“Battle Lines Being Drawn; Nobody’s Right, If Everybody’s Wrong”

Posted on March 22, 2019 by The Editor

Romans 14:1-6, 10

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks…

But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): We have in this chapter an account of the unhappy contention which had broken out in the Christian church…It was not so much the difference itself that did the mischief as the mismanagement of the difference, making it a bone of contention. Those who were strong, and knew their Christian liberty, and made use of it, despised the weak, who did not. Whereas they should have pitied them, and helped them, and afforded them meek and friendly instruction, they trampled upon them as silly, and humoursome, and superstitious, for scrupling those things which they knew to be lawful: so apt are those who have knowledge to be puffed up with it, and to look disdainfully and scornfully upon their brethren.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): There is a principle of self, which disposes us to despise those who differ from us, and we are often under its influence, when we think we are only showing a becoming zeal in the cause of God.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): We must remember that men who are equally honest may differ.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Where men are right in the main, and give diligence to know God’s mind, there will be mistakes in lesser things.  All have not parts alike, and gifts and graces alike; and therefore there is some variety of opinions and interpretations of Scripture among the godly wise. Every man is not so happy to be so well studied, nor hath that ability to understand, nor so furnished with acquired helps of arts and tongues, nor such a degree of the Spirit. There is a difference in age, growth, and experience, among good men; some are babes, and some grown in years, in Christianity.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Give men time. I took three years of constant study, reflection, and discussion to arrive where I now am, and can the common man, untutored in such matters, be expected to move the same distance in three months?

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Many religious people are blamable here…They want to effect everything at a stroke. They forget their own ignorance and slowness when God began to deal with them.  They forget Him who does not despise the day of small things. They forget Him who said to His followers, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,” John 16:12.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Yea, further, some of them were censorious, and judging all others rashly that were not of their minds.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those who were weak, and durst not use their Christian liberty, judged and censured the strong who did [use their liberty], as if they were loose Christians, carnal professors, that cared not what they did, but walked at all adventures, and stuck at nothing. They judged them as breakers of the law, condemners of God’s ordinance, and the like. Such censures as these discovered a great deal of rashness and uncharitableness, and would doubtless tend much to the alienating of affection.

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): Hence arise debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults. Thus the sweets of society, both civil and religious, are embittered; and, instead of the ills of life diminishing, they greatly accumulate in our hands.

THOMAS MANTON: Censuring is a pleasing sin, extremely compliant with nature.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: It is a self-righteous spirit. Self is always at the back of it, and it is always a manifestation of self-righteousness, a feeling of superiority, and a feeling that we are all right while others are not.  That then leads to censoriousness, and a spirit that is always ready to express itself in a derogatory manner.  And then, accompanying that, there is the tendency to despise others, to regard them with contempt.

JOHN NEWTON: Yea, I would add, the best of men are not wholly free from this leaven; and therefore are too apt to be pleased with such representations as hold up our adversaries to ridicule, and by consequence flatter our own superior judgments.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: It seems to me, further, that a very vital part of this spirit is the tendency to be hypercritical.  Now there is all the difference in the world between being critical and being hypercritical…The man who is hypercritical, which means that he delights in criticism for its own sake and enjoys it. I am afraid I must go further and say that he is a man who approaches anything which he is asked to criticize expecting to find faults, indeed, almost hoping to find them. The simplest way, perhaps, of putting all this is to ask you to read 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Look at the negative of everything positive which Paul says about love. Love “hopeth all things,” but this spirit hopes for the worst; it gets a malicious, malign satisfaction in finding faults and blemishes. It is a spirit that is always expecting them, and is almost disappointed if it does not find them; it is always on the look-out for them, and rather delights in them. There is no question about that, the hypercritical spirit is never really happy unless it finds these faults.  And, of course, the result of all this is that it tends to fix attention upon matters that are indifferent and to make of them matters of vital importance.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): If we really believe a truth, we shall be decided about it. But certainly we are not to show our decision by that obstinate, furious, wolfish bigotry which cuts off every other body from the chance and hope of salvation and the possibility of being regenerate or even decently honest if they happen to differ from us about the color of a scale of the great leviathan. Some individuals appear to be naturally cut on the cross; they are manufactured to be rasps, and rasp they will. Sooner than not quarrel with you they would raise a question upon the color of invisibility, or the weight of a nonexistent substance. They are up in arms with you, not because of the importance of the question under discussion, but because of the far greater importance of their being always the Pope of the party.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): As we grow older we have less patience with those who demand that others must adopt their interpretation of Scripture on all points.

MATTHEW HENRY: Well, this was the disease, and we see it remaining in the church to this day; the like differences, in like manner mismanaged, are still the disturbers of the church’s peace.

 

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The Weaned Child of God

Posted on March 15, 2019 by The Editor

Psalm 131:2,3

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): David was as a weaned child.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Weaned from what?

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): From the world―the riches, honours, pleasures, and profits of it; as well as from nature, from self, from our own righteousness, and all dependence upon it.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): God’s design is to wean us from everything down here, to bring us to the place where we have no reliance upon material and human resources, to cast us completely upon Himself.

CHARLES BRADLEY (1789-1871): Let us inquire now into the sources of this frame of mind―how we get it. One thing is certain: it is not our work. We do not bring ourselves to it. No infant weans itself. The truth is, it is God that must wean us from the world. We shall never leave it of our own accord. It is God’s own right hand that must draw us from it.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): His daily providential dispensations are suited to wean our attachment from everything here, and to convince us that this cannot be our rest.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Who does not see how trials wean us from the world, and purify us from our dross? Nothing tends more to wean us from the world, than the opposition we meet from worldly men.

WILLIAM JAY: We love the world, and it deceives us. We depend on creatures, and they fail us, and pierce us through with many sorrows. We enter forbidden paths, and follow after our lovers; and our way is hedged up with thorns.

CHARLES BRADLEY: At other times the Lord removes from us the thing we love. But He weans us most from the earth by giving us better food.

WILLIAM JAY: The enjoyment of a greater good subdues the relish of a lesser.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): All that is true. But there is something more than that.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Indeed there is.

CHARLES BRADLEY: Weanedness of soul differs essentially from that disgust with the world, to which its ill-usage and meanness sometimes give rise. It is one thing to be angry with the world, or ashamed of it, and another to be weaned from it. Alter the world, ennoble it, and many a proud mind that now despises it, would court it. It is different also from that weariness of spirit which generally follows a free indulgence in earthly enjoyments. There is such a thing as wearing out the affections. Solomon appears to have done this at one period of his life.

JAMES VAUGHAN (1774-1857): A mere apathetic state is the very opposite of obedience.

CHARLES BRADLEY: This weanedness of soul pre-supposes a power left in the soul of loving and desiring. It is not the destruction of its appetite, but the controlling and changing of it. A weaned child still hungers, but it hungers no more after the food that once delighted it; it is quiet without it; it can feed on other things: so a soul weaned from the world, still pants as much as ever for food and happiness, but it no longer seeks them in worldly things, or desires to do so. There is nothing in the world that it feels necessary for its happiness―it knows that it can do without them, and it is ready to do without them whenever God pleases.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677):  Though the weaned child has not what it would have, or what it naturally most desireth, the milk of the breast, yet it is contented with what the mother giveth: it rests upon her love and provision. So are we to be content with what providence alloweth us: Hebrews 13:5, “Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have;” and Philippians 4:11, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” With such a simplicity of submission should we rest and depend upon God.

ROBERT HAWKER: Yet it is a long time before they are fully weaned.

JAMES VAUGHAN: Observe, the “child”—which is drawn for us to copy―is “weaned:” the process is complete; it has been truly disciplined; the lesson is learned; and now it rests in its “weaning.” The whole image expresses a repose which follows a struggle.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I was once conversing with a very excellent aged minister and while we were talking about our attitude and feelings, he said, “When I read that passage in the Psalm, ‘My soul is even as a weaned child,’ I wish it were true of me, but I think I should have to make an alteration of one syllable and then it would exactly describe me at times—‘My soul is even as a weaning, rather than a weaned child,’ for,” said he, “with the infirmities of old age, I fear I get fretful and peevish and anxious. And when the day is over I do not feel that I have been in so calm, resigned and trustful a frame of mind as I could desire.”

WILLIAM JAY: The very form of expression, “I have behaved and quieted myself,” reminds us of some risings which were with difficulty subdued. The task to the mother is trying and troublesome. The infant cries, and seems to sob out his heart. He thinks it very hard in her, and knows not what she means by her seeming cruelty, and the mother’s fondness renders all her firmness necessary to keep her at the process; and sometimes she also weeps at the importunity of his dear looks, and big tears, and stretched-out hands. But it must be done—So it is with us.

C. H. SPURGEON: Why is it desirable to be even as a weaned child? It is excellent in every way―for when you are weaned, your desires will no longer worry you. Curb desire and you have struck at the root of half your sorrow! He smarts not under poverty who has learned to be content. He frets not under affliction who is submissive to the Father’s will and lays aside his own. When your desires are held within bounds, your temptations to rebel are ended. You wanted this and you wanted that, and so you quarreled with God—and your Lord and you were seldom on good terms. He did not choose to pamper you and you wanted Him to and so you fretted like a weaning child. Now you leave it to His will and you have peace. The strife is over. Your soul is quieted and behaves itself becomingly. Now also, your resentments against those who injured you are gone. You were angry with a certain person, but your pettishness has ended with your weaning—you see that God sent him to do this which has troubled you and you accept his hard words and cruel actions as from God—and by His Grace, you are angry no more. You do not kick and struggle, now, against your condition and position. And you no longer murmur and complain from day to day as if you were harshly dealt with.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Now the soul trusts in God; trusts Him at all times and under all circumstances; trusts Him in the darkest hour, under the gloomiest dispensation; trusts Him when His providences look dark and lowering, and God seems to hide Himself; yes, trusts Him “though He slay.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This is a hard lesson, and a high attainment, but it is what Christ has called His people to.

 

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Honourable Humility: Thomas Manton

Posted on March 8, 2019 by The Editor

James 4:6

God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Humility is the sweet spice that grows from poverty of spirit.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): The most holy men are always the most humble men.

WILLIAM HARRIS (1675-1740): There is a remarkable passage to this purpose in Thomas Manton’s Exposition of James, in which he expresses the humble acknowledgment of his fault. He delivered it with tears in his eyes. It is on James 1:19, “Be slow to speak.” “I remember,” says he, “my faults this day; I cannot excuse myself from much of crime and sin in it. I have been in the ministry these ten years, and yet not fully completed the thirtieth year of my age—the Lord forgive my rash intrusion.”

WILLIAM BATES (1625-1699): Thomas Manton was deeply affected with the sense of his frailty and unworthiness. He considered the infinite purity of God, and the perfection of His law, the rule of duty; and by that humbling light discovered his manifold defects.

WILLIAM HARRIS: He was born in the year 1620, at Lawrence-Lydiat, in the county of Somerset. His father and both his grandfathers were ministers. He was qualified to enter academic learning at the age of fourteen, which was very unusual in those days. But his parents, either judging him too young, or loath to part with him so soon, kept him a year longer before he was sent to Oxford. He was placed in Wadham College in the year 1635, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1639. By a course of unwearied diligence, joined with great intellectual endowments, he was early qualified for the work of the ministry, and took orders much sooner than was usual, and than he himself approved upon maturer thoughts, after he had more experience.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Manton was the best collector of sense of the Puritan age.

WILLIAM BATES: I heard the greatest men of those times sometimes preach a mean sermon, but I never heard Thomas Manton do so on any occasion.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Manton once preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral; a great crowd went to listen to him.

WILLIAM HARRIS: While he was minister at Covent Garden, he was invited to preach before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, and the Companies of the city at St. Paul’s. He chose some difficult subject, in which he had opportunity of displaying his judgment and learning, and appearing to the best advantage. He was heard with the admiration and applause of the more intelligent part of the audience; and was invited to dine with the Lord Mayor, and received public thanks for his performance. But upon his return in the evening to Covent Garden, a poor man gently plucked him by the sleeve, and asked if he had preached that day before the Lord Mayor. He replied, he was. “Sir,” says the man, “I came with earnest desires after the Word of God, in hopes of getting some good to my soul, but I was greatly disappointed; for I could not understand a great deal of what you said; you were quite above me.” Manton replied, with tears in his eyes, “Friend, if I did not give you a sermon, you have given me one; and, by the grace of God, I will never play the fool to preach in such a manner again.”

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): An humble man will never be a heretic: show him his error, and he will soon retract it.

JAMES USSHER (1581-1656): Manton was one of the best preachers in England―a voluminous preacher.

WILLIAM HARRIS: Not that he was ever long, or tedious; but he had the art of reducing the substance of whole volumes into a narrow compass, and representing it to great advantage…This will appear the less surprising, if we consider the great care he took about them. He generally wrote the heads and principle branches first, and often wrote them over twice afterwards. When his sermon did not please him, nor the matter open kindly, he would lay it aside for that time, though it were Saturday night; and sit up all night to prepare a sermon upon an easier subject, and more to his satisfaction. If a good thought came into his mind in the night, he would light his candle, and put on his gown, and write sometimes for an hour together at a table by his bedside.

C. H. SPURGEON: That which cost thought is likely to excite thought.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Humility is very necessary to a profitable perusal of the Scriptures…A proud Christian, that is, one who has a high conceit of his own abilities and attainments, is no less a contradiction, than a sober drunkard, or a generous miser.  All other seeming excellencies are of no real value, unless accompanied with this; and though a person should appear to have little more than a consciousness of his own insufficiency, and a teachable dependent spirit, and is waiting upon the Lord in His appointed way for instruction and a blessing, he will infallibly thrive as a tree planted by the waterside; for God, who resisteth the proud, has promised to give grace to the humble.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God delights to advance the humble.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Manton occupied for several years a very prominent position. Did Oliver Cromwell require a minister to offer up prayer at the public ceremony of his undertaking the Protectorship? Manton was the minister. Did the Long Parliament want a special sermon preached before its members? Manton was frequently ordered to be the preacher. Did the famous Westminster Assembly want a commendatory preface written to their Confession and Catechisms of world-wide reputation? They committed the execution of it to the pen of Thomas Manton. Was a committee of Triers appointed to examine persons who were to be admitted into the ministry? Manton was a leading member of this committee. Was a movement made by the Presbyterians, after Cromwell’s death, to restore the monarchy and bring back Charles II? Manton was a leader in the movement. Was an effort made after the Restoration to bring about a reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and the Nonconformists? Manton was one of the commissioners to act in the matter in the unhappy Savoy Conference.

WILLIAM HARRIS: Though he was a man of great gravity, and of a regular unaffected piety, yet he was extremely cheerful and pleasant among his friends, and upon every proper occasion…He greatly disliked the forbidding rigours of some good people, and the rapturous pretensions of others; and used to say that he had found, by long observation, that they who would be over-godly at one time, would be under-godly at another.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770):  A good woman, charmed with Manton, said, “Oh, sir, you have made an excellent sermon today; I wish I had your heart.” “Do you?” said he, “good woman, you had better not wish for it; for if you had it, you would wish for your own again.”

J. C. RYLE: Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself.

 

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Am I a Child of God?

Posted on March 1, 2019 by The Editor

Ephesians 1:15; 1 John 3:14

I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints.

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Love to the brethren is oft given as a character of a true saint.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Why is this so important? Why is this loving of the brethren something that comes in as an acid test immediately after faith in the Lord Jesus?

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Faith cannot be separated from love.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Upon this single evidence, John grounds an assurance of heaven—the Apostle having said, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you,” immediately subjoins, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” By the manner of his expression, he sufficiently intimates that the want of this love is so universal, till the Lord plants it in the heart, that if we possess it, we may thereby be sure He has given us of His Spirit and delivered us from condemnation.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Why is love for the brethren an infallible evidence and assurance of regeneration?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Oh, I’ll tell you, it is an absolute proof of life―this love. You see, by nature, we all hate one another. You dispute that? Well, the apostle Paul says so, and I think he’s saying the truth―this is how he puts it: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful―and hating one another,” Titus 3:3…The natural man, the man who’s not a Christian, the man who is not born again, he has no interest in Christian people, he dislikes them, he finds them dull, uninteresting, downbeat―those are his terms about them. And he certainly wouldn’t like to spend a number of hours in the presence of such a person.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): If we do not love the brethren, we are still dead.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Therefore, you see, if it can be said of a man that he loves the saints, you can be absolutely sure that the man has been given a new nature; he’s been born again.

A. W. PINK: Love to the brethren is the fruit and effect of a new and supernatural birth, wrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit, as the blessed evidence of our having been chosen in Christ by the Divine Father, before the world was―we love the brethren, because they have been made “partakers of the Divine nature,” 2 Peter 1:4.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: So you see, if we love the saints, it is a proof that the Holy Spirit is in us…I ask myself, why do I love these saints? And the answer is I love them because they are in the same relationship to God as I am.  These are the people who have been segregated out of the world, chosen of God, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. These people and I are walking together through this world of sin in the direction of heaven!  I’m going to spend my eternity with people like this…We belong to the same Father, to the same household, to the same family, we are going to the same home.

MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): I have this one evidence, if I have no other, of my election of God—I love all the saints in the bowels of Jesus Christ. I feel a oneness with them that I feel to no other.

C. H. SPURGEON: Have you a love towards the saints? Well, then you are a saint yourself! The goats will not love the sheep. And if you love the sheep, it is an evidence that you are a sheep yourself…Hypocrites do not love one another—Listen to them! They are always denouncing other people—and this is no mark of love to the brethren. They have a keen eye for the imperfections of others, but they have no love to those they censure. We must love the brethren or we lack the most plain and most necessary evidence of salvation.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: You see, a Christian is a man who’s got a new test―he’s only interested in one thing: Is he a child of God? Is he my brother? Is this my sister? Are we related?

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Here is a test of our relationship to the family of God that never fails.

JOHN NEWTON: But as the heart is deceitful, and people may be awfully mistaken in the judgment they form of themselves, we have need to be very sure that we rightly understand what it is to love the brethren, before we draw the Apostle’s conclusion from it, and admit is as an evidence in our own favour, that we have passed from death unto life.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): It is possible to love a saint, yet not to love him as a saint; we may love him for something else—for his ingenuity, or because he is affable and bountiful.  A beast loves a man, but not as he is a man, but because he feeds him, and gives him provender.

JOHN NEWTON: A “party” love is also common. The objects of this are those who are of the same sentiment, worship in the same way, or are attached to the same minister. They who are united in such narrow and separate associations, may express warm affections, without giving any proof of true Christian love.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): As soon as the love of God was shed abroad in my soul, I loved all, of whatsoever denomination, who loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity of heart.

A. W. PINK: Wherever the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, the affections of that soul will necessarily flow unto all His people…If we love one saint as a “saint”—for what we see of Christ in him—we shall love all saints.

JOHN CALVIN: If we would so love the saints as to please God, we must bear in mind that their names are written in heaven and on Christ’s heart; otherwise we shall love some because they are lovely, and dislike others because of their blemishes.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: All the saints. Not only some of them. Not only the ones you happen to like, but all the saints. Not only the clever ones. Not only the learned ones. Not only the pleasant ones. Not only the ones who belong to a particular social strata. No, no, all of the saints.

C. H. SPURGEON: Yes, a love even to the bad-tempered ones, the irritating ones, the unsaint-like “saints.”

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Then, let every Christian professor test his religion by this grace. Let him who has been prone to retire within his own narrow enclosure ask himself the question, “If I love not my brother whom I have seen, how can I love God whom I have not seen?”

RALPH ERSKINE (1685-1752): But how may we know, if our love toward the children of God be of the right sort?  This is answered, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments,” 1 John 5:2.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Do I show evidence of a regenerate soul? Do I love the brethren? Do I love the commandments of God? Is the Word of God sweet to me, and do I delight to feed on it?

 

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God’s Delights

Posted on February 22, 2019 by The Editor

Proverbs 11:20; Psalm 147:11; Jeremiah 9:24

They that are of a froward heart are abomination to the LORD: but such as are upright in their way are his delight.

The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): “In these things I delight”―both in Himself and others.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It concerns us to know what God hates and what He loves, that we may govern ourselves accordingly, may avoid His displeasure and recommend ourselves to His favour. Now here we are told that nothing is more offensive to God than hypocrisy and double-dealing, for these are signified by the word which we translate “frowardness.” And that nothing is more pleasing to God than sincerity and plain-dealing: “such as are upright in their way,” such as aim and act with integrity.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Integrity and uprightness, indeed, give God delight.

HENRY HAMMOND (1605-1660): “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” Psalm 51:6. The Hebrew word אמת, [translated] truth, ordinarily signifies sincerity, uprightness, and integrity; and so “truth in the inward parts” is equivalent to a hearty sincere obedience, not only of the actions, but of the very thoughts and affections to God―this God is said to will, or “desire,” or delight in, and so to command and require of us.

JOHN CALVIN: In all things God delights in truth, but especially in the worship due to His majesty―God delights in the pure and sincere worship of the faithful.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): God delights in the prayers and praises of Christian families and individuals, but He has a special eye to the assemblies of the faithful, and He has a special delight in their devotions in their church capacity. The great festivals, when the crowds surrounded the temple gates, were fair in the Lord’s eyes, and even such is the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven…Know you not that Christ’s delights are with the sons of men and that the holiness, the patience, the devotion, the zeal, the love and the faith of His people are precious to Him? The whole creation affords no fairer sight to the Most High than an assembly of His sanctified people in whom He sees the beauty of His own Character reflected.

JOHN CALVIN: The Lord takes the highest delight in the true observation of the Sabbath―Nothing can be more pleasing or acceptable to God, than the observation of the Sabbath, and sincere worship.

C. H. SPURGEON: Spiritual qualities are His delight. He cares most for those emotions which centre in Himself, the fear which He approves is fear of Him, and the hope which He accepts is hope in His mercy…And especially if there is one thing in a saint which delights God more than another, it is the choice grace of faith.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): He delights more in our knowing Him to be merciful and to be gracious, which indeed is seen in our believing on Him, than in all our obedience which we perform to Him.

MATTHEW HENRY: A humble confidence in the goodness of God’s nature is very pleasing to Him, as that which turns to the glory of that attribute in which He most glories―the reasons why God pardons sin, and keeps not His anger for ever, are all taken from within Himself; it is because “He delights in mercy,” Micah 7:18…God delights to show kindness.

JOHN CALVIN: God then is said to take delight in doing good because He is, in His nature, inclined to goodness and mercy.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Nothing can please Him better than having the opportunity, from the return and repentance of the sinner, to show him that mercy without which he must perish everlastingly.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Mercy is natural to Him, abundant with Him, and exercised according to His sovereign will and pleasure, very delightful to Him; He takes pleasure in showing mercy to miserable creatures, and in those that hope in it; this is the spring of pardon, which streams through the blood of Christ…it is what God delights in, and therefore He pardons freely; it is large and abundant, and hence He pardons fully.

C. H. SPURGEON: He is at home in this blessed work! With God, it is His nature to forgive—He is Love—and mercy is a drop from the honeycomb of love. God must be just, but to punish is His left-handed labour, while to forgive is His right-handed work. He is happy at it! He finds pleasure in man’s turning to Him and finding life.

ADAM CLARKE: God delights in mercy―God delights not in the rod; judgment is “His strange work,” Isaiah 28:21.

JOHN CALVIN: God delights in judgment as well as in mercy―for as His judgment is right, He delights in it.

WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906):  God delights to manifest Himself in all His fulness.

MATTHEW HENRY: “The LORD loveth judgment,” Psalm 37:28. He delights in doing justice Himself and He delights in those that do justice…Those that are elevated God delights to abase, and commonly does it in the course of His providence: The proud, that magnify themselves, bid defiance to the God above them and trample on all about them, are such as God resists and will destroy—see how God delights not only to bring down proud men, but to bring them down in such a way as is most mortifying, and pours most contempt upon them. Herod is not only destroyed, but destroyed by worms, that the pride of his glory may be effectually stained, Acts 12:23.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): God delights to cross such vain boasters, and to confute their confidences, that speak and live as if their lives were riveted upon eternity.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): They who abuse their power, and walk in pride, God delights to abase.

JOHN TRAPP: God delights to retaliate to bloody and deceitful men especially; as were easy to instance in the Egyptians, Adonibezek, Agag―Thus God delights to retaliate and proportion jealousy to jealousy, provocation to provocation; so frowardness to frowardness, contrariety to contrariety. God delights to give men their own, as good as they brought, to pay them home in their own coin, or, with the merciful to show Himself merciful, and with the froward to wrestle, Psalm 18:25,26.

JOHN CALVIN: If we framed our life in obedience to God, we should be His delight, and, on the other hand, He would be our delight.

WILLIAM KELLY: The spirit of a Christian servant is not doing merely what is commanded, but the doing whatsoever delights God: the desire of the servant should be to please the Master.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): In particular, consult the sacred records, and see what those things are in which your God delights. Does He delight to honour His only dear Son? Let your whole soul engage in this blessed work, looking to Him for all that you want, “receiving every thing out of His fulness,” and devoting yourselves in body, soul, and spirit, to His service. Does God delight in holiness? Seek it in its utmost heights, that ye may “be holy as he is holy, and perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

C H. SPURGEON: Beloved, nothing so delights God, next to the Person of His own dear Son, as the sight of one of those whom He has made like unto the Lord Jesus!

 

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The Dangers of Solitude

Posted on February 15, 2019 by The Editor

Genesis 2:18; Ecclesiastes 4:9

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Learn here, solitude is not suited for man―though man was possessed of all the bliss of Paradise, one thing was still wanting to his felicity. He was alone; nor amidst the various orders of creatures could find any like unto himself. Angels were rational spirits, but incorporeal; beasts corporeal, but irrational. In his state of innocence society was needful.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Though there was an upper world of angels and a lower world of brutes, and he between them, yet there being none of the same nature and rank of beings with himself, none that he could converse familiarly with.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): As it holds true in things natural and civil, so in things spiritual and religious; man is a sociable creature, was made to be so; and it was the judgment of God, which is according to truth, and who can never err, that it was not good for man to be alone.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): It is neither for his profit, nor his comfort.

MATTHEW HENRY: It is not for his comfort―It is a pleasure to him to exchange knowledge and affection with those of his own kind, to inform and to be informed, to love and to be beloved. What God here says of the first man, Solomon says of all men that “two are better than one, and woe to him that is alone.” If there were but one man in the world, what a melancholy man must he needs be! Perfect solitude would turn a paradise into a desert, and a palace into a dungeon.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): But although God pronounced, concerning Adam, that it would not be profitable for him to be alone, yet I do not restrict the declaration to his person alone, but rather regard it as a common law of man’s vocation, so that every one ought to receive it as said to himself, that solitude is not good, excepting only him whom God exempts as by a special privilege.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): If in a state of innocence “it was not good for a man to be alone,” much more in a world of care and trouble “two are better than one” for mutual support, helpfulness, and sympathy.

JOHN CALVIN: In our best state in this world we have need of one another’s help; for we are members one of another, and “the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee,” 1 Corinthians 12:21.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those therefore are foolish who are selfish and would be placed alone in the earth…Hence Solomon infers the mischief of solitude: “Woe to him that is alone.” He lies exposed to many temptations which good company and friendship would prevent and help him to guard against; he wants that advantage which a man has by the countenance of his friend, as iron has of being sharpened by iron.―Virtuous and gracious affections are excited by good society, and Christians warm one another by provoking one another to love and to good works.

WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): Interchange of affection and interest is good for Man. No wonder that solitude is in general a most severe punishment short of death.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Solitude is of itself a certain cross, and especially so in such great torments, in which it is most grievous to be immersed without an example and without a companion.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674): Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Lonely sorrow falls to the lot of not a few.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): We hear a great deal about the solitude in which men of genius live, and how all great souls are necessarily lonely. That is true, and that solitude of great men is one of the compensations which run through all life, and make the lot of the many little, more enviable than that of the few great. ‘The little hills rejoice together on every side,’ but far above their smiling companionships, the Alpine peak lifts itself into the cold air, and though it be ‘visited all night by troops of stars,’ it is lonely amid the silence and the snow.

C. H. SPURGEON: There are perils in company, but there are perils, likewise, in our loneliness…Guard yourselves in solitude, lest selfishness and pride creep in.

MARTIN LUTHER: I have my worst temptations when I am by myself.

C. H. SPURGEON: When we mix with the world, we know that we shall be tempted. In our business in the banking-house, on the farm, on the vessel, in the street, we expect that in the world we shall have temptation. But if you could get out of the world, you would still be tempted! Jesus Christ went right away from human society into the wilderness and, “then” was He tempted by the devil. Solitude is no preservative against temptation from Satan!

MARTIN LUTHER: Whosoever is in honest company is ashamed to sin, or at least has no opportunity for it―more and greater sins are committed when people are alone than when they are in society. When Eve, in paradise, walked by herself, the devil deceived her. In solitary places are committed murders, robberies, adulteries, etc.; for in solitude the devil has place and occasion to mislead people.

C. H. SPURGEON: I am afraid that, sometimes, solitude is a help to temptations.

MATTHEW HENRY: Solitude has its temptations as well as company, and particularly to uncleanness.

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): The remainder of corrupt nature often renders solitude as dangerous, as the world itself can be.

MARTIN LUTHER: I myself have found that I never fell into more sin than when I was alone.

C. H. SPURGEON: Beware of falling into solitary sin. Certain young men and women, when alone, pull out a wicked novel which they would not like to be seen reading. Others will have their sly nips though they would be reputed very temperate. If a man is right with God, he is in his best company when alone, and he seeks therein to honour his God and not to grieve Him. Surely, when I am alone with God, I am bound to use my best manners. Do nothing which you would be afraid to have known. Be in the fear of the Lord when you are so much alone that you have no fear of men.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): O, what can be hidden from the all-seeing eye of God? “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance,” Psalm 90:8. Those committed in darkness and privacy are easily discovered.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): A Christian is never out of the view of God’s eye.

C. H. SPURGEON: You are alone—maintain the fear of the Lord in your solitude.

 

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Enoch’s Prophesy & the Prophetic Symbolism of His Departure

Posted on February 9, 2019 by The Editor

Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5; Jude 14,15

Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. .

Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied…saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is expressly called a prophet; and Jude has preserved a fragment of one of his prophecies, relative to the corruption of the ante-diluvian world, and the approaching judgments of God.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): This prophecy is not recorded in the Old Testament.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We read in Deuteronomy 33:2 of the Lord’s coming “with ten thousands of saints.”

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): That Enoch wrote a prophecy, and left it behind him in writing, does not appear from hence, or elsewhere―Enoch’s prophecy was not written, as we know of.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Perhaps it was not written, but oral.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Some say that this prophecy of Enoch was preserved by tradition in the Jewish church; others that the apostle Jude was immediately inspired with the notice of it: be this as it may, it is certain that there was such a prophecy of ancient date, of long standing, and universally received in the Old Testament church; and it is a main point of our New Testament creed.

C. H. SPURGEON: When Enoch thus prophesied, we do not know. That he did so was revealed to Jude and he, here, tells us of it―how Jude knew that Enoch said that, I cannot tell—it is another instance of Divine Inspiration.

CHARLES SIMEON: Whatever means Jude attained the knowledge of it, whether by tradition, or by some written memorial, or by immediate inspiration, we may be sure that it was delivered by Enoch; and we may be thankful that such a precious fragment of inspired truth has been preserved to us.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Enoch prophesied that God would come, and, with a flood, punish that impious race among whom he lived, as well as punish the impenitent with everlasting destruction. By a parity of reason, Jude intimates, that the wicked of his day―and of all ages―may also expect to meet with the due reward of their deeds.

ROBERT HAWKER: It should seem from what is here said, that there were characters in those days not unlike the scoffers the Apostle Peter describes that should come in the last days, who derided the day of the Lord’s coming, 2 Peter 3:3,4―“There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?”

JOHN GILL: With respect to Christ’s coming to judgment, that is certain from prophecies, particularly from the prophecy of Enoch―this being prefaced with a “Behold,” shows the certainty of His coming, which nothing is more certain, and to be depended on, as appears from Enoch’s prophecy, and others of the Old Testament; from Christ’s own promise; from the testimony of angels; from the words of the apostles; and from the institution of the Lord’s supper―“till He come,” 1 Corinthians 11:26―and from the general expectation of the saints.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is clear that Enoch encountered opposition. I am certain that he did so from the context in Jude, because the passage in Jude has to do with “murmurers” and “complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaking great swelling words”―It is clear that they spoke against Enoch, they rejected his testimony, they grieved his spirit and he mourned that in this they were speaking against God. For he speaks “of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

CHARLES SIMEON: He was a bold and faithful witness for God, and doubtless incensed many against him. And “God took him” from a persecuting and ungodly world, who probably enough were seeking to destroy him on account of his pungent admonitions. It is said “he was not found.” This may refer to some search made by his friends―see 2 Kings 2:16;  or rather, by his enemies―see 1 Kings 18:10.

C. H. SPURGEON: Enoch’s departure was a testimony. What did the Blessed Spirit say by the fact that, “he was not, for God took him,” but this—there is a future state. Men had begun to doubt it, but when they said, “Where is Enoch?” and those who had witnessed his departure said, “God took him,” it was to them an evidence that there was a God and that there was another world. And when they asked, “But where is his body?” there was another lesson―that the body is capable of immortality!

CHARLES SIMEON: While Enoch was in the body, he could not endure the full splendour of the divine glory―but God translated him, both in body and soul, to the highest heavens; making him thereby not only an eminent type of Christ’s ascension, but an earnest and pledge to us, that our bodies shall hereafter be raised.

C. H. SPURGEON: He could not bear testimony to the resurrection, for he did not die.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): Andrew Bonar has said that Enoch took a long walk one day, and has not got back yet. With one bound he leaped the river of death, and walked the crystal pavement of heaven…Moses, the great earthly chronicler, tells us nothing of the manner of his translation, beyond this―“he was not, for God took him.”

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): What God did for Enoch, He can, and will yet do, for a whole generation of saints.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those that are alive at our Lord’s coming will be caught up into the clouds, without dying, 1 Thessalonians 4:11. But it is plain from 1 Corinthians 15 that it will not be without changing from corruption to incorruption. The frame of their living bodies shall be thus altered, as well as those that are dead; and this “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”―this corruptible body must be made incorruptible, this mortal body must be changed into immortal body.

D. L. MOODY: Those simple, yet mysterious words, “he was not, for God took him” seem written in anticipation of that coming mystery, when the world shall wonder because from the bed, or the mill, or the open field, one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.

THOMAS COKE: How illustrious was the prophesy with which Enoch was inspired―and which shall surely be accomplished in its season! The day is now much nearer, when the Lord will come with ten thousands of his saints: may the ungodly remember it, and suppress in time their speeches which will then assuredly be reproved, and repent of their deeds, which, if unrepented of, however forgotten now, will be brought into open view, and draw down upon their heads the destruction which at present seems to linger.

 

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Sowing the Wind & Reaping the Whirlwind

Posted on February 1, 2019 by The Editor

Job 4:8; Hosea 8:7

They that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same.

They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): To “sow the wind” is a proverbial expression for labouring in vain.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Lost labour—or, which is much worse, labour that will undo and tear to pieces him that labours: both these are in the verse. Man’s life and labour is a seed that will bring forth fruit.

CHARLES SIMEON: From the seed which they sow, we may easily perceive, what they may expect to reap.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): As the husbandman reaps the same kind of grain which he has sown, but in far greater abundance, thirty, sixty, or one hundred fold; so he who sows the wind shall have a whirlwind to reap. The seed shall be multiplied into a tempest so they who sow the seed of unrighteousness shall reap a harvest of judgment. This is a fine, bold, and energetic metaphor.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): The sin being as the seed, and the punishment as the fruit that cometh of it.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” Galatians 6:7. It is an unalterable law of the Divine government that as we sow, so shall we reap. That principle is enunciated and illustrated all through the Scriptures. God will not be defied with impugnity.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Both Scripture and history prove this truth.

A. W. PINK: For the last fifty years Christendom has attempted to serve both God and mammon: and having sown the wind, God is now making us reap the whirlwind. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Conditions which occur in the profane world are but a repercussion of those which prevailed first in the professing world; the state of things in the political, industrial, and social realm, is only a reflection of things in the ecclesiastical realm. God’s Law was banished from the pulpit and the assembly, before lawlessness became rife in the community. Discipline ceased to be enforced in the local church before it disappeared from the home; where the wife refuses to submit to her husband, the children are sure to defy their parents—sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

CHARLES SIMEON: Is it not manifest, that the generality who call themselves Christians are influenced only by the things of time and sense; and that their principles and pursuits are altogether earthly? Know then, ye lovers of this present evil world, that, if God’s Word may be depended on, you are deluding yourselves to your eternal ruin.

JOHN TRAPP: Solomon saith, “He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity,” Proverbs 22:8. But our prophet here saith more. He that soweth the wind of iniquity shall reap the terrible tempest of inconceivable misery.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): They do not reap the wind, but the law of increase comes in, and they reap the whirlwind.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): They have indulged sinful passions in this life, and those passions, blown up, as from a wind to a whirlwind, shall be their future companions and tormentors.

MATTHEW POOLE: The whirlwind is a violent, tearing, and dissipating tempest, which beareth down and destroyeth all that is in its way; an emblem of the wrath of God breaking out.

CHARLES SIMEON: “A whirlwind” is a figure used to represent extraordinary calamities. And such is the harvest which they will reap in due season. Their calamities will be, sudden, irresistible, and tremendous. It will be sudden—The corn ripens gradually for the sickle, and its fate is foreseen; but the destruction of the ungodly cometh suddenly and at an instant. They indeed have many warnings from all which they see around them; but they put the evil day far from them, and think it will never come, 2 Peter 3:4. Thus it was with the whole world before the Deluge. Though Noah preached to them for many years, they would not regard him; and were taken by surprise at last, as much as if no notice had been given them. Thus also it will be with all who reject the Gospel salvation.

C. H. SPURGEON: Who shall help them in that hour of terror?

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): There will be no means possible for them to avoid the terror nor the punishment of that day.

CHARLES SIMEON: It is irresistible—Sinners of every description can withstand the word spoken by their fellow-creatures; but they will not be able to resist God when He shall call them into judgment. And it will be tremendous—Nothing can be conceived more dreadful than the desolation made by whirlwinds. Yet this suggests a very inadequate idea of the ruin that will come on the ungodly.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): When I was at the Paris Exhibition in 1867 I noticed there a little oil painting, only about a foot square, and the face was the most hideous I had ever seen. It was said to be about seven hundred years old. On the paper attached to the painting were the words, “Sowing the tares.” The face looked more like a demon’s than a man’s, and as he sowed these tares, up came serpents and reptiles. They were crawling up on his body; and all around were woods with wolves and animals prowling in them. I have seen that picture many times. Ah! The reaping time is coming. If you “sow to the flesh,” you must “reap corruption,” Galatians 6:8.

C. H. SPURGEON: Therefore let us beware of scattering seeds of sin, for they will produce a terrible harvest of woe!—I shall not enlarge upon what sort of punishment this will be. Suffice it to say that whatever it is, it will be just. The sinner in Hell shall not endure one iota more than he deserves. He shall have the due reward of his deeds—no more. God is not unjust to punish men arbitrarily—I know of no arbitrary condemnation. There is no such thing as sovereign damnation. It will be justice—inflexible, I grant you—but yet not such as shall pass the bounds of due and right desert. God will give to man only the harvest of his own deeds.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): This is so self-evident that it needs no emphasis. Yet how easily we forget it, and how readily we hope that in some strange, unnatural transformation our sinful folly will be so overruled as to produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness. But whether it be in the case of the unsaved worldling, or the failing Christian, the inexorable law will be fulfilled—we reap what we sow. How important then that we walk carefully before God, not permitting ourselves any license which is unbecoming in one who professes to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ.

A. W. PINK: If we sow the wind, we must not be surprised if we reap the whirlwind.

C. H. SPURGEON: Remember, your sins are like sowing for a harvest—And you shall “reap the whirlwind,” unless you speedily repent and seek the Lord.

 

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Incense & The Angel of Incense

Posted on January 26, 2019 by The Editor

Exodus 30:34-36; Leviticus 16:12,13; Revelation 8:1-4

The LORD said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense: of each shall there be a like weight: And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy: And thou shalt beat some of it very small, and put of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee: it shall be unto you most holy.

And [Aaron] shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat.

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Who is this angel-priest? I think you will agree that he can be no created angel. Scripture never speaks of any created angel offering incense with the prayers of saints to make them acceptable to God. The Church of Rome does; but nowhere in the Bible do you get anything of the kind.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): By this angel I understand Christ. Nor, indeed, can what is said of this angel agree to any other but Christ, who is called an Angel, as in Genesis 48:16; and the Angel, or “messenger of the covenant,” Malachi 3:1. Christ is here represented as “having a golden censer.” Here is a manifest allusion to the order of the Jewish worship; they had an altar of incense upon which the high priest was to burn incense every morning and evening, Exodus 30:1,7,8. In the holy of holiest was reserved the golden censer, on which the high priest put the incense when annually he entered there, that the cloud of it might cover the mercy-seat, and so was kept for that service in it, Hebrews 9:4.  

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Now, that symbol of incense is thus used in many places in Scripture―you remember how, when the father of John the Baptist went into the Holy Place: “According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense,” Luke 1:9,10.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): It is the prerogative of Christ to be the only agent in heaven for His saints on earth. In the outward temple we find the whole congregation praying, but into the holy of holi­est entered none but the high priest with his perfume. Every saint is a priest to offer up prayers for himself and others on earth; but Christ only as our High-priest intercedes in heaven for us. The glorious an­gels and saints there no doubt wish well to the church below; but it is Christ’s office to receive the incense of his militant saints’ prayers, which they send up from this outward temple here below to heaven, and to offer it with all their desires to God; so that, to employ any in heaven besides Christ to pray for us, is to put Christ out of office.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): That in general, by incense prayer is signified, the Scripture expressly testifieth.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): David compared his prayers to “incense”―“Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense,” Psalm 141:2.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Prayer is that “incense,” which, according to Malachi’s prediction, “shall be offered unto the name of the Lord in every place,” Malachi 1:11.

JOHN OWEN: And there is a fourfold resemblance between in incense and prayer, in that the incense was “beaten” and pounded before it was used. So doth acceptable prayer proceed from a broken and contrite heart, Psalm 51:17.

A. W. PINK: The incense which was offered in the tabernacle and temple consisted of various spices compounded together, and it was the blending of one with another that made the perfume so fragrant and refreshing.

THOMAS COKE: Was the holy incense compounded of various sweet spices? The graces of the Holy Spirit are the precious ingredients in the effectual prayer of the righteous.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): In this incense how many sweet spices are burned together by the fire of faith―as humility, hope, love, etc., all which come up for a memorial before God, Acts 10:4; and the saints (as Manoah’s angel) ascend up in the flame, and do wondrously, Judges 13:19,20―Prayer goes up without incense, when without thankfulness.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Remember, too, that the incense lay dead, unfragrant, and with no capacity of soaring, till it was kindled; that is to say, unless there is a flame in my heart there will be no rising of my aspirations to God. Cold prayers do not go up more than a foot or two above the ground; they have no power to soar.

THOMAS COKE: The fire which burnt the incense, may denote the fervency of spirit required in acceptable worship. But take heed of the sparks of your own kindling, and lift up holy hands without wrath: for the incense must not be kindled with fire from the kitchen, but from the altar.

JOHN OWEN: Incense was of no use until fire was put under it, and that taken from the altar. Nor is that prayer of any virtue or efficacy which is not kindled by the fire from above, the Holy Spirit of God, which we have from our altar, Christ Jesus.

A. W. PINK: Our prayers, too, are acceptable to God only because our great High Priest adds to them “much incense” and then offers them on the golden altar before the throne. Our spiritual sacrifices are “acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,” 1 Peter 2:5.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): Prayer is acceptable only as offered in His name—and it is the office of faith to realize this glorious fact.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Through Him, all their prayers, and praises, and thanksgivings, come up for a memorial before God, being perfumed with the incense of His precious blood.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): Oh, it is the merit of our Immanuel, who “hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour,” that imparts virtue, priority, and acceptance to the incense of prayer ascending from the heart of the child of God, Ephesians 5:2. Each petition, each desire, each groan, each sigh, each glance, comes up before God with the “smoke of the incense” that ascends from the cross of Jesus and from the “golden altar which is before the throne.” All the imperfection and impurity that mingles with our devotions is separated from each Petition by the atonement of our Mediator, who presents that as sweet incense to God.

JOHN TRAPP: Their pillars of smoke are perfumed with myrrh and frankincense―that is, with the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, those sweet odours poured into the prayers of saints, for want whereof the incense of the wicked is abomination, Isaiah 1:13, as stinking of the hand that offers it.

 

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A Conditional Promise of Our Lord’s Special Blessing

Posted on January 19, 2019 by The Editor

Isaiah 58:13,14

If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Some of God’s promises are general rather than specific; some are conditional, others unconditional; some are fulfilled in this life, others in the world to come…Let it be noted that these promises are conditional, conditional on obeying the preceding exhortations.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): God will keep His promise to you; only see you to it that the way in which He conditions His engagement is carefully observed by you. Only when we fulfill the requirements of a conditional promise can we expect that promise to be fulfilled to us.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Too many of those who profess religion, are, it must be confessed, scarcely, if at all, advancing in the divine life: their evil dispositions still retain such an ascendant over them, as to make them go on heavily all their days. But, if we were to inquire how they spent their Sabbaths, and what efforts they made to glorify God in their public, private, and social duties, we should soon find the reason of their slow progress…A person who has attained to fifty years of age, has had above seven years of Sabbaths. O what blessings might not have been secured in that time, if all those Sabbaths had been sanctified to the Lord! and what judgments does not he merit, who has wasted all of them in a wilful neglect of God! Little as we think of Sabbaths now, we shall find ere long, that the profaning of them has greatly increased our guilt and misery.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): What blessings God had in store for them, if they would make conscience of sabbath sanctification?

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Whatever reference there may be in our text to the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, we cannot doubt but that the promises here made have a higher and more spiritual import. In them we are assured, that, if we really keep the Sabbath as we ought, we shall be blessed with delight in God. There is not any thing which God more delights to honour than a due observance of the Sabbath. We may perform the outward duties of that day, and reap no material benefit: but if we truly and earnestly endeavour to honour God in the way before described, God will draw nigh to us, and reveal himself to us, and fill us with joy and peace in believing. And here we confidently make our appeal to all who have ever laboured to spend a Sabbath to the Lord, whether they have not found such a measure of grace and peace flowing into their souls, as has abundantly recompensed their utmost exertions?

C. H. SPURGEON: There is no doubt that a reverent, happy, joyful keeping of the Sabbath ministers greatly to spiritual advancement. Here is the promise made to those who delight in the Sabbath―“And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Thou shalt enjoy the good of the land of Canaan, which God had promised as a heritage of Jacob and his seed, Genesis 35:12, and feed on the fruits of it. Why doth He say of the “heritage of Jacob” and not of Abraham or Isaac? Because the whole posterity of Jacob was within the covenant, but Ishmael and Esau, one the seed of Isaac, the other the seed of Abraham, were both excluded.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The benefit of such an improvement of the Lord’s day will be great; for, “then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;” abundant consolation will be the blessed fruit; and clearer discoveries of the riches of the grace and love of Christ be made to the soul; so that by experience we shall say, “One day in thy courts is better than a thousand,” Psalm 84:10.

CHARLES SIMEON: And where the Sabbath is thus habitually honoured, we will venture to say, that such happiness will at times flow into the soul, as David experienced, when he said, “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, whilst my mouth praiseth thee with joyful lips,” Psalm 63:5; yes, “they shall be satisfied with the fatness of God’s house; and he will make them drink of the river of his pleasures,” Psalm 36:8.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771):  “And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth;” to live above the world, and to have their conversation in heaven; to be in the utmost safety, and enjoy the greatest plenty, especially of spiritual things.

MATTHEW HENRY: Those that honour God and His sabbath He will thus honour. If God by His grace enable us to live above the world, and so to manage it as not only not to be hindered by it, but to be furthered and carried on by it in our journey towards heaven, then He makes us “to ride on the high places of the earth.”

THOMAS COKE: Their prayers shall be heard and answered. Thou shalt call and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am, a very present help in trouble; while they are speaking, He will hear; He will be near them, when affrighted they cry to Him.

CHARLES SIMEON: Victory over our spiritual enemies—this seems to be the import of that expression, “I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth:” compare Deuteronomy 32:13 & Deuteronomy 33:29; and it shall be fulfilled to all who conscientiously improve their Sabbaths to the glory of their God.

THOMAS COKE: They shall be honoured as the instruments of building up the church of God.

MATTHEW HENRY: “The mouth of the Lord has spoken it; you may take God’s Word for it, for He cannot lie nor deceive; what His mouth has spoken His hand will give, His hand will do, and not one iota or tittle of His good promise shall fall to the ground.”

HUDSON TAYLOR (1832-1905): He means just what He says and will do all that He has promised.

CHARLES SIMEON: What blessings may not you yourselves expect at His hands?

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): The Lord will guide continually, it is said. He will satisfy thy soul in drought. He will make fat thy bones.

MATTHEW HENRY: Blessed, therefore, thrice blessed, is he that doeth this, and lays hold on it, that keeps the sabbath from polluting it.

 

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