Assisted Suicide

Posted on October 12, 2018 by The Editor

2 Samuel 1:2, 4-10

Behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul…

And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, That the people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.

And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear; and, lo, the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him. And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called unto me. And I answered, Here am I. And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. He said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): There are always numerous strollers who follow camps, and this lad probably was one of them. Their business is pillage and the stripping of the dead: our young Amalekite, it seems, knew his business, and got the start of the Philistines in the pillage of Saul.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): I am not clear whether this young man’s story was true or no.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): It is most probable this was a lie, devised to gain David’s favour.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “And I answered him, I am an Amalekite,” which he might be; but it is not likely he should tell Saul he was, which would not recommend him to Saul; though indeed he was now in such circumstances, that the Amalekites had nothing to fear from him…“And he said unto me again, stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me,”―which it can hardly be thought that Saul would say; since he might as well have died by the hands of the uncircumcised Philistines, which he endeavoured to avoid, as by the hands of an Amalekite.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In view of this, it is quite evident that the Amalekite who now communicated to David the tidings of Saul’s death, lied in a number of details.

MATTHEW POOLE: Saul was not killed by a spear, as he pretends, but by his sword; and it is expressly said that Saul’s armour-bearer, being yet living, saw that Saul was dead―which doubtless he would very thoroughly examine and know, before he would kill himself upon that account, as he did, 1 Samuel 31:4,5: “Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It may consist with the narrative in 1 Samuel 31:4,5, and be an addition to it, as Peter’s account of the death of Judas, Acts 1:18, is to the narrative, Matthew 27:5. What is there called a sword may here be called a spear, or when he fell upon his sword he leaned on his spear.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Whether the relation he gave was altogether true is not certain―one thing is certain, that as this man brought the crown and bracelet of Saul to David, he must have been with Saul at his death.

A. W. PINK: Finding Saul’s body with the insignia of royalty upon it, he seized them, and then formed his story in such a way as he hoped to ingratiate himself with David.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Expecting a reward, he found his death.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): “And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?” 2 Samuel 1:14. Somewhat of a similar process obtains amongst us: a coroner’s inquest is taken whenever a suspicion of murder, or of suicide, appears to have any just foundation.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): “And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died. And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the LORD’S anointed,” 2 Samuel 1:15,16. Though Saul desired thee to despatch him, as thou hast said, and volenti non fit iniuria―‘because he was willing, there was no injury:’ yet because he was felo de se, as lawyers now speak, a suicide—‘a felony itself,’ it was not lawful for thee to help him out of the world, although the enemy had given him his death wound, and he therefore desired it of thee.

MATTHEW HENRY: Instead of preferring him, David put him to death, and judged him out of his own mouth, as a murderer―He did himself confess the crime, so that the evidence was, by the consent of all laws, sufficient to convict him.

THOMAS COKE: The Amalekite deserved death.

MATTHEW HENRY: In vain did he plead that he had Saul’s order for it, that it was a real kindness to him, that he must inevitably have died; all those pleas are overruled.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): The positive duty implied in the command “Thou shalt not kill,” Exodus 20:13, is that we should do all the good we can to ourselves and others―in reference to others, we are to preserve the life of others―we may be said to murder another by not hindering the death of another when in our power.

A. W. PINK: The murdering of another is a most heinous crime―those who are accessories are also guilty of murder, such as those who commission it to be done, or consent thereto, or conceal it.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Our law very properly withholds from a man the right to commit suicide—if he is caught in the act of attempting to take his own life, he is punishable as a criminal. The act of suicide is a grave offense against the Laws of God and man.

A. W. PINK: Suicide is self-murder.

D. L. MOODY (1837-1899): There have been infidels in all ages who have advocated it’s a justifiable means of release from trial and difficulty; yet thinking men, as far back as Aristotle, have generally condemned it as cowardly and unjustifiable under any conditions. No man has a right to take his own life from such motives any more than the life of another.

 

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Two Keys to Praising God: Joy & Thankfulness

Posted on October 5, 2018 by The Editor

Psalm 100

A Psalm of Praise. Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): This is the only psalm in the whole collection entitled “A Psalm of Praise;” and it is supposed to have received this appellation because peculiarly adapted, if not designed, to be sung when the sacrifices of thanksgiving were offered.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The invitation to worship here given is not a melancholy one, as though adoration were a funeral solemnity, but a cheery, gladsome exhortation, as though we were bidden to a marriage feast.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Sometimes a naturally morose temper gives a gloomy tinge to religion. Professors forget, that it is no matter of option, whether they should be happy or not; that it is their obligation no less than their privilege to be so; that the commands of God on this duty carry weight, and demand obedience.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): “Serve the Lord with gladness.” It is a sign the oil of grace hath been poured into the heart “when the oil of gladness” shines on the countenance. Cheerfulness credits religion.

C. H. SPURGEON: There is a certain breed of Calvinists, whom I do not envy, who are always jeering and sneering as much as ever they can at the full assurance of faith. I have seen their long faces; I have heard their whining periods, and read their dismal sentences, in which they say something to this effect —“Groan in the Lord alway, and again I say, groan! He that mourneth and weepeth, he that doubteth and feareth, he that distrusteth and dishonoureth his God, shall be saved.” That seems to be the sum and substance of their very ungospel-like gospel.

WILLIAM GURNALL (1617-1679): A sad heart does not become a living hope.

CHARLES BRIDGES: From doubting, the soul comes to chilling fear; thence to gloomy despondency.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In such a case the means of grace may still be used and duties performed, but there is no joy in the one or thankful gratitude behind the other. It is more the service of a slave than of a son.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): I need not inform you that the word, gospel, literally signifies “glad tidings,” Romans 10:15―In a word, do you feel that the gospel is glorious glad tidings of great joy? and is it the language of your hearts, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift?” If not, it is most certain that you never believed the gospel; for the apostle Paul assures us, that it does work effectually in all that believe; and we have already seen that it has, in all ages, filled the hearts of believers with joy, and their lips with praise.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): See, then, in this psalm what is the proper effect of religion upon the soul…See it in the Psalmist’s own experience; and see it in all whom he here addresses. Is this gloom or melancholy? Is it not the very reverse? Doubtless, as far as we deviate from religion, we have need to weep and mourn: but, in proportion as we conform to it, and imbibe its spirit, it will fill us with unutterable joy. What is it that the glorified saints are now doing in heaven? Are they not beholding all the glory of their God and Saviour, and singing His praise for all the wondrous works which He has done? This, then, is religion in perfection: and the privilege of God’s people now is, to be assimilated to them, in mind, in spirit, in employment. Be aware of this, my beloved Brethren; and learn, not only to estimate religion aright, but to have it reigning in your hearts, and exemplified in your lives.

A. W. PINK: If there be no joy, there can be no worship.

WILLIAM GURNALL: “Saints shall shout aloud for joy,” Psalm 132:16.  To see a wicked man merry, or a Christian sad and dumpish, is alike uncomely…Truly the saint’s heaviness reflects unkindly upon God Himself: we do not commend His cheer, if it doth not cheer us. O Christians, let the world see you are not losers in your joy, since you have been acquainted with the Gospel; give them not cause to think by your uncomfortable walking, that when they turn Christians, they must bid all joy farewell, and resolve to spend their days in a house of mourning.

C. H. SPURGEON: What was the very first emotion that you and I felt when we had a sense of guilt removed? We felt joy for our own sake; but immediately after, or at the same instant, we felt such intense gratitude to God that we loved Him beyond all expression.

A. W. PINK: Thankfulness is an expression of love.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): We never thank God truly, but our hearts are warmed with His love, and we rejoice in Him; therefore, when Mary praised God, she said, “My spirit doth magnify the Lord, and rejoice in God my Saviour,” Luke 1:46,47; and as joy is the ground of it, so the consequent and the issue of it.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): All the lines of joy must meet in Him as in the centre. Let it express itself in praise and thanksgiving.

C. H. SPURGEON: Is there any true praise without joy? Is not praise a twin brother to joy? And do not joy and praise always dwell together?

JEREMIAH DYKE (1584-1639): There is nothing that so feeds spiritual joy, and so maintains and holds up that holy frame that should be in the heart in the duty of thanksgiving, as meditation.  That is the oil and the fuel that keeps such fire burning. The sweeter our meditation is, the more is the heart prepared and enlarged to praises, thanksgiving, and joy in the Lord. 

C. H. SPURGEON: Gratitude is that oil which makes the wheels of life revolve easily; and if anybody ought to be grateful, surely we are the men and women, for whom the Lord has done so much: “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.”

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Besides, the Psalmist adds, that God’s mercy endureth for ever, and that His truth also is everlasting, to point out to us that we can never be at a loss for constant cause of praising Him. If, then, God never ceases to deal with us in this manner, it would argue the basest ingratitude on our part, if we wearied in rendering to Him the tribute of praise to which He is entitled.

 

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The Perfection of Scripture Is Seen in its Details

Posted on September 28, 2018 by The Editor

Numbers 20:2,3; Psalm 106:33; Numbers 20:7-12

There was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD!

And they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.

And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.

And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This is a strange passage of story, yet very instructive. It is certain that God was greatly offended, and justly, for He is never angry without cause.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): What was the offense for which Moses was excluded from the promised land?

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  The submissive and gentle spirit of Moses was fanned, as it were, into a breeze by the perverseness of the people, so that even he spake unadvisedly, saying, “Can God give you water out of the rock?”

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Slight as it may appear to us, it was a complicated offence―there was in it a mixture of irreverence, anger, disobedience and unbelief.

MATTHEW HENRY: They did not punctually observe their orders. God bade them “speak to the rock,” and they spoke to the people, and smote the rock, which at this time they were not ordered to do. It was in his passion that he called them rebels―it came from a provoked spirit, and was spoken unadvisedly: it was too much like “Raca,” and “Thou fool,” Matthew 5:22. His smiting the rock twice―it should seem, not waiting at all for the eruption of the water upon the first stroke―shows that he was in a heat.

JAMES HAMILTON (1814-1867): Angry he certainly was; in the heat and agitation of his spirit he failed to implement implicitly the Divine command. His harangue had a certain tone of petulance and egotism. “Hear now, ye rebels; must we”―must I and Aaron, not must Jehovah―“fetch you water out of this rock?”

MATTHEW HENRY: They assumed too much of the glory of this work of wonder to themselves, as if it were done by some power or worthiness of theirs. Therefore it is charged upon them that “they did not sanctify God,” that is, they did not give Him that glory of this miracle which was due unto His name.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): It is certain from the text that unbelief was their sin.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me.” Ye could not conceive, and were not very willing, that I should show such favour to so undeserving a people: so measuring my thoughts by your thoughts, and my ways by your ways; casting me into a dishonourable mould, as it were; and this publicly, before all the people.

CHARLES SIMEON: Of this in particular God accuses them. Whether they doubted the efficacy of a word, and therefore smote the rock; or whether they acted in their own strength, expecting the effect to be produced by their own act of striking the rock, instead of regarding God alone as the author of the mercy, we cannot say―In either case they were under the influence of unbelief: for, distrust of God, or creature-confidence, are equally the effects of unbelief: the one characterized the conduct of those Israelites who were afraid to go up to take possession of the promised land; and the other, those who went up in their own strength, when God had refused to go before them. This was the offence which excluded the whole nation from the promised land: “they could not enter in because of unbelief,” Hebrews 3:19; no wonder therefore, that, when Moses and Aaron were guilty of it, they were involved in the common lot.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It was also a marring of a blessed type. Note: it is “smite the rock” in Exodus 17:6, but only “speak” to it here in Numbers 20:8.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): The smiting of the rock in obedience to God in Exodus 17 was a beautiful type of the smiting of Christ with the rod of judgment. Christ had to be smitten in judgment on Calvary’s cross, and when the wrath of God that was our due fell upon Him and He bowed His head beneath that rod―when the Rock of Ages was cleft for us—the living water flowed forth for the refreshment of a famished world.

A. W. PINK: Doubtless that word in Isaiah 53:4 looks back to that very type—“Smitten of God.” How solemn to behold that it was the people’s sin which led to the smiting of the rock! Out from the smitten rock flowed the water. Beautiful type was this of the Holy Spirit—gift of the crucified, now glorified, Saviour.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): In 1 Corinthians 10: 4, we read, “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” That is plain and positive.

H. A. IRONSIDE: But you know He was only smitten once in judgment. Having died for our sins, He is never to die again and will never know the smiting of the rod of judgment again. That question has been settled once for all.

A. W. PINK: The rock must not be smitten a second time, for that would spoil the type.

JOHN GILL: But why then was Moses bid to take the rod with him, if it was not to smite with it, as he had done before at Horeb in Exodus 17?

A. W. PINK: It was not the same rod used in Exodus 17. On that former occasion Moses was to use his own rod—the rod of judgment. But here he was to take “the rod,”―the rod of Aaron. This is clear from verse 9, “Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as He commanded him;” if we compare it with Numbers 17:10—“And the Lord saith unto Moses, Bring Aaron’s rod before the testimony to be kept for a token against the rebels.” This, then, was the priestly rod. Mark also how this aspect of truth was further emphasized in this type by the Lord bidding Moses, on this second occasion, to take Aaron along with him—Aaron is not referred to at the first smiting of the rock!

H. A. IRONSIDE: Moses was to take the rod of priesthood, reminding us that our Saviour is now ministering in the presence of God as our great High Priest. Christ does not need to be smitten again to sustain our life. And so Moses spoiled the type of God’s lovely picture of the present work of His Son.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Our great High Priest has passed into the heavens, there to appear in the presence of God for us, and the streams of spiritual refreshment flow to us, on the ground of accomplished redemption, and in connection with Christ’s priestly ministry, of which Aaron’s budding rod is the exquisite figure, Numbers 17:1-10…To have smitten with Aaron’s rod would, as we can easily understand, have spoiled its lovely blossom. A word would have sufficed, in connection with the rod of priesthood—the rod of grace.

A. W. PINK: It is striking to note that though Moses smote the rock instead of speaking to it, nevertheless, the refreshing waters gushed forth from it―Truly, our God is the “God of all grace.”

 

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When Jesus Christ Washes Our Feet

Posted on September 21, 2018 by The Editor

John 13:1, 3-5

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end…

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is not the part of a master to wash feet! It is servile, menial, humiliating work. Yet this, which was the lowest of all offices in the East, is that which the Saviour undertakes!

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): He came from God. This implies that He was in the beginning with God, and had a being and glory, not only before He was born into this world, but before the world itself was born; and that when He came into the world He came as God’s ambassador, with a commission from Him. He came from God as the son of God, and the sent of God…He went to God, to be glorified with Him with the same glory which he had with God from eternity―He knew all this; He was not like a prince in the cradle, that knows nothing of the honour he is born to, or like Moses, who wist not that his face shone; no, He had a full view of all the honours of His exalted state, and yet stooped thus low.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Can the imagination conceive anything equally lovely, as in thus beholding the Son of God in our nature, washing the feet of poor fishermen? And what tends to give yet more the highest coloring of grace and mercy to the picture, it is drawn at that moment of all others, when Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into His hands!

C. H. SPURGEON: Mark the condescension of this personal washing, for Abraham did not, himself, wash the angels’ feet, but said, “Let a little water be fetched and wash your feet,” Genesis 18:4. And Joseph did not personally wash his brother’s feet, but the steward of his house brought them in and gave them water, Genesis 43:24; and they washed their feet! But Jesus does it all Himself.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): We learn, for one thing, from these verses, what patient and continuing love there is in Christ’s heart towards His people. It is written that “having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” Knowing perfectly well that they were about to forsake Him shamefully in a very few hours, in full view of their approaching display of weakness and infirmity, our blessed Master did not cease to have loving thoughts of His disciples. He was not weary of them: He loved them to the last.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Someone has translated that last expression, “He loved them all the way through.” Through what? Through everything. He loved Peter all the way through his boasting and failure, and He loved him back to victory and faithfulness. And, thank God, when once He takes up a poor sinner in grace, He loves him all the way through, so it can be said of every Christian, “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” For “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ,” Philippians 1:6.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): Christ Jesus hath a sufficiency and efficacy in Him, not only for the justification of believers that rest on Him, but for the furthering of their sanctification also, and helping of them to a victory over the world; I Corinthian 1:30, “He is our sanctification,” as well as our justification.  Believers in their way, should not only by faith rest on Christ, for attaining pardon of sin by His righteousness; but, should also depend on Him, for furthering of their mortification and sanctification.

MATTHEW POOLE: Peter rashly replies, “Thou shalt never wash my feet,” John 13:8. Here was a seeming reverence for his Master, but like the Jewish zeal mentioned by Paul, “not according to knowledge,” Romans 10:2. Christ tells him, that except He washed him, He had no part with him; that is, he should never be saved.

MATTHEW HENRY: I think it is to be understood: “If I wash not thy soul from the pollution of sin, thou hast no part with me, no interest in me, no communion with me, no benefit by me.” Note: All those, and those only, that are spiritually washed by Christ, have a part in Christ.

C. H. SPURGEON: We must all have this frequent washing by our Lord—it is absolutely necessary. There is a “must” in the case—as we must be born again, so we must be made holy. It would be to our Lord’s dishonour to be followed by disciples who do not walk in integrity and uprightness. As He is, Himself, perfectly holy, He desires to have around Him a holy people purged from all defilement. He is so anxious that He should have such a people that, sooner than they shall not be washed, He will act the part of a Servant and wash their feet Himself.

H. A. IRONSIDE: When we are cleansed by the precious blood of Christ we are washed all over, once for all. That does not have to take place again―we are always clean in that sense. But now, “he that washed needeth not save to wash his feet,” John 13:10; and feet speak of our walk. We read, “He will keep the feet of his saints,” 1 Samuel 2:9, so every time we fail as believers we are to go to our blessed Lord, and say, “Cleanse me now by the washing of water by the word.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): In regard of their remainder of sin and lust that is in them, and will be so while they are in the world, and the temptations which every where be in the world, as snares for their feet, they will have need of a daily washing. Our cleansing is in holy writ attributed sometimes to the blood of Christ, sometimes to the Spirit, sometimes to the Word. By the blood of Christ we are made clean as to justification, washed; but yet we had need wash our feet, contracting soil every day in a sinful world, from which we are cleansed by the purifying virtue of the Holy Spirit, working by and together with the Word, which purgeth us of our dross, and maketh us obedient to the will of God.

C. H. SPURGEON: Look, He even washes our feet! What better token need we of His abiding love? This is one of the acts of His continuous love, this daily washing of our feet!

ROBERT HAWKER: And it will not be long before that He Who washed His disciples feet will bring home His whole Church washed from all her sins in His blood, and become a glorious Church, sanctified and cleansed, and made holy, and without blemish before Him, in love! Ephesians 5:25,26.

 

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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.

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*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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