Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/online/mhcc03/v03350

Text File | 1994-03-01 | 7KB | 133 lines

03356
 #19-21 Satan ruins many, by putting them out of conceit with the
 word and ordinances. Men would not be laughed out of their
 necessary food, yet suffer themselves thus to be laughed out of
 what is far more necessary. If our zeal and earnestness in the
 cause of Christ, especially in the blessed work of bringing his
 sheep into his fold, bring upon us evil names, let us not heed
 it, but remember our Master was thus reproached before us.

03359
 #22-30 All who have any thing to say to Christ, may find him in
 the temple. Christ would make us to believe; we make ourselves
 doubt. The Jews understood his meaning, but could not form his
 words into a full charge against him. He described the gracious
 disposition and happy state of his sheep; they heard and
 believed his word, followed him as his faithful disciples, and
 none of them should perish; for the Son and the Father were one.
 Thus he was able to defend his sheep against all their enemies,
 which proves that he claimed Divine power and perfection equally
 with the Father.

03368
 #31-38 Christ's works of power and mercy proclaim him to be over
 all, God blessed for evermore, that all may know and believe He
 is in the Father, and the Father in Him. Whom the Father sends,
 he sanctifies. The holy God will reward, and therefore will
 employ, none but such as he makes holy. The Father was in the
 Son, so that by Divine power he wrought his miracles; the Son
 was so in the Father, that he knew the whole of His mind. This
 we cannot by searching find out to perfection, but we may know
 and believe these declarations of Christ.

03376
 #39-42 No weapon formed against our Lord Jesus shall prosper. He
 escaped, not because he was afraid to suffer, but because his
 hour was not come. And He who knew how to deliver himself, knows
 how to deliver the godly out of their temptations, and to make a
 way for them to escape. Persecutors may drive Christ and his
 gospel out of their own city or country, but they cannot drive
 him or it out of the world. When we know Christ by faith in our
 hearts, we find all that the Scripture saith of him is true.
03380
 * The sickness of Lazarus. (1-6) Christ returns to Judea. (7-10)
 The death of Lazarus. (11-16) Christ arrives at Bethany. (17-32)
 He raises Lazarus. (33-46) The Pharisees consult against Jesus.
 (47-53) The Jews seek for him. (54-57)

 #1-6 It is no new thing for those whom Christ loves, to be sick;
 bodily distempers correct the corruption, and try the graces of
 God's people. He came not to preserve his people from these
 afflictions, but to save them from their sins, and from the
 wrath to come; however, it behooves us to apply to Him in behalf
 of our friends and relatives when sick and afflicted. Let this
 reconcile us to the darkest dealings of Providence, that they
 are all for the glory of God: sickness, loss, disappointment,
 are so; and if God be glorified, we ought to be satisfied. Jesus
 loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. The families are
 greatly favoured in which love and peace abound; but those are
 most happy whom Jesus loves, and by whom he is beloved. Alas,
 that this should seldom be the case with every person, even in
 small families. God has gracious intentions, even when he seems
 to delay. When the work of deliverance, temporal or spiritual,
 public or personal, is delayed, it does but stay for the right
 time.

03386
 #7-10 Christ never brings his people into any danger but he goes
 with them in it. We are apt to think ourselves zealous for the
 Lord, when really we are only zealous for our wealth, credit,
 ease, and safety; we have therefore need to try our principles.
 But our day shall be lengthened out, till our work is done, and
 our testimony finished. A man has comfort and satisfaction while
 in the way of his duty, as set forth by the word of God, and
 determined by the providence of God. Christ, wherever he went,
 walked in the day; and so shall we, if we follow his steps. If a
 man walks in the way of his heart, and according to the course
 of this world, if he consults his own carnal reasonings more
 than the will and glory of God, he falls into temptations and
 snares. He stumbles, because there is no light in him; for light
 in us is to our moral actions, that which light about us to our
 natural actions.

03390
 #11-16 Since we are sure to rise again at the last, why should
 not the believing hope of that resurrection to eternal life,
 make it as easy for us to put off the body and die, as it is to
 put off our clothes and go to sleep? A true Christian, when he
 dies, does but sleep; he rests from the labours of the past day.
 Nay, herein death is better than sleep, that sleep is only a
 short rest, but death is the end of earthly cares and toils. The
 disciples thought that it was now needless for Christ to go to
 Lazarus, and expose himself and them. Thus we often hope that
 the good work we are called to do, will be done by some other
 hand, if there be peril in the doing of it. But when Christ
 raised Lazarus from the dead, many were brought to believe on
 him; and there was much done to make perfect the faith of those
 that believed. Let us go to him; death cannot separate from the
 love of Christ, nor put us out of the reach of his call. Like
 Thomas, in difficult times Christians should encourage one
 another. The dying of the Lord Jesus should make us willing to
 die whenever God calls us.

03396
 #17-32 Here was a house where the fear of God was, and on which
 his blessing rested; yet it was made a house of mourning. Grace
 will keep sorrow from the heart, but not from the house. When
 God, by his grace and providence, is coming towards us in ways
 of mercy and comfort, we should, like Martha, go forth by faith,
 hope, and prayer, to meet him. When Martha went to meet Jesus,
 Mary sat still in the house; this temper formerly had been an
 advantage to her, when it put her at Christ's feet to hear his
 word; but in the day of affliction, the same temper disposed her
 to melancholy. It is our wisdom to watch against the
 temptations, and to make use of the advantages of our natural
 tempers. When we know not what in particular to ask or expect,
 let us refer ourselves to God; let him do as seemeth him good.
 To enlarge Martha's expectations, our Lord declared himself to
 be the Resurrection and the Life. In every sense he is the
 Resurrection; the source, the substance, the first-fruits, the
 cause of it. The redeemed soul lives after death in happiness;
 and after the resurrection, both body and soul are kept from all
 evil for ever. When we have read or heard the word of Christ,
 about the great things of the other world, we should put it to
 ourselves, Do we believe this truth? The crosses and comforts of
 this present time would not make such a deep impression upon us
 as they do, if we believed the things of eternity as we ought.
 When Christ our Master comes, he calls for us. He comes in his
 word and ordinances, and calls us to them, calls us by them,
 calls us to himself. Those who, in a day of peace, set
 themselves at Christ's feet to be taught by him, may with
 comfort, in a day of trouble, cast themselves at his feet, to
 find favour with him.