Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford,
on January 31, 1864, by J. C. Philpot

“Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God– therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not.” 1 John 3:1

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” 1 John 3:1

I think we may see four distinguishing features in our text–

First, the wondrous love of God– “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.”

Secondly, the amazing blessings and privileges of God’s people– “that we should be called the sons of God.”

Thirdly, the gross ignorance of the world– “therefore the world knows us not.”

Fourthly, the explanation of the mystery– because it knew him not.”

I. The wondrous LOVE of God– “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.” Our text commences with a “Behold.” Let us not pass by this; for is it not as if John would summon us to behold a wondrous sight? Is it not as if he would call up our sleeping graces and animate every faculty of our renewed mind, to gaze upon the stupendous miracle which he sets before our eyes? “Behold, what manner of love!” This call upon us to come and look seems to remind us of the various appearances of God in the Old Testament, when he suddenly and unexpectedly manifested himself as a God of love or power; as, for instance, when he appeared to Abraham in a vision of the night with those gracious words– “Fear not, Abram– I am your shield and exceeding great reward.” (Gen. 15:1.) It may also remind us of the wondrous appearance of the Lord to Moses when he was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, in the desert, when “the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush;” and as he drew near to behold the marvelous sight, God spoke to him out of the burning bush– wondrous type of the ever-blazing Deity of our gracious Lord, and yet of his pure, unconsumed humanity in the most intimate union with it!

This call of “Behold” seems to remind us also of Ezekiel, when sitting “among the captives by the river of Chebar, when suddenly the heavens were opened and he saw visions of God.” (Ezek. 1:1.) May it not also call to our mind the vision of Isaiah, when he saw “the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple?” (Isaiah. 6:1), or of Daniel, solitary and mourning by the river Hiddekel, when lifting up his eyes “he looked and beheld a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz?” (Dan. 10:5.) It may also serve to remind us of John himself when in the Isle of Patmos he heard a great voice, and turned and saw one like unto the Son of Man in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. (Rev. 1:10, 13.) As all these appearances were unexpected displays of the Lord in his grace and in his glory, so when holy John says in our text “Behold,” it is as if he would rouse up our sleeping graces and bid us behold with eyes of faith and affection a stupendous sight not less marvelous than these appearances of God in the days of old.

Now what is this stupendous sight which John bids us here behold? “What manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.” It is not merely what love, but what “manner” of love. Thus he would bid us contemplate the love of God under that particular form and in that peculiar manner in which God has revealed and made it known to the sons of men. In pursuance, then, of this godly counsel, I think we may contemplate this love under these three points of view–
1. In its nature.
2. In its manifestation.
3. And in its communication.

A. Look, then, first, at the love of God in its NATURE– what it is in itself, as a pure Fountain, distinct from its streams and effects; and I think we shall see certain peculiar features stamped upon it as such, enabling us to say, “Behold what manner of love.”

1. First, it was self-originating. Love, if we have any to the Lord and to his people– is God’s gift and grace. It does not dwell naturally in our hearts, but its source and spring are from above; but love in the bosom of God dwells in him as one of his glorious, underived perfections. It gushes, therefore, freely out of his bosom, as a river springs out of a mountainside, without any call from earth, without any invitation from man. Whence come three of our noblest rivers– the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Danube? All spring from the bosom of the same mighty Alps, a few leagues only from each other, whence they flow each in its own direction to gladden and fertilize every land to which they come. So the love of God to his people gushes forth from his own bosom unsought, unasked, undeserved, but carrying a blessing wherever it flows.

2. It was also eternal. No change can take place in the mind of God. No new plans, no fresh purposes, no unthought-of schemes can enter the mind of him who is One eternal NOW– the great self-existent I AM. His love, therefore, like himself, must be equally eternal. It had no beginning, as he had no beginning; and it will have no end, as he had no end. Well may we pause before so stupendous a sight, as Moses at the burning bush, and gather up every faculty of our soul to listen to the words with solemn admiration which he spoke by his prophet– “The Lord has appeared of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love– therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you.” (Jer. 31:3.) If, then, you are asked, Why is God’s love eternal? all you can answer is, Because it is the love of God who is eternal. And if you are farther asked, “How do you know that God has from all eternity loved you?” all you can reply is, “Because with loving kindness he has drawn me.” This is the solution to the question whether in doctrine or experience; we can give no other.

3. But being eternal it must be infinite, for God is infinite; and as he is love in name and nature, his love must be the same as all his other gracious and glorious perfections, all of which like himself are infinite. But what a wondrous mercy it is for the Church of God that his love is thus infinite. To see this point more plainly, look at two other perfections of God in their infinity– his wisdom and his power. First look at his wisdom, and see how it is displayed on every side in creation. See in what infinite wisdom the Lord has ordained and arranged everything in the visible creation, adapting each part to the other with all the perfection and finish of an exquisite machine. The sun moving in its daily orbit; the moon walking in her midnight brightness; the succession of seasons; the multiplicity of animals upon the face of the earth; each one of them a miracle in its formation, propagation, and provision– what proofs before our eyes do all these daily wonders afford us of the infinite wisdom of God. And do they not also give us equal proofs of his infinite power?

If, then, his wisdom and his power are thus shown to be infinite, is it not equally true of his love? Now the peculiar blessedness of this love as being infinite is that as such it includes all the saints of God in one universal embrace. It is like his wisdom and his power in nature. In creation, there is nothing too great and nothing too small to display the infinite wisdom and power of God. There is as much wisdom and power in the creation of the stinger of a bee as of the trunk of an elephant; in the making of the sting of a wasp as of the claw of a tiger; in the formation of the eye to see the light of the sun as in the formation of the sun to give light to the eye. Now what is true in creation is true in grace; what is true of God’s wisdom and power is true of his love. Do but apply this.

You may think yourself too insignificant a creature or too sinful a wretch for God’s love to embrace. But as his love is infinite, it embraces with equal strength all the elect of Christ; and if you are so blessed and favored as to be among the number of those whom God from all eternity has loved, his love reaches down to you who are less than the least of all saints as much as his wisdom and his power to the smallest of his creatures.

4. But being infinite, this love is also inexhaustible; and this is another blessed object of contemplation in looking at “the manner” of God’s love. We would soon have drained it dry, were it not an inexhaustible fountain. Look at the millions of God’s redeemed family, whether glorified spirits in heaven or still sojourning upon earth, or still to be born in the process of time. How inexhaustibly the love of God has been flowing forth for ages to every one of those countless millions. As an emblem of this inexhaustible love, look at the sun; think of the ages for which it has shone unexhausted and inexhaustible; consider the millions and millions of beams which it has cast upon the earth; the thousands of crops which it has ripened, the millions of fruit it has brought to perfection; and yet it shines still. It shines to day as it shone 6,000 years ago; and it will not cease to shine until he who made it what it is bids it cease to be.

So with the love of God– it has shone into the hearts of millions; it has been the spring of all their happiness and the source of all their fruitfulness; their joy in life, their support in death, their bliss in eternity. Their sins have not worn it out, nor their backslidings exhausted it; for its very nature is to be unexhausted, inexhaustible.

5. It is, therefore, unchangeable. God does not love today and hate tomorrow. His own words are– “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.” (Mal. 3:6.) It is most contrary to the revelation which God has given of himself in the Scripture as “resting in his love” (Zeph. 3:17); as “being of one mind and none can turn him” (Job. 23:13); as “one with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17)– to think that after he has once fixed his love upon any of his people, he should repent of that love and take it away from them as being unworthy of it. “The gifts and calling of God,” we are expressly told, “are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29); that is, God never repents of the gifts of his love and grace, and the calling which is the fruit of them. Did not the Lord know from all eternity what his people would be? Did he not know that, as Moses said to the children of Israel, they would be “a stiff-necked people,” provoking him continually to his face? And yet he says of them– “If heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.” (Jer. 31:37.) The immutability of his love is the foundation of all our hope; for we well know if our sins and backslidings could turn this love away we would soon sink to rise no more. But this is the consolation of the family of God, that his love is as immutable as his own eternal essence. Thus far then have I endeavored to describe the nature of God’s love; but O, how weakly and imperfectly have I set it forth!

I now, then, pass on to consider the two other peculiar features of this love, that is, its manifestation and its communication; and I think I shall do this best by coming at once to the second branch of my subject in which they more conspicuously appear:

II. The amazing BLESSINGS and PRIVILEGES of God’s people in being called the sons of God.

A. Manifestation. God loved his people from all eternity, but he loved them only in Christ. This must ever be borne in mind, or we shall make sad mistakes in this important matter. If God loved you, it is not because he saw anything in you to love. He does not only love you as the mere creature of his hand, for that you share in common with your fellow men; for you must bear in mind that there is a love which God bears to the creatures of his hand distinct from his love in grace. We therefore read– “He loves the stranger in giving him food and clothing.” (Deut. 10:18.)

But the love which he has to your soul, whereby he means to make you a partaker of his eternal glory, is not the love which he has to you as the creature of his hand, but the love he has to you as a member of the mystical body of Christ. This is what I mean by the love of God in its manifestation. The apostle therefore says– “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

If, therefore, sometimes you stand astonished at the love of God, or have ever been incredulous that the love of God should be fixed upon you, as feeling your utter insignificance as well as miserable sinfulness and vileness, you must consider why it is that God has loved you or any other of the human race– it is in his dear Son. It is in his Son that he chose the Church; in his Son that he blessed her with all spiritual blessings; in his Son that he accepted her as without spot or blemish, for she is “accepted in the Beloved.” Is not this the clear, indubitable language of the apostle? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ– according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love– to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved.” (Eph. 1:3, 4, 6.) The Church never was separated in the mind of God from her covenant Head, for she is “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Eph. 1:23.)

The love, therefore, which God has to his dear Son reaches and is extended unto all the members of his mystical body. This is blessedly intimated in the intercessory prayer of our Lord– “I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them, as you have loved me” (John 17:23); and again– “And I have declared unto them your name, and will declare it– that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26.) The apostle, therefore, says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ, (by grace you are saved;) and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus– that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:4-7.) Is God “rich in mercy?” It is “in Christ Jesus.” Is the love with which he loved us great? It is so only in Christ Jesus. When we were dead in sins, did he quicken us? It was “together with Christ.” Did he raise us up together and make us sit together in heavenly places? It is “in Christ Jesus.” Will he show “in the ages to come the exceeding riches of his grace?” It will be “in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” Christ, then, in his Person and work is the manifestation of the love of God– the consecrated channel through which it flows, and by which it is bounded.

Now this brings us to a very important feature in the love of God as thus manifested in the Person and work of his dear Son, which is REDEMPTION. This is a point which it deeply concerns us experimentally and savingly to know, for it meets us in our lost ruined condition as sinners; and it is as being in this case that the love of God is specially manifested. You know that in Adam we all sinned and fell from our native purity and innocency. The image of God in which we were created was utterly defaced; we became alienated from the life of God, and sank down before him dead in trespasses and sins. There was a need, therefore, of redemption from this state of alienation and death, guilt and condemnation, and all the other dreadful consequences of the Adam fall. Here love was so singularly manifested. The fall did not forfeit sonship, but it forfeited the image of God; it did not blot the names of the elect out of the Book of Life, but it blotted them all over with the mud and mire of sin; it did not destroy the union which the people of God had with Christ their covenant Head, but it sank the members of his mystical body into a pit of sin and misery, out of which nothing but the incarnation of the Son of God and the propitiation he made by his blood shedding and death could lift them out. It did not remove or impair the love of God towards the Church of Christ, for that was antecedent to the fall, but it made redemption necessary for its manifestation. It enhanced it, made it more signal and glorious, and displayed in all its luster the nature of that love which is as strong as death, which many waters of sin could not quench nor all the floods of evil drown. Whatever God was to man, whatever man was to God, sin had come in and separated between them. Sin is so dreadful an evil; it is so loathsome to the eyes of infinite Purity, such an insult to his divine Majesty, such treason to his authority, such a violation of his justice, that whatever the love of God might be to man it could not flow down to him while this barrier stood in the way. It must then be removed, or God and man be ever separate. But none could remove this barrier except God’s dear Son, and he only by his mediation and death. Hence the necessity and nature of redemption by the blood shedding of Jesus.

To us, then, as sinners there is no manifestation of the love of God but in the Person and work of his dear Son, for in him there is redemption, and in no other. The apostle therefore says– “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.” (Eph. 1:7.) But what is the result of this work of redeeming blood? That by it poor guilty sinners obtain the pardon of all their sins; and their sins being pardoned and put away, they obtain access unto God. They are thus reconciled and brought near to their heavenly Father; for sin being removed by the sacrifice and blood shedding of Christ, there is now no longer a barrier between God and them.

Now to obtain a sense of this pardon in his own soul every child of God is made to sigh and cry mightily with prayers and supplications before the throne of grace. He is thus taught the value and blessedness of atoning blood; and as the sufferings, blood shedding, and death of the Lord Jesus are more and more revealed to his heart, the more simply and unreservedly does he look to the blood of the Lamb to purge his conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Thus the very weight of sin on his conscience makes him enter all the more feelingly and experimentally into the nature of redemption; and it becomes more opened to his view that by his precious blood-shedding and death Jesus redeemed unto God all who believe in his name, put away their sins, and forever blotted them out. He sees that he silenced the curse of the law by himself being made a curse for us; that he appeased the anger of God due to our transgressions, and fully satisfied the claims of justice, which otherwise would have dragged us to her dreadful bar, and hurled us for our offences into a deserved hell. A sight and sense of our danger much open the ear to receive instruction; and thus as the work of redemption is more plainly discovered to our spiritual view, and faith is raised up and drawn forth to believe more personally and experimentally what is thus revealed, we get clearer, more abiding, and soul-transforming views of the love of God in Christ.

Despair on the one side, and self-righteousness on the other, get a deadly wound from a believing sight of the cross; and the soul rejoices in a crucified Christ with trembling. Well may John then say– “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.” How wondrous in its nature; how gracious in its manifestation; how blessed in its communication. This last is the point to which we are now come, and which I shall attempt to open.

B. Whatever be the nature of the love of God, in all its self-originating, infinite, inexhaustible, and immutable character; or whatever grace there is in its manifestation in the Person and work of his dear Son, it is only by its communication to our soul that we come to any personal experience of it. It is therefore with this as with all other precious truths of the gospel. Though they are all contained in the Person and work of the Son of God; though they are most blessed realities as unfolded in the word of his grace, there must be a communication of them to our souls that we may believe them, feel their power, and walk in the sweet enjoyment of them.

1. Here, then, we are at once brought to the first work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart in regeneration, to make us sons of God by a new and spiritual birth. “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.” This is the love of God in its first communication, for it is bestowed upon us as an act of sovereign grace to make and manifest us to be the sons of God. And do we not see all the three Persons of the Godhead in the manner of this love? In the manner of its nature, we see the Father; in the manner of its manifestation, we see the Son; in the manner of its communication, we see the Holy Spirit; and each and all of these three Persons of the Godhead engaged in the bestowing of this love on the members of the mystical body of Jesus. But the work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart, in regeneration, is to manifest us sons of God by making us partakers of a new birth.

2. But this is not enough. There must be the spirit of adoption, breathed into our soul by the same Holy Spirit, before we can claim the sweet relationship, for we are sons before we know it, before we feel, or believe, or enjoy it. As the apostle says, “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” (Gal. 4:6.) This is the Spirit’s witness– “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” (Rom. 8:16.) This, therefore, is the greatest and most blessed communication of the love of God, for it is then shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. It is what few enjoy in its full communication, and they only at special seasons; but some measure of it is necessary before we can see our sonship clearly, or believe in our heart that God is our Father.

III. But the contemplation of this love in its nature, manifestation, and communication may, with the Lord’s help and blessing, lead us more clearly to see the amazing BLESSINGS and PRIVILEGES which God has conferred upon his people in bestowing upon them this love. John calls upon us to admire it– “Behold, what manner of love;” as if he would hold it up for our special view and spiritual contemplation, that we might be engaged thereby to meditate more deeply upon it, and seek for a more believing and experimental reception of its beauty and blessedness into our inmost spirit. What, then, are some of these amazing blessings and privileges?

1. The first and the foundation of the whole is to be “called the sons of God.” “Called” but by whom? By man? That will little profit us– for many have called themselves and called others sons of God whom the Lord never authorized, whose claim and whose call he never ratified. Some through presumption, and others through ignorance, lay their claim upon God as their Father whom he will never own as his children, but rather say, “Depart from me; I never knew you.” But if God call you his son then “all things are yours, for you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Look then next at some of these blessings and privileges of sonship thus bestowed.

2. If you are a son, you are a pardoned son. Christ has borne your sins in his own body on the tree. He has washed you in the fountain of his precious blood, obeyed the law which you have broken, wrought out a robe of righteousness which is freely imputed to you, and in which you stand complete before God.

3. As another blessing and privilege of a son of God, he has access to his Father’s house. The child, you know, as one of his privileges, enjoys a free entry into his father’s house; he does not knock at the door as a stranger, but opens the latch as one of the family. He knows he is welcome there, and that his parents miss him if he does not fill up his place in the house among the other children. So it is with the child of God– he has free access to his Father’s house. He does not stand outside as a stranger, or come in as an occasional and not always acceptable visitor, but enters in with the familiarity of a child. But what mean I by his “Father’s house?” Do I mean merely what is so commonly called “the house of God”– the place where prayer is used to be made, the tabernacles below where he sometimes manifests his presence and his power? This is indeed a privilege, and should be a highly valued one; but the house which I mean is the inner sanctuary of the Lord’s presence– that sacred spot of which David speaks– “he that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm. 91:1); that habitation of which Moses wrote– “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm. 90:1); that holy and heavenly abode which the Lord promised by the prophet– “I will be to them a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.” (Ezek. 11:16.) Access to God in our troubles, a refuge in his bosom from every storm– this is the special privilege of a child. To such he speaks in those gracious words– “Come, my people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors about you– hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” (Isaiah. 26:20.)

4. The son has also a seat at the Father’s table. Whatever the food be, be it little or much, be it dainty or crude, the child has a place at his father’s table. So it is with these sons of God. God has richly supplied his table with every gospel delicacy– there is bread made from the very finest of the wheat– “the living bread which came down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die;” there is honey out of the rock; there is the choicest and sweetest milk to feed the babe; there is strong meat to nourish the man. There is not a single delicacy that can tempt the feeblest appetite, nor the most solid food that can gratify the most insatiable hunger, which God has not spread upon his heavenly table. The sweet promises, the encouraging invitations, the glorious truths, the holy precepts, the solemn ordinances, and, what crowns all, gives life to all, and is the sum and substance of all– the flesh and blood of his dear Son, are the provisions with which God has abundantly blessed Zion. And he who has spread the banquet says, “Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled.” (Prov. 9:5.) No, Jesus himself proclaims from the head of the table, “Eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved.” The child comes as a child; he finds the table spread for him without his care or forethought, without his labor or expense. O how sweet it is when in this childlike spirit we can sit down and eat of heavenly food; when without fear, bondage, or unbelief; without darkness, barrenness and death, we can take up the word of life, and, mixing faith with what we read, sometimes drink the milk, sometimes eat the solid meat, sometimes take a sip of gospel wine, or taste of the honey out of the rock. This spiritual appetite for spiritual food; this sitting under the shadow of Jesus with great delight, and finding his fruit sweet to our taste (Song. 2:3), is a sure testimony of our adoption into the family of God.

5. Another privilege of a son is to be an heir. “And if children then heirs– heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” Our sonship does not end with this life, but abides forever and ever. This indeed is the peculiar blessedness of being a child of God, that death, which puts a final extinguisher on all the hopes and happiness of the children of men, gives him the fulfillment of all his hopes and the consummation of all his happiness; for it places him in possession of “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” (1 Pet.1:4, 5.) In this life we have sometimes sips and tastes of sonship, feeble indeed and interrupted, so that it is with us as Mr. Deer speaks– “Though you here receive but little, scarce enough for the proof of your proper title;” yet are they so far pledges of an inheritance to come.

But this life is only an introduction to a better. In this life we are but children, heirs indeed, but heirs in their minority; but in the life to come, if indeed we are what we profess to be, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, we shall be put into full possession of the eternal inheritance. And what is this? Nothing less than God himself. “Heirs of God,” says the apostle. For as the Lord said to Abraham, “I am your shield and exceeding great reward;” as he said to the Levites, “I am their inheritance,” so God himself is the inheritance of his people; yes, he himself in all his glorious perfections. All the love of God, the goodness of God, the holiness of God, all his happiness, bliss, and blessedness, all his might, majesty, and glory, as shining forth in the Person of his dear Son in all the blaze of one eternal, unclouded day– this is the saint’s inheritance. Let us not then be weary in well doing; nor faint and tire in running the race set before us, with this prize in view; but press on by faith and prayer to win this eternal and glorious crown.

6. But I must add one more privilege of sonship, and that is obedience. If we are children of God, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, it is our privilege to be obedient to the will of our heavenly Father; and that from the heart. It is one of our richest mercies and noblest privileges to render to him, not eye service, the miserable bondage of the slave, but that free obedience which is due to him as Parent from a child. You know the difference between the cheerful obedience of an affectionate daughter or a dutiful son, and the forced obedience of a wretched drudge. One is spontaneous, hearty, affectionate, free, and is accepted as such; the other is extorted by fear, or given with an eye to the wages. Obedience to the precepts of the gospel, doing the will of God from the heart, living to his honor and glory, walking daily in the fear of the Lord, loving his people and seeking their good, and manifesting the power of vital godliness by a meek, quiet, holy life and conversation, are so many blessed marks and evidences of an adoption into the family of God.

7. A daily cross, a path of trial and tribulation, a chastening rod for going astray, a furnace of affliction, purging away the dross and tin, and its fruits, as producing true humility of mind, brokenness of heart, contrition of spirit, and tenderness of conscience, with much self-loathing and self-abhorrence, godly sorrow for sin, and earnest desires for close and holy communion with God– these are other privileges of sonship, not indeed much prized or coveted by the professors of our day, but blessed marks of a heavenly birth.

In looking at these privileges and comparing your experience with them, you will probably find some to encourage and others to discourage you. We would not be deceived; we would be honest to God and to our own consciences; and as we cannot take to ourselves what the Lord does not give, and our evidences are often obscured or out of sight, the seasons are many when we cannot rise up into the sweet enjoyment of our adoption into the living family.

III. But I pass on to the third point which I proposed for our consideration, the gross ignorance of the world as to who or what these sons of God are– “Therefore the world knows us not.”

What is meant by “the world” here? All who are not partakers of the grace of God, all who are in their natural state of unregeneracy and death. Some of these belong to the openly profane, others to the professing world. But it is true of each of these worlds that the real character and condition, the state and standing, the joys and sorrows, mercies and miseries, trials and deliverances, hopes and fears, afflictions and consolations of the sons of God are entirely hidden from their eyes. But we shall see this more clearly by entering a little more fully into what is thus hidden from the world’s knowledge and observation.

1. It does not know that they are SONS OF GOD. It does not know what manner of love God has bestowed on them, that they should be called his sons. It believes that God loves all men alike– that any one can be a child of God who will; that God offers himself as a Father to all without any exception, and that those who like to embrace this offer become his children at once. They have no idea that God bestows his love upon particular people, and calls them his sons. Nothing more moves their indignation than that a few poor, ignorant, despised people should dare to believe and call themselves the sons of God; as if such a favor peculiarly belonged to them, and to them only. How can therefore the world know them if it begin with denying their heavenly sonship?

2. It does not know their BLESSINGS. Being ignorant of spiritual things, having no apprehension or comprehension of divine realities, it cannot and therefore does not know those rich, those peculiar blessings with which God has blessed his people in heavenly paces in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 1:3.) It knows not, for instance, what it is to be blessed with a sense of God’s presence, with a manifestation of his love, with a revelation of his mercy, with a discovery of the Person and work, grace and glory of his dear Son. Nor has it any acquaintance with those special favors that the Lord’s people are so earnestly coveting, if they are not in present enjoyment of them. It knows nothing of the breathing of a living soul after God’s presence; of its panting after him as the heart pants after the water-brooks; of its longings to see his power and glory, so as it has seen him in the sanctuary. And as it knows nothing of spiritual prayer and supplication, so it knows nothing of gracious answers. It knows nothing therefore of the joys of pardoned sin; of the shedding abroad of the love of God in the heart by the Holy Spirit; of a deliverance from the curse of the law, the guilt and sting of sin, and the fear of death. It knows nothing of the sweet opening up of the Scriptures of truth with power to the soul; of the application of the promises to the wearied spirit; of access to God in secret supplication through his dear Son; or, in a time of special trial and temptation, obtaining a testimony that the request is heard and registered, and will in due time be granted. It knows nothing of any softening, melting, or moving of the heart under the preached word; of any entrance by faith into the glorious mysteries of the gospel, so as to experience their transforming efficacy, and feel their subduing, sanctifying power and influence. These blessings, and many others– in fact, all the spiritual blessings with which God has blessed his people, the world knows not; therefore it knows us not.

3. Nor does the world know the motives and feelings which guide and actuate the sons of God. It views them as a set of gloomy, morose, melancholy beings, whose tempers are soured by false and exaggerated views of religion; who have pored over the thoughts of hell and heaven until some have frightened themselves into despair, and others have puffed up their vain minds with an imaginary conceit of their being especial favorites of the Almighty. “They are really,” it says, “no better than other folks, if so good; but they have such contracted minds, are so obstinate and bigoted with their poor, narrow, prejudiced views, that wherever they come they bring disturbance and confusion.”

But why this harsh judgment? Because it knows nothing of the spiritual feelings which actuate the child of grace, making him act so differently from the world which thus condemns him; such as the fear of God in his heart, “as a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death;” such as the holy reverence that he feels towards the name of the Most High, as deeply impressed upon his spirit; such as the dread of offending the Majesty of heaven by indulging in pleasures which the world calls harmless, but which he knows from the testimony of the word and from his own experience to be fraught with peril to the soul. It knows nothing of what it is to worship God in spirit and in truth; and therefore cannot understand why we separate ourselves from all false worship, and will not mingle spiritual service with natural devotion, or join hand in hand with those who serve God with their lips and Satan with their lives.

It cannot understand our sight and sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and that is the reason why we will not run riot with them in the same course of ungodliness. It does not know with what a solemn weight eternal things rest upon our minds; and that that is the cause why we cannot join with them in pursuing so eagerly the things of the world, and living for time as they do, instead of living for eternity. Being unable to enter into the spiritual motives and gracious feelings which actuate a living soul and the movements of divine life continually stirring in a Christian breast, they naturally judge us from their own point of view, and condemn what they cannot understand.

You may place two men upon a mountain top, with a vast and beautiful view before them. One man, dull and melancholic, without one spark of taste for beauty of scenery, resembles a Frenchman of whom I have read, who, when crossing the Alps, shut his eyes and sat shuddering in the carriage, for he could not bear to look upon those dreadful precipices and horrid icy peaks which rose in their silent majesty all around him. O no; he would sooner have been shut up in a miserable café in Paris than have had all this glorious mountain scenery before his eyes. How impossible for him to understand the feelings of his fellow traveler, some romantic Englishman, who is scarcely able to breathe for very delight and ecstasy.

In a similar way, worldly men can no more understand why we can take pleasure in hearing a long sermon, or reading the word of God, or being upon our knees in secret prayer, or feeling holy delight in the service of the Almighty, than this poor Frenchman could understand the beauty of the Alps, or that any one could take a delight in looking at lake and mountain, wild gorge or rushing waterfall, which made him shiver all over. You may place a horse and a man upon the same hill; while the man would be looking at the woods and fields and streams, or, if a Christian man, engaged in prayer and supplication to his divine Maker, the horse would be feeding upon the grass at his feet. So if men cannot enter into the divine feelings of the saints of God, need we wonder that they despise and condemn what they know not? The horse, if it could reason, would say, “What a fool my master is! How he is staring and gaping about! Why does he not sit down and open his basket of provisions, for I know he has it with him, for I carried it, and feed as I do?” So the worldling says, “These poor stupid people, how they are spending their time in going to chapel, and reading the Bible in their gloomy, melancholy way. Religion is all very well; and we ought all to be religious before we die; but they make so much of it. Why don’t they enjoy more of life? Why don’t they amuse themselves more with its innocent, harmless pleasures; be more gay, cheerful, and sociable, and take more interest in those things which so interest us?”

The reason why the world thus wonders at us is because it knows us not, and therefore cannot understand that we have sublimer feelings, nobler pleasures, and more substantial delights than ever entered the soul of a worldling.

IV. But we now come to the EXPLANATION of the mystery. We need not wonder at the gross ignorance of the world, and that it knows us not, for our text declares, “it knew him not.”

The word “him” evidently points to the Lord Jesus Christ; for when he was in the world, the world knew him not. But we may take the word as applicable also to the Father, for the Father is spoken of in the text– “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us.” What does the world know of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Has it any fear of his great and glorious name? Has it any faith in him? any love to him? any desire to please him? any dread of displeasing him? Has it any knowledge of the justice of God in condemning, any acquaintance with his mercy in forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin? We know, from the testimony of Scripture and from daily observation, that while men are dead in sin, with a veil of unbelief spread over their heart, they do not, indeed cannot, know God; for to know him is a new Covenant blessing– “They shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jer. 31:34); and it is also eternal life, for “This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God.” (John 17:3.) They may indeed “profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” (Titus 1:16.) Need we wonder, then, that it knows us not, if it knows him not?

Neither did the world know the blessed Lord when he sojourned here below as the very image of the Father. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” They despised his word; they rejected his message; and hated both him and the Father who sent him. They crowned his brow with a crown of thorns, they struck him and buffeted him, and did not spare to spit in his face; they took him beyond the precincts of Jerusalem to the common and abhorred place of execution, and there they nailed him as a malefactor to the accursed tree. And why? Because they knew him not. As the apostle says– “Which none of the princes of this world knew– for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor. 2:8.)

If that, then, was the way in which the world treated God’s only begotten Son when he came into it; if the only reception which it gave to the Lord of life and glory was to put him out of the way as an abhorred malefactor, need we wonder if the world that knew him not knows us not? If we are followers of Christ and believers in the Son of God; if we have his mind and image, walk in his footsteps, and are made like unto him by regenerating grace, need we wonder if the world is as ignorant of us as it was of him? Are we to be known and our Master unknown? Are we to be honored, and our Lord despised? Are we to be applauded, and our King contemned? Are we to be loved, and our Redeemer abhorred? Is the world to treat us better than it treated Christ?

But you will say, “This is taking high ground.” It is; but can we take lower if we take any at all? We are either children of God, or we are not. If we are, the world knows us not; if we are not, the world knows us and all about us. Some of you, with all your profession, are in that spot. The world knows you; for you are one with it in walk and spirit. It knows, therefore, all about you. Your inward character is not concealed from its keen, observing eyes. The world knows ungodliness, but it does not know godliness; it knows superstition, but, not worshiping God in the spirit; it knows unbelief, but not faith; despondency, but not a good hope through grace; worldly pleasures, but not rejoicing in Christ Jesus; self-confidence, but not having no confidence in the flesh. It knows the love of sin, but not the love of holiness; the fear which has torment, but not the love which casts it out; the stings and lashes of a guilty conscience, but not the blood of sprinkling to cleanse and heal it.

The world, then, will see all through you if you are imbued with its spirit; but if you have the Spirit of Christ, it knows you not because it knew him not. No, the more you are conformed to the image of Christ, the more you manifest your sonship by your obedience, the more separated you are from the world, the less will it understand you. If we kept closer to the Lord and walked more in holy obedience to the precepts of the gospel, we would be more misunderstood than even we now are. It is our worldly conformity that makes the world so well to understand many of our movements and actions. But if our movements were more according to the mind of Christ; if we walked more as the Lord walked here below, we would leave the world in greater ignorance of us than we leave it now; for the hidden springs of our life would be more out of its sight, our testimony against it more decided, and our separation from it more complete.

I have laid before you this morning the wondrous love of God. Have you ever felt it? I have brought before you the peculiar blessings and privileges of the sons of God. Have you ever enjoyed them? I have shown you why the world knows them not. Do you feel that you have in your bosom something the world knows not, but which separates you in heart and spirit from it? And I have brought before you the solution of the mystery, and that it is because the world knows neither the Father nor the Son. Do you feel that you have that knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent, which is eternal life? May he, if it be his sacred will, give us to know more of his stupendous love; to feel more our saving interest therein; may he warm our hearts more with his dissolving beams, and bring our life more under its constraining efficacy!

It’s been many years since I have traveled abroad. Growing up it was something I was fascinated with, traveling the Globe. My Dad fought in WWII and sailed around the world from California to Africa, India and all the way back home to West Virginia and I loved hearing his stories as a child. We had a large Globe that we mapped out his journey on and I always dreamed of visiting some far country.  I had a hard time growing up and I suppose that the thought of escaping my problems was a way I dealt with trauma and pain.  In my mind the further I traveled might bring me peace, when in fact I took that sin and turmoil with me wherever I went.

When I think about my life before I was saved I am amazed at the things God has brought me through, and the mercy He has shown me. I have indeed like the prodigal son in Luke 15:13 “Went off to a far country and and there wasted his substance with riotous living.”

God has been very patient and good to me. He showed such mercy in saving my soul, but He has been very real and very personal to me through the years as well. I have a little box I keep at the top of my closet. It’s my personal “Ebenezer” and when times are hard or my faith is tested I often get out that box and thank God for what He has done in my life. There are so many reminders in that box, scriptures, notes and various things that mean more to me than anything else I own. I know I find God in His word, but I need to remind myself that He’s still working in my life and the lives of others. He is still saving souls and I am so thankful today for that. Years ago I spent time in England. It’s a special place for me because it’s where I first felt the pull of the Holy Spirit calling me home to my Father’s house.

I have always prayed that someday God would send me back, either to meet Christian friends or to have some chance to spread the Gospel there and tell people of Jesus. I have had financial hardships since becoming a Christian, so it was always something I kept in the back of my mind, tucked away if God ever saw fit to send me there. I always had much more inportant things to pray about but one day I watched a television program about missionaries in England and I wanted so badly to go back.  That same spring day I got ready for work like I always do and I grabbed a jacket I rarely wear. I had gained weight and like all women do I thought I might try to wear it anyway. It was snug and I was very uncomfortable, but I wore it to work anyway. As I reached my office I took the jacket off and noticed one of the pockets was unbuttoned. I reached down inside the tiny pocket and there, way down inside was a very small seashell, the size of a childs fingernail.  I realized that it was from a beach I had been on 5 years previously, in Northumberland, England. I know it sounds goofy but that little seashell represented a tiny ray of hope to me. It was like God left that shell from England in my jacket all those years, just so I would find it the very day I prayed. That was 9 years ago. I held onto that shell for all these years knowing someday, God would get me back across that pond. I am so happy to say that this very week I bought my plane ticket.

Nine years later and He’s blessed me with wonderful friends to visit, in fact a precious Sister in Christ. I am amazed and blessed to know her and her family.  I had to take the time today to set up another Ebenezer. God has done great things, He saved our souls by shedding the precious blood of His only son. That is more than enough for me! But He’s also real, personal and involved in our lives. I am so thankful.

As for the little shell, several months ago I misplaced it. It’s still around somewhere but I put it away for safe keeping, and being me I cannot find it. I looked for it the other day and was a little discouraged but realized it’s just as shell after all. Last night I was cleaning out my hall closet, getting ready for my trip and I came across a box full of hats and gloves. Buried down deep inside the box was a plastic ziplock bag full of seashells. From that very beach in England. Those shells are in the photo at the top of the post. I had to share and hopefully encourage anyone reading this that God is still the healer of hearts, He is still on His throne and saving souls.  I am including a wonderful hymn that speaks the words of my heart , it’s my story and the story of all the Children of God.  I hope it encourages someone today.

Be blessed dear reader!

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

 Listen Here:     Four keys to handling hardship.  

HE CARES FOR ME

(Charles Spurgeon)

“Casting all your care upon Him–for He cares for you!” 1 Peter 5:7

It is a happy way of soothing sorrow, when we can feel–”HE cares for ME!” Christian! do not dishonor God, by always wearing a brow of worry! Come–cast your burden upon your God! You are staggering beneath a weight–which your Father would not feel. What seems like a crushing burden to you–would be but as small dust to Him. Nothing is so sweet as to,
“Lie passive in God’s hands,
And know no will, but His.”

O child of suffering–be patient! God has not overlooked you in His providence. He who is the feeder of sparrows–will also furnish you with what you need. Do not sit down in despair.

There is One who cares for you!

His all-seeing eye is fixed on you!

His all-loving heart beats with pity for your woe!

His omnipotent hand shall yet bring you the needed help!

The darkest cloud–shall scatter itself in showers of mercy.

The blackest gloom–shall give place to the morning light.

If you are one of His family–He will bind up your wounds, and heal your broken heart. Do not doubt His grace, because of your troubles–but believe that He loves you as much in seasons of distress–as in times of happiness. What a serene and quiet life might you lead–if you would leave providing–to the God of providence!

If God cares for you–why need you care also? Can you trust Him for your soul–and not for your body? He has never refused to bear your burdens–He has never fainted under their weight. Come, then, soul! Be done with fretful worry–and leave all your concerns in the hand of your gracious God!

(J. C. Ryle, “The Gospel of Luke” 1858)

“A dispute arose among them as to which of them
was considered to be greatest.”  Luke 22:24

See how firmly pride and love of preeminence
can stick to the hearts of Christian men.

The sin before us is a very old one . . .
ambition,
self esteem, and
self conceit
lie deep at the bottom of all men’s hearts, and
often in the hearts where they are least suspected.

Thousands imagine that they are humble,
who cannot bear to see an equal more honored
and favored than themselves!

The quantity of envy and jealousy in the world
is a glaring proof of the prevalence of pride.

Let us live on our guard against this sore disease,
if we make any profession of serving Christ. The
harm that it has done to the Church of Christ is
far beyond calculation.

Let us learn to take pleasure in the prosperity
of others, and to be content with the lowest
place for ourselv

I have not much patience with a certain class of Christians nowadays who will hear anybody preach so long as they can say, “He is very clever, a fine preacher, a man of genius, a born orator.” Is cleverness to make false doctrine palatable? Why, sirs, to me the ability of a man who preaches error is my sorrow rather than my admiration.

I cannot endure false doctrine, however neatly it may be put before me. Would you have me eat poisoned meat because the dish is of the choicest ware? It makes me indignant when I hear another gospel put before the people with enticing words, by men who would fain make merchandise of souls; and I marvel at those who have soft words for such deceivers.

“That is your bigotry,” says one. Call it so if you like, but it is the bigotry of the loving John who wrote—”If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”

I would to God we had all more of such decision, for the lack of it is depriving our religious life of its backbone and substituting for honest manliness a mass of the tremulous jelly of mutual flattery.

He who does not hate the false does not love the true; and he to whom it is all the same whether it be God’s word or man’s, is himself unrenewed at heart. Oh, if some of you were like fathers you would not have tolerated in this age the wagon loads of trash under which the gospel has been of late buried by ministers of your own choosing. You would have hurled out of your pulpits the men who are enemies to the fundamental doctrines of your churches, and yet are crafty enough to become your pastors and undermine the faith of a fickle and superficial generation.

These men steal the pulpits of once orthodox churches, because otherwise they would have none at all. Their powerless theology cannot of itself arouse sufficient enthusiasm to enable them to build a mousetrap at the expense of their admirers, and therefore they profane the houses which your sires have built for the preaching of the gospel, and turn aside the organisations of once orthodox communities to help their infidelity: I call it by that name in plain English, for “modern thought” is not one whit better, and of the two evils I give infidelity the palm, for it is less deceptive.

I beg the Lord to give back to the churches such a love to his truth that they may discern the spirits, and cast out those which are not of God

“Brief life is here our portion,
Brief sorrow, short-lived care:
The life that knows no ending,
The tearless life, is there.
There, glory yet unheard of
Shall shed abroad its ray,
Resolving all enigmas—
An endless Sabbath-day.”—Bernard

“Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.” —1 Cor. 13:12.

What an extension in the domain of knowledge on that blessed morning when “the day shall break,” and earth’s twilight shadows shall “flee away forever.” The mysteries in Providence, the “deep things” in Scripture, the apparent discrepancies in God’s moral government, all unfolded, vindicated, explained. “In your light,” O God, we shall “see light,” (Ps. 36:9.)

How this new illumination will be effected we cannot say. We can only venture a few dim conjectures on a great problem which the future itself alone can solve.

Much of our curtailed and partial knowledge here, is owing to the limited range of our present faculties. It is quite possible to conceive in a future world a vast and indefinite extension and amplification of our present mental and bodily powers; such an amplification as the man born blind experiences when his eyes are opened for the first time, on a world of whole glories he has only been previously cognizant by hearing about them. We can quite well imagine some faculty which either we do not now possess, or which hitherto, like the sight of the blind man we have supposed, has been lying sealed and dormant, all at once imparted—”eyes of our understanding” opened, which are now closed—new powers, shall we say, of thought and reasoning, taking in knowledge by intuition, which now requires years of laborious thought.

Even in the case of the lower animals, we see powers and instincts which we do not possess, but which, if we did possess them, would add incalculably to our capacities. Instance, as familiar examples, the flight of the migratory birds, or that of the bee winging its way to a vast distance from its hive; yet, notwithstanding its tortuous aerial journey, finding, with unerring precision, its way back to the hidden nook where it started.

The present limited range alike of our physical and moral powers of observation may have been, as an able writer surmises, the reason why Paul, when he was caught up into the third heavens, tells us he saw things which it is not “possible for a man to utter.” Why not possible? Simply because he was not gifted with earthly powers or faculties or language capable of giving expression to what he saw. The phenomena of heavenly glory (if I might so call them) were alike, in kind and degree, so diverse from all he had been conversant with here, that he would have needed another dialect and vocabulary to unfold his meaning.

“But THEN shall I know!” All enigma and difficulty will then vanish—all will be made plain to ennobled, refined, and purified powers. Here on earth, a passing breath from a carnal world dims my glass, and obscures my spiritual vision. There in heaven, there will be no taint of sin to mar or blight my lofty contemplations. Here, amid the twilight shadows of an imperfect state there is much to cause doubt, and, alas! disagreement among God’s children. There, all shall see “eye to eye;” they will only wonder that trifles should have been allowed so sadly to divide and estrange. Here, we are in the gloomy crypt, walking amid the humiliating wrecks of sin and death, reading the mysterious records of mortality. There, it will be in the “cathedral aisles” of light and love, harmony and peace—the noon-day splendor of eternity. Glorious prospect! all made bright before that Sapphire Throne.

That mysterious PROVIDENCE, that desolating bereavement which, like a sweeping avalanche, tore up by the roots the fibers of affection, then I shall know, and see, and acknowledge it to have been all for good. Then I shall understand, (what my aching heart cannot now,) that the child I wept over—the parent I laid prematurely in the grave—the friend, early severed from my side—were all thereby taken from much evil to come, and invested with an earlier bliss. I shall wonder how I could ever have sorrowed on their behalf.

Meanwhile let me bow submissive to my Righteous Father’s will, however dark and startling sometimes it may be. In infancy, the child takes much on trust; in after life, he gets his difficulties explained. Let this be my position regarding the “deep things” of providence and grace. Wait patiently the explanation of my Father in heaven. I shall see in the completed plan that all events had their end and mission—the Lord bringing glory to Himself from all. At present I behold only one or a few links, while He has the whole chain in His hands. Then, in retracing that long line of unbroken kindness, I shall feel satisfied that not only all was for the best, but really the best. The whole bypast wilderness, as seen from the hills of glory, will appear carpeted with love. Like a traveler after a dark night, I shall look back along the region I have traversed; and noting the perils which by His gracious guidance I had escaped, wonder at the way by which God has led me.

Above all, I shall grow in the knowledge of HIMSELF; and have amazing views—such as I have never had here—of His glory as the great end of life and being. Our present knowledge of God, even revealed knowledge, is but like the prattling of infancy, a mere attempt at a spoken language, most of which is still unintelligible. But then I shall be “filled with all the fullness of God.” Not by any means that my knowledge of Him can be perfect. There will always be depths in that ocean-fullness, beyond the fathoming of any finite mind. No, further, the more I know, the more I shall feel that I have to know. When I know most, my befitting exclamation will be, “Oh the depth!” “It PASSES knowledge!” (Eph. 3:19.)

“This is eternal life—to know You.” God, by His varied discipline, is meanwhile training me in this knowledge. And, as a sainted writer has well said, “we must wait until we get entirely home to have lesson-books put by forever. But what ever are the gradations in our books, or in whatever shape the lesson comes to us, this is the one grand blessed object aimed at by our wondrous Teacher in all, Acquaint yourself now with HIM, and be at peace.” (Miss Plumptre.)

“No disappointments shroud
The angel-bowers of joy;
Our knowledge has no cloud,
Our pleasures no alloy.

“The fearful word, to part,
Is never breathed above;
Heaven has no broken heart
Throughout her realms of love.”

I asked the Lord, that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek more earnestly His face.
I hoped that in some favoured hour
At once He’d answer my request,
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
“Lord, why is this?” I trembling cried,
“Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?”
“Tis in this way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.
These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st seek thy all in me.”

John Newton

At times we all find it hard–if not impossible–to forgive those who’ve hurt us most. I have read so much about this lately and I wanted to share a few things that really helped me put things in perspective over the years regarding forgiveness. I can think of nothing more brutal in the past century than the Holocaust. Out of that horrific stain on history came faithful, hopeful Christians and they have inspired and encouraged me with their utter reliance on God and His Grace in times of trial and adversity. I am going to share two of their stories that touched me  and challenged me to search my heart and trust that God would give me the Grace and obedience to forgive. I hope they bless and encourage you.

The first link is to an interview Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries did with Holocaust Survivor Anita Dittman. It’s a tough tale but there is so much hope and joy in her story. Do yourself a favor and listen here

I also included an excerpt from Corrie Ten boom,  who had spent time in Nazi concentration camps for hiding Jews in her home during the Holocaust.  52 and unmarried, she had lived at home with her elderly father and older sister Betsie.  All three of them had been sent to concentration camps when the Nazis discovered they had been hiding the Jewish refugees.

Corrie lost her freedom, her dignity, and her beloved sister and father in the span of a few months in those concentration camps.  In God’s providence Corrie was released due to a clerical error, just one week before the other women in Ravensbruck her age were executed.

After the war Corrie was invited to speak all over the world, and she tirelessly traveled the globe, thankful for every opportunity she was given to tell people about Christ.  She always marveled at God’s infinite mercy toward sinners like us.

She also knew that everyone who had received God’s mercy had no choice but to show mercy to others; and she knew from her own experience that wasn’t always easy.  In her book The Hiding Place she tells the following story:

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck.  He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time.  And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing.  “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” he said.  “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine.  And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them.  Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more?  Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand.  I could not.  I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity.  And so again I breathed a silent prayer.  Jesus, I cannot forgive him.  Give me Your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened.  From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His.  When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

Denise Sproul is at home with the Lord.
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Dec 18, 2011 Category: Ministry News

The yellowing sky confirmed the wisdom of the forecasters, a tornado might well be just around the bend. With one eye scouring the landscape I dutifully herded my then seven children into our basement. One of them, worried, asked me- “Are we all going to die?” Tender hearted father that I am, I told the truth- “Of course…but probably not today.” We survived the weather that day, but we are all still terminal.

As my wife continues her valiant fight against leukemia she too occasionally asks me to look into my crystal ball. She wants to know if she is going to make it. The doctors don’t know, and they are considerably more knowledgeable than I am.  So I tell my wife what I do know- “I don’t know if you are going to get well or not. I do know that that day was appointed before all time. Nothing will make it a day later, nothing a day earlier.  Cancer cannot determine when you go home. Only your Father can.

God can and does give clues, from time to time. The Bible affirms that He opens and closes the womb.  That doesn’t mean that Abraham and Sarah didn’t have reason to be surprised. That Denise is ill, that it is this kind of cancer, that form of leukemia, this other test result suggests that we have more reason to worry about her than me. Seeking to decipher all these clues causes us to ride a roller coaster of hope and fear. I have come to learn, however, that my confidence on a given day is likely more tied to how poorly I slept the night before than it is deciphering the results of a CT scan.

My calling then is to rest in, to believe, to be comforted by what He has spoken clearly.  Providence is His, but there He speaks a strange language in muted tones. His Word, on the other hand is both loud and clear. We know, for starters, that God Himself is behind this. God will either defeat the cancer He has sent, or He will have sent the cancer that calls her home (Isaiah 45:7). We know that whether her time is sooner or later, it works out for the good not only for her, but for her husband and children (Romans 8:28). We know that whenever He calls her home He will at the same time heal her fully (Revelation 21:4).

Insofar as I am able, by His grace, to believe what He has revealed, I am able to be at peace about what He has not revealed. Insofar as I seek to learn the secret things, I will fail to believe what He has revealed.  One thing we know for certain- He is good. He loves us with an everlasting love. That doesn’t answer the question of the day or the hour. It just makes it not so important.

It is a good and proper thing that I should, and you as well if you are willing, pray that God would make Denise well, that He would allow us to grow old together. It is, however, a better thing to pray that I would be a faithful husband to my love, and a faithful father to the children He has blessed us with. It is less important that He believe me and my conviction, that the kingdom would be better with her here. It is more important that I believe Him and His promise that the gates of hell will not prevail (Matthew 16:18), and that He who has begun a good work in us will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus (Ephesians 6:10). This train is bound for glory.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life!” John 8:12

I spent the greater part of the past week researching, reading and studying to write this. I had snippets of brilliant insights from the great minds of Christendom past, glorious words from commentaries and the few lines I penned myself all ready to go.  I sat down today after a long frustrating day at work and realized I was going to delete all of that and just start over. I never seem to honor God in my own vain efforts, but I always find some sort of inspiration when it seems like I have nothing much to say.

I came across the words to one of my favorite Christmas songs and I think it sums up so simply what my heart wanted to say. No lengthy brilliance about why Jesus spoke about himself as “the Light of the World” in the Court of the women not long after the feast of Tabernacles, no deep digging into the Greek. Just simple words beautifully written by Phillips Brooks,  the rector of Boston’s famous Trinity Church. A writer of books and poetry. His prose says so much to me.

O little town of Bethlehem,

How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light–
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

Bethlehem. A quiet little town, nothing much going on there before now.  A dreamless sleep, dark streets. Much like the streets of my town right now. People  frustrated and hopeless in more ways then they realize.  Sinners even. The stars are  silent in this sad town. What a place for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to be born! But He was…for average, everyday people like you and me friend. In that little dark stable, the hope of the world, the “Light of the World” came to illuminate those dark streets and give eternal hope to those dark lives. That hope still lives on.

For Christ is born of Mary–
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wond’ring love.

Almost everybody was asleep we suppose, except the shepherds. They were the ones who were awake in the fields watching their flocks. And so it was to them that the angels came. But while the rest of mortals were sleeping, the angels kept their watch of wondering love.

O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God our King,
And peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv’n
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
But, in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in.

“Meek Souls” Not weak ones,  humble ones. I know this is not deep theology, but the message that Jesus came without pomp or fanfare, to quiet streets and lowly shepherds is such a comfort to my soul…it humbles me and gives me peace. I want to share that peace and comfort of everlasting life, the light that shines on sins and breaks hearts but gives hope everlasting.

James Smith speaks with such clarity of that simple message of “Good news” and the light of truth found only in Jesus Christ.

“Do you enjoy the light — then point others to it. Tell poor dark miserable sinners of it; invite them to look to it, urge them to come to Jesus for it; and be sure to let the light you receive from Jesus, so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Lost sinner, Jesus is the light of the world, if therefore you want knowledge, comfort, holiness, or salvation — come to him, look to him, ask of him, expect from him, and believe his word, “If any man,” no matter who he is, or what he is — “if any man follows me, he shall not walk in darkness — but shall have the light of life.”

This Christmas I wanted to communicate the simple truth of eternal hope, peace and redemption found only my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I hope that in someway this post humbly points the way to the light found only in Jesus and brings honor and glory to Him.