‘Be clean, you who bear the vessels of the LORD.’

(Is 52:11) 11 Depart, depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the LORD. ESV

     One day a man was getting his windscreen washed at a petrol station. When the attendant finished, the man said, ‘That’s a terrible job. Re-do my windscreen - it’s as dirty as when you started.’ So, the attendant wiped it again. The man looked it over and in frustration said, ‘That window hasn’t changed a bit.’ The man’s wife was sitting next to him in the car fuming. She reached over, pulled off his glasses, wiped them, and gave them back to him. The attendant had been doing his job correctly. The man himself was the problem all along. Spiritually speaking, the glasses you’re looking through determine what you see, and how you see it. When you look through the lens of jealousy and envy, you become resentful of the blessings of others. When you look through the lens of judgementalism, you speak and act without mercy and grace. When you look through the lens of fear and unbelief, you limit God and forfeit what He can do for you. When you look through the lens of selfishness, you put yourself first and your loved ones suffer. When you look through the lens of negativity and cynicism, people begin to avoid you because you’re not enjoyable to be around. ‘Be clean, you who bear the vessels of the LORD.’ Just as your glasses need to be wiped clean from the contamination around you, so do your heart and mind. How does this happen? Jesus said, ‘Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you’ (John 15:3 KJV). Through prayer and daily Bible reading, your perspective on life is kept right.

Jer 51-52
Heb 2

UCB The Word For Today

     The Statue of Liberty was dedicated this day, October 28, 1886, by President Grover Cleveland. It was presented to the U.S. by France as a symbol of friendship. This four hundred and fifty thousand pound statue is supported by a steel structure build by Gustave Eiffel, who built the Eiffel Tower. The Statue of Liberty was designed by sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, who wrote: “The statue was born for this place which inspired its conception. May God be pleased to bless my efforts and my work, and to crown it with success, the duration and the moral influence which it ought to have.”

     “A beautifully executed and deeply moving little book:” --- Saturday Review

     In the form of warm, relaxed letters to a close friend, C. S. Lewis meditates on many puzzling questions concerning the intimate dialogue between man and God. He considers practical and metaphysical aspects of prayer, such as when we pray and where. He questions why we seek to inform God in our prayers if He is omniscient, whether there is an ideal form of prayer, and which of our many selves we show to God while praying. The concluding letter contains provocative thoughts about “liberal Christians,” the soul, and resurrection.

     C.S. LEWIS 1898-1963) gained international renown for an impressive array of beloved works both popular and scholarly: literary criticism, children's literature, fantasy literature, and numerous books on theology. Among his most celebrated achievements are Out of the Silent Planet, The Chronicles Of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, The Four Loves, and Surprised by Joy.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
--- William Cowper

Power is of two kinds.
One is obtained by the fear of punishment
and the other by acts of love.
Power based on love
is a thousand times more effective and permanent
then the one derived from fear of punishment.
--- Mohandas Gandhi

Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.
--- Will Smith

... from here, there and everywhere

     CHAPTER 3.

     How Titus Upon The Celebration Of His Brothers And Fathers Birthdays Had Many Of The Jews Slain. Concerning The Danger The Jews Were In At Antioch, By Means Of The Transgression And Impiety Of One Antiochus, A Jew.

     1. While Titus was at Cesarea, he solemnized the birthday of his brother [Domitian] after a splendid manner, and inflicted a great deal of the punishment intended for the Jews in honor of him; for the number of those that were now slain in fighting with the beasts, and were burnt, and fought with one another, exceeded two thousand five hundred. Yet did all this seem to the Romans, when they were thus destroyed ten thousand several ways, to be a punishment beneath their deserts. After this Caesar came to Berytus, 4 which is a city of Phoenicia, and a Roman colony, and staid there a longer time, and exhibited a still more pompous solemnity about his father's birthday, both in the magnificence of the shows, and in the other vast expenses he was at in his devices thereto belonging; so that a great multitude of the captives were here destroyed after the same manner as before.

     2. It happened also about this time, that the Jews who remained at Antioch were under accusations, and in danger of perishing, from the disturbances that were raised against them by the Antiochians; and this both on account of the slanders spread abroad at this time against them, and on account of what pranks they had played not long before; which I am obliged to describe without fail, though briefly, that I may the better connect my narration of future actions with those that went before.

     3. For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighborhood, and had the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city, wherein the kings, after Antiochus, had afforded them a habitation with the most undisturbed tranquillity; for though Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, laid Jerusalem waste, and spoiled the temple, yet did those that succeeded him in the kingdom restore all the donations that were made of brass to the Jews of Antioch, and dedicated them to their synagogue, and granted them the enjoyment of equal privileges of citizens with the Greeks themselves; and as the succeeding kings treated them after the same manner, they both multiplied to a great number, and adorned their temple gloriously by fine ornaments, and with great magnificence, in the use of what had been given them. They also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby after a sort brought them to be a portion of their own body. But about this time when the present war began, and Vespasian was newly sailed to Syria, and all men had taken up a great hatred against the Jews, then it was that a certain person, whose name was Antiochus, being one of the Jewish nation, and greatly respected on account of his father, who was governor of the Jews at Antioch 5 came upon the theater at a time when the people of Antioch were assembled together, and became an informer against his father, and accused both him and others that they had resolved to burn the whole city in one night; he also delivered up to them some Jews that were foreigners, as partners in their resolutions. When the people heard this, they could not refrain their passion, but commanded that those who were delivered up to them should have fire brought to burn them, who were accordingly all burnt upon the theater immediately. They did also fall violently upon the multitude of the Jews, as supposing that by punishing them suddenly they should save their own city. As for Antiochus, he aggravated the rage they were in, and thought to give them a demonstration of his own conversion, arm of his hatred of the Jewish customs, by sacrificing after the manner of the Greeks; he persuaded the rest also to compel them to do the same, because they would by that means discover who they were that had plotted against them, since they would not do so; and when the people of Antioch tried the experiment, some few complied, but those that would not do so were slain. As for Antiochus himself, he obtained soldiers from the Roman commander, and became a severe master over his own citizens, not permitting them to rest on the seventh day, but forcing them to do all that they usually did on other days; and to that degree of distress did he reduce them in this matter, that the rest of the seventh day was dissolved not only at Antioch, but the same thing which took thence its rise was done in other cities also, in like manner, for some small time.

     4. Now, after these misfortunes had happened to the Jews at Antioch, a second calamity befell them, the description of which when we were going about we premised the account foregoing; for upon this accident, whereby the four-square market-place was burnt down, as well as the archives, and the place where the public records were preserved, and the royal palaces, [and it was not without difficulty that the fire was then put a stop to, which was likely, by the fury wherewith it was carried along, to have gone over the whole city,] Antiochus accused the Jews as the occasion of all the mischief that was done. Now this induced the people of Antioch, who were now under the immediate persuasion, by reason of the disorder they were in, that this calumny was true, and would have been under the same persuasion, even though they had not borne an ill-will at the Jews before, to believe this man's accusation, especially when they considered what had been done before, and this to such a degree, that they all fell violently upon those that were accused, and this, like madmen, in a very furious rage also, even as if they had seen the Jews in a manner setting fire themselves to the city; nor was it without difficulty that one Cneius Collegas, the legate, could prevail with them to permit the affairs to be laid before Caesar; for as to Cesennius Petus, the president of Syria, Vespasian had already sent him away; and so it happened that he was not yet come back thither. But when Collegas had made a careful inquiry into the matter, he found out the truth, and that not one of those Jews that were accused by Antiochus had any hand in it, but that all was done by some vile persons greatly in debt, who supposed that if they could once set fire to the market-place, and burn the public records, they should have no further demands made upon them. So the Jews were under great disorder and terror, in the uncertain expectations of what would be the upshot of these accusations against them.

     The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem, by Flavius Josephus Translator: William Whiston

     Luke 11:49, the speaker in this saying (in the words of R. Bultmann) is ‘a supra-historical entity namely, [the pre-existent] Wisdom’, (R. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans, from the second edition by John Marsh; rev. ed. (New York 1968), p. 114.) who sends the prophets and messengers of God, and who, in Sir. 24, receives from God himself the Temple in Jerusalem as her dwelling place. According to Sir. 1:15, Wisdom builds her nest among the God-fearers, while in Sir. 14:26 the wise man builds his nest in the branches of Wisdom, which thereby becomes the Tree of Life. The LXX of Prov. 16:16 understands the קנה or קנות of the MT as ‘nest’, קֵן , and translates it with νοσσία σοΦίας or νοσσία φρονήσεως, an indication that the motif of Wisdom as mother bird and refuge, following older models where this picture is applied to God (Job 39:26f.; Deut. 32:11; Ps. 84:3, and often), was not unusual. The verdict on the Holy City is thus as unconditional and absolute as that on ‘this generation’ in Luke 11:49. Her inhabitants have continually slain the messengers of God and rejected the offer of salvation by the Wisdom of God, who hovers about them like an anxious mother bird. Here again, there is not a word about the sending or the fate of Jesus. By the continual rejection of the offer of salvation, the disobedience of the city of God leads to a catastrophic end. The passivum divinum ἀΦίεται with the dativus incommodi ὑμῖν announces that the presence of Wisdom on Zion (Sir. 24:10ff.), that God’s presence in the Temple has an end. Analogous to this is the later rabbinic concept that the Shekinah, or the Holy Spirit, dwelt in the Tabernacle and later on Zion, but then forsook Israel because she had despised God’s prophets. A similar thought is expressed in Mark 15:38 by the tearing of the curtain to the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The wisdom of God withdraws from Jerusalem just as, according to Ezek. 10:18ff. and Josephus, War 6.300 (cf. Tacitus, Hist. 5.13), God forsakes the Temple. The ‘you will not see me until’ refers to the wisdom, who, having been rejected on earth, returns to Heaven. Not until the coming of the Kingdom of God will its inhabitants—whether they wish it or not—greet the ‘One Who Comes’ for the Judgement in the figure of the Son of Man, with the words of the Hallel Psalm 118:26, the same cry with which the Galileans accompanying Jesus acclaimed him at his entry in Jerusalem (Mark 11:9). Indeed, the unstated relationship between the wisdom of God as the representative of the now closed, failed salvation-history of Israel, and the coming Son of Man-Judge indicates the antiquity of the logion, not yet ‘christologically alienated’ from its origin.

Studies in Early Christology

     Ver. 17.—And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy Name. How wavering and hesitating the faith of the chosen followers of Jesus was, even at this late period of his public ministry, is clear from this frank confession of surprise at their powers. They were contrasting the present with what had lately happened at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration, where the disciples were utterly unable to heal the possessed boy. What a contrast do these true writers of the gospel story paint between themselves and their Master! They never seem to tire in their self-depreciatory de scriptions. They describe with the same careful, truthful pen their slowness to understand what afterwards became so clear to them—their mutual jealousies, their cove tous hopes of a brilliant future, their shrink ing from pain and suffering, their utter failure when they try to imitate their Master; and now we find them marvelling at their own—to them—unexpected success in their imitation of him.

     Ver. 18.—And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. The Lord’s words here were prophetic rather than descriptive of what had taken, or was then taking place. The seventy were telling him their feelings of joy at finding that his Name in their mouths enabled them to cast out evil spirits from the possessed. Their Master replied in an exalted and exultant strain—strange and rare sounds on the lips of the Man of sorrows—telling them how he had been looking—not on a few spirits of evil driven out of unhappy men, but on the king and chief of all evil falling from his sad eminence and throne of power like a flash of lightning. Jesus Christ saw, in the first success of these poor servants of his, an earnest of that wonderful and mighty victory which his followers, simply armed with the power of his Name, would shortly win over paganism. He saw, too, in the dim far future, many a contest with and victory over evil in its many forms. He looked on, we may well believe, to the final defeat which at length his servants, when they should have learned the true use and the resistless power of that glorious Name of his, should win over the restless enemy of the souls of men.

     Ver. 19.—Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. The older authorities read here, “I have given.” The only recorded instance of a literal fulfilment of this promise was in the case of Paul at Melita, after the shipwreck (Acts 24:3–5). A similar promise was made during the “forty days” (Mark 16:17, 18). It seems, however, best, in the case of this peculiar promise, to interpret the Lord’s words as referring to spiritual powers of evil, taking the serpent and scorpion as symbols of these. It should be remembered that the subject of conversation between the Master and his servants was the conflict with and victory over these awful powers restlessly hostile to the human race (see Ps. 91:13).

     Ver. 20.—But rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. “After all,” went on the wise and loving Master, “though you have made the glad discovery of the power you possess, if, as my servants, you use aright my Name, after all, your real reason for joy is, not the possession of a new, mighty power. but the fact of your name having been written in the book of life as one of my servants commissioned to do my work.” Many commentators here cautiously point out that even this legitimate Joy should be tempered with fear and trem bling, for even this true title to honour might be blotted out of that golden book of heaven (see Exod. 32:33; Jer. 17:13; Ps. 69:28; Rev. 22:19). In this deep legitimate joy men and women of all callings, who try to follow the Master, in every age, may share.

     Ver. 21.—In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit. More than “rejoiced;” the Greek word rather signifies “exulted.” Very rarely in the holy story of the life of lives is a hint given us of any gleam of gladness or of joy irradiating the spirit of the Man of sorrows. The exultation of the Blessed here was based upon his conviction that this first success of his own was but the commencement of a long and weary, but yet, in the end, of a triumphant campaign against the spirits of sin and evil. What these, in their mortal weakness by the aid of their poor imperfect faith in his Name, had been able to accomplish, was an earnest, a pledge, of the mighty work which his followers would, in the power of the same Name, be enabled to effect in the coming ages In that solemn hour did Messiah see, in the far future, of “the travail of his soul,” and was satisfied. The absence of all sign of joy in the life of our Lord is well brought out in that touching legend which we find in the spurious letter of P. Lentulus to the senate, that he wept often, but that no one had ever seen him smile. That thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Looking upon his servants after their return from their successful mission, a group made up certainly for the most part of poor untutored men—fishers, artisans, and the like, children of the people, without rank or position—Jesus thanks the Father that, in the persons of the men chosen to be the instruments of his work, he has looked away from all the ordinary machinery of human influence. As he gazes upon the band of successful missionaries, Jesus thanks the Father that henceforth his servants, if they would be successful, must owe the powers which gave them success entirely to his training, and not to the world’s. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. This is “the only record, outside St. John’s Gospel, of a prayer like that which we find in John 17. For the most part, we may believe, those prayers were offered apart, on the lonely hillside, in the darkness of night; or, it may be, the disciples shrank in their reverence, or perhaps in the consciousness of their want of capacity, from attempting to record what was so unspeakably sacred. But it is noteworthy that in this exceptional instance we find, both in the prayer and the teaching that follows it in St. Matthew and St. Luke, turns of thought and phrase almost absolutely identical with what is most characteristic of St. John. It is as though this isolated fragment of a higher teaching had been preserved by them as a witness that there was a region upon which they scarcely dared to enter, but into which men were to he led after. wards by the beloved disciple, to whom the Spirit gave power to recall what had been above the reach of the other reporters of his Master’s teaching” (Dean Plumptre).

The Pulpit Commentary-Book of Numbers (Old Testament)

                Justification by faith

     For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
--- Romans 5:10.

     I am not saved by believing; I realize I am saved by believing. It is not repentance that saves me; repentance is the sign that I realize what God has done in Christ Jesus. The danger is to put the emphasis on the effect instead of on the cause—It is my obedience that puts me right with God, my consecration. Never! I am put right with God because prior to all, Christ died. When I turn to God and by belief accept what God reveals I can accept, instantly the stupendous Atonement of Jesus Christ rushes me into a right relationship with God, and by the supernatural miracle of God’s grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, not because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. The spirit of God brings it with a breaking, all-over light, and I know, though I do not know how, that I am saved.

     The salvation of God does not stand on human logic, it stands on the sacrificial Death of Jesus. We can be born again because of the Atonement of Our Lord. Sinful men and women can be changed into new creatures, not by their repentance or their belief, but by the marvellous work of God in Christ Jesus which is prior to all experience. The impregnable safety of justification and sanctification is God Himself. We have not to work out these things ourselves; they have been worked out by the Atonement: The supernatural becomes natural by the miracle of God; there is the realization of what Jesus Christ has already done—“It is finished.”

                Night Sky

What they are saying is
  that there is life there, too;
  that the universe is the size it is
  to enable us to catch up.

They have gone on from the human;
  that shining is a reflection
  of their intelligence. Godhead
  is the colonisation by mind

of untenanted space. It is its own
  light, a statement beyond language
  of conceptual truth. Every night
  is a rinsing myself of the darkness

that is in my veins. I let the stars inject me
  with fire, silent as it is far,
  but certain in its cauterising
  of my despair. I am a slow

traveller, but there is more than time
  to arrive. Resting in the intervals
  of my breathing, I pick up the signals
  relayed to me from a periphery I comprehend.

     Maimonides’ position excludes prophecy from a key portion of halakhic law and maintains that rabbinic argumentation is independent of appeals to divine authority and is thus subject to disagreement. In addition to the certainties of Mosaic prophecy and traditions from Sinai, Maimonides offers the Jew norms developed by men who rationally struggle to resolve problems about which they often disagree, and who never demonstrate that alternate approaches to the law are invalid. It is not surprising to find a strong trend within Judaism opposed to this position. In a legal system based upon revelation, it is natural to expect that individuals would prefer the certainties of prophetic pronouncements and law based on traditions from Sinai rather than laws based on legal reasoning. Tradition-based law, which mediates the content of revelation to man, speaks with unquestioned authority. It offers individuals the security and certainty of knowing precisely what God wills. By eliminating prophets from halakhic argumentation and restricting the scope of tradition-based law, Maimonides weakens the security which results from obedience to traditional authority.

     Maimonides was careful to make distinctions which would restrict obedience to authority to certain classes of laws, while legitimizing disagreements based on reason in other classes. Maimonides does not eliminate the appeal to authority in Halakhah. He limits its applicability and is consistently emphatic in excluding it from areas which are not subject to its appeal. These important distinctions have broad spiritual implications. By knowing how to discriminate between the different types of laws, the halakhic Jew avoids an orientation of uncritical obedience to halakhic authority. The keen discernment which Maimonides hopes to encourage is vividly portrayed by him in the following exaggerated, hypothetical situation:

     If a Prophet whose claim to prohecy has already been validated by us, as we have explained, tells us—on the Sabbath—to arise, women and men, to set a fire and make in it armaments and girdle ourselves with them and fight against the people of such and such place, today which is the Sabbath, and that we plunder their wealth and conquer their wives, we are obligated—we who are commanded by the Torah of Moses—to arise immediately, without hesitation regarding anything he commands us. And we shall fulfill all that he commands with vivacity and diligence, without hesitation or delay, and we shall believe that all that is done on that day, which is the Sabbath, be it the kindling of fire, the performance of acts of work [melakhot], or engagement in killing and war, is a commandment regarding which we will hope for a reward from God. For we have heeded the command of the Prophet for it is a positive commandment to listen to his words, as God, through Moses, commanded, “him you shall heed” (Deut. 18:15), and we received by tradition, “In all matters, if a prophet tells you to violate the teachings of Torah, listen to him save for idolatry” (T.B. Sanhedrin 90a), for if he telis us worship this day only this form, or offer incense to this star at this time only, behold this prophet is killed, and we do not listen to him.

     But [consider] a man who sees himself, according to his imagination, as righteous and just, who is old and of advanced years, and he says to himself, “I am very old, and I am already such and such years old, and I have never violated any of the commandments at all. How can I arise on this day, which is the Sabbath, and violate a prohibition—whose penalty is stoning—and go to war? For I will not add nor detract and there are others to take my place, and many people will fulfill this commandment!”

     Behold that man violated the word of God and he deserves death by heavenly decree, for he violated what the Prophet commanded him. And He who commanded that one rest on the Sabbath is He who commanded that one fulfill the words of the Prophet and what he establishes. And whoever violates His commandment deserves what we said. And this is what the Almighty said, “and if anybody fails to heed the words he speaks in My name, I Myself will call him to account” (Deut. 18:19). However, one who ties a permanent knot on this Sabbath day while performing those acts of work and he is not required to tie this knot so as to contribute in any way to what the Prophet commanded, behold this person deserves stoning.

     And regarding this prophet himself who commanded whatever he commanded us to do on this day, which is the Sabbath, and whose words we fulfilled, if he [the prophet] says that the Sabbath limit is two thousand less one cubit or two thousand and one cubit and he relates this to [prophetic] inspiration and not to the method of analysis and argument, behold this person is a false prophet and he is killed by strangulation. And by this method shall you judge all that the Prophet commands you.

     Maimonides, in his introduction to the Commentary to the Mishnah, did not only elaborate upon the limits of prophetic authority through discursive arguments, but found it necessary to dramatize the halakhic Jew’s discriminating approach to authority: The prophet arrives. He addresses the community which is absorbed in everyday concerns. He mobilizes it for war. Time, place, and enemy are decided according to the prophet’s decree.

     The community, Maimonides says, must comply with the prophet. The prophet can compel an entire community to violate one of its most important and symbolic religious events—the Sabbath—as well as to fight, kill, plunder, and, perhaps, die at his bidding. In the context of a community following a prophet to war, Maimonides brings in a seemingly irrelevant detail—the old man. Once the old man is mentioned, one feels compassion for him and is tempted to question Maimonides’ fanatic concern that all obey the prophet. After all, what difference does it make if such an old man is not mobilized? What harm would there be if he were permitted to end his life without having disrupted his orderly pattern of piety? Yet Maimonides is adamant and uncompromising in his insistence that all—even such a man—follow the prophet. The situation of the old man accentuates the disruptive features which accompany a critical approach to authority. Habits of religious behavior can numb one’s consciousness of the base of one’s halakhic behavior. God, who commands one to rest on the Sabbath, can also command one to follow a prophet, thereby violating His established commandment. The authority of God is the ground of religious observance. Lest religious behavior become a self-justifying end, the Jew is constantly aware that his commitment is ultimately to God who, in principle, can disrupt the familiar routine of religious life.

     None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. --- 1 Corinthians 2:8

     The Sadducees held all the high places in the church, yet they had lost all spirituality and all belief in it.   The Galilean Accent - Being Some Studies in the Christian Life   Religion was all very well, they said, but really, to get things done, you must look only to politics. The axioms of pious people were unprovable and almost certainly untrue. There was no resurrection—no rewards and punishments hereafter; this brief life of ours was really all. A soul? No doubt there was a soul. But don’t brood over that. Give us practical measures of reform for this life here, and the soul will take care of itself. And this [Jesus] was becoming troublesome with his insistence on secondary things and was breeding trouble where they wanted peace and quiet. Yes, they felt, he were better away, and in the council they, too, voted death.

     We [today] also are not worrying about immortality, hardly believe in it, or at least are not sure. We, too, have limited ourselves to this dust-speck of time, leaving unclaimed the vast inheritance of which Christ told us. We, too, are putting all our passion and enthusiasm into things of this earth—material things—quite certain that that is the only road to progress and that this chatter about the soul is quite beside the point.

     People are so certain, so often animated by lofty motives, so sure that there is no need for Christ. Given a particular panacea, the world will manage very well. To talk about Christ and changing people’s hearts and making us new creatures is to lose precious time and wander from the practical into daydreaming.

     Today, too, there is a great shouting for Barabbas, for the man of action; we, too, believe in politics and economics—but religion? Set their circumstances right, and people will need no savior, will soon show that they can take care of themselves! “If… the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). If the cures and remedies of an age touch none of the roots of the disease, what then? And still Christ holds to it—as he did in his own day, full as ours is now of social sores and economic problems—that in the last resort nothing can save the world but a new race of men and women, with new aims and likings and a new ardor of self-sacrifice. And still that angers people, and they rise up and cast him out. We are all members of the council before which he is tried. And how does your heart vote?
--- Arthur John Gossip

     By the early fourth century, Christianity was straddling the Roman Empire, boasting of churches from Britain to Carthage and Persia. The Gospel had spread mouth-to-mouth, person-to-person, until, despite relentless persecution, it had taken root. “Every time a drop of blood was shed,” said Spurgeon, “that drop became a man.”

     The final storm occurred when Emperor Diocletian suddenly unleashed the Great Persecution, fiercest of all purges. But Romans eventually sickened of the blood, and the Christian holocaust created far-reaching sympathy for believers. When Diocletian abdicated, a power struggle erupted between two titans: Constantine and Maxentius. Their armies met at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome; and Constantine, as he later told the historian Eusebius, turned to the Christian God for help. In a dream on October 28, 312 he saw a cross in the sky with the Greek words In This Sign Conquer. Thus encouraged, he advanced and prevailed. After the battle he openly espoused Christianity, and the outcast church suddenly found itself on top of the world.

     Constantine extended great liberties to bishops. He abolished crucifixions and ended gladiatorial contests as punishments. He issued the Edict of Milan which said in part: “Every one who has a common wish to follow the religion of the Christians may from this moment freely proceed without any annoyance or disquiet.” He made Sunday a holiday, built church buildings, financed Christian projects, and gathered bishops to discuss theology.

     But whether Constantine was genuinely born again is doubted. He treated church leaders as political aides. He banished churchmen he didn’t like and retained paganism he did like. Under his rule the church, while enjoying freedom, deteriorated from an army of noble martyrs to a mixed multitude of semiconverted pagans. An alignment between church and state developed that set the stage for the Middle Ages and that continues to this day in the state churches of Europe.

     The “conversion” of Constantine was at once both the best thing that could have happened to the church, and the worst.

     Let the name of the LORD be praised now and forever. From dawn until sunset the name of the LORD deserves to be praised.
--- Psalm 113:2-3.

          Morning - October 28

     “I have chosen you out of the world.” --- John 15:19.

     Here is distinguishing grace and discriminating regard; for some are made the special objects of divine affection. Do not be afraid to dwell upon this high doctrine of election. When your mind is most heavy and depressed, you will find it to be a bottle of richest cordial. Those who doubt the doctrines of grace, or who cast them into the shade, miss the richest clusters of Eshcol; they lose the wines on the less well refined, the fat things full of marrow. There is no balm in Gilead comparable to it. If the honey in Jonathan’s wood when but touched enlightened the eyes, this is honey which will enlighten your heart to love and learn the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Eat, and fear not a surfeit; live upon this choice dainty, and fear not that it will be too delicate a diet. Meat from the King’s table will hurt none of his courtiers. Desire to have your mind enlarged, that you may comprehend more and more the eternal, everlasting, discriminating love of God. When you have mounted as high as election, tarry on its sister mount, the covenant of grace. Covenant engagements are the munitions of stupendous rock behind which we lie entrenched; covenant engagements with the surety, Christ Jesus, are the quiet resting-places of trembling spirits.

     “His oath, his covenant, his blood,
     Support me in the raging flood;
     When every earthly prop gives way,
     This still is all my strength and stay.”

     If Jesus undertook to bring me to glory, and if the Father promised that he would give me to the Son to be a part of the infinite reward of the travail of his soul; then, my soul, till God himself shall be unfaithful, till Jesus shall cease to be the truth, thou art safe. When David danced before the ark, he told Michal that election made him do so. Come, my soul, exult before the God of grace and leap for joy of heart.


          Evening - October 28

     “His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.” --- Song of Solomon 5:11.

     Comparisons all fail to set forth the Lord Jesus, but the spouse uses the best within her reach. By the head of Jesus we may understand his deity, “for the head of Christ is God” and then the ingot of purest gold is the best conceivable metaphor, but all too poor to describe one so precious, so pure, so dear, so glorious. Jesus is not a grain of gold, but a vast globe of it, a priceless mass of treasure such as earth and heaven cannot excel. The creatures are mere iron and clay, they all shall perish like wood, hay, and stubble, but the ever living Head of the creation of God shall shine on for ever and ever. In him is no mixture, nor smallest taint of alloy. He is for ever infinitely holy and altogether divine. The bushy locks depict his manly vigour. There is nothing effeminate in our Beloved. He is the manliest of men. Bold as a lion, laborious as an ox, swift as an eagle. Every conceivable and inconceivable beauty is to be found in him, though once he was despised and rejected of men.

     “His head the finest gold;
     With secret sweet perfume,
     His curled locks hang all as black
     As any raven’s plume.”

     The glory of his head is not shorn away, he is eternally crowned with peerless majesty. The black hair indicates youthful freshness, for Jesus has the dew of his youth upon him. Others grow languid with age, but he is for ever a Priest as was Melchizedek; others come and go, but he abides as God upon his throne, world without end. We will behold him to-night and adore him. Angels are gazing upon him—his redeemed must not turn away their eyes from him. Where else is there such a Beloved? O for an hour’s fellowship with him! Away, ye intruding cares! Jesus draws me, and I run after him.

          O MASTER, LET ME WALK WITH THEE

     Washington Gladden, 1836–1918

     He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

     Go labor on: Spend and be spent, my joy to do the Father’s will;
It is the way the Master went, should not the servant tread it still?
--- H. Bonar

     As God’s representatives, we must make it our life’s mission to make the invisible Christ visible to lost and needy people through both word and deed. We can do this most effectively by dealing justly with others and by showing compassion and understanding to those who are less privileged than we are.

     This hymn, published in 1879, comes from a period of religious history in America when there was much emphasis given to the social implications of the Gospel. The Civil War had ended and the country was in the midst of a great industrial revolution. As is often true in such times, the individual is exploited in the name of economic progress.

     Many of our country’s more liberal clergymen became enthusiastic champions for the cause of social justice. One of the recognized leaders of the social Gospel movement was Washington Gladden, known not only for his influential pulpiteering and writing but also for his negotiations in various national labor disputes and strikes. It was always his conviction that it was the duty of the Christian Church to “elevate the masses not only spiritually and morally, but to be concerned about their social and economic welfare as well.” Although Gladden was widely known in his day for his persuasive preaching and writing, he is remembered particularly today for this one hymn text, which teaches us so well that our service for God must always be based on an intimate fellowship with Him.

     O Master, let me walk with Thee in lowly paths of service free; tell me Thy secret—help me bear the strain of toil, the fret of care.
     Help me the slow of heart to move by some clear, winning word of love; teach me the wayward feet to stay and guide them in the homeward way.
     Teach me Thy patience! still with Thee in closer, dearer company, in work that keeps faith sweet and strong, in trust that triumphs over wrong.
     In hope that sends a shining ray far down the future’s broad’ning way, in peace that only Thou canst give, with Thee, O Master, let me live.

     For Today: Amos 3:3; Matthew 25:31–46; Ephesians 4:1 Philippians 2:5–7; Titus 3:8

     Actively seek to do for someone at least one good deed that you might otherwise be hesitant to attempt. Allow this musical message to help ---

     2. In neglecting means instituted by God. When men have risings of heart against God’s ordinances, “they reject the counsel of the Lord against themselves,” or, in themselves (Luke 7:30), ἠθέτησαν. They disannulled the wisdom of God, the spring of his ordinances. All neglects are disregards of Divine prescriptions, as impertinent and unavailable to that end for which they were appointed, as not being suited to the common dictates of reason; sometimes out of voluntary humility, such as Peter’s was, when he denied Christ’s condescension to wash his feet (John 13:8), and thereby judged of the comeliness of his Master’s intention and action. Such as continually neglect the great institution of the Lord’s supper, out of a sense of unworthiness, are in the same rank with Peter, and do, as well as he, fall under the blame and reproof of Christ. Men would be saved, and use the means, but either means of their own appointment, or not at all the means of God’s ordering. They would have God’s wisdom and will condescend to theirs, and not theirs conformed to God’s; as if our blind judgments were fittest to make the election of the paths to happiness.

     Like Naaman, who, when he was ordered by the prophet, for the cure of his leprosy, to “wash seven times in Jordan,” would be the prophet’s director, and have him touch him with his hand; as if a patient, sick of a desperate disease, should prescribe to his skilful physician what remedies he should order for his cure, and make his own infirm reason, or his gust and palate, the rule, rather than the physician’s skill.

     Men’s inquiries are, “Who will show us any good?” They rather fasten upon any means than that which God hath ordained. We invert the order Divine wisdom hath established,  when we would have God save us in our own way, not in his.  It is the same thing as if we would have God nourish us without bread, and cure our disease without medicines, and increase our wealth without our industry, and cherish our souls without his word and ordinances.  It is to demand of him an alteration of his methods,  and a separation of that which he hath by his eternal judgment joined together. Therefore  for a man to pray to God to save him when he will not use the means he hath appointed for salvation, when he slights the word, which is the instrument of salvation, is a contempt of the wisdom of Divine institutions.  Also in omissions of prayer. When we consult not with God upon emergent occasions, we trust more to our own wisdom than God’s, and imply that we stand not in need of his conduct, but have ability to direct ourselves, and accomplish our ends without his guidance. Not seeking God is, by the prophet, taxed to be a reflection upon this perfection of God (Isa. 31:1, 2): “They look not to the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord” &c. And the like charge he brings against them (Hos. 8:9): “They are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself, not consulting God.”

     3. In censuring God’s revelations and actions, if they be not according to our schemes: when we will not submit to his plain will without penetrating into the unrevealed reason of it, nor adore his counsels without controlling them, as if we could correct both law and gospel, and frame a better method of redemption than that of God’s contriving. Thus men slighted the wisdom of God in the gospel, because it did not agree with that philosophical wisdom and reason they had sucked in by education from their masters (1 Cor. 1:21, 22), contrary to their practice in their superstitious worship, where the oracles they thought divine were entertained with reverence, not with dispute, and though ambiguous, were not counted ridiculous by the worshipper. How foolish is man in this wherein he would be accounted wise! Adam, in innocence, was unfit to control the doctrine of God when the eye of his reason was clear; and much more are we, since the depravation of our natures. The revelations of God tower above reason in its purity, much more above reason in its mud and earthiness. The rays of Divine wisdom are too bright for our human understandings, much more for our sinful understandings. It is base to set up reason, a finite principle, against an infinite wisdom; much baser to set up a depraved and purblind reason against an all-seeing and holy wisdom. If we would have a reason for all that God speaks, and all that God acts, our wisdom must become infinite as his, or his wisdom become finite as ours. All the censures of God’s revelations arise from some prejudicate opinions, or traditional maxims, that have enthroned themselves in our minds, which are made the standard whereby to judge the things of God, and receive or reject them as they agree with, or dissent from, those principles (Col. 2:8). Hence it was that the philosophers, in the primitive times, were the greatest enemies to the gospel: and the contempt of Divine wisdom, in making reason the supreme judge of Divine revelation, was the fruitful mother of the heresies in all ages springing up in the church, and especially of that Socinianism, that daily insinuates itself into the minds of men.

     This is a wrong to the wisdom of God. He that censures the words or actions of another, implies that he is, in his censure, wiser than the person censured by him. It is as insupportable to determine the truth of God’s plain dictates by our reason, as it is to measure the suitableness or unsuitableness of his actions by the humor of our will. We may sooner think to span the sun, or grasp a star, or see a gnat swallow a Leviathan, than fully understand the debates of eternity. To this we may refer too curious inquiries into Divine methods, and “intruding into those things which are not revealed” (Col. 2:18). It is to affect a wisdom equal with God, and an ambition to be of his cabinet council. We are not content to be creatures, that is, to be every way below God; below him in wisdom, as well as power.

     4. In prescribing God’s method of acting. When we pray for a thing without a due submission to God’s will; as if we were his counsellors, yea his tutors, and not his subjects, and God were bound to follow our humors, and be swayed according to the judgment of our ignorance; when we would have such a mercy which God thinks not fit to give, or have it in this method, which God designs to convey through another channel. Thus we would have the only wise God take his measures from our passions; such a controlling of God was Jonah’s anger about a gourd (chap. 4:1): “It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.” We would direct Him how to dispose of us; as though he, that had infinite wisdom to contrive and rear the excellent fabric of the world, had not wisdom enough, without our discretions, to place us in a sphere proper for his own ends, and the use he intends us in the universe. All the speeches of men (would I had been in such an office, had such a charge; would I had such a mercy, in such a method, or by such instruments,) are entrenchments upon God’s wise disposal of affairs. This imposing upon God is a hellish disposition, and in hell we find it. The rich man in hell, that pretends some charity for his brethren on earth, would direct God a way to prevent their ruin, by sending one from the dead to school them, as a more effectual means than “Moses and the prophets” (Luke 16:29, 30). It is a temper also to be found on earth; what else was the language of Saul’s saving the Amalekites’ cattle against the plain command of God (1 Sam. 15:15)? As if God in his fury had overshot himself and overlooked his altar, in depriving it of so great a booty for its service; as if it were an unwise thing in God, to lose the prey of so many stately cattle, that might make the altar smoke with their entrails, and serve to expiate the sins of the people; and therefore he would rectify that which he thought to be an oversight in God, and so magnifies his own prudence and discretion above the Divine. We will not let God act as he thinks fit, but will be directing him, and “teaching him knowledge” (Job 21:22.) As if God were a statue, an idol, that had eyes and saw not, hands, but acted not; and could be turned as an image may be, to what quarter of the heaven we please ourselves. The wisdom of God is unbiassed; he orders nothing but what is fittest for his end, and we would have our shallow brains the bias of God’s acting. And will not God resent such an indignity, as a reflection upon his wisdom as well as authority, when we intimate that we have better heads than he, and that he comes short of us in understanding?

     5. In murmuring and impatience. One demands a reason, why he hath this or that cross? Why he hath been deprived of such a comfort, lost such a venture, languisheth under such a sickness, is tormented with such pains, oppressed by tyrannical neighbors, is unsuccessful in such designs? In these, and such like, the wisdom of God is questioned and defamed. All impatience is a suspicion, if not a condemnation of the prudence of God’s methods, and would make human feebleness and folly the rule of God’s dealing with his creatures. This is a presuming to instruct God, and a reproving him for unreasonableness in his proceedings, when his dealings with us do not exactly answer our fancies and wishes; as if God, who made the world in wisdom, wanted skill for the management of his creatures in it (Job 40:2): “Shall he that contends with the Almighty, instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.” We that are not wise enough to know ourselves, and what is needful for us; presume to have wit enough to guide God in his dealing with us. The wisdom of God rendered Job more useful to the world by his afflictions, in making him a pattern of patience, than if he had continued him in a confluence of all worldly comforts, wherein he had been beneficial only in communicating his morsels to his poor neighbors.  All murmuring is a fastening error upon unerring Wisdom.

     6. In pride and haughtiness of spirit. No proud man, but sets his heart “as the heart of God” (Ezek. 27:2, 3). The wisdom of God hath given to men divers offices, set them its divers places; some have more honorable charges, some meaner. Not to give that respect their offices and places call for, is to quarrel with the wisdom of God, and overturn the rank and order wherein he hath placed things. It is unfit we should affront God in the disposal of his creatures, and intimate to him by our carriage, that he had done more wisely in placing another, and that he hath done foolishly in placing this or that man in such a charge. Sometimes men are unworthy the place they fill; they may be set there in judgment to themselves and others: but the wisdom of God in his management of things, is to be honored and regarded. It is an infringing the wisdom of God, when we have a vain opinion of ourselves, and are blind to others. When we think ourselves monarchs, and treat others as worms or flies in comparison of us. He who would reduce all things to his own honor, perverts the order of the world, and would constitute another order than what the wisdom of God hath established; and move them to an end contrary to the intention of God, and charges God with want of discretion and skill.

     7. Distrust of God’s promise is an impeachment of his wisdom.

     A secret reviling of it, as if he had not taken due consideration before he past his word; or a suspicion of his power, as if he could not accomplish his word. We trust the physician’s skill with our bodies, and the lawyer’s counsel with our estates; but are loath to rely upon God for the concerns of our lives. If he be wise to dispose of us, why do we distrust him? If we distrust him; why do we embrace an opinion of wisdom? Unbelief also is a contradiction to the wisdom of God in the gospel, &c., but that I have already handled in a discourse of the nature of unbelief.

     Use 3. Of comfort. God hath an infinite wisdom, to conduct us in our affairs, rectify us in our mistakes, and assist us in our straits. It is an inestimable privilege to have a God in covenant with us; so wise, to communicate all good, to prevent all evil; who hath infinite ways to bring to pass his gracious intentions towards us. “How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out” (Rom. 11:33)! His judgments or decrees are incomprehensibly wise, and the ways of effecting them are as wise as his resolves effected by them. We can as little search into his methods of acting, as we can into his wisdom of resolving; both his judgments and ways are unsearchable.

     1. Comfort in all straits and afflictions. There is a wisdom in inflicting them, and a wisdom in removing them. He is wise to suit his medicines to the humor of our disease, though he doth not to the humor of our wills: he cannot mistake the nature of our distemper, or the virtue of his own physic. Like a skilful physician, he sometimes prescribes bitter potions, and sometimes cheering cordials, according to the strength of the malady, and necessity of the patient, to reduce him to health. As nothing comes from him, but what is for our good, so nothing is acted by him in a rash and temerarious way. His wisdom is as infinite as his goodness; and as exact in managing, as his goodness is plentiful in streaming out to us. He understands our griefs, weighs our necessities, and no remedies are beyond the reach of his contrivance. When our feeble wits are bewildered in a maze, and at the end of their line for a rescue, the remedies unknown to us are not unknown to God. When we know not how to prevent a danger, the wise God hath a thousand blocks to lay in the way; when we know not how to free ourselves from an oppressive evil, he hath a thousand ways of relief.  He knows how to time our crosses, and his own blessings.  The heart of a wise God, as well as the heart of a wise man, discerns both time and judgment (Eccles. 8:5). There is as much judgment in sending them, as judgment in removing them. How comfortable is it to think, that our distresses, as well as our deliverances, are the fruits of infinite wisdom! Nothing is done by him too soon or too slow; but in the true point of time, with all its due circumstances, most conveniently for his glory and our good. How wise is God to bring the glory of our salvation out of the depths of a seeming ruin, and make the evils of affliction subservient to the good of the afflicted.

     2. In temptations, his wisdom is no less employed in permitting them, than in bringing them to a good issue. His wisdom in leading our Saviour to be tempted of the devil, was to fit him for our succor; and his wisdom in suffering us to be tempted, is to fit us for his own service, and our salvation. He makes a thorn in the flesh to be an occasion of a refreshing grace to the spirit, and brings forth cordial grapes from those pricking brambles, and magnifies his grace by his wisdom, from the deepest subtilties of hell. Let Satan’s intentions be what they will, he can be for him at every turn, to outwit him in his stratagems, to baffle him in his enterprises; to make him instrumental for our good, where he designs nothing but our hurt. The Lord hath his methods of deliverance from him (2 Pet. 2:9). “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation.”

     3. In denials, or delays of answers of prayer. He is gracious to hear; but he is wise to answer in an acceptable time, and succor us in a day proper for our salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). We have partial affections to ourselves, ignorance is natural to us (Rom. 8:26). We ask we know not what, because we ask out of ignorance. God grants what he knows, what is fit for him to do, and fit for us to receive; and the exact season wherein it is fittest for him to bestow a mercy. As God would have us bring forth our fruit in season, so he will send forth his mercies in season. He is wise to suit his remedy to our condition, to time it so, as that we shall have an evident prospect of his wisdom in it; that more of Divine skill, and less of human, may appear in the issue. He is ready at our call; but he will not answer, till he see the season fit to reach out his hand. He is wise to prove our faith, to humble us under the sense of our own unworthiness, to wet our affections, to set a better estimate on the blessings prayed for, and that he may double the blessing, as we do our devotion: but when his wisdom sees us fit to receive his goodness, he grants what we stand in need of. He is wise to choose the fittest time, and faithful to give the best covenant mercy.

     4. In all evils threatened to the church by her enemies. He hath knowledge to foresee them, and wisdom to disappoint them (Job 5:13); “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.” The church hath the wisdom of God, to enter the lists with the policy of hell.

     He defeated the serpent in the first net he laid, and brought a glorious salvation out of hell’s rubbish, and is yet as skilful to disappoint the after-game of the surpentine brood. The policy of hell, and the subtilty of the world, are no better than folly with God (1 Cor. 3:19). All creatures are fools, as creatures, in comparison with the Creator. The angels he chargeth with folly, much more us sinners. Depraved understandings are not fit mates for a pure and unblemished. mind. Pharaoh, with his wisdom, finds a grave in the sea; and Ahitophel’s plots are finished in his own murder. He breaks the enemies by his power, and orders them by his skill to be a feast to his people (Psalm 74:14); “Thou breakest the head of the leviathan, and gavest him to be meat to the people in the wilderness.” The spoils of the Egyptians’ carcasses, cast upon the shore, served the Israelites’ necessities (or were as meat to them); as being a deliverance the church might. feed upon in all ages, in a wilderness condition, to maintain their faith, the vital principle of the soul. There is a wisdom superior to the subtilties of men, which laughs at their follies, and “hath them in derision” (Psalm 2:4). “There is no wisdom or counsel against the Lord” (Prov. 21:30). You never question the wisdom of an artist to use his file, when he takes it into his hand. Wicked instruments are God’s axes and files; let him alone, he hath skill enough to manage them: God hath too much affection to destroy his people, and wisdom enough to beautify them by the worst tools he uses. He can make all things conspire to a perfect harmony for his own ends, and his people’s good, when they see no way to escape a danger feared, or attain a blessing wanted.

     Use 4. For Exhortation. I. Meditate on the wisdom of God in creation and government. How little do we think of God when we behold his works! Our sense dwells upon the surface of plants and animals, beholds the variety of their colors, and the progress in their motion; our reason studies the qualities of them; our spirits seldom take a flight to the Divine wisdom which framed them. Our senses engross our minds from God, that we scarce have a thought free to bestow upon the Maker of them, but only on the by. The constancy of seeing things that are common stifles our admiration of God, due upon the sight of them. How seldom do we raise our souls as far as heaven, in our views of the order of the world, the revolutions of the seasons, the nature of the creatures that are common among us, and the mutual assistance they give to each other! Since God hath manifested himself in them, to neglect the consideration of them is to neglect the manifestation of God, and the way whereby he hath transmitted something of his perfections to our understanding. It renders men inexcusably guilty of not glorifying of God (Rom. 1:19, 20). We can never neglect the meditation of the creatures, without a blemish cast upon the Creator’s wisdom. As every river can conduct us to the sea, so every creature points us to an ocean of infinite wisdom. Not the minutest of them, but rich tracts of this may be observed in them, and a due sense of God result from them. They are exposed to our view, that something of God may be lodged in our minds; that, as our bodies extract their quintessence for our nourishment, so our minds may extract a quintessence for the Maker’s praise. Though God is principally to be praised, in and for Christ, yet, as grace doth not rase out the law of nature, so the operations of grace put not the dictates of nature to silence, nor suspend the homage due to God upon our inspection of his works. God hath given full testimonies of this perfection in the heavenly bodies, dispersing their light, and distributing their influences to every part of the world; in framing men into societies, giving them various dispositions for the preservation of governments; making some wise for counsel, others martial for action; changing old empires, and raising new. Which way soever we cast our eyes, we shall find frequent occasions to cry out, “O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. 11:33)! To this purpose, we must not only look upon the bulk and outside of his works, but consider from what principles they were raised, in what order disposed, and the exact symmetry and proportion of their parts. When a man comes into a city or temple, and only considers the surface of the buildings, they will amaze his sense, but not better his understanding, unless he considers the methods of the work, and the art whereby it was erected.

     (1.) This was an end for which they were created. God did not make the world for man’s use only, but chiefly for his own glory; for man’s use to enjoy his creatures, and for his own glory to be acknowledged in his creatures, that we may consider his art in framing them, and his skill in disposing them, and not only gaze upon the glass without considering the image it represents, and acquainting ourselves whose image it is. The creatures were not made for themselves, but for the service of the Creator, and the service of man.  Man was not made for himself, but for the service of the Lord that created him.    ( Think Rev 4:11)   He is to consider the beauty of the creation, that he may thereby glorify the Creator. He knows in art their excellentcy; the creatures themselves, do not. If, therefore, man be idle and unobservant of them, he deprives God of the glory of his wisdom, which he should have by his creatures. The inferior creatures themselves cannot observe it. If man regard it not, what becomes of it? His glory can only be handed to him by man. The other creatures cannot be active instruments of his glory, because they know not themselves, and therefore cannot render him an active praise. Man is, therefore, bound to praise God for himself, and for all his creatures, because he only knows himself, and the perfections of the creatures, and the Author both of himself and them. God created such variety, to make a report of himself to us; we are to receive the report, and to reflect it back to him. To what purpose did he make so many things, not necessary, for the support and pleasure of our lives, but that we should behold him in them, as well as in the other? We cannot behold the wisdom of God in his own essence, and eternal ideas, but by the reflection of it in the creatures: as we cannot steadily behold the sun with our eye, but either through a glass, or by reflection of the image of it in the water. God would have us meditate on his perfections; he therefore chose the same day wherein he reviewed his work and rested from it, to be celebrated by man for the contemplation of him (Gen. 2:2, 3), that we should follow his example, and rejoice, as himself did, in the frequent reviews of his wisdom and goodness in them. In vain would the creatures afford matter for this study, if they were wholly neglected. God offers something to our consideration in every creature. Shall the beams of God shine round about us, and strike our eyes, and not affect our minds? Shall we be like ignorant children, that view the pictures, or point to the letters in a book, without any sense and meaning? How shall God have the homage due to him from his works, if man hath no care to observe them? The 148th Psalm is an exhortation to this. The view of them should often extract from us a wonder of the like nature of that of David’s (Psalm 104:24): “O Lord, how wonderful are thy works, in wisdom hast thou made them all!” The world was not created to be forgotten, nor man created to be unobservant of it.

     (2.) If we observe not the wisdom of God in the views of the creatures, we do no more than brutes. To look upon the works of God in the world, is no higher an act than mere animals perform. The glories of heaven, and beauties of the earth, are visible to the sense of beasts and birds. A brute beholds the motion of a man, as it may see the wheels of a clock, but understands not the inward springs of motion; the end for which we move, or the soul that acts us in our motion; much less that Invisible Power which presides over the creatures, and conducts their motion. If a man do no more than this, he goes not a step beyond a brutish nature, and may very well acknowledge himself with Asaph, a foolish and ignorant beast before God (Psalm 73:22). The world is viewed by beasts, but the Author of it to be contemplated by man. Since we are in a higher rank than beasts, we owe a greater debt than beasts; not only to enjoy the creatures, as they do, but behold God in the creatures, which they cannot do. The contemplation of the reason of God in his works, is a noble and suitable employment for a rational creature: we have not only sense to perceive them, but souls to mind them.  The soul is not to be without its operation: where the operation of sense ends, the work of the soul ought to begin. We travel over them by our senses, as brutes; but we must pierce further by our understandings, as men, and perceive and praise Him that lies invisible in his visible manufactures. Our senses are given us as servants to the soul, and our souls bestowed upon us for the knowledge and praise of their and our common Creator.

     (3.) This would be a means to increase our humility. We should then flag our wings, and vail our sails, and acknowledge our own wisdom to be as a drop to the ocean, and a shadow to the sun. We should have mean thoughts of the nothingness of our reason, when we consider the sublimity of the Divine wisdom.

     Who can seriously consider the sparks of infinite skill in the creature, without falling down at the feet of the Divine Majesty, and acknowledge himself a dark and foolish creature (Psalm 8:4, 5)? When the Psalmist considered the heavens, the moon, and stars, and God’s ordination and disposal of them, the use that results from it is, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” We should no more think to mate him in prudence, or set up the spark of our reason to vie with the sun. Our reason would more willingly submit to the revelation, when the characters of Divine wisdom are stamped upon it, when we find his wisdom in creation incomprehensible to us.

     (4.) It would help us in our acknowledgments of God, for his goodness to us. When we behold the wisdom of God in creatures below us, and how ignorant they are of what they possess, it will cause us to reflect upon the deeper impressions of wisdom in the frame of our own bodies and souls, an excellency far superior to theirs; this would make us admire the magnificence of his wisdom and goodness, sound forth his praise for advancing us in dignity above other works of his hands, and stamping on us, by infinite art, a nobler image of himself. And by such a comparison of ourselves with the creatures below us, we should be induced to act excellently, according to the nature of our souls; not brutishly, according to the nature of the creatures God hath put under our feet.

     (5.) By the contemplation of the creatures, we may receive some assistance in clearing our knowledge in the wisdom of redemption. Though they cannot of themselves inform us of it, yet since God hath revealed his redeeming grace, they can illustrate some particulars of it to us. Hence the Scripture makes use of the creatures, to set forth things of a higher orb to us: our Saviour is called a Sun, a Vine, and a Lion; the Spirit likened to a dove, fire, and water. The union of Christ and his church, is set forth by the marriage union of Adam and Eve. God hath placed in corporeal things the images of spiritual, and wrapped up in his creating wisdom the representations of his redeeming grace: whence some call the creatures, natural types of what was to be transacted in a new formation of the world, and allusions to what God intended in and by Christ.

     (6.) The meditation of God’s wisdom in the creatures is, in part, a beginning of heaven upon earth. No doubt but there will be a perfect opening of the model of Divine wisdom. Heaven is for clearing what is now obscure, and a full discovering of what seems at present intricate (Psalm 36:9.): In his light shall we see light: all the light in creation, government, and redemption. The wisdom of God in the new heavens, and the new earth, would be to little purpose, if that also were not to be regarded by the inhabitants of them. As the saints are to be restored to the state of Adam, and higher; so they are to be restored to the employment of Adam, and higher: but his employment was, to behold God in the creatures. The world was so soon depraved, that God had but little joy in, and man but little knowledge of his works. And since the wisdom of God in creation is so little seen by our ignorance here, would not God lose much of the glory of it, if the glorified souls should lose the understanding of it above? When their darkness shall be expelled, and their advantages improved; when the eye that Adam lost shall be fully restored, and with a greater clearness; when the creature shall be restored to its true end, and reason to its true perfection (Rom. 8:21, 22); when the fountains of the depths of nature and government shall be opened, knowledge shall increase, and according to the increase of our knowledge, shall the admiration of Divine wisdom increase also. The wisdom of God in creation was not surely intended to lie wholly unobserved in the greatest part of it; but since there was so little time for the full observation of it, there will be a time wherein the wisdom of God shall enjoy a resurrection, and be fullycontemplated by his understanding and glorified creature.

     Exhort. 2. Study and admire the wisdom of God in redemption. This is the duty of all Christians. We are not called to understand the great depth of philosophy; we are not called to a skill in the intricacies of civil government, or understand all the methods of physic; but we are called to be Christians, that is, studiers of Divine evangelical wisdom. There are first principles to be learned; but not those principles to be rested in without a further progress (Heb. 6:1): “Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection.” Duties must be practised, but knowledge is not to be neglected. The study of Gospel mysteries, the harmony of Divine truths, the sparkling of Divine wisdom, in their mutual combination to the great ends of God’s glory and man’s salvation, is an incentive to duty, a spur to worship, and particularly to the greatest and highest part of worship, that part which shall remain in heaven; the admiration and praise of God, and delight in him. If we acquaint not ourselves with the impressions of the glory of Divine wisdom in it, we shall not much regard it as worthy our observance in regard of that duty. The gospel is a mystery; and, as a mystery, hath something great and magnificent in it worthy of our daily inspection; we shall find fresh springs of new wonders, which we shall be invited to adore with a religious astonishment. It will both raise and satisfy our longings. Who can come to the depths of “God manifested in the flesh?” How amazing is it, and unworthy of a slight thought, that the death of the Son of God should purchase the happy immortality of a sinful creature, and the glory of a rebel be wrought by the ignominy of so great a person! that our Mediator should have a nature whereby to covenant with his Father, and a nature whereby to he a Surety for the creature! How admirable is it, that the fallen creature should receive an advantage by the forfeiture of his happiness! How mysterious is it, that the Son of God should bow down to death upon a cross for the satisfaction of justice; and rise triumphantly out of the grave, as a declaration, that justice was contented and satisfied! that he should be exalted to heaven to intercede for us; and at last return into the world to receive us, and invest us with a glory forever with himself! Are these things worthy of a careless regard, or a blockish amazement? What understanding can pierce into the depths of the divine doctrine of the incarnation and birth of Christ; the indissoluble union of the two natures? What capacity is able to measure the miracles of that wisdom, found in the whole draught and scheme of the gospel? Doth it not merit, then, to be the object of our daily meditation? How comes it to ass, then, that we are so little curious to concern our thoughts in those wonders, that we scarce taste or sip of these delicacies? that we busy ourselves in trifles, and consider what we shall eat, and in what fashion we shall be dressed; please ourselves with the ingeniousness of a lace or feather; admire a moth-eaten manuscript, or some half-worn piece of antiquity, and think our time ill-spent in the contemplating and celebrating that wherein God hath busied himself, and eternity is designed for the perpetual expressions of? How inquisitive are the blessed angels! with what vigor do they renew their daily contemplations of it, and receive a fresh contentment from it; still learning, and still inquiring (1 Pet. 1:12)! Their eye is never off the mercy-seat; they strive to see the bottom of it, and employ all the understanding they have to conceive the wonders of it. Shall the angels be ravished with it and bend themselves down to study it, who have but little interest in it in comparison of us, for whom it was both contrived and dispensed;—and shall not our pains be greater for this hidden treasure? Is not that worthy the study of a rational creature, that is worthy the study of the angelical? There must indeed be pains; it is expressed by “digging” (Prov. 2:4). A lazy arm will not sink to the depth of a mine. The neglect of meditating on it is inexcusable, since it hath the title and character of the wisdom of God. The ancient prophets searched into it, when it was folded up in shadows, when they saw only the fringes of Wisdom’s garment (1 Pet. 1:10); and shall not we, since the sun hath mounted up in our horizon, and sensibly scattered the light of the knowledge of this and the other perfections of God? As the Jewish sabhath was appointed to celebrate the perfections of God, discovered in creation, so is the Christian sabhath appointed to meditate on, and bless God, for the discovery of his perfections in redemption. Let us, therefore, receive it according to its worth: let it be our only rule to walk by. It is worthy to be valued above all other counsels; and we should never think of it without the doxology of the apostle, “To the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ, for ever!” that our speculations may end in affectionate admirations, and thanksgivings, for that which is so full of wonders. What a little prospect should we have had of God, and the happiness of man, had not his wisdom and goodness revealed these things to us! The gospel is a marvellous light, and should not be regarded with a stupid ignorance, and pursued with a duller practice.

The Existence and Attributes of God

The Reality of Resurrection, Part 1

The Reality of Resurrection, Part 2

The Reality of Resurrection, Part 3

John MacArthur | Grace to you

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

John MacArthur | Grace to you

Who Is God’s Candidate?, Part 1

Who Is God’s Candidate?, Part 2

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