He was the Son of God, when He became man He chose to be born of parents in the meanest condition of life; though He was heir of all things, He chose to be born in an inn; nay, in the stable of an inn, where, instead of a cradle He was laid in a manger. The angels reported the good news of His birth not to the rabbis and great men, but to shepherds, who, being plain honest people, were unquestionably good witnesses of what they heard and saw.

A. W. PINK: Who among us had ever imagined that the Lord of glory would lie in a manger? But He did!

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): God stripped Him of all earthly splendour, for the purpose of informing us that His kingdom is spiritual.

C. H. SPURGEON: Yet even as a Baby, He reigns and rules! Mark how the shepherds hasten to salute the new-born King, while the magi from the far-off East bring gold, frankincense and myrrh and bow at His feet. When the Lord condescends to show Himself in little things, He is still right royal and commands the homage of mankind. He is as majestic in the minute as in the magnificent; as royal in the Baby at Bethlehem as in later days in the Man who rode through Jerusalem with hosannas! There He lies in the manger, the Infinite, yet an Infant; Omnipotent, yet swaddled by a woman, and hanging as though helpless at her breast. Let Bethlehem always tell the matchless mystery of godliness—God manifest in human flesh!

THOMAS COKE: Jesus is truly worthy of our adoration, even in His lowest humiliation; the Babe in the manger is still the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

 

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The Wisdom of God’s Foolishness

Posted on December 13, 2019 by The Editor

1 Corinthians 1:20; Luke 10:21; 1 Corinthians 1:25-29

Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): You see the state of Christianity; not many men of learning, or authority, or honourable extraction, are called. There is a great deal of meanness and weakness in the outward appearance of our religion. For few of distinguished character in any of these respects were chosen for the work of the ministry.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Neither do I notice any singular genius necessary. It is not said, “With that man of poetic mind will I dwell,” or, “With that person of refined spirit,” or, “With the man that has an eye to the beauties of color,” or, “An ear to the harmonies of sound”—not a word of it. Some men think that genius makes men good and all who happen to excel are set down as the excellent of the earth. With God it is not so and it is not said so here. Neither is it written that God will dwell with persons of any special education. It is well to be educated, but a knowledge of Latin and Greek and Hebrew will not inscribe our names in the Book of Life.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Whatever knowledge a man may come to have without the illumination of the Holy Spirit, is included in the expression, “the wisdom of this world.” This Paul says God has utterly “made foolish,” that is, He has convicted it of folly.  This you may understand to be effected in two ways; for whatever a man knows and understands, it is mere vanity, if it is not grounded in true wisdom; and it is in no degree better fitted for the apprehension of spiritual doctrine than the eye of a blind man is for discriminating colours.

C. H. SPURGEON: Simplicity of heart is more helpful to the understanding of the Gospel than culture of mind. To be ready to be taught is a better faculty than to be able to teach, as far as the reception of the Gospel is concerned. That degree in divinity may stand in your way of understanding the Divine God! And the very position that you have taken in the classical studies may render it the more difficult for you to comprehend that which the wayfaring man, though he is a fool, knows by heart!

MATTHEW HENRY: God did not choose philosophers, nor orators, nor statesmen, nor men of wealth and power and interest in the world, to publish the gospel of grace and peace. Not the wise men after the flesh, though men would apt to think that a reputation for wisdom and learning might have contributed much to the success of the gospel. Not the mighty and noble, however men might be apt to imagine that secular pomp and power would make way for its reception in the world.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The carnal mind would have supposed that a selection had been made from the ranks of the opulent and influential, the amiable and cultured, so that Christianity might have won the approval and applause of the world by its pageantry and fleshly glory. Ah! but “that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God,” Luke 16:15. God chooses the “base things.”

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): His majesty is not enticed by the lofty titles of men, nor, which is more worth, by the learning and knowledge of men.

A. W. PINK: So it was when our Lord tabernacled among men. The ones whom He took into favoured intimacy with Himself and commissioned to go forth as His ambassadors, were, for the most part, unlettered fishermen.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): He had none about Him of any rank or figure in life, only some few fishermen, and some women, and publicans, and harlots.

C. H. SPURGEON: Many a Church thinks that all her officers ought to be rich, all her ministers learned, all her agents Masters of Arts, at least—if not Doctors of Divinity. This was not so in olden times. Thus it was not when the Church of God grew mightily, for of old the Church of God had faith—in what? Why, faith in weakness! Faith in the things that were not!—The great mass of Christian discipleship has been taken from among the poor and the working men.

A. W. PINK: And so it has been ever since.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is very memorable that in the catacombs of Rome among those remarkable inscriptions which are now preserved with so much care as the memorials of the departed saints—it is rare to find an inscription which is all of it spelt correctly—proving that the persons who wrote them, who were no doubt the very pick of the Christian flock, could neither write nor spell correctly! And yet these were the men that turned the world upside down.

MATTHEW HENRY: God seeth not as man seeth. He hath chosen the foolish things of the world, the weak things of the world, the base and despicable things of the world, men of mean birth, of low rank, of no liberal education, to be the preachers of the gospel and planters of the church. His thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways–Isaiah 55:8. He is a better judge than we what instruments and measures will best serve the purposes of His glory.

A. W. PINK: And the purpose of God’s choice, the raison d’etre of the selection He has made is, “that no flesh should glory in His presence”—there being nothing whatever in the objects of His choice which should entitle them to His special favours, then, all the praise will be freely ascribed to the exceeding riches of His manifold grace.

C. H. SPURGEON: We must have an educated ministry, they tell us; and, by “an educated ministry” they mean, not the ministry of a man of common sense, clear head and warm heart, deep experience, and large acquaintance with human nature, but the ministry of mere classical and mathematical students, theorists, and novices, more learned in modern infidelities than in the truth of God. Our Lord, if he had wished to employ the worldly-wise, might have certainly have chosen an eleven in Corinth or in Athens who would have commanded general respect for their attainments, or He could have found eleven learned rabbis near at home; but He did not want such men: their vaunted attainments were of no value in His eyes.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): If the gospel was of a nature to be propagated or maintained by the power of the world, God would not have entrusted it to fishermen.

 

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