{This sharing is without comma or full stop. Read prayerfully and trusting the Holy Spirit to reveal as you read till the end ...}
true to us in the Covenant of his grace have we kept the pledge and bonds which bind to his church and to his cause can we say as thou Hast walked in thy truth to me so have l walked in truth to thee if we have failed here I should not wonder it is because we have failed in the first part of the text our thoughts have not been enough with God and therefore our lives have not been true to him may we be helped in both parts of the text so that while our hearts feed upon his truth our feet may walk in his truth and we may be faithful Christians before the Lord Our God but time flies and I need space for the third head which is the link which binds the two parts of the text together thy loving kindness is before mine eyes I have walked in thy truth the one has been the consequence of the other because I thought much of thy Love Therefore have I walked in thy truth our thoughts very greatly influence our actions it is questionable whether a man could long think on any subject without the course of his life being colored by it like certain silk worms which yield silk colored according to the food they have fed on so our life gradually takes the tinge and hue of the thoughts to which we most accustom ourselves we have had in our police courts of late frequent instances of this boys have been studying literature of the Jack Shepherd and Dick Turpin order and they have become thieves of necessity men who have been deeply read in French novels beyond poetry and German metaphysics have become dissolute and skeptical and none could wonder you cannot send the mind up the chimney and expect it to come down white whatever Road the thoughts Traverse all the faculties of manhood will go after them so you see Brethren David had thought upon God's loving kindness and very soon his whole Spirit went after his thoughts and he walked in God's truth let me show you a little of this I will suppose this morning that you and I are meditating upon the subject suggested let us set God's loving kindness before our eyes and one of its most striking points is its eternal eternity it is certain that God loved those whom he now loves Before Time began those who are the saved sons of God have not lately come into the possession of his love they were loved of him before the foundation stone of creation was laid it is a glorious Doctrine there is room for the soul to revel and riot with holy Delight in it Everlasting Love Love without beginning towards unworthy worms well now what comes of it why naturally the moment the heart gets into the enjoyment of it it cries I will walk in God's truth this great Doctrine leads me to receive other great doctrines I'm Not Afraid now of doctrinal knowledge if it be so that God has loved me before the world began and has blessed me with all spiritual blessings according as he chose me in Christ Jesus then I'm not afraid to consider the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace the doctrine of his foreknowledge and of his predestination and all the other doctrines that spring there from the brightness of this one gem has attracted me to enter into the minds of divine thought and I will seek henceforth to be conversant with the Deep things of God many would be much more sound in doctrine if they meditated more upon the eternity of divine loving kindness now turn that loving kindness round again get another view of it let another ray of light flash from this diamond think of the freeness of it God's loving kindness to us was utterly undeserved he loved us not because there was anything lovable about us but because he chose to do so he is an absolute Sovereign And he doeth as he Wills with his own it is because he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy that he has had mercy upon us unworthy did I say more unworthy was I than any least likely as it seemed of any of the sons of men to be a partaker of divine love if he so freely loved me what shall I say I must freely love him in return l cannot but reciprocate this love if I cannot love him as he loves me in degree yet will I at any rate love him as freely and willingly has he chosen me I choose him has he ordained 32:38 me that I should be saved my heart ordains that he shall be glorious and if there be anything that I can do to serve him let me know what it is for it must be it shall be done turn that loving kindness round again look at another side of it namely it certainty it is no fiction that God loves his people if you are believers in Christ Jesus trusting alone to his merits God as surely loves you as he is God there is no question about the matter his Divine love is as certainly yours as his power is displayed in creation well then let your obedience be real in return if he really loves me then will I really love him and truly serve him it shall not be talk and resolution and pretense there shall be that gift given even if I deny myself to give it there shall be that deed done whatever self-denial it may cost me the cross I will take up the singularity of being a Christian I will dare to encounter the persecution it will bring I will rejoice in the love of God to me shall produce obedience in my heart in return then again take another view of it set the loving kindness of God before your eyes and think of the faithfulness of it God's loving kindness never pauses a minute it has been as constant as the flight of time nevera moment but there has been love for that moment never an hour but there has been the hours portion of loving kindness you have often forgotten the Lord but he has never forgotten you you have turned aside from your Fidelity 10,000 times but he never once if he had dealt with you justly and not graciously he had long ago divorced you from his heart but you are as dear to him now as ever and you shall be dear to him when Heaven and Earth shall pass away well what then why then as constantly seek to serve him let every day have its Duty and let each day's Duty be your pleasure and privilege do not be receiving without also giving out but as the Sovereign goodness of God comes to you without a pause and there are no miscarriages in divine grace so let there never be any forgetfulness negligence or delay in your gratitude and the obedience which springs of it I would like you to think of the minuteness of God's loving kindness and how it goes into detail with us in Little Things much of our life's happiness depends upon little things happening rightly and if God ordained only the great events and left the little things to chance we should be very unhappy but the loving kindness of God while it guilds the whole landscape with the sunlight also has a beam for the tiniest insect and a ray for the eye of the smallest bird let our love to God also go into the minutest details let us be Earnest to be right in matters essential but let us not be indifferent to things non-essential as men call them God's loving kindness goes into detail so let my obedience do let gratitude to God permeate my entire life let it flood the whole of my faculties let it saturate my adulthood through and through great God thy love surrounds me I breathe it I live upon it I shall die in it I shall live forever in it it shall make my eternal Bliss so would my soul in obedience give up herself her thoughts her Works her desires her judgment her tastes her everything to thy sweet love which is so wondrously embraced and encompassed me you see wondrously embraced and encompassed me you see there is a logical consistency between thinking of the love of God getting to see its details and attributes and the ordering of our life in the way of Truth the one is the natural cause from which the other is sure to Spring once more let me say when we are thinking upon God's loving kindness we must not forget what it is preparing for us within a short time you and I shall have faced the last article of death or Christ himself shall have come and we shall be forever with the Lord we have been washed in the blood of Jesus our souls have been renewed by the Holy Spirit and for us there is prepared and reserved a crown of life that fade not away way anticipate the triumphant hour when this head which often aches with weariness shall be encircled with the Crown of Glory think of the time when the hands that are worn with toil shall grasp the palm branch and the feet that are weary with this pilgrimage shall stand upon the sea of glass when our constant occupation shall be to glorify him who has uplifted us from the miry clay and set our feet upon a rock and established our goings forever all this loving kindness is prepared for us entailed upon us ordained for us and we are ordained to it by a decree which neither death nor Hell can change what then why then the trials of this life shall be treated as light afflictions which are but for a moment and if duty at any time involves these trials we will not take them into consideration but for the joy that is set before us will endure the cross despising the shame men of God God's loving kindness has prepared for you this Heritage inconceivable which heart cannot imagine and therefore tongue cannot express to you will you not for the sake of this be willing to be despised and be ready if need be to be spit upon and rejected from the Society of men why this me thinks it was that glistened in the martyr's eye there they stood at the stake all calm and confident though every bone was soon to be burned to Cinder and the whole frame of their bodies to become a mass of Agony the light that Shone in the martyr's eye was not the flame of the torch which kindled the but the light of the Everlasting Glory the joy that made glad their hearts was not that of obstinacy which hold fast to its own way but it was the firmness of a soul that is one with the immortal Christ and anticipates being with God forever and ever the loving kindness of God before our eyes is that which can make us walk in God's truth though it be to prison and to death God grant us more of the Holy contemplation and we shall be quite certain to have more of holy consistent walking in the truth I have done when I have made two or three remarks I have set these things before you as they ought to be but things are not in this world as they should be there are some men who have the first part of the text at least they say they have but they despise the second they have set God's loving kindness before their eyes but do not walk in God's truth they talk about being God's elect God's beloved God's dear people alas some of them are dear at any price their lives being in many cases utterly inconsistent with their profession what do we say of men or women who make the doctrines of Grace an excuse for little justness they have the doctrine of grace but not the grace of Doctrine what say we of them why what Paul said their damnation is just all their pretenses to soundness all their talk about Orthodoxy is so much wind nothing more without Holiness no man shall see the Lord the man who can cheat in business the man who can lie the man who is an unkind husband husband a bad father an Unholy man he may believe what he likes or disbelieve what he likes but he will be swept away from the presence of God and the glory of his power when he whose fan is in his hand shall Purge his flaw and gather the wheat into his Garner and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire there are also men who say I have walked in God's truth but God's loving kindness is never before their eyes they boast about their admirable character but they never think upon the grace of God they indulge the Pharisee Spirit permit us to say to such that they know not what Spirit they are of that life of theirs which they think to be so blameless seems to be correct because they are blind if the light shine upon their actions they would discover their imperfections then would they find that they needed a Saviour and finding that they needed a saviour they might then be led to apply for one and find one but as long as they wrap themselves up in the notion that they are good and that they keep the law and have done so from their youth up we must remind them with all earnestness that they are shutting themselves out of Heaven they are denying to themselves all prospect of everlasting life for by the Works of the law there shall no flesh be justified we must be saved by grace and by grace alone my last word is this Brethren depend upon it that you shall find each of you when you get dull and flagging in the practical part of your faith that the proper way to revive it is to think more than you have done upon the loving kindness of God I do not know whether you ever feel stupid I do dreadfully when one gets a bad cold the mind feels terribly dead and dull some people are dull enough even when they are well but what they are when illness is added it were hard to say well then one says how can I consider myself to be a child of God why I cannot pray I kneel down and pour out what ought to be my desires but I'm afraid I do not desire them I read the Bible but it does not glow and glisten before my eyes as it once did I try to love God but do not seem to have any emotion left I'm like a dead log or stone what is the best way to quicken oneself when you have got to be just a mere inanimate mass and cannot awaken yourself into life of course the Holy Spirit is the quickener but what means shall we use why says one turn over your sins and begin to think of them well I have known some become more dead than they were before through that and the little life they had seemed to go out of them as they saw their transgressions I believe there is no reflection that has so much under God's Holy Spirit of quickening power in it as a remembrance of the loving kindness of the Lord I have said unto my soul Thou Art dull and heavy today my soul but Jesus did not love thee because of thy brightness and liveliness thou at any rate a desire not to be so dull who gave thee that was not it his own Grace that made thee hate thyself for being so dull and stupid and he loves thee just the same why then or ever l am aware my soul makes me like the Chariots of a mini before I have hardly got through a little meditation upon my Lord's love my love is kindled Dr Watts hit the mark when he said Come Holy Spirit Heavenly dove with all thy quickening Powers come shed abroad a Saviour's love and that shall Kindle ours if you doubt Christ's love to you you will not love him but remember that he still loves you believe it hold on to it and your love will revive and when thine eye of faith is dim still hold on Jesus sink or swim still at his footstool bow the knee and Israel's God thy help shall be if l am a dead soul and a lost soul and have not a grain of Grace and have everything that is bad about me stilI I will cling to the cross and say I will never depart from this place if I perish I will perish here light will come unto you again and the joy of the Lord will return and your heart will were to find its own hardness depart and your dumb tongue shall sing and you though once so lame shall leap as a hart the Holy Ghost cause these meditations to be the means of quickening our spirits for Christ's sake amen
No comments:
Post a Comment