Aug 22
23
People of God. We can plan and arrange our worship services perfectly according to Scripture, sing just the right songs, pray fervently and Scripturally and even deliver a well studied, God honoring message from the Word of God, but we cannot worship unless the Lord Himself graces our presence with His, and blesses us to do so. Pray for it. Let us seek Him, this very morning that we may find.
– Chris Cunningham
“Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” John 6:54-56
Octavius Winslow
FROM where do the ordinances derive their efficacy and power,
but from the vitality of the Redeemer’s blood? There could be no life, for
instance, in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper but as that institution
presented in a lively picture to the faith of the recipient the life-blood of
the Saviour. With what clearness and solemnity has He Himself put forth this
truth, in the verses of our motto; thus declaring that he who in lowly and
simple faith drinks of the blood of Jesus, partakes of the life of Jesus,
because the life of Jesus is in the blood. Should the eye of an unconverted
soul light upon this page, or should it arrest the attention of an unbelieving
and therefore an unworthy recipient of the ordinance, let that individual
seriously ponder these solemn words of Jesus—”Except you eat the flesh of
the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” The
ordinance has no life of itself; the mere symbol possesses no spiritual
vitality whatever; it cannot impart life, nor can it sustain life. But the life
in the ordinance flows from the exercise of faith, through this medium, with
the life-blood of Jesus. Therefore, if you rest only in the symbol, if in this
ordinance you partake not by faith of the blood of Jesus, your soul is
destitute of spiritual life. In the words of Jesus Himself, “You have no
life in you.”
But oh what life does the believing communicant find in the
atoning blood! what food, that refreshment, what nourishment! Is it any wonder
that Jesus should be to Him the chief among ten thousand, and that the blood of
Jesus should be the most precious thing in the universe? If the death of Jesus
is his life, what must the life of Jesus be! If the humiliation of Jesus is his
honour, what must the exaltation of Jesus be! If the cross of Jesus is his
glory, what must the throne of Jesus be! If Jesus crucified is his boast, what
must be Jesus glorified! “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled by
the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His
life.”
Reader, is the blood of Jesus the life of your soul? So
momentous is this truth, bear with me in pressing it upon your attention.
Believe me when, with all affection and solemnity, I say that Your religion,
your creed, your profession, are lifeless if they are not vivified, pervaded,
and animated by the blood of the Son of God. God have no dealings with you in this
great matter your salvation, but through the blood. He cannot
“reason” with you about your sins of “crimson” and of
“scarlet” dye, but on the footing of the blood. He cannot meet you
for one moment in any other character than as a “consuming fire,” but
as He meets you at, and communes with you from above the mercy-seat sprinkled
with blood. The blood of atonement is everything to God in the way of
satisfaction, of glory, and of honour; and should be everything to you in the
way of acceptance, pardon, and communion. There is not a moment in which God’s
eye of complacence is withdrawn from the blood of His Son in the perpetual
acceptance of the believer; and there should not be a moment in which our eye
of faith, in every circumstance of our daily walk before Him, should not also
be upon this “blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of
Abel.”
“Open your mouth wide—and I
will fill it!” Psalm 81:10
Author unknown
These are the words of Him who is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think. And He is not only able—He is ever
willing to bless to all who come to Him. The God of all grace does not
simply permit His needy creatures to come with their wants to
Him—He invites and enjoins them to do so! In
the text He encourages enlarged desires: “Open your mouth wide,” He
says, “and I will fill it!”
He delights in mercy! He loves to bless! He is ready to satisfy
us with His favour! God pities us when, in the weakness of our faith, we ask
only a little of Him, and with small expectation of receiving
anything. He would have us, in the name of Jesus, to ask much—and with the full
assurance that we cannot ask in vain, when we covet earnestly the best gifts.
Often, O Lord, am I straitened in myself, but never am I
straitened in You. If I have not—it is because I ask not, or because I ask
amiss. Enlarge my desires, and increase my faith. Help me to come to You . . .
hungry—to be satisfied;
needy—to be enriched;
empty—to be filled.
Help me to some suitable apprehension of Your inestimable love
in the gift and sacrifice of Your dear Son—so shall I feel assured that You
will with Him, freely give me all things.
It quenches the thirst of
the soul
(Horatius Bonar,
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ”)
“My blood is drink indeed!” John 6:55
The blood of the Lamb contains the true drink for the
soul. It
quenches the thirst of the soul–the thirst
of parching produced by an evil conscience and a sense
of wrath. It removes the wrath and the sense of wrath,
by showing us that wrath transferred to the Substitute.
It relieves the conscience when first we come into
contact with it; and it keeps it relieved from day
to day, as we drink it by faith.
It is ‘the true drink.’
It calms!
It revives!
It refreshes!
It soothes!
It is like cold water to the thirsty lips under a
scorching sun. Nothing but the blood can allay
this thirst; nothing else can be . . .
drink for the soul,
drink for the intellect,
drink for the conscience,
drink for the heart!
|
The most wonderful plan! Spurgeon, “ANOTHER AND A NOBLER EXHIBITION” Through the great scheme of ‘salvation by the atonement’, God is MORE glorified than he would have been if there had been no fall, and consequently no room for a redemption. It was within the compass of the power of God to make ‘infallible creatures’ that would love him– to make beings that would be attached to him by the very closest ties. But I do not see how omnipotence itself, apart from ‘the fall and the redemption’ by the sacrifice of Christ, when he gave himself to die for us; could have made such creatures as the redeemed will be in heaven. Brethren, if we had never fallen and never been redeemed, we could never have sung of redeeming grace and dying love! We could not have known the heights and depths, and lengths and breadths of the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Feasted with heavenly food, we might have admired his bounty, but not as we now do when we eat the flesh of Christ, made to drink the wine pressed from heaven’s own clusters. We might have blessed the giver of the feast, but not as we now can do, when we drink the blood of Jesus as our sweet wine; pure and holy. We could have praised him, and we should have done so, but not as we now can, when we have “washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” This seems to be the most wonderful, the most godlike, the most divine plan– that a sinful creature shall discover the justice of God through the punishment being laid upon a substitute; and that he shall learn the love of God through that substitute being God himself! In heaven this redeemed creature shall feel that it owes nothing to itself, nothing to its own natural efforts, but all to him who loved it and who bought it with his blood; and therefore this grateful being shall praise God after the most superior sort– “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive honor, and blessing, and majesty, and power, and dominion for ever and ever!” |
Toys and playthings of the religious babyhouse
“I will feed My flock.” Ezekiel
34:15
J.C.Philpot
The only real food of the soul must be of God’s
own appointing, preparing, and communicating.
You can never deceive a hungry child. You may
give it a plaything to still its cries. It may serve
for a few minutes; but the pains of hunger are
not to be removed by a doll. A toy horse will not
allay the cravings after the mother’s breast.
So with babes in grace. A hungry soul
cannot feed upon playthings.
Altars,
robes,
ceremonies,
candlesticks,
bowings,
mutterings,
painted windows,
intoning priests, and
singing men and women;
these dolls and wooden horses; these toys
and playthings of the religious babyhouse,
cannot feed the soul that, like David, cries out
after the living God. (Psalm 42:23)
Christ, the bread of life, the manna that
came down from heaven, is the only food
of the believing soul. (John 6:51)
Weaned from feeding on husks and ashes
J.C.Philpot
“I will satisfy her poor with bread.”
Psalm 132:15
The Lord has given a special promise to Zion’s
poor—”I will satisfy her poor with bread.”
Nothing else? Bread? Is that all?
Yes! That is all God has promised—bread,
the staff of life.
But what does He mean by “bread”?
The Lord Himself explains what bread is. He says,
“I am the Bread of life. He who comes to Me
will
never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will
never be thirsty. I am the living Bread who
came
down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread,
he will live forever.” John 6:35,51
The bread, then, that God gives to Zion’s poor is
His own dear Son—fed upon by living faith, under
the special operations of the Holy Spirit in the heart.
“I will satisfy her poor with bread.”
Psalm 132:15
But must not we have an appetite before we can
feed upon bread? The rich man who
feasts continually
upon juicy meat and savoury sauces, would not live upon
bread. To come down to live on such simple food as bread
—why, one must be really hungry to be satisfied with that.
So it is spiritually. A man fed upon ‘mere notions’ and a
number of ‘speculative doctrines’ cannot descend to the
simplicity of the gospel. To feed upon a crucified
Christ,
a bleeding Jesus!—he is not sufficiently
brought down to
the starving point, to relish such spiritual food as this!
Before, then, he can feed upon this Bread of life he
must
be made spiritually poor. And
when he is brought to be
nothing but a mass of wretchedness, filth, guilt, and misery
—when he feels his soul sinking under the wrath of God,
and has scarcely a hope to buoy up his poor tottering heart
—when he finds the world embittered to him, and he has no
one object from which he can reap any abiding consolation
—then the Lord is pleased to open up in his conscience,
and bring the sweet savor of the love of His dear Son
into his heart—and he begins to taste gospel bread.
Being weaned
from feeding on husks and ashes, and
sick “of the vines of Sodom and the fields of
Gomorrah,”
and being brought to relish simple gospel food, he begins
to taste a sweetness in ‘Christ crucified’ which he never
could know—until he was made experimentally poor.
The Lord has promised to satisfy such.
Savoury food such as their soul loves
J.C.Philpot
“For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.” John 6:55
This food is specially for the elect—blood shed for their sins, and for their sins only—righteousness brought in for them, and for them only—love bestowed upon them, and upon them only—promises revealed for their comfort, and for their comfort only—an eternal inheritance reserved in heaven for them, and for them only. The elect are the only people who hunger after it—who have an appetite for it—who have a mouth to feed upon it—who have a stomach to digest it. They are the only people whose eyes are really open to see what “food” is. All others feed upon shadows—they know nothing of the savory food of the gospel.
“I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” Jesus’ food was—the hidden communications of God’s love—the visitations of His Father’s presence—the divine communion that He enjoyed with His Father. So, for the children of God, there is food in Christ—and this food the Lord gives them a hunger after. He not only sets before their eyes what the food is, butHe kindles inexpressible longings in their soul to be fed with it. God’s people cannot feed upon husks—nor upon ashes—nor upon chaff—nor upon the wind—nor upon grapes of gall and the bitter clusters of Gomorrah. They must have real food—savory food such as their soul loves—that which God Himself communicates, and which His hand alone can bring down and give unto them—so that they may receive it from Him as their soul-satisfying portion.
“I will satisfy her poor with bread.”
Psalm 132:15