My soul doth magnify the Lord

“My soul doth magnify the Lord.”
Luke_1:26-33; Luke_1:35; Luke_1:38-40; Luke_1:46-55
The birth of the forerunner being near, it was now time for the Lord himself to be spoken of.
Luke_1:26-33; Luke_1:35; Luke_1:38-40; Luke_1:46-55
The person chosen to be the mother of the Lord Jesus was a lowly maid, but she was also a godly woman of no mean ability of mind, for her song is written in the highest style of poetry. 
To the humble and devout the visitations of the Holy Spirit are granted. The manner in which the angel saluted Mary was highly honourable to her, but affords no ground for the superstitious reverence of the Papists, for “he saluted her as a saint, and did not pray to her as a goddess.” Mary confessed herself a sinner needing salvation, for she rejoiced in God her Saviour; it never entered into her mind to claim the homage of mankind.
It is a great blessing that in answer to earnest prayer the Holy Spirit will come into our hearts, and make us sing as joyfully as Mary did. Christ will dwell in our hearts by faith, and we shall be numbered with those favoured ones of whom Jesus said, “The same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
My spirit doth rejoice;
To thee my Saviour and my God
I lift my joyful voice.

Down from above the blessèd dove
Is come into my breast,
To witness thine eternal love,
And give my spirit rest.

Hark, the glad sound, the Saviour comes,
The Saviour promised long!
Let every heart prepare a throne,
And every voice a song.

Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
And heaven’s eternal arches ring
With thy beloved name.




“He hath visited and redeemed His people.”
Luke_1:58-80
The time soon arrived for John to be born, and Elisabeth became a joyful mother.
Luke_1:58
This is a very beautiful way of stating the case, “The Lord had shelved great mercy upon her.” Family events should be looked at in this light, and made the occasion of pious thanksgiving.
Luke_1:59-60
or the Lord’s gracious gift.
Luke_1:62
For he was deaf as well as dumb, a double chastisement for his unbelief, which was now to be graciously removed.
Luke_1:63
And he asked for a writing table, and wrote, saying, His name is John.
He had not heard what the mother had said, but he confirmed her wish, and obeyed the divine command which had been brought by the angel.
Luke_1:64
The dumb man in a moment not only spake, but sang for very joy. The Lord is a God of wonders.
Luke_1:75
So that there is not a word in this noble song of Zacharias concerning John, or his own relationship to him; he reserves that until he has poured forth his whole soul concerning the Lord’s Christ. 
Jesus must be first and foremost in His peoples hearts; even our highest spiritual joys must stand second to Him. 
Him will we praise with our best music.
Luke_1:79
Delightful is the object of the Saviours coming; no longer need any believer be in bondage through fear of death. Light has sprung up in the vale of death-shade, and peace smooths our pathway even there.
Luke_1:80
Great minds are reared in solitude. Lone places are fit nurses for God’s heroes. We should be all the better if we were oftener alone; in the solemn silence of nature sanctified spirits find a congenial atmosphere.

Light of those whose dreary dwelling
Borders on the shades of death,
Come, and by thyself revealing,
Dissipate the clouds beneath:

The new heaven and earth’s Creator,
In our deepest darkness rise,
Scattering all the night of nature,
Pouring day upon our eyes.

Still we wait for thy appearing;
Life and joy thy beams impart,
Chasing all our fears, and cheering
Every poor benighted heart.

Save us in thy great compassion,
O thou mild pacific Prince;
Give the knowledge of salvation,
Give the pardon of our sins.

Jesus Promising Spiritual Rest

Jesus Promising Spiritual Rest

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.  (Mat_11:28-30)

Two of the Lord's "exceedingly great and precious promises" (2Pe_1:4) are found in our present verses: "I will give you rest" and "you will find rest for your souls." 
These promises supplement well our earlier studies on God's promises and God's rest. The first promise pertains to justification and spiritual birth. 
The second pertains to sanctification and spiritual growth.  

The first promise is addressed to those who are struggling under the burden of guilt and condemnation related to sin: "all you who labor and are heavy laden." This is where everyone begins their earthly trek. David testified of this common starting point for humanity." Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me" (Psa_51:5).  

In order to enjoy the benefits of this initial promise of rest, a person must bring their sin and guilt to Jesus. "Come to Me." The Lord Jesus can remove this load of guilt, because he carried that burden of sin for us on the cross. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa_53:6). 

For all who come to Jesus in humble repentance, forgiveness is granted. The promise is fulfilled: "I will give you rest."  

The second promise is addressed to those who have found the initial rest of forgiveness, but their soul is restless. They are struggling under the burden of trying to produce a godly life by their own fleshly resources. "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal_3:3). 
They yearn for rescue from the crushing load of walking according to the flesh. "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom_7:24).  

In order to enjoy the benefits of this additional promise of rest, a person must yoke up with Jesus (walk with Him in daily intimacy). 
"Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me." 

This yoke is not for the purpose of pulling half of the load (like the yoke placed upon two oxen). 
"My yoke is easy and My burden is light." 
This is yoke of relationship and communion. "Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart." Those who walk this path of growing communion with the Lord have this second promise fulfilled. "You will find rest for your souls."

We must learn to talk to our Lord MORE!
Lord Jesus, I give You praise for granting me rest from the burden of sin's guilt and condemnation. Now, I seek You for that daily rest from a self-striving soul. I want to walk with you intimately, day by day, that I might learn of Your humble ways. I long to walk in humility and faith toward You, my Lord, Amen.

Christ, who is our life

“Christ, who is our life.”
- Col_3:4
Paul’s marvelously rich expression indicates, that Christ is the source of our life. “You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.” That same voice which brought Lazarus out of the tomb raised us to newness of life. He is now the substance of our spiritual life. It is by his life that we live; he is in us, the hope of glory, the spring of our actions, the central thought which moves every other thought. Christ is the sustenance of our life. What can the Christian feed upon but Jesus’ flesh and blood? “This is the bread which come down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.” O wayworn pilgrims in this wilderness of sin, you never get a morsel to satisfy the hunger of your spirits, except ye find it in him! Christ is the solace of our life. All our true joys come from him; and in times of trouble, his presence is our consolation. There is nothing worth living for but him; and his loving kindness is better than life! Christ is the object of our life. As speeds the ship towards the port, so hastes the believer towards the haven of his Saviour’s bosom. As flies the arrow to its goal, so flies the Christian towards the perfecting of his fellowship with Christ Jesus. As the soldier fights for his captain, and is crowned in his captain’s victory, so the believer contends for Christ, and gets his triumph out of the triumphs of his Master. “For him to live is Christ.” Christ is the exemplar of our life. Where there is the same life within, there will, there must be, to a great extent, the same developments without; and if we live in near fellowship with the Lord Jesus we shall grow like him. We shall set him before us as our Divine copy, and we shall seek to tread in his footsteps, until he shall become the crown of our life in glory. Oh! how safe, how honoured, how happy is the Christian, since Christ is our life!

The Sunken Ships of Jehoshaphat (Part 2 of 2)

The Sunken Ships of Jehoshaphat (Part 2 of 2)

“Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold: but they went not; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber.” (1Ki_22:48)

Yesterday we looked at the high hopes Jehoshaphat had in sending his ship to bring back boat loads of gold from Ophir. The trip was met with unexpected disappointment — because the Lord interfered with the man’s plans. But why? Indeed Jehoshphat must have wondered this himself…in much the same way we do today when the Lord seems unwilling to bless our plans. 

We are told that the Lord sent a prophet to declare, “Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works” (2Ch_20:37).

Jehoshaphat had entered into an alliance with another king, no doubt hoping to strengthen his own kingdom. But the Lord was not in the alliance. And, had the ships returned with gold, and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peacocks – Jehoshaphat would have been mislead by his success; he would have been deceived by the blessing into supposing that everything was alright. And in that deception he would have wandered even further away from the will of God.

So the Lord sank his ships.

Are you getting the message here? Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Solomon’s ships had returned in safety, but Jehoshaphat’s vessels never reached the land of gold. Providence prospers one, and frustrates the desires of another, in the same business and at the same spot. Yet the Great Ruler is as good and wise at one time as another. Like Jehoshaphat, we may be precious in the Lord’s sight, although our schemes end in disappointment.”

As a Father who loves and chastens His children, so the Lord cares for us. And He asks, “Would you rather have a boat load of gold, or a personal friendship with God?”  Which of these two do you suppose would provide you with the greatest security, and significance? My friend, sometimes our boats sink in order that we might be prevented from suffering a far greater loss. 
The Lord often says to us, “If that ship comes in, it’s going to take your heart from me.”


as Jehoshaphat made an unhealthy alliance and trusted in ships of gold, we also often set our hearts upon things other than the Lord. 
And the Lord is kindly obliged to sink our ships lest our hearts be deceived in settling for less than His best in our lives.

You can stand on the shore and wistfully stare along the distant horizon in hopes for your dreams to come true, or you can raise your vision higher. 
You can trust in the Lord who is working all things for your good, and watch Him bring blessings your way you never even dreamed were possible.

He is, after all, “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph_3:20). So, what do you think?

History Has Come Full Circle

Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life .... No man take it from me, but I lay it down of myself— John_10:17-18

History Has Come Full Circle
It is strange how often in the course of history the wheel has "come full circle." The impossibilities of yesterday have proved the commonplaces of today. Our Christian faith has always had its elements which powerfully commended it to men, and always there have been aspects of it which were obstacles to its acceptance; but the singular fact which steadily emerges from a growing knowledge of its story is how often the glory of the past becomes the difficulty of the present. One sees that in regard to miracles. Once they were confirmations of the faith. 
For multitudes the Gospel was authenticated by the signs and wonders of the Lord. And now for multitudes these very miracles are obstacles and stumbling blocks, only making it harder to believe. Today it is the divinity of Christ which so many find it difficult to credit; in the early days of Christianity there was far more difficulty over His humanity. Today we have to battle with agnosticism, which is the denial of all certain knowledge; but in the early Church the conflict was with gnosticism, which, of course, is agnosticism's opposite.
The Change in Attitude Towards Christ's Death and Resurrection
Something of the same kind is seen in regard to our Lord's death and resurrection. Nobody today questions that He died, but many question if He rose again. That He incurred the bitter enmity of men by the fearless proclamation of His message, that the passions He inevitably roused finally brought Him to His death—all this seems so natural to us that no one has any trouble with the cross now, viewed, I mean, just as a fact of history. The problem for us is not that Christ should die; the problem is that He should rise again, with the very body which the nails had pierced and which had known the thrusting of the sword. Multitudes of earnest souls have difficulty in crediting that. This is seen in the various attempts of modernism to explain away His resurrection. No one tries to explain away His death now. It is universally accepted that He died. Nobody finds it a thing almost incredible that at last He was hung upon a tree. The thing almost incredible to many is that on the third day He rose again, in all the power of an endless life.
The Mystery of Mysteries for the Early Disciples
And yet, if I do not greatly err, the opposite was true in the first days. For those who stood nearest to the Lord the staggering difficulty was His death. They had seen Him in conflict with all the powers of darkness, and from every conflict He had emerged victorious. He had challenged evil in all its ugly forms, and as a Conqueror driven it from the field. He had marched on in triumph, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and every foe of full abundant life had been forced to acknowledge His supremacy. Blindness had vanished at His word. Leprosy had departed at His touch. Fevers had fled away, and the withered arm had become strong again. Even death itself, that universal conqueror, had been forced to render up its prisoners at the kingly command of the Lord Jesus. All this they had seen with their own eyes. It was the constant experience of comradeship. They had walked with One who had matched Himself with death and compelled death to acknowledge he was beaten. And to them the thing incredible was this, that He, who had triumphed all along the line, should Himself become a prisoner of the tyrant. For us the resurrection is the staggering thing: the death but the inevitable end. For those who had corn-partied with Jesus it was the other way about. That He should die, that death should conquer Him, that over Him the grave should be victorious, was to them the mystery of mysteries.
Almost certainly some such thought as this moves through the disciples' aversion from the cross. It underlies their incredulous astonishment when our Lord began to speak about the end. That they heard with horror of a death of shame is in consonance with human nature. Mingling with that horror was the agony of losing their Beloved. But perhaps we shall never fully understand their wild and incredulous astonishment till we recall the personality of Jesus. Men find it difficult to associate death with powerful and arresting personalities. 
From Nero to Lord Kitchener we trace the conviction that the dead are living. And for men who had companied with Jesus and seen the energies of His victorious life, it must have been extraordinarily hard to picture Him under the power of the grave. That He who was the life should be overcome by the opposite of life, 
that He who was continually giving life should be powerless to retain His own, this was what perplexed those earliest followers mingling with their love and sorrow, whenever Jesus turned their thoughts to Calvary. It was easy to think of Him as living; it was impossible to think of Him as dead. How could death, whom He had faced and beaten, overthrow that radiant personality? And now the wheel has "come full circle," and it is not the fact of His death that staggers anybody; it is the assertion that He rose again.
Christ's Death Was a Glorious Act of Service
And it was then, brooding in the darkness, that the word of Jesus came back to them with power. They recalled how He had told them once, "I lay it down of myself." 
That death, which was so hard to understand, was not the ghastly token of defeat. It did not mean that He who had raised Lazarus had Himself been beaten by the enemy. It meant that He had given Himself, in the wise and holy purposes of love, into the clutching fingers of the tyrant. His death was not a dark necessity. It was a glorious and crowning act of service. The very love that had conquered death for Lazarus submitted to it for the sake of sinners. So did the death of Jesus for these sorrowing men cease to be an inexplicable problem and become the center of their hope and joy.

The Sunken Ships of Jehoshaphat (Part 1 of 2)

The Sunken Ships of Jehoshaphat (Part 1 of 2)

“Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold: but they went not; for the ships were broken at Ezion-geber.” (1Ki_22:48)

Have you ever had your heart set on something big, something promising, something that potentially could bless you in a great way – only to see it fail, and end up not happening at all?

Or, have you ever made careful plans and detailed arrangements so that, if everything had happened as it ought, you would be set for life – only to see something unexpected occur that sent everything else in a totally different direction; leaving you scratching your head and holding the bag; looking and feeling like a fool?

If not, then don’t bother reading the rest of this, ‘cause it won’t make any sense to you. But if so, then welcome to the Club! The “Sunken Ships of Jehoshaphat” Club. Oh, I realize you didn’t join on purpose, but the Lord thought you might like to be a member, so He signed you up Himself.

See, there are many things we dream and scheme in our seemingly never ending quest for security and significance. Good and noble dreams, and honorable things that will surely bring glory to God – but, sometimes the Lord is benevolently disposed to thwart even our best efforts. Why? Because He has some better thing in mind. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,“ the LORD says, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jer_29:11).

Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, experienced just such a “blessing” – the sinking of his gold seeking ships.

Jehoshaphat had made a fleet of ships to sail to the land of Ophir for gold. He got the idea from one of his royal predecessors; none other than King Solomon himself. Years earlier Solomon had built ships at the port of Ezion-Geber, and manned the vessels with a crew of seaworthy sailors. They embarked to the land of Ophir, and brought back sixteen tons of gold! (see 1 Kings 9:26-28). The trip was so successful, they did it several times. And each time the ships returned not only with gold, but also loads of silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. And the Bible tells us that “King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom” (1Ki_10:22-23).

We can certainly understand why Jehoshaphat would want to build himself some ships once he became king. And build them he did; an entire fleet! But, the Lord sank his ships. What’s up with that? I’m sure Jehoshaphat wondered something similar, and the Lord gave him a direct and unambiguous answer.

Next I will tell you what the Lord said to Jehoshaphat…and perhaps there may be a lesson for us to learn from his story.

Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises

Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises
By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises... And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."  (2Pe_1:4 and Mat_4:19)

As we have seen, faith is the proper response to the promises of God. Let us now return to individual consideration of God's wonderful promises. They are so wonderful that the scriptures describe them as "exceedingly great and precious." The promises of God (which are deserving of our trust) are "exceedingly great." 
They are far beyond magnificent. The root of this word gives us our English prefix, "mega"(as in "mega-bomb" or "mega-celebrity"). The promises of God are also "precious." They are priceless. They are beyond what any human or temporal treasure could ever secure.  
One of God's "exceedingly great and precious promises" is linked to Jesus' call to discipleship. This call was an invitation to come and pursue after Him. "And He said to them, 'Follow Me' ." 
The Lord Jesus wants people to develop a life with Him. He wants us to build a relationship with Him. 
For all who will humbly focus their days on earth in a quest after Him, Jesus makes this magnificent promise. "I will make you." 
As we follow after Him, we can count on His fulfilling the promise to remake us. These men He addressed were "fishers of fish." Jesus promised to make them "fishers of men." "From now on you will catch men" (Luke_5:10).  
The critical point is that Jesus would be the one changing these men. In this situation, He speaks of changing them from those who caught fish (for a temporal fishing business) to those who would catch men (for the eternal kingdom of God). Yet, in every situation, He is the one to rely upon for a changed life. It is amazing what people (even believers in Jesus Christ) will do to try to change their lives. They will sign up for every new program that comes through town (or is offered over national television). They will commit themselves to years of humanistic, speculative therapy. They will follow gurus to every continent on earth. They will even make endless lists of promises to God to do better or try harder. Yet, all of this is to no avail. 
God's plan for transformation of life is to believe in His promise. "I will make you." God wants to be the cause that produces the effect of a transformed life. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" (Eph_2:10).  
Yes, by the grace of God, transformation of life is available by faith in the promises of God. If we are willing to humbly pursue after a developing relationship with the Lord of life, He promises to make us into what He wants us to be.

Lord Jesus, thank You for being so patient with me through all my futile attempts to change myself. Please remind me daily to seek after You, knowing that I can count on You to be transforming me into what You want me to be, Amen.