Mar 14
15
Christ’s love is like his name, and that is Wonderful (Isa. 9: 6) yea, it is so wonderful, that it is above all creatures, beyond all measure, contrary to all nature. It is above all creatures, for it is above the angels, and therefore above all others. It is beyond all measure, for time did not begin it, and time shall never end it; place doth not bound it, sin doth not exceed it, no estate, no age, no sex is denied it, tongues cannot express it, understandings cannot conceive it: and it is contrary to all nature; for what nature can love where it is hated? What nature can forgive where it is provoked? What nature can offer reconciliation where it receiveth wrong? What nature can heap up kindness upon contempt, favor upon ingratitude, mercy upon sin? And yet Christ’s love hath led him to all this; so that well may we spend all our days in admiring and adoring of this wonderful love, and be always ravished with the thoughts of it. Thomas Brooks
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The Golden Key! The Golden Thread!
by Octavius Winslow
Jesus is the one great theme both of the Old Testament and the New. The whole Bible is designed to testify of Christ, “The Scriptures point to Me!” John 5:39
In Christ the Messiah, in Jesus the Savior, in the Son of God the Redeemer — all the truths of the Bible center.
To Him all the types and shadows point!
Of Him all the prophecies give witness!
All the glory of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation — culminates at the cross of Christ!
The Bible would be an inexplicable mystery apart from Christ, who unfolds and explains it all.
He is the golden Key which unlocks the divine treasury of Scriptural revelation!
Until He is seen, the Bible is, in a sense — a great mystery. But when He is found, it is a glorious revelation. Every mystery is opened, every enigma explained, every discrepancy harmonized, and every truth and page, sentence and word, quickened with a life and glowing with a light flowing down from the throne of the Eternal God.
Christ is the substance of the Gospel.
All its divine doctrines,
all its holy precepts,
all its gracious instructions,
all its precious promises,
all its glorious hopes —
meet, center, and fill up their entire compass in Jesus!
He is the Alpha and the Omega of the Bible, from the first verse in Genesis — to the last verse in Revelation.
Oh, study the Scriptures of truth with a view of learning Christ.
Do not study the Bible as a mere history.
Do not read it as a mere poem.
Do not search it as a book of science.
It is all that, but infinitely more.
The Bible is the Book of Jesus!
It is a Revelation of Christ!
Christ is the golden thread which runs through the whole!
Blessed Lord Jesus! I will read and study and dig into the Scriptures to find and learn more of You!
You, Immanuel, are the fragrance of this divine box of precious ointment.
You are the beauteous gem sparkling in this divine cabinet.
You are the Tree of life planted in the center of this divine garden.
You are the Ocean whose stream quickens and nourishes all who draw water out of this divine well of salvation.
The Bible is all about You!
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THE KILLING LETTER-NOT THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE- William Huntington
A fountain is supplied from its own spring, yields its contents to supply the poor and needy when they seek water and there is none elsewhere, and their tongue faileth for thirst, that they may drink and not famish, or die by famishing. So this law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death. Can this law of the wise be the ten commandments, which are affirmed by some to be the believer’s only rule of life? I trow not. Paul tells us the letter killeth, 2 Cor. 3:6; that it is the law of death, Rom. 7:2; that the law worketh wrath, (Rom. 4:15); and is the ministration of death and condemnation, (2 Cor: 4:7,9) nor does our faith in Christ alter the nature of the law, or make it to us what it was not before. It is the yoke of bondage, and gendereth to bondage still; hence we are exhorted to stand fast in our liberty, and not be entangled again with that yoke of bondage, Gal. 5:1. It still retains its binding nature, even to the believer, and will entangle him again if he looks to it for help. This rule of life, as some term it, is still a killing letter, hence God declares that, “we are delivered from the law, that being dead, wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter,” Rom. 7:6. If the law be a killing letter, and the law of death, it cannot be a fountain of life; by which the wise man departs from the snares of death. We know that sin is a transgression of the law, and that where there is no law there is no transgression; and that death is the sentence of the law; if so, the commandments are the snares that hold the sinner in the arms of death. The first snare that entangles a thief is the law; and if he is left to the mercy of that, it will serve him as the spider does the fly in the web, never let him go till it has killed him; it is a killing letter, and so all will find it that weave the spider’s web, no web can be woven that will cover the soul on that loom; the commandment is exceeding broad. Nor can we suppose that our calling the ministration of condemnation the rule of life will alter this matter, or turn a killing letter into a living fountain; for that law gives no life, therefore it can be no part of this law of the wise. “Had there been a law given that could have given life, verily righteousness should have come by the law.” This law of the wise, that is, a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death, is what Paul calls the ministration of the Spirit opposed to the ministration of death, 2 Cor. 3:9. Solomon’s fountain of life is Paul’s ministration of the Spirit; and what Solomon calls the snares of death is Paul’s law of death. The wise man’s law of life is the same as the living water that the Savior gives, that is in the believer as a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (Jn. 4:14) Blessed be God forever, it is a fountain of life indeed by which the poor believing sinner departs from the snares of death, and that for ever more; or, to speak in the apostle’s language, “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death;” that is, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin that works in my members, and to the law of Moses, which is the ministration of death. We may call this law of the wise the believer’s only rule of life, without talking nonsense.
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THE GRACIOUS WORD -John MacDuff.
“This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this is the place of repose”—
“Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them.” Psalm 119:140
This is the precious dew of the Spirit dripping from the branches of the heavenly Palm. As Jonathan, when faint and downcast and weary, found strength and refreshment in partaking of the honey dropping from the trees in the tangled thicket (1 Sam. 14:27); so can every true believer—every true Jonathan (“the beloved of God,”) tell as their experience, “Your Word is sweet unto my taste.” “Sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb” (Ps.19:10).
In the midst of our duties and difficulties, our cares and perplexities, how many a pang and tear would it save us, if we went with chastened and inquiring hearts to these sacred pages! How many trials would be eased—how many sorrows soothed, and temptations avoided, if we forestalled every step in existence with the inquiry, “What says the scripture?”—if we preceded every desert encampment with the inquiry what the will of the Lord is? How few, it is to be feared, make (as they should do), the Bible a final court of appeal—a judge for the settlement of all the vexed questions in the consistory of the soul; allaying all misgivings with the resolve, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak.” May we be preserved from that saddest phase of modern infidelity, the Sacred Volume classed among the worn and barren books of the past, regarded only with that misnamed “veneration” which the collector bestows on some piece of mediaeval armor—a relic and memorial of bygone days, but unsuitable for an age which has superseded the cruder views of these old “chroniclers,” and inaugurated a new era of religious development. Vain dreamers! “Forever, O God, Your Word is settled in heaven.” “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” “The Word of the Lord is tried.”
What a crowd of witnesses could be summoned to give personal evidence of its preciousness and value. How many aching heads would raise themselves from their pillows and tell of their obligations to its soothing messages of love and power! How many deathbeds could send their occupants with pallid lips to tell of the staff which upheld them in the dark valley. How many, in the hour of bereavement, could lay their finger on the promise that first dried the tear from their eye and brought back the smile to their saddened countenances! How many voyagers in life’s tempestuous ocean, now landed on the heavenly shore, would be ready to hush their golden harps, and descend to earth with the testimony that this was the blessed beacon-light which enabled them to avoid the treacherous reefs—perilous rocks of temptation—and guided them to their desired haven!
Reason, with your flickering torch, you have never yet guided to such sublime mysteries as these! Philosophy, you have never yet, as this Book has done, taught a man how to die! Science, you have penetrated the mysteries of nature, sunk your shafts into earth’s recesses, unburied its stores, counted its strata, measured the height of its massive pillars down to the very pedestals of primeval granite; you have tracked the lightning, traced the path of the tornado, revealed the distant planet, foretold the coming of the comet and the return of the eclipse. But you have never been able to gauge the depths of the human soul, with its mighty cravings and yearnings, or to answer the question, “What must I do to be saved?”
No; this antiquated Volume is still the “Book of books,” the oracle of oracles, the beacon of beacons; the poor man’s treasury, the sick man’s health, the dying man’s life. It has shallows for the child to walk in, depths for giant intellect to explore and adore! Philosophy, if she would admit it, is indebted here for the noblest of her maxims. Poetry, for the loftiest of her themes. Painting has gathered here her noblest inspiration. Music has ransacked these golden stores for the grandest of her strains. And if there be life in the Church of Christ—if her ministers and missionaries are carrying the torch of salvation through the world, where is that torch lighted but at these same altar fires? When a philosophy, “falsely so called,” shall become dominant, and seek, with its proud dogmas, to supersede this divine system; when the old Bible of Augustine and Luther, of Baxter and Bunyan, of Brainerd and Martyn, is clasped and closed—the only code of morality worth speaking of will have perished from the earth. Dagon will have taken the place of God’s ark; the world’s funeral pile may be kindled.
Let us value our Bibles, “dwelling,” like Deborah, under these heavenly palm-trees. As they are the souvenirs of our earliest childhood, the gift of a mother’s love, or the pledge of a father’s affection, so let them be our fondest treasures—the directory of daily life, the friend of prosperity, the solace in adversity, the soothing in suffering, the balm in bereavement; and in the prospect of our own departure let them be the keepsakes and heirlooms which we are most desirous to transmit to our children’s children. As we sat under this Elim shade in life’s earliest morning, let us be found under it at life’s sunset hour; when, stirred by the breath of evening, the fronds whisper to the last, the name of Jesus!
“We praise Thee for the radiance
Which from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps,
Shines on from age to age.
“It is the golden casket
Where gems of truth are stored;
The never-failing Treasure
Of the Eternal Word.
“It is the chart and compass
That o’er life’s surging sea,
Mid mists and rocks and quicksands,
Still guide, O Christ, to Thee.
“Instruct Thy wandering pilgrims,
By this their path to trace,
Until, clouds and darkness ended,
They see Thee face to face.”
“I wait on the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope.”