Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

September 30, 2019

9/30/2019

And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear (Isa. 65:24).

    According to its placement in a passage dealing with the new-earth state yet to come, this promise will have special application there; but it applies here, too, for our God is a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God. Foreseeing our needs and our prayers regarding those needs, the heavenly Father arranges His proveniences so that before the need actually arises He has supplied it, before the terrible trial assails us He has prepared deliverance. This is because He knows everything in the future as well as in the past. He foresees our need, and His answer is really there before our prayer is made.

    God is in heaven, and we are on earth; yet by His Spirit He is everywhere present. While we are praying, He is answering. While we are speaking, He is hearing. Our prayers may be so short and so intense in time of danger that we can hardly remember a word of them. We think of the prayer of Peter, "Lord, save me." We may pray that same prayer without actually using the words. How wonderful that while we are speaking He hears, and before we call He is preparing deliverance. "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee" is His word (Ps. 50:15).

    Years ago a boy in church opened his eyes during prayer. All heads were bowed. He looked at the minister. He saw is lips moving and heard the words.  How foolish, he thought, for anyone to imagine that those words could be heard beyond these walls.  Today that boy is a man and owns a radio. He listens to stations thousands of miles away and thinks of people speaking into a microphone, addressing invisible audiences on other continents. He thinks of an instrument sensitive enough to pick up voices among the stars. Now prayer seems to him the most natural thing in the world. "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come" (Ps. 65:2).

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee" (Ps. 102:1).

September 29, 2019

9/29/2019

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind (Isa. 65:17).

    The margin reads, "Come upon the heart." In the new earth the events of life in the former earth condition will not be remembered to come upon the heart; that is, to cause sadness, sorrow, disappointment, worry, or heartache. But we shall certainly remember the way in which the Lord has led us through His loving providence and great mercy.

    We shall remember the story of the cross and our redemption. Those who sing the new song before the throne will say, "Thou are worthy...:for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation" (Rev. 5:9).

    In that blessed land we shall see things as God sees them. What now appears to us to be merely a chain of meaningless and even cruel events will then appear in all its harmony as the providence of God leading on to our eternal joy. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Rev. 21:4). There will be no sorrow there, for Christ is there. In the language of Bonar's sweet hymn:

                                Christ Himself the living splendor,
                                Christ the sunlight, mild and tender;
                                Praises to the Lamb we render;
                                Ah, 'tis heaven at last!

                                Broken death's dread bands that bound us,
                                Life and victory around us;
                                Christ the King Himself hath crowned us;
                                Ah, 'tis heaven at last!

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness" (Ps. 30:4).

September 28, 2019

9/28/2019

Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation (John 5:28, 29).

    Three things are here promised: first, the resurrection of all the dead; second, a resurrection of life; third, a resurrection of damnation, or judgment.

    All who are in their graves will come forth in one or the other of these resurrections. The apostle Paul mentions them as the resurrection of the just and of the unjust (Acts 24:15). And in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 we read: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."

    In the twentieth chapter of Revelation these two resurrections are clearly described as being a thousand years apart. The first resurrection is of the righteous. "On such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" (Rev. 20:6). In verse 5 we read, "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Some say that death ends all, but it doesn't. We must all rise. We must all stand before the judgment bar of God (Rom. 14:10). We must all meet the deeds done in the body.

    In his funeral oration at his brother's grave, Robert Ingersoll, the acknowledged skeptic, gave utterance to these words: "In the night of death Hope sees a star, and listening Love can hear the rustle of a wing." Beautiful sentiment, sentiment of faith! But where did he get in? Certainly not from the gardens of infidelity and doubt. As McCaughtry says: "This is a rose plucked from the garden where Christ slept and rose again."

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just; for the righteous God trieth the heart and reins" (Ps. 7:9).

September 27, 2019

9/27/2019

Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep,...I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture (John 10:7-9).

    Christ is the door to the fold of God. Through this door all His children, from the earliest times, have found entrance. In Jesus, as shown in types, as shadowed in symbols, as manifested in the revelation of the prophets, as unveiled in the lessons given to His disciples, and in the miracles wrought for the sons of men, they have beheld 'the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29), and through Him they are brought within the fold of His grace. Many have come presenting other objects for the faith of the world; ceremonies and systems have been devised by which men hope to receive justification and peace with God, and thus find entrance to His fold. But the only door is Christ, and all who have interposed something to take the place of Christ, all who have tried to enter the fold in some other way, are thieves and robbers" (The Desire of Ages, pp. 447, 448).

    A door shuts in and shuts out. Those who enter by Christ, the door, find salvation. They find the more abundant, eternal life.

    In the days of George Whitfield, Lady Hamilton once asked the duchess of Buckingham to come and hear the great preacher. The proud duchess refused to go, saying, "It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the most common wretch that crawls." To find salvation we must come to Christ as sinners. "And thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21).

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day" (Ps. 71:15).

September 26, 2019

9/26/2019

And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever (Isa. 32:17).

    The effect of unrighteousness is just the opposite--trouble, turmoil, restlessness, sleeplessness, worry, dis-ease of soul. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isa. 57:20).

    The grace of God reconciles the soul to Himself, "quiets the strife of human passion, and in His love the heart is at rest" (The Desire of Ages, p. 336). "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1).

    In our day scuba diving has become popular. Its devotees tell us that while the surface of the sea may be lashed with storms, a few fathoms down it is always quiet and calm, and everything is at peace.

    In the midst of World War II a European Christian remarked, "On the surface there is storm, but 20 fathoms down there is quiet and calm." So the righteousness of Christ, received by faith, brings peace to the person who is no longer at war with God, and that peace brings assurance.

    Passing a crowd on his way to church in London one day, Lord Guthrie heard a layperson addressing the people. He was saying, "I have not been to college, but I have been to Calvary." That day Lord Guthrie heard Canon Liddon, James Oswald Dykes, and C. H. Spurgeon speak. After a lapse of many years he said he could not remember one single sentence of those celebrated preachers that day, but that he had never forgotten the words of the earnest layperson who had the assurance in his heart: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" (2 Tim. 1:12).

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Now the God of peace...make you perfect in every good work to do his will...through Jesus Christ" (Heb. 13:20, 21).

September 25, 2019

9/25/2019

  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him (John 4:23).

    These were the words of Jesus to the woman at the well and to all people everywhere. True worship is not merely in form; it must be in spirit and in truth. It was true in the time of our Savior's earthly life; it is true now; and it will be true until the end of time.

    Religious forms of worship, the service of the mere natural human being, "cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8:8, 9).

    A missionary writer tells of one of the great temples in Japan where the worship consists of running around the sacred building 100 times and dropping a piece of wood in a box at each round. To some this may seem to be a very unspiritual worship, but what is the difference between that and going to church, sitting quietly listening to what the minister says, then going back home again, unless we go with the definite purpose to worship, unless we bow our hearts as well as our heads before God, unless we listen reverently, ready to obey the voice of God speaking to us from His Word, unless we commune with Him in prayer? How are we better than the earnest runner?

    Our worship is to be in spirit and in truth, a spiritual worship and a true worship. It must be founded upon the Word of Him who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). In reference to our worship of God, it would be well for us to pray, as did the psalmist, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer" (Ps. 19:14).

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore" (Ps. 86:12).

September 24, 2019

9/24/2019

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein (Mark 10:15).

    When Dwight L. Moody was in Scotland, a friend told him of a Scotch lass who came to the inquiry room as he was preaching. The minister there talked with her and said, "Young woman, you go home and read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah."

    The girl threw up her hands and said, "I cannot read; I cannot pray. Jesus, take me as I am."

    "And," said the great evangelist, "she found what she desired."

    In our text today Jesus says not merely "child," but "little child." We are to receive the kingdom of God as a little child would receive it--in sincerity, in complete faith and trust, and with humility. And how do we become as little children in the sense of this promise text? The answer is in Matthew 18:3, 4: "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven"

    To have a part in Christ's kingdom one must become converted and live in humility, with victory over human pride.

                                Lord, might I be but as a saw,
                                A plane, a chisel in Thy hand.
                                No, Lord, I take it back in awe;
                                Such prayer for me is far too grand.
                                I pray Thee, rather, let me lie
                                As on Thy bench the favored wood;
                                Thy saw, Thy plane, Thy chisel ply
                                And work me into something good.
                                                                    __George Macdonald

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me" (Ps. 131:1).

September 23, 2019

9/23/2019

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people (Heb. 8:10).

    This is nothing less than the promise of the gospel. What we try to do and cannot do, God promises to do and does do for us. The natural human being "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). But God Himself writes His law in the heart. This is conversion and regeneration.

    Every true believer is "the epistle of Christ...written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart" (2 Cor. 3:3). The Spirit writes the law of God in the heart "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4). Such consecrated Christians are "in Christ," and Christ dwells in them by faith.

    Campbell Morgan tells of visiting in a home in which he always smelled the strong fragrance of roses. One day he asked his host the reason for this. The reply was: "While in the Holy Land 10 years ago, I bought a small tube of attar roses. It was wrapped in cotton wool and, as I was standing here unpacking it, I broke the bottle. I put the broken container, cotton wool, and all, into that vase on the mantel." There stood the beautiful vase, and as the lid was lifted, fragrance filled the room. The perfume had permeated the clay of the vase, and it was impossible for one entering the room not to be conscious of it.

    If Christ is given preeminence in the life of a Christian, the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon will pervade, permeate, and bless the entire life, and others will be conscious of the presence of One unseen.

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord; and thy law is my delight" (Ps. 119:174).

September 22, 2019

9/22/2019

Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me (Ps. 142:7).

    A prison is a symbol of overwhelming trouble and affliction, even of the grave itself. Joseph was overwhelmed with trouble and was in prison literally, but the Lord brought him forth to be a ruler of the land. The Scripture declares, "The Lord looseth the prisoners" (Ps. 146:7). Through the Holy Spirit and the ministry of Noah in the days before the Flood, Christ preached to those in the prisonhouse of sin. Again He preached to them on the Sabbath day in Nazareth, where He had been brought up, as we read in the fourth chapter of Luke. Quoting from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, our Savior preached deliverance to the captives in the synagogue that day, and closing the book, He said to the congregation, "This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21).

    So it may be with each of us this very day, September 22. We may be brought out of prison and praise God's name. We may receive His bountiful mercies and enjoy the fellowship of His children. How much more in heaven at last will the righteous gather as we praise the name of the Lord together!

    There are many today who are at liberty physically, but their souls are in prison; they live in darkness and in chains.

    When an ambassador for Queen Elizabeth I was being sent far away on some important and difficult business, he asked Her Majesty, "What will become of my own business and family?"

    The queen replied, "You take care of my business, and I will take care of yours."

    If we are doing God's work, He will certainly care for our interests. He will deal bountifully with us.

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die" (Ps. 79:11).

September 21, 2019

9/21/2019

  And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads (Rev. 22:4).

    The words of our text remind us of 1 John 3:2: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Surely in His presence will be fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11).

    Jesus spoke of the blessedness of the pure in heart, who will see God (Matt. 5:8). Moses asked to see the face of God, but this petition was not granted. It will at last be the privilege of every Christian to see the face of Him "whom having not seen, ye love" (1 Peter 1:8).

    A young man fell in love with, and married, a young woman who was blind. For years they lived together happily. Finally a delicate operation was performed and she received her sight. His was the first face she ever saw. For some time she wanted to do nothing else but sit and look at him. "Is he as handsome as you had imagined?" someone asked.

    "Oh, yes," she said. "I have imagined wonderful things of him. He has been so kind and his love has been so faithful. But he is far more handsome, far more noble, than I had ever dreamed."

    What will it be to see the face of Christ? The redeemed will see Him because His name, His character, is written on their foreheads.

    When the men of India visit a temple, they often emerge with the name of the god written across their forehead--Siva, Vishnu, or Kali. These names must be written by someone else, for the gods cannot write them. But the name on the foreheads of the saints mentioned in our text for today is written by the eternal God Himself. By His grace, may we bear that blessed name forever.

MEDITATION PRAYER:  "Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not" (Jer. 14:9).