The Mysterious Beginnings of Grace in the Soul

Posted on January 22, 2016 by The Editor

John 3:1-8

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The beauty and propriety of this simile will more appear by observing that the same Hebrew word רוח is used both for the wind, and for the Spirit of God; it is used for the “wind” in Genesis 3:8, and in other places; and for the Spirit of God in Genesis 1:2, and elsewhere. So likewise the Greek word πνευμα is used for them both, for the wind in this place, and often for the Holy Ghost. And it may be observed, that the Holy Spirit, because of His powerful, comfortable, and quickening influences, is compared to the wind.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The Spirit came upon the apostles in a rushing mighty wind, Acts 2:2. His strong influences on the hearts of sinners are compared to the breathing of the wind Ezekiel 37:9, and His sweet influences on the souls of saints to the north and south wind, Song of Solomon 4:16.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The manner of the Lord’s work in the hearts of His people is not easily traced; though the fact is certain, and the evidence demonstrable from Scripture. In attempting to explain it, we can only speak in general, and are at a loss to form such a description as shall take in the immense variety of cases which occur in the experience of believers.

JOHN GILL: The Spirit of God is a free agent in regeneration; He works how, and where, and when He pleases; He acts freely in the first operation of His grace on the heart, and in all after influences of it; as well as in the donation of His gifts to men, for different purposes, I Corinthians 12:11. And this grace of the Spirit in regeneration, like the wind, is powerful and irresistible; it carries all before it; there is no withstanding it; it throws down Satan’s strong holds, demolishes the fortifications of sin; the whole posse of hell, and the corruptions of a man’s heart, are not a match for it.

MATTHEW HENRY: The Spirit, in regeneration, works powerfully, and with evident effects―Thou hearest the sound thereof―though its causes are hidden, its effects are manifest. When the soul is brought to mourn for sin, to groan under the burden of corruption, to breathe after Christ, to cry “Abba, Father,” then we hear the sound of the Spirit, and we find He is at work, as in Acts 9:11: “Behold he prayeth.” He works mysteriously, and in secret hidden ways: Thou canst not tell whence it comes, nor whither it goes. How it gathers and how it spends its strength is a riddle to us; so the manner and methods of the Spirit’s working are a mystery.

WILLIAM ARNOT (1808-1875): The way of God, in the regeneration of man, is past finding out. One part of it He keeps near Himself, concealed by the clouds and darkness that surround His throne; another part of it He has clearly revealed to our understandings, and pressed on our hearts.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): The Bible applied to the heart by the Holy Ghost, is the grand instrument by which souls are first converted to God.  That mighty change is generally begun by some text or doctrine of the Word brought home to a man’s conscience.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Usually when God converts young people in the first stages of sin, before they have formed evil habits, He does it in a gentle manner; not by the “terrors of the law, the tempest, fire and smoke,” but He makes them like Lydia, “whose heart the Lord opened” that she received the word.  On such “it droppeth like the gentle dew from heaven upon the place beneath.” With hardened sinners grace cometh down in showers that rattle on them; but in young converts it often cometh gently. There is just the sweet breathing of the Spirit. They perhaps scarcely think it is a true conversion; but true it is, if they are brought to life.       

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL (1635-1711): Even in the common way of conversion, one experiences something with which another is not acquainted.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Many of God’s children cannot trace the particular footsteps of their conversion.

JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-1758): Conversion is a great and glorious work of God’s power, at once changing the heart, and infusing life into the dead soul; though the grace then implanted more gradually displays itself in some than in others. But as to fixing on the precise time when they put forth the very first act of grace, there is a great deal of difference in different persons; in some it seems to be very discernible when the very time was; but others are more at a loss…It is to be feared that some have gone too far in attempting to direct the Spirit of the Lord, and to mark out His footsteps for Him. Experience clearly shows that we cannot trace the operations of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of some who afterward prove the best of Christians.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): There is no reason to doubt that it was religious principle and conscientious feeling that excited in Nicodemus the desire to gain a more intimate knowledge of the doctrine of Christ. And although that seed remained long concealed and apparently dead, yet after the death of Christ it yielded fruit, such as no man would ever have expected, John 19:39.

ANDRONICUS (16th Century): The Lord’s dealings with His people are various, but all lead to the same end; some are shaken with terror, while others are more gently drawn, as with cords of love. In these things believers should not make their experiences standards one for another; still there is a similarity in their being brought to the same point of rejecting both sinful and righteous self, and believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as their complete salvation.

 

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Seeking God’s Guidance When Troubles & Confusions Multiply

Posted on January 14, 2016 by The Editor

2 Corinthians 4:8; Psalm 73:24 ;Psalm 31:3

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair.

Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.

For thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Any sincere follower of God may use these words.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Happy is the man who personally appropriates God’s Word, and practically uses it as his comfort and counsellor…One of the most practical benefits of Holy Writ is guidance in the acts of daily life; it is not sent to astound us with its brilliance, but to guide us by its instruction.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): In dark and doubtful [times], when a man multiplieth consultations and perplexed thoughts, and changeth conclusions as a sick man doth his bed, and knows not what course to take, whether this or that, then the Word will direct him what to do, so as that a man may find quiet in his soul.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): The grand question is this: Is God’s Word sufficient or not?

THOMAS MANTON: Indeed, here is the question: How far is the Word of God a counsellor to us in such perplexed and doubtful cases?

ALEXANDER COMRIE (1706-1774): [Believers] “expect” counsel and teaching in obscure matters. Sometimes the soul is brought into circumstances wherein she knows not God’s will, nor can distinguish between sin and duty, which come very close, since both in what she commits and omits, the soul can fall into sin against the Lord.

C. H. SPURGEON: Of two evils, choose neither.

THOMAS MANTON: The Word of God will help him to understand how far he is concerned in such an action in point of duty and conscience…Now it is a great relief to the soul, when a man understands how far he is concerned in a point of duty. The conflict many times lies not only between light and lust, or light and [self-interest]―then a gracious man knows what part to take; but when it lies between duty and duty, then it is tedious and troublesome to him. Now the word will clearly tell you what is your duty in any action, whatever it be. As to the prudent management of the action in order to success, the Word will teach you to go to God for wisdom (James 1:6), and to observe His answer.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): God at all times, circumstances, and places, though ever so minute, ever so particular, will―if we diligently seek the assistance of His Holy Spirit, apply general things to our hearts, and thereby―to use the words of the Holy Jesus―“lead us into all truth” and give us the particular assistance we want.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): If any man object, that angels come not down daily from heaven to reveal unto us what we ought to do, the answer is ready, that we are sufficiently taught in the Word of God what we ought to do, and that they are never destitute of the counsel who ask it of Him, and submit themselves to the government of the Spirit. Therefore nothing doth hinder and keep us back from being ready to follow God, save only our own slothfulness and coldness in prayer.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Study the Word with prayer. Mark the Divine Spirit shedding light upon it.  Compare it with the observation of the providences of the day (Psalm 107:43); not judging by constitutional bias―a most doubtful interpreter―but pondering with sober, practical, reverential faith. Let the will be kept in a quiet, subdued, cheerful readiness, to move, stay, retreat, turn to the right hand or to the left, at the Lord’s bidding; always remembering that is best which is least our own doing, and that a pliable spirit ever secures the needful guidance.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: It is the application of all the doctrinal and historical parts of Scripture, when we are reading them over, that must render them profitable to us, as they were designed “for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, and to make every child of God perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work,” 2 Timothy 3:16, 17. I dare appeal to the experience of every spiritual reader of Holy Writ, whether or not, if he consulted the Word of God in this manner, he was not at all times and at all seasons, as plainly directed how to act, as though he had consulted the Urim and Thummin which was upon the high priest’s breast.  For this is the way God now reveals Himself to man: not by making new revelations, but by applying general things that are revealed already to every sincere reader’s heart.

JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-1758): One erroneous principle, than which scarce any has proved more mischievous to the present glorious work of God, is a notion that it is God’s manner in these days to guide His saints―at least some that are more eminent―by inspiration, or immediate revelation.

A. P. GIBBS (1890-1967): Like the people of Athens, they spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell or hear of some new thing.  This is a mischievous malady indeed.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): When God is said to enlighten us, it is not that we should expect new revelations, but that we may see the wonders in His word, or get a clear sight of what is already revealed.  Those that vent their own dreams under the name of the Spirit, and divine light, they do not give you mysteria, but monstra―portentous opinions; not to show you the wondrous things of God’s law, but the prodigies of their own brain…The light which we have, is not without the Word, but by the Word.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): He that would utterly separate the Spirit from the Word, had as good as burn His Bible.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: Our blessed Lord, though He was the eternal God, yet, as man, He made the Scriptures His constant rule and guide―And thus, when led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, He repelled all his assaults with “It is written.”  A sufficient confutation this, of their opinion who say “the Spirit only, and not the Spirit by the Word, is to be our rule of action.”  If so, our Saviour, who had the Spirit without measure needed not always to have referred to the written word.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Every child of God has a twofold guide: the Word without, and the Spirit within, Isaiah 30:20,21: “Thine eyes shall see thy teachers: and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”

GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): To ascertain the Lord’s will we ought to use scriptural means.  Prayer, the Word of God, and His Spirit should be united together. We should go to the Lord repeatedly in prayer, and ask Him to teach us by His Spirit through His Word.  I say by His Spirit through His Word. For if we should think that His Spirit led us to do so and so, because certain facts are so and so, and yet His Word is opposed to the step which we are going to take, we should be deceiving ourselves.

 

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A Special Reminder & An Encouragement to Elderly Believers

Posted on January 8, 2016 by The Editor

2 Peter 1:13,14; Joshua 13:1

I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God puts Joshua in mind of his old age―Note, old people should be reminded by the growing infirmities of age to do quickly, and with all the little might they have, what their hand finds to do. The consideration of the uncertainty of the time of our departure out of the world―about which God has wisely kept us in the dark―should quicken us to do the work of the day in its day…We must make hay while the sun shines.

ISAAC WATTS (1674-1748): Do I observe the declining day, and the setting sun sinking into darkness? So declines the day of life, the hours of labour, and the seasons of grace.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): This life, upon which every thing depends, is very brief: this is fearful. Look at the images of Scripture: a flower of the field; a flood; a watch in the night; a dream; a vapour.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Our time is short…The devil is therefore more mischievous because he knows “he hath but a short time,” Revelation 12:12―Oh, “learn for shame of the devil,” as Hugh Latimer said once; therefore to do your utmost, because “the time is short,” or “rolled up,” as sails used to be when the ship draws nigh to the harbour. This argument prevailed much with Peter to bestir him in stirring up those he wrote unto, because he knew that he must “shortly put off his tabernacle.”

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): It is a rare thing to see a man in old age naturally vigorous, healthy, and strong; and would it were not more rare to see any spiritually so at the same season!

MATTHEW HENRY: As long as we live we should be endeavouring to glorify God and edify one another…Old age affords a great opportunity for usefulness. Especially, if it be a good old age. Theirs may be called a good old age, that are old and healthful, not loaded with such distempers as make them weary of life; and that are old and holy, old disciples whose hoary head is “found in the way of righteousness” (Proverbs 16:31)―old and useful, old and exemplary for godliness; theirs is indeed a good old age.

JOHN TRAPP: Some men live long, but are good for little.

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (347-407): What sloth in old age!

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): They are tempted to take things easier, spiritually as well as temporally, so that it has to be said of some “ye did run well.”―So many leave their first love, lose the joy of their espousals, and instead of setting before younger Christians a bright example of trustfulness and cheerfulness, they often discourage by gloominess and slothfulness.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): It is a rare case to find a man in old age full of faith, love, and spiritual activity.

A. W. PINK: In this connection let us remind ourselves of that verse, “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s,” Psalm 103:5…But how is the eagle’s youth renewed? By a new crop of feathers, by the rejuvenation of its wings. And that is precisely what some middle-aged and elderly Christians need: the rejuvenation of their spiritual wings—the wings of faith, of hope, of zeal, of love for souls, of devotedness to Christ.

MATTHEW HENRY: As thy days, so shall thy strength be, Deuteronomy 33:25. Many paraphrase it thus, “The strength of thy old age shall be like that of thy youth; thou shalt not feel a decay, nor be the worse for the wearing, but shalt renew thy youth.”―And, as for old men, it is promised that they shall fill their days with the fruits of righteousness, which they shall still bring forth in old age, to show that the Lord is upright, Psalm 92:14,15.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.” This is here promised unto believers as an especial grace and privilege…The grace intended is, that when believers are under all sorts of bodily and natural decays, and, it may be, overtaken with spiritual decays also, there is provision made in the covenant to render them fat, flourishing, and fruitful―vigorous in the power of internal grace, and flourishing in expression of it in all the duties of obedience.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Nature decays but grace thrives. Fruit, as far as nature is concerned, belongs to days of vigour; but in the garden of grace, when plants are weak in themselves, they become strong in the Lord, and abound in fruit acceptable with God. Happy they are who can sing Psalm 92, enjoying the rest which breathes through every verse of it; no fear as to the future can distress them, for their evil days, when the strong man faileth, are the subject of a gracious promise, and therefore they await them with quiet expectancy. Aged believers possess a ripe experience, and by their mellow tempers and sweet testimonies they feed many. Even if bedridden, they bear the fruit of patience; if poor and obscure, their lowly and contented spirit becomes the admiration of those who know how to appreciate modest worth. Grace does not leave the saint when the keepers of the house do tremble; the promise is still sure though the eyes can no longer read it.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Grace is often in the greatest vigour when nature is decayed; witness Abraham, Job, David, Zachariah, and Elisabeth, and good old Simeon, who went to the grave like shocks of corn, fully ripe.

A. W. PINK: O to be like “Paul the aged” (Philemon 1:9), who was in full harness to the end…The most active worker in a church of which I was pastor, was seventy-seven years old when I went there, and during my stay of three and a half years she did more for the Lord, and was a greater stimulus to me than any other member of that church. She lived another eight years, and they were, to the very end, filled with devoted service to Christ.

MATTHEW HENRY: The last days of the saints are sometimes their best days, and their last work is their best work…When we see death hastening towards us, this should quicken us to do the work of life with all our might.

JOHN TRAPP: Thou hast not long to do; up therefore and be doing; work while it is yet day; the night of death cometh, when none can work, John 9:4.

A. W. PINK: Instead of saying, “The days of my usefulness are over,” rather reason, “The night cometh when no man can work, therefore I must make the most of my opportunities while it is yet called day.”

JOHN TRAPP: Up, therefore, and be doing, that the Lord may be with you.

 

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A New Year’s Eve Post: The Ticking Down of the Clock

Posted on December 31, 2015 by The Editor

Genesis 1:1,5; Revelation 10:5,6

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… So the evening and the morning were the first day.

And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer.

THOMAS ADAMS (1583-1656): The world began with time, and time with it.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Everyone knows that after this world, and all things in it are at an end, time will be no more.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Time shall be swallowed up in eternity.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Before the Eternal, all the age of frail man is less than one ticking of a clock.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): In the beginning―that is, in the beginning of time, when that clock was first set a going: time began with the production of those beings that are measured by time. Before the beginning of time there was none but that Infinite Being that inhabits eternity.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): There is a time appointed by the Father when the whole machinery of creation shall stop.

MATTHEW HENRY: It is a season of grace that will soon be over.

C. H. SPURGEON: There is one thought which should not leave us when talking about times and seasons, namely, that now―just now―this present flying moment, that second which is being recorded by the ticking of yonder clock, is the only time which we have to work with. I can do nothing with the days that are past, I can do nothing with the days future—yet I reach out towards them—but I cannot improve them…For practical purposes, the only time I have is that which is just now passing. Did I say I had it? While I said I had it, it is gone, like the meteor which dashes down the sky, or the eagle which flies afar.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): All space of time should be small to them that know the greatness of eternity.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Time is given us to use in view of eternity.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Time is not yours to dispose of as you please; it is a glorious talent that men must be accountable for as well as any other talent.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): A man has not a time for which he is not accountable to God. If his very diversions are not governed by reason and religion he will one day suffer for the time he has spent in them.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): The common complaint is, We lack time; but the truth is, we do not so much lack it as waste it.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): Have you time enough to eat, to drink, to sleep, to talk unprofitably, it may be corruptly, in all sorts of unnecessary societies, but have not time to live unto God?

THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661): As good as to have no time, as to make no good use of it―time misspent is not lived, but lost.

JOHN TRAPP: They that lose time are the greatest losers and wastefullest prodigals.

JOSEPH ALLEINE (1634-1668): Give me a Christian that counts his time more precious than gold.

DAVID BRAINERD (1718-1747): Oh, how precious is time, and how it pains me to see it slide away, while I do so little to any good purpose.

RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691): I have these forty years been sensible of the sin of losing time; I could not spare an hour…What have we time and strength for, but to lay out both for God?

MATTHEW HENRY: Christians must be good husbands of their time, and take care to improve it to the best of purposes, by watching against temptations, by doing good while it is in the power of their hands, and by filling it up with proper employment―one special preservative from sin. They should make the best use they can of the present seasons of grace. Our time is a talent given us by God for some good end, and it is misspent and lost when it is not employed according to His design. If we have lost our time heretofore, we must endeavour to redeem it by doubling our diligence in doing our duty for the future.

C. H. SPURGEON: No man ever served God by doing things tomorrow―the ticking of the clock saith, today! to-day! to-day! We have no other time in which to live. The past is gone; the future hath not come; we have, we never shall have, anything but the present. This is our all―I say again, I do not care what you do with your to-morrow. If you will but give God your now, your to-morrows will be all right. For duty, then, let the Christian prize the “now.”

JOHN TRAPP: It is reported of Ignatius, that when he heard a clock strike, he would say, Here is one hour more now past that I have to answer for.

ISAAC WATTS (1674-1748): Do I observe the declining day, and the setting sun sinking into darkness?  So declines the day of life, the hours of labour, and the seasons of grace.

A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): We have much to do and little time in which to get it done!

C. H. SPURGEON: Listen for one moment to the ticking of that clock!

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Think of your pulse, where the question is asked sixty times every minute, whether you shall live or die.

C. H. SPURGEON: You hear the ticking of that clock—it is the footstep of death pursuing you. Each time the clock ticks, death’s footsteps are falling on the ground close behind you. You will soon enter another year. This year will have gone in a few seconds.

ISAAC WATTS: Does a new year commence, and the first morning of it dawn upon me? Let me remember that the last year was finished, and gone over my head, in order to make way for the entrance of the present: I have one year the less to travel through the world, and to fulfill the various services of a travelling state.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Hence it follows, that there is no time for idleness.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Is it a time to stand idle, when we stand at the door of eternity?

THOMAS MANTON: Eternity depends upon this moment.

MAXINE COLLINS (1920-1984): I have but today, may I make it tell

Not in history books, but that I used it well
For Jesus.
Just today, yesterday is gone
Tomorrow yet to come,
And between them hung
Is that space of time and place
That is this day, this hour, this minute
This one breath is all that I can claim
May its aim, be to proclaim:
Jesus.

 

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Jesus Christ the Messiah, the Immanuel of Prophecy

Posted on December 25, 2015 by The Editor

Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18-23

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Who would have thought that the prophecy contained in Isaiah 7:14 could have referred to our Lord?

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Christ, indeed, was not called by this name Immanuel that we anywhere read of.

C. H. SPURGEON: Scriptural names, as a general rule, contain teaching, and especially is this the case in every name ascribed to the Lord Jesus. With Him names indicate things. “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” because He really is all these.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): The design of these words is not so much to relate the [exact] name by which Christ should commonly be called, as to describe His nature and office; as we read that “his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,” etc., in Isaiah 9:6, and, that “this is” said to be “His name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness,” Jeremiah 23:6, although He be never called by these names in any other place of the Old or New Testament.

C. H. SPURGEON: When He is said to be called this or that, it means that He really is so. I am not aware that anywhere in the New Testament our Lord is afterwards called Emmanuel. I do not find His apostles, or any of His disciples, calling Him by that name literally. But we find them all doing so in effect, for they speak of Him as, “God manifest in the flesh,” I Timothy 3:16. And they say, “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” John 1:14. They do not use the actual word, but they again interpret and give us free and instructive renderings while they proclaim the sense of the august title and inform us in many ways what is meant by God being with us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a glorious fact of the highest importance that, since Christ was born into the world, God is with us.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The Jews are hard pressed by this passage of Isaiah 7; for it contains an illustrious prediction concerning the Messiah, who is here called Immanuel; and therefore they have laboured, by all possible means, to torture the Prophet’s meaning to another sense.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son. This is not to be understood of Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, by his wife, as some Jewish writers interpret it; which interpretation Jarchi refutes, by observing that Hezekiah was nine years old when his father began to reign, and this being, as he says, the fourth year of his reign, Hezekiah must be at this time thirteen years of age; and besides, his mother could not be called a “virgin:” and for the same reason it cannot be understood of any other son of Ahaz, either by his wife, as Kimchi thinks, or by some other young woman; moreover, no other son of his was ever lord of Judea, as this Immanuel is represented to be in Isaiah 8:8―nor can it be interpreted of Isaiah’s wife and son, as Aben Ezra and Jarchi think; since the prophet could never call her a “virgin” who had bore him children.

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (347-407): If any Jew objects, “How could a virgin bring forth?”―Ask him, How could Sarah, when old and barren, bear a child?

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Here is a question asked which is enough to answer all the cavils of flesh and blood, Genesis 18:14―Is any thing too hard for the Lord?

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let us observe in these verses from Luke, the two names given to our Lord.  One is “Jesus,” the other “Emmanuel;” one describes His office, the other His nature.  Both are deeply interesting.

C. H. SPURGEON: His name is called Jesus, but not without a reason.

J. C. RYLE: The name Jesus means “Saviour”―It is given to our Lord because “He saves His people from their sins.” This is His special office. He saves them from the guilt of sin, by washing them in His own atoning blood. He saves them from the dominion of sin, by putting in their hearts the sanctifying Spirit. He saves them from the presence of sin, when He takes them out of this world to rest with Him. He will save them from all the consequences of sin, when He shall give them a glorious body at the last day.

C. H. SPURGEON: By any other name Jesus would not be so sweet, because no other name could fairly describe His great work of saving His people from their sins.

J. C. RYLE: The name “Emmanuel” is scarcely less interesting than the name “Jesus.” It is the name which is given to our Lord from His nature as God-man, as “God manifest in the flesh.”―Let us take care that we clearly understand that there was a union of two natures, the divine and human, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a point of the deepest importance.

JOHN CALVIN: This name was unquestionably bestowed on Christ on account of the actual fact; for the only-begotten Son of God clothed Himself with our flesh, and united Himself to us by partaking of our nature. He is, therefore, called God with us, or united to us; which cannot apply to a man who is not God.

C. H. SPURGEON: Those words, “being interpreted,” salute my ear with much sweetness. Why should the word, “Emmanuel,” in the Hebrew, be interpreted at all? Was it not to show that it has reference to us Gentiles and therefore it must be interpreted into one of the chief languages of the then existing Gentile world, namely, the Greek? This, “being interpreted,” at Christ’s birth and the three languages employed in the inscription upon the cross at His death, show that He is not the Saviour of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles―Let us preserve with reverent love both forms of the precious name and wait the happy day when our Hebrew brethren shall unite their “Emmanuel,” with our “God with us.”

 

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The Sublime Mystery of the Trinity of the Godhead

Posted on December 18, 2015 by The Editor

2 Corinthians 13:14; Deuteronomy 6:4

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.

Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Many think that Moses teaches in these words the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. It may be so―a plurality is expressed in the word אלהינו  Eloheinu, which is translated “our God.”

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): No one can read the Bible without, of necessity, coming face to face with this doctrine of the Trinity…There is no doctrine which shows so clearly our absolute dependence upon the revelation that we have in the Scriptures. No human being would have thought of the doctrine of the Trinity. It comes directly from the Bible and from nowhere else at all.

B. B. WARFIELD (1851-1921): As the doctrine of the Trinity is indiscoverable by reason, so it is incapable of proof from reason. There are no analogies to it in nature, not even in the spiritual nature of man, who is made in the image of God. In His Trinitarian mode of being, God is unique; and, as there is nothing in the universe like Him in this respect, so there is nothing which can help us to comprehend Him.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Our narrow thoughts can no more comprehend the Trinity in Unity than a nutshell will hold all the water in the sea.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: It is beyond any question the most mysterious and the most difficult of all biblical doctrines.

ISAAC WATTS (1674-1748): If we say that the Three Persons of the Trinity, by mutual indwelling and love, approach each other infinitely in one Divine nature, and yet lose not their distinct personality, it would be but an obscure account of this sublime mystery.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Let me lay down certain points of vital importance in this connection. The doctrine of the Trinity does not mean that there are three gods…While God in His innermost nature is one, He nevertheless exists as three Persons. Now we are already in trouble, are we not? Do you not want to ask me at this point: ‘Are you saying that there are three Persons, different in essence? If you are―then there must be three gods.’ To which my reply is this: “Hear, O Israel: Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah.” I must say that. What is the trouble, therefore? Well, the trouble, once more, is due to the inadequacy of language. We have to talk about ‘persons’ because we cannot think of a higher category than persons, and as we think of persons we think of individuals, and we are separating them. But as the Bible uses these expressions, they obviously mean something different.

B. B. WARFIELD: The term “Trinity” is not a Biblical term, and we are not using Biblical language when we define what is expressed by it as the doctrine that there is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Why should conscientious persons object to these terms―if they think them agreeable to the truth―merely because they are not expressed in the precise words of Scripture?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: There are those who have tried to deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in this way: they say, “There are not three Persons, there is only one Person, there is only one God; but that one God can reveal Himself in different ways. He once revealed Himself as the Father; then at other times He reveals Himself as the Son; and again at other times He reveals Himself as the Holy Spirit.”…But the Bible rejects all that. Father, Son, and Spirit are not merely modes in which God appears―no, no―there are three Persons in the Godhead. The Persons refer to each other; Christ spoke about the others and referred to the others―not meaning Himself but the other Persons in the Holy Trinity. So we reject any teaching that there is only one God who shows Himself in these different forms.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The things which are revealed are enough, without venturing into vain speculations. In attempting to define the Trinity, or unveil the essence of Divinity, many men have lost themselves.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Very well, I can sum it up like this: The Trinity has existed in the Godhead from all eternity. A statement of the Athanasian Creed with regard to this gives a perfect definition: “The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there are not three Gods but one God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord, and yet there are not three Lords but one Lord. For as we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge each Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the same truth to say that there are three Gods or three Lords.” And in reality you can never get beyond that.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): The doctrine of the Deity of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, in union with the Father, so that they are not three Gods, but one God, is not merely a proposition expressed in words, to which our assent is required, but is absolutely necessary to be known; since without it no one truth respecting salvation can be rightly understood, no one promise duly believed, no one duty spiritually performed.  I take it for granted, that this doctrine must appear irrational and absurd in the eye of reason, if by reason we mean the reason of man in his fallen state, before it is corrected and enlightened by a heavenly teacher.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.

C. H. SPURGEON: We cannot explain how the Father, Son, and Spirit can be each one distinct and perfect in Himself, and yet that these three are one, so that there is but one God; yet we do verily believe it.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: “But I cannot understand the doctrine of the Trinity,” says someone, “and because I cannot understand it, I don’t believe it.”

AUGUSTINE (354-430): Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Oh, I am not saying that I understand the Trinity, and I am not asking you to understand it. I am simply telling you that you will go to a Christless eternity unless you believe this message of the God who is, and always was, the three Persons in this blessed Godhead—coequal, coeternal in every respect. This is a great and eternal mystery. It is beyond us, but it is true.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): The doctrine of the Trinity! You ask me what that is? I answer, It is that doctrine that sheweth us the love of God the Father in giving His Son; the love of God the Son in giving Himself; and the love of God the Spirit in His work of regenerating us, that we may be made able to lay hold of the love of the Father by His Son.

 

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What Actually is God’s Grace? How Can We Define it?

Posted on December 11, 2015 by The Editor

Titus 2:11; Romans 5:15; Ephesians 2:8

The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.

For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): What is grace?

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Grace implies an unmerited favour.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): This, however, is not a complete definition.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Grace has been defined as the “unmerited favour” of God. An esteemed friend has pointed out that, grace is something more than “unmerited favour.” To feed a tramp who calls on me is “unmerited favour,” but it is scarcely grace. But suppose that after robbing me I should feed this starving tramp—that would be “grace.”  Grace, then, is favour shown where there is positive de-merit in the one receiving it.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): The Christian is not a good man.  He is vile wretch who has been saved by the grace of God.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Nay, which is more, we were enemies, Romans 5:10; not only malefactors, but traitors and rebels, in arms against the government; the worst kind of malefactors and of all malefactors the most obnoxious. The carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself, Romans 8:7; Colossians 1:21. This enmity is a mutual enmity, God loathing the sinner, and the sinner loathing God, Zechariah 11:8. And that for such as these Christ should die is such a mystery, such a paradox, such an unprecedented instance of love, that it may well be our business to eternity to adore and wonder at it.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.

JOHN LELAND (1754-1841): That God is good, and that men are rebellious; that salvation is of the Lord, and damnation of ourselves, are truths revealed as plain as a sunbeam.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Grace is nothing but an introduction of the virtues of God into the soul.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): Consider the condition that men are in when this work is wrought, and we will see they can contribute nothing to it; that they have no aptitude for it, except that they are subjects capable to be wrought upon, being “dead in trespasses and sins,” Ephesians 2:1―being “dead” as to their soul’s estate, and as to their spiritual condition, like Adam’s body, before the Lord breathed in it the breath of life, and made him a living soul; as his body could not move, stir, nor act till then, no more can the natural man stir or act in the ways of God, till a new principle of spiritual life be put in him.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): In a state of nature men are a kind of atheist: whatever be their speculative belief, they are practically without God in the world; God is not in all their thoughts…Nature can never do the work of grace.

JOHN L. GIRARDEAU (1825-1898): Regenerating grace is creative power.

C. H. SPURGEON: Men cannot take the grace of God and employ it in turning themselves from darkness to light. The light does not come to the darkness and say, use me; but the light comes and drives the darkness away. Life does not come to the dead man and say, use me, and be restored to life; but it comes with a power of its own and restores to life. The spiritual influence does not come to the dry bones and say, use this power and clothe yourselves with flesh: but it comes and clothes them with flesh, and the work is done. Grace is a thing which comes and exercises an influence on us.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: “You hath He quickened,” Paul says in Ephesians 2:1, “who were dead in trespasses and sins”—God quickens us, puts new life into us, puts this new principle into us.  Now let’s give that its value. God, I say, brings us to a new birth, or, to take another term, it’s a new creation. The God who created men at the beginning, creates us who are Christians anew—“If any man be in Christ, he’s a new creation—a new creature,” 2 Corinthians 5:17. Very well, God brings to birth a new being, a new man.

R. C. CHAPMAN (1803-1902): The grace of God subduing the heart to Christ is the sign of the birth from above.

RICHARD SIBBES (1577-1635): A Christian is a strange person. He is both dead and alive, he is miserable and glorious. He grows downwards and upwards at the same time; for as he dies in sin and misery and natural death approaching, so he lives the life of grace, and grows more and more till he ends in glory. But―glory must begin in grace.

GEORGE MÜLLER (1805-1898): God alone can give spiritual life at the first, and keep it up in the soul afterwards.

ROWLAND HILL (1744-1833): The grace of God converts the heart and regulates the life in time, and ultimately brings us to Himself in eternity.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Grace shall always lead to glory.

RICHARD SIBBES: He that keeps heaven for us will give us the necessary graces to bring us there.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Grace is glory militant, and glory is grace triumphant.

JONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-1758): Glory is but grace perfected.

C. H. SPURGEON: What is grace? Grace is the free favour of God, the undeserved bounty of the ever-gracious Creator against whom we have offended, the generous pardon, the infinite, spontaneous lovingkindness of the God who has been provoked and angered by our sin, but Who, delighting in mercy, and grieving to smite the creatures whom He has made, is ever ready to pass by transgression, iniquity, and sin, and to save His people from all the evil consequences of their guilt.

MATTHEW HENRY: Grace signifies two things: the goodwill of God towards us, which is sufficient to strengthen and comfort us, and the good work of God in us.

MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): “My grace is sufficient for thee,” 2 Corinthians 12:9, is a promise which embraces in its illimitable range every member, and all the circumstances of each member of the household of faith.

 

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The Primary Basic Lesson of God’s Providence

Posted on December 4, 2015 by The Editor

Ezekiel 10:9-13

And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubims, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was as the colour of a beryl stone. And as for their appearances, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went. And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had. As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): The providence of God was presented in a vision to Ezekiel, under the image of a vast wheel. The design was to show that its dispensations were constantly changing. For as, in the motion of a wheel, one spoke is always ascending, and another is descending; and one part of the ring grating on the ground, and another is aloft in the air; so it was with the affairs of empires, families, and individuals―they never continue in one stay.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Though they moved several ways, yet it was cried to them, “O wheel!” They were all as one, being guided by one Spirit to one end; for God works all according to the counsel of His own will, which is one, for His own glory, which is one―events are not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is blind, but by the wheels of Providence, which are full of eyes.

BASIL WOODD (1760-1831): What lessons may we learn from the dispensations of Providence?

THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): This is a wide subject.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Have we ever been brought to feel that in matters of providence, as well as in things of grace, we are truly and entirely foolish?  Methinks, no man can trust providence till he distrusts himself; and none can say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” until he has given up every idle notion that he can control himself, or manage his own interests.  Alas! we are most of us wise above that which is written, and we are too vain to acknowledge the wisdom of God.  In our self-esteem we fancy our reason can rule our purposes, and we never doubt our own power to accomplish our own intentions, and then, by a little maneuvering, we think to extricate ourselves from the difficulty.

MATTHEW HENRY: Our heads may be filled with cares and contrivances. This and the other thing we may propose to do for ourselves, or our families, or our friends; but Providence sometimes breaks all our measures, and throws our schemes into confusion.

BASIL WOODD: Man is thus taught to feel his weakness. He sees God confound his schemes, and is taught to abandon his own will.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Yes, it is to the Lord’s will we must bow. It is for Him to determine under what circumstances I shall live—whether amid wealth or poverty, whether in health or sickness. It is for Him to say how long I shall live—whether I shall be cut down in youth like the flower of the field, or whether I shall continue for three score and ten years.

MATTHEW HENRY: All our actions and designs are under the control of Heaven…Therefore both our counsels for action and our conduct in action should be entirely referred to God; all we design and all we do should be with submissive dependence on God.

A. W. PINK: A true recognition of God’s sovereignty causes us to hold our plans in abeyance to God’s will. It makes us recognize that the Divine Potter has absolute power over the clay and moulds it according to His own imperial pleasure. It causes us to heed that admonition—now, alas! so generally disregarded—Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.  For ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that, James 4:13-15.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600-1661): When the Lord’s blessed will bloweth across your desires, it is best in humility to strike sail to Him and to be willing to be laid any way our Lord pleaseth.

THOMAS ADAM (1701-1784): Alas! who is humble?

C. H. SPURGEON: Surely it wants but little teaching in the school of grace to make out that we ourselves are fools.

DAVID BRAINERD (1718-1747): I could not but think, as I have often remarked to others, that much more of true religion consists in deep humility, brokenness of heart, and an abasing sense of barrenness and want of grace and holiness than most who are called Christians imagine; especially those who have been esteemed the converts of the late day.  Many seem to know of no other religion but elevated joys and affections, arising only from some flights of imagination, or some suggestion made to their mind, of Christ being theirs, God living in them, and the like.

AUGUSTINE (354-430): For those who would learn God’s ways, humility is the first thing, humility is the second thing, and humility is the third thing.

THOMAS ADAM: Humility is knowing that we are not humble.

C. H. SPURGEON: Do you, O my friends, feel persuaded that you are foolish?―Or are you flattering your hearts with the fond conceit that you are wise? If so, you are fools.  But if brought to see yourselves like Agur when he said, “I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man,” Proverbs 30:2, then even Solomon might pronounce thee wise.

A. W. PINK: To really learn this lesson is, by grace, to attain unto a high form in the school of God, and even when we think we have learnt it, we discover, again and again, that we have to relearn it.

JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): We commend humility to you above many things; for we think that in these days, folks’ pride is like to break their necks. For when once conceit creeps in, they begin to think they are so far advanced in holiness that they must not keep company with others, nor join in worship with them.

THOMAS ADAM: Perhaps many who think themselves high in Christ’s school, have not yet begun with their A, B, C―the first lesson of a Christian is humility; and he that hath not learned the first lesson is not fit to take out a new one.

 

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Full Bellies & Fat Hearts

Posted on November 27, 2015 by The Editor

Luke 21:34; Psalm 119:70

Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.

Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Two things we must watch against, lest our hearts be overcharged with them: the indulging of the appetites of the body, and allowing of ourselves in the gratifications of sense to an excess.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): “Overcharged.”―Literally, be made heavy, as is generally the case with those who have eaten or drank too much.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Excessive eating and drinking, as they oppress and burden the stomach, and disorder the body, so they stupefy the senses, and make the mind dull and heavy, and unfit for spiritual and religious exercises; such as reading, meditation, and prayer.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Full bellies are fitter for rest.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): We certainly experience that after a full meal the mind does not so rise toward God as to be borne along by an earnest and fervent longing for prayer, and perseverance in prayer.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “Their heart is as fat as grease.” Being anxious to know the medical significance of a fatty heart, I applied to an eminent gentleman, Sir James Risdon Bennett, who is well known as having been President of the Royal College of Physicians.  His reply shows that the language is rather figurative than literal.

JAMES RISDON BENNETT (1809-1891): There are two forms of a so-called “fatty heart.” In the one there is an excessive amount of fatty tissue covering the exterior of the organ, especially about the base. This may be observed in all cases where the body is throughout over fat, as in animals fattened for slaughter. It does not necessarily interfere with the action of the heart, and may not be of much importance in a medical point of view.

The second form is, however, a much more serious condition.

In this, the muscular structure of the heart, on which its all important function as the central propelling power depends, undergoes a degenerative change. The contractile fibres of the muscles are converted into a structure having none of the properties of the natural fibres, in which are found a number of fatty, oily globules, which can be readily seen by means of the microscope. This condition, if at all extensive, renders the action of the heart feeble and irregular, and is very perilous, not infrequently causing sudden death. It is found in connection with a general unhealthy condition, and is evidence of general malnutrition. It is brought about by an indolent, luxurious mode of living, or by neglect of bodily exercise and those hygienic rules which are essential for healthy nutrition…The heart, in this form of the disease, is literally, “greasy,” and may be truly described as “fat as grease.” So much for physiology and pathology.

May I venture on the sacred territory of biblical exegesis? Is not the Psalmist contrasting those who lead an animal, self indulgent, vicious life, by which body and mind are incapacitated for their proper uses, and those who can run in the way of God’s commandments, delight to do His will, and meditate on His precepts? Sloth, fatness and stupidity―versus activity, firm muscles, and mental rigour.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Fatness in the heart makes it dull and heavy. Thus this phrase is used in Psalm 119:70.

MATTHEW HENRY: The immoderate use of meat and drink burden the heart, not only with the guilt thereby contracted, but by the ill influence which such disorders of the body have upon the mind; they make men dull and lifeless to their duty, dead and listless in their duty; they stupify the conscience, and cause the mind to be unaffected with things that are most affecting.

JOHN TRAPP: Of such a fat heart beware―a full belly makes a foul heart: the rankest weeds grow out of the fattest soil.

MATTHEW HENRY: Fullness of bread was fuel to the fire of Sodom’s lusts. Luxurious living feeds the flames of lust, (Jeremiah 5:8). “This was the iniquity of Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness,” Ezekiel 16:49. Their “going after strange flesh,” which was Sodom’s most flagrant wickedness, is not mentioned, because notoriously known, but those sins which did not look so black opened the door and led the way to these more enormous crimes, and began to fill that measure of her sins, which was filled up at length by their unnatural filthiness.

SAMUEL MILLER (1769-1850): Hence it will always be found that habitual luxury, in direct proportion to the degree in which it is indulged, is unfavourable to deep spirituality.

MATTHEW HENRY: Fasting would help to tame the unruly evil that is so full of deadly poison, and bring the body into subjection.

HENRY SCUDDER (died 1659): Fasting is contrary to that fullness of bread, which maketh both body and soul more disposed to vice, and indisposed to religious duties, through drowsiness of head, heaviness of heart, dullness and deadness of spirit. Now these being removed, and the dominion of the flesh subdued by fasting, the body will be brought into subjection to the soul, and both body and soul to the will of God, more readily than otherwise they would be. A day of fasting is a great assistance to the soul, and for the better performing of holy duties, such as meditation, reading, and hearing the word, prayer, examining, judging, and reforming a person’s self; both because his spirits are better disposed when he is fasting to serious devotion; and the mind being so long taken wholly off from the thoughts, cares, and pleasures of this life, he may be more intent and earnest in seeking of God.

JOHN TRAPP: Not the body so much as the soul is more active with emptiness…Fasting days are soul fatting days: prayer is edged and winged thereby―it is good so to diet the body, that the soul may be fattened.

C. H. SPURGEON: I believe, literally, that some of you would be a great deal the better if you did occasionally have a whole day of fasting and prayer. There is a lightness that comes over the frame, especially of bulky people like myself; we begin to feel ourselves quite light and ethereal―an elevation of the spirit above the flesh, that will come over you after some hours of waiting upon God in fasting and prayer. I can advise brethren sometimes to try it; it will be good for their health, and it certainly will not harm them. If we only ate about half what is ordinarily eaten, we should probably all of us be in better health; and if, occasionally, we put ourselves on short commons, not because there is any virtue in that, but in order to get our brains more clear, and to help our hearts to rest more fully upon the Saviour, we should find that prayer and fasting have great power.

 

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The Relentless Inevitable Progression of Old Age

Posted on November 20, 2015 by The Editor

Genesis 24:1; Genesis 25:7

Abraham was old and well stricken in age.

Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): The thing that ultimately is going to test the value of our professed Christian faith is the way in which we face old age, the way in which we face death.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): Old age and death will speedily come, against which every wise man will take care to lay in solid provisions and comforts.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is good for those who are old and stricken in years to be put in remembrance of their being so. Some have gray hairs here and there upon them, and perceive it not; they do not care to think of it, and therefore need to be told of it, that they may be quickened to do the work of life, and make preparation for death, which is coming towards them apace.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Queen Elizabeth I [got angry] with the bishop that put her in mind of her great age and death.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): I cannot imagine or dream that I need offer any apology for preaching to aged people. If I were in sundry stupid circles where people call themselves ladies and gentlemen, and always want to conceal their ages, I might have some hesitation; but I have nothing to do with that here. I call an old man, an old man, and an old woman, an old woman; whether they think themselves old or not is nothing to me. I guess they are, if they are getting anywhere past sixty, or on to seventy or eighty.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away,” Psalm 90:10.  That witness is indeed true.

RICHARD STEELE (1629-1692): In Genesis 18:11 Abraham was an old man, and in Genesis 24:1, there he is called with the very same word, but “an old man,” though he was then forty years older than before. The Hebrew commonly calling an old man “full of days,” or “stricken in years,” though sometimes they are distinguished.

WILLIAM PRINGLE (1790-1858): The words “old and stricken in years” (Joshua 13:1) accurately express the period of life according to a division which was long familiar to the Jews…According to this division, old age consisted of three stages—the first extending from the sixtieth to the seventieth year, constituting the commencement of old age properly so called; the second extending from the seventieth to the eightieth year, and constituting what was called “hoary,” or “hoary-headed” age; and the third extending from the eightieth year to the end of life, and constituting what was called advanced age, and caused the person who had reached it to be described as one “stricken in years.”

RICHARD STEELE: A universal fixed period cannot be set herein; the diversity of mens’ natural constitutions, employments, diet, exercises, causeth old age to come sooner to some, and slower to others.

JOHN TRAPP: Old age stealeth upon us.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not,” Hosea 7:9. Or, “gray hairs are sprinkled on him.” Gray hairs, when thick, are a sign that old age is come; and, when sprinkled here and there, are symptoms of its coming on, and of a person’s being on the decline of life―and are a sure indication of the approach of old age.

RICHARD STEELE: As for the progress of old age―this is plain, that there is a vigorous, and a decrepit old age. During the former, natural abilities are not so decayed, as to render a man uneasy, or unserviceable. Abraham was an elderly man, Genesis 18:1. He was old and well stricken in years, Genesis 24:1, being then about one hundred and forty years of age: but in Genesis 25:8 he was old and full of years, being one hundred seventy and five; then, he was very old―by which it should seem, that old age comes somewhat short of fulness of days.

WILLIAM PRINGLE: The view of most as to “old” and “full of years” is that the first is mature old age, and that the second is the last stage of life, the age of decrepitude. The person full of days is “one” as Blayney says, “who has arrived at the full period of human life;” and hence Abraham, Isaac, David, and Job are said to have died “full of years, or of days.”

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): In the Hebrew it is only full, or satisfied; but you must understand, with days or years, as the phrase is fully expressed―When he had lived as long as he desired, being in some sort weary of life, and desirous to be dissolved.

MATTHEW HENRY: Abraham “died in a good old age, an old man;” so God had promised him, Genesis 15:15. His death was his discharge from the burdens of his age―he did not live till the world was weary of him, but till he was weary of the world; he had had enough of it, and desired no more…All that come to old age do not find it alike good; generally, the days of old age are evil days, and such as there is no pleasure in, nor expectation of service from…the days of old age and death are the “days of evil,” Ecclesiastes 12:1.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It is true, that as soon as we advance towards old age, we speedily fall into decay…Old age naturally tends to death.

JOHN TRAPP: Young men, we say, may die; old men must die. Old men have one foot in the grave already.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): If youth has no security against death―then old age has no possibility of escaping the grim monster.

MATTHEW HENRY: What cure is there for old age?

JOHN GILL: Though young men may promise themselves many days and years, an old man cannot, but must, or should live in the constant expectation of death.

AUGUSTINE (354-430): “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom,” Psalm 90:12. We can never do that, except we number every day as our last day.

JAMES JANEWAY (1636-1674): How can you live within a few inches of death, and look the king of terrors in the face every day, without some well grounded evidence of your interest in God’s love?

OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): “How old art thou?” A solemn question to ask ourselves.  How old in nature?  How old in grace?

 

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