Assembling Ourselves Together

Posted on June 21, 2019 by The Editor

Hebrews 10:23-25

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised; and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): Surely there is great force in the words, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.”

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): I think some Christians need to have their consciences exercised more than they are, in regard to gathering together with God’s people, where the Word of God is appreciated, and where they come together to sing His praises and to pray.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): It is the duty of saints to assemble together for public worship, on account of God, who has appointed it, who approves of it, and whose glory is concerned in it; and on the account of the saints themselves, that they may be delighted, refreshed, comforted, instructed, edified, and perfected; and on account of others, that they may be convinced, converted, and brought to the knowledge and faith of Christ; and also, in imitation of the primitive saints.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Every man that professes Christianity should, in this respect also, copy their conduct: nor can any man be considered to have any religion, let his sentiments be what they may, who does not attend on the public worship of his Maker.

H. A. IRONSIDE: Many Christians today shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, I am not interested in going to church. I don’t need to go; I can worship God just as well at home.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): So they stay at home all day on Sunday―Yes, there are some who even make a bad use of what ought to be a great blessing, namely, the printing press and the printed sermon, by staying at home to read a sermon because, they say, it is better than going out to hear one!

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We should observe, in Luke 4:16, what marked honour our Lord Jesus Christ gave to the public means of grace. We are told that He went into the synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read the Scriptures, Luke 4:16. In the days when our Lord was on earth, the Scribes and Pharisees were the chief teachers of the Jews. We can hardly suppose that a Jewish synagogue enjoyed much of the Spirit’s presence and blessing under such teaching. Yet, even then, we find our Lord visiting a synagogue, and reading and preaching in it. It was the place where His Father’s day and Word were publicly recognized, and, as such, He thought it good to do it honour.

ADAM CLARKE: “As His custom was,” Luke 4:16. Our Lord regularly attended the public worship of God in the synagogues.

J. C. RYLE: We need not doubt that there is a practical lesson for us in this part of our Lord’s conduct. He would have us know that we are not lightly to forsake any assembly of worshipers, which professes to respect the name, the day, and the book of God. There may be many things in such an assembly which might be done better. There may be a want of fullness, clearness, and distinctness in the doctrine preached. There may be a lack of unction and devoutness in the manner in which the worship is conducted. But―it becomes a Christian to think much before he stays away. If there be but two or three in the congregation who meet in the name of Jesus, there is a special blessing promised. But there is no like blessing promised to him who tarries at home.

C. H. SPURGEON: David said, “In the congregations will I bless the Lord,” Psalm 26:12; by which I understand he felt that his blessing God might be useful to others, else he might have shut himself up in his room and praised God there. David was not like some of whom we know. I hear of some who say, “I shall not go to the place of worship in my village. I cannot get on with the minister. I buy Mr. So-and-So’s sermons and I find more truth in them, so I shall stay at home.” You remember the view the Apostle took of this when he wrote, “Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some”—a very bad manner, let me say, by the way the Apostle mentions it!

H. A. IRONSIDE: A man said to me once, “If I could find a perfect Church I would attend there.” I replied, “My dear friend, don’t. If you find a perfect Church don’t join it, because if you did it would be imperfect the moment you got into it.” There is no such thing as a perfect Church, but we can thank God for the places where people meet to hear the Word of God, and to join in praise and prayer.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): One important lesson we may learn from this is, how much we lose by our failure to cultivate the fellowship of Christian brethren.

H. A. IRONSIDE: We need one another; and because we do, the Spirit of God has come down to knit us together into one body. Think of one of the most frequently quoted verses in the Bible: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all, ” 2 Corinthians 13:14. Have you ever stopped to think what is meant by the communion of the Holy Ghost? It is God working in our hearts, helping us to enjoy the things of God together, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): United to Christ by faith, we become members of the Body, of which He is the Head. To that body we have duties―With that body we are to unite, both in its public and social meetings, and not by withdrawing ourselves from it, to shew an indifference to its welfare. Some there were, even in the Apostle’s days, who, through cowardice or worldly-mindedness, forsook the assemblies of the Church: and some there are who do so at the present day.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): This in all ages hath prevailed on many, in the times of trial and persecution, to withdraw themselves from those assemblies; and those who have done so are the “fearful and unbelieving,” Revelation 21:8.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): The apostle saw good reason to join both these in one exhortation: “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,”―as if he had said, ‘If you cannot agree to worship God one with another, you will have little love one for another.’

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Extremely needed, therefore, by us all, is the admonition to be stimulated to love and not to separate from those whom God has joined to us, but to embrace with brotherly kindness all those who are united to us in faith―for doubtless the contempt of the brethren, moroseness, envy, an immoderate estimate of ourselves, and other sinful impulses, clearly show that our love is either very cold, or does not at all exist.

A. W. PINK: When Christians are in fellowship with Christ, they desire and seek the fellowship of His people; conversely, when they are out of fellowship with the Lord they have little or no desire for communion with believers.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Fire increaseth by laying together many coals on one place; so is devotion inflamed by the union of many hearts, and by a joint presence; nor can the approach of the last day of judgment, or particular judgments upon a nation, give a writ of ease from such assemblies.

 

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A Reminder For Fathers & Grandfathers

Posted on June 14, 2019 by The Editor

Exodus 20:5,6; Exodus 34:6,7

I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): This law was not to serve a particular dispensation, or to endure a particular time, but it was a declaration of His Will, invariable in all places and all times; being founded upon the immutable nature of His being.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): He that sins against God not only wrongs his own soul, but perhaps wrongs his seed more than he thinks of.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): This is a terrible word of threatening, which justly afrights our hearts, and stirs up fears in us. It is quite contrary to our reason, for we conceive it to be a very unjust proceeding, that the children and posterity should be punished for their fathers’ and forefathers’ offences.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): The Jews profanely characterized the Divine procedure by this proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” Ezekiel 18:2.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): In the judgments of God there is always a deep abyss, into which if you fear to be plunged, adore that which it is not lawful to question.

MARTIN LUTHER: Forasmuch as God has so decreed, and is pleased so to proceed, therefore our duty is to know and acknowledge that He is a just God, and that He wrongs none. Seeing that these fearful threatenings are contrary to our understanding, therefore flesh and blood regard them not―but we that are true Christians believe the same to be certain, when the Holy Ghost touches our hearts, that this proceeding is just and right, and thereby we stand in the fear of God.

JOHN CALVIN: If it be objected that there is no reason why the sins of their fathers should be brought as an accusation against them, because it is written, “The soul that hath sinned shall die, and the children shall not be punished instead of the fathers,” Ezekiel 18:20, the answer will be easy. The Lord makes the children to bear the punishment of the sins of the fathers, when they resemble their fathers; and yet they are not punished for other men’s sins, for they themselves have sinned.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Anybody who studies human nature cannot help discovering that a child of a drunk has a greater tendency to drink than a child of a sober man.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): “He that troubleth his own house, shall inherit the wind,” Proverbs 11:29. To trouble one’s own house is to walk so as to leave an evil example for succeeding generations. It is not merely physical ills handed down in judgment, as in the case of the alcoholic’s child being born with an inherent tendency to disease; but the father’s ways are copied by the children. This is what is so prominent in the case of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, “who made Israel to sin,” 1 Kings 14:16.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): National judgments, thus continued from generation to generation, appear to be what are designed by the words in the text―the punishment which the Jewish nation had been meriting for a series of years came now upon them, because they copied and increased the sins of their fathers, and the cup of their iniquity was full. Thus the children might be said to bear the sins of the fathers, that is, in temporal punishment, for in no other way does God visit these upon the children.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): That denunciation of the LORD is, of visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): The infants that perished in the flood (Genesis 7), and at the conflagration of Sodom (Genesis 19), died penally under the judgment that came for the sin of their parents―even in things moral, God threatens to “visit the iniquities of the fathers on the children.” So the Israelites wandered penally in the wilderness forty years, and bare the iniquity of their parents.

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL  (1635-1711): Everyone’s commission of sin is personal, but judgment may come upon the children—not eternal judgment, but temporal judgment.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means “clearing the impenitent,”—or perhaps, rather, ‘clearing I will not clear;’ that is, although He forgive, yet He will chastise, and not altogether leave unpunished.

GEORGE SWINNOCK (1627-1673): Even children that have been good, have suffered for their father’s sins.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): How can this be just?

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Was the wicked treatment of Joseph by his brethren to pass unpunished? No, that could not be. They, like all others, must reap what they had sown; reap the bitter harvest not only themselves but in their offspring too, for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. So it proved here, for it was the “fourth generation” (Genesis 13:15) which came out of Egypt. Four generations, then, reaped the harvest, and reaped precisely “whatsoever” had been sown; for just as Joseph was sold into slavery, and carried down into Egypt, so in Egyptian slavery his brethren and their children suffered!

MARTIN LUTHER: God permits the external and corporal punishment to go on, yea, sometimes over the penitent children also for examples, to the end that others may fly from sin and lead a godly life.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The consequences of conduct do not die with the doers. “The evil that men do, lives after them.” The generations are so knit together, and the full results of deeds are often so slow-growing, that one generation sows and another reaps―it is true evermore and everywhere.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Does not this approach very near to that precious truth of the New Testament times, that we are members one of another, and that the conduct of one member affects all the rest?

A. W. PINK: Today we are suffering from the compromisings, unfaithfulness, sectarianism, pride, and wickedness, of those who went before us.

MARTIN LUTHER: But He will also do good and be merciful “unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” This is a great, glorious, and comfortable promise, far surpassing all human reason and understanding, that, for the sake of one godly person, so many should be partakers of undeserved blessings and mercies. For we find many examples, that a multitude of people have enjoyed mercies and benefits for the sake of one godly man; as for Abraham’s sake, many people were preserved and blessed, and also for Isaac’s sake; and for the sake of Naaman the whole kingdom of Assyria was blessed of God.

GEORGE SWINNOCK: The branches fare the worse for the defects that are in the root; and the branches thrive the better for the sap that is in the root. “The just man walks in his integrity, and his children are blessed,” Proverbs 20:7. Thy duty is to instruct thy children in the Word and Will of God.

 

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A Day of Pentecostal Power

Posted on June 7, 2019 by The Editor

Acts 2:1-4, 14, 17, 22-23, 32-33, 41

When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance…

Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said…this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upoon all flesh…Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain…This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear…

Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Marvellous, beyond conception, was the miracle wrought on the day of Pentecost; when a company of illiterate fishermen were enabled, in one moment, to speak a great diversity of languages, with as much ease and fluency and propriety as their own native tongue.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): This produced an effect on the city which called forth the first recorded address in the power of Pentecost. It is arresting to see in that address how the apostle first referred to the Old Testament Scriptures, and, second, showed how all their predictions were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. The result of this message was immediate and glorious. Under conviction produced by the Holy Spirit, the people asked, “What shall we do?” Peter replied, by giving clear instructions, and by testimony and exhortation, until about 3,000 souls were added to the church.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We cannot too often read the story of that wondrous outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost; and let us never read it without asking the Lord to manifest in our midst the fullness of the Spirit’s power.

CHARLES SIMEON: The Christian Church—this is at a low ebb, and greatly needs a revival. Where are the Pentecostal effusions of the Spirit, and the simultaneous conversions of thousands unto God? In great and extensive countries, where religion once flourished, the very name of Christ is now scarcely known.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): I do not suppose that any man can look thoughtfully and dispassionately on the condition, say, for instance, of Manchester, or of any of our great towns, and mark how the populace knows nothing and cares nothing about us and our Christianity, and never comes into our places of worship, and has no share in our hopes any more than if they lived in Central Africa.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): I do not hesitate to assert this―that the only hope of the church lies in revival…I see no hope whatsoever in any other movement, or organization, or any other kind of effort. The one supreme need of the church is revival.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): A revival of true, vital godliness in the souls of believers, or an increased number of conversions, is the work of God’s Spirit. Strictly speaking, He is the only Revivalist.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Revival is always His work―A revival, I would say, is a repetition in some degree or in some measure of that which happened on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. It is a pouring out, or a pouring forth of the Spirit of God upon a number of people at the same time.

C. H. SPURGEON: I fancy that if God were to give us Pentecostal blessings, it would be seen that many of us are by no means ready to receive them. Suppose there were 3,000 persons converted in one day here, most of the churches round here would say, “There is a shocking state of excitement over at the Tabernacle. It is really dreadful!” The very ‘sound’ Brethren would feel that we had gone off into Arminianism, or some other error and I expect some of you would say, very dolefully, “Oh, dear! Dear! Dear! Dear! We do hope they will all stand.” The first thought that would be excited in many Christian minds would be one of suspicion!―there is not one in a hundred who would think it was true! And we ministers would be very much of the same mind.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: My friends, when the next revival comes, it come as a surprise to everybody, and especially to those who have been trying to organize it.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Let us not fold our arms and vainly say, “The time is not come.” Let us not yield to that pernicious offshoot of a one-sided theology, which is rightly called fatalism, and say, “God is sovereign, and He works according to His own will. We must wait His time. Human effort is in vain. We cannot get up a revival.”

C. H. SPURGEON: I was preaching in Bedford, and I prayed that God would bless the sermon and give me at least some few souls that afternoon. When I had done, there was an old Wesleyan Brother there who gave me a good scolding, which I richly deserved. He said to me, “I did not say, ‘Amen,’ when you were asking for a few souls to be converted, for I thought you were limiting the Holy One of Israel! Why did you not pray with all your heart for all of them to be saved? I did,” he added, “and that was why I did not say, ‘Amen,’ to your narrow prayer.” It is often the case that we preachers do not honour God by believing that He will give great blessings and, therefore, He does not honour us by giving those great blessings! But if we maintained a closer adherence to the Truth of God and had a firmer confidence that God’s Word shall never return unto Him void, He would do far greater things by us than He has ever yet done!

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Let us seek to get together according to God; to come as one man and prostrate ourselves before the mercy-seat, and perseveringly wait upon our God for the revival of His work.

CHARLES SIMEON: We want to see the lighting down of His arm amongst us; and such displays of His power and glory as when He “shook the room where His people were assembled, and filled them all with the Holy Ghost,” and with power, Acts 4:31-33. We are looking for “times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,” Acts 3:19. And for these we should be earnestly pleading with God in prayer; saying, with the prophet, “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, and come down; that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,” Isaiah 64:1!

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Oh! blessed Pentecost of a blessed God! Lord! grant in this latter day of thy Church a renewed Pentecost to manifest Thy glory!

CHARLES SIMEON: “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” Psalm 85:6. But the petition may be offered also, for our own souls in particular—Who amongst us does not need to offer it? We are but too apt, all of us, to experience changes in the divine life—how often do we see reason to deplore the loss of those ardent affections which once glowed in our souls! so that we have need particularly to cry, “O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of my years!”

 

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God’s Provision in Times of Famine

Posted on May 31, 2019 by The Editor

1 Kings 17:1-9

Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.

And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  Elijah foretold a long and grievous famine, with which Israel should be punished for their sins. That fruitful land, for want of rain, should be turned into barrenness, for the iniquity of those that dwelt therein, but Elijah himself was taken care of in that famine.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In the very worst of times God will show Himself strong on behalf of His own. Whoever else starves, they shall be fed: “Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure,” Isaiah 33:16.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Blessed indeed it is to see how rich and full is God’s provision for our need. There isn’t a single need that can possibly arise in the history of God’s people, that He has not foreseen, and made provision for. And it is well if our hearts, have drunk in this blessed fact, for it will help to give us confidence in God, and enable us to go to Him in every time of need.

A. W. PINK: Nevertheless, it was real testing of Elijah’s faith. Whoever heard of such instruments being employed—birds of prey bringing food in a time of famine! Could the ravens be depended upon? Was it not far more likely that they would devour the food themselves than bring it to the prophet? Ah, his trust was not to be in the birds, but in the sure word of Him that cannot lie: “I have commanded the ravens.” It was the Creator and not the creature, the Lord Himself, and not the instruments, that Elijah’s heart was to be fixed upon.

MATTHEW HENRY: Let us learn hence to encourage ourselves in God in the greatest straits, and never to distrust Him. He that could furnish a table in the wilderness, and make ravens purveyors, cooks, and servitors to His prophet, is able to supply all our need according to His riches in glory…Elijah had but one meal brought him at a time, every morning and every evening, to teach him not to take thought for the morrow. Let those who have but from hand to mouth learn to live upon Providence, and trust it for the bread of the day in the day; thank God for bread this day, and let tomorrow bring bread with it.

A. W. PINK: Why does God suffer the brook to dry up?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Brooks will dry up, even if godly men are being sustained by them.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The little stream dried up “after a while;” and Elijah, no doubt, would wonder what was to be done next, as he saw it daily sending a thinner thread to Jordan. But he was not told till the channel was dry, and the pebbles in its bed bleaching in the sun. God makes us sometimes wait on beside a diminishing rivulet, and keeps us ignorant of the next step, till it is dry.

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): Providence many times suffers our wants to pinch hard, and many fears to arise, out of design to magnify the care and love of God in the supply, Deuteronomy 8:3.

A. W. PINK: Instead of a river, God often gives us a brook, which may be running today and dried up tomorrow. Why? To teach us not to rest in our blessings, but in the blesser Himself.

C. H. SPURGEON: Is there anyone here whose brook is drying up? Has it quite dried up? Still trust you in God; for, if the ravens are put out of commission, God will employ some other agency―when the brook dried up, God sent His servant Elijah to Zarephath where there was a widow woman who would sustain him…Famine may be in the land, there may be neither dew nor rain, and even the brook Cherith may at last be dried up, but since Jehovah is my Shepherd, “I shall not want,” Psalm 23:1.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): A very sweet thought it is to me, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.”

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): We love to repeat the words, but how many believe them? How often we get panicky when the purse is empty and we are out of employment!

C. H. MACKINTOSH: It is one thing to talk of the life of faith, and another thing altogether to live it. The theory is one thing; the living reality, quite another. But let us never forget that it is the privilege of every child of God to live by faith; and, further, that the life of faith takes in everything that the believer can possibly need, from the starting-post to the goal of his earthly career.

C. H. SPURGEON: Remember that God is still the same God, and He that helped Elijah, will help you…He is just as faithful now as ever! Elijah, remember, was “a man of like passions” with you, James 5:17. No raven may come flying into your window, but He will send you bread in another way…I think I hear you say, “My store of meal is running very short. My flask of oil is almost empty. Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” Why, He is still with His Elijah and He is still with such widows as the widow of Zarephath. Do you think that He is dead? Has it crossed your mind that Divine Providence is a failure and that God will no more provide for His own? Oh, think not so! If you do, your unbelief will prove a scourge to you—it will break that meal barrel, it will dash in pieces that oil flask! You will get nothing of the Lord if you waver! But if you keep strong in faith, you shall find that Jehovah Jireh is still His name—“The Lord will provide,” Genesis 22:8; “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly,” Psalm 84:11

A. W. PINK: “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:19. It is profitless to ask, How? The Lord has ten thousand ways of making good His Word. Some reader of this very paragraph may be living from hand to mouth, having no stock of money or store of victuals: yea, not knowing where the next meal will come from. But if you be a child of His, God will not fail you, and if your trust be in Him, it shall not be disappointed. In some way or other “The Lord will provide.” “O fear the Lord, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing,” Psalm 34:9,10; “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things”―food and clothing―“shall be added unto you,” Matthew 6:33. These promises are addressed to us, to encourage us to cleave unto God and do His will.

H. A. IRONSIDE: There is one thing to do, and that is turn to Him and leave all with Him.

C. H. SPURGEON: If you have trusted Jesus to be the Saviour of your immortal spirit, can you not also trust Him to be the Provider for this poor flesh of the things which perish?

HUDSON TAYLOR (1832-1905): There is a living God. He has spoken in His Word. He means just what He says and will do all that He has promised.

JOHN STEVENSON (Circa 1850): Who dares deny that the promise of the living God is an absolute security?

C. H. SPURGEON: Let us write this down, both in spirituals and temporals—“The Lord will provide.”

 

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Noah’s Faith

Posted on May 24, 2019 by The Editor

Matthew 24:37-39; Hebrews 11:7; Genesis 7:6,11

As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth…In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It is not without reason that Moses again mentions the age of Noah. For old age has this among other evils, that it renders men more indolent and morose; whence the faith of Noah was the more conspicuous, because it did not fail him in that advanced period of life.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Aged persons are apt to be peevish, fretful, and passionate; and therefore need to be on their guard against such infirmities and temptations. Faith, love, and patience, are three main Christian graces, and soundness in these is much of gospel perfection. There is enduring patience and waiting patience, both of which must be looked after; to bear evils becomingly, and contentedly to wait for the good till we are fit for it, and it for us, being “followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises,” Hebrews 6:12.

JOHN CALVIN: So Noah’s promptitude deserves no little commendation; because, being commanded to enter the ark, he immediately obeyed―he, being moved with fear by the Word, perceived by faith the approach of that deluge which all others ridiculed. Wherefore, his faith is again commended in this place, because, indeed, he raised his eyes above heaven and earth.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): He was nearly five hundred years old when he began to preach about the flood—a good old age to take up such a subject. For a hundred and twenty years he pursued his theme—three times as long as most men are ever able to preach, and now, at last God’s time of long-suffering is over, and He proves the truthfulness of the testimony of His servant by sending the flood that Noah had foretold.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He was five hundred old when God first foretold the flood, and promised the old world one hundred and twenty years’ respite: but, wearied out with their obstinacy in sin, He “cut the work short in righteousness,” Romans 9:28, and brought the flood upon them twenty years sooner:* as it is said of Christ’s second coming, that, “for the elect’s sake, those days shall be shortened,” Matthew 24:22; so, for the contumacy of these ungodly sinners, their judgment was hastened.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): And remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, how He said, “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man.” Some would have us to believe, that ere the Son of man appears in the clouds of heaven, this earth shall be covered, from pole to pole, with a fair mantle of righteousness. They would teach us to look for a reign of righteousness and peace, as the result of agencies now in operation; but the brief passage just quoted cuts up by the roots, in a moment, all such vain and delusive expectations. How was it in the days of Noah? Did righteousness cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea? Was God’s truth dominant? Was the earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord? Scripture replies, “the earth was filled with violence,” Genesis 6:13; “all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth,” Genesis 6:12; “the earth also was corrupt before God,” Genesis 6:11.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): I don’t find any place where God says the world is to grow better and better…I find that the earth is to grow worse and worse.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Well, then, “so shall it be in the days of the Son of man.” This is plain enough. “Righteousness” and “violence” are not very like each other. Neither is there any similarity between universal wickedness and universal peace. It only needs a heart subject to the Word, and freed from the influence of preconceived opinions, in order to understand the true character of the days immediately preceding “the coming of the Son of man.” Let not my reader be led astray. Let him reverently bow to Scripture. Let him look at the condition of the world, “in the days before the flood;” and let him bear in mind, that “as” it was then, “so” shall it be at the close of this present period. This is most simple―most conclusive. There was nothing like a state of universal righteousness and peace then, neither shall there be anything like it by and by.

MATTHEW HENRY: The Lord will come in a day when we look not for Him, and an hour when men are not aware. The time which men think to be the most improper and unlikely, and when therefore they are most secure, will be the time of the Lord’s coming. Let us then beware how we in our thoughts and imaginations put that day far away from us; but rather suppose it to be so much nearer in reality, by how much further off it is in the opinion of the ungodly world.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): This is the way of sinners: “because judgment is not executed speedily upon them,” they think it never will. The scoffers in the last days will say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” But God assures us, that “the judgment of sinners now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not,” 2 Peter 2:3.

JOHN TRAPP: For God is not asleep, or gone a journey, “because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness,” Acts 17:31.

C. H. SPURGEON: Noah is the picture of one who is the Lord’s witness during evil days, and lives through them faithfully, enduring unto the end.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): When Noah built the Ark, there were few with him, and many mocked at him; but he was found to be in the right at last. There was an ark for Noah, in the day of the flood―and there shall be a hiding-place for all believers in Jesus, when the wrath of God at last bursts on this wicked world.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): May it be my mercy, to remember, while reading the account of Noah’s finding favour with God, that it is by the Lord Jesus Christ alone, of whom Noah was a type, that I can find favour and acceptance with God in this life, or salvation in another. In Him, as the True Ark, may I be found, when God shall arise to judge the world.

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*Editor’s Note: John Trapp’s analysis of the timing of the flood is based upon comparing Genesis 5:32, Genesis 6:1-3, and Genesis 7:6, in addition to the Scriptures that he has cited.

►Editor’s Note: Today’s publication marks the six hundredth article posted on the Bible Truth Chat Room website. All these posts are accessible from the links on the sitemap page.

 

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Holy Hate Speech

Posted on May 17, 2019 by The Editor

Proverbs 6:16-19; Psalm 97:10; Psalm 139:21,22

These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

Ye that love the LORD, hate evil.

Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The Lord hates sin with a perfect hatred.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): He hates every sin; He can never be reconciled to it; He hates nothing but sin. But there are some sins which He does in a special manner hate; and all those here mentioned are such as are injurious to our neighbour. It is an evidence of the good-will God bears to mankind that those sins are in a special manner provoking to Him which are prejudicial to the comfort of human life and society.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): To represent the Most High as simply a loving Father to His creatures is not only extremely partial, but altogether an erroneous view of His relations to us. His love is indeed the originating impulse of all the blessings of the covenant. But God is also a moral Governor, a righteous King, whose character is reflected in the government which He exercises; and therefore does He manifest His holy hatred of sin and justly punishes it. Hence it is that when He seeks the return of sinners unto Himself it is by a system of mediation which vindicates His perfections and magnifies His law. Calvary supplied the most solemn and awe-inspiring display of God’s hatred of sin that time or eternity will ever furnish!

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): The torments of the bottomless pit are not so dreadful a demonstration of God’s hatred of sin, as the agonies of the cross!

JOHN NELSON DARBY (1800-1882): Upon the cross, all that God was in His holy hatred of sin fell on Christ for our sakes; and hence it was not then a question of love and fellowship, but all else that God was—His holiness, truth, majesty, righteousness—all was against Him, because on the cross He was as the One made sin for us.

C. H. SPURGEON: When sin was laid on Christ, even though it was none of His, yet the Father forsook Him…Unless we believe that sin cost Christ His life, we shall never have that holy enmity towards sin which we ought to have, that blessed intolerance of sin which ought to take possession of every Christian’s heart and mind!

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Sin is to be hated, because of the evil nature of it, it being exceeding sinful; and because of its evil consequences, bringing death, ruin, and destruction with it to the souls of men, unless grace prevents; and disquietude, distress, and trouble to the saints themselves; and because it is hateful to God, being contrary to His nature, will, and law, and is hated by Christ; and therefore those that love Him should hate that, shun it, avoid it, depart from it, and abstain from all appearance of it; as all such will, that love Him in sincerity.

RICHARD SIBBES (1577-1635): It is evident that our conversion is sound when we loathe and hate sin from the heart: a man may know his hatred of evil to be true, first, if it be universal: he that hates sin truly, hates all sin. Secondly, true hatred is fixed; there is no appeasing it but by abolishing the thing hated. Thirdly, hatred is a more rooted affection than anger: anger may be appeased, but hatred remains and sets itself against the whole kind.

WILLIAM PERKINS (1558-1602): And all this must proceed from a good ground, even from a good heart hating sin perfectly, that is, all sin, as David, “I hate them with perfect hatred;” and not as some, who can hate some sin, but cleave to some other: as many can hate pride, but love covetousness or some other darling sin: but we must attain to the hatred of all, before we can come to the practice of this precept.

RICHARD SIBBES: If our hatred be true, we hate all evil, in ourselves first, and then in others; he that hates a toad, would hate it most in his own bosom. Many, like Judah, are severe in censuring others (Genesis 38:24), but partial to themselves. Fifthly, he that hates sin truly, hates the greatest sin in the greatest measure; he hates all evil in a just proportion. Sixthly, our hatred is right if we can endure admonition and reproof for sin, and not be enraged; therefore, those that swell against reproof do not appear to hate sin.

C. H. SPURGEON: The Spirit also, very graciously, sanctifies us, and it is a part of His work to discover sin in us and to excite a holy hatred of it. He burns in our soul like flames of fire consuming evil.

RICHARD SIBBES: God is a Spirit, and He looks to our very spirits; and what we are in our spirits, in our hearts and affections, that we are to Him. Therefore, what ill we shun, let us do it from the heart, by hating it first. A man may avoid an evil action from fear, or out of other respects, but that is not sincerity. Therefore look to thy heart, see that thou hate evil, and let it come from sincere looking to God. “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil,” saith David: not only avoid it, but hate it; and not only hate it, but hate it out of love to God.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): True Christians will maintain a holy hatred to all the ways of sin.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): To hate evil is to walk in light.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Who is there that enters into the interests of God with such oneness of soul as to say, “I hate them that hate thee, with perfect hatred”?

AUGUSTINE (354-430): What is “with a perfect hatred?”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Literally it is, “I hate them with a perfection of hatred.”

AUGUSTINE: How then will he fulfil in them both his own saying, “Have not I hated those that hated thee, Lord,” and the Lord’s command, “Love your enemies”?

C. H. SPURGEON: We are bound to love our own enemies, but not God’s enemies, since they are haters of all that is good and true, and the essentially good One Himself. We love them as our fellow-beings, but we hate them as haters of God…To hate a man for his own sake, or for any evil done to us, would be wrong; but to hate a man because he is the foe of all goodness and the enemy of all righteousness, is nothing more nor less than an obligation. The more we love God the more indignant shall we grow with those who refuse Him their affection. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha,” 1 Corinthians 16:22.

JOHN GILL: Wicked men are haters of God; of His Word, both Law and Gospel; of His ordinances, ways, and worship; of His people, cause, and interest; and therefore good men hate them: not as men, as the creatures of God, and as their fellow creatures, whom they are taught by the Gospel to love, to do good unto, and pray for; but as haters of God, and because they are so; not their persons, but their works.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Hate we may, but then it must be not the man, but his evil qualities.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN: Therefore let His saints learn the lesson and “hate evil.”

C. H. SPURGEON: We cannot love God without hating that which He hates.

 

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Mothers

Posted on May 10, 2019 by The Editor

Proverbs 1:8; Proverbs 10:1

My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother.

A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): “A wise son maketh a glad father.” This first sentence seems not to have been casually set first…Lord Bacon thinks that the gladness and heaviness which are in fathers and mothers, according as their children prove good or bad, are so accurately distinguished by Solomon, that he represents a wise and well-governed son to be chiefly a comfort to the father, who knows the value of wisdom better perhaps than the mother―which account the Hebrews also give of this matter; and therefore, he rejoices more at his son’s good judgment; which he not only better understands, but has taken perhaps so much care about his education, that the good fruits of it give him a greater joy than they can do to the mother.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Prize fathers as you may, and will, and should—yet there is a tender touch that comes home to every man’s heart when he thinks of his mother!

WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): I never knew a mother. I have been an orphan, almost from the first opening of my eyes―the keenest longing of my heart is that I had a mother…Oh, how sweet it must be to a son in his manhood strength to be the ‘gladness’ of his mother. “A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.” A son who breaks his mother’s heart—can this earth have any more irksome load to bear!

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Though mothers bear much, still they blush on account of the wicked actions of their children.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): It is the mother who feels most keenly the folly of her child. See the record of Esau in Genesis 26:34,35 and Genesis 27:46.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Besides that natural affection planted in mothers towards their children, as they are theirs, the very pains, hard labour, and travail they were at in bringing them forth, increaseth their affections towards them, and that in a greater degree than fathers bear; and, therefore, the eminency of affection is attributed unto that of the mother towards her child, and put upon this, that it is “the son of her womb,” Isaiah 49:15. And then the performing of that office and work of nursing them themselves, which yet it is done with much trouble and disquietment, doth in experience yet more endear those their children unto them.

THOMAS COKE: She is more grieved and discomforted at the calamity of the son; both because the affection of a mother is more soft and tender―and, perhaps, because she may be conscious to herself that by too much indulgence she hath tainted and corrupted his tender years.

HENRY VENN (1724-1797): We pity orphans who have neither father nor mother to care for them. A child indulged is more to be pitied. It has no parent. It is its own master, peevish, froward, headstrong, blind―not only miserable itself, but worthless, and a plague to all who in future will be connected with it. What bad sons, husbands, masters, fathers, daughters, wives, and mothers, are the offspring of fond indulgence, shewn to little masters and misses almost from the cradle!

C. H. SPURGEON: The moulding of the character of the next generation, remember, begins with the mother’s influence.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The father occasionally gives instruction; but he is not always in the family, many of those occupations which are necessary for the family support being carried on abroad. The mother―she is constantly within doors, and to her the regulation of the family belongs; therefore she has, and gives laws.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): She is particularly mentioned, because the law of God equally enjoins reverence and obedience to both parents, and because children are too apt to slight the directions and instructions of a mother; whereas they carry equal authority, and have in them the nature of a law, as those of a father.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is the duty of mothers, as well as fathers, to teach their children…When they are young and tender they are most under the mother’s eye, and she has then an opportunity of moulding and fashioning their minds well, which she ought not to let slip.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): My mother―almost her whole employment was the care of my education…At not more than three years of age, she herself taught me English. When I was four years old I could read with propriety in any common book. She stored my memory, which was then very retentive, with many valuable pieces, chapters, and portions of Scripture, catechism, hymns and poems.

C. H. SPURGEON: I am sure that, in my early youth, no teaching ever made such an impression upon my mind as the instruction of my mother; neither can I conceive that, to any child, there can be one who will have such a influence over the young heart as the mother who has so tenderly cared for her offspring.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Indeed that counsel is most like to go to the heart which comes from thence.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians of England.

C. H. SPURGEON: See how a woman’s life projects itself and either casts a ray of brightness over her children’s characters, or a cloud of shame over their entire being.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): The names of mothers of good and bad kings are mentioned in Kings and Chronicles, as partakers in their credit or reproach.

C. H. SPURGEON: What some of us owe to our mothers, we shall never be able to tell. If we had to write down the choicest mercies that God has bestowed upon us, we would have to first mention the mother who prayed for us and taught us to trust in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit’s blessing upon the sweet way in which she spoke to us about the Saviour. But a mother, trained in the school of Satan, and who has become a mistress in the art of sin is a terrible source of evil to her children. May God have mercy upon any of you mothers who have sons growing up to follow the evil example which you are setting them! Mothers, by the love you bear your children—and there is no stronger love, I think, on earth—if you will not think of your own soul’s best interests, I do pray you, for your children’s sake, consider your ways and seek the Lord with the purpose in your heart that your children may, if possible, live in the Presence of God.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Any teaching that leads men and women to think of the marriage bond as the sign of bondage, and the sacrifice of all independence, to construe wifehood and motherhood as drudgery and interference with woman’s higher destiny…threatens the very foundations of society.

C. H. SPURGEON: Those who think that a mother detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true―she is doing the best possible service for her Lord! Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty. Christian women, by teaching children the Holy Scriptures, are as much fulfilling their part for the Lord, as Moses in judging Israel, or Solomon in building the temple!

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): When Eve was brought unto Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. He called her Eve, that is to say, the Mother of All, Genesis 3:20. He did not style her wife, but simply mother, mother of all living creatures. In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman.

 

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Our Omnipresent All-Seeing God

Posted on May 3, 2019 by The Editor

Psalm 139:7,8,12; Proverbs 15:3; Jeremiah 23:23,24

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there…Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God asserts His own omnipresence and omniscience.

WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): The proposition is absolutely universal.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): To confirm this He adds, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith Jehovah?―What therefore God declares here, that He fills heaven and earth, ought to be applied to His providence and His power.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it without the interrogative: “I am a God near, saith the Lord, and not afar off.” The meaning is, that God is alike near in one place as in another; which is a very great truth. And a very comfortable one it is to the people of God, to whom He is near in all places, and at all times; He is a present help in time of trouble; He is near them, to hear their cries, and grant their requests; He is near to give them assistance in a time of need, and to deliver them out of all their troubles; to afford them His gracious presence, and to indulge them with communion with Himself; to communicate all good things to them; to speak comfortably to them; to take them by the hand, and lead them in the way everlasting: He is at their right hand to uphold them with His, and to strengthen them with strength in their souls; to advise and counsel, and direct them; to rebuke their enemies, and save them from them that condemn them.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): He is everywhere present to protect His people, and to defeat the plots of their adversaries. He it is that has given to our enemies the strength and wisdom which they exert against us; and He engages that “none of the weapons which they form against us shall prosper,” Isaiah 54:17. “Let the weak then say, I am strong:” for “if God be for them, who shall be against them?” Only let them “acknowledge Him in all their ways,” and depend upon Him in all their trials, and they need not fear, for “His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew Himself strong in their behalf,” 2 Chronicles 16:9.

JOHN GILL: Indeed there are no people like them, who have God so nigh unto them.

JOHN CALVIN: This sentiment, that God is nigh and not afar off, is indeed true; but what is meant here is quite another thing—that God sees in a way very different from men, for He fully and perfectly sees what is farthest from Him…But we ought especially to consider for what purpose it is that He sees all things; which is evidently this—that He may at last call to judgment whatever is done by men.

CHARLES SIMEON: Sinners of every description commit in secret what they would not dare to perpetrate, if they knew that the eyes of their fellow-creatures were upon them―But they are under a fatal delusion: for however secret their iniquities may be, there is One who beholds them, with all their aggravating circumstances, and will bring them forth to the light, as grounds of His righteous indignation―for “God’s eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): The evil are first mentioned, because they make question of this truth.

CHARLES SIMEON: Every man who has ever heard of God has within him a consciousness that the Divine Being is present with him, and is privy to his most secret thoughts. In the midst of their wickedness indeed men try to persuade themselves that God does not see them…But whence is this, unless from the atheistical conceit that God is not privy to their actions, or from an utter forgetfulness of His presence?

WILLIAM ARNOT: The unholy do not like to have a holy Eye ever open over them, whatever their profession may be. If fallen men, apart from the one Mediator, say or think that the presence of God is pleasant to them, it is because they have radically mistaken either their own character or His: they have either falsely lifted up their own attainments, or falsely dragged down the standard of the Judge.

CHARLES SIMEON: Yea, we may also deceive our own selves; but we cannot deceive God―He will discern our corrupt motives and principles, and will judge us according to the real quality of our actions.

JOHN CALVIN: Wherever men betake themselves, it is impossible for them to be concealed from Him.

JOHN TRAPP: “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?” Surely nowhere; they that attempt it do but as the fish which swimmeth to the length of the line with a hook in the mouth.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” A “behold” is added to the second clause, since it seems more a wonder to meet with God in hell than in heaven. Of course the presence of God produces very different effects in these places, but it is unquestionably in each; the bliss of one, the terror of the other.

JOHN MASON (1600-1672): The presence of God’s glory is in heaven; the presence of His power on earth; the presence of His justice in hell; and the presence of His grace is with His people. If He deny us His powerful presence, we fall into nothing; if He deny us His gracious presence, we fall into sin; if He deny us His merciful presence, we fall into hell.

WILLIAM ARNOT: “Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?” Proverbs 15:11; This terrible truth these hearts secretly know, and their desperate writhings to shake it off show how much they dislike it.

MATTHEW HENRY: God is greater than our hearts, and knows them better than we know them ourselves, and therefore is an infallible Judge of every man’s character…No arts of concealment can hide men from the eye of God, nor deceive His judgment of them.

JOHN TRAPP: Hide he may, God from himself, but not himself from God.

JOHN CALVIN: There is then an application of the doctrine to our case; for we hence learn, that whatsoever we do, think, and speak, is known to God.

CHARLES SIMEON: There is one way, and only one, in which we can hide our sins from God; and that is, by fleeing to the Lord Jesus Christ for refuge: then, though God will behold the sinner, He will not behold the sin; for it shall all be “blotted out as a morning cloud,” and be “cast behind Him into the depths of the sea;” the vilest sinner in the universe, if he “be found in Christ,” shall be “without spot or blemish,” Ephesians 5:27. Such a hiding-place is Christ, of all that believe in Him, Isaiah 32:2; Acts 10:43. But it is in vain to hope that by any other means we shall escape the wrath of God: for “all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do,” Hebrews 4:13; and every sin not purged away by the blood of Jesus shall be visited with just and everlasting judgments.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): How shall I meet these eyes? As a rebel or as a child? Do they inspire me with terror, or with love?

 

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The Unholy Carnal Paradise of False Religion

Posted on April 26, 2019 by The Editor

Matthew 22:23-30

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.

Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The question put by these bad men is well suited to the mouth of a libertine. Those who live without God in the world have no other god than the world; and those who have not that happiness which comes from the enjoyment of God have no other pleasure than that which comes from the gratification of sensual appetites.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Sensualists cast God and the things of God into a dishonourable mould.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Nothing gives greater advantage to atheism and infidelity than the carnality of those that make religion, either in its professions or in its prospects, a servant to their sensual appetites and secular interests―It is not strange that carnal minds have very false notions of spiritual and eternal things. The natural man receiveth not these things, “for they are foolishness to him,” 1 Corinthians 2:14.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I have heard that an Englishman has professed himself a Mohammedan because he is charmed by the polygamy which the Arabian prophet allows his followers. No doubt the prospect of four wives would win converts who would not be attracted by spiritual considerations.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): It is not in ‘the last times’ only that men who will not endure sound teaching ‘heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts.’

PHILIP MAURO (1859-1952): This seems to point clearly to one of most conspicuous features of the Mohammedan religion, that which allowed in this life unrestrained indulgence of the animal passions of men―to the great degradation of womankind―and which promised in paradise the most unlimited delights of sensuousness. It was in order to subdue men, that the appeal was made to what is basest in nature of man. This is grossly demoniacal.

JOHN TRAPP: Mohammed, as he professed that he himself had a special licence given him by God to know what woman he would, and to put them away when he would; so he promised to all his votaries and adherents the like carnal pleasures at the resurrection.

ADAM CLARKE: The stream cannot rise higher than the spring―these men, and atheists, deists, and libertines of all sorts―can form no idea of heaven as a place of blessedness, unless they can hope to find in it the gratification of their sensual desires. On this very ground Mohammed built his paradise.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): Mohammedanism speaks of its Paradise—but how groveling, how sensual, how unworthy of the soul of man. The false prophet accommodates his heaven to the carnal and lowest passions of our nature, and holds out to the faithful little more or better than the lecherous harem of an Eastern despot. He carries his sensual system into the celestial state, and peoples his eternal world with a race of voluptuaries. What a contrast is here presented to the Christian Paradise, where flesh and blood are excluded, with all their grosser appetites and propensities; and not only is the soul perfect in purity—but even the body is too spiritual for the sensual passions of the flesh.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): How unlike the sensual religion of Mohammed! Here is no license, or encouragement to sin, no connivance at it.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Mohammed promised his fanatical followers a place in Paradise if they died for the faith in conflict with the “infidels” who rejected his teachings.

C. H. SPURGEON: He who religiously obeys Mohammed may yet be doing grievous moral wrong; but it is never so with the disciple of Jesus: obedience to Jesus is holiness.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Holiness! Here is another vital Biblical emphasis…Holiness is not negative; it is positive; it is to be like God. “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” says the Lord, 1 Peter 1:15,16. They know nothing about that, they never mention it.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): It is as certain as anything in the Bible that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord,” Hebrews 12:14.

C. H. SPURGEON: Did I hear someone object, “But many professors of Christianity are not holy”? I grant you it, but, then, everybody knows that they are inconsistent with the religion which they profess. If I heard of a lustful Muslim, I should not consider him inconsistent with Mohammedanism—is he not allowed his harem? But everybody knows that if a man professes to be a Christian and he is guilty of a gross fault, the world rings with the scandal, because it recognizes the inconsistency of his conduct with his profession. Though some may, at the first breath of a slander, blazon it abroad and say, “This is your religion,” the world knows it is not our religion, but the lack of it!―The world’s conscience knows that the religion of Jesus is the religion of purity—and if professed Christians fall into uncleanness the world knows that such a course of action does not arise out of the religion of Christ—they know it is diametrically the opposite to it.

JOSEPH CARYL (1602-1673): Perfect holiness is the aim of the saints on earth and it is the reward of the saints in heaven.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The highway of holiness is the only path which leads to heaven.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Heaven is only for the holy man―heaven is a garment of glory, that is only suited to him that is holy. God, who is truth itself, and cannot lie, hath said it, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Mark that word “no man”―O, sirs, do not deceive your own souls; holiness is of absolute necessity; without it you shall never see the Lord―Without holiness here, no heaven hereafter. “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,” Revelation 21:27.

THOMAS ADAMS (1583-1656): Heaven begins where sin ends.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: What is heaven? We have again and again answered that question. It is not a Mohammedan Paradise—but a state where we shall see Christ as He is, and be like Him. It is the region of moral purity. Its inhabitants are holy—the Holy Father, the Holy Saviour, the Holy Spirit, holy angels, and holy men. Its occupations are holy—the service of God—the song of cherubim and seraphim, crying “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty;” and all other things in harmony with this sacred employment.

ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): If an unholy man were to get into heaven, he would feel like a hog in a flower-garden.

 

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How to Pay an Unpayable Debt that Must be Paid

Posted on April 19, 2019 by The Editor

Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 3:10,23

The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one…for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The debt of sin is a very great debt; and some are more in debt, by reason of sin than others [but] we are all debtors; we owe satisfaction, and are liable to the process of the law.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Every sinner is insolvent―and is become a bankrupt, and has nothing to offer by way of compensation; nor has he any righteousness to answer for him, nor any works of righteousness which deserve that name: and if he had, these are nothing in point of payment: for a debt of sin cannot be discharged by a debt of obedience; since God has a prior right to the latter; and in paying it, a man does but what is his duty. Sin being committed against an infinite God, contracts the nature of an infinite debt, which cannot be paid off by a finite creature. Christ only was able to pay this debt, and He has done it for His people; and without an interest in His blood, righteousness, and satisfaction, every debtor is liable to be cast, and will be cast, into the prison of hell, there to lie till the uttermost farthing is paid, which will be to all eternity.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Even eternal torments can never satisfy eternal justice, or cancel the infinite debt of sin.

JOHN GILL: We see what a sad condition sin has brought men into―it has reduced them to want and beggary; it exposes them to a prison; to the just resentments of their creditor; to the wrath of God, and the curses of the law; and what little reason there is to think, yea, how impossible it is, that a man should be able to merit anything at the hands of God, to whom he is so greatly indebted: he must first pay his debts, which is a thing impracticable, before he can pretend to do anything deserving the notice of God.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Consider the manner how the debt is paid. When the sinner is damned, it is in a poor beg­garly way by retail; now a few pence, and then a few more. He is ever paying, but never comes to the last farthing, and therefore must forever lie in prison for non-payment. But, at Christ’s hands, God receives all the whole debt in one lump, so that Christ could truly say, “It is finished,” John 19:30.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The death of Christ was the payment of my awful debt—if I am in debt and unable to discharge it and another comes forward and pays my creditor in full, and receives a receipt in acknowledgment, then in the sight of the law, my creditor no longer has any claim upon me.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): If the debt was paid, then surely a full receipt was given!

A. W. PINK: His resurrection was God’s receipt for the same; it was the public acknowledgement that the debt had been cancelled.

C. H. SPURGEON: Jesus has paid our debts and, therefore, we are out of debt! He has taken “the handwriting of ordinances which were against us and nailed it to His cross,” Colossians 2:14—there is the receipt for all our debts, fastened up before Heaven and Hell upon the cross of Christ! “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,” Romans 8:33,34. Is not that answer enough for all the charges of Hell? Let us put together two or three texts and drink in their sweetness. “Once in the end of the world has He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” Hebrews 9:26. Get hold of that. Sin is put away forever—think how David puts it: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us,” Psalm 103:12.

WILLIAM GURNALL: We see also from hence, how much the saints are obliged to Christ Jesus, and how thankful they should be to Him.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Whatever debt of sin any man may owe, it shall be forgiven him.

C. H. SPURGEON: When God forgives, He means it, and the offense is gone forever! He cleans off the record. It is all gone, every trace of it. Do you remember the story of Martin Luther when Satan came to him, as he thought, with a long black roll of his sins? To the archenemy Luther said, “Yes, I must admit to them all. Have you any more?” So the foul fiend went his way and brought another longer roll, and Luther said “Yes, yes, I must admit to them all. Have you any more?” Being expert at the business, Satan soon supplied him with a further length of charges till there seemed to be no end to it. Martin waited till no more were forthcoming and then he cried, “Have you any more?” “Were not these enough?” said Satan. “Yes, that they are,” said Luther, “But write at the bottom of the whole account, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!’” Brothers and Sisters, this was a receipt in full, stamped in such a manner that even Satan could not question the correctness of it!

WILLIAM GURNALL: Yea, still more: Christ hath not only discharged the old debt, but by the same blood hath made a new purchase of God for His saints―and that for no less than eternal life, which Christ hath paid for, and given every believer authority, humbly to claim of God in His name. See both in one place: “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified,” Hebrews 10:12-14. He not only crossed the debt-book for believers, but per­fected them for ever; that is, made as certain provi­sion for their perfection in glory, as for their salvation from hell’s punishment. From which He exhorts them to “draw near in full assurance of faith.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): All that believe in Christ with the heart, by His merit and mediation shall be absolved, and shall not come into condemnation. “By Him all that believe are justified from all things,” Acts 13:39.

MATTHEW HENRY: Every sin we commit is a debt to God…There is an account kept of these debts, and we must shortly be reckoned with for them―these accounts will be called over, and either passed or disallowed, and nothing but the blood of Christ will balance the account.

WILLIAM GURNALL: But think, O sinner, what thou wilt be able to say and do, when God comes to reckon with thee, and thou hast nothing to pay, nor any to pay for thee, or be thy surety.

R. BEACON (Circa 1857): Death is the debt of sin.

RALPH ERSKINE (1685-1752): Everlasting death, and damnation.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): A debt you cannot pay.

CHARLES SIMEON: And this debt―must be paid.

 

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