Gold Nugget 234 - Satisfied With Slavery

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      The advocates of slavery used to contend – for lack of better argument – that those who were in bonds were contented with their condition.  As if this were not the very heaviest indictment against the cause they pleaded!  Surely the fact that slavery made men and women satisfied with degradation and dishouour was the most damaging impeachment which could be framed!  And it is the fact that so many thousands of those who were created for purity, wisdom, worship, righteousness, eternal life, are satisfied with the darkness and death of sin, - it is this which constitutes the most eloquent appeal to take them that enlightening truth which will awake them from their shameful apathy, inspire them with a manlier and nobler hope, and satisfy them with a treasure which cannot fade, with a joy that abides for ever, with a life which is eternal and Divine. 

      Unchristianized humanity stands ever before the eyes of a living Church and pleads with a powerful if not a passionate entreaty, “Come over and help us!”

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts II p.36-37, Acts 16:6-10, (W. Clarkson)

 

Gold Nugget 234

Satisfied With Slavery 

 

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Gold Nugget 233 - Shelter for Our Cowardice

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      Policy is consulted when conscience is absent.  It is dubious, and flies to compromises. … There is danger in all societies and committees of men for the conscience.  They are more timid than in isolation, and timidity is mean and treacherous to the noblest instincts of the heart.  Men will back one another up on doing things or refraining from doing things, when they would have been more true if left to themselves.  ‘Tis a moral trial in these respects to act with others.  Shelter for our cowardice, stimulus to our active passions, is found in the fellowship of close interest. …

      The mind cannot be chained; the spontaneous movements of the spirit cannot be checked by force … Force can only act within the laws of nature; it enters not the kingdom of spirit …

      Shall he obey god or man?  The tyrant must tremble when he hears the question put.  Physical necessity is on his side; moral necessity, revealed in the conscience, on the other.  The one says to the witness – You shall not; the other replies from his breast – I cannot but.  … The tyrant and his victim change places when it is seen that the latter has placed himself against the rock of eternal right. … He will not obey man rather than God.  He has one clear principle only – to obey the voice in his soul.  Immediate consequences form no element of calculation.  They may be favorable to him, as now in the physical sense, for the many may be for the moment on his side; or they may be fatal.  With eye far fixed on eternity, and ear attent upon the Divine voice, he goes forward … and is not afraid.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts p. 133-134, Acts 4:1-22, (E. Johnson)

 

Gold Nugget 233

Shelter for Our Cowardice

 

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Gold Nugget 232 - A Most Perilous Hour

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     When a human soul has continued for forty years in an evil habit or in a state of sin, it has become hardened in its way.  Conscious wrong-doing acts harmfully on every faculty of our nature.  It blinds “the eyes of the understanding.”  It hardens the heart.  It weakens and blunts the conscience so that its stroke is decreasingly effective.  It stiffens and fixes the will in its chosen course.  Thus it makes the man himself unapproachable, unimpressionable, incurable. …

      As soon as the parental hand is relaxed, as soon as the teacher’s eye is off them, as soon as the restraints of home and the guardianship of elders are removed, the young take their own course, follow their own bent, choose their own company.  We never know what men really are until we take away the bonds by which we hold them in check, and they go “whithersoever they will” – wither their own principles allow, and their own tastes direct them.

      It is of little use to hold the reins so tight that, as long as they are held by a firm hand, there can be no wandering.  What is to be the event when the reigns must be thrown up?  What will be the course chosen when they whom we guard are “let go”?  If we do nothing more and better than carefully imprison within walls of correct behaviour, we shall be bitterly disappointed with the result. 

      It is our wisdom and our duty to provide for the hour when those for whom we are responsible will be “let go,” and when they will assuredly go to their own company – will seek out those persons and those things with which they sympathize.  We can only do this by implanting right principles, and cultivating pure tastes.  These, and these only will lead the young, in the days when they act for themselves, to shun that which is wrong and to pursue that which is holy, wise, useful.

      Young people!  You will soon stand at the point where you will decide on your own course.  If, then, you are right at heart, you will walk in the path of life; choosing the company of the good, the ways of wisdom.  If, then, your heart is not right with God, you will be tempted to follow an evil bent.  It will be a most perilous hour with you.  To give way to the lower inclinations is to enter the road of ruin.  If you love life and hate death, go not wither you would, but where conviction tells you you should.  Hearken to the heavenly voice which says, “This is the way; walk ye in it.”

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts p. 131-132, Acts 4:22-23, (W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 232

A Most Perilous Hour

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Gold Nugget 231 - Fruits of a Disturbed Conscience

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      We may be sure that the crime of delivering Jesus to the Romans to be crucified had not been accomplished without many and sore rebukes of conscience.  They knew of Christ’s blameless life of active goodness and beneficence; they must have heard from many lips of his healing and his kindness to the sick and poor; they had heard his teaching themselves, or had heard of it from others, how wise, how instructive, how Divine it was.  And yet, in their envy and malice, they had given him over to death. 

      At least they hoped that no voice could come from the grave to rebuke them, and that their Victim was silenced for ever.  But now they were told that he whom they had slain was alive again; that he whom they had seen hanging on the cross was at he right hand of God; that he whose head had drooped helplessly in death was in possession of all power in heaven; that he had sent his Holy Spirit with extraordinary gifts to rest upon his disciples; that he healed and made alive; that the marvelous power which they saw in the poor fishermen of Galilee was his power; and that he would come again in glory to reign as the Lord’s Christ.

      Can we doubt that their slumbering conscience was aroused to a very troublesome activity, that guilt awakened fear and alarm, and that most unwelcome anticipations crowded upon their minds?  “Ye have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us,” was their angry expostulation and the expression of their fears.  Clearly, unless these fears brought them to repentance, they would rouse them to hatred and indignation.  They did the latter, and this persecution was the result.  And beyond a doubt this disturbed but not converted conscience lies at the bottom of much of the world’s hatred of the truth of Christ.

      Men have sense enough to know that if the word of God is true they are condemned.  The doctrines of the gospel are at variance with a heart full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin.  The same word which shows the grace and love of God shows the foulness and hatefulness of sin.

      Men who have settled down into a course of sin and willful ungodliness do not wish to be disturbed.  They wish to sin on in peace.  They have no thoughts of renouncing all their old ways of thinking and feeling and acting.  Whoever disturbs them, and breaks in upon their security, is an enemy.  The disturbing doctrines are hateful, and all the more so if reason or conscience sides with them.  And so anger and contempt and vengeance cry down the feeble voice of conscience and prompt the hand to violence and persecution.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Acts p. 127-128, Acts 4:1-31, (A. C. Hervey)

 

Gold Nugget 231 – Fruits of a Disturbed Conscience 

 

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Gold Nugget 230 - Peace: The Great Arbitrator

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      Earthly desire fights against heavenly aspiration, bodily appetite against spiritual hunger, selfish greed against generous love, wild passion against pure emotion. …

      Public claims conflict with private claims.  Future interest do not agree with temporary advantages.  We are drawn hither and thither by cross attractions, confused by a bable of contradictory voices, urged by the force of a tempest of impulses. …

      Our thoughts will not harmonize.  One idea clashes with another.  We hear no music of the spheres in the circling doubts of our troubled minds.  We need an umpire to help us to discover what are true among so many prophet-voices. …

      When we posses our souls in quietness we are able to see the right and the truly desirable as we never can while we are distracted by exciting influences. … Peace arbitrates between the passions.  Like a runaway horse who has taken the bit in his teeth and rushes on blindly to destruction, passion sees nothing, and the soul possessed by passion wrecks its highest interest.  We must be calm to know what feelings may be indulged and what must be curbed.

      Peace arbitrates between conflicting claims.  When all claimants shout together it is impossible to discover the rights of any.  There must be quiet in the court of justice.  There must be quiet in the soul, that a calm consideration of apparently opposed duties and interest may be made.

      Peace arbitrates between distracting thoughts.  While the storm rages the sea is turbid.  The waters must be calm if we are to look down to the pearls which may lie in their depths.  We must think quietly if we would think truly.

      It is vain simply to exhort the heart to beat more calmly.  The very effort to do so only increases the perturbation.  It would be cruel mockery for a man to say to one in distress and tumult, “Let peace arbitrate in your heart.”  You may as well command the wild waves of the sea to hush themselves to rest.

      Christ gives peace.  He who said, “Peace, be still!” to the waters and there was a great calm, speaks peace to the troubled soul:  “Come unto me, … and I will give you rest.”

      Christ gives his own peace.  The peace of Christ is that which dwells in him.  As he desireth that his joy might be in his disciples, so he also blessed them by leaving his own peace as a legacy when he departed.  “My peace I give unto you”. 

      Nothing is more wonderful, nothing is more beautiful, than the calmness of Jesus among the storms of human foes and diabolical temptations that beat upon him.  Like the steady beams of the lighthouse shining calmly over a wild waste of howling waters, Christ, the Light of the world, shone in quietness of soul over all storms and tumults.  Now he gives this his peace to his people. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Colossians p.207, Colossians 3:14, (W. F. Adeney)

See also:  John 14:27

Gold Nugget 230

Peace:  The Great Arbitrator

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Gold Nugget 229 - The Bane of Youth

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      “Fathers provoke not your children, that they be not discouraged.” … That is the coarse way of ruling. … That is not only to be condemned in itself, but it is especially to be condemned to those who should regard themselves as the representatives of Christ to their children. … The effects are, as might be expected, bad.  The children are discouraged.

      Youth is the time of hopefulness.  With the wakening of the powers hopes spring forth.  And parents have carefully to watch over the calling forth of the powers of their children.  It is all important that these be directed in a Christian way. 

      But children are easily discouraged.  They lose heart before the difficulties connected with following out useful and Christian aims.  And they need to have many words of encouragement spoken to them.  They need to be shown what they can do.  But to give them no encouragement, to treat them as though they were incapable of anything great, to heap reproaches on them, to punish them harshly, is to crush the life out of them.  The breaking of the spirit is said to be the bane of youth. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Colossians p. 189, Colossians 3:18, (R. Finlayson)

Gold Nugget 229

The Bane of Youth

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Gold Nugget 228 - The Embryo of Character

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      “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect.”

      What is the perfection?  No being is absolutely perfect but God; fallibility belongs to all rational creatureship.  The perfection consists in the ruling principle of action, and that is supreme sympathy with the supremely Good.  This is a thing perfect in itself; it can be strengthened, but is incapable of any modification.  The perfection is, therefore, that of the embryo of character. 

      The acorn is perfect as an acorn, not as an oak; the babe is perfect as a babe, not as a man; the dawn is perfect as a dawn, not as a noon.  There is incompletion in development, but completion in the rudimental element.  All Christians have this or they are not Christians. …          Hence Paul speaks of “pressing towards the mark,” of “walking by the same rule.”  The germinal principle is essentially growable. 

      All life struggles for advancement.  The acorn struggles to rise into majestic forest, infants into men, the unfledged eagle to soar into the heavens and to bask itself in sunny azure. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Philippians p. 145, Philippians 3:15-17, (D. Thomas)

Gold Nugget 228

They Embryo of Character

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Gold Nugget 227 - This One Thing

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      Indeed, dissatisfaction with present attainments is the spring of all advancement in everything in life.  Dissatisfied with huts, men build houses; with the loose skin of beast for their covering, they manufacture garments; with calligraphy, they invent the printing-press; with wagons, they construct steam-engines.  He who feels satisfied with what he has, whether it be material, mental, or spiritual, will never seek to lay hold of something yet unattained. …

      The Olympic racer did not look behind him on the course, but on to the goal until he reached and grasped the pole.  In soul-onwardness there must be a comparative obliviousness. … Of course there must be and ought to be remembrances of past mercies to inspire our gratitude, of past sins to humble us before God.  But attention to the past should be as nothing to that which we give to the future.  Let the past go:  it is irreparable and unavailing; the grand future must loom before us and absorb the soul.  Look not behind you.  Keep your eyes right onward upon the enchanting scenes that are spread out on the sunny heights. …

      The prize of the Grecian racer was a garland of olive, or laurel, or pine, or apple.  What is the moral prize?  Moral perfection.  To this all men are divinely called in Christ.  In the true moral race men are to reach forth, not after happiness as an end, but after holiness; not after Paradise, but after perfection.  This requires concentration.  There must be no half-heartedness, no divided faculties; it must be the one thing; the whole soul must be set upon it.

      The attainment of holiness must be the “one thing” in life.  Learning, literature, business, recreation, must be rendered subservient to this “one thing.” 

The Pulpit Commentary, Philippians p. 144-145, Philippians 3:12-14, (D. Thomas)

Gold Nugget 227

This One Thing

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Gold Nugget 226 - What Women!

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      Pagans were struck with the excellence of Christian women. … “What women these Christians have!” was the exclamation of some.  Christian women were wonderful missionaries in the early centuries by their devout, pure, and earnest lives; many was the pagan who, “without the Word, was won by the conversation of the wife.”  Such lives are doubly blessed – blessed in themselves, and blessed in their influence on the world. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Ephesians p. 215, Ephesians 4:22-33, (W. G. Blaikie)

Gold Nugget 226

What Women!

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Gold Nugget 225 - A Sympton of Intellectual Feebleness

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      There are babes in Christ among men who are old in years.  A religion of soft sentiment and imbecile intelligence, such as some would commend as a rebuke to our pride, would find no favour with St. Paul.  He was a man of robust intellect and vigorous energy.  The childlikeness of the Christian is far from the childishness of the sentimental religionist.  Many of the greatest heroes have had a singular childlikeness which has only enhanced the manliness of their lives. …

      Stability of belief;  the lack of personal convictions that is so common among us is a symptom of intellectual feebleness.  We do not want rigid dogmatism, but surely as our thinking and experience progress some truths should emerge out of the mist of doubt clear and certain, some ground should be securely won, though much must still be beyond our comprehension.

The Pulpit Commentary, Ephesians p. 204, Ephesians 4: 21, (W. F. Adeney)

Gold Nugget 225

A Symptom of Intellectual Feebleness

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