A Goodly Heritage

  How God can be said to begin the good work in us. (a)   It is to be traced to the Father's love.  Take one who has experienced something of The "good work" in his heart - what is its history? If it is traced back and back, its beginnings are to be found in the motions of the Father's love. It goes further back than even the Divine counsels. For it was the love behind, essentially belonging to him as Father, that made him think of and decree our salvation. (b)   It is to be traced to the work of the Son.  This is not going so far back as the Father's counsels; it is rather the carrying out of these counsels. The work of Christ outside of us is the  reason why  the good work can go forward in us. The Son of God, coming into our nature and grappling with all the difficulties of our position, obtained for us redemptive virtue. That is the  decisive fact  to which the good work in us is to be traced back, just as the healing of men's bodies of old was to be trace

  some lines written by a young lady in Nova Scotia, who was an invalid for many years- "My life is a wearisome journey; I am sick of the dust and the heat The rays of the sun beat upon me; The briars are wounding my feet; But the city to which I am going Will more than my trials repay; All the toils of the road will seem nothing When I get to the end of the way. "There are so many hills to climb upward, I often am longing for rest; But he who appoints me my pathway Knows just what is needful and best. I know in his Word he has promised That my strength shall be as my day; And the toils of the road will seem nothing When I get to the end of the way. "He loves me too well to forsake me, Or give me one trial too much: All his people have dearly been purchased, And Satan can never claim such. By-and-by I shall see him and praise him In the city of unending day; And the toils of the road will seem nothing When I get to the end of the way. "Though now I am footsore and w

  The grace wherein we stand is the same as that on which Abraham stood, a righteousness reckoned, or imputed, to him when he had none of his own. The justified believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and that righteousness is the rock on which he Stands. He does not stand on his efforts, or his intentions, or his tears, or his joys, or his varied feelings of either joy or sorrow. But he Stands on the righteousness of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He Stands on the great fact that the Son of God has been his Substitute on the Cross, and that as the Son of man He is now his representative before the throne.E. Hoare.

  The Creator The sentence, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” stands like an archway at the beginning of the Universe. In the beginning of heaven, God; in the beginning of the earth, God; in the beginning of time, God; in the beginning of man, God; in the beginning of the Bible, God; in the beginning of salvation, God. Looking back at the universe to the time when the chaotic mists hung across the morning of creation, we see streaking their silvery summits that infinite word, “God.” Looking above us at the stars of the heavens, and contemplating their number and magnitude, and the power that created and sustains them, we think of “God.” Looking forward into the infinite future, toward which all are travelling, we meet with “God.” The idea of God is the centre of the spiritual universe. It is the focal point of human thought. It is the answer to the soul’s thirst. It is the universal prayer. It is the greatest idea in the world. It is the idea that over-whelms us,

  Ancient mariners sailed by the light of the stars; from the stormy bosom of the ocean they looked to the distant heavens for direction; while the firmament was clear they were safe, but when clouds intervened dangers beset their path. So, taking the words of the Lord Jesus for your guidance, you shall cross the sea of life in safety and reach the heavenly shore; but if you allow human philosophy, science, or tradition, if you permit priesthoods, ceremonies, or sacraments to come between your mind and the light of His teaching, your course must be perilous, and your progress uncertain, for He, and He only, is “the way, the truth, and the life.: T. Jones, The Divine Order

Jeremiah 10:12 Wisdom the source and sovereign of worlds David Thomas, D. D. These words give us two ideas concerning the universe. I.  It is ORGANISED BY WISDOM. 1.  This stands opposed to the idea of —(1) The eternity of the universe. The universe is not eternal in its elements, or combinations. There was a period far back in the abysses of eternity, when there was nothing, — when the Absolute One lived alone.(2) The contingent origin of the universe. It sprang from no fortuitous concourse of atoms: "By wisdom hath He founded the earth," etc. God has hollowed out the oceans, and arranged the systems of clouds. 2.  The scientific student of nature sees design and exquisite adaptations in every part of nature: "By His knowledge the depths are broken up. We are raised by science," says Lord Brougham, "to an understanding of the infinite wisdom and goodness which the Creator has displayed in all His works. Not a step can we take in any direction without perceivin

  Lamentations 1:12 Is it  nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted  me  in the day of his fierce anger. 1:12-22 Jerusalem, sitting dejected on the ground, calls on those that passed by, to consider whether her example did not concern them. Her outward sufferings were great, but her inward sufferings were harder to bear, through the sense of guilt. Sorrow for sin must be great sorrow, and must affect the soul. Here we see the evil of sin, and may take warning to flee from the wrath to come. Whatever may be learned from the sufferings of Jerusalem, far more may be learned from the sufferings of Christ. Does he not from the cross speak to every one of us? Does he not say, Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Let all our sorrows lead us to the cross of Christ, lead us to mark his example, and cheerfully to follow him.Matthew Henry

  Man’s eyes are veiled, so that he sees but a little way into God’s law. Our intellectual perception of law is one thing and I our spiritual perception of God in law is a very different thing. To see law itself we need only a clear and disciplined understanding. To see God in law we need spiritual discernment. The eye sees only what it brings with it the power of seeing. And neither mere bodily vision nor mere intellectual vision will enable us to behold spiritual reality. The things of the spirit must be spiritually discerned. Robert Flint

  Men cannot be hidden from God's all-seeing eye. Will they never see what judgments they prepare for themselves? Let them consider what a vast difference there is between these prophecies and those delivered by the true prophets of the Lord. Let them not call their foolish dreams Divine oracles. The promises of peace these prophets make are no more to be compared to God's promises than chaff to wheat. The unhumbled heart of man is like a rock; if not melted by the word of God as a fire, it will be broken to pieces by it as a hammer. How can they be long safe, or at all easy, who have a God of almighty power against them? The word of God is no smooth, lulling, deceitful message. And by its faithfulness it may certainly be distinguished from false doctrines.Matthew Henry

  yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel; which is to be understood, not of any temporal affliction, as reproach, persecution, famine, nakedness, sword, &c. for such sort of woes frequently attend those that do preach the Gospel; but of the wounding of his conscience, and exposing himself, through the neglect of his calling, and contempt of the divine will, to the wrath and curse of God for ever; not that the apostle feared this would be his case, or that it possibly could be; but he thus speaks, to show what he or any other minister of the Gospel would deserve, at the hand of God, who having abilities to preach, should not make use of them; or should preach, but not the Gospel; or only a part of it, and not the whole; or should entirely desist from it, through self-interest, or the fear of man, or through being ashamed of Christ and his Gospel, or as not able to bear the reproach and persecution attending it. John Gill

  Salvation is not only the rescue and deliverance of a man from evils conceived to lie round about him, and to threaten his being from without, it is also his healing from evils which have so wrought themselves into his very being, and infected his whole nature, that the emblem for them is a “sickness unto death,” of which this mighty Physician comes for the healing. But salvation is more than a shelter, more than an escape. It not only trammels up evil possibilities, and prevents them from falling upon men’s heads, but it introduces all good. It not only strips off the poisoned robe, it also invests with a royal garb. It is not only negatively the withdrawal from the power, and the setting above the reach, of all evil, in the widest sense of that word, physical and moral, but also the endowment with every good, in the widest sense of that word, physical and moral, which man is capable of receiving, or God has wealth to bestow.Macgregor