I do not always enjoy something better. I feel that I shall never be able sufficiently to bless God for a praying mother. He will pray, "Refine me from the dross of rebellion, and let the furnace be as fierce as thou wilt." There is not all the enjoyment that you may think to be gathered in retirement and in ease, but, on the contrary, luxury often puffeth up, and abundance makes the heart to swell with vanity. 1368. Five or six families, attending that despised ministry, learned to believe what they did believe, and to live upon it. Thy faith out of weakness shall make thee strong. I fear I should never have touched his case if I had not been in the miry clay myself. The two things must go together. Don't come here with your cant." Do you want a greater source of consolation than you have got? Cast yourselves upon his love and blood, his doing and his dying, his miseries and his merits; and if you do this you shall never fall, but you shall be saved now, and saved in that great day when not to be saved will be horrible indeed. We are not our own, we are bought with a price. Take heed of rushing to perdition over your mother's prayers! Now, young man, dare you think for yourself? "And now, dear hearers, shall I down upon my knees, and entreat you for Christ's sake to answer this question in your own silent chamber: Have you faith? Now when Christ and the world go together, you cannot tell which a man is following; but when there is a separation, and Christ goes one way, and your interest, your pleasure seems to go the other way, if you can part with the world, and keep with Christ, then you are one of his. ( Hebrews 11:1) A definition of faith. Have you not sometimes heard of a man who has become rich and has risen in the world, who has had some poor brother or some distant relative. She became after that a woman eminent for piety walking in the fear of God. Their faith, though at times it was sorely tried, continued unto death. Now faith is the substance: Just as our physical eyesight is the sense that gives us evidence of the material world, faith is the "sense" that gives us evidence of the invisible, spiritual world. We do see by faith. O! That which begins with shamefacedness, equivocation, hesitation, and compromise will ripen into apostasy. I will show you that it is so; for, if I should hear a voice, how am I to know that it is divine? All you can see in the poor child of God is a hard-working, labouring man, who is mocked at and despised, but what does God see in him? God of Peace and Our Sanctification, The. then we shall come into our wealth, to the mansions and to the glory and to the presence of Jesus Christ our Lord. Opportunities to return, as long as you are in this body, will be with you. Happy people! Note, next, that Noah had faith in the warning and threatening of God. The old writers, who are by far the most sensible for you will notice that the books that were written about two hundred years ago, by the old Puritans, have more sense in one line than there is in a page of our new books, and more in a page than there is in a whole volume of our modern divinity the old writers tell you, that faith is made up of three things: first knowledge, then assent, and then what they call affiance, or the laying hold of the knowledge to which we give assent, and making it our own by trusting in it. Update: 2023-04-16. He knew not the road that he had to take, nor the place to which his journey would conduct him: it was enough for him that the Lord had given him the summons. We want to have more outspoken, downright utterances of truth and appeals to the conscience, and until we get these, we shall never see any very great and lasting reforms. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. Believe in God, and you will prevail with God. I do not know to whom that dog belongs, but I'll tell you directly. I will withdraw the question as directed to you, and I will ask it of myself: Have I that faith which leads me to obey my God? Sir, you speak falsely; you do not believe in Christ. His choice is neither wealth, nor ease, nor honour; but that ho may glorify God in his body, and his spirit, which are the Lord's. Do you the same. There is a high and blessed duty and privilege--I will call it both--which is to every Christian the necessity of his life, and that is to pray. "But suppose," he said, "I had some keys, they might not fit your lock, and therefore you could not get the articles you want. Faith alone can confirm feeble knees. "I will be your God," saith he, and he oftentimes seems to speak of it as a very joyful thing to his own heart. Man cannot please God without bringing to himself a great amount of happiness; for if any man pleases God, it is because God accepts him as his son, gives him the blessings of adoption, pours upon him the bounties of his grace, makes him a blessed man in this life, and insures him a crown of everlasting life, which he shall wear, and which shall shine with unfading lustre when the wreaths of earth's glory have all been melted away; while, on the other hand, if a man does not please God, he inevitably brings upon himself sorrow and suffering in this life; he puts a worm and a rottenness in the core of all his joys; he fills his death-pillow with thorns, and he supplies the eternal fire with faggots of flame which shall for ever consume him. A dead world may satisfy a dead heart; but ever since you have known something of better things, and brighter realities, have you been ever contented with earthly things and emptier vanities? Have faith in God about him. "Why," said he, the key of heaven is at his girdle; he openeth, and no man shutteth; he shutteth, and no man openeth?" the Spirit of God comes to many when they are in much the same condition; and what a work it is to bring up from the horrible midnight, and to give strength to rise out of the inky waters! ONE IS STRUCK with the practical character of this verse. This is unfortunate, since his works contain priceless gems of information that are found nowhere except in the ancient writings of the Jews. By Vernon J. Charlesworth. WE HAVE FOR THIS REASON GREAT BLESSEDNESS. I will give you three tests, as briefly as ever I can, not to weary you, and then farewell this morning. To the very edge of Jordan you will meet with temptations. His faith put its hand inside the hand of its father, and he was content to be led wherever his father would lead him. When does he forget his gold? Will you not yield your weakness to him, and receive his strength, Permit me to speak to some aspiring spirit here, and say,--Dear friend, would you like to do something great for God Have you heard the motto of our early missionaries: "Attempt great things for God"? The people just go round the city, and all hold their tongues, except the few priests blowing rams' horns. no; thy name may yet be written among the mightiest of the mighty, and thou mayest stand as a memorable and triumphant instance of the power of faith. Hebrews 11:1. Our longing is to be able both to do and to suffer for our Lord, and to do this we must have strength from above, and that strength can only come to us through faith. If so, thou mayest hope to be saved. "What! There shall be delightful intercourse. a. He dreams of it. "Alas!" I will weigh out the price to you, whatever you may demand." You may be diligent in secret prayer, and perhaps the devil may have been asleep till you begin to pray, and when you are most fervent then will he also become most rampant. Place me where I can best answer thy purpose by being made to sympathize with thy troubled people. We have many opportunities to return. They are the trainers, drilling God's young soldiers, and teaching their hands to war and their fingers to fight. Oh! "Ah!" I fear some of you will miss eternal life, for you trifle about it! Here we are tent dwellers, and the tent is soon to be taken down. I pause for your reply. Among his children, they are best who best know their Father's mind, and yield to it the gladdest obedience. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. When the creature streams are dry, go to this eternal fountain, and you will find it ever springing up. we answer, "We buy the truth." If it be true that the Lord has his martyrs still, let it be seen that they are as brave as ever. For him the promise of the woman's seed, though it was all the Bible that he had, was quite enough. Now, this was the faith of Rahab. I would entreat you each one to make an application of the text to yourself in every work of faith, and labor of love, in which you may be engaged. Obedience has become as much his rule as self-will is the rule of others. If you had a business to settle which involved the gain or loss of ten thousand pounds, how particular you would be; but when your whole soul is at stake, how many take up such matters at haphazard and risk eternal destruction! but you can not tell what a great thing it is to save a soul. No, Noah was a witness against such sensual carelessness. He so believed, that fear came upon him, and that fear made him act as God bade him. When Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and chose to be identified with God's people, he chose to suffer in at least four ways. So the text says, "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." We see by faith what cannot be seen by our eyes; we grasp by faith what cannot be grasped with our hands. In a city such as this there are plentiful occasions for intercourse, where mutual interests shall enhance mutual joy. I believe that since it is all the Word of God it is all most assuredly true." Alas! Perhaps some of you fear the Lord; and yet he has never given you your Shem, Ham, and Japhet. Look at the miser. If there is anything in religion at all, it demands a present surrender to its claims and a present obedience to its laws; but if you judge it to be a lie, say so, and we shall know where you are. Whatever we may find in this world, we shall never find a heaven here. The words of the Lord are like fine gold, pure, precious, and weighty not ono of them may be neglected. God will vindicate his own cause; but it may be his way to let error prevail for a while. Give me thyself, and take these all away, if so it please thee, but do not, my Lord, do not think I can be content with Egypt since I have set forth for Canaan, or that I can settle down in the wilderness now that I am journeying to the land of promise. It is only our Lord Jesus Christ who can tell you that, for he is the only one who has ever been the Saviour of sinners. At once, I say, he went. "THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL." Leave off saying, "I do not know," or "I do not care." wouldst thou struggle with the fiery passion which sendeth forth flame from human breasts? He takes account of what he has prepared for them. The true believer believes in God beyond all his belief in anything else, and everything else. Friends tell you that you are making much ado about nothing, or that you are uncharitable, narrow-minded, and bigoted. Because they are strangers, and because they will not go back to their old abode, therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God. Do not cultivate doubt, or you will soon cultivate disobedience. Indeed there is, unless faith is strong; and then the bullets turn to pellets, and the stones are soft as sponges. I reckon that many of you in business are quite content to get written orders for goods, and when you get them you do not require a purchaser to ask you in person, you would just as soon that he should not; in fact, you commonly say that you like to have it in black and white. "No; the fact of it is, I think, if I look to myself that is quite enough." Like a good soldier, he obeyed his marching orders, asking no questions. Hebrews 1:1, 2. and in a mournful degree I felt what I preached, as my own cry. Obedience what a blessing it would be if we were all trained to it by the Holy Spirit! Nevertheless, he left behind him all the associationof his youth, the house in which he had been trained, the family with which he had been nursed, all those whom he had known and with whom he had taken sweet counsel; and he must go forth into exile from the family of his love. You will never be able to cut down this huge upas tree except with the axe of Christ's atoning sacrifice. He knows thy poor body, and he permits it to be frail, and permits thy heart to be trembling, because he will glorify himself in his tenderness to thy weakness, wherein he will make thee strong. Oh! Brethren, you desire something better than this world, do you not? Sitting here with your brethren in Christ, you look very cheerful; but I may be addressing those whose life is one protracted struggle for existence. God forbid; we will not do so. Howbeit, God does. Thy sin was laid on him: it is forgiven thee. Welcome to Episode 117 of The Burning Bush Podcast, where we share the message of the Bible while enjoying a good cigar. Carelessness cannot tread the highway of holiness. Let us follow the Shepherd, with a ready mind, because he has a perfect right to lead us wherever he pleases. I think they were mistaken in the notion that they would be despised. That she was really saved in a gospel sense as well as temporally, seems to me to be proved from her reception of the spies which was an emblem of the entrance of the word into her heart, and her hanging out of the scarlet thread was an evidence of faith, not unaptly picturing faith in the blood of Jesus the Redeemer. art thou loathsome to thyself? God add his blessing on these words for Christ's sake. II. Does he not himself sometimes say of them, "How can I put them among the children?" I believe it to be one of the essentials of a Christian man, that he should have the courage to use his own mental faculties, and search the Bible for himself; for God has not committed our religious life to the guidance of the brain in our neighbour's head, but he has bestowed on each of us a conscience, and an understanding which he expects us to use. It seems, therefore, but right, that faith, which is the mightiest of the mighty, should have a pillar raised to its honor, upon which its valiant deeds should be recorded. You have a sort of hereditary religion in the same way as you have a display of family plate; pretty battered it is, no doubt, and rather light in weight by this time, but still you cling to it. Sincere faith in God must treat all God's Word alike; for the faith which accepts one word of God and rejects another is evidently not faith in God, but faith in our own judgment, faith in our own taste. Cry to him in the secret of your soul, and you will bear your load; yes, you will bear it calmly, and you will win those who hate you. All God's saints would confess that were the Lord to say to them, "You shall have all the world, and that shall be your portion," they would be broken-hearted men. You are not allowed to halve the Scriptures, and to believe what you please; you are not allowed to believe the Scripture with a half-heartedness, for if you do this wilfully, you have not the faith which looks alone to Christ. The kind of faith which produces obedience is lord of the understanding, a royal faith. Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Come, now, my hearer, are you willing to be one of the separated? a. 3. It is awful work when through disobedience to the command of the gospel it becomes a savor of death unto death instead of life unto life, and instead of a corner-stone it becomes a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. The men of that generation mocked him. This woman said, "If I must die for these men, I will; I am prepared, bad name as I have, to have a worse name still; as a traitor to my country I am prepared to be handed down to infamy, if it be necessary, for having betrayed my country in taking in these spies, for I know it is God's will it should be done, and do it I will at every hazard. Come, good woman, dare you serve the Lord, though husband and children ridicule you? Stars cannot reach the zenith of the heavens by one sudden flash, nay even the sun himself must climb to his meridian. That this woman was no mere hostess, but a real harlot, I have abundantly proved to every candid hearer while reading the chapter. Delivered on Thursday Evening, August 21st, 1890, by. We shall go over the ground which I marked out in my introduction. We are safe, because we are in the City of Refuge, and not because we are, in ourselves, ill or well. There is no heaven for us hereafter, let us make the best of the present." Some of you are engaged in the midst of ungodly men, and those engagements supply you with constant opportunities to sin as they do, to fall into their excesses, to lapse into their forgetfulness of God, or even to take part in their blasphemies. Yet if you soar to the skies, you are very apt to drop below the sea-level. may the day never come to you, you young people especially, who have lately put on the Lord Jesus Christ and professed his name, when you shall be welcomed by the world; but may you for ever forget also your own kindred and your father's house, so shall the king greatly desire your beauty, for he is your Lord, and worship you him. We are sure that God is true! Not now do I hear the shouts of the mob, as they exult that Christians are given to the lions. Years made Noah's faith more mature, and not more feeble. Yet, remember that the obedience which comes of true faith is often bound to be altogether unreckoning and implicit ; for it is written, "He went out, not knowing whither he went." Now, my good woman, don't you see the absurdity of this thing? Abraham then went on his way obedient to the Lord's command. Yet we read in Abraham's life, after a whole host of troubles, "And Abraham was old and well stricken in years, and the Lord had blessed Abrabam in all things." Thy will is my will; thy pleasure is my pleasure; thy law is my love." That is, you shall henceforth become a stranger and a pilgrim, and in the better land you shall find the rest which you never shall find here, and need not wish to find, for the land is polluted. Our lease of mortal life is fast running out. He who does not believe that God will punish sin, will not believe that God will pardon it through the atoning blood. 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