Gleanings

God; not difficulties.—Do not see difficulties, see God. He will only give as much as His people can bear. No heavier burden. Learn to fall back upon God. How calm! He can do the largest work without neglecting the smallest matters.
We have to do with the same God. He will not neglect the most minute circumstance, nay more, is interested to be brought into them all, aye, and delights to have us bring Him into them.
Measure not God by your feelings and apprehensions of Him, but by His testimony to His own power. Man ever changes. God’s power and grace are ever the same, as He was so He is.
His watchfulness, His character is our safe-guard. We have Christ’s work, and God’s word—that our faith and hope may be in God. The soul fears no evil, resting, and counting on His omnipotence, omnipresence, wisdom, and love. The living God our true portion.
What is more wonderful than the truth that the shrine He delights to dwell in is a broken and contrite heart! Behold God’s temple, what nobility! using the arm of the Almighty to sustain our tottering frame. Oh! may our constant cry be “Hold thou me up;” and the more we lean upon that arm, the more does He delight to keep us, and to sustain our weakness.
Living by the word.—In proportion as we desire the sincere milk of the word we grow thereby.
There needs the constant drawing from the source of life—the blessed fountain of God’s truth. We shall find in it the cordial, the balm, or the medicine suited to our need, and daily food. Its power on the heart, brings forth the expression in the life.
Until the word has its proper place in the believer’s heart, there is no stability—we are led by feelings and when these fail, dearth and barrenness come in because we have failed thus to cultivate our strength, drinking in the sincere milk of God’s word. Truth does not keep us—dependence only on Him who is the author of it can keep our souls alive today. It is a trying day for God’s people, so little energy and zeal, and worst of all, too much neglect of the study of His precious Word. It only is life and marrow to the soul, a lamp to guide, milk to nurse and meat to strengthen.
Gleanings
“Curious Questions wisely Answered.”—C. What are you?
S. The chief of sinners, sir. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” 1 Tim. 1:15.
C. But of what denomination are you?
S. I am a Christian, sir. “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” Acts 11:26.
C. No doubt of that; but I mean, what is your persuasion?
S. “I am persuaded,” sir, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. 8:38, 39.
C. Oh, yes! but what is your hope?
S. “The glorious appearing sir, “of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ,” “who is in me, the hope of glory.” Titus 2:13; Col. 1:27.
C. In you! How is Christ in you?
S. “By faith,” sir. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” (Eph. 3:17.) And, sir, He and I are one—“He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” 1 Cor. 6:17.
C. To what body of Christians do you belong?
S. To the one body, sir; for there is only one body, according to Eph. 4:4, which says, “There is one body.” There are not, therefore, many bodies.
C. Well, what are you a member of?
S. Of that one body, sir. “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Cor. 12:27.) I am also a member of Christ, sir—“Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” 1 Corinthians 6:15.
C. Do let me know something of what you are—what name do you call yourself?
S. “A child of God,” sir, “and joint heir with Christ.” Rom. 8:16, 17.
C. Who orders your mode and plan of worship?
S. The Lord Jesus, sir. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matt. 18:20.
C. Tell me, then, what is your creed?
S. The word of God, sir. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Timothy 3:16, 17.
It may be that the person giving the foregoing answers would be deemed by many a little weak in the intellect, but they are sound answers; and if given in simple faith, in humility of mind, as in the divine presence, they cannot fail to silence all merely curious, and to satisfy all really anxious, inquirers.
God Himself our Comforter.—“Have you never observed, when a little child has been in very deep distress, if a stranger has attempted to compose and comfort him, that all his efforts have only increased the anguish of the child; but that as soon as he has heard his father’s voice, and felt his father’s embrace, his sorrows have been hushed, and a smile of gladness has lighted up his countenance?”
Child of God, your Father will not leave it to strangers to comfort you. He will not suffer a servant’s hand rudely to touch His child. “God himself shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
Gleanings
Devotedness. —Devotedness is a much deeper, and, at the same time, a much simpler, thing than many suppose. Most think that if they are earnestly engaged in the Lord’s work, and looking to Him for guidance and blessing, this is being devoted; but it is much more. It is having Christ Himself as the delight and resource of my heart, and the bent of my mind towards Him. The highest service we can render the Lord is, to serve His heart, and that is a service to which few devote themselves. Occupation with Christ, with a view to becoming more intimately acquainted with His character; studying Him, that we may learn what pleases Him, is very rare indeed. Many can be found who are occupied for Christ, like Martha; few who are occupied with Him, like Mary. When we have reached this, we have reached the foundation-stone of true devotedness. This is the Gilgal where the serving one returns to encamp, and whence he issues like the sun to run his course, and like a giant refreshed with new wine. It is because the saints know so little of this Gilgal in the Lord’s presence that there is so much un-sanctified activity and really profitless work. If there is zeal and ability, without a knowledge of God’s mind where and when to use it, how can there but be a turning to take counsel from nature; and how can we expect that the results flowing from such a source will be otherwise than profitless?
“Liberty and Necessity.”— “Disputes on liberty and necessity are vain and idle, as much as if you were placed within a spherical surface, and I without it, and we were to enter into abstruse arguments on the question, whether the surface between us was concave or convex. In my situation it is convex; in yours it is concave. If we consider events in reference to the divine mind, it seems utterly impossible to think of them as otherwise than fixed; if we consider them with reference to responsible agents, it seems as impossible to regard them as otherwise than contingent.” Let the adherents of contending schools of doctrine think of this.
Livery—“As every lord giveth a certain livery to his servants, charity is the very livery of Christ. Our Savior, which is the Lord above all lords, would have His servants known by their badge, which is love.”—Latimer,
Gleanings
About five or six years ago, when staying in Birmingham for a short time in the service of the gospel, I was asked by some christian friends to go to Dudley, in Worcestershire, to see Robert P., a great invalid, a Christian. I consented to do so, and shall never, I think, forget my visit. It has been my lot in former days to see very much suffering in connection with the most painful diseases; I have seen the poor body tortured and racked by pain and anguish that neither the pen nor tongue of man could describe; I have seen limbs distorted and certain organs destroyed or rendered useless in one or another poor patient by painful diseases: but I doubt if I ever saw (save perhaps in one case) such an instance of accumulated sufferings of the most terrific kind in any one person, as I found in R. P. At the time of my visit he was 38 years of age, and had been ill for 18 years. He evidently had been a large, fine man; but to the eye of nature it was pitiable to see the “outward man” as I saw him. He was bent down almost double, his face turned in toward his chest, with his chin pressing hard upon his breastbone, so that for two years he had seen nothing but the light. His jaws were so locked that he could only take food the thickness of a penny, which had to be slipped in between his teeth. His limbs were not only deformed, but perfectly useless to him. He could only move two fingers when I saw him; all the rest of his body was as immoveable as if it had been a wood carving, save his tongue. This his Father was pleased to leave him the full use of, and as he had a heart completely at rest and fully satisfied—for he had CHRIST there—he used the member left him to speak of the love and mercy of that gracious God who gave His Son for sinners, and of that blessed Lord Jesus Christ who had filled his soul with sunshine. Sometime after I had seen him, his God and Father, to fill up his cup of sufferings, was pleased to cause even the eyes, which could before see the light, to fail before the ravages of that direful disease, so that, physically, he was to sit in darkness for the rest of his days on earth. Besides this, the two fingers that he had been able to move, became as rigid as the rest of his body. When in this state it was that he called someone to him to write down from his lips the good matter which his heart was indicting, and he spoke as follows:
Once I could see, but never again
Shall I behold the verdant plain,
Jeweled with flowers of colors bright,
Bathed in a flood of golden light.
The birds, the brilliant butterflies,
These all in thought before me rise;
The shining rivulet, whose song
Comes sweetly murmuring along;
The sky, the clouds, the grass, the trees,
All waving, glancing in the breeze—
I see them pictured in my mind
But there alone, for I am blind.
Blind, did I say? how can that be?
Since I, by faith, my Savior see
Exalted on the throne above,
Beaming with mercy, grace, and love.
A view like this is better far
Than sun, or moon, or glittering star,
Or glowing landscape, sunny skies,
Or sight that’s fair to mortal eyes.
I THANK my God that He has put
A veil before mine eyes, and shut
All earthly objects from my sight,
And Christ revealed in glory bright.
Henceforth my word shall ever be—
Once I was blind, but NOW I see.
Dear reader, I need say but little more. E. P., beloved of the Lord, has gone to be forever with Him whose he was. Converted from the darkness and evil of Unitarianism—chastened, not in wrath, but in love, he enjoyed that which of faith he possessed. HE HAD CHRIST—his heart was satisfied. And are you now unsaved? Then you are unsatisfied; your experience proves to you what the word of God declares in so many ways, that the world is not big enough to fill your heart. Do you know the plague of sin? Then the Savior, Jesus, whom God sent, is waiting to bless you, and satisfy your heart.
“Only believe!” F. C.