Sound Words for Pilgrims

"The fulness of the blessing of Christ" (Romans 15:29 New Trans.)

Ye desolate children of sorrow !  As fleet as the bloom of May,

Your dreams of a brighter morrow, Your hopes have they passed away ?

The chill breath of time, does it wither  The boughs where ye build your nest ?

Ah, come then, ye mourners, come hither, I'll tell you of endless rest.

I'll tell you of Him who hath spoken  Sweet peace to my weary heart,

And healed it, though withered and broken, With love's all-availing art. 

It was He, 'twas the Lord of glory,  Who died on the cursed tree,

On Calvary, stricken and gory,   A suffering Lamb for me.

Sir E. Denny

(pp. 173-176, Footprints for Pilgrims)

Being alone with Jesus is the sinner's first position, it is the beginning of his joy, and no one has a right to meddle with it ... Sin casts us upon God alone ...  We must not surrender to any the right of God to talk with us alone about our sins.

"And they remembered His words."  (Luke 24:8)  How much mischief do we get into by not remembering God's words !  When the Lord Jesus was tempted He had the word of God at hand, and by that simple word He could claim the victory in the battle.

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  ... How entirely has Christendom refused to learn this lesson of "the little child" !  She has consented to forget that it was a poor despised Galilean, a carpenter's Son, that suffered the death of the cross ...  He did not go to Calvary from kings' courts, or amid the acclamations of the world; but He was the rejected One ... "a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people." ... Christendom ... may boast of Calvary and of the Lamb of God in a certain way, but it has entirely lost sight of Nazareth and of the carpenter's Son.  It links the palace with the cross, greatness in the world, wealth and ease with the confession of Jesus and of the gospel.

Nothing perhaps has been a more common source of ... falling out by the way than the holding of favourite religious opinions, or the undue, disproportioned estimations of certain doctrines or points of truth.

If we were only happy in Him, we should work much better for Him.  It is joy in Christ that gains victory over the world.  Why are we in subjection to the world ?  Just because we have not found in Christ all the joy we ought to find.

He was a divine visitor to this world, a heavenly stranger among men ... He had not where to lay His head while He was visiting their necessities with all the resources of God.  This is the ideal of a saint of God -- to be independent of all this world can give, while with open heart and lavish hand bestowing upon it all the benefits and blessings of God.

It is one thing to be the advocate of Christianity, and another to be the disciple of it.  And though it may sound strange at first, far easier is it to teach its lessons than to learn them.

Worldliness and selfishness have no power to breathe the atmosphere of the kingdom of God.

Are our hearts upon such enjoyments as God can sanction and Jesus share with us ?

We need not so much to covet information about Him as power to use divinely what we know.

--- J.G.B.

"Then one said unto Him, 'Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee.'  But He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples, and said, 'Behold my mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother'." (Matthew 12:47, 49-50)

The circle of Thine own  My heart must hold most dear,

The dwelling of the Holy One,  Who represents Thee here.

But oh ! when this is past,  "Far better" lies beyond

With Thee, who mad'st that circle loved,  Who art Thyself its bond.

(pp. 189-192, Footprints for Pilgrims)

Whenever there is a work of grace in souls they are drawn together in the bonds of divine love.

How many of us fail to adjust the claims of God and of His people with family ties !  To be without natural affection is a given sign of the last and perilous times; but if it become absorbing, or if it be elevated beyond love to the brethren, and assume the supreme and governing motive of our lives, we could not be in the spirit of ... our blessed Lord.

Spiritual ties, if sometimes slighted, are never sundered.

I feel increasingly that the bond which knits our hearts together is indestructible because it is Christ.  Human affection is beautiful in its place, and the heart gets at times very hungry for it, but Christ alone can satisfy.

Domestic happiness is sometimes a great barrier to waiting for the Lord.  It may come between the soul and Christ, and thus the Lord strips some of us, and we wait, and are solitary while waiting, because He cannot trust us with too much affection in this world.  He loves us so much that He is jealous over us, and wants us for Himself.

It is exceedingly dangerous to listen to the advice of a relative in the things of God ... relatives look through the medium of their claims, or their natural affection, and hence the eye not being single cannot judge aright in the presence of God.

I have long since learned (from Matthew 12:46-50) that spiritual ties are closer than the closest of natural ties, and that the state of the church today has largely resulted from the failure to recognize this truth.

"Love is of God."  Does a saint love you, divinely love you ? Trace it back to the heart of God.

Of necessity those who are closest to Christ will be themselves drawn closer together. 

It is only where divine affections for the people of God exist in the heart, as so markedly exemplified in Moses and in Paul, as well as in Daniel and Ezra, that there can be power in intercession on their behalf.  And may it not be suggested that the urgent need of today is that of intercessors ?  holy men and women who, divinely taught and filled with the Spirit, shall be enabled, like Epaphras, to labor fervently for the saints in prayer.

"The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul."  The root of all discords in the church of God is the lack of the Spirit's power; where He works unhinderedly in any company of saints, because ungrieved, there must be unity ... The lack of enjoyed unity in any company is due to the absence of the power of the Holy Spirit.

--- E.D.