Nick Roark's Blog, page 39

“In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less” by Charles Spurgeon

“In the midst of a long stretch of unbroken labour, the same affliction (ie. melancholy)  may be looked for. The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking.

Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body. Our Sabbaths are our days of toil, and if we do not rest upon some other day we shall break down.

Even the earth must lie fallow and have her Sabbaths, and so must we. Hence the wisdom and compassion of our Lord, when he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go into the desert and rest awhile.’ (Mark 6:31)

What! when the people are fainting? When the multitudes are like sheep upon the mountains without a shepherd? Does Jesus talk of rest? When Scribes and Pharisees, like grievous wolves, are rending the flock, does he take his followers on an excursion into a quiet resting place?

Does some red-hot zealot denounce such atrocious forgetfulness of present and pressing demands? Let him rave in his folly. The Master knows better than to exhaust his servants and quench the light of Israel.

Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength. Look at the mower in the summer’s day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labour—is he a sluggard?

He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe, with “rink-a-tink—rink-a-tink—rink-a-tink.” Is that idle music—is he wasting precious moments? How much he might have mown while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe!

But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives his strength to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him.

Even thus a little pause prepares the mind for greater service in the good cause. Fishermen must mend their nets, and we must every now and then repair our mental waste and set our machinery in order for future service.

To tug the oar from day to day, like a galley-slave who knows no holidays, suits not mortal men. Mill-streams go on and on for ever, but we must have our pauses and our intervals.

Who can help being out of breath when the race is continued without intermission? Even beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally; the very sea pauses at ebb and flood; earth keeps the Sabbath of the wintry months; and man, even when exalted to be God’s ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigour or grow prematurely old.

It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.

On, on, on for ever, without recreation, may suit spirits emancipated from this “heavy clay,” but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure.

Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for awhile, but learn from the experience of others the necessity and duty of taking timely rest.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students: A Selection from Addresses Delivered to the Students of the Pastors’ College, Metropolitan Tabernacle (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1875/2008), 186-188.

“The Scriptures are the heart of Augustine’s lexicon” by James K.A. Smith

“The Book that would finally arrest this search for a story was the Bible. The script that would finally guide his way was the Scriptures.

As Brian Stock notes in his magisterial study Augustine the Reader, Augustine realized that identity was storied, and that meant finding your story in the story revealed by your Creator.

“What distinguishes him from other philosophical thinkers on this issue,” Stock comments, “is the link that he perceives between self-knowledge and an appreciation of God’s Word, in which the reading of scripture plays a privileged role. Throughout the lengthy period of his intellectual development after 386-387, his main guide was scripture.”

What was it about the biblical story that “fit“? Why was it that this particular story became the governing narrative for the rest of his life?

The very notion will scandalize us, we who’ve been encouraged to live “our” truth, to come up with our own story, for whom authenticity is the burden of writing our own de novo script.

The notion of a governing narrative that is not your own feels like signing over the rights to your life—-which it is! But for Augustine, being enfolded in God’s story in Scripture was not an imposition but a liberation.

When you’ve realized that you don’t even know yourself, that you’re an enigma to yourself, and when you keep looking inward only to find an unplumbable depth of mystery and secrets and parts of yourself that are loathsome, then Scripture isn’t received as a list of commands: instead, it breaks into your life as a light from outside that shows you the infinite God who loves you at the bottom of the abyss.

God’s Word for Augustine wasn’t experienced as burden or buzzkill but as autobiography written by the God who made him. Scripture irrupted in Augustine’s life as revelation, the story about himself told by another, and as illumination, shining a light that helped him finally understand his hungers and faults and hopes.

To spend any time in Augustine’s corpus, but perhaps especially the letters and sermons, is to hear a voice that has been soaked by the language of Scripture.

The Bible– especially the Psalms– was Augustine’s gift of tongues.

Augustine’s speech is so suffused with the Scriptures that the contemporary translator is almost at a loss to know where the Bible stops and Augustine begins. For the rest of his life, Augustine, like a hip-hop bricoleur, “samples” Scripture in everything he says.

The Psalms, especially, are always on the tip of his tongue, a storehouse of metaphors and comfort. It’s incredible how quickly the Scriptures became Augustine’s first language, so to speak.

The Scriptures are the heart of Augustine’s lexicon because the cosmic story of redemption is his governing story. This was the language of the homeland he’d never been to. Like glossolalia, he quickly found himself able to speak a language that wasn’t his but also wasn’t foreign.

It’s less a language he owns and more a language that owns him and comes naturally. Jacques Derrida, his fellow North African, would say something similar much later: “I said that the only language I speak is not mine, I did not say it was foreign to me.”

This is the lexicon of an émigré spirituality, when a foreign tongue finds you and becomes your first language. You become who you are because this Word gives you the words to finally say who you are.

‘To hear You speaking about oneself is to know oneself.‘”

–James K. A. Smith, On the Road With Saint Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2019), 167-169.

“This is true happiness” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

“O Lord, far be it from the heart of Your servant who confesses to You, far be it from me to think that whatever joy I feel makes me truly happy.

For there is a joy that is not given to those who do not love You, but only to those who love You for Your own sake.

You yourself are their joy.

Happiness is to rejoice in You and for You and because of You.

This is true happiness and there is no other.

Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy.

Yet their minds are set upon something akin to joy.”

–Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), 228-229). (10.22)

“This book is solid gold” by Charles Spurgeon

“All other books might be heaped together in one pile and burned with less loss to the world than would be occasioned by the total obliteration of a single page of the sacred volume, the Holy Scriptures.

All other books are at the best but as gold leaf, whereof it takes acres to make an ounce of the precious metal; but this book is solid gold; it contains ingots, masses, mines, yea, whole worlds of priceless treasure, nor could its contents be exchanged for pearls or rubies.

Even in the mental wealth of the wisest men there are no jewels like the truths of revelation.

Oh, sirs, the thoughts of men are vanity, the conceptions of men are low and groveling at their best; and he who has given us this book has said, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’ (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Let it be to you and to me a settled matter that the Word of the Lord shall be honoured in our minds and enshrined in our hearts. Let others speak as they may.

We could sooner part with all that is sublime and beautiful, cheering or profitable, in human literature than lose a single syllable from the mouth of God.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Holy Longings,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 27 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1881), 27: 124.

“He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!” by Charles Spurgeon

The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments. —2 Timothy 4:13

“We will LOOK AT HIS BOOKS. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were.

Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read.

Some of our very ultra-Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many.

If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men’s brains—oh! that is the preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle!

He is inspired, and yet he wants books!

He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books!

He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!

He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books!

He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books!

He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.” (1 Timothy 4:13)

The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.

Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read.

Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible.

We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service.

Paul cries, “Bring the books”—join in the cry.

Our second remark is, that the apostle is not ashamed to confess that he does read. He is writing to his young son Timothy.

Now, some old preachers never like to say a thing which will let the young ones into their secrets. They suppose they must put on a very dignified air, and make a mystery of their sermonizing; but all this is alien from the spirit of truthfulness.

Paul wants books, and is not ashamed to tell Timothy that he does; and Timothy may go and tell Tychicus and Titus if he likes—Paul does not care.

Paul herein is a picture of industry: He is in prison; he cannot preach: what will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read.

As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets.

So if providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class—if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading.

If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry. He says, “Especially the parchments.”

I think the books were Latin and Greek works, but that the parchments were Oriental; and possibly they were the parchments of Holy Scripture; or as likely, they were his own parchments, on which were written the originals of his letters which stand in our Bible as the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and so on.

Now, it must be “Especially the parchments” with all our reading; let it be especially the Bible. Do you attach no weight to this advice?

This advice is more needed in England now than almost at any other time, for the number of persons who read the Bible, I believe, is becoming smaller every day.

Persons read the views of their denominations as set forth in the periodicals; they read the views of their leader as set forth in his sermons or his works, but the Book, the good old Book, the divine fountain-head from which all revelation wells up—this is too often left.

You may go to human puddles, until you forsake the clear crystal stream which flows from the throne of God.

Read the books, by all manner of means, but especially the parchments.

Search human literature, if you will, but especially stand fast by that Book which is infallible, the revelation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Paul—His Cloak and His Books,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 9 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1863), 668–669.

“Christ’s burden has wings” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

“Shoulders are differentiated among themselves by the fact that some are weighed down by a load of sins, while others bear the burden of Christ.

It was these willing shoulders that Christ was looking for when he said, ‘My yoke is kindly and my burden light‘ (Matthew 11:30).

Every other burden oppresses you and feels heavy, but Christ’s burden lifts you up; any other burden is a crushing weight, but Christ’s burden has wings.”

–Saint Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms 51–72, trans. Maria Boulding, ed. John E. Rotelle, vol. 17, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2001), 186. Augustine is commenting on Psalm 59:9.

“No one can cross the sea of this world unless carried over it on the cross of Christ” by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430)

“It is as if someone could see his home country from a long way away, but is cut off from it by the sea; he sees where to go, but does not have the means to get there.

In the same way all of us long to reach that secure place of ours where that which is is, because it alone always is as it is. But in between lies the sea of this world through which we are going, even though we already see where we are going (many, however, do not see where they are going).

Thus, so that we might also have the means to go, the One we were longing to go came here from there. And what did He make? A wooden raft for us to cross the sea on.

For no one can cross the sea of this world unless carried over it on the cross of Christ.

Sometimes even someone of ailing eyes embraces this cross: may the one who does not see from afar where he is going not let go of the cross, and it will take him to that destination.”

—Saint Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John 1–40, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald and Boniface Ramsey, trans. Edmund Hill, vol. 12, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2009), 56–57. (2.2)

“God’s world—all of it—rings with wonders” by John Piper

“One of the great duties of the Christian mind is imagination. It is not the only thing the mind does. The mind observes. The mind analyzes and organizes. The mind memorizes. But imagination is different. It does not observe or analyze what we see; it imagines what we can’t see, but what might really be there.

Therefore it is very useful in science, because it helps turn up unseen explanations for things we don’t understand, and leads to all kinds of discoveries. Or it imagines a new way of saying things that no one has said before, as in the case of creative writing and music and art. I say that imagination is a Christian duty for two reasons.

One is that you can’t apply Jesus’ golden rule without it. He said, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). We must imagine ourselves in their place and imagine what we would like done to us. Compassionate, sympathetic, helpful love hangs much on the imagination of the lover.

There are a thousand ways to say stupid and unhelpful things in a tense or tragic or joyful situation. How do we speak words that are “fitly chosen”? “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11). One answer is that the Spirit of God gives us a “sympathetic imagination.”

“Sympathy” means we “feel with” someone. When we open our mouth, we spontaneously, with little reflection, imagine the right thing to say—or not to say—for the sake of others. Without imagination we would all be social klutzes. The other reason I say that imagination is a Christian duty is that when a person speaks or writes or sings or paints about breathtaking truth in a boring way, it is probably a sin.

The supremacy of God in the life of the mind is not honored when God and His amazing world are observed truly, analyzed duly, and communicated boringly. Imagination is the key to killing boredom. We must imagine ways to say truth for what it really is. And it is not boring.

God’s world—all of it—rings with wonders. The imagination calls up new words, new images, new analogies, new metaphors, new illustrations, new connections to say old, glorious truth. Imagination is the faculty of the mind that God has given us to make the communication of His beauty beautiful.

Don’t mistake what I am saying. Poets and painters and preachers don’t make God’s beauty more beautiful. They make it more visible. They cut through the dull fog of our finite, fallible, sin-distorted perception, and help us see God’s beauty for what it really is.

Imagination is like a telescope to the stars: It doesn’t make them big. They are big without the telescope. It makes them look like what they are. Imagination may be the hardest work of the human mind. And perhaps the most God-like. It is the closest we get to creation out of nothing.

When we speak of beautiful truth, we must think of a pattern of words, perhaps a poem. We must conceive something that has never existed before and does not now exist in any human mind. We must think of an analogy or metaphor or illustration which has no existence.

The imagination must exert itself to see it in our mind, when it is not yet there. We must create word combinations and music that have never existed before. All of this we do, because we are like God and because He is infinitely worthy of ever-new words and songs and pictures.

A college—or a church or a family—committed to the supremacy of God in the life of the mind will cultivate fertile imaginations. And, oh, how the world needs God-besotted minds that can say and sing and play and paint the great things of God in ways that have never been said or sung or played or painted before. Imagination is like a muscle. It grows stronger when you flex it. And you must flex it. It does not usually put itself into action. It awaits the will.

Imagination is also contagious. When you are around someone (alive or dead) who uses it a lot, you tend to catch it. So I suggest that you hang out with some people (mainly dead poets) who are full of imagination, and that you exert yourself to think up a new way to say an old truth. God is worthy. ‘Oh sing to the LORD a new song’—or picture, or poem, or figure of speech, or painting.”

–John Piper, Life as a Vapor: 31 Meditations for Your Faith (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2004), 67–70.

“Behold the infinite love of Christ” by Thomas Watson

“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy; for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour; which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10)

“See here, as in a mirror, the infinite love of God the Father.

When we had lost ourselves by sin, then God, in the riches of His grace, sent forth His Son, born of woman, to redeem us.

And behold the infinite love of Christ, that He was willing to condescend to take our flesh.

Surely the angels would have disdained to have taken our flesh, it would have been a disparagement to them! What king would be willing to wear sackcloth over his cloth of gold?

But Christ did not disdain to take our flesh.

O the love of Christ! Had not Christ been made flesh, we had been made a curse.

Had Christ not been incarnate, we we would have been incarcerate, forever in prison.

The love of Christ in being incarnate, will the more appear if we consider the following:

1. From where Christ came: He came from heaven, and from the richest place in heaven, His Father’s bosom, that hive of sweetness.

2. To whom Christ came: Was it to His friends? No. He came to sinful man.

Man that had defaced His image, abused His love. Man who was turned rebel. Yet He came to man, resolving to conquer obstinacy with kindness.

3. In what manner Christ came: He came not in the majesty of a king. He came poor, not like the heir of heaven, but like one of an inferior descent.

The place He was born in was poor: not the royal city Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, a poor obscure place.

He was born in an inn, and a manger was His cradle, the beasts His companions.

He descended of poor parents. One would have thought, if Christ would have come into the world, He would have made choice of some queen or personage of honour to have descended from.

But He comes of poor and obscure parents. That they were poor appears by their offering, (Luke 2:24): ‘A pair of turtle-doves,’ which was the usual offering of the poor, (Lev. 12:8).

When Christ died, He made no will. He came into the world poor.

4. Why Christ came: That He might take our flesh, and redeem us; that He might instate us into a kingdom.

He was poor that He might make us rich (2 Cor. 8:3).

He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God.

He took our flesh that He might give us His Spirit.

He lay in the manger that we might lie in paradise.

He came down from heaven that He might bring us to heaven.

And what was all this but love?

If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us.

Behold love that surpasseth knowledge! (Eph. 3:10)”

–Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity Contained in Sermons Upon the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1692/1970), 195-196.

The post “Behold the infinite love of Christ” by Thomas Watson appeared first on Tolle Lege.

“Let Christ be the diamond to shine in the bosom of all your sermons” by Charles Bridges

“Preach Christ Jesus the Lord. ‘Determine to know nothing among your people but Christ crucified.’

Let His name and grace, His Spirit and love, triumph in the midst of all your sermons.

Let your great end be to glorify Him in the heart, to render Him amiable and precious in the eyes of his people, to lead them to Him, as a sanctuary to protect them, as a propitiation to reconcile them, as a treasure to enrich them, as a physician to heal them, as an advocate to present them and their services to God, as wisdom to counsel them, as righteousness to justify them, as sanctification to renew them, as redemption to save them.

Let Christ be the diamond to shine in the bosom of all your sermons.”

–Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry, with an Inquiry into the Causes of Its Inefficiency (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1830/2020), 258.

The post “Let Christ be the diamond to shine in the bosom of all your sermons” by Charles Bridges appeared first on Tolle Lege.