...

To uphold the Protestant Reformed Faith upon which our
National Constitution was established.

3rd October 2020

“Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.” Jeremiah 45:5

There is a life given to the elect when the blessed Spirit quickens their souls,—a life eternal, communicated to them out of the fulness of the Son of God. This life is a personal, individual life; and thus there seems to be a sweetness contained in the expression, “thy life.” “Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey.” This life which is treasured up in the fulness of Christ is breathed into the soul in the appointed time by the Holy Ghost, is kept alive there by his almighty power, and will burn brighter and brighter in the realms of endless day. But we may observe, from the expression made use of in the text, that this life which is given to the child of God, is given to him in a peculiar way. “Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey.” The word “prey” points out that this life is an object of attack. We hear of “beasts of prey,” and of “birds of prey,” and the expression implies a carnivorous animal. Thus the words, “Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey,” imply that there are ravenous beasts that are continually seeking to devour this life, voracious enemies upon the watch, who are eager to prey upon this life, which God the Holy Spirit has kindled in the soul. How accurately and how experimentally do these words describe the inward kingdom of God! Eternal life is given by God; and kept by him when given; preserved by his power from ever being extinguished. And yet preserved by a perpetual miracle, like a burning lamp set afloat upon the waves of the sea; or, to use a figure that I have somewhere seen, like a lighted taper carried over a heath in the midst of a gale of wind.

Thus, “our life is given us for a prey;” and the power, faithfulness, and wisdom of God are manifested in keeping this life unhurt amidst all its enemies. As Daniel was preserved in the den of lions; and as the three men were preserved in the burning fiery furnace; so the life of God is preserved in the soul, in the midst of lions, as David says, “My soul is among lions” (Ps. 57:4), and amidst the fires, “Glorify ye the Lord in the fires” (Isaiah 24:15). So that the life of the child of God is one continual conflict between faith and unbelief, between enmity and love, between the grace of God and the rebellion of the carnal mind, between the sinkings of the drooping spirit and the liftings-up of the light of God’s countenance.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

2nd October 2020

“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.” 2 Peter 1:2

If we do not know Jesus for ourselves, by some spiritual discovery of his Person and work, what testimony have we of an interest in his grace? Because, there is no grace except that which flows through him, for “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” This is what we should ever labour after. Our daily, hourly desire and prayer should be, to have spiritual discoveries of Christ; to see him by the eye of faith; to enter into his glorious Person and finished work; to realise his presence, taste his love, and know him and the power of his resurrection. This is what Paul so earnestly laboured after (Phil. 3:10); and for the excellency of this knowledge he suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung that he might win Christ. To know him as our Surety and Sin-bearer, our Advocate and Intercessor, our Friend, Husband, and Brother; to know our interest in him, and our union with him; our place in his heart, our name on his breast, our memorial on the palms of his hands—what can surpass the blessedness of such a knowledge as this? Through this spiritual, experimental knowledge of him, grace flows. As a watercourse opening upon a river brings down its irrigating stream into the parched meadow, so a knowledge of Christ opens up a channel through which the grace that is in him flows into the barren, parched soul. Thus, as through grace alone we know him, so every fresh communication of grace not only makes him better known, but flows in through that very knowledge.

The grace that comes through this knowledge of him brings also peace; for he is “our peace.” He has “broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” He, therefore, came and preached peace “to those which were afar off and to them that were nigh.” His blood speaks peace to a guilty conscience; his voice says peace to the winds and waves of the surging heart; his last legacy was, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you;” his dying promise was, “In me ye shall have peace;” and, as the Prince of peace at God’s right hand, he is able to fill us with “all joy and peace in believing,” for his kingdom is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” And thus, through a knowledge of him as our Lord, “grace and peace” are both “multiplied.”

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

1st October 2020

“The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.” Isaiah 2:11

How does the Lord humble? By discovering to man what he is; by opening up the depth of his fall; by making him feel what a vile and guilty wretch he is before the footstool of mercy; by breaking him to pieces; by slaughtering and laying him low; by making him abhor himself in dust and ashes. Was not that the way the Lord took with the saints of old? How did he humble Isaiah? Was it not by some discovery of his divine Majesty, to make him cry, “I am a man of unclean lips!” How did he humble Daniel? Was it not by manifesting himself in his almighty purity, and turning his comeliness into corruption? How did he humble Hezekiah? By laying him upon a sick-bed, and laying his sins and iniquities with weight and power upon his conscience. None of these men produced humility in themselves. How did the Lord humble Job? By sifting him in Satan’s sieve, and discovering as that riddle moved to and fro in Satan’s hands the pride, peevishness, and self-righteousness of his carnal mind. There are many who cannot bear to hear the malady touched upon. They cannot bear to hear the corruptions of the heart even hinted at. But what real humility can a man have except through a knowledge of himself? How can I be humbled except I feel that in myself which covers me with shame and confusion of face, and makes me loathe and abhor myself before the eyes of a heart-searching God? Therefore the more the glorious majesty of heaven is pleased to unfold itself in all its divine purity in my conscience, and the deeper discovery I have of what I am as a fallen wretch, a guilty sinner, the more will my heart be humbled, the more shall I be lowly and abased, the more shall I loathe myself in dust and ashes.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

 

30th September 2020

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6

Hunger is a painful sensation. It is not merely an appetite for food; but an appetite for food attended with pain. So spiritually. It is not merely a desire after Christ that constitutes spiritual hunger. “The sluggard desireth, and hath nothing.” But it is a desire attended with pain; not merely a wish for spiritual food, but also with such painful sensations, that unless this appetite is satisfied, the soul must perish and die. Nothing short of this constitutes spiritual hunger. There are many who say, “I have a desire.” If it be a spiritual desire, it will be granted. But spiritual desire is always attended with painful sensations which many are completely ignorant of who profess to have a desire. “The desire of the slothful killeth him.” Why? Because he rests satisfied with a desire, and never takes the kingdom of heaven by violence.

The expression “thirst” conveys a still larger meaning. Hunger is more supportable than thirst. Persons die sooner when left without water than without food. Intense thirst is perhaps the most painful of all bodily sensations that a human being can know. The Spirit has therefore made use of this figure in order to convey the intense desire of a living soul; —that he must have Christ, or perish—must feel his blood sprinkled upon the conscience, or die in his sins—must “know him, and the power of his resurrection,” or pass into the gloomy chambers of eternal woe—must have the presence of Jesus sensibly realised, and the love of God shed abroad, or else of all men be the most miserable.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

 

29th September 2020

“Behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence he will come and save you.” Isaiah 35:4

“Behold, your God will come.” The Lord then is not yet come; but he says he will come, and the promise of his coming takes away the fear. He says, “Behold.” Even that little word contains something in it noteworthy. The Lord is in the distance; his chariot is making ready; for “he maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.” As the Lord said to his disciples, “Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh,” so by the word, “Behold,” the Lord would take the eyes of his people from being ever bent on the ground or ever looking at their own miserable hearts and the difficulties and dangers of the way. “Look up,” he would say, “look up; your God is coming to save you.” I like to dwell on every crumb as it were of our text. The jots and tittles of God’s word, like diamond dust, are to be gathered up and treasured. In Scripture there is much in a little; not like our sermons, where there is often little in much. The word of God is full to overflowing with the very essence of truth; more concentrated and fragrant than the otto of roses. Look at the next drop. Is it not the very quintessence of blessedness? “Your God.” What, is he your God? That is the very dropping of everlasting love. In that one word is concentrated the essence of every blessing of the new covenant. And if God is your God, your doubts, fears, and misgivings do not break that sacred covenant tie. You are a husband, and your partner is afflicted with some mental disease; and the nature of the complaint may be such that she hardly recognises your face, altogether doubts your affection, and does not believe you are her husband at all. Such cases we know are frequent. But do her doubts or denial dissolve your love, do they cancel the marriage tie? The state of her mind, however painful, does not alter the marriage relationship. So if the Lord’s espoused ones, through Satan’s temptations, doubt their union with him, do their fears break the wedding ring or cancel the marriage writings? If covenant love matched them in eternity, and covenant grace joined their hands in time, they are still his Hephzibahs and Beulahs, for “the Lord hateth putting away.”

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

 

28th September 2020

“Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not.” Isaiah 35:4

“Fear not.” “Ah! but Lord,” the soul says, “I do fear. I fear myself more than anybody. I fear my base, wicked heart, my strong lusts and passions, and my numerous inward enemies, the snares of Satan, and the temptations of the world. Thou sayest, ‘Fear not.’ But I do fear. I cannot help but fear.” Still the Lord says, “Fear not.” Let us see if we cannot find something to explain this a little more clearly. There is a crowd yonder, and a weak woman in company with her husband. He says to her all trembling and fearing to pass through the crush, “Fear not; take hold of my arm, cling close to me.” She takes hold of his arm and fears not. So with the timid soul and its enemies. It says, “How can I press through this crowd of difficulties; how elbow my way through these opposing doubts and fears?” Its husband, the Lord, comes and says, “Fear not; take hold of my strength; cleave close to me!” The soul hears, obeys, and clings; its enemies give way; its doubts and fears part asunder, and it passes safely through. Or take another familiar comparison. Here is a child trembling before a large mastiff; but the father says, “Fear not, he will not hurt you, only keep close to me.” “Deliver my soul,” cried David, “from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.” Who is that dog but Satan, that huge mastiff, whose jaws are reeking with blood? If the Lord say, “Fear not,” why need we fear him? He is a chained enemy. But how the timid soul needs these divine “Fear nots!” For without him, it is all weakness; with him, all strength; without him, all trembling; with him, all boldness. “Where the word of a king is there is power;” and this makes the Lord’s “Fear nots” so efficacious. As Augustine used to say, “Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.” The burden still remains, but strength is given to bear it; the trials are not lessened, but power to endure them is increased; the evils of the heart are not removed, but grace is communicated to subdue them.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

27th September 2020

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Romans 3:24, 25

Before we can have faith in Christ’s atoning blood, we must see the glory of the Person of the Lord of life. “We beheld his glory,” said John, speaking of himself and the other favoured disciples, “we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” May I ask you a question, you who profess to know these things? Were your eyes ever anointed to behold the glory of Jesus? Did faith ever contemplate, did hope ever anchor in, did love ever flow forth to the glorious Person of Immanuel? Was he ever precious to your souls? ever “altogether lovely” in your eyes? so that you could say, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee?” Now, if you have seen his Person by the eye of faith, you have had faith flowing out of your soul to his atoning blood; for his atoning blood derives all its value, all its validity, and all its efficacy from its being the blood of that glorious Person. Upon that atoning blood we then view infinite dignity stamped. We then view it as the blood of the Person of Him who was God-man; and we then see the dignity, immensity, and glory of the Godhead of Jesus, stamped upon the sufferings and blood that flowed from his pure manhood. When we see that by the eye of faith, what a rich stream does it become! What a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness! What value is stamped upon it to purge and cleanse a guilty conscience!

Now, when this is known and felt, the soul is justified. Justification passes over from the mind of God into the bosom of the sinner. He never really was, in the mind of God, in an unjustified state; but he was in his own conscience, and he was as touching the law, and he was as regards his standing as a sinner before the eyes of a holy Jehovah. But the moment he is enabled, by living faith, to touch and take hold of the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, justification passes over into his soul, and he becomes freely justified, pardoned and accepted, through the blood of sprinkling upon his conscience; and he stands before God whiter and brighter than snow, for “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.”

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

26th September 2020

“No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11

There are those who walk uprightly, very uprightly, in the fear of God, and yet have little comfortable or abiding evidence that they are at present partakers of God’s grace, or will be hereafter sharers of Christ’s glory. But this one evidence they certainly do possess, though they can take no present comfort from it, that they walk uprightly before God and man. Let no one, however deeply experienced or highly favoured, despise this evidence of grace in others; and you who walk uprightly from a living principle of godly fear have here a marked testimony from the Lord himself that he has a special regard for you. But what is it to “walk uprightly?” Oh! here is the grand difficulty in religion. We may talk; we may preach; we may hear; we may seem to believe; but it is when we come to act, to walk, and carry out into daily and hourly practice what we profess, that the main difficulty is felt and found. “The soul of religion,” says Bunyan, “is the practic part;” and it is when we come to this “practic part” that the daily, hourly cross commences. The walk, the conversation, the daily, hourly conduct is, after all, the main difficulty, as it is the all-important fruit of a Christian profession. To walk day after day, under all circumstances, and amidst all the varied temptations that beset us, uprightly, tenderly, and sincerely in the fear of God; to feel continually that heart, lip, and life are all open before his all-penetrating eye; to do the things which he approves, and to flee from the things which he abhors—oh! this in religion is the steep hill which it is such a struggle to climb! We can talk fast enough; but oh! to walk in the straight and narrow path; to be a Christian outwardly as well as inwardly, before God and man, before the Church and the world; and in all points to speak and act with undeviating consistency with our profession—this is what nature never has done, and what nature never can do. In thus acting, as much as in believing, do we need God’s power and grace to work in, and be made manifest in us.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

25th September 2020

“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:11

How many poor souls are struggling against the power of sin, and yet never get any victory over it! How many are daily led captive by the lusts of the flesh, the love of the world, and the pride of life, and never get any victory over them! How many fight and grapple with tears, vows, and strong resolutions against the besetting sins of temper, levity, or covetousness, who are still entangled and overcome by them again and again! Now, why is this? Because they know not the secret of spiritual strength against, and spiritual victory over them. It is only by virtue of a living union with the Lord Jesus Christ, drinking into his sufferings and death, and receiving out of his fulness, that we can gain any victory over the world, sin, death, or hell. Let me bring this down a little to your own experience. Say your soul has been, on one particular occasion, very sweetly favoured; a melting sense of the Saviour’s precious love and blood has come into your heart, and you could then believe, with a faith of God’s own giving, that he was eternally yours; and through this faith, as an open channel of divine communication, his merits and mediation, blood, righteousness, and dying love came sweetly streaming into your soul. What was the effect? To lead you to sin, to presumption, to licentiousness? Nay, just the contrary. To a holy obedience in heart, lip, and life. Sin is never really or effectually subdued in any other way. Saul struck down at the gates of Damascus, and turned from persecution to praying, is a scriptural instance of the death of sin by the power of Christ. It is not, then, by legal strivings and earnest resolutions, vows, and tears, which are but monkery at best, (a milder form of the hair shirt, the bleeding scourge, and the damp cloister,) the vain struggle of religious flesh to subdue sinful flesh, that can overcome sin; but it is by a believing acquaintance with, and a spiritual entrance into the sufferings and sorrows of the Son of God, having a living faith in him, and receiving out of his fulness supplies of grace and strength—strength made perfect in our weakness. In this sense the Apostle says to the Colossians, “For ye are dead;” not merely by the law having condemned and slain you, as to all legal hopes, but by virtue of a participation in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, by virtue of a living union with the suffering Son of God. “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law,” where sin reigns with increased dominion, “but under grace,” which subdues sin by pardoning it. If you read Romans 6 with an enlightened eye, you will see how the Apostle traces out the death of the believer unto the power and prevalence of sin, by virtue of a spiritual baptism into the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

24th September 2020

“His going forth is prepared as the morning.” Hosea 6:3

It is to the living soul walking in darkness, and unable to find God, that this text speaks: “His going forth is prepared as the morning.” There is an appointed time for the Lord to go forth and this is sweetly compared to the rising of the sun. Does not “the dayspring know his place?” (Job 38:12.) Does not the sun rise every day according to the minute before appointed? Is he ever before his time, or ever after his time? Did the free will of the creature ever hurry or retard his rising for a single second? Thus it is with the going forth of the Lord for the salvation of his people, the going forth of the Lord in the revelation of his presence and his power, the going forth of the Lord from the place where he has for a while hidden himself, to come down with light and life into the soul. All his glorious goings forth are as much prepared, and the moment is as much appointed, as the time is fixed every morning for the sun to rise.

But what is the state of things naturally before the sun rises? Does not midnight precede the dawn, does not darkness come before light? And when it is midnight naturally, can we bid the sun arise and disperse the darkness? Is there not, as the Psalmist says, a waiting for the morning, naturally? “My soul waiteth for the Lord, more than they that watch for the morning.” Is not the invalid tossing on his restless couch, waiting for the morning? Is not the shipwrecked mariner driven on the rocks, waiting anxiously for the morning, to know what is his prospect of safety, what friendly sail may be in sight? Is not the man benighted on the downs waiting for the morning, that the sun may arise, and he find his way homeward? But with all their waiting they cannot bid the sun arise; they must wait till the appointed time. So the going forth of the Sun of righteousness, the appearance of Christ in the heart, the sweet revelation of the Son of God, the lifting up of the light of his blessed countenance, is “prepared as the morning”—as fixed, as appointed in the mind of God as the morning to come in its season; but no more to be hurried than the sun is to be hurried up the sky. Aye, and it is as much an impossibility for us to bring the Lord into our souls before the appointed time, or keep him there when he is come, as for us to play the part of Joshua, and say, “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”

But “his going forth is prepared as the morning,” and when he goes forth, he goes forth “conquering and to conquer,” mounted on the white horse spoken of in Revelation. He goes forth to conquer our enemies, to overcome our temptations, to lay our souls at his footstool, to arise like the sun in his strength, and to come into the heart with healing in his wings.

J. C. Philpot 1802-1869

Test

But one thing is needful

Luke 10 v 42

Mr Samuel Kingham

Seraphinite AcceleratorOptimized by Seraphinite Accelerator
Turns on site high speed to be attractive for people and search engines.