Abraham’s Spiritual Discernment

Posted on September 14, 2018 by The Editor

Genesis 18:1,2; John 8:58

And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked…

Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): When our Lord used these remarkable words, Abraham had been dead and buried at least 1850 years! And yet he is said to have seen our Lord’s day! How wonderful that sounds! Yet it was quite true. Not only did Abraham “see” our Lord and talk to Him when He “appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre,” the night before Sodom was destroyed, but by faith he looked forward to the day of our Lord’s incarnation yet to come, and as he looked he “was glad.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Abraham rejoiced, or he leaped at it. The word, though it commonly signifies “rejoicing,” must here signify a transport of desire rather than of joy, for otherwise the latter part of the verse [says the same thing twice in different words]—he “saw it, and was glad.” He reached out, or stretched himself forth, that he might “see my day.”

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): What were Abraham’s views of Christ?

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Christ appeared to him, as also to Jacob, and, as some think, in the likeness too that He was to take.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Possibly he had likewise a peculiar revelation either of Christ’s first or second coming.

MATTHEW HENRY: There is room to conjecture that Abraham had some vision of Christ and His day, for his own private satisfaction, which is not, nor must be, recorded in his story, like that of Daniel’s, which must be “shut up, and sealed unto the time of the end,” Daniel 12:4. Some understand it of the sight Abraham had of it in the other world―Calvin mentions this sense of it.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): They explain it to mean, that Abraham, being already dead, enjoyed the presence of Christ, when He appeared to the world; and so they make the time of desiring and the time of seeing to be different―but I do not know if so refined an exposition agrees with Christ’s words.

MATTHEW HENRY: It is more commonly understood of some sight he had, in this world, of Christ’s day.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I understand the term, “Christ’s day,” to mean, first, His day of humiliation here upon earth…How did Abraham see Christ’s day? I answer, first, by a far-seeing, clearsighted faith. I do not know what Revelation, which is not recorded, God may have made to Abraham—but, whatever he did know, he turned it to practical use by believing it.

JOHN CALVIN: But a question now arises, How did Abraham behold, even with the eyes of faith, the manifestation of Christ? For this appears not to agree with another statement of Christ, “Many kings and prophets desired to see the things which you see, and yet did not see them,” Luke 10:24.

MATTHEW HENRY: They that “received not the promises,” yet “saw them afar off,” Hebrews 11:13. Though he saw it not so plainly, and fully, and distinctly as we now see it under the gospel, yet he saw something of it―more afterwards, than he did at first.

J. C. RYLE: That he saw many things, through a glass darkly, we need not doubt. That he could have explained fully the whole manner and circumstances of our Lord’s sacrifice on Calvary, we are not obliged to suppose. But we need not shrink from believing that he saw in the far distance a Redeemer.

C. H. SPURGEON: In what respects did Abraham see Christ’s day?

JOHN WESLEY: He saw it by faith in types, figures, and promises.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): He saw it by the eye of faith in the promise which was made to him, That in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, Genesis 12:3.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): He saw the Messiah in his type of Melchizedek, who some think was the Son of God Himself, Genesis 14:18; Hebrews 6:20 -7:28.

MATTHEW HENRY: In the casting out of Ishmael, and the establishment of the covenant with Isaac, Genesis 17:18-21, he saw a figure of the gospel day, which is Christ’s day; for these things were an allegory, Galatians 4:22-21.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): To mark this with precision is no easy matter. If we suppose that Abraham understood the types as we do, his views of Christ were complete indeed: for, from the appearance of Jehovah to him in human shape, he would behold the incarnation of Christ; and from Melchizedec, to whom Abraham himself offered tithes of all that he possessed, and from whom also he received a blessing, he would know the everlasting priesthood of Christ, and the necessity of depending on him for all spiritual blessings. Moreover, from his being ordered to offer Isaac upon an altar on Mount Moriah―the very place where Christ was afterwards crucified―and from Isaac being restored to him, when in Abraham’s purpose he was already dead; he would learn the sacrifice of Christ by the hand, as it were, of his own Father, Isaiah 53:10, and his resurrection from the dead. And as he is said to have made this offering “by faith,” and to have “received his son from the dead in a figure,” Hebrews 11:19, we are by no means certain that he did not see the mystery contained in that remarkable transaction.

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (347-407): Christ, by the word “day,” seems to signify that of His crucifixion, which was typified in the offering up of Isaac and the ram, Genesis 22.

MATTHEW HENRY: In offering Isaac, and the ram instead of Isaac, he saw a double type of the great sacrifice; and his calling the place “Jehovah-jireh”― “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen, Genesis 22:14, intimates that he saw something more in it than others did, which time would produce.

C. H. SPURGEON: More than that, to Abraham God’s name was more fully revealed that day. He called Him Jehovah-Jireh, a step in advance of anything that he had known before.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): I have an idea that God then and there just lifted the curtain of time for Abraham. He looked down into the future, saw God’s Son coming up Calvary, bearing his sins and the sins of all posterity. God gave him that secret, and told him how His Son was to come into the world and take away his sins.

C. H. SPURGEON: We have no record of the subject of his morning meditations when he rose early that he might spend some time alone with the Lord before the world became dim with smoke, or the business or ordinary occupation of the day had commenced. At such seasons I have no doubt that Abraham was in his chosen place of prayer, waiting and watching—looking into the far-distant future and seeing with gladdened heart that day of the Lord which now has come—and that other day of the Lord which is yet to arrive.

 

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The Summer is Gone

Posted on September 7, 2018 by The Editor

Jeremiah 8:20; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Hebrews 4:7

The summer is ended, and we are not saved.

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): There are times when all experience the strivings of God’s Spirit. If they improved those seasons, God would “give them more grace.” But many stifle their convictions, and “resist the Holy Ghost.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  Now what excuse can we have?

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): Numerous as are the excuses which sinners make when urged to embrace the gospel, they may all be reduced to three; the first is, that they have no time to attend to religion; the second is, that they do not know how to become religious; and the third, that they are not able to become so.  Want of time, want of knowledge, or want of power, is pleaded by all. Foreseeing that they would make these excuses, God determined that they should have no reason to make them. By giving them the Sabbath, He has allowed them time for religion. By giving them His Word, and messengers to explain it, He has taken away the excuse of ignorance; and by offering them the assistance of His Holy Spirit, He has deprived them of the pretense that they are unable to obey Him.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): But some will, it may be, object here: “But if there come not life and power with the offer, it will not do the turn; we cannot believe, nor receive the offer.”

EDWARD PAYSON: They justify their delays by pretending that they can do nothing, and by pleading that they must wait God’s time; that when He shall see fit to convert them, they are willing to be converted; thus wholly casting the blame of their sins upon Jehovah, and condemning the Almighty that they may justify themselves.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The sinner pleads that he cannot believe. He often says this, and quiets his conscience with it. When he is aroused and awakened, he declares that he cannot believe in Jesus Christ, and cannot believe God, and goes off to his deadly sleep again.  He quotes the Scriptures to back up his excuse—“No man cometh unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him.”—but our Lord explains His own words in another place, where He says, “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.” So then the sinner’s inability lies in his will; it is because he will not that he cannot.  Hearken, O unbeliever, you have said, “I cannot believe,” but it would be more honest if you had said, “I will not believe.”

ASAHEL NETTLETON (1783-1844): Your love of sin is all the excuse you have, or can have. Or, will you plead your inability?

C. H. SPURGEON: There is the Holy Spirit who is able to do all things. Remember the text, “If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” It is true you cannot make yourself a new heart, but did you ask for a new heart with sincerity and truth? Did you seek Christ? If you say, “Yes, I did sincerely seek Christ, and Christ would not save me,” why then you are excused; but there never was a soul who could in truth say that.

JAMES DURHAM: So then, the matter will not hold here, that you were unable, and had not power to believe.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): Take heed of resisting or opposing the Spirit of God. If ever you believe, He must enable you; take heed of opposing Him. God makes short work with some in his judiciary proceeding; if He finds a repulse once, sometimes He departs, and leaves a dismal curse behind Him as its punishment: “I say unto you, that none of those men which were bidden, shall taste of my supper,” Luke 14:24.

JOHN CALVIN:  The quotation must be applied to the subject in hand in this way: ‘As God specifies a particular time for the exhibition of His grace, it follows that all times are not suitable for that. As a particular day of salvation is named, it follows that a free offer of salvation is not made every day.’

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Though there be a time wherein Jerusalem might “know the things that concerned her peace,” yet there is another period wherein they should be “hid from their eyes,” Luke 19:42.

WILLIAM GURNALL: Many sit under the ordinances where Christ in gospel dishes is set forth admirably, but through the efficacy of this curse upon them, never taste of these dainties all their life; they hear precious truths, but their hearts are sealed up in unbelief, and their minds made reprobate and injudicious, so that they are not moved at all by them.

CHARLES SIMEON: Every lost season has grieved the Holy Spirit more and more—God will not alway strive with those who resist his motions. We may, by our obstinate rejection of mercy, provoke God to withdraw his Holy Spirit, who alone can make those offers effectual for our good. He has said, that “His Spirit shall not always strive with man:” and when He sees us obstinately bent on our own evil ways, He may say of us, as he did of Israel of old, “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.” He has given us many awful warnings on this subject—Note Proverbs 1:23-31; and many fearful examples of the judgment actually inflicted: Note, Hebrews 3:11, 18 & 19. Surely, this should lead us all to “seek the Lord” whilst he may be found, and to call upon him whilst he is near.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Procrastination is perilous.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): In the affairs of our souls, delays are dangerous; nothing is of more fatal consequence than men’s putting off their conversion from time to time. They will repent, and turn to God, but not yet; the matter is adjourned to some more convenient season, when such a business or affair is compassed, when they are so much older; and then convictions cool and wear off, good purposes prove to no purpose, and they are more hardened than ever in their evil way.

C. H. SPURGEON: I trust that, if I am addressing any who say that it is too late for them to be saved, and that their sin is too great to be forgiven, this text will drive away that unholy and unwarranted fear: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Harden not your heart by wilful disobedience and obstinate unbelief, rebelling against the light, and resisting the Holy Ghost, and His clear discoveries of the truth of the gospel.

C. H. SPURGEON: The Holy Ghost saith “Today;” will we grieve Him by delay?

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Today. You have no time to lose; tomorrow may be too late. God calls today; tomorrow He may be silent.

 

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The Christian Grace of Meekness

Posted on August 31, 2018 by The Editor

Matthew 5:2-5

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

ANTHONY FARINDON (1596-1658): Meekness is one of the principal and chiefest parts of holiness.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Meekness is, “in the sight of God, of great price,” 1 Peter 3:4.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981):  Well then, what is meekness?

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): The root of the original word really means “humility”―a spirit that never takes personal offense.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It is inseparably connected and associated with gentleness: “the meekness and gentleness of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:1. To be meek and gentle, patient and kind—in a word, to be Christ-like—is a task altogether beyond our powers.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Meekness is to be considered, not as a moral virtue, but as a Christian grace, a fruit of the Spirit of God, which was eminently in Christ.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Meekness will proceed, not from softness of nature, but from a heart humbled, tamed, sweetened with the apprehension of thy injuries done to Christ, which now thou findest forgiven, and from this ground thy spirit is calmed and subdued.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The Beatitudes rise one above the other and spring out of one another and that those which come before are always necessary to those that follow after. This third Beatitude, “Blessed are the meek,” could not have stood first—it would have been quite out of place there. When a man is converted, the first operation of the grace of God within his soul is to give him true poverty of spirit, so the first Beatitude is, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The Lord first makes us know our emptiness and so humbles us. Then next He makes us mourn over the deficiencies that are so manifest in us. Then comes the second Beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn.” First, then, is a true knowledge of ourselves and then a sacred grief arising out of that knowledge. Now, no man ever becomes truly meek, in the Christian sense of that word, until he first knows himself and then begins to mourn and lament that he is so far short of what he ought to be.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Meekness is the fruit of mourning for sin, and is therefore fitly set next after it. He that can kindly melt in God’s presence, will be made thereby as meek as a lamb: and if God will forgive him his ten thousand talents, he will not think much to forgive his brother a few farthings.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Meekness is wisdom. He rightly understands himself, and his duty and interest, the infirmities of human nature, and the constitution of human society, who is slow to anger, and knows how to excuse the faults of others as well as his own, how to adjourn his resentments, and moderate them, so as by no provocation to be put out of the possession of his own soul.

A. W. PINK: Meekness is yieldedness―a pliability and meltedness of heart, which makes me submissive and responsive to God’s will.

C. H. SPURGEON: It is only the grace of God, as it works in us by the Holy Spirit, that can make us thus meek. To reach this rung of the ladder of the Light of God he must first set his feet upon the other two. There must be poverty of spirit and mourning of heart before there will come that gracious meekness of which our text speaks. Note too, that this third Beatitude is of a higher order than the other two.

ANTHONY FARINDON: So what is meekness more than any other virtues?

C. H. SPURGEON: There is something positive in it as to virtue. The first two are rather expressive of deficiency, but here there is a something supplied. A man is poor in spirit—that is, he feels that he lacks a thousand things that he ought to possess. The man mourns—that is, he laments over his state of spiritual poverty. But now there is something really given to him by the Grace of God—not a negative quality, but a positive proof of the work of the Holy Spirit within his soul so that he has become meek. The first two characteristics that receive a benediction appear to be wrapped up in themselves. The man is poor in spirit—that relates to himself. His mourning is his own personal mourning which ends when he is comforted. But meekness has to do with other people. It is true that it has a relationship to God, but a man’s meekness is especially towards his fellow men. He is not simply meek within himself—his meekness is manifest in his dealings with others―the only way you could prove whether he was meek would be to put him with those who would try his temper. So this meekness is a virtue—larger, more expansive, working in a wider sphere.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Meekness is seen in pardoning of injuries, not keeping them in memory, to beget and cherish revenge. Now, the greater the provocation, the more transcendent is that meekness to pass it by.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): From these words we may gather what it is not. Meekness is set in opposition to pride and vain ostentation, and also to excessive zeal.

C. H. SPURGEON: Self-righteousness is never meek. The man who is proud of himself will be quite sure to be hard-hearted in his dealings with others. Blessed are the meek. Not your high-spirited, quick-tempered men who will put up with no insults—your hectoring, lofty ones who are always ready to resent any real or imagined disrespect.

A. W. PINK: Thus we may say that “meekness” is the opposite of self-will and self-assertiveness. Meekness is not only the antithesis of pride, but of stubbornness, fierceness, vengefulness…Meekness is the opposite of self-will towards God and of ill-will towards men.

C. H. SPURGEON: By many, to return evil for evil has been judged to be the more manly course.

A. W. PINK: Meekness must not be confounded with weakness. So far from being weakness―as the world supposes―meekness is the strength of the man who can rule his own spirit under provocation, subduing his resentment under wrong, refusing to retaliate.

H. A. IRONSIDE: The world will never understand the value of this―Theodore Roosevelt said once, “I hate a meek man.” He probably did not realize that the boldest man, the most utterly unafraid man ever seen on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, was in the fullest sense a meek man. Meekness is not inconsistent with bravery, and enables one to suffer and be strong when the world would “turn aside the way of the meek,” Amos 2:7.

THOMAS GOODWIN: “Learn of me,” says Christ, “for I am lowly and meek,” Matthew 11:29. The civilest, the meekest men by nature, must learn of Christ to be meek and humble.

C. H. SPURGEON: Let us be meek and lowly in heart as the Saviour was, for herein lay His strength and dignity.

 

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Faithful Ministry: Speaking Truth to Power

Posted on August 24, 2018 by The Editor

2 Chronicles 18:6,7

Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of him?

And [Ahab] the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Jehoshaphat and Ahab were attended with a crowd of flattering prophets, that could not think of prophesying anything but what was very sweet and very smooth to two such glorious princes now in confederacy. Those that love to be flattered shall not want flatterers.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Great ones love it, they must hear pleasing things; or if told of their faults, it must be done with silken words.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Surely Ahab does not need Micaiah to prophesy smooth things to him, for there are already four hundred prophets of the groves who are flattering him with one consent.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): The false prophets’ pleasing words, with which they clawed Ahab’s proud humour, could by no means be brought to fit good Micaiah’s mouth…Micaiah was made a scorn because he would not tune his pipe to Ahab’s ear, nor join with the whole college of his flattering chaplains in their judgment.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): As soon as Micaiah has delivered his message from the Lord, Ahab is filled with rage against him, and orders him to be put in prison, and to be fed with the bread and water of affliction.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Depend upon it, faithful dealing must bring reproach.

MATTHEW HENRY: Faithful reproofs, if they do not profit, usually provoke; if they do not do good, they are resented as affronts, and they that will not bow to the reproof, will fly in the face of the reprover and hate him, as Ahab hated Micaiah.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We need not wonder at this. When men and women have chosen their line, and resolved to have their own wicked way, they dislike anyone who tries to turn them. They would rather be let alone. They are irritated by opposition. They are angry when they are told the truth. The prophet Elijah was called a “man that troubled Israel.” The prophet Micaiah was hated by Ahab, “because he never prophesied good of him, but evil.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Micaiah was purely God’s instrument in all his messages; and whatsoever evil he threatened, Ahab himself was the cause and procurer of it.

JOHN TRAPP: Hugh Latimer dealt no less faithfully with King Henry VIII in his sermons at court. And being asked by the king how he dared to be so bold to preach after that manner, he answered that duty to God and to his prince had enforced him to it; and now that he had discharged his conscience, his life was in his Majesty’s hands…Among others of his rank that gratified King Henry VIII with a new year’s gift, according to the custom, Latimer presented him a New Testament, with a napkin having this written upon it: “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge,” Hebrews 13:4. The Scriptures, he knew, would deal plainly with him, and tell him that which others dared not.

J. W. ALEXANDER (1804-1859): The fearless tongue of John Knox, even against princes, has been noted as fully by foes as friends.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The consciousness that they were servants of the living God was the very secret of the power of these men.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Micaiah now appears before the kings and courtiers, alone, indeed, but not unsupported; God was with him, therefore could he not be moved.

JOHN TRAPP: He would not budge as other timeservers did, for any man’s pleasure or displeasure, and there is a wonderful sympathy between kings and court parasites, as was between Ahab and the false prophets… Flattery gets friends, but truth hatred. But truth must be spoken, however it be taken.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Man-pleasing professors would endeavour to escape all this disgrace and danger by getting into the favour of the great, the worldly, and the irreligious.

C. H. SPURGEON: There is no need whatever that you and I should be chaplains of the modern spirit, for it is well supplied with busy advocates.

CHARLES SIMEON: All idea of pleasing men must be utterly abandoned: for if we please men, or seek to do so, we cannot be the servants of Jesus Christ, Galatians 1:10.

HUGH  LATIMER (1483-1555): The minister must reprove without fearing any man, even if he be threatened with death.*

J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): It is not enough just to put on a bold face and compel ourselves to be brave, or appear brave. It will not do merely to try to make ourselves think there is no danger, when we know very well that there is danger. The true secret of confidence and fearlessness in danger is faith in the divine keeping, not in thinking there is no peril. “In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” The great truth to be learned by all who would acquire true moral courage is the reality of God’s care for His people in all their dangers. Psalm 121 describes this care: “The Lord is thy keeper;” “The Lord shall keep thee from all evil;” He that keepeth thee will not slumber.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The knowledge of this ought to overcome our fears, that we may speak boldly in the midst of dangers.

CHARLES WESLEY (1707-1788): In the church, while preaching, I have no superior but God; and shall not ask man leave to show him his sins.

WILLIAM GURNALL: Man-pleasing is both endless and needless. If thou would, thou could not please all; and if thou could, there is no need, so thou please One that can turn all their hearts or bind their hands.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Whatever may be the present gain of pleasing men at the expense of displeasing God, the future loss will be immeasurably greater: prayerfully ponder Mark 8:38, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

C. H. SPURGEON: We stand in a very solemn position, and ours should be the spirit of old Micaiah.**

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): It would be dishonouring to God if we were to act in any other way.

______________________________________

*EDITOR’S NOTE: Martyred during the persecuting reign of king Henry VIII’s daughter Queen Mary, Hugh Latimer’s ministry was faithful unto death. Before being burned at the stake, Latimer turned to his fellow martyr, Nicholas Ridley, and said, “Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

**EDITOR’S NOTE: The Scriptures abound with faithful ministers who stood before kings, and spoke truth to power, as did Micaiah. For examples, see Elijah to Ahab (1 Kings 17:1); Moses to Pharaoh (Exodus 5:1,2); Nathan and Gad to King David (2 Samuel 12:1-12 & 24:11-13); John the Baptist to Herod (Mark 6:17-20).

 

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Trusting Our Lord’s Wisdom & Mercy Under the Rod

Posted on August 17, 2018 by The Editor

2 Samuel 24:1-4, 8-14

The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people, that I may know the number of the people. And Joab said unto the king, Now the LORD thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundredfold, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it: but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?

Notwithstanding the king’s word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the host. And Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel…So when they had gone through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king…

And David’s heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now, I beseech thee, O LORD, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.

For when David was up in the morning, the word of the LORD came unto the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, Go and say unto David, Thus saith the LORD, I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days’ pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.

And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): We are not left in any doubt that on this occasion David committed a grave fault, yet wherein lay the evil of it is not so certain.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): David’s sin seems plainly to have been the sin of presumption, in trusting more to an arm of flesh than in the LORD GOD of his salvation; yet, it must be confessed, that both in the sin, and in the proposed punishment, we have not so clear marks to form our conclusions as to speak with certainty.

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The spirit of vainglory in numbers had taken possession of the people and the king, and there was a tendency to trust in numbers and forget God.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It is manifest that David was actuated by pride, in wishing to know the extent of the population he governed; and that he was indulging confidence in an arm of flesh, instead of trusting in God only. That he was faulty in these particulars was visible even to so wicked a man as Joab, who expostulated with him on the subject, and warned him that he was bringing guilt and punishment upon the whole nation.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): While the thing was in doing, during all those nine months, we do not find that David was sensible of his sin, for had he been so he would have countermanded the orders he had given; but, when the account was finished and laid before him, that very night his conscience was awakened.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): His conscience discerned his sin, and he was heartily sorry for it. And the occasion of his repentance was God’s message by the prophet Gad.

MATTHEW HENRY: David is told to choose what rod he will be beaten with―God, by putting him thus to his choice, designed, first, to humble him the more for his sin, which we would see to be exceedingly sinful when he came to consider each of these judgments as exceedingly dreadful. Or, second, to upbraid him with the proud conceit he had of his own sovereignty over Israel. He that is so great a prince begins to think he may have what he will. “Come then,” says God, “which wilt thou have of these three things?” Or, third, to give him some encouragement under the correction, letting him know that God did not cast him out of communion with himself, but that still his secret was with him, and in afflicting him he considered his frame and what he could best bear. Or, fourth, that he might the more patiently bear the rod when it was a rod of his own choosing.

A. W. PINK: To these we would add, Fifth―to try out his heart and give opportunity for the exercise and exhibition of his faith.

CHARLES SIMEON: Years of famine, or three months of unsuccessful warfare, or three days of pestilence: a painful choice indeed! But David wisely preferred the falling into the hands of God, and not into the hands of man. “David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for His mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It was as if David had said, “Lord, since I have so often experienced Thee to be a merciful God, I will trust to and repose in Thy mercies for ever.”

MATTHEW HENRY: But some think that David, by these words, intimates his choice of the pestilence.*

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): God knows best what is suitable.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): We must confide in the judgment of God, and distrust our own. We are short-sighted creatures, and easily imposed upon by appearances, and know not what is good for us in this vain life which we spend as a shadow. But He cannot be mistaken. A wise father will choose far better for his infant, than the infant can choose for himself.

A. W. PINK: Even when the Lord is sorely chastening us for our faults, He is infinitely more gracious, more faithful, more deserving of our trust than is any creature.

MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): What a mercy it is that He takes His own way, and not ours!

ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): Nothing is by blind chance, all is under the management of infinite wisdom. I would therefore take all things as coming from God, that they may lead me to God. The rod of affliction which He uses is made up of many twigs, but they are all cut from the same tree.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Every sin has one twig in God’s rod appropriated to itself.*

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*EDITOR’S NOTE: If David had chosen the pestilence, it would have been a presumption of his own wisdom once again. David’s wisdom was not to choose, and to let God choose, which demonstrated his repentance by his complete faith in the Lord’s judgment, wisdom and mercy. And God selected the most appropriate twig from His rod to deal with both the people and David their king: famine would have chastened the people, but not touched king David in his palace; but David being chased by his enemies would have left most of the people untouched. However, with the pestilence, David and all the people were in equal mortal danger, and equally defenceless, which meant that every single offender had to trust in God’s mercy alone for survival.

 

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The Numbers & Powers of Angels

Posted on August 10, 2018 by The Editor

Hebrews 13:22; Zechariah 6:1-6

Ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels…

And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses; and in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.

Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?

And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth. The black horses which are therein go forth into the north country; and the white go forth after them; and the grisled go forth toward the south country. And the bay went forth, and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth: and he said, Get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674): Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): We know that myriads of angels are ever ready to render service to God; but He chooses this or that to do His business as He pleases.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): You remember our Lord saying, when His disciples would have defended Him, that they needn’t do that, that if He chose, He could command twelve legions of angels to defend Him and protect Him, Matthew 26:53.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): A Roman legion consisted of twelve thousand five hundred soldiers.

A. A. HODGE (1823-1886): What do the Scriptures teach concerning the number and power of angels?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: How many angels are there? The answer of the Scriptures is that they are very great, that they are countless in number. You remember that we are told that the shepherds at His birth heard “a multitude of the heavenly host,” suggesting almost an innumerable company, Luke 2:13. And indeed, the fifth chapter of the book of Revelation tells us that such is the case, for “the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,”―a great mighty host, a myriad of these angelic beings.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Chariots, the angels are called in many places, 2 Kings 2:11, 2 Kings 6:17, Habakkuk 3:8, but especially Psalm 68:17: “The chariots of God―in the Hebrew it is chariot, in the singular, to note the joint service of all the angels.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Like chariots of war, they are the strength and protection of the Lord’s people; and because of their swiftness in doing His work; and because they are for His honour and glory: they are the chariots of God, in which He rides about the world doing His will.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: And that brings me to the whole question of their power. And the Bible is very explicit about this, that they are very great in power; we are told of them that they “excel in strength,” Psalm 103:20―the “mighty angels,” 2 Thessalonians 1:7.

A. A. HODGE: Concerning their power, the Scriptures teach that it is very great when exercised both in the material and in the spiritual worlds—their power, however, is not creative power.

JOHN CALVIN: Under the name יהוה Jehovah, God teaches that He is the only Creator.

MATTHEW HENRY: Good angels vastly exceed us in all natural and moral excellences, in strength, understanding, and holiness too.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Their power is undoubtedly greater than the power of men; they’re not only superior to men in dignity, and in status, but superior to him altogether in power.

MATTHEW HENRY: The greatest numbers cannot stand before them: one angel shall, in one night, lay a vast army of men dead upon the spot, when God commissions him so to do, Isaiah 37:36―here are 185,000 brave soldiers in an instant turned into so many dead corpses. See how great, in power and might, the holy angels are, when one angel, in one night, could make so great a slaughter.

JOHN GILL: A prodigious slaughter indeed!

JOHN CALVIN: That no one may ascribe the miracle to natural causes, it is expressly added, that so great a multitude was slain by the hand of the angel.

MATTHEW HENRY: Angels are employed, more than we are aware of, as ministers of God’s justice, to punish the pride and break the power of wicked men. The greatest men cannot stand before them: of Sennacherib, “the great king, the king of Assyria” (2 Kings 18:28), looks very little when he is forced to return, not only with shame, because he cannot accomplish what he had projected with so much assurance, but with terror and fear, lest the angel that had destroyed his army should destroy him.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): In Jude 9, the archangel Michael is said to have disputed with the devil about the body of Moses…In Revelation 12:7, it is said: “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels.”

JOHN GILL: The issue of which was, that the latter were conquered, and cast out into the earth.

JOHN CALVIN: “And there came two angels to Sodom,” Genesis 19:1. At length the angels declare for what purpose they came, and what they were about to do―they declare, that they are come to destroy the city, because the cry of it was waxen great. By which words they mean, that God was provoked, not by one act of wickedness only, but that, after He had long spared them, He was now, at last, almost compelled, by their immense mass of crimes, to come down to inflict punishment. For we must maintain, that the more sins men heap together, the higher will their wickedness rise, and the nearer will it approach to God, to cry aloud for vengeance.

ANDREW BONAR (1810-1892): No doubt, at the sight of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim destroyed, angels saw cause to rejoice and Sing, “Hallelujah.”

JOHN GILL: So it will be at the end of the world.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): This judgment to come is a warm thing to be thought of, an awakening thing to be thought of; it is called the eternal judgment, because it is and will be God’s final conclusion with men. This day is called the “great and notable day of the Lord,” Acts 2:20; the day “that shall burn like an oven,” Malachi 4:1—the day in which the angels shall gather the wicked together, as tares, into bundles, to burn them; but the rest, into his kingdom and glory, Matthew 13:37-43.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): What a wonderful, but awful separation will there then be! The angels are represented by our Lord as His angels; and these He will use as His reapers. He will endue them with wisdom to discern the characters of all, and will guide them infallibly in the execution of His will.

MATTHEW HENRY: They shall be employed, in the great day, in executing Christ’s righteous sentences, both of approbation and condemnation, as ministers of His justice, Matthew 25:31. The angels are skilful, strong, and swift, obedient servants to Christ, holy enemies to the wicked, and faithful friends to all the saints, and therefore fit to be thus employed.

 

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Lessons From the Life of Lot Part 6: Lot’s Wife

Posted on August 3, 2018 by The Editor

Luke 17:32; Genesis 19:26

Remember Lot’s wife.

His wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It seems to me that Lot had married a heathen woman―Call your attention to her, who, in this case, is “his worse half.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): She looked back from behind him. This seemed a small thing, but we are sure, by the punishment of it, that it was a great sin, and exceedingly sinful.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Though she had outwardly left Sodom, yet her heart was still there.

C. H. SPURGEON: Lot’s wife could not tear herself away from the world. She had always been in it and had loved it and delighted in it. Though associated with a gracious man, when the time came for decision, she betrayed her true character! Flight without so much as looking back was demanded of her, but this was too much—she did look back and thus proved that she had sufficient presumption in her heart to defy God’s command and risk her all—to give a lingering loveglance at the condemned and guilty world.

MATTHEW HENRY: Probably she hankered after her house and goods in Sodom, and was loth to leave them. Christ intimates this to be her sin; she too much regarded her stuff, Luke 17:31, 32.

C. H. SPURGEON: Lot’s wife had shared in her husband’s errors. It was a great mistake on his part to abandon the outwardly separated life, but she had stayed with him in it and perhaps was the cause of his so doing.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): Lot was one of those characters who are easily influenced―and I think, perhaps, that is just the key to his character…So long as he stayed with Abram he got on very well. His mistake was in leaving him.

C. H. SPURGEON: I should not wonder if Lot’s wife influenced him in that way. He was a man of weak mind and while his uncle had him under his wing, he was right enough, except that even then he had what a writer calls, “a lean-to religion”—he did not stand alone, but leaned upon Abraham. When he was married it is probable that his wife assumed the ruling place and guided the way of his life. She began to think that it was a pity that the family should live in such separation, so unfashionable, so rigid, so peculiar and all that.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): How insidious is the influence of a husband or a wife in decoying the other from the paths of godliness—and into the ways of the world! And in some cases how systematic, persevering, and successful they have been.

C. H. SPURGEON: She tossed her head and cried, “Really! People must mix with society and not keep up old-fashioned, strait-laced ways! You might as well be dead as be shut out from life.” When her husband had an opportunity of getting out of that rigid style by leaving his uncle, she said she would like to go down Sodom way because it would be nice for the girls and give them a taste of something liberal and refined. The old style was all very well for such an antiquated couple as Abraham and Sarah, but Lot and herself belonged to a younger generation and were bound to get into a little society and find eligible matches for their young people. It would be well for them to dress better than they could learn to do if they always kept roaming about like gypsies. You see, Abraham’s people did not study the fashions at all and were a very vulgar sort of shepherds who had no ideas of refinement and politeness. And it was pity that people in Lot’s station in life should always associate with mere sheep-shearers, drovers and the like.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): An imperious, dominating woman will drive her husband further from God instead of drawing him to Christ.

C. H. SPURGEON: Nag, nag, nagging, is very, very fagging.

MATTHEW HENRY: It is “a continual dropping,” that is, a continual vexation, Proverbs 27:15.

C. H. SPURGEON: If they got to Sodom there would be nice parties, dances and all sorts of things! Of course the people were a little loose and rather fast—they went to plays where modesty was shocked and gathered in admiration around performers whose lives were openly wanton—but then you see one must be fashionable and wink at a good deal! We cannot expect all people to be saints and, no doubt, they have their good points. By some such talk Mrs. Lot gained her husband over to her way of thinking. They did not mean to actually go into the worst society of Sodom, but they intended to make a careful selection and go only a little way.

R. C. CHAPMAN (1803-1902): It is the nature of sin to obtain great power by little beginnings.

C. H. SPURGEON: Surely they could be trusted to know where to stop. So they pitched the tent towards Sodom where it was within an easy walk of the town—a little separated, but not far. If anything did happen that was very bad they could move away and no harm would be done. It was no doubt wise, they said, to go and see Sodom and know the people, for it would be ridiculous to condemn what they had not seen! They would therefore try it and give the young people some idea of what the world was like.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Many think to stop after they have yielded a little; but when the stone at the top of a hill begins to roll downward, it is hard to stop it, and you cannot say how far you will go.

C. H. SPURGEON: I think I am not mistaken in the conjecture that Mrs. Lot’s influence brought her husband there and when there, introduced him to the best families and found suitors for the daughters who had been fully imbued with the liberal ideas of the place.

D. L. MOODY: You would have found Mrs. Lot, perhaps, and her daughters, at the theaters and in most places of amusement, and there is the family, just moving in the very highest circles in that city.

C. H. SPURGEON: Very sweet the city life became. The free and easy ways of Sodom came to be enjoyable. Not the gross part of Sodom life—Lot could not bear that—and it made Mrs. Lot a bit uncomfortable at times, but the liberal spirit, the fine free bearing of the people, their gaiety and artistic culture were quite to her mind and so she was right glad when her husband put away the old tent, had a sale of the sheep and lived as a retired grazier in the west end of the city.

A. W. PINK: Finally, we see him an alderman of Sodom, seated in its “gate,” and his daughters wedded to men of Sodom, Genesis 19:1 & 14.

C. H. SPURGEON: Lot ought to have been firmer, more steadfast, more thorough. He had no business going to Sodom―Lot was not to do evil to please his wife.

 

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Paul’s Persuasion

Posted on July 27, 2018 by The Editor

2 Timothy 1:12

I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It will be profitable to consider the point of which the Apostle was persuaded.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The point which the Apostle expressly mentions is the power of Christ—“I am persuaded that He is able.” He had a solemn conviction of the ability of the Lord Jesus, who is able to save unto the uttermost. Let us hope that no believer here has any doubt about the power of Christ―there is no lack of sufficiency or ability in Him.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): And what might induce the apostle―and so any other believer―to conclude the ability of Christ to keep the souls of those that are committed to Him?

C. H. SPURGEON: Paul knew that the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom he trusted his soul, was now adorned with all the glory of heaven and clothed with all the omnipotence of the mighty God…Paul felt that such power was worthy of boundless confidence and, therefore, he said, “I know Whom I have believed.”

JOHN GILL: He knew Whom he had believed―His proper deity; He, having all the fulness of the Godhead, or the perfections of deity dwelling in Him; His being the Creator and upholder of all things; His having accomplished the great work of redemption and salvation, by His own arm; His mediatorial fulness of grace and power; and His being trusted by His Father with all the persons, grace, and glory of the elect, to whom He has been faithful.

CHARLES SIMEON: The offices of Christ may also be considered as justifying an assured hope of final perseverance. For our Lord did not assume the priestly, prophetic, and kingly offices merely to put us into a capacity to save ourselves; but that His work might be effectual for the salvation of all whom the Father had given to Him. And at the last day He will be able to say, as He did in the days of His flesh, “Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.” If He is ever living on purpose to make intercession for them, and is constituted Head over all things to the Church on purpose to save them, then He will keep them; none shall ever pluck them out of His hands.

C. H. SPURGEON: Will the Lord utterly and finally reject those who are His own, and suffer them to be the objects of His contemptuous reprobation, His everlasting cast-offs? This Paul was persuaded could not be.

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): He was assured that the Lord would guide him in wisdom through life, and at death “receive” him to glory.

CHARLES SIMEON: God never yet lost one whom he had undertaken to keep: He never suffered “one of his little ones to perish,” Matthew 18:14. “None was ever plucked out of His hand,” John 10:28,29; not the “smallest grain of wheat, however agitated in the sieve, was ever permitted to fall upon the earth.” Amos 9:9. The gates of hell have never been able to prevail against His Church. Then, says the Christian, “I will trust, and not be afraid.” My Saviour, in the days of his flesh, “lost none that had been given him,” John 18:9. “Whom he loved, he loved to the end,” John 13:1; and therefore I am persuaded He “will perfect that which concerneth me,” Psalm 138:8, and “complete in me the good work He has begun,” Philippians 1:6.

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): He is faithful to His promises and faithful to His saints.

CHARLES SIMEON: Paul does not merely presume upon God’s sufficiency: he is well persuaded of it―Did God create my soul, and can He not uphold it? Did He form my enemies also, and can He not restrain them? Has He numbered even the hairs of my head, and will He overlook the concerns of my soul?

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): Who are the foes? Who are the accusers? Who are the separators? In answer to the first, the apostle declared, “God is for us.” In answer to the second, he declared that God justifies us. In answer to the third, he declared that none of the terrible things through which we pass to glory can separate us.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us,” Romans 8:37. This one sentence sufficiently proves, that the Apostle speaks not here of the fervency of that love which we have towards God, but of the paternal kindness of God and of Christ towards us.

CHARLES SIMEON: The stability of the covenant, which God has made with us in Christ Jesus, warrants an assurance, that all who are interested in it shall endure to the end. The immutability of God is another ground of assured faith and hope. Wherefore did God originally set His love upon us? Was it for our own goodness, either seen or foreseen? Alas! we had no existence but in God’s purpose: and, from the moment we began to exist, we have never had one good thing in us which we did not first receive from God. If then God loved us simply because He would love us, and not for any inherent loveliness in us, will He cast us off again on account of those evil qualities which He well knew to be in us, and which He Himself has undertaken to subdue? This would argue a change in His counsels: whereas we are told that, “with Him there is no variableness neither shadow of turning,” James 1:17; and that “His gifts and calling are without repentance,” Romans 11:29.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Can there be anything like a yea and nay Gospel, in these solemn assurances of Jehovah? And can an assurance that He, who hath saved, and called from the first, without works, will cause His grace to be doubtful as to the end?

JOHN CALVIN: As He is faithful and just, He will not disappoint us.

C. H. SPURGEON: Paul was fully persuaded of this great truth of God. Paul also knew the character of Jesus whom he trusted. His perfect character abundantly justified the Apostle’s implicit trust.

ROBERT HAWKER: Must not every man, taught as Paul was, and through grace brought into the same views, and confirmed in the same truths, declare, that he knows Whom he hath believed?

C. H. SPURGEON: Well, this is my persuasion: “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 8:38,39—If any enquire of us in Glory, “How did you get here?” we will answer, “He brought us here.” “Now unto Him that is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

 

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Dead Flies

Posted on July 20, 2018 by The Editor

Ecclesiastes 10:1

Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): A great many flies may fall into a tarbox, and no hurt done. A small spot is soon seen in a swan, but not so in a swine.

J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): It is sad to see how some strong and noble characters are marred by little, yet grievous faults and blemishes. One man is generous, but he desires always to have his charity praised. Another is disposed to be kind and helpful, but by his manner hurts or humiliates the one he befriends. Another is unselfish and devout, but is careless of promises and engagements; he makes appointments and never thinks of them again; he borrows money, and does not repay it.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): A Christian’s character is spoilt by the omission of any one virtue―that “but” spoils it all―it is the dead fly which has got into a very good pot of ointment and made the whole of it stink.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Any putrefaction spoils perfume; and so a foolish act ruins the character of him who has the reputation of being wise and good.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): A good name is like precious ointment, valuable and fragrant.

C. H. SPURGEON: You may be in the Church and yet you may not have a good name as a member of it. I mean as to your own personal character as a Christian, for some professors are in the pot of ointment, but I wish we could pick them out, for they are flies and they spoil everything! There are such in this Church—oh that they had gone elsewhere! If only they would have flown into a pot of the world’s honey, or something of that kind! For them to get into the Church’s ointment is a great pity.

J. R. MILLER: One writes, “Our greatest failures often happen in the little things of life.”

C. H. SPURGEON: Some get a name in the Church for quarrelling and fault-finding. “Oh,” people say, “if anybody can pick a hole in the sermon, I know who it is.” You need only have half-a-dozen words with this crab apple critic and you surely and speedily lose what enjoyment you have had during the service. Alas, that many Christian women have not a good name, for they are addicted to gossiping.

J. R. MILLER: Carelessness and thoughtlessness are themselves such serious moral blemishes that they make impossible any excuse for delinquencies resulting from them. We need to look to the infinitesimals that make perfection or mar it. No fault is too small to be worth curing, and no fragment of beauty is too small to be worth setting the mosaic of character.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): Every one ought so to live that nothing evil can be said of him, and that he give offence to no one.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): There is a sanctity about the Christian character which should be kept inviolate. If you are sons of God, you should be “blameless and harmless in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, shining among them as lights in the world,” Philippians 2:15. I pray you, then, walk circumspectly, and in a way “worthy of your high calling,” yea, “worthy also of Him who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.”

ADAM CLARKE: Alas! alas! in an unguarded moment how many have tarnished the reputation which they were many years in acquiring!

JOHN TRAPP: Fine linen is sooner and deeper stained than coarse canvas.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): You can ruin your reputation. After building up with great care your good name, for some years, and acquiring respect and esteem from those who knew you, in one single hour, by yielding to some powerful temptation, you may permanently fix a dark stain upon your character, which no tears can ever wash away, or repentance remove—but which will cause you to be read and known of all men, until the grave receives you out of their sight. You may render yourself an object of the universal disgust and abhorrence of the pious—and be the taunt and scorn of the wicked.

JOHN GILL: Sin, which is folly, is like a dead fly; not only light and mean, and base and worthless, but hurtful and pernicious, deadly, and the cause of death; and what may seem little, a peccadillo, or, however, one single act of sin may injure the character of a wise and honourable man, and greatly expose him to shame and contempt, and cause him to stink in the nostrils of men; and to be reproached by men, and religion and government to be reproached for his sake. Thus the affair of Bathsheba and Uriah, what a slur did it bring on the character of David, so famous for wisdom and honour, and for religion and piety?―and the idolatry of Solomon, the wisest of men; Jehoshaphat, that good king, entering into affinity with Ahab; and pious Josiah going to war with the king of Egypt, contrary to the word of the Lord; with many other instances.

JOHN TRAPP: If Jacob deals deceitfully, the banks of blasphemy will be broken down in a profane Esau thereby. If his unruly sons falsify with the Shechemites, he shall have cause to complain, “Ye have made me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, ” Genesis 34:30…If Samson go down to Timnah, the Philistines will soon have it, “told” it will be “in Gath, published in the streets of Askelon,” 2 Samuel 12:14—the enemies of God will soon compose comedies out of the Church’s tragedies, and make themselves merry in her misery.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The world will make no allowances for human infirmity, or the force of temptation; but, looking with envy on superior excellence, are happy to seize every shadow of abuse to degrade to their own level those who excel them, and to triumph that they are no better than themselves.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): People on the outside say, “What! Is that one of your Christians? Does he belong to Christ and yet do thus and so?”

JOHN GILL: How careful men eminent for gifts and grace should be of their words and actions; since the least thing amiss in them is easily discerned, and soon taken notice of, as the least speck in a diamond, or spot in fine linen, clean and white. And there are wicked and envious persons enough watching for their halting, glad to have an occasion against them, and improve everything to the uttermost.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Indeed in a path, where every step is strewed with snares, and beset with enemies, great need have we of the caution, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,” Ephesians 5:15.

MATTHEW WILKS (1746-1829): Did you ever see a tom cat walking on the top of a high wall that was covered with bits of broken glass bottles?  If so, you had just then an accurate illustration of what is meant by the injunction, “See that you walk circumspectly.”

 

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Is Capital Punishment Justified?

Posted on July 13, 2018 by The Editor

Romans 13:1-4

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): The question of capital punishment—this is certainly a very contemporary question. There are those who say that killing, in any shape or form, is always wrong…The Old Testament makes it perfectly plain and clear that that is not the case.

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL  (1635-1711): God has commanded this: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man,” Genesis 9:6.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It needs emphasizing today that capital punishment as the penalty for murder was ordained by God Himself long before the giving of the Mosaic law, and, since it has never been repealed by Him, that precept is binding until the end of time. It is important to observe that the reason for this law is not here based upon the well-being of human society, but is grounded upon the fact that man is made “in the image of God.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Murder is not only an offence against man, but also an injury to God, and a contempt of that image of God which all men are obliged to reverence and maintain.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): But there is also a strong feeling in the mind of many that the severity of the punishment is questionable. There are some who pronounce authoritatively that the murderer’s blood must be shed for murder. But there are some who think the Christian dispensation has ameliorated the law and that now it is no longer, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Paul was willing to abide by the rules of the law, and to let that take its course. ―“If I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die,” Acts 25:11.

ROBERT HALDANE (1764-1842): Would the Apostle Paul have in this way sanctioned this punishment, allowing its justice, if it have been contrary to the law of God?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The Christian’s view of the state; you’ve got to start with that. The state is the representative of God; the state is “the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Let us consider, first, what is the function of the magistrate? As Paul clearly declares that he is “the minister of God to us for good,” we thereby understand that he was so ordained of God.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): The office of magistrates is to do all in their power for the suppression of iniquity, and for the promotion of universal happiness. It is for these ends alone that power is put into their hands. They are to be “a terror to the workers of iniquity.”

JOHN CALVIN: What is the extent of his power?

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The “sword” is an emblem of the power of life and death.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: So the power of the sword that the state has, is a power that God Himself has delegated to the state. Why has He done so? Well, surely the answer of the whole of the Old Testament is this: God is the Author of life. It is the greatest gift that He gives to man. And as God is sole Author of life, He alone has a right to take life. It is at that point you see the enormity of murder. That’s why murder is a very special and unique crime. It is the thing which makes it the most terrible crime of all; that a man should take it upon himself to take another man’s life!―this is the most precious of all that man possesses.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Murder is the summit of human wickedness.

JOHN CALVIN: When the murder is proved, God sternly requires, and commands that it should not remain unpunished.

A. W. PINK: This law of judicial retaliation ought to be upon our statute books today and impartially and firmly enforced by our magistrates. But alas, so foolish and effeminate is the present generation that an increasing number are agitating for the abolition of capital punishment.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: But then says somebody, “Doesn’t the commandment say, Thou shalt not kill? And what about turning the other cheek?” And the answer to those is that all those commandments are to the individual―the individual is not to kill; the individual is to turn the other cheek. However, we are now dealing with the power of the state to take life in the form of capital punishment. So, it’s no use quoting one of those ten commandments, or the teaching of the sermon on the mount—they are addressed to the individual, and not to the state.

C. H. SPURGEON; Sometime ago a lady sought an interview with me, with the object of enlisting my sympathy upon the question of “Anti-Capital Punishment.” I heard the excellent reasons she urged against hanging men who had committed murder, though they did not convince me. She proposed that when a man committed murder, he should be confined for life. My remark was, that a great many men who had been confined half their lives were not a bit the better for it. “Ah,” she said, “that is because we have been all wrong about punishments. We punish people because we think they deserve to be punished. Now, we ought to show them that we love them; that we only punish them to make them better.”

“Indeed, madam,” I said, “I have heard that theory a great many times, and I have seen much fine writing upon the matter, but I am no believer in it. The design of punishment should be amendment, but the ground of punishment lies in the positive guilt of the offender. I believe that when a man does wrong, he ought to be punished for it.”

JOHN GILL: He that is guilty of wilful murder shall surely be put to death by the order of the civil magistrate. “Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death,” Numbers 35:31.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: It is the positive duty of the state to use the sword.

MATTHEW POOLE: No intercession nor ransom shall be accepted to save his life, or procure him a pardon.

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL: He who forgives a murderer is opposed to the commandment of God and is an accomplice to the murder.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): A felon having committed six murders, the judge may be said to be guilty of five of them, because he did not execute the felon for his first offence.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: There is nothing, in other words, that should so teach us the sacredness, and the sanctity of life, so much as the execution of capital punishment.

 

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