Square me! Prune me! C.H.Spurgeon “There is more hewing, and hacking, and squaring used on a stone which is to be set in the wall of a stately palace — than that which is placed in a rock wall. Just so, the vine is carefully pruned — when the bramble is untouched.” This should reconcile believers to their chastisements. It is a well-worn […]
Muddy streams and broken, leaky cisterns(By John MacDuff) “Come! Let him that is athirst, come—and whoever will, let him take of the water of life freely!” Revelation 22:17 Thirsty? who is not thirsty? It is the cry ofuniversal humanity! Who does not feel that thisworld is presenting us with muddy streams andbroken, leaky cisterns. Who does not feel, intheir moments […]
“Whence Hast Thou That Living Water?” John 4:11 The Lord Jesus told this woman plainly that if she had known the gift of God and who he was, she would have asked of him, and he would have given her living water. I fully realize that she did not know the full implication of what […]
Circumcision of the Heart Physical circumcision is the cutting away of flesh. Religious circumcision is when men either cut out of their lives fleshly pleasures, or look to fleshly things in hopes of earning favor with God. It is man’s desire to make a fair show in the flesh to avoid suffering persecution for […]
“I am black, but lovely!” “I am black, but lovely!” Song of Solomon 1:5 The believer pictures her state. It is a seeming paradox. The extremes of lowliness and greatness are combined. She presents two aspects: deformity and loveliness compose the portrait. “I am black, but lovely!” Blackness is frightful and repulsive. No eye can […]
“Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” Psalm 107:10 J.C.Philpot God’s people are here represented not as sitting in death; were they sitting there, they would be dead altogether; but they are sitting in the shadow of death. Observe, death has lost its reality to them; it now can only cast […]
“I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.” Isaiah 42:16 J.C.Philpot What is the mind of man–of any man–of your mind, my mind, under affliction? Let him be tried with pain of body, poverty of circumstances, sickness in his family, guilt of conscience, hard bondage in his own soul, without any beam […]
Hitherto! (Charles Spurgeon) “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying: “Hitherto has the Lord helped us.” 1 Samuel 7:12 The word “hitherto” seems like a hand pointing in the direction of the past. Twenty years or seventy, and yet, “hitherto the Lord has […]
LIGHT IN DARKNESS John MacDuff “The Lord went before them by night in a pillar of fire.” Is. 42:16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These […]
If you want to see what sin really is (Philpot, “Sin Condemned and Righteousness Fulfilled”) To cast the sinning angels out of heaven; to banish Adam from Paradise; to destroy the old world by a flood; to burn Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from heaven– these examples of God’s displeasure against sin were not sufficient […]