Gold Nugget 294 - To the Brave

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      In viewing our human life, we are tempted into one or other of two extremes.  To the worldly and the careless, especially when young and prosperous, life seems easy.  They are conscious of no temptation, for they yield at once to each congenial suggestion.  They are ignorant of struggles, for to them life has never shaped itself as a moral warfare.

      But there are those who are ever oppressed by a constant sense of the solemnity of life.  To such the conflict is a daily and inevitable fact.  They cannot drift adown the current; yet, strike out as bravely as they will, they feel as though they made no headway against the waters, as though they could never reach the shore.  Struggle they must, they do; yet with many failures and with faint hope of final success.

      Now, Christianity rebukes the first of these classes for frivolity, the second for faithlessness.  The Scriptures ever represent our life as a spiritual conflict; yet they ever summon us to fight the good fight of faith with hopeful hearts; the battle is fierce, but to the brave the victory is sure.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Romans p. 463, Romans 16:20, (J. Radford Thomson)

 

Gold Nugget 294

To the Brave

 

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Gold Nugget 293 - Binding Hearts to Hearts

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      The names mentioned in these verses are all, and utterly, unknown to fame.  They here glint across our vision, like meteors in the midnight sky, which appear for a moment, only to vanish for ever.  Yet Paul esteemed and loved them, and put their names upon this imperishable roll – more glorious and more lasting than the blazoned records of heraldry or the splendid memorials of the historian.

      It is better to be enrolled among the friends of Christ than to occupy the highest station in the regard of worldly minded men.  To be his when he makes up his jewels, this will be honour and happiness indeed.. …

      The strongest of all social bonds are those of our common Christianity, which, binding hearts to Christ, binds hearts to hearts.  

 

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Romans 462, Romans 16: 8-15, (J. Radford Thomson)

 

Gold Nugget 293

Binding Hearts to Hearts

 

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Gold Nugget 292 - The Brightest of All Hopes

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      When the infidel rejoices over what seem to him tokens of the decrepitude of the Church of Christ; when the atheist foretells the destruction of all religion, and the approach of the millennium of animalism; Christ’s followers do not yield to fear.  They remember that their Divine Lord has promised that “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against” his Church.

      Its dead branches may be lopped off, and its living branches may be pruned; but life shall only be the more vigorous, and fruit the more abundant.  The gold may be cast into the furnace, and the dross be consumed; but the precious metal shall only be refined and purified, and shall shine with brighter luster, and be fitter for the Master’s use.

      Is there hope for humanity?  Is this race of man destined to deteriorate; is it doomed to remain for ever a prey to strife, to vice, to sin; or is it appointed to sure progress and to final happiness?  Questions these which have disturbed many a sensitive and philanthropic mind; clouded many a generous, disinterested life with sorrow and with gloom.  The pessimism which is a sort of fashion in some circles refused to take any comfort in looking forward to the future of mankind.  As the individual is of necessity unhappy, as life is of necessity a calamity, a disaster, and death the only alleviation, annihilation the only thing worth looking forward to; so for the race, composed of units thus unhappy, no destiny that is desirable can be in reserve.  Progress is an illusion, and the general happiness a baseless dream.

      The Spirit encouraged Hebrew prophets of old to anticipate a universal reign of righteousness, knowledge, and peace.  That Spirit directed evangelist and apostles to base, upon the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God, the broadest of all beliefs and the brightest of all hopes.  That Spirit has sustained the faith and inspired the energy of Christ’s people, amid the darkness of human ignorance, the din of human conflict, and the desolation of human despair.

      The omen of the birth of Christ and Christianity has not been falsified.  The progress of the truth has been slow, the hindrances have been many, the corruptions and distortions have been serious.  War, cruelty, slavery, vice, ignorance, brutality, are still scourging this human race.  But no candid observer can say that the religion of Christ has attacked these evils in vain.  And no Christian, convinced of the supernatural powers of his religion, can do other than bravely hope in the progress of enlightenment, the victory of righteousness, the reign of Christ.    

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Romans p. 438, Romans 15:13, (J. Radford Thomson)

 

Gold Nugget 292

The Brightest of All Hopes

 

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Gold Nugget 291 - What We Are

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      If god is pleased to spare a man so long as to reach the fullness of old age, that man really lives through nearly three generations; and yet it is only upon one of them that even he can exert an active influence. 

      The first generation moulds him, with its various educational forces.  The second generation he may distinctly impress with his own individuality; of it he may become one of the potent forces.  On the third he can only exert a passive influence; he is, for the most part, out of sympathy with it, and he presently finds that he had better step aside, and let the current of life and thought pass on.  No matter how long we may live, no one of us can influence more than just our one generation of thirty years or more. 

      Some men serve their generation by being before it, and giving expression in it to the thoughts and truths and sentiments which properly belong to the age that is yet to be.  Such men do a great work by anticipating the coming time and preventing the transitions and changes from becoming too abrupt..  Such men must accept the peril of being misunderstood, and called hard names until they die, and the new generation recognizes in them its heroes, forerunners, and apostles.

      Some men belong precisely to their own generation:  they are exactly adapted to it; they never get beyond it; they are born into its thought and feeling; they live in it, work for it, worthily express it, and pass away with it; usually leaving no name (but) only the good fruitage and the silent seeding of their good works.  These are the thousands of the unknown ones, but they are the “salt of the earth.”

      And some men seem to be always in the past generation.  Their thoughts and feelings all belong to times past and gone.  A queer, old-fashioned life they live amongst us, and their very talk sounds strange.  And yet these links we need, lest, in the pride of our present attainments, we should try to break the bonds of the holy and the good that have gone on before us.

      No generation dares forget the past out of which it has come.  But no generation can afford to keep only a downward and a backward look; it must lift up its head, peer away yonder, and hail the “good time coming.” … And exactly what we all may do, wherever our lot is cast, is this – keep the moral standard up, and raise the moral standard higher.  And this can only be done by lives, by examples, by personal character.  What we are may be the leavening fore of our generation in our sphere. …

      The man who faithfully serves his generation may be sure of this – his influence will never fade out, will never die.  And God will show one day how he helped on his kingdom of righteousness and peace. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts I p. 434, Acts 13:36, (R. Tuck)

Gold Nugget 291

What We Are

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Gold Nugget 290 - Finding God

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      Much has been made of the fact that some tribes of men have been found which had no name for God, and indeed no knowledge of him or concern to hear about him; but it may fairly be urged, from the utterly degraded condition of these tribes, that men have never lost their care for God until they have virtually lost their manhood.  Degraded to be like the beasts, they cease to have uplooking eyes and yearning hearts.  Humanity is knit in brotherhood by its great united cry for its Father. …

      Man can only find permanent rest in that which is true.  The false has no “staying power.”  It may seem to fit at one time, but life advances, new needs arise, new thoughts stir within, and the false theory will no longer serve, - the man finds himself looking out again, as anxiously as in the early days, and with the feeling that life is passing and the time for the quest is brief, for the truth and God wherein are final rest.

      Sooner or later a man wakes up from his sleep of delusion, feels the darkness all about him, and puts out his hand, feeling after God, if haply he may find him.  The unrest that surely comes to men within the world’s care and pleasure, within skeptical philosophies, and within merely ceremonial religions, is our constant plea for the preaching of the gospel and the revelation to men of God, in Christ manifest. …

      Finding God, and coming into personal relations with him, is the end of man’s quest.  Against God, and everything in life is hard and dark and wrong.  Apart from God, and all life and relations lie bathed in the lurid glow of stormy passion and self-will.  With God, and earth, life, duty, and fellowship catch the soft, sweet sunlight, and everything takes on its beauty and perfection. 

      If we have God we have all; and we have all in God, in the God whom St. Paul preached, of whose glory Jesus the Man is the express and blessed image.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts I p. 432, Acts 13:7, (R. Tuck)

 

Gold Nugget 290

Finding God

 

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Gold Nugget 289 - Two Judgments

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      The carnal judgment of men takes into account only the natural and the material; those who have the mind and judgment of Christ recognize the supernatural and spiritual agency of God. …

      He was in the world, in all the simplicity of his spotless righteousness, in all the dignity of his sinless humanity, in the majesty of the Son of God; the fullness of wisdom, of love, and of pure goodness beamed forth in his every word and work, but “he was despised and rejected of men.”  He was reviled as a blasphemer, as one that had a devil, as a gluttonous man and a winebibber, as a friend of sinners, as a seditious, turbulent man, as one that was not worthy to live.

      So he was brought before the judges of the earth, accused, arraigned as a criminal; smitten, buffeted, scourged, spit upon, condemned; led forth to execution, numbered with the transgressors, nailed to the cross, left to die amidst the jeers and taunts of his murderers.  And when Pilate himself offered to release him, the offer was met with the cry. “Not his man, but Barabbas;” and Barabbas was a robber.

      That was the judgment of man.  And have we not here a type of the frequent contrariety between the judgment of men and the judgment of God.  The things, the persons, the characters, that God approves, find no favour with a corrupt and perverse world; the things, the persons, the sentiments, that God disapproves, receive the praise of men. 

      The opinions of the day, the voice of the multitude, the prevailing tone of thought amongst men, are no safe criterion of worth and truth  We must ever remember that there are two judgments, the judgment of man and the judgment of God, and that these are often diverse the one from the other.

      It should be our constant prayer that God’s Holy Spirit may give us “a right judgment in all things;” so that, on the various questions of interest which engage the thoughts of our own generation, we may be found in harmony, not with the conceits of men, but with the all-seeing mind of God.

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts I p. 98, Acts 3:12-26, (A.C. Hervey)

Gold Nugget 289 

Two Judgments

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Gold Nugget 288 - A Worthy Conception

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      In one of those rapturous passages in which St. Paul tries to make human language express adequate thoughts of God, he speaks of God as “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think”.  In saying so he does but mark, in one aspect, the distance between the finite and the infinite, and show how far the bounty of the infinite Giver outruns the desires of those who receive his gifts.  The whole revelation of God’s dealings with mankind is a continual illustration of this truth. …

      A poor cripple, lame from his mother’s womb, had for upwards of forty years lived in hopeless and helpless infirmity.  In the merry days of youth, while his companions and equals in years were sporting and gambolling in all the freeness of joyous spirits and supple, elastic limbs, he was bound down to his pallet, like a bird confined in a cage, or a dog chained in his kennel.  In early manhood, while others went forth to their work and to their labour, earning their daily bread by honourable industry, he was reduced to be a mendicant, living in constrained inactivity upon the precarious bounty of others.  And so it was at the present time.

      Every day he was carried by some kind hands and laid at the Beautiful gate of the temple, in the hope that those who passed to and fro … would look with pity upon his misery and minister to his wants..  They must have been sad and dreary hours passed in expectancy and frequent disappointment, watching the countenances of the passers-by; overlooked by some, turned away from with proud contempt by others; sharply refused by this well-dressed but hard hearted Sadducee, and occasionally receiving a mite or a farthing from that ostentatious Pharisee; doubtful whether he would carry home enough to supply his daily meal and his necessary raiment.

      On this occasion he saw two men about to go into the temple.  Perhaps their aspect awakened the hope that they were kind, loving hearts beneath their humble garb.  Or, maybe, he merely uttered the usual monotonous prayer like that of the Italian beggars … Anyhow, we may be sure that his utmost hopes did not go beyond receiving some small coin at their hands.

      But when, in answer to the words from Peter’s lips, “look on us,” he had looked up and probably stretched out his hands to receive the expected alms, instead thereof he heard the words, “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.”  And in that instant he was whole.  No longer a cripple, no longer chained down to his bed, no longer a prisoner, he sprang to his feet, he walked, he leapt, he danced for very joy, and, singing praise as he went, he entered the holy courts.

      Here there was an instance of God doing unto men exceeding abundantly above all that they ask or think.  Here we have a type of the exceeding riches of God’s grace, resulting in unlooked-for mercies to the children of men.  Let us take note of it, and frame our estimate of God’s character accordingly.  Nothing more elevates the tone of a man’s religion than a worthy conception of God’s goodness.  It stimulates his love, it kindles his adoration, it raises his hopes, it intensifies all his spiritual emotions.

      Low conceptions of God’s nature beget a low standard of love and service.  There is nothing like a true view of the infinity of the love of God, and the unsearchable riches of his grace in Jesus Christ, to lash all the sluggish emotions of the heart into a holy and healthy enthusiasm.

      “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it,” is another mode of expressing the same blessed truth; and “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift,” in the language of those whose experience coincides with the revelation which God has given of himself in his holy Word.

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts I p. 96-97, Acts 3:1-11, (A. C. Hervey)

Gold Nugget 288

A Worthy Conception

Gold Nugger 287 - Bud of the Higher Being

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      Our spiritual being is built up on a natural basis.  Slowly the bud of the higher being unfolds from the plant of earthly root.  Through the home to the Church; by the love of mother and brother and sister, to the love of God and of all. …

      The end of our being is in the spiritual; this is its dignity, its reflection of the Divine.  It claims the first thought, other things being equal.  When friends stand in the way of duty, between us and the light of truth, we must be true to the higher self. 

      It may seem a stern rule, until we find that every low affection we renounced for the higher is given back to us bathed in a new glory. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Mark I p, `28, Mark 3:31-35, (E. Johnson)

Gold Nugget 287

Bud of the Higher Being

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Gold Nugget 286 - What Might Have Been

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      Among the saddest words ever spoken are those we utter concerning what might have been.  Lost opportunities; neglected duties, mischance that was within a hair-breadth of good fortune; misunderstandings that a little candour or patience would have prevented, voices we do not listen to, but whose echoes haunt us; the joy, wealth, success, love, happiness, within our grasp, if we had not let them slip; - what a weight of meaning, depth of sadness, these put into the words, “It might have been”!

      How many lives are wearing themselves out in the gloom of failure or disappointment! What countless multitudes have closed in sorrow and shame, whose whole course would have been different, if at some “parting of the ways,” perhaps in the early morning of life, they had not taken the wrong turn!

      A more awful depth of meaning and pathos belongs to the closing verse of this psalm.  God’s lamentation over man’s lost opportunities.  We speak of what might have been and has been; God speaks of what ought to have been on men’s part, and what surely would have been on his.

The Pulpit Commentary, Psalms II p. 169, Psalms 81:13, (E. R. Condor, W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 286

What Might Have Been

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Gold Nugget 285 - Synagogues of Satan

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      “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and [they] are not, but are the [a] synagogue of Satan.”  Though the “Jews” here described are fiendishly bad, they had their synagogue, their place of worship.  They perhaps attended to the forms of religion, read and expounded the Scriptures in their own way, but their religion was fiendish. …

      Satan has ever had much to do with religion.  Religion, not godliness, is at once his shrine and his instrument.  Religion has been and still is the greatest curse of the world; it is the nursery and the arena of every fiendish sentiment.  It was religion that put to death the Son of God himself.

      There are churches and conventicles that are rather the “synagogues of Satan” than the temples of Christ; in their assemblies there are fiends in human form, service, and voice.  They breathe the spirit of intolerant sectarianism and bigotry, and disseminate degrading and blasphemous views of the all-loving Maker and Manager of the universe.  The difference between what is called religion and Christliness is the difference between light and darkness – life and death.  Satan has ever had his synagogues. …

      A spurious religion has ever been the chiefest and bitterest fountain of persecution.  Inquisitions have been constructed, chains have been forged, tortures have been inflicted, and martyr-fires have been kindled by men of the synagogue. … Corrupt religion dries up the fountains of social sympathy in the human breast, dehumanizes human nature – turns man into a devil. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Revelation p. 98-99, Revelation 2:8-11, (D. Thomas)

Gold Nugget 285

Synagogues of Satan

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