Nick Roark's Blog, page 29

“Oh, the sweet exchange!” by The Epistle to Diognetus

“Oh, the surpassing kindness and love of God!

He did not hate or reject or bear a grudge against us but He was patient and bore with us, having mercy He Himself experienced our sin, He Himself gave His own Son, a ransom on our behalf, the Holy for the lawless, the innocent for the guilty, the righteous for the unrighteous, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal.

For what else than that one’s righteousness could cover up our sin? In who else than in the Son of God alone could our lawlessness and ungodliness possibly be justified?

Oh, the sweet exchange! Oh, the fathomless creation!

Oh, the unexpected benefits that the lawlessness of many should be concealed in the one righteous, and righteousness of the one should justify many lawless.

Therefore, having brought to light in the former time, the inability of our nature to attain life, and now having shown the Savior’s ability to save even the powerless, for both reasons He wanted us to believe in His goodness to consider Him nourisher, Father, teacher, counselor, healer, mind, light, honor, glory, strength, and life.”

–Rick Brannan, Letter to Diognetus, trans., The Apostolic Fathers in English (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), 305. (9.2-6)

“Let your children know what the everlasting God did for you” by Charles Spurgeon

“In order to preserve the memory of His wonderful works, God was pleased to command His people to teach their children to remember what He had done for them.

In addition to the inspired records, He told them to make their children’s memories into books of remembrance.

Jewish fathers were commanded to call their children together, and tell them how the Lord brought them out of Egypt, how He led them through the wilderness, and how He gave them the land of Canaan to be their own possession.

They were to teach their children, and their children’s children, the wonderful story of the Lord’s dealings with them.

And we ought to be concerned to hand down, from father to son, the memory of God’s great goodness to us.

Tell your own children, if you cannot tell anyone else, what God has done for their father.

Sitting around the fire in the evening, your children might often be, not merely interested, but instructed and impressed by the narrative of God’s providential dealings with you.

Possibly, the story might not read well in print. but never mind that, for there will be an interest about it to your own household; so, be sure that you tell it.

My memory recalls, at this very moment, many a pleasing incident from what my grandfather told me concerning his early struggles in the ministry, and the providential interpositions of God on his behalf.

Perhaps he might as well have written them down, but he did not.

I think that, possibly, he knew that he had a living book within his grandchild’s brain, and that the boy might, in after days, tell out to others what his grandfather had told to him.

At any rate, I do earnestly exhort all Christians to make God’s wonderful works to be remembered wherever they can, and do it specially by telling to your children what you have experienced of His goodness.

Do not die, O ye greyheads,— ye who have passed your threescore years and ten,— do not pass away from this earth with all those pleasant memories of God’s lovingkindness to be buried with you in your coffin.

But let your children, and your children’s children, know what the everlasting God did for you.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Remembering God’s Works,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 49 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1903), 49: 448.

“Goodness supplies our needs and mercy blots out our sins” by Charles Spurgeon

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” –Psalm 23:6

“This is a fact as indisputable as it is encouraging, and therefore a heavenly verily, or “surely” is set as a seal upon it.

This sentence may be read, “only goodness and mercy,” for there shall be unmingled mercy in our history. These twin guardian angels will always be with me at my back and my beck.

Just as when great princes go abroad they must not go unattended, so it is with the believer.

Goodness and mercy follow him always—“all the days of his life”—the black days as well as the bright days, the days of fasting as well as the days of feasting, the dreary days of winter as well as the bright days of summer.

Goodness supplies our needs, and mercy blots out our sins.

“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

“A servant abideth not in the house forever, but the son abideth ever.”

While I am here I will be a child at home with my God. The whole world shall be His house to me.

And when I ascend into the upper chamber I shall not change my company, nor even change the house.

I shall only go to dwell in the upper story of the house of the Lord forever.

May God grant us grace to dwell in the serene atmosphere of this most blessed Psalm!”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 1-26, vol. 1 (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 1: 356-357. Spurgeon is commenting on Psalm 23.

“This twenty-third Psalm is not worn out” by Charles Spurgeon

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” –Psalm 23:4

“This unspeakably delightful verse has been sung on many a dying bed, and has helped to make the dark valley bright times out of mind. Every word in it has a wealth of meaning.

“Yea, though I walk,” as if the believer did not quicken his pace when he came to die, but still calmly walked with God.

To walk indicates the steady advance of a soul which knows its road, knows its end, resolves to follow the path, feels quite safe, and is therefore perfectly calm and composed.

The dying saint is not in a flurry, he does not run as though he were alarmed, nor stand still as though he would go no further, he is not confounded nor ashamed, and therefore keeps to his old pace.

Observe that it is not walking in the valley, but through the valley.

We go through the dark tunnel of death and emerge into the light of immortality. We do not die, we do but sleep to wake in glory.

Death is not the house but the porch, not the goal but the passage to it. The dying article is called a valley.

The storm breaks on the mountain, but the valley is the place of quietude, and thus full often the last days of the Christian are the most peaceful in his whole career.

The mountain is bleak and bare, but the valley is rich with golden sheaves, and many a saint has reaped more joy and knowledge when he came to die than he ever knew while he lived.

And, then, it is not “the valley of death,” but “the valley of the shadow of death,” for death in its substance has been removed, and only the shadow of it remains.

Some one has said that when there is a shadow there must be light somewhere, and so there is.

Death stands by the side of the highway in which we have to travel, and the light of heaven shining upon him throws a shadow across our path.

Let us then rejoice that there is a light beyond. Nobody is afraid of a shadow, for a shadow cannot stop a man’s pathway even for a moment.

The shadow of a dog cannot bite; the shadow of a sword cannot kill; the shadow of death cannot destroy us. Let us not, therefore, be afraid.

“I will fear no evil.” He does not say there shall not be any evil; he had got beyond even that high assurance, and knew that Jesus had put all evil away.

But “I will fear no evil;” as if even his fears, those shadows of evil, were gone forever.

The worst evils of life are those which do not exist except in our imagination. If we had no troubles but real troubles, we should not have a tenth part of our present sorrows.

We feel a thousand deaths in fearing one, but the Psalmist was cured of the disease of fearing.

“I will fear no evil,” not even the Evil One himself; I will not dread the last enemy, I will look upon him as a conquered foe, an enemy to be destroyed, “For thou art with me.”

This is the joy of the Christian! “Thou art with me.”

The little child out at sea in the storm is not frightened like all the other passengers on board the vessel, it is asleep in its mother’s bosom.

It is enough for it that its mother is with it; and it should be enough for the believer to know that Christ is with him.

“Thou art with me; I have in having thee, all that I can crave: I have perfect comfort and absolute security, for thou art with me.”

“Thy rod and thy staff,” by which thou governest and rulest thy flock, the ensigns of thy sovereignty and of thy gracious care—“they comfort me.”

I will believe that thou reignest still. The rod of Jesse shall still be over me as the sovereign succour of my soul.

Many persons profess to receive much comfort from the hope that they shall not die.

Certainly there will be some who will be “alive and remain” at the coming of the Lord, but is there so very much of advantage in such an escape from death as to make it the object of Christian desire?

A wise man might prefer of the two to die, for those who shall not die, but who “shall be caught up together with the Lord in the air,” will be losers rather than gainers.

They will lose that actual fellowship with Christ in the tomb which dying saints will have, and we are expressly told they shall have no preference beyond those who are asleep.

Let us be of Paul’s mind when he said that “To die is gain,” and think of “departing to be with Christ, which is far better.”

This twenty-third Psalm is not worn out, and it is as sweet in a believer’s ear now as it was in David’s time.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 1-26, vol. 1 (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 1: 355–356. Spurgeon is commenting on Psalm 23.

“The soul of the world” by The Epistle to Diognetus

“For Christians, neither by country or language or customs, are distinguished from the rest of humanity.

For they do not dwell somewhere in their own cities, nor do they use some strange language, nor do they practice a peculiar way of life.

This teaching of theirs has not been found by any thought or reflection of inquisitive people, nor do they advocate human doctrine, as some do.

But while living in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each have obtained by lot, and while following the local customs both in clothing and in diet and in the rest of life, they demonstrate the wonderful and most certainly strange character of their own citizenship.

They live in their own countries, but as aliens.

They share in everything as citizens and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign country is their country, and every country is foreign.

They marry like everyone, they bear children, but they do not expose their offspring.

They set a common table, but not a common bed.

They happen to be in the flesh but do not live according to the flesh.

They spend time  upon the earth, but have their citizenship  in heaven.

They obey the appointed laws, and in their own lives they surpass the law.

They love all people and by all people are persecuted.

They are unknown  and they are condemned.

They are put to death and they are made alive.

They are poor and make many rich.

They lack everything and they have abundance in everything.

They are dishonored  and in the dishonor glorified.

They are slandered and they are vindicated.

They are reviled and they give blessing.

They are insulted and they give honor.

When doing good, they are punished as evildoers, when punished they rejoice as having received life.

They are warred upon by the Jews as foreigners and they are persecuted by the Greeks, and those who hate are not able to state the reason for their enmity.

But to put it simply, what the soul is in the body, this is what the Christians are in the world.”

–Rick Brannan, Letter to Diognetus, trans., The Apostolic Fathers in English (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), 65. (5.1-6.1)

“He gave His blood for us” by Clement of Rome

“Who is able to explain the bond of the love of God?

Who can sufficiently express the greatness of its beauty?

The height to which love leads is indescribable.

Love unites us with God.

Love covers up a multitude of sins.

Love bears  all things, is patient in all things.

There is nothing vulgar, nothing arrogant in love; love does not have schism, love does not rebel; love does all things in harmony.

All of the elect of God were made perfect in love.

Apart from love, nothing is pleasing to God.

The Master received us in love.

Because of the love that He had for us, He gave His blood for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, by the will of God, and His flesh for our flesh, and His life for our lives.”

–Rick Brannan, I Clement, trans., The Apostolic Fathers in English (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), 65. (49.2-6) First Clement is a letter written from the Roman church to the church in Corinth. Tradition views Clement, who was either the second or third bishop of Rome, as the author. It was likely written during the reign of the emperor Domitian, between 81–96 AD.

“A house-guest at home in the house of God” by Meredith Kline

“The original homeland of man might well have been named Immanuel.

God was with man, man’s dwelling-place was God’s dwelling-place.

That was the greatest glory of paradise and the supreme and ultimate blessedness of human life.

The covenant servant had been created for friendship and fellowship with his Lord.

He was qualified for this holy communion by the nature with which God’s creating hand endowed him.

And he found to his delight that his transcendent Maker was not a god far off, but the immanent Immanuel.

Man did not have to make a long pilgrimage to come to God’s dwelling.

There was no great wilderness to pass through, no perilous ascent on high or journey down into the depths was necessary to find God.

For man was by creation’s arrangement a house-guest at home in the house of God.”

–Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 60.

“Take hold of Christ’s hand” by Jonathan Edwards

Northampton, June 3, 1741

“Dear Child,

As you desired me to send you in writing some directions, how to conduct yourself in your Christian course, I would now answer your request.

The sweet remembrance of the great things I have lately seen at Suffield, and the dear affections for those persons I have there conversed with, that give good evidences of a saving work of God upon their hearts, inclines me to do anything that lies in my power to contribute to the spiritual joy and prosperity of God’s people there.

And what I write to you, I would also say to other young women there, that are your friends and companions and the children of God; and therefore desire you would communicate it to them as you have opportunity…

6. Be always greatly abased for your remaining sin, and never think that you lie low enough for it, but yet don’t be at all discouraged or disheartened by it; for though we are exceeding sinful, yet we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the preciousness of whose blood, and the merit of whose righteousness and the greatness of whose love and faithfulness does infinitely overtop the highest mountains of our sins…

8. Remember that pride is the worst viper that is in the heart, the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ; it was the first sin that ever was, and lies lowest in the foundation of Satan’s whole building, and is the most difficultly rooted out, and is the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts, and often creeps in, insensibly, into the midst of religion and sometimes under the disguise of humility…

9. That you may pass a good judgment of the frames you are in, always look upon those the best discourses and the best comforts that have most of these two effects, viz. those that make you least, lowest, and most like a little child; and secondly, those that do most engage and fix your heart in a full and firm disposition to deny yourself for God, and to spend and be spent for him…

18. In all your course, walk with God and follow Christ as a little, poor, helpless child, taking hold of Christ’s hand, keeping your eye on the mark of the wounds on His hands and side, whence came the blood that cleanses you from sin and hiding your nakedness under the skirt of the white shining robe of His righteousness…

19. Pray much for the church of God and especially that He would carry on His glorious work that he has now begun; and be much in prayer for the ministers of Christ, and particularly I would beg a special interest in your prayers, and the prayers of your Christian companions, both when you are alone and when you are together, for your affectionate friend, that rejoices over you, and desires to be your servant,

In Jesus Christ,

Jonathan Edwards”

–Jonathan Edwards, Letters and Personal Writings (ed. George S. Claghorn and Harry S. Stout; vol. 16; The Works of Jonathan Edwards; New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1998), 16: 91, 92-93, 93, 95.. Edwards wrote this advice to Deborah Hatheway, an eighteen-year-old new convert to Christ who was without a pastor, in a letter of counsel on June 3, 1741.

“Cemented and prepared by the blood of Christ” by Stephen Charnock

“What is this life but a wallowing in a sink, a converse in the dregs of creation, in an earth polluted by the sin of man, wherein we every day behold fresh affronts of God, and find motions in us dishonorable to ourselves?

But Christ by His death has provided a better place than this, yea, a place more glorious than Adam’s paradise, which was designed for our habitation by the first creation; a place not only built by the word of God, but cemented and prepared by the blood of Christ.

By the law against sin we were to have our bodies reduced to dust, and our souls lie under the sentence of the wrath of God.

But our crucified Saviour has purchased the redemption of our body, to be evidenced by a resurrection, Rom. 8:23, and a standing security of our souls in a place of bliss, to which believers shall have a real ascent, and in which they shall have a local residence, which is called the purchased possession.

As Adam brought in the empire of death, so Christ hath brought in the empire of life: Rom. 5:17, ‘Shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.’

He has not purchased for us a paradisiacal life, or restored us to the mutable state wherein Adam was created.

He has not linked us forever to the earth, and the use of the creatures for our support.

He has purchased for us an eternal life, and prepared for us eternal mansions, not only to have the company of men, or the society of the blessed angels, but to be blessed with the vision of God, to reside in the same place where His glorified person is adored by the happy spirits, to ‘live with Him,’ Rom. 6:8, a life wherein our understandings shall be freed from mists, and our wills from spots, and our affections from disorder.

We lost a paradise by sin, and we have gained a heaven by the cross.”

–Stephen Charnock, “The Knowledge of Christ Crucified,” The Works of Stephen Charnock, Volume 4 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1865/2010), 4: 503.

“The kindness of His death” by Stephen Charnock

“Let us be thankful to God for a crucified Redeemer.

There is nothing in heaven or earth that is such an amazing wonder as this, nothing can vie with it for excellence.

All love and thankfulness is due to God, who hath given us His Son, not only to live, but to die for us a death so shameful, a death so accursed, a death so sharp, that we might be repossessed of the happiness we had lost.

All love and thankfulness is due to Christ, who did not only pay a small sum for us as our surety, but bowed his soul to death to raise us to life, was numbered among transgressors, that we might have a room among the blessed.

Our crimes merited our sufferings, but His own heart of mercy made Him a sufferer for us:

For us He sweat those drops of blood, for us He trod the wine-press alone, for us He assuaged the rigor of divine justice, for us, who were not only miserable but offending creatures, and overwhelmed with more sins to be hated than with misery to be pitied.

He was crucified for us (by His love) who deserved to die by His power, and laid the highest obligation upon us who had laid the highest disobligements upon Him.

This death is the ground of all our good, whatever we have is a fruit that grew upon the cross.

Had he not suffered, we would had been rejected forever from the throne of God. Salvation would had never appeared but by those groans and agonies.

By this alone was God pleased, and our souls forever pleasured; without it He had been forever displeased with us, we had been odious and abominable in His sight, and could never have seen His face.

Nothing is such an evidence of His love as His cross.

The miracles He wrought, and the cures He performed in the time of His life, were nothing to the kindness of His death, wherein He was willing to be accounted worse than a murderer in His punishment, that He might thereby effect our deliverance.

If He had given us the riches of this world and a greater world, had He given us the honor of angels, and made us barons of heaven, without exposing Himself to the cross to accomplish it, it had been a testimony of His affection, but destitute of so endearing an emphasis.

The manner of procuring is more than a bare kindness in bestowing it.

He testified His resolution not only to give us glory, but to give it us whatsoever it should cost Him.

The angels in heaven, in their glistering luster, are the monuments of His liberality, but not of so supreme an affection as is engravened on the body of his cross.

Let us delight in the knowledge of Christ crucified, and be often in the thoughts and study of Him. Study Christ, not only as living, but dying; not as breathing in our air, but suffering in our stead; know Him as a victim, which is the way to know Him as a conqueror.

Christ as crucified is the great object of faith. All the passages of His life, from His nativity to His death, are passed over in the Creed without reciting, because, though they are things to be believed, yet the belief of them is not sufficient without the belief of the cross: in that alone was our redemption wrought.

Had He only lived, He had not been a Saviour. If our faith stop in His life, and do not fasten upon His blood, it will not be a justifying faith.

His miracles, which prepared the world for His doctrine, His holiness, which fitted Himself for His suffering, had been insufficient for as without the addition of the cross.

Without the cross, we had been under the demerit of our crimes, the venom of our natures, the slavery of our sins, and the tyranny of the devil.

Without the cross, we should forever have had God for our enemy, and Satan for our executioner.

Without the cross, we had lain groaning under the punishment of our transgressions, and despaired of any smile from heaven.

It was this death which as a sacrifice appeased God, and as a price redeemed us.

Nothing is so strong to encourage us, nothing so powerful to purify us. How can we be without thinking of it!

The world we live in had fallen upon our heads, had it not been upheld by the pillar of the cross, had not Christ stepped in and promised a satisfaction for the sin of man.

By this all things consist. Not a blessing we enjoy but may put us in mind of it. They were all forfeited by our sins, but merited by his precious blood.

If we study it well, we shall be sensible how God hated sin and loved a world; how much he would part with to restore a fallen creature.

He showed an irresistible love to us.”

–Stephen Charnock, “The Knowledge of Christ Crucified,” The Works of Stephen Charnock, Volume 4 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1865/2010), 4: 503-504.