The Journey of God's Ransomed People to Heaven
"No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing, everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away!" (Isaiah 35:9-10).
It is a glorious privilege to have a saving interest in the Divine favor; or whatever be the toils of the Christian pilgrim, or the conflicts of his future salvation. The hope of victory animates the general in the midst of the contest; and the prospect of home comforts the pilgrim amidst the dangers of the journey.
1. The Character of the People Who Journey to Heaven. "The ransomed of the Lord." They were once captives. All sinners are the captives of satan, that formidable tyrant; he possesses their hearts, and keeps them in a state of dreadful, but voluntary bondage. "Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will" (2 Tim. 2:25-26).
They are slaves to their own corruptions and lusts, which bind them fast, and they are "sold under sin". They dream of liberty, but are the worst of slaves! "making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:23-24).
(a) They could not ransom themselves. The price was too great for such involvements to pay (Rev. 3:17).
(b) It was the work of an Almighty Saviour to ransom the captives. He alone could pay the price, even "the precious blood of Christ". Hence it is said, "He gave Himself a ransom for many". He is is called the Redeemer, and His people the redeemed." (Eph 1:7; Col. 1:14).
Remember, you ransomed ones, that your freedom was purchased by the amazing condescension, privations, sufferings, and death of the Lord Jesus. It was effected by Him who "opens the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sat in darkness out of the prison-house" (Isa. 42; Luke 4:18).
(c). They are ransomed to be the Lord's people. Now they are His property, His children, His servants, His jewels, His treasure. They are no longer slaves, but the Lord's freemen. They now love and serve Him, and promote His glory."Our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good!" (Titus 2:13-14).
2. The Nature of Their Journey. They are enlightened to know and feel their state of captivity. They therefore long for deliverance. They return to Go by repentance and faith in Christ, the great Ransomer.
More particularly:
3. The ransomed of the Lord are journeying towards Heaven - to the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem. "We have a priceless inheritance - an inheritance pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay" (1 Peter 1:4). It is the land of immortality where sickness shall never spread, languor or decay; over those heavenly mansions death will never hover.
4. They travel on, depending upon God. "The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). They feel themselves weak, but they depend upon the promises. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. 12:9). They travel joyfully. "They will enter Zion with singing, songs of grateful praise to their great Deliverer. Songs of confidence in His power, love songs of joyful anticipation, and songs of ultimate triumph.
3. Its Blissful Termination. They will enter Zion where gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. They shall certainly arrive in Heaven and will finish their course with joy. What a blissful termination!
(a) Christian travelers shall receive a crown. It will be an incorruptible crown, not a fading laurel. No length of time will terminate the dominion of the saints, or tarnish their crowns. They shall reign forever and ever. It is called a crown of righteousness. It is called a crown of life, meaning they shall never die! It is a crown of gold. Revelation 4:4 says to "denote the priceless and lasting honor to which they will be advanced, and the superlative wealth of the kingdom which they will possess.
(b) Christian pilgrims shall receive GREAT FELICITY. "They shall obtain joy and gladness, arising from their arrival in glory, their conquest over all their enemies, the extension of their capacities, the beatific vision of God, the society of angels and perfected spirits, and their progressive acquisition of Divine knowledge. What sources of joy and gladness are here!
(c) Christian pilgrims shall be perfectly and eternally exempt from all distress. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away. No sigh or groan is ever heard there. No heart aches in heaven. No tears were ever wept there. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Rev. 21:4).
There will be immortal health, therefore no dread of sickness or death. There will be immortal wealth, and therefore no dread of poverty and want. There will be perfect and eternal holiness, and therefore no dread of sin. There will be everlasting security and salvation, and therefore no dread of satan or hell. Every cloud has vanished - all darkness has rolled away; and the saints are perfectly happy in heaven!
Application:
Christians, see your obligations to Christ. From Him all our present, and all your future happiness is derived! Let the hope of so much glory support you under the trials and difficulties of life. Rest and glory are before you. Continue your pilgrimage; think of its end; prepare for it. You will soon arrive in eternal glory!
~William Nicholson~
(The End)
A Proliferation of Christian Devotionals and Sermons
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Quotes From Classic Christian Authors
Our fathers and mothers have been our murderers!
(Thomas Case, "A Word to Parents")
"Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not let your soul spare for his crying." Proverbs 19:18
Behold, God counsels you who are parents to do with your children as He does with His--wisely to use the discipline of the rod, before vicious dispositions grow into habits, and folly becomes so deeply-rooted that the rod of correction will not drive it out.
"Error and folly," says one, "are the cords of Satan with which he ties sinners to the stake to be burned in Hell!"
These cords are easiest cut early. If you make the child bleed in the cutting of them, let it not cause you to withdraw your hand; for so it follows, "Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not let your soul spare for his crying."
It is not only foolish, but cruel pity to forbear correction for a few childish tears--to cause your child to wail in Hell for sin, rather than to shed a few tears for the preventing of it. Foolish fathers and mothers call this love, but the Father of Spirits calls it hatred: "He who spares the rod, hates his son!" Proverbs 13:24. Such sparing is hatred--and because you hate your children in not correcting them, they may come afterwards to hate you for not correcting them.
But this is not all. The parent's leniency in disciplining, makes way for God's severity. Pity to the child's flesh--is cruelty to the child's soul. So the Hebrew may be rendered, "Spare not to his destruction"--that is, to cause his destruction. The foolish indulgence of the parent may be, and often is, the death of the child--eternal death! Parents spare their children in their folly--to the destruction of both body and soul!
"Withhold not correction from the child, for if you beat him with the rod he shall not die." Proverbs 23:13. This verse reproves the silly and sinful soft-heartedness of parents, who are as afraid to use the rod, as if it were a sword. It is but a rod--it is not a serpent. It may hurt--but it will not give a poisonous sting.
They are monsters in the form of fathers and mothers--who thus hug their little ones to death! They are infanticides, rather than parents! "Surely it is better to be such people's swine, than their sons!"
O hateful indulgence and merciless pity--to damn a child for lack of correction! Such parents throw both the rod and their child into the fire at once! They throw the rod into the fire of the chimney--and their child into the fire of Hell.
This is not done like God, for "whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives"--and so does every wise and loving parent! "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him chastens him early."
As moths are beaten out of a garment with a rod--so must vices be beaten out of children's hearts.
For lack of this disciplinary love--how have some children accused their parents on their death-bed, yes at the gallows! And how many do and will curse their parents in Hell--as Cyprian supposes some to do: "The wicked fondness of our parents has brought us into these torments! Our fathers and mothers have been our murderers! Those who gave us our natural life, have deprived us of eternal life! Those who would not correct us with the rod, have occasioned us now to be tormented with scorpions!"
Yes, even in this life, how do many godly parents smart for their indulgent fondness, because they will not make their children smart for their folly. Eli and David would not so much as rebuke their sons--and God gave them rebukes in their sons. It is said of Eli, "His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." 1 Samuel 3:13. The Hebrew has it, "He did not frown upon them." How sad--for lack of a frown, to destroy a soul!
Such indulgent parents have laid the foundation of . . .
their own sorrows,
their children's ruin, and
the destruction of the nation,
in withholding proper discipline from their children!
_______________________________
(Thomas Case, "A Word to Parents")
"Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not let your soul spare for his crying." Proverbs 19:18
Behold, God counsels you who are parents to do with your children as He does with His--wisely to use the discipline of the rod, before vicious dispositions grow into habits, and folly becomes so deeply-rooted that the rod of correction will not drive it out.
"Error and folly," says one, "are the cords of Satan with which he ties sinners to the stake to be burned in Hell!"
These cords are easiest cut early. If you make the child bleed in the cutting of them, let it not cause you to withdraw your hand; for so it follows, "Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not let your soul spare for his crying."
It is not only foolish, but cruel pity to forbear correction for a few childish tears--to cause your child to wail in Hell for sin, rather than to shed a few tears for the preventing of it. Foolish fathers and mothers call this love, but the Father of Spirits calls it hatred: "He who spares the rod, hates his son!" Proverbs 13:24. Such sparing is hatred--and because you hate your children in not correcting them, they may come afterwards to hate you for not correcting them.
But this is not all. The parent's leniency in disciplining, makes way for God's severity. Pity to the child's flesh--is cruelty to the child's soul. So the Hebrew may be rendered, "Spare not to his destruction"--that is, to cause his destruction. The foolish indulgence of the parent may be, and often is, the death of the child--eternal death! Parents spare their children in their folly--to the destruction of both body and soul!
"Withhold not correction from the child, for if you beat him with the rod he shall not die." Proverbs 23:13. This verse reproves the silly and sinful soft-heartedness of parents, who are as afraid to use the rod, as if it were a sword. It is but a rod--it is not a serpent. It may hurt--but it will not give a poisonous sting.
They are monsters in the form of fathers and mothers--who thus hug their little ones to death! They are infanticides, rather than parents! "Surely it is better to be such people's swine, than their sons!"
O hateful indulgence and merciless pity--to damn a child for lack of correction! Such parents throw both the rod and their child into the fire at once! They throw the rod into the fire of the chimney--and their child into the fire of Hell.
This is not done like God, for "whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives"--and so does every wise and loving parent! "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him chastens him early."
As moths are beaten out of a garment with a rod--so must vices be beaten out of children's hearts.
For lack of this disciplinary love--how have some children accused their parents on their death-bed, yes at the gallows! And how many do and will curse their parents in Hell--as Cyprian supposes some to do: "The wicked fondness of our parents has brought us into these torments! Our fathers and mothers have been our murderers! Those who gave us our natural life, have deprived us of eternal life! Those who would not correct us with the rod, have occasioned us now to be tormented with scorpions!"
Yes, even in this life, how do many godly parents smart for their indulgent fondness, because they will not make their children smart for their folly. Eli and David would not so much as rebuke their sons--and God gave them rebukes in their sons. It is said of Eli, "His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." 1 Samuel 3:13. The Hebrew has it, "He did not frown upon them." How sad--for lack of a frown, to destroy a soul!
Such indulgent parents have laid the foundation of . . .
their own sorrows,
their children's ruin, and
the destruction of the nation,
in withholding proper discipline from their children!
_______________________________
The Christian’s Walk
After placing trust in Jesus, a person should begin to walk in a new direction. Believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and therefore have real purpose; it isn’t fitting for Christians to live aimlessly. The apostle Paul presents a dramatic contrast between who we once were and who we’re to be after coming to faith. (See Eph. 4:15-24.) Formerly, we might not have felt too bad about sin, but now that we are one with Jesus Christ, our mind is being renewed and our behavior should become increasingly God-pleasing.
As God’s children, we’re also to walk weighty—that is, leaving an imprint and an influence wherever we go. When we understand who we are in Christ and commit to walking in holiness, we begin to reflect the Lord Jesus to others. The joy we have in Him becomes an expression of His presence in our life and evidence of our relationship with Him.
So think of all the people you cross paths with each day. You might be reflecting Jesus to some who have been blind to the truth of God. In addition, your oneness with the Lord and your unity with other believers make you an asset and an encouragement to the body of Christ, too. You have no idea how many lives might be touched by yours.
I’m certainly one who believes in the value of sermons, but God’s people must do more than simply sit and listen. Our life must change so that everybody who meets us will meet Christ in us. Our old life—how we lived before meeting the Lord—was self-centered; our new life is Christ-centered. Is that becoming more evident in you?
~Charles F. Stanley
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Philpot's Letter of Resignation from the Church of England # 1
Philpot's Letter of Resignation from the Church of England # 1
Mr. Provost:
I beg leave to resign the Fellowship of Worcester College, to which I was elected. This step I am compelled to take because I can no longer with a good conscience continue a Minister or a Member of the Established Church.
After great and numerous trials of mind, I am, as I trust, led by the hand of God thus to separate myself from that corrupt and worldly system, called the Church of England. Her errors and corruptions, as well as her utter contrariety to the Gospel Church as revealed in the New Testament, have been for two or three years gradually opening upon my mind. But though I have thus slowly and by degrees obtained light from above to see the Established Church somewhat in her true colors, it is, I confess, only but very lately that the sin of remaining in her has been forcibly laid upon my conscience. I have felt of late that, by continuing as one of her ministers, I was upholding what in the sight of the holy Jehovah is hateful and loathsome.
I have felt that, by standing in her pulpit, I was sanctioning a system in principle and practice, in root and branches, corrupt before God. I have felt that I was keeping those children of God who sat under my ministry in total darkness as to the nature of a true Gospel Church. I have felt that both I myself, and the spiritual people that attended my ministry were, in principle and system, mixed up with - the ungodly, the Pharisee, the formalist, the worldling, and the hypocrite. And thus, while I remained in the Church of England, my principles and my practice, my profession and my conduct, my preaching and my acting, were inconsistent with each other. I was building up with the right hand what I was pulling down with the left.
I was contending for the power - while the Church of England was maintaining the form. I was, by my preaching, separating the people of God from the world lying in wickedness - and the Church of England, in her Liturgy and Offices, was huddling together the spiritual and the carnal, the regenerate and the unregenerate, the sheep and the goats. I was contending for regeneration as a supernatural act wrought upon the souls of the elect alone by the Eternal Spirit - and the Church of England was thanking God for regenerating every child that was sprinkled with a little water. True prayer I was representing as the Holy Spirit's work upon the soul, as the groanings of a burdened heart, as the pouring out of a broken spirit, as the cry of a child to his heavenly Father, as the hungering and thirsting of a soul that panted after God. The Church of England tied me down to cold, hackneyed, wearisome forms, in which I prayed for the Royal Family, the Parliament, the Bishops, and all sorts and conditions of men, with scarcely one petition that the Spirit would rule in a regenerate heart.
My soul was pained and burdened within me at hearing the wicked and the careless take into their lips the sweet petitions of David in the Psalms. I heard around me those who I knew from their life and conversation had never for a moment spiritually felt the pangs of a wounded conscience, say, 'I stick fast in the deep mire where no ground is; I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me'. I heard those who never desired or longed after anything but the gratification of their own lusts and covetousness, repeat aloud, 'Like as the deer desires the water-brooks, so longs my soul after you, O God! Those that were dressed up in all the colors of the rainbow, I heard saying, 'As for me, I am poor and needy'. Graceless men who had never felt a drop of the Spirit's teachings, and who outside of the Church swore, jeered, and scoffed, would cry in my hearing. 'Take not your Holy Spirit from me.' Adulterers and adulteresses repeated aloud, 'I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I go to Your altar.' While the self-righteous Pharisee would sound in my ears, 'I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and will make mention of Your righteousness only.'
Thus the gracious and blessed experience of God's saints was mocked and trampled upon, and the fervent prayers and breathings of the Spirit in contrite souls were profaned by the ungodly was not a casual occurrence, or such as arose from the unsuggested will of individuals, but was the deliberate principle and system of the Church of England. I saw it was so by her teaching every child to say he was made in his baptism 'a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven.' I saw it was so by that system of responses which she enjoins upon all the congregation to make, and again and again has my soul been burdened at hearing the wicked little children around me mock God by shouting out the responses, as they had been systematically trained to do by ignorant ministers, parents, school-masters and school-mistresses.
Being for the last three years a hearer and not a reader of the Liturgy, I have been compelled at times to close my ears with both my hands, that I might not hear the mechanical cries of the children, one of whose responses they always thus worded, 'We have left undone those things which we ought not to have done.' I have groaned within me at hearing the ungodly around me thus mock God, and so far was I from joining in the dead and spiritless forms of the Prayer Book, that I could only secretly pray, "Lord, deliver me from this worldly and unholy system."
But though I felt, and at times could groan beneath the wretched formality of the Church of England, I was from two motives chiefly kept within her. One was, that I desired to be useful to the children of God in a dark neighborhood, with whom I had been connected for nearly seven years, and of whom some professed to derive profit from my ministry. The other was altogether carnal, and, though hiding itself in the secret recesses of my heart and therefore unperceived, was doubtless of much weight with me. This was the desire of retaining that comfortable competence which my fellowship secured. My heart, I freely confess, has often sunk within me at the prospect of my already weak health terminating in confirmed illness, with poverty and need staring me in the face. I was also praying for an opening from the Lord to show me my path clearly, as, though I was determined neither to accept preferment, nor take another curacy, I was unwilling to throw up my ministry until the 'death of the very aged incumbent.' Lately, however, I have been brought to see 'that I must not do evil that good may come;, and that if my conscience was fully convinced of the sin of remaining in the Church of England, no clearer or more direct intimation of the will of God was needed.
Thus have I laid open the inward workings of my heart, and the experience through which I have been led, in order to show that the resignation of my Fellowship and Curacy, and secession from the Church of England, is no sudden and hasty step, but the gradual and deliberate conviction of my soul.
But besides these particular evils under which I especially 'groaned being burdened', as being brought into continual contact with them, I have felt that by continuing in the Establishment I sanction and uphold every other corruption that is mixed up with so worldly a system.
~J. C. Philpot~
(continued with # 2)
Mr. Provost:
I beg leave to resign the Fellowship of Worcester College, to which I was elected. This step I am compelled to take because I can no longer with a good conscience continue a Minister or a Member of the Established Church.
After great and numerous trials of mind, I am, as I trust, led by the hand of God thus to separate myself from that corrupt and worldly system, called the Church of England. Her errors and corruptions, as well as her utter contrariety to the Gospel Church as revealed in the New Testament, have been for two or three years gradually opening upon my mind. But though I have thus slowly and by degrees obtained light from above to see the Established Church somewhat in her true colors, it is, I confess, only but very lately that the sin of remaining in her has been forcibly laid upon my conscience. I have felt of late that, by continuing as one of her ministers, I was upholding what in the sight of the holy Jehovah is hateful and loathsome.
I have felt that, by standing in her pulpit, I was sanctioning a system in principle and practice, in root and branches, corrupt before God. I have felt that I was keeping those children of God who sat under my ministry in total darkness as to the nature of a true Gospel Church. I have felt that both I myself, and the spiritual people that attended my ministry were, in principle and system, mixed up with - the ungodly, the Pharisee, the formalist, the worldling, and the hypocrite. And thus, while I remained in the Church of England, my principles and my practice, my profession and my conduct, my preaching and my acting, were inconsistent with each other. I was building up with the right hand what I was pulling down with the left.
I was contending for the power - while the Church of England was maintaining the form. I was, by my preaching, separating the people of God from the world lying in wickedness - and the Church of England, in her Liturgy and Offices, was huddling together the spiritual and the carnal, the regenerate and the unregenerate, the sheep and the goats. I was contending for regeneration as a supernatural act wrought upon the souls of the elect alone by the Eternal Spirit - and the Church of England was thanking God for regenerating every child that was sprinkled with a little water. True prayer I was representing as the Holy Spirit's work upon the soul, as the groanings of a burdened heart, as the pouring out of a broken spirit, as the cry of a child to his heavenly Father, as the hungering and thirsting of a soul that panted after God. The Church of England tied me down to cold, hackneyed, wearisome forms, in which I prayed for the Royal Family, the Parliament, the Bishops, and all sorts and conditions of men, with scarcely one petition that the Spirit would rule in a regenerate heart.
My soul was pained and burdened within me at hearing the wicked and the careless take into their lips the sweet petitions of David in the Psalms. I heard around me those who I knew from their life and conversation had never for a moment spiritually felt the pangs of a wounded conscience, say, 'I stick fast in the deep mire where no ground is; I am come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me'. I heard those who never desired or longed after anything but the gratification of their own lusts and covetousness, repeat aloud, 'Like as the deer desires the water-brooks, so longs my soul after you, O God! Those that were dressed up in all the colors of the rainbow, I heard saying, 'As for me, I am poor and needy'. Graceless men who had never felt a drop of the Spirit's teachings, and who outside of the Church swore, jeered, and scoffed, would cry in my hearing. 'Take not your Holy Spirit from me.' Adulterers and adulteresses repeated aloud, 'I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I go to Your altar.' While the self-righteous Pharisee would sound in my ears, 'I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and will make mention of Your righteousness only.'
Thus the gracious and blessed experience of God's saints was mocked and trampled upon, and the fervent prayers and breathings of the Spirit in contrite souls were profaned by the ungodly was not a casual occurrence, or such as arose from the unsuggested will of individuals, but was the deliberate principle and system of the Church of England. I saw it was so by her teaching every child to say he was made in his baptism 'a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven.' I saw it was so by that system of responses which she enjoins upon all the congregation to make, and again and again has my soul been burdened at hearing the wicked little children around me mock God by shouting out the responses, as they had been systematically trained to do by ignorant ministers, parents, school-masters and school-mistresses.
Being for the last three years a hearer and not a reader of the Liturgy, I have been compelled at times to close my ears with both my hands, that I might not hear the mechanical cries of the children, one of whose responses they always thus worded, 'We have left undone those things which we ought not to have done.' I have groaned within me at hearing the ungodly around me thus mock God, and so far was I from joining in the dead and spiritless forms of the Prayer Book, that I could only secretly pray, "Lord, deliver me from this worldly and unholy system."
But though I felt, and at times could groan beneath the wretched formality of the Church of England, I was from two motives chiefly kept within her. One was, that I desired to be useful to the children of God in a dark neighborhood, with whom I had been connected for nearly seven years, and of whom some professed to derive profit from my ministry. The other was altogether carnal, and, though hiding itself in the secret recesses of my heart and therefore unperceived, was doubtless of much weight with me. This was the desire of retaining that comfortable competence which my fellowship secured. My heart, I freely confess, has often sunk within me at the prospect of my already weak health terminating in confirmed illness, with poverty and need staring me in the face. I was also praying for an opening from the Lord to show me my path clearly, as, though I was determined neither to accept preferment, nor take another curacy, I was unwilling to throw up my ministry until the 'death of the very aged incumbent.' Lately, however, I have been brought to see 'that I must not do evil that good may come;, and that if my conscience was fully convinced of the sin of remaining in the Church of England, no clearer or more direct intimation of the will of God was needed.
Thus have I laid open the inward workings of my heart, and the experience through which I have been led, in order to show that the resignation of my Fellowship and Curacy, and secession from the Church of England, is no sudden and hasty step, but the gradual and deliberate conviction of my soul.
But besides these particular evils under which I especially 'groaned being burdened', as being brought into continual contact with them, I have felt that by continuing in the Establishment I sanction and uphold every other corruption that is mixed up with so worldly a system.
~J. C. Philpot~
(continued with # 2)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)