A very present help

“A very present help.”
- Psa_46:1
Covenant blessings are not meant to be looked at only, but to be appropriated. Even our Lord Jesus is given to us for our present use. Believer, thou dost not make use of Christ as thou ought to do. When thou art in trouble, why dost thou not tell Him all thy grief? Has He not a sympathizing heart, and can He not comfort and relieve thee? No, thou art going about to all thy friends, save thy best Friend, and telling thy tale everywhere except into the bosom of thy Lord. Art thou burdened with this day’s sins? Here is a fountain filled with blood: use it, saint, use it. Has a sense of guilt returned upon thee? The pardoning grace of Jesus may be proved again and again. Come to him at once for cleansing. Dost thou deplore thy weakness? He is thy strength: why not lean upon Him? Dost thou feel naked? Come hither, soul; put on the robe of Jesus’ righteousness. Stand not looking at it, but wear it. Strip off thine own righteousness, and thine own fears too: put on the fair white linen, for it was meant to wear. Dost thou feel thyself sick? Pull the night-bell of prayer, and call up the Beloved Physician! He will give the cordial that will revive thee. Thou art poor, but then thou hast “a kinsman, a mighty man of wealth.” What! wilt thou not go to Him, and ask Him to give thee of His abundance, when He has given thee this promise, that thou shalt be joint heir with Him, and has made over all that He is and all that He has to be thine? There is nothing Christ dislikes more than for His people to make a show-thing of Him, and not to use Him. He loves to be employed by us. The more burdens we put on His shoulders, the more precious will he be to us.
“Let us be simple with Him, then,
Not backward, stiff, or cold,
As though our Bethlehem could be
What Sinai was of old.”

In the world ye shall have tribulation

“In the world ye shall have tribulation.”
- John_16:33
Art thou asking the reason of this, believer? Look upward to thy heavenly Father, and behold him pure and holy. Dost thou know that thou art one day to be like him? Wilt thou easily be conformed to his image? Wilt thou not require much refining in the furnace of affliction to purify thee? Will it be an easy thing to get rid of thy corruptions, and make thee perfect even as thy Father which is in heaven is perfect? Next, Christian, turn thine eye downward. Dost thou know what foes thou hast beneath thy feet? Thou wast once a servant of Satan, and no king will willingly lose his subjects. Dost thou think that Satan will let thee alone? No, he will be always at thee, for he “goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Expect trouble, therefore, Christian, when you look beneath thee. Then look around thee. Where art thou? Thou art in an enemy’s country, a stranger and a sojourner. The world is not thy friend. If it be, then thou art not God’s friend, for he who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Be assured that thou shalt find foe-men everywhere. When you sleep, think that thou art resting on the battlefield; when you walk, suspect an ambush in every hedge. As mosquitoes are said to bite strangers more than natives, so will the trials of earth be sharpest to you. Lastly, look within thee, into thine own heart and observe what is there. Sin and self are still within. Ah! if you have no devil to tempt thee, no enemies to fight thee, and no world to ensnare thee, you would still find in thyself evil enough to be a sore trouble to thee, for “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Expect trouble then, but despond not on account of it, for God is with thee to help and to strengthen thee. He hath said, “I will be with thee in trouble; I will deliver thee and Honor thee.”

CO-OPERATION IN CHRISTIAN SERVICE

CO-OPERATION IN CHRISTIAN SERVICE
"They beckoned unto their partners in the other boat, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the boats."-- Luke_5:7 (R.V.).

WE ALL want to fill our nets and boats with the fish that we have caught for Christ. How shall we do it? There are certain conditions for successful Christian service which must be observed. Our nets must be clean. They were "washing their nets." It was a good thing that this necessary work had been performed; otherwise they would have been unable to sail at a moment's notice, and to let down their nets at the Master's command (Luke_5:4). "If a man shall cleanse himself.., he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use." Let us see to it that we are always ready to respond at Christ's call.

We must be prepared to obey Christ in little things. Our Lord first asked Peter to put out his boat a little from the land. 
He knew what He was going to do afterwards in making great demands on Peter's obedience and faith; but first, He made this slight request. With alacrity the Master's wishes were complied with, and the floating pulpit, rising and falling with the ripple of the water, was at the Lord's service as He sat down and taught the people. Remember that whenever you lend your empty boat to Jesus, He will pay for it by giving it back to you filled with fish.
Christ's will must be obeyed even against our own judgment. Peter had spent the whole of his life apprenticed to the lake, and knew everything of the art of fishing. When our Lord bade him: "launch out into the deep, and let down your nets," it was against all his knowledge and practical experience to let down his nets in the daytime, especially as he had toiled all night in vain! Happily for him, he said: "At Thy word I will let down the nets!"
We must be willing to share with others. He might have kept the haul for himself, but he longed that the others should share in the Master's bounty, "and they came and filled both the boats."

PRAYER
O God, Thou hast committed our work to us, and we would commit our cares to Thee. May we feel that we are not our own, and that Thou wilt heed our wants while we are intent upon Thy will. AMEN.

The Place Where the Lord Lay

The Place Where the Lord Lay
He is not here; for he is risen. ....Come, see the place where the Lord lay— Mat_28:6
The Grave Is Associated with Gladness
One does not usually associate gladness with the grave. That is not the experience of men. The sepulchre is the quiet home of sorrow, where the tears fall in gentle, loving memory. How often, visiting a graveyard, does one see somebody lingering by a tomb, taking away the flowers that are withered, tending it with a sweet and careful reverence. Such ministrants are seldom singing folk, with a great and shining gladness on their faces. They are the children of memory and sorrow. Summoned to a grave, we know at once that we are summoned to a place of sadness. Women clothe themselves in decent black, as perceiving the unseemliness of colour. And yet the strange thing is, in the passage now before us, that when the angel wanted to make these women glad, he bade them come and investigate a grave. He did not drive them from the garden, as Adam and Eve were driven from the garden. He did not bid them try to forget their sorrow, and go out and face their duty in the world. He quieted their fears and cheered their hearts, and turned their sorrow into thrilling joy, by bidding them investigate a grave. It is one of the strangest episodes of history. To exaggerate its uniqueness is impossible. It is the only time in all the centuries when a grave is the triumphant argument for gladness. We make pilgrimages to see where poets sang, or where patriots lived, or captains fought their battles. But the angel said (and it brought morning with it), "Come, see the place where the Lord lay."
The Grave Was Empty

One marvelous thing was that that place was empty, though only the angel knew why it was empty. It had not been rifled of its priceless treasure: He is not here—He is risen. The Sadhu Sundar Singh tells of a friend of his who visited Mohammed's tomb. It was very splendid and adorned with diamonds, and they said to him, "Mohammed's bones are here." Ho went to France and saw Napoleon's tomb, and they said to him, "Napoleon's bones are here." But when he journeyed to the Holy Land and visited the sepulchre of Jesus, nobody there said anything like that. That was the marvellous thing about the place. It thrilled these women to the depths. The grave was empty. The Master was not there. In the power of an endless life He had arisen. That empty grave, flung open for inspection, lies at the back of all the Easter gladness which had transformed and revivified the world. In the rising of Christ all His claims are vindicated. In His rising His Father's love is vindicated. His rising satisfies the human heart, which needs more than the inspiration of a memory. The certainty that we have a living friend, who will be with us always in a living friendship, springs from the investigation of a grave. For once, the grave is not a place of sadness. It is the home of song and not of tears. It is the birthplace of a triumphant joy that has made music through the darkest hours. "He is not here; He is risen. He has won the victory over the last great enemy. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

The Grave Was Orderly

But not only was the place empty. We are also told that it was orderly. There were the linen clothes lying, and the napkin folded by itself. Now, some have held (and perhaps they are right in holding) that this reveals the manner of the rising. The napkin still retained the perfect circle which it had had when wound around His brow. As if the Lord, awaking, had not laid aside these cerements, but had passed through them, in His spiritual body, as afterwards He passed through the closed doors. The older view is different from that, and to the older view I still incline. It is that our blessed Lord, awaking, had deliberately put all these things in order. And that, if it be the true conception, is in perfect harmony with all we know of Jesus, in the decisive hours of His life. What a quiet authority He showed! What a majestic and unruffled calm! Look at Him in the storm or on the Cross. His are no desperate nor hasty victories. And now, in His victory over the last great enemy, there is the kingly touch of a sublime assurance. "He that believeth will not make haste." Drowning men struggle for the surface. Men entombed fight to gain their freedom. But the grave of Jesus bore not a single trace of any desperate or struggling haste. It was orderly. There lay the folded napkin. Leisurely calm had marked the resurrection. It was the quiet triumphing action of a king. Tell me, if men had stolen the body, would they conceivably have left these things behind? Or, if they had, would they not have torn them off, and thrown them down in a disordered heap? But they were folded, and everything was orderly, and there was not a trace of confusion in the grave. He is not here; He is risen.

The Grave Was Fragrant

But not only was it orderly; we must not forget that the place was also flagrant. Spices had been strewn around His body, and the odour of them filled the tomb. The Lord had left the grave, and it was empty. He had left it, and it was orderly. But is it not full of beautiful suggestiveness that He had left it flagrant? For now, through Him who died for us and rose again, there is something of fragrance in the common grave that none ever had perceived before. There is the hope of a life that lies beyond, in the light and love and liberty of heaven. There is the hope of meeting again those whom we have lost. There is the hope of seeing face to face, at last, in a communion that never shall be broken, the Friend and Master to whom our debt is infinite.

Our Father Who art in Heaven

Our Father Who art in Heaven

“Oh, look and see for yourself just how great is the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God!” (1Jn_3:1, Pastor’s Paraphrase)

Years ago one of my first overseas preaching trips took me to England, and then across the Channel into Denmark. Our team was staying at a retreat center near the city of Zwolle, along with a few hundred locals who were attending the conference.

We were there for a full week, but I wasn’t scheduled to speak until Friday evening, which would be our final session. When the time came, I shared my testimony of being in the prison my father built. Many were noticeably moved as the Lord ministered that night.

The next morning as our team gathered at the bus to head for the airport, several people came to send us on our way with warm appreciation for our having come. One man in particular walked over to me and firmly took hold of my hand, holding it with both of his. He was an aged man, wrinkled and weathered with the years, his skin looking like soft leather. His eyes were as blue as the Dutch sky, and tearful.

“I must ask your forgiveness,” he said, looking me square in the eyes.

“Why?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.

“All this week I’ve watched you walk about the grounds, smiling and laughing without a care in the world. And I judged you in my heart. Who is this boy, I thought to myself, that he should come here to tell us how to live. I was sure that you had never known a day of sorrow in your life; born to a good family and raised in a loving home. But then last night I heard your story, and then realized how very wrong I had been.”

At this point my eyes were filled with tears; I wanted to let him know that I held nothing against him — but he wasn’t finished.

“Then it struck me,” he said, “God has been your Father, and that explains why you are so happy. And now, I want Him to be my Father, too.” Wow.

Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven” (Mat_5:16). I saw it happen on that unforgettable day in Denmark; and a thousand more days since then.

Let your light shine — and you will see it, too!

Thou art my hope in the day of evil

“Thou art my hope in the day of evil.”
- Jer_17:17

The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God’s Word, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;” and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be “As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,” yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer’s sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the “green pastures” by the side of the “still waters,” but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, “Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen.” Oh! say not so, thou who art walking in darkness. The best of God’s saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of his children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God’s full-grown children. 
We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.

 Greater than all

We call out Your Name in the darkness
And watch as Your glory unfolds
For there is no measure or end
To the power You hold

Justice and truth are Your virtues
With many too vast for our words
No mind contains the splendour
Of all that You are

Our God
Our God has done great things
Our God is greater than all

Miracles are Your memorial
The promise of wonders to come
You are the Author
God You complete it all

All of the praise
Unto Your Name
Be lifted higher

All of the praise
Unto Your Name
Forever

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The Darkness at the Cross

The Darkness at the Cross
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour— Mat_27:45

When Jesus Was Born there Was Light, When He Died There Was Darkness
It is notable that when our Lord was born there was a supernatural light across the sky. It was a fitting prelude to the life of Him who was sent to be the light of men. The shepherds, sitting by their flocks, were surprised by the shining of the heavens. The night became as day about them when the Holy Child was born. All which was God's prophetic symbol of the illumination of the heart of man through the unspeakable gift of the Lord Jesus. The strange thing is that when our Saviour died there was no illumination such as that. If the cradle was a scene of light, the cross was a spectacle of darkness. At the hour of noon, when in ordinary course the sun would have shone in oriental brilliancy, there stretched a veil of darkness on the land. What are the voices that reach us from that darkness? For the darknesses of heaven are always eloquent. Let us meditate on that.
One thinks first how the darkness at the cross speaks to us of the sympathy of God. If someone whom we dearly loved were mangled in some crowded thoroughfare, the agony of it would be vastly deepened for us by the cruel feature of publicity. To have someone dear to us in torture in the center of a gaping crowd must be one of the most awful of experiences. Instinctively we draw a curtain around the sufferings of those we love. We cannot bear to think that loveless eyes should gaze upon their agonies and torments. That is why, when a dear one is in pain, we "steik the door," as Sir Walter Scott put it; that is why, in the ward of the infirmary, the curtain is hung around the bed. God's curtain was the darkness. He had such pity as a father hath. He could not bear that cruel mocking eyes should feast themselves on the tortures of His Son. And in His infinite Fatherly compassion, from the sixth hour to the ninth, He drew the veil around that dying bed.

The Ministry of the Shadow
One thinks again how the darkness at the cross reveals to us the ministry of shadow. Did you ever notice what the darkness did for the men and women who were gathered there? Before that noonday how fearful was the scene! There was malignant and insulting mockery. The passersby reviled the Crucified; likewise the priests and scribes and elders mocked Him. We see a rabble, merciless and cruel, stirred to the point of frenzy by their leaders—and then at the sixth hour came the darkness. Men tell us that in the sun's eclipse there falls a great silence on the world. Hushed is the song of birds, hushed, too, the howling of the beasts. And one has only to read the story of the cross to see how, when the darkness fell, there died away that howling of the beasts. Reviling ceased; mockery was silenced; there was not another syllable of railing. One gathers that the attitude of insolence was changed into an attitude of awe. That mysterious overshadowing gloom chilled the blasphemy of ribald lips and struck a terror into every heart. Uproar became quietness. Insolence passed into an awful wonder. A strange and searching sense of mystery fell on the most frenzied spirit there. And who can doubt that God, who loves the world, and willeth not that any man should perish, was moving in that ministry of gloom? There are things we learn in darkness that we never learn when the sun is in the sky. Sometimes men only see their cruelty, when the other is in the valley of the shadow. It is not when the heaven is radiant that men detect how evil they have been. It is often when the darkness deepens. The darkness at Calvary was gracious. It was the goodness of God leading to repentance. It awed men. It woke their conscience. It led them swiftly to revalue Jesus. I believe that many who on a later day believed in Jesus and rejoiced in Him would date the beginning of their gracious change from the awful darkness at the cross.

The Darkness Speaks of the Mystery of Atonement
Lastly, the darkness at the cross speaks to us of the mystery of atonement. Here is something no human eye can penetrate. So long as the sun was shining every movement of the Lord was visible. Did He lift up His eyes to heaven? They observed it. Did He look round on the crowd? They marked that also. And then the darkness fell, and He was hidden from them, and now let them strain their eyes, however eagerly, they knew not what was transacting in the shadow. They could not follow nor fathom what was forward. There was something they were powerless to penetrate. No husband could go home that Friday evening and say to his wife, "Wife, I saw it all. "And the strange thing is that to this hour no saint or scholar, brooding on the atonement, would ever dare to say "I see it all." No theory exhausts the cross. No intellect fathoms the atonement. No human thought can grasp the height and depth of the greatest of all mysteries. And that shrouding from our finite mind of the infinite meanings of atonement is one of the suggestions of the darkness.