Gold Nugget 274 - Death Without Mourning

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      It is bad enough when a man’s death is only felt by a very few souls.  With the many opportunities we have of connecting ourselves honourably and attaching ourselves strongly to our fellows, we ought to be so much to our neighbours, that when we pass away there will be many to regret us and to speak with a kindly sorrow of our departure.  Poor and fruitless must that life have been when this is not so.

      It is seriously sad when a man’s death excites no regret; when “the mourners” do not mourn; when the only thing that is real about the funeral scene is the drapery of woe.  It is a pitiful thing when Christ’s minister cannot pray for Divine comfort, because, though there are those who are bereaved, there is none that is afflicted.

      It is a most melancholy thing when a man’s death is felt to be a positive relief; when, as he is borne to the grave, those who knew him cannot help being glad that one more root of mischief is plucked up, one more source of sorrow taken away.  That a man created to be a light, a refuge, a blessing, a brother, a deliverer, should be put away with  a feeling in every one’s heart of gladness that he will be seen no more, put out of sight with the sentiment that the sooner he is forgotten the better, - this is sad indeed. …

      The conclusion of the wise?  It is this: “Let me die the death of the righteous.”  But the disappointing career of the author of these words should be a solemn warning and a powerful incentive to form the firm resolution to live the life of the righteous, lest, … death should overtake us when we are in the ranks of the enemy. 

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Proverbs p. 230, Proverbs 11:7-10, (W. Clarkson)

 

Gold Nugget 274
Death Without Mourning

 

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Gold Nugget 273 - Trembling Hope

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      When the wicked dies, everything, except, indeed, the evil influences he has created and circulated, comes to a dreary end.  His expectation, his hope, perishes.  He can take nothing that he has toiled for into that other world which he is entering.  All his laborious exertion, his elaborate contrivances, his selfish schemes, his painful humiliations, come to nothing; they are buried in the grave.

      He may have a powerful and well-stored mind, but he has cherished no desire, has entertained no ambition which reaches beyond the horizon of mortal life, and with the stopping of his heartbeat, every imagination of his spirit perishes; there is an untimely and utter end of all his brightest hopes.  A sad and dismal outlook for a human spirit! 

      How great and how blessed the contrast of a good man!  His largest hopes are then on the point of being realized; his purest and brightest expectations are about to be fulfilled.  This earth is, more or less, the scene of disappointment; but in the country whose bourne he is about to cross, he will find himself where

                        “Trembling Hope shall realize

                          Her full felicity.”

The Pulpit Commentary, Proverbs p. 230, Proverbs 11:7-10, (W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 273

Trembling Hope

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Gold Nugget 272 - Desperate Remedies

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      If the force on the side of authority is overwhelming, if the national spirit opposed to it is weak and faint, if there is no reasonable hope that resistance may be effectual and save the nation from the evils suffered and apprehended, then, whatever their reluctance, though it be “pain and grief to them,” patriots are bound to restrain themselves and to remain quiescent.  As Plato says, they must shelter themselves under a wall while the storm rages; they must be content to keep themselves pure, as the seven thousand, who had not bowed the knee to Baal, did in Ahab’s reign; they must wait for better days.

      If, however, there be a fair chance of success, if it be reasonable to hope that the yoke which is doing deadly hurt to the nation may be thrown off, then no considerations of their own convenience or ease, no fear of blame, no shrinking from disturbance, or even bloodshed, should deter patriotic souls from initiating the struggle by which alone their country can be saved.  Desperate diseases require desperate remedies.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, II Kings p.198, II Kings 9:11-24, (G. Rawlingson)

 

Gold Nugget 272

Desperate Remedies

 

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Gold Nugget 271 - To Remain Unsettled?

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      It is thought that inspires affection, moulds character, guides the will, determines conduct, rules the man.  We cannot well exaggerate the importance of the relation thought bears to the highest interest of our being.  But how are these “thoughts” of ours determined?

      Every man’s religious ideas and beliefs, say some, are determined for him by a thousand influences over which he has no control – by early education, by the books that fall in his way, by human associations, native temperament, conformation of brain … There is a measure of truth in this that we dare not ignore.  These things have a great deal to do with the matter, and the fact should modify our judgment of the mental position of others in relation to religious truth, and teach us to watch carefully the bearing on ourselves of such influences.

      Many of us owe our Christian beliefs far more than we imagine to the force of favouring circumstances.  We may well thank God that it is so; for we mourn to think how many things there are that tend to distort the truth and hide it from man’s eyes, so we rejoice that there should be so many channels through which the Light of Life may find its way into the soul.

      But however this may be, God holds every one of us under the obligation to think for himself, judge for himself, believe for himself; to use with uprightness of spirit all the means within his reach for the formation of right opinions, to welcome and follow the light that shines from heaven upon his way.. …

      Have you true religious ideas and convictions?  Translate your thinking into life. … It is in every respect unreasonable, unmanly, and infinitely perilous to allow the question of your religious position to remain unsettled. 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Kings p. 451, I Kings 18:21, (J. Waite)

Gold Nugget 271

To Remain Unsettled?

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Gold Nugget 270 - Beyond Human Power

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      Coleridge has somewhere said that there are two classes of Christian evidences – Christianity and Christendom; the system in itself, its pure morality, its beneficent teachings, and its results, its conquests, and achievements in the world.  For it is altogether beyond the power of human nature to work the moral changes which Christianity has wrought either to convert men or to preserve them from falling.

      That a man who is notorious in his neighbourhood, the talk and terror of the countryside, a chartered libertine, an ame damnee, or even like St. Paul, a persecutor and injurious; or like Augustine, or John Newton; that such an one should be suddenly stopped, transformed, ennobled, should preach the faith which he once persecuted – this is very difficult to account for on human grounds.

      And that men, with every temptation to sin, everything to lose and nothing to gain by godliness, worldly interest, pride, passion, shame, everything combining against religion – that these should, nevertheless, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, live soberly, righteously, and godly in the Sodom around them – this is no less a miracle of Divine grace.

      The influences that preserved an Obadiah, a St. Paul, a Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia must have been from above.  We know only too well what human nature, unassisted by grace, is capable of.  We know it tends inevitably, not to bear a rich crop of virtues, but, like the cereals, to degenerate, to run to seed.  In Socrates and Seneca – “half-inspired heathens” – we see it at its best, and yet how wide the gulf between Nero’s preceptor and the saints of Nero’s household.  When we see our nature, planted in a hotbed of grossness and profligacy, nevertheless yield the “peaceable fruits of righteousness,” then we know that the hand of the great Husbandman must, if silently and unseen, yet assuredly, have been at work. …

      Society, both in England and on the continent of Europe, may be very godless; it may be changing for the worse; we may be preparing for an outbreak of Communism, Nihilism, Materialism, Atheism; the masses in our large towns may be very brutal and besotted and animal, may be utterly estranged from religion in every shape; but, whatever England is like, and whatever Europe is like, its state is nothing like so desperate as was that of Rome Under Nero. …

      And if the days of persecution are not ended; if in China, and Melanesia, and Turkey the sword is still whetted against the Christian, can we find among them all a more truculent persecutor than Jezebel, are more savage and unprincipled inquisitor than Tigellinus.  But we cannot pretend that our sufferings are anything like theirs. 

      No longer are the prophets hunted like partridges; no longer are they clad in the skins of wild beast, or dipped into cauldrons of pitch, no longer do we hear the sanguinary cry, Christianos ad leones.  And yet, despite those terrible mockings and scourgings, those agonies in the amphitheatre, those privations in the caves, religion, in Samaria and in Rome alike, held its ground. … In Italy, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church; neither Nero, nor Decius, nor Diocletian could hinder the onward march of Christ’s baptized host, and now it is a matter of history how one day the empire woke up to find itself Christian. …

      How constantly do men plead the adverse circumstances in which they are placed as a reason why they cannot serve God.  Sometimes it is a godless street or wicked hamlet; sometimes it is an irreligious household or infidel workshop; or their trade is such, their employers or associates are such, that they cannot live a godly life.  But the example of Obadiah, the example of those saints of the Praetorium, convicts them of untruth and cowardice.  They cannot have greater temptations or fiercer persecutions than befell those Roman Christians.  If they proved steadfast, and lived in sweetness and purity, which of us cannot do the same wherever we may be placed? …

      In a wicked city, in an impure court, through fire and blood, they kept the faith. … Yet how many dishonour or deny it!  How many are ashamed of their religion!  With what shame will they meet the brave confessors of the past!  They will need no condemnation from their Judge. 

The Pulpit Commentary, I Kings p. 432-433, I Kings 18:3-4, (J. Hammond)

See also:  Titus 2:12, 2 Timothy 4:21, Matthew 12:41, John 5:45

Gold Nugget 270

Beyond Human Power

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Gold Nugget 269 - One Life Only

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      Job conceives of life as even more transient than the weaver’s shuttle.  It does not only pass swiftly away; it melts into nothingness, and ceases to be like the cloud that evaporates in the heat of the rising sun.  The journey to the grave knows no return. …

      We can never overtake the days that we have let slip by us in heedless idleness.  A wasted youth is an irretrievable disaster; manhood cannot possibly go back and make up for the deficiencies of youth.  At best we can but do the duties of to-day; it will be foolish to neglect these in attempting to pick up those of yesterday.  A misused opportunity will never return.  The memories of a happy and long-lost pas may dwell with us as sweetest dreams, but they can never bring back the days of old.  Joy, sorrows, busy scenes, quiet scenes, - all have melted away like the mountains and palaces of cloudland. …

      The pagan doctrine of metempsychosis finds no support in Scripture.  We live but once on earth.  Let us, then, make the best of this one earthly life; it is the only one we have.  We might think we could afford to squander it a little recklessly if we had a dozen more lives to fall back upon.  But we have no reserves.  All our forces are in the field.  We must win the battle at this once.  Let us use them in the highest possible service, that our one life may be a good life.  Our dear ones are with us for one life only.  Let us be patient with them and kind to them.  When we have lost them we can never have them back to atone for our ungenerous treatment of them. …

      We now know that death does not end all.  But it ends the sowing-time.  After death there is the harvest.  What is sown in the present life must be reaped in the great coming age.  If this life is misspent, it will go for ever, and we shall have no opportunity to come back to the world and make a better preparation for the great day of reckoning. …

      We shall not rise on earth.  But we can look forward to a resurrection-life in heaven, when we shall meet those long-lost but never-forgotten friends who have gone on before us.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Job p.136, Job 7:9-10, (W. F. Adeney)

 

Gold Nugget 269

One Life Only

 

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Gold Nugget 268 - A Jewel of Rarest Worth

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      Diversities of condition among men – the millionaire and the pauper, the autocrat and the slave.  The cry for a leveling – communism, socialism, nihilism.  So other differences – of station, of education, and even of natural gifts.  But, after all, what are these differences in comparison with that which is common to all – the royal humanity which each one has received from God? 

      For take the highest, the most cultured, the best endowed, and again a poor peasant man or woman, and let some crisis of joy or of sorrow sound the depths of their common nature, and how utterly do the surface differences disappear in the presence of the deep stirrings of the common manhood or womanhood.  Yes, when the great deeps are broken up, we take little account of the surface waves..  This, then, the great truth, in presence of which all bickerings amongst men might disappear. …

      A man’s manhood is more than everything.  But this is only true in all its truth when manhood becomes really manhood.  What are we now?  The wreck of a splendid ship; the ruins of a glorious temple, discrowned kings.   Oh, let our manhood be re-made, let the crown of true royalty be placed on the brow, let Christ dwell in our hearts by faith, and then how little and paltry will seem either the possession or lack of the things which in their folly men call great! …

      To Christianity belongs the unique glory of having recognized the worth of man as a man, whether with or without the extraneous advantages on which other systems have laid such stress.  How we it cultivated in heathendom?  The foreigner was a “barbarian,” forsooth; and the slave?  In some cases worse than the brute beast!  Judaism, too, had become exclusive – nay, worse than exclusive, proudly bigoted – in its relation to other people; and even amongst the Jews themselves there was the same contemptible pride.  But it remained for Christianity to show that, however bemired and befouled, a human soul is a jewel of the rarest worth. …

      Mans range of swift-winged thought, man’s wealth of tender affection, man’s intrepidity of heroic purpose; man’s discernment of the eternal law of holiness, and power of freely choosing the good which he discerns; and man’s immortality; - all these are flashes from the very life of God himself, communicated to man, and constituting man by native right God’s child.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, James p. 23-24, James 1:9-11, (T. F. Lockyer)

 

Gold Nugget 268

A Jewel of Rarest Worth

 

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Gold Nugget 267 - A Sunken Vessel

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      We are familiar with scenes of shipwreck; the stories read in childhood and the stern facts of later years bring them vividly before our minds.  We see the gallant vessel, well rigged and fitted from stem to stern, sailing forth on her mission of transport or merchandise, moving along under favourable breezes, seeming likely to make the port where she is due; we see her overtaken by the storm admitting the water which gains hour by hour upon her, sinking lower and lower, finally going down beneath the waves.

      But sad as this story is, there is a far more profound and pathetic sadness in the history, only too often to be told, of the shipwreck of a human soul.  Bravely setting forth on the voyagee of life, hopefully speeding on its course with helpful influences, promising to make its port on the other strand, we see it overtaken by the storm of some mastering temptation or falling into the irr3estible current of some adverse spiritual force, and it makes melancholy shipwreck; instead of reaching its Fair Have, it goes down into the waters of destruction. … 

      They start on the voyage of life with that one chart in hand which alone can take them safely to their journey’s end … Then they come into contact with fascinating but unbelieving companions; or they meet with a number of specious but shallow objections; or they  look, with foolish and cruel persistency, on the one side of the difficulties, neglecting to pay proportionate attention to the arguments on the other side; and the end is that the vessel of their faith breaks up and at length goes down.

      Trained in godly homes, our youths and maidens acquire habits of moral excellency, they enter active life, honest, pure, sober, reverent, prudent.  But they encounter those hurtful and deadly influences, which after a while, if not at the first attack, lead them down to dishonesty, to impurity, to intemperance, to profanity …  Usually they “make shipwreck of a good conscience,’ as the vessel is drawn upon the relentless rocks when it is caught in the strong current from which it cannot escape..  Slowly, going further and further in the wrong direction, by every movement getting more at the mercy of the foe, the vessel drifts to destruction. …

      By how much the spiritual is greater than the material and the destinies of a human soul larger and longer than the fortune of a piece of human handiwork, by so much is the wreck of a soul more pitiful thing than the loss of the noblest bark that ever foundered on the ocean. …

      Sometimes, but very seldom, a sunken vessel is raised, virtue, piety, is raised up from the deep, and sails again on its voyage, and attains it port.  Let none presume; let none despair.

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts II p. 307-308, Acts 27:41, (W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 267

A Sunken Vessel

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Gold Nugget 266 - The Exquisite Power of Music

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      Music furnishes one of the most exquisite, elevating, unwearying pleasures of which our nature is capable.  But it does much more. 

      Song and music are a language distinct from speech – the language of feeling.  This language supplies the means by which multitudes may express their thoughts as well as their feelings as with one voice.  Let a thousand people speak at once; all thought and feeling are drowned in hubbub.  But let them sing together in perfect time and tune; both thought and feeling are raised to a pitch of energy else inconceivable.

The Pulpit Commentary, Psalms Volume 1 p. 366, Psalms 47:6-7, (E. R. Conder, W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 266

The Exquisite Power of Music

Gold Nugget 265 - Life's Binding Thread

 

      Memory is the thread which binds life together.  A failing memory is one of the saddest infirmities of old age.  Yet there is often this compensation – that the long-distant past is well remembered.  The old man forgets what weather it was yesterday, but the sunny birthdays and snowy Christmas Days of childhood live in his memory.  The old house, the old faces and voices, the old joys and sorrows, the lessons that sunk into his heart in childhood are with him still.

      Suppose the reverse possible – that one had a clear memory of even the least occurrences of the last few weeks or months, but no memory of things long ago; no associations clinging, binding him to old scenes, old friends; not so much as an old prejudice; - what a shallow, mechanical, uninteresting life this would be!

      There are common memories as well as individual; household words, family traditions, public and national history, sacred heritages of former generations.  One of the most precious possessions of mankind is the knowledge and remembrance of the past.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Psalms I Volume I p. 344, Psalms 44:1, (E. R. Conder, W. Clarkson)

 

Gold Nugget 265

Life's Binding Thread

 

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