“Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” Psalm 118:27
Are you a poor broken-hearted child of the living God? Is there any measure of the Spirit of Christ in you? Is there any faint resemblance of his meekness and holy image stamped upon you? Then you feel yourself bound with cords to the horns of the altar. You feel the strong ties of necessity, and you feel the strong ties of affection binding you there. But with this, you feel also that you are a struggling victim; that you would gladly escape the troubles and trials that being bound to the horns of the altar brings upon you; you would gladly get into an easier path if you could; or if you dared, would willingly set up some altar yourself, made after the pattern of Damascus (2 Kings 16:10); and would gladly, like the Roman Catholic, worship with your body a material cross, instead of worshipping in your soul the adorable God-man who hung and bled there. You would gladly, if you could, step out of a self-loathing, exercised, tried, harassed, and tempted path, to get into the flowery meadow of doctrine and speculation, and there walk at ease without one pang in your conscience, or one trial in your soul. But the Lord has said, “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” You are bound to the horns of the altar. From those horns you cannot escape. You may fume, fret, and rebel against all or any of these cords, but you cannot break them. Aye, you may, in your strugglings, stretch to their utmost extent these cords; but they are too firmly fastened round your tender conscience, and too strongly wreathed round your broken heart, for you to burst them. They would sooner cut your heart in two, than you should break them, or escape from them. And in your right mind, you would not be otherwise than bound with cords to the horns of the altar. In your right mind, you want the cords tightened, and so to be drawn nearer and nearer unto it; and to have the blood that was shed upon it sprinkled upon your conscience. In your right mind, you want to see with the eye of faith the Victim that once lay bleeding and writhing there; and as you look upon him, to drink into his image, and to feel the melting power and softening efficacy of that sight. But, then, connected with it, there are such trials, such temptations, and such sacrifices, that you, in your fits of rebellion or flesh-pleasing ease, would at times as gladly get away, as at others you would gladly get near. Vile wretches that we are, who would often prefer to serve the flesh and the world, and take our chance, as men speak, for eternity, than suffer trials and temptations as the followers of Christ! But it is our mercy that we can neither make nor unmake, do nor undo, bind nor break any one cord of eternal love, but that, in spite of the creature, God will “fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power.”
“For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” 2 Corinthians 4:11
What is meant by the expression, “our mortal flesh?” It does not mean the carnal mind, but our earthly tabernacle; and the expression is similar to another in this chapter, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” It is, then, in this poor body, compassed with infirmities, that the life of Jesus is made manifest. This divine life will often spring up in fervent breathings after God, in the actings of living faith, in the sweet intercourse the people of God have with one another, in reading the Scriptures, in the application of precious promises, and under the preached word. From time to time it bubbles up like a spring from its source. Sometimes indeed it runs underground, buried as it were under the load of “our mortal flesh;” but again and again it reappears, drawn up by the Sun of righteousness. “Spring up, O well.” But its risings are ever proportionate to its sinkings. Thus in proportion as we cease to pray naturally, do we pray spiritually; as we cease to hope in the flesh, do we hope in the Lord; as we cease to believe with the head, do we believe with the heart; when we see an end of all perfection in self, then we begin to find perfection in Christ; and when we see nothing in our hearts but sin, misery, and wretchedness, then we begin to taste spiritual consolation. Thus in proportion as nature sinks, the life of Jesus rises, and is made manifest in our mortal flesh.
Is the soul, then, longing to have sweet manifestations of the life of Jesus? Where must it go to get them? What does the word of God say? “Whence cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. Destruction and death say, ‘We have heard the fame thereof with our ears” (Job 28:20-22). Till, then, we get to “destruction and death,” the destruction of fleshly hopes and the death of creature religion, we do not so much as ever hear the fame of true wisdom with our ears. Thus, when we get into darkness, then light springs up; when we get into despondency, hope arises; when we are tempted with unbelief and infidelity, faith appears. Thus those are the wisest in whom creature wisdom has most ceased; those are the strongest who have learned most experimentally their own weakness; those are the holiest who have known most of their own filthiness; those are the most religious in a true sense who have least religion of their own. So that just in proportion as we are delivered unto death, and execution takes place on what the creature loves, so does the life of Jesus begin to rise and make itself blessedly manifest.
“There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord,
that shall stand.” Proverbs 19:21
A man in his fleshly mind is generally devising some method or other whereby he may escape a practical subjection to the gospel; some way or other whereby he may escape walking in the path of self-denial and mortification of the flesh, and the crucifixion of “the old man with the affections and lusts.” He is generally seeking some way or other to indulge the flesh, and yet, at the same time, to stand in gospel liberty, to have everything that can gratify his carnal mind, and, at the same time, have a well-grounded hope of eternal life. But the Lord says, “No, these two things are not compatible; he that shall live with Christ must die with Christ; he that shall reign with Christ must suffer with Christ; he that shall wear the crown must carry the cross.” So, that whatever devices there be in a man’s heart, or whatever ways and plans he shall undertake to bring his devices to pass, “the counsel of the Lord still shall stand.” Divine sovereignty shall fulfil that which divine sovereignty has appointed, and the purposes of God shall stand upon the ruins of the purposes of the creature. And it is our mercy (so far as we are children of the living God), it is our mercy, that it should be so. Where should we have been this moment, if the devices in our hearts had succeeded? We should have been in hell. Where should we have been, since the Lord has been pleased, as we trust, to quicken our souls into spiritual life, if all our devices had succeeded? Our “eyes would have stood out with fatness,” and we should have “had more than heart could wish.” We should have been now, if the Lord had left us to our own devices, indulging in some awful temptation, or already have disgraced our name before the Church of God; or, if we had escaped that, we should have a name to live, whilst our hearts were secretly dead before God; have had “a form of godliness, whilst we inwardly or outwardly denied the power thereof.” And therefore it is our mercy that the devices of our hearts should not stand, but that “the counsel of the Lord” should prevail over all the purposes of our base nature. When a man is brought to the right spot, and is in a right mind to trace out the Lord’s dealings with him from the first, he sees it was a kind hand which “blasted his gourds and laid them low;” it was a kind hand that swept away his worldly prospects, which reduced him to natural as well as to spiritual poverty, which led him into exercises, trials, sorrows, griefs, and tribulations; because, in those trials he has found the Lord, more or less, experimentally precious. Jacob found it so; he blessed the Lord for the path he had led him in. Though his days had been few and evil, he could see how the Lord had “fed him all his life long unto that day,” amid all the changing vicissitudes through which he had passed in body and soul; and he blessed that hand which had guided him through that difficult way, and yet brought him to a “city of habitation.”
Through Baca’s Vale Daily devotional from J C Philpot
“The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” Acts 20:28
Atonement for sin stands or falls with the Deity of Christ. If we deny his Deity, we must deny the atonement, for what value or merit can there be in the blood of a mere man that God, for its sake, should pardon millions of sins? This the Socinians clearly see, and therefore deny the atonement altogether. But if there be no atonement, no sacrifice, no propitiation for sin, where can we look for pardon and peace? Whichever way we turn our eyes there is despair, and we might well take up the language of the fallen angel:
“Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And, in the lowest deep,a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.”
But when by the eye of faith we see the Son of God obeying the law, rendering, by doing and dying, acting and suffering, a satisfaction to the violated justice of the Most High and offering a sacrifice for sin, then we see such a glory and such a value breathing through every thought, word, and action of his suffering humanity, that we embrace him and all that he is and has, with every desire and affection of our regenerated soul. All our religion lies here; all our faith, hope, and love flow unto, and are, as it were, fixed and concentrated in Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and without a measure of this in our heart and conscience, we have no religion worth the name, nothing that either saves or sanctifies, nothing that delivers from the guilt, filth, love, power, and practice of sin, nothing that supports in life, comforts in death, or fits for eternity. The way, then, whereby we come to a knowledge of, and a faith in, the Deity of Christ is first by feeling a need of all that he is as a Saviour, and a great one, and then having a manifestation of him by the blessed Spirit to our soul. When he is thus revealed and brought near, we see, by the eye of faith, his pure and perfect humanity and his eternal Deity; and these two distinct natures we see combined, but not intermingled, in one glorious Person, Immanuel, God with us. Till thus favoured we may see the Deity of Christ in the Scriptures, and have so far a belief in it, but we have not that personal appropriating faith whereby, with Thomas, we can say, “My Lord and my God.”
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 7
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
William Tyndale and the Preciousness of the Word of God
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 6
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
What The Ministry of John Wycliffe Teaches Us Today
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 5
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Is Open Air Preaching Essential In 21st Century Britain?
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 4
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Why noah’s ark is gospel truth
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 3
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Climate Change: The Biblical Response
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 2
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Did You Know that Gospel Preaching Saved Britain from a Potential Violent Revolution
in the 18th Century?
Today’s show will focus on this amazing time in Britain’s history that is rarely known.
Topics covered will be:
1) The state of the country in the early 18th century
2) Anointed, vigorous preaching
3) The social consequences of gospel preaching
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 1 (the title being based on Psalm 33:12)
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
1) Does God deal differently with different nations?
2) Does God respond to the prayers of specific nations?
3) How is prayer related to economics, agriculture and national stability?
Nationhood, Multiculturalism and Climate Change
Jeremiah 5:17-25
The conference sermon delivered at the 2019 Britain’s Only Hope – the Gospel Conference at Penn Free Methodist Church. Pastor Peter Simpson expounds Jeremiah 5:17-25 and deals with the current key issues – from a Biblical perspective – of nationhood, multiculturalism and climate change.
The address given by Pastor Peter Simpson
at the 2019 Christian Watch Annual meeting
held at the Strangers’ Rest Evangelical Church
in London’s East End.
The CRE (Christian Resources Exhibition) took place at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey between 15th and 17th October, 2019 and the Lord mightily blessed and answered prayer as those manning the stall had to stand for 8 hours or more each day in order to deal with a steady stream of enquirers.
Many people visited the stall and appreciated the vast array of literature on display, including Gospel tracts and pamphlets written by Bishop J.C. Ryle (the first Protestant Bishop of Liverpool) and many of the old Divines. The stall was adorned with banners portraying Huss (on the left), Luther (in the centre) and Tyndale (on the right), which created much comment. 300 British Church Newspapers were distributed, together with 300 calendars (with Gospel texts) and 300 Christian Watch newsletters, incorporating application forms to join with us. The leaflet — ‘D-day and the Providence of God’ — written by Christian Watch Committee Member, Rev. Peter Simpson, attracted considerable interest.
There was — as there always will be — many who call themselves Christian, who clearly have little understanding of the things of God but, nevertheless, the banner of the Lord was lifted up to His honour and glory and we give Him all the praise.
Prior to the Second Vatican Council held in Rome in 1962, all protestants were considered heretics by the Roman Catholic Church. After the council the Vatican proclaimed that protestants were now “separated brethren” and a movement began to assimilate protestants back into the Catholic Church. The Ecumenical movement leading to a one world church.
