Open Air Itinerant Preaching

Posted on October 11, 2019 by The Editor

Matthew 5:1,2; Mark 2:13; Mark 10:1; Luke 5:3

And seeing the multitudes, [Jesus] went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them.

And he went forth again by the sea side; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them…And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judaea by the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again.

And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Jesus preached on the mountain; from a ship; in the fields; everywhere and every place.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): Our Lord’s practise in this respect, gives a kind of sanction to itinerant preaching, when persons are properly called to, and qualified for, such an employ. And I believe we may venture to affirm―though we would by no means prescribe or dictate to the Holy One of Israel―that, whenever there shall be a general revival of religion in any country, itinerant preaching will be more in vogue…Was not the Reformation began and carried on by itinerant preaching? Were not John Knox and the other Reformers itinerant preachers?”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The first avowed preaching of Protestant doctrine was almost necessarily in the open air, or in buildings which were not dedicated to worship, for these were in the hands of the Papacy…In Germany and other continental countries the Reformation was greatly aided by the sermons delivered to the masses out of doors. We read of Lutheran preachers travelling the country proclaiming the new doctrine to crowds in the market-places, and burial-grounds, and also on mountains and in meadows. At Goslar, a Wittemberg student preached in a meadow planted with lime-trees, which procured for his hearers the designation of “the Lime-tree Brethren.”

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): At Appenzel [in Switzerland], as the crowds could not be contained in the churches, the preaching was held in the fields and public squares, and, notwithstanding keen opposition, the hills, meadows, and mountains echoed with the glad tidings of salvation.

C. H. SPURGEON: Throughout England we have several trees remaining called “gospel oaks.” There is one spot on the other side of the Thames known by the name of “Gospel Oak,” and I have myself preached at Addlestone, in Surrey, under the far-spreading boughs of an ancient oak, beneath which John Knox is said to have proclaimed the gospel during his sojourn in England. Full many a wild moor, and lone hill side, and secret spot in the forest have been consecrated in the same fashion, and traditions still linger over caves, and dells, and hill tops, where of old time the bands of the faithful met to hear the word of the Lord.

JAMES A. WYLIE (1808-1890): The first field-preaching in the Netherlands took place on the 14th of June, 1566, and was held in the neighborhood of Ghent. The preacher was Helman Modet, who had formerly been a monk, but was now the reformed pastor at Oudenard. “This man,” says a Popish chronicler, “was the first who ventured to preach in public, and there were 7,000 persons at his first sermon.”

The second great field-preaching in the Netherlands took place on the 23rd of July, the people assembling in a large meadow in the vicinity of Ghent. The Word was precious in those days, and the people, eagerly thirsting to hear it, prepared to remain two days consecutively on the ground. Their arrangements more resembled an army pitching their camp than a peaceful multitude assembled for worship. Around the worshippers was a wall of barricades in the shape of carts and wagons. Sentinels were placed at all the entrances. A rude pulpit of planks was hastily run up and placed aloft on a cart. Modet was preacher, and around him were many thousands of persons, who listened with their pikes, hatchets, and guns lying by their sides ready to be grasped on a sign from the sentinels who kept watch all around the assembly. In front of the entrances were erected stalls, where peddlers offered prohibited books to all who wished to buy. Along the roads running into the country were stationed certain persons, whose office it was to bid the casual passenger turn in and hear the Gospel.

When the services were finished, the multitude would repair to other districts, where they encamped after the same fashion, and remained for the same space of time, and so passed through the whole of West Flanders.

ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): I am more than ever convinced that itinerant preaching does a world of good, and that God blesses it continually.

C. H. SPURGEON: During the lifetime of John Wycliffe, his missionaries traversed the country, everywhere preaching the word. An Act of Parliament of Richard II in 1382 sets it forth as a grievance of the clergy that a number of persons went from town to town, without the license of the ordinaries, and preached not only in churches, but in churchyards, and market-places, and also at fairs.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): An evangelist is, of necessity, more or less, a traveller. The world is his sphere.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981):  What is it that always heralds the dawn of a Reformation or of a Revival?  It is renewed preaching.  Not only a new interest in preaching, but a new kind of preaching.

C. H. SPURGEON: It would be very easy to prove that revivals of religion have usually been accompanied, if not caused, by a considerable amount of preaching out of doors, or in unusual places―It was a brave day for England when George Whitefield began field preaching.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: At Usk, I preached upon a table under a large tree to some hundreds, and God was with us of a truth.

CHARLES WESLEY (1707-1788): I stood by George Whitefield while he preached on the mount in Blackheath. The cries of the wounded were heard on every side.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): In the evening I reached Bristol, and met Mr. Whitefield there. I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life—till very lately—so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if had it not been done in a church.

C. H. SPURGEON: It was a blessed day when the Methodists and others began to proclaim Jesus in the open air―when John Wesley stood and preached a sermon on his father’s grave, at Epworth.

JOHN WESLEY: I am well assured that I did far more good to my Lincolnshire parishioners by preaching three days on my father’s tomb than I did by preaching three years in his pulpit…It is field preaching which does the execution still: for usefulness there is none comparable to it.

FRANCES BEVAN (1827-1909): At Gwennap, in Cornwall, there is a hollow in the hills, in the form of a horse-shoe. Here the crowds would sit around John Wesley, one row above another, so that twenty thousand or more could hear him at the same time.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): These gallant evangelists shook England from one end to the other.

 

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Walking with God in a Very Wicked World

Posted on October 4, 2019 by The Editor

2 Peter 3:10,11; Genesis 5:21-23

The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.

Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Enoch lived in a very evil age. He was prominent at a time when sin was beginning to cover the earth. It was not very long before the earth was corrupt and God saw fit to sweep the whole population from off its surface on account of sin.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): I will venture to say that Enoch, in his day, was considered a most singular and visionary man—an “eccentric” man—the most peculiar man who lived in that day. He was a man out of the fashion of this world, which passeth away.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Observe! at the age of sixty-five, Enoch is said to have “walked with God.” May not this be supposed to mean the period of his conversion?

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): He “walked with God after he begat Methuselah”—which intimates that he did not begin to be eminent for piety till about that time; at first he walked but as other men. Great saints arrive at their eminence by degrees.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): He had walked with God undoubtedly before, but perhaps after this time, more closely and constantly: and this is observed to denote, that he continued so to do all the days of his life, notwithstanding the apostasy which began in the days of his father, and increased in his.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Three hundred years was a long while to live thus in a wicked world―but he walked by faith, Hebrews 11:5.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): What does “walking by faith” signify?

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): The term walk, as used by the inspired writers, always signifies a continued course of conduct, or a manner of living, in which men persevere till it becomes habitual. Thus the phrase, “Enoch walked with God” evidently signifies that he did not repair to God occasionally, when want or affliction or fear of death impelled; he did not merely take a few steps in that path in which God condescends to walk with men, and then forsake it; but he pursued that path habitually and perseveringly; he lived with God, in contradistinction from those who live without Him in the world.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is implied also in this phrase, that his life was progressive, for if a man walks either by himself or with anybody else, he makes progress―he goes forward. At the end of two hundred years he was not where he began. He was in the same Company, but he had gone forward in the right way. At the end of the third hundred years Enoch enjoyed more, understood more, loved more, had received more and could give out more, for he had gone forward in all respects. A man who walks with God will necessarily grow in grace and in the knowledge of God and in likeness to Christ. You cannot suppose a perpetual walk with God, year after year, without the favoured person being strengthened, sanctified, instructed and rendered more able to glorify God. So I gather that Enoch’s life was a life of spiritual progress. He went from strength to strength and made headway in the gracious pilgrimage.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): The sincere Christian is progressive, is not content with any measure of grace, never at his journey’s end, till he get to heaven, Philippians 3:13.

C. H. SPURGEON: Good men are never idle, and hence they do not lie down or loiter, but they are still walking onward to their desired end. They are not hurried, and worried, and flurried, and so they keep the even tenor of their way, walking steadily towards heaven; and they are not in perplexity as to how to conduct themselves, for they have a perfect rule, which they are happy to walk by. The law of the Lord is not irksome to them; its commandments are not grievous, and its restrictions are not slavish in their esteem…They do not consult it now and then as a sort of rectifier of their wanderings, but they use it as a chart for their daily sailing, a map of the road for their life-journey.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Very well, my friends, the question we ask ourselves therefore is this: Do we know anything about that?  Do we know anything about “walking” with God?

A. W. PINK: It means that our thoughts are formed, our actions regulated, our lives moulded by the Holy Scriptures.

R. C. CHAPMAN (1803-1902): A careless reader of the Scriptures never made a close walker with God.

VERNON J. CHARLESWORTH (1839-1915): Rowland Hill, entering the house of one of his congregation, saw a child on a rocking-horse. “Dear me, he exclaimed, “how wondrously like some Christians! there is motion, but  no progress.”  The rocking-horse type of spiritual life is still characteristic of too many Church members in the present day.

C. H. SPURGEON: Some have said, “Ah, you cannot live as you like if you have a lot of children about you. Do not tell me about keeping up your hours of prayer and quiet reading of the Scriptures if you have a large family of little ones. You will be disturbed and there will be many domestic incidents which will be sure to try your temper and upset your equanimity. Get away into the woods and find a hermit’s cell—there, with your brown jug of water and your loaf of bread, you may be able to walk with God—but with a wife, not always amiable, and a troop of children who are never quiet, neither by day nor night, how can a man be expected to walk with God?” The wife, on the other hand, exclaims, “I believe that had I remained a single woman I might have walked with God. When I was a young woman I was full of devotion. But now with my husband, who is not always in the best of tempers, and with my children who seem to have an unlimited number of needs and never to have them satisfied, how is it possible that I can walk with God?”

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Lift up your eyes, look to God, and you will receive strength from Him.

C. H. SPURGEON: We turn to Enoch, again, and we are confident that it can be done! “Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah, three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.” Thus, you see, he was a family man—and yet he walked with God for more than three hundred years. There is no need to be a hermit, or to renounce married life in order to live near to God.

THOMAS COKE: Every true saint of God is known by his perseverance in the ways of God.

 

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A Real Global Climate “Emergency”

Posted on September 27, 2019 by The Editor

Luke 21:9-11, 25-28

When ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven…

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Just now, as the damp of autumn begins to fall and the days are sensibly shortening, we ought to take note of the signs of the times.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): What is spoken here certainly relates to the Day of judgment, before which prodigious things will be seen.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We see, firstly, in this passage, how terrible will be the circumstances accompanying the second advent of Christ. This is a singularly awful picture.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Jesus describes the great frights that people should generally be in.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): First, “the distress of nations.” How well these words describe the well-nigh universal groaning and anguish of mankind! Distress is now no longer confined to any one people but is international and earth-wide…Second, “with perplexity”―Statesmen unable to discover any way out of present difficulties, at their wits’ end, fearful of what they see approaching and powerless to hinder and prevent it―Situations arising which the wisest of our statesmen, despite all our boasted enlightenment and progress, are unable to cope with successfully. “Perplexity” by reason of political corruption, economic agitations, and revolutionary troubles.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): So we may be sure, in the light of the prophetic Word, that this poor world is doomed so far as man’s ability to help is concerned.

A. W. PINK: Unrest, discontent, and lawlessness are rife everywhere, and none can say how soon another great war will be set in motion.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, Luke 17:26, how He said, “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man?” How was it in the days of Noah? Scripture replies, “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence,” Genesis 6:11.

A. W. PINK: Conditions on earth have now reached such a pass that no human skill can steer clear of the mighty maelstrom which is rapidly drawing all nations within its awful whirl.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): From the point of view of morality, the problem is not so much immorality but the total absence of morality—amorality, a tendency to doubt all types of moral standards. Indeed, some would go so far as to say that all those who acknowledge moral standards live an incomplete life and do an injustice to their personalities. These people claim that what was once called sin is nothing but self-expression…“As they were in Sodom,” He says, “even so they shall be.” That’s our Lord’s view of history.

H. A. IRONSIDE: Jesus also mentions great natural convulsions.

J. C. RYLE: The prophecy before us is not a symbolical one. Its predictions are plain, simple facts, and not clothed in figurative language. It seems, therefore, a high probability that the language before us will receive a literal fulfillment in the events preceding and accompanying the second advent of Christ. The frame of nature was convulsed when the law of God was given at Sinai, and when Christ died on the cross. It is surely not too much to expect that it will be convulsed when Christ returns to judge the world.

MATTHEW HENRY: Many frightful sights shall be in the sun, moon, and stars, prodigies in the heavens, and here in this lower world, the sea and the waves roaring, with terrible storms and tempests, such as had not been known, and above the ordinary working of natural causes.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Judgments are now coming on the earth, with overwhelming rapidity, as the lightnings, thunderings, and voices indicate.

A. W. PINK: Without a doubt a world crisis is at hand, and everywhere men are alarmed. But God is not! He is never taken by surprise. It is no unexpected emergency which now confronts Him, for He is the One who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will,” Ephesians 1:11. Hence, though the world is panic-stricken, the word to the believer is, “Fear not!” “All things” are subject to His immediate control: “all things” are moving in accord with His eternal purpose, and therefore, “all things” are “working together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” It must be so, for “of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things,” Romans 11:36.

H. A. IRONSIDE: Isn’t that a comforting thought as you look out on the world today? Never before has it been in such a condition, and men’s hearts indeed are “failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” But He sits over the waterfloods and nothing can transpire in the affairs of men and of nations but in accordance with the permissive will of God.

C. H. SPURGEON: If the sea and the waves thereof should roar in a manner altogether unusual―yet this is still the precept for the worst of times that are supposable: “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads.”

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): A strange time, one would think, for Christ then to bid His disciples lift up their heads, when they see other “men’s hearts failing them for fear.” Yet, now is the time of the rising of their sun when others’ is setting―because now the Christian’s feast is coming: “your redemption draweth nigh.”

H. A. IRONSIDE: When things are at their worst God will intervene. “And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

J. C. RYLE: However terrible the signs of Christ’s second coming may be to the impenitent, they need not strike terror into the heart of the true believer. They ought rather to fill him with joy. They ought to remind him that his complete deliverance from sin, the world and the devil, is close at hand, and that he shall soon bid an eternal farewell to sickness, sorrow, death and temptation…The very hour when the worldly man’s hopes shall perish, shall be the hour when the believer’s hope shall be exchanged for joyful certainty and full possession.

C. H. SPURGEON: Everything earthly is doomed. You are living, not in your eternal mansions but you are living a makeshift life; you are passing through a wilderness, you are pilgrims, you are sojourners; this is not your rest. Do not get to love this world, or to be taken up with it. Do not strike your roots into it; you are not to dwell here, and to live here always. You are walking among shadows; regard them as such. Hug them not to your bosom; feed not your souls upon them, lest, when that day comes, before Whose coming all of them shall melt away, you shall be filled with amazement and shame―The shades of the evening of the world and the damps of its autumn are all around us! But still there sounds forth the cry, “Whoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely.”―We deliver God’s threats and promises to every sinner and we cry, “Look unto Jesus and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”

 

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Praying for Government Officials; A Duty for Our Own Benefit

Posted on September 20, 2019 by The Editor

1 Timothy 2:1,2

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): If any one ask, ‘Ought we to pray for kings, from whom we obtain none of these advantages?’ I answer, the object of our prayer is, that, guided by the Spirit of God, they may begin to impart to us those benefits of which they formerly deprived us.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): We may see in the governments of this world things that are contrary to the mind of God, but we seek to overcome them by methods that are in accordance with the spirit of the gospel.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The kings at this time were heathens, enemies to Christianity, and persecutors of Christians.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): So, generally, were those who were in a subordinate authority to them, yet the apostle commands that prayers should be made in the Christian congregations for them.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): It might be a scruple with some of them, whether they should pray for them, and therefore the apostle enjoins it; and this in opposition to the notions and practices of the Jews, who used to curse the Heathens, and pray for none but for themselves, and those of their own nation.

JOHN CALVIN: He expressly mentions kings and other magistrates because, more than all others, they might be hated by Christians. All the magistrates who existed at that time were so many sworn enemies of Christ; and therefore this thought might occur to them, that they ought not to pray for those who devoted all their power and all their wealth to fight against the kingdom of Christ.

MATTHEW HENRY: Yet they must pray for them, because it is for the public good that there should be civil government, and proper persons entrusted with the administration of it, for whom therefore we ought to pray, yea, though we ourselves suffer under them. In praying for our governors, we take the most likely course to lead a peaceable and quiet life. The Jews at Babylon were commanded to seek the peace of the city whither the Lord had caused them to be carried captives, and to pray to the Lord for it; “for in the peace thereof they should have peace,” Jeremiah 29:7.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): If the state be not in safety, the individual cannot be secure; self-preservation, therefore, should lead men to pray for the government under which they live. Rebellions and insurrections seldom terminate in political good; and even where the government is radically bad, revolutions themselves are most precarious and hazardous. They who wish such commotions would not be quiet under the most mild and benevolent government. We thus pray for the government that the public peace may be preserved. Good rulers have power to do much good; we pray that their authority may be ever preserved and well directed. Bad rulers have power to do much evil; we pray that they may be prevented from thus using their power. So that, whether the rulers be good or bad, prayer for them is the positive duty of all Christians.

MATTHEW POOLE: If magistrates were idolaters and persecutors, they were to pray for their conversion, and the change of their hearts. However, they were to pray for their life and health so far forth as might be for God’s glory, and for God’s guidance of them in the administration of their government, and their success in their lawful counsels and undertakings.

JOHN CALVIN: It is our duty, therefore, not only to pray for those who are already worthy, but we must pray to God that he may make bad men good. We must always hold by this principle, that magistrates were appointed by God for the protection of religion, as well as of the peace and decency of society, Romans 13:1-5.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): I do confess myself one of the old-fashioned professors, that covets to fear God, and honour the king. I also am for blessing of them that curse me, for doing good to them that hate me, and for praying for them that despitefully use me and persecute me; and I have had more peace in the practice of these things than all the world are aware of.

ADAM CLARKE: So it has ever been the practice of Christians. When Cyprian defended himself before the Roman proconsul, he said: “We pray to God, not only for ourselves, but for all mankind, and particularly for the emperors.” Tertullian, in his Apology, is more particular: “We pray for all the emperors, that God may grant them long life, a secure government, a prosperous family, vigorous troops, a faithful senate, and an obedient people; that the whole world may be in peace; and that God may grant, both to Caesar and to every man, the accomplishment of their just desires.”—Indeed they prayed even for those by whom they were persecuted.

MATTHEW POOLE: The latter words, “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”  contain the reason why prayers should be made for governors, and the good effect of them. For it is for this end that the supreme Lord hath ordained the office and dignity of kings and governors, that, being armed with authority and power, they may perserve public order and peace, by punishing evil-doers, and protecting and encouraging those that do well.

JOHN CALVIN: On the other hand, princes, and all who hold the office of magistracy, are here reminded of their duty. It is not enough, if, by giving to every one what is due, they restrain all acts of violence, and maintain peace; but they must likewise endeavour to promote religion, and to regulate morals by wholesome discipline. Accordingly, seeing that God appointed magistrates and princes for the preservation of mankind, however much they fall short of the divine appointment, still we must not on that account cease to love what belongs to God…That is the reason why believers, in whatever country they live, must not only obey the laws and the government of magistrates, but likewise in their prayers supplicate God for their salvation.

JOHN BUNYAN: Let kings have that fear, honour, reverence, worship that is due to their place, their office and dignity.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): To all whom God has made our superiors, we owe obedience, submission and respect. As subjects, we are bound to obey, honour and pray for our rulers. Let every soul of you be subject to the higher powers. Submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake. Thou shall not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.

JOHN BUNYAN: Pray for all that are in authority; reproach not the governor, he is set over thee; all his ways are God’s, either for thy help or the trial of thy graces—this duty, will render thee lovely to thy friends, terrible to thine enemies, and serviceable as a Christian.

 

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Sure & Certain Truth for a “Post-Truth” Generation

Posted on September 13, 2019 by The Editor

John 14:6; Romans 2:16; Psalm 96:13; Romans 2:2

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.

For he cometh, for he cometh, to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.

We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): ‘Some things are true and some things are false.’—I regard that as an axiom; but there are many persons who evidently do not believe it. The current principle of the present age seems to be. “Some things are either true or false, according to the point of view from which you look at them. Black is white, and white is black according to circumstances; and it does not particularly matter which you call it.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Truth and error are all one to the ignorant man, so it hath but the name of truth.

C. H. SPURGEON: Truth, of course, is true, but it would be rude to say that the opposite is a lie; we must not be bigoted, but remember the motto, “So many men, so many minds;”―Everything is a mere matter of opinion—that is “thought and culture” in these days.

HORATIUS BONAR (1808-1889): It is not opinions that man needs: it is Truth! 

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Peace is not to be purchased by the sacrifice of truth…Nothing can be more inconsistent than that there should be no difference between truth and falsehood.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): However judgment may be perverted by men, there is a day coming, when all shall be revised, and justice ministered to every man “according to truth;”—when God will vindicate the cause of the righteous, and condemn the wicked; and the unjust judges must be called to a terrible account for their unrighteous decrees. The time is advancing; it is near: let such as are oppressed with wrong patiently wait for it: the eternal Judge standeth before the door.

C. H. SPURGEON: This is not a matter of opinion―What God declares shall certainly come to pass―It is no matter of opinion, but a matter of certainty.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “For he cometh, for he cometh,” is repeated to show the certainty of Christ’s coming, and the importance of it, and the just reason there was for the above joy and gladness on account of it; and it may be also, as Jerome and others have observed, to point out both the first and second coming of Christ, which are both matter of joy to the saints: His first coming, which was from heaven into this world, in a very mean and abject manner, to save the chief of sinners, to procure peace, pardon, righteousness, and eternal life for them, and therefore must be a matter of joy; and His second coming, which will be also from heaven, but in an extremely glorious manner, without sin, or the likeness of it, unto the salvation of  His people, and “to judge the earth,”―the inhabitants of it, small and great, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, quick and dead, righteous and wicked.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  As truth is opposed to falsehood and error; the doctrine of Christ is true doctrine. When we enquire for truth, we need learn no more than “the truth as it is in Jesus.”—He is true to all that trust in Him.

JOHN GILL: He is not only true, but truth itself: this may regard His person and character; He is the true God, and eternal life; truly and really man; as a prophet He taught the way of God in truth; as a priest, He is a faithful, as well as a merciful one, true and faithful to Him that appointed Him; and as a King, just and true are all His ways and administrations: He is the sum and substance of all the truths of the Gospel―and He is the true way, in opposition to all false ones of man’s devising.

JOHN CALVIN: How dreadful will He be when He shall come at last to judge the world!

JOHN GILL: He will truly discern and rightly judge; His judgment will be according to His truth; He will approve Himself to be the righteous Judge, and His judgment will appear to be a righteous judgment; for which He is abundantly qualified, as being the Lord God omniscient and omnipotent, holy, just, and true.

MATTHEW HENRY: Even “secret things,” both good and evil, will be brought to light, and brought to account, in the judgment of the great day; there is no good work, no bad work, hid, but shall then be made manifest.

C. H. SPURGEON: Well, brethren, as the age is doubting, it is wise for us to put our foot down and stand still where we are sure we have truth beneath us.―The doubters now are simply doubters because they do not care about truth at all. They are indifferent altogether. Modern skepticism is playing and toying with truth…Even good people do not believe out and out as their fathers used to do. Some are shamefully lax in their convictions; they have few masterly convictions such as would lead them to the stake, or even to imprisonment. Mollusks have taken the place of men, and men are turned to jelly-fishes. Far from us be the desire to imitate them.

J. H. M. d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): When truth and error are in presence of each other, the right side is not the middle.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Every parcel of truth is as precious as the filings of gold; we must either live with it, or die for it.

JOHN CALVIN: Nothing is deemed more precious by God than truth.

AUGUSTINE (354-430): He who for fear of any power hides the truth, provokes the wrath of God to come upon him, for he fears men more than God.

MATTHEW HENRY: Here observe the sins of those who perish, among which are first mentioned their cowardliness and unbelief, Revelation 21:8. Note: The “fearful” lead the van in this black list: “The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.”

ADAM CLARKE: “All liars”―Every one who speaks contrary to the truth when he knows the truth, and even he who speaks the truth with the intention to deceive, to persuade a person that a thing is different from what it really is, by telling only a part of the truth, or suppressing some circumstance which would have led the hearer to a different end to the true conclusion.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Or liars in practice—that is, hypocrites, seeming to be what they are not―all these, and all such like, shall be eternally damned. 

MATTHEW HENRY: In consideration of the judgment to come, and the strictness of that judgment, it highly concerns us now to be very strict in our walking with God, that we may give up our account with joy.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let us lay these things to heart, and remember them well. They are eminently truths for the present times.

 

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Starting School―in the School of Jesus Christ

Posted on September 6, 2019 by The Editor

John 6:37,44,45

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  The passage which is here quoted by Jesus is to be found in Isaiah 54:13…The way of teaching, of which the prophet Isaiah speaks, does not consist merely in the external voice, but likewise in the secret operation of the Holy Spirit. In short, this teaching of God is the inward illumination of the heart.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): God teaches a man to know himself, that, finding his need of salvation, he may flee to lay hold on the hope which His heavenly Father has set before him in the Gospel.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We learn another thing from this passage: man’s natural helplessness and inability to repent or believe. We find our Lord saying, “No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Until the Father draws the heart of man by His grace, man will not believe. The solemn truth contained in these words is one that needs careful weighing. It is vain to deny that without the grace of God no one ever can become a true Christian. We are spiritually dead, and have no power to give ourselves life. We need a new principle put in us from above. Facts prove it. Preachers see it.―This witness is true.

JOHN CALVIN: As Christ formerly affirmed that men are not fitted for believing, until they have been drawn, so He now declares that the grace of Christ, by which they are drawn, is efficacious, so that they necessarily believe. These two clauses utterly overturn the whole power of free will―for if it be only when the Father has drawn us that we begin to come to Christ, there is not in us any commencement of faith, or any preparation for it. On the other hand, if all come whom the Father hath taught, He gives to them not only the choice of believing, but faith itself―because the only wisdom that all the elect learn in the school of God is, to come to Christ.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Moreover, we believe that the new birth must take place, in every instance―we are convinced that this new birth is entirely a divine operation, effected by the Holy Ghost, through the Word, as we are distinctly taught in our Lord’s discourse with Nicodemus, in John 3.

JOHN CALVIN: That narrative is highly useful to us; especially because it instructs us concerning the depraved nature of mankind―and what is the proper entrance into the school of Christ, and what must be the commencement of our training to make progress in the heavenly doctrine. For the sum of Christ’s discourse is, that in order that we may be His true disciples, we must become new men.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): While a man is in a mere natural state, before he is born of God, he has, in a spiritual sense, eyes and sees not; a thick impenetrable veil lies upon them; he has ears, but hears not; he is utterly deaf to what he is most of all concerned to hear. His other spiritual senses are all locked up: He is in the same condition as if he had them not. Hence he has no knowledge of God; no intercourse with Him; he is not at all acquainted with Him. He has no true knowledge of the things of God, either of spiritual or eternal things.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The natural man―the man destitute of the Spirit of God―cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

JOHN WESLEY: But as soon as he is born of God, there is a total change in all these particulars. The “eyes of his understanding are opened;” and when He, who of old “commanded light to shine out of darkness,” shines on his heart, he sees the light of the glory of God―His glorious love, “in the face of Jesus Christ.” His ears being opened, he is now capable of hearing the inward voice of God, saying, “Be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee;” “go and sin no more.” This is the purport of what God speaks to his heart; although perhaps not in these very words. He is now ready to hear whatsoever “He that teacheth man knowledge” is pleased, from time to time, to reveal to him.

JOHN CALVIN: If, therefore, we wish to make good and useful progress in the school of Christ, let us learn to begin at this point: “Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John 3:3.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): And the first lesson in the school of Christ is to become a little child, sitting simply at His feet, that we may be made wise unto salvation.

JOHN CALVIN: We know with what blind love men naturally regard themselves, how much they are devoted to themselves, how highly they estimate themselves. But if we desire to enter into the school of Christ, we must begin with that folly to which Paul exhorts us―“becoming fools, that we may be wise,” 1 Corinthians 3:18…So long as the flesh, that is to say, natural corruption, prevails in a man, it has so completely possession of the man’s mind, that the wisdom of God finds no admittance. Hence, if we would make proficiency in the Lord’s school, we must first of all renounce our own judgment and our own will.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): What is conversion then? Man must be a new creature, and converted from his own righteousness to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing short of the influence of the Spirit of the living God can effect this change in our hearts; therefore we are said to be “born again, born of God, of the Spirit, not of water only but of the Holy Ghost,” John 3:5-7.

JOHN WESLEY: From hence it manifestly appears, what is the nature of the new birth. It is that great change which God works in the soul when He brings it into life; when he raises it from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. It is the change wrought in the whole soul by the almighty Spirit of God when it is “created anew in Christ Jesus;” when it is “renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness;” when the love of the world is changed into the love of God; pride into humility; passion into meekness; hatred, envy, malice, into a sincere, tender, disinterested love for all mankind. In a word, it is that change whereby the earthly, sensual, devilish mind is turned into the “mind which was in Christ Jesus.” This is the nature of the new birth: “So is every one that is born of the Spirit,” John 3:8.

 ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, ” 2 Corinthians 5:17; or as the words might be rendered, ‘there is a new creation,’ and not only is he renewed, but all things are become new. He is a new Adam in a new world.

 

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A Time to Laugh

Posted on August 30, 2019 by The Editor

Ecclesiastes 3:1,4

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): If we consider what the Preacher here saith, spiritually, there is indeed to everything in grace a season.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): There is a time to laugh, but it is not till sin is pardoned that there is time to dance.

JAMES VAUGHAN (1774-1857): Truth is a grave matter, and can owe little ultimately to the services of a buffoon.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Great care was taken in the service of God’s house to preserve decency, prevent immodesty, and to guard against laughter and levity, and the like care should be always taken.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Yet is not mirth amiss, so it be moderate; nor laughter unlawful.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): If you’re not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.

C. H. SPURGEON: The manufacture of new commandments is a very fascinating occupation for some people. You must not do this, and that, and the other, till one feels like a baby in leading strings. I find ten commandments are more than I can keep without a great deal of grace, and I do not mean to pay the slightest regard to any beyond. Liberty is the genius of our faith, nor do we mean to barter it away for the esteem of modern Pharisees. They say to us, “You shall not laugh on Sunday. You shall never create a smile in the House of God. You shall walk to public service as though you were going to the whipping post, and you shall take care when you preach that you always make your discourse as dull as it can possibly be.” We do not reverence these precepts!

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): There’s plenty to laugh at in the world―but be sure you don’t laugh at something that God takes seriously.

C. H. SPURGEON: Let it be remembered that every man has his moments when his lighter feelings indulge themselves, and the preacher must be allowed to have the same passions as his fellow men, and since he lives in the pulpit more than anywhere else, it is but natural that his whole man should be there developed; besides, he is not sure about a smile being a sin, and, at any rate, he thinks it less a crime to cause a momentary laughter than a half hour’s profound slumber.

JAMES VAUGHAN: Not that we should send a man to the gallows because he has indulged a laugh. On the contrary, the man who cannot so indulge is not a man to our liking. There is something wrong in him, physically, mentally, and morally. All truly healthful men, in the spiritual as well as in the natural sense, know how to enjoy their laugh.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): As the verb ‘to laugh’ has a twofold signification among the Latins, so also the Hebrews use it both in a good and evil sense.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): There are two kinds of laughter spoken of in scripture. There is first, the laughter with which the Lord fills our mouth, when, at some trying crisis, He appears in a signal manner for our relief. “When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing,” Psalm 126:1,2.

JOHN GILL: There is a time for these things, as it goes ill or well with persons, as to their health, estate, or friends; and as it goes ill or well with kingdoms and states―and as it goes ill or well with the church of Christ.

C. H. SPURGEON: Sometimes, laughter may become the holiest possible expression.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): “Abraham fell on his face, and laughed,” Genesis 17:17. It was a laughter of delight, not of distrust. Now it was that Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day, now he saw it and “was glad,” John 8:56; for as he saw heaven in the promise of Canaan, so he saw Christ in the promise of Isaac.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The name Isaac, which means “laughter,” declared him to be his father’s delight…Later, the promise was renewed in the hearing of Sarah, Genesis 18:10. Then we are told, “Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?” The laughter of Abraham was the laughter of worshipful joy, and that of Sarah was incredulous unbelief.

JOHN GILL: “And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh,” Genesis 21:6. This she said on occasion of the name of her son Isaac, which name her husband had given him by divine direction, and to which she assented. This doubtless brought to her mind her former laughing, when she first heard that she should have a son, which was in a way of diffidence and distrust. But now, God having given her a son, laid a foundation for laughter of another kind―for real solid joy and thankfulness: “so that all that hear will laugh with me;” not laugh at her, and deride her, but congratulate her, and rejoice with her on this occasion.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: When Jehovah makes us to laugh, we may laugh heartily.

A. W. PINK: This shows us that things which are not sinful in themselves, become so when used or enjoyed at the wrong time. Every thing is beautiful in its season…But there is also the laughter of cynicism and unbelief.

A. W. TOZER: Whenever humour takes a holy thing as its object that humour is devilish at once…We should all be aware by this time that one way the devil has of getting rid something is to make jokes about it.

JOHN CALVIN: “Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness,” James 4:9. Laughter [here] is to be taken as signifying the flattering with which the ungodly deceive themselves, while they are infatuated by the sweetness of their sins and forget the judgment of God―as if by jeers and laughter they could escape the arm of God.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): The world may laugh at us, and count our wisdom no better than folly. But such laughter is but for a moment.

A. W. TOZER: Few things are as useful in the Christian life as a gentle sense of humour and few things are as deadly as a sense of humour out of control.

JOHN GILL: When used in a moderate way, and kept within due bounds, it is of service to him, and conduces to the health of his body, and the pleasure of his mind; but when used on every trivial occasion, and at every foolish thing that is said or done, and indulged to excess, it is mere madness, and makes a man look more like a madman and a fool than a wise man.

A. W. PINK: Laughter and tears are nature’s safety valves; they ease nervous tensions, much as an electric storm relieves a heavily-charged atmosphere.

C. H. SPURGEON: Once, during a stormy discussion, a gentleman rose to settle the matter in dispute. Waving his hands majestically over the excited disputants, he began: “Gentlemen, all I want is common sense―” “Exactly!” a man interrupted, “that is precisely what you do want.” The discussion was finished in a burst of laughter.

 

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The One & Only True Warrant of Faith

Posted on August 23, 2019 by The Editor

Romans 4:3, 19-24

Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Why does any man dare to believe in Christ? “Well,” says one man, “I summoned faith to believe in Christ because I did feel there was a work of the Spirit in me.” You do not believe in Christ at all.  “Well,” says another, “I thought that I had a right to believe in Christ, because I felt somewhat.”  You had not any right to believe in Christ at all on such a warranty as that. What is a man’s warrant then for believing in Christ?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The ground of faith is not those impressions, but the Gospel itself. The object of faith is not Christ working on the heart and softening it, but rather Christ as He is presented to our acceptance in the Word.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Here was divine faith. It was not a question of feeling. Indeed, if Abraham had been influenced by his feelings, he would have been a doubter instead of a believer. For what had he to build upon in himself? “His own body now dead.” A poor ground surely on which to build his faith in the promise of an innumerable seed. But, we are told, “He considered not his own body now dead.”  What, then, did he consider?  He considered the Word of the living God, on that he rested.  Now this is faith.

C. H. SPURGEON: [Some] Calvinistic ministers always garble Christ’s invitation thus: “If you are a sensible sinner you may come;” just as if stupid sinners might not come. They say, “If you feel your need of Christ, you may come;” and then they describe what that feeling of need is, and give such a high description of it that their hearers say, “Well, I never felt like that,” and they are afraid to venture for lack of the qualification.

JOHN BRADFORD (1510-1555): Faith must go before, and then feeling will follow.

C. H. SPURGEON: To tell the sinner that he is to believe on Christ because of some warrant in himself, is legal, I dare to say it—legal. Though this method is generally adopted by the higher school of Calvinists, they are herein unsound, uncalvinistic, and legal…If I believe in Jesus Christ because I feel a genuine repentance of sin, and therefore have a warrant for my faith, do you not perceive that the first and true ground of my confidence is the fact that I have repented of sin? If I believe in Jesus because I have convictions and a spirit of prayer, then evidently the first and the most important fact is not Christ, but my possession of repentance, conviction, and prayer, so that really my hope hinges upon my having repented; and if this be not legal I do not know what is.

WILLIAM FENNER (1560-1640): I dare to say it, that all this is not Scriptural.  Sinners do feel these things before they come, but they do not come on the ground of having felt it; they come on the ground of being sinners, and on no other ground whatever.

C. H. SPURGEON: Put it lower. My opponents will say, “The sinner must have an awakened conscience before he is warranted to believe on Christ.” Well, then, if I trust Christ to save me because I have an awakened conscience, I say again, the most important part of the whole transaction is the alarm of my conscience, and my real trust hangs there. If I lean on Christ because I feel this and that, then I am leaning on my feelings and not on Christ alone, and this is legal indeed. Nay, even if desires after Christ are to be my warrant for believing, if I am to believe in Jesus not because He bids me, but because I feel some desires after Him, you will again with half an eye perceive that the most important source of my comfort must be my own desires. So that we shall be always looking within. “Do I really desire? If I do, then Christ can save me; if I do not, then He cannot.”

HUGH BINNING (1625-1654): He that is in earnest about this question, “How shall I be saved?” should not spend the time in reflecting on, and in an examination of himself, till he find something promising in himself, but, from discovered sin and misery, pass straightway over to the grace and mercy of Christ, without any intervening search of something in himself to warrant him to come.

JOHN BRADFORD: Though you feel not as you would, yet doubt not, but hope beyond all hope, as Abraham did; for always, faith goeth before feeling.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: “Ah! but,” the anxious reader may say, “what has all this to say to my case? I am not Abraham—I cannot expect a special revelation from God. How am I to know that God has spoken to me?  How can I possess this precious faith?”  Well, dear friend, mark the apostle’s further statement.  “Now,” he adds, “it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if ” —if what?—if we feel, realize, or experience aught in ourselves? Nay, but “if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): To such as may fall to doubt and dispute what warrant they have to believe.  We say you have as good warrant as Abraham, David, Paul, or any of the godly that lived before you had. You have the same gospel, covenant and promises; it was always God’s Word which was the ground of faith.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: All this is full of solid comfort and richest consolation. It assures the anxious inquirer that he has the selfsame ground and authority to rest upon that Abraham had, with an immensely higher measure of light thrown on that ground, inasmuch as Abraham was called to believe in a promise, whereas we are privileged to believe in an accomplished fact. He was called to look forward to something which was to be done; we look back at something that is done, even an accomplished redemption, attest by the fact of a risen and glorified Saviour, at the right hand of the Majesty in the Heavens. But as to the ground and authority of which we are called to rest our souls, it is the same in our case as in Abraham’s and all true believers in all ages—it is the Word of God—the holy Scriptures. There is no other foundation of faith but this; and the faith that rests on any other is not true faith at all.

C. H. SPURGEON: I do not believe in Christ because I have got good feelings, but I believe in Him whether I have good feelings or not―“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” 1 Timothy 1:15. Between that word “save” and the next word “sinners,” there is no adjective. It does not say “penitent sinners,” “awakened sinners,” “sensible sinners,” “grieving sinners,” or “alarmed sinners.” No, it only says “sinners.”

 

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Two Thoughtful Questions With One Good Answer

Posted on August 16, 2019 by The Editor

Matthew 22:17; Jeremiah 4:14; Philippians 4:8

What thinkest thou?

How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): Our thoughts make us. They are the silent builders on the temple of character we are rearing. They give colour and form to the whole building.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Thought moulds action. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” Proverbs 23:7. Thought, and work, make character. We come into the world with certain dispositions and bias. But that is not character, it is only the raw material of character―like the lava when it comes out of the volcano. But it hardens, and whatever else my thoughts may do, and whatever effects may follow upon any of my actions, the recoil of them on myself is the most important effect to me. And there is not a thought that comes into, and is entertained by a man, or rolled as a sweet morsel under his tongue, but contributes its own little but appreciable something to the making of the man’s character.

J. R. MILLER: If we think truly, we are rearing up a fabric whiter than Parian marble. If our thoughts are evil, the fabric that is rising within us is blemished.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: What, then, is the counsel here? “Think on these things.” To begin with, that advice implies that we can, and therefore, that we should, exercise a very rigid control over that part of our lives which a great many of us never think of controlling at all. Exercise control, as becomes you, over the run and drift of your thoughts.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Guard against the very first incursion of vain thoughts and foolish imaginations.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Put a guard at the gate, as they do in some countries, and let in no vagrant that cannot show his passport, and a clear bill of health. Now, that is a lesson that some of you very much want. But, further, notice that company of fair guests that you may welcome into the hospitalities of your heart and mind. Think on these things―and what are they?

CHARLES SIMEON: Things “virtuous”—Among these “truth” is the first in nature and importance; since, without it, all the bands of society would be dissolved: there would be no such thing as confidence between man and man. Of such consequence is this esteemed in the world, that no virtues, however eminent, can supply the want of it, or render a man respectable, that is regardless of it. And so necessary is it in the eyes of God, that He will banish from Him with abhorrence all who wilfully violate its dictates: “All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death,”  Revelation 21:8.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): A lying tongue is an abomination to Him who is Himself the Truth. He delights in truth because it is in accord with His own nature.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Truth and honesty never wear out. “Think on these things”―Esteem them highly, recommend them heartily, and practice them fervently.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): “Honesty”―A comprehensive word taking in the whole duty we owe to our neighbour.

CHARLES SIMEON: Next to this, and inseparably connected with it, is “justice.” A Christian is to know but one rule of conduct: he is, in all his intercourse with men, to do as he would be done unto; that is, to act towards others, as he, in a change of circumstances, would think it right for them to act towards him. To be guilty of fraud in a way of traffic, or in withholding just debts, or in evading taxes, or putting off base coin, or in any other way whatever, is as inconsistent with the Christian character as adultery or murder.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Injustice is a part of unholiness.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): It is said, “he that is unjust, let him be unjust still,” Revelation 22:11; that is, he that will be unjust, and refuseth to turn, let him go on. This is a great sin, for God, you see, gives such a man over.

J. R. MILLER: If a man’s life is righteous, you know his thoughts are just; unjust thoughts will never yield righteousness in conduct.

CHARLES SIMEON: Besides these virtues which have respect to our words and actions, there is one virtue that extends to our very thoughts, and that is no less necessary to be cultivated by us―namely, “purity.”

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: There are some who seem to turn this apostolic precept right round about, and whatsoever things are illusory and vain, whatsoever things are mean, and frivolous, and contemptible, whatsoever things are unjust, and whatsoever things are impure, and whatsoever things are ugly, and whatsoever things are branded with a stigma by all men―they think on those things. Like the flies that are attracted to a piece of putrid meat, there are young men who are drawn by all the lustful, the lewd, the impure thoughts; and there are young women who are too idle and uncultivated to have any pleasure in anything higher than gossip and trivial fiction.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Would men dare to indulge their vain thoughts, their light notions, their trifles, their impurities, did they really believe that the LORD searched their hearts?

J. R. MILLER: Thoughts seem mere nothings, flecks of cloud flying through the air, flocks of birds flitting by and gone. But they are the most real things about our life. All things we do are thoughts first. Our thoughts fly out like birds, and take their place in the world. Then our heart is still their home-nest, whither they will return at last to dwell.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Once again, as thought makes deeds, and thought and deeds make character, so character makes destiny, here and hereafter. What is a man whose whole life has been one long thought about money-making, or about other objects of earthly ambition, or about the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, to do in heaven? A man will go to his own place, the place for which he is fitted, the place for which he has fitted himself by his daily life, and especially by the trend and the direction of his thoughts.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day, and shown there as an index of your thoughts and feelings!

CHARLES SIMEON: We are well aware that the best of men may have sinful thoughts rushing into their minds; but will they harbour them? No: every true Christian may say as in the presence of God, “I hate vain thoughts,” Psalm 119:113.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): In the midst of thee, in the very heart of thee, creep in they will, but why should they lodge there?

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: “Whatsoever things are noble and lovely, think on these things,” and get rid of all the others.

 

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Nehemiah’s Prayers

Posted on August 9, 2019 by The Editor

Nehemiah 1:1-4,11; Nehemiah 2:1-5,8

The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah.

And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, that Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.

And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven…O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king’s cupbearer…

And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid, and said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?

Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it…

And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Do not let us forget that Heaven’s clock is different from ours.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): It was in November or December when those men arrived at that court, and this man prayed on until March or April before he spoke to the king. If a blessing doesn’t come tonight, pray harder tomorrow, and if it doesn’t come tomorrow, pray harder, and then, if it doesn’t come, keep right on, and you will not be disappointed. God in heaven will hear your prayers, and will answer them…Let your faith beget patience.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): The time and way in which our prayers shall be answered are matters which we must leave entirely to God. But that every petition which we offer in faith shall certainly be answered, we need not doubt. Let us lay our matters before God again and again, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. The answer may be long in coming―but though it tarry, let us pray on and wait for it. At the right time it will surely come and not tarry.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Nehemiah also, upon the occasion of the king’s speech to him, interposeth a short prayer to God between the king’s question and his answer to it: “Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said unto the king…” So soon was this holy man at heaven and back again—even in a trice —without any breach of manners in making the king wait for his answer. Sometimes you have the saints forming their desires into a few smart and passionate words, which fly with a holy force from their lips to heaven, as an arrow out of a bow.

D. L. MOODY: Nehemiah shot up a prayer to heaven right there in the king’s dining hall that the Lord would help him to make his request in the right way. He first looked beyond Artaxerxes to the King of Kings.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): A short but fervent prayer―silently, but powerfully sent up, for grace in the king’s sight.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): We are here reminded of one course of God’s Providential acting: His uncontrollable sway upon the most absolute of all wills—the king’s heart. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will,” Proverbs 21:1.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The king consented that he should go.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Nehemiah also asked for a convoy, and an order upon the governors, not only to permit and suffer him to pass through their respective provinces, but to supply him with what he had occasion for, with another order upon the keeper of the forest of Lebanon to give him timber for the work that he designed, Nehemiah 2:7,8.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “And the king granted me”―all the above favours.

MATTHEW HENRY: Nehemiah gained his point, not according to his merit, his interest in the king, or his good management, but “according to the good hand of his God upon him.” Gracious souls take notice of God’s hand, His good hand, in all events which turn in their favour.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): What an atmosphere of prayer surrounds this man! It is his constant resource throughout all his varied experiences. He walked with God because he talked with God.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): Yea, let me add, if a man can with a good conscience say that he desires to fear the name of God, it will add boldness to his soul in his approaches into the presence of God. “O Lord,” said Nehemiah, “I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and servants, who desire to fear thy name.” He pleaded his desire of fearing the name of God, as an argument with God to grant him his request; and the reason was, because God had promised before “to bless them that fear him, both small and great,” Psalm 115:13.

D. L. MOODY: He has never failed, if a man has been honest in his petitions and honest in his confessions.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Blessed be God, when the heart is true to Him, He always comes in to cheer, to strengthen, and to fortify, at the right time.

D. L. MOODY: You need not make a long prayer.

MATTHEW HENRY: This may well be the summary of our petitions; we need no more to make us happy than this: “Remember me, O my God, for good,” Nehemiah 13:31.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): God will remember thee, as good Nehemiah prays in his last chapter, for thy zeal for God.

J. C. RYLE: We are never beyond the reach of His care. Our way is never hid from Him. He knows the path that we take, and is still able to help. He may not come to our aid at the time we like best, but He will never allow us utterly to fail. He that walked upon the water never changes. He will always come at the right time to uphold His people. Though He tarry, let us wait patiently. Jesus sees us, and will not forsake us.

 

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