Gold Nugget 194 - The Luminous Life

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      Be thankful for the lights forming part of the physical creation.  There is sunlight even when there is not sunshine.  Be thankful for the higher lights of civilization.  Also the increasing light coming with every new discovery and invention.  Each new generation finds the world better to live in, in many respects.  Magnify what light you have outside of Christ; then you will better understand how small it is compared with what he has to give.

      For awhile we may not at all feel the need of Christ’s light.  But the world becomes gloomy and cheerless enough to many who once reckoned it constantly radiant with brightness.  The world very soon puzzles and perplexes those who are thoroughly in earnest.  Life is such a short and broken thing to many.  The longest life is like a candle; it burns and burns till it burns down to the socket, but it burns none the less; and then what is there left to show?

      God has noticed whatever darkness there may be in your heart.  “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all;” and he wants us to be the same – wants to lead us into the light of constant peace, joy, and purity. …

      The light that God sends is a life.  What power often dwells in a word – a true and fitting word, coming from the heart, giving just the information and encouragement needed!  But then the kindest and wisest human speakers cannot be always present.  And so God has a word for us in a life that can never pass away.

      Think of the power in his life; of the things he did, and did in such a way as to show he could do a great deal more.  Think of the goodness of his life – goodness whereby he did good, and goodness whereby he resisted temptation.  Think of the joy abounding in his life, even in the midst of straits and sufferings.  Think of the confidence he carried through everything, never doubting whence he had come or what he could do.  Think especially of the Resurrection and life in heaven.  It is from a world of life and light that this luminous life shines down upon us.

The Pulpit Commentary, John p. 74, John 1:4, (D. Young)

Gold Nugget 194

The Luminous Life

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Gold Nugget 192 - Remover of the Bound

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      Some “remove the bound” between church and state.  Both of these are Divine institutions – the one spiritual in its nature, and the other secular.  The spheres of the two are distinct; and each within its own sphere is independent of the other.  But how hard have men found it to let the landmarks between Church and state remain where God set them!

      In one country the Church invades the domain of the state, directing and controlling it – a usurpation which, in its fully developed form, is Vaticanism.  In another country the state encroaches upon the domain of the Church, and exercises rule in sacred things – which is Erastianism. …

      Some “remove the bound” between science and religion.  The conflict between the two is concerned very much about the landmarks of their respective provinces.  In old times it was the theologian who was generally the chief offender.  It was the Church that forced Galileo to abjure the sublime truths of his scientific creed, and that condemned the three laws of Kepler as heretical. 

      At present, however, the chief “remover of the bound” is the scientist.  The student of physical nature, unless he be decidedly a Christian, is prone to lack ability to appreciate moral evidence.  Thus some of our most eminent scientific investigators in these times would have us give up our faith in moral freedom, in personal immortality, and in the existence of God himself.  But the domain of physical science is one province of truth, while that of religion is another.

      Scientific questions are to be settled on scientific grounds, and by men who have had scientific training.  The theologian, on the other hand, must keep within his own frontier, and resolutely defend those moral facts and religious truths with which it belongs to him to deal.  It is his function to assert the reality of moral freedom, the supremacy of conscience, the intuition of immortality, and those deep experiences of guilt and soul-hunger to which only the gospel of Christ can respond.  A curse shall fall upon those who remove these landmarks.

The Pulpit Commentary, Hosea p. 149, Hosea 5:10, (C. Jerdan)

Gold Nugget 192

Remover of the Bound

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Gold Nugget 191 - Gorgeous and Plethoric Hierarchs

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     There is a class of ecclesiastics who live in palaces, fare sumptuously every day, and roll in chariots of opulence, who profess to be the chief ministers of him who made himself of no reputation, took upon himself the form of a servant, and who, when on earth, had nowhere to lay his head.  What is it that sustains these men, keeps up the huge imposture?  Simply the “sin of the people.”  Their credulity, their ignorance, their servility, their superstition.  Let these sins die out, and these gorgeous and plethoric hierarchs will have to doff their splendour, live on humble fare, and work as honest men or starve. 

The Pulpit Commentary, Hosea p.129, Hosea 4:8, (D. Thomas)

Gold Nugget 191

Gorgeous and Plethoric Hierarchs

 

Gold Nugget 190 - His Seal on Your Choice

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      Picture a young girl introduced to society, in whose gaieties she henceforth finds herself entangled.  Simple of heart as she is fair of face, she is insidiously injured by the unwholesome excitement, the late hours, the inane and profitless chit-chat of such an existence.  Too tired to pray, too flattered to conquer self, she forgets those solemn realities to which the present life is only a vestibule, until in the scales of Eternal Justice she is “weighed in the balances and found wanting.”  Slowly but surely her early sensibility decreases; and she whose heart was once easily touched, whose conscience was keenly sensitive, becomes the hardened, scheming woman of the world.  She is joined to idols:  let her alone. …

      The halls of entertainment in which the lust of the flesh and of the eye are pandered to are thronged nightly by lads whose incipient manliness becomes deteriorated.  There, and elsewhere, drink exercises a fatal influence.  Short of intoxication, the will is weakened, the memory obscured, the imagination so excited as to find pleasure where otherwise there would be none; and so the first step to ruin is often taken half consciously.  Little by little the power of drink asserts itself, till self-control is gone, and its victim cannot live without it; and so joined to idols is he that God says, “Let him alone.” …

      A minister preaches, and many under the influence of the truth are moved to thought and penitence.  One hears as others do, but, unlike them, is hard and callous.  Often has he said to himself, “I wish I could go to a place of worship without feeling uneasy;” and at last God says, “You shall.  Ministers, let him alone!”

      Friends spoke faithfully to another, urging him to prayer, pleading with him, even with tears … Sometimes he laughed at their anxiety, sometimes he was angry at their interference, heartily wishing that they would interfere with him no more.  Now they do not.  One friend has removed to a distance, the voice of another is stilled by death, and another has given up further effort in utter despair of success.  God has said, “Let him alone.”

      Solemn events once stirred to thought, but now their influence is gone.  The voice within which warned and entreated is sensibly weaker and less frequently heard.  To the conscience God has said, “Let him alone,” and now it is sleeping. …

      If the faint desire to return to God yet lingers, if the fear of being forsaken of God makes you tremble, the curse has not yet fallen.  The Lord, who is very pitiful and of tender mercy, still says, “Come now, and let us reason together,” …

      Two brothers crossing a pass, (are) overtaken by a snow-storm.  One longs to sleep.  He is dragged on for a time by physical force, is pleaded with earnestly, but at last is of necessity left.  He sinks to rest; the snow-flakes fall silently and swiftly, and in the depths he finds his grave, and sleeps the sleep of death.  You may say to all good influences, “Let me alone,” until God puts his seal on your choice, and says to all that might save you, “Let him alone.”

The Pulpit Commentary, Hosea p. 121-122, Hosea 4:17, (A. Rowland)

Gold Nugget 190

His Seal on Your Choice

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Gold Nugget 189 - Let Him Alone

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      A father has used all legitimate means to reclaim his profligate, prodigal, or rebellious son; and when all has proved in vain, he is forced to say, “I have done with him; … I will have nothing more to do with him; I will leave him to himself, and let him alone.”

      So God lets men alone when he gives them over to themselves, leaving them to their own devices, to their lusts, to their evil ways, to their doings that are not good.  “They would none of me,” saith God, “so I gave them up to their own counsels.”  The Spirit of the living God has striven with that man to turn him away from his injustice, or profanity, or drunkenness, or impurity, or hypocrisy; but he has resisted the Spirit, stifled the voice of conscience, and gone on his way of wickedness, till God, long-suffering though he be, and full of infinite loving-kindness, says at last, “My Spirit shall not always strive.  Let him that is filthy be filthy still; let him that is unjust be unjust still.”

      Consider the dreadful import of this brief sentence – “Let him alone.”  It is as if God said, “Let him alone – he is rushing on ruin; let no barrier interpose to stop him; let him take his own way.  Hitherto, and for long, he has been checked by the restraints of Providence; now let him alone.”  It is all very well when a man is at ease, in safety, or among his friends, to let him alone; but when he is rushing into the sweltering tide of ocean, or into the blazing fire of a widespread conflagration, or in among most deadly enemies, to let him alone is to consign him to destruction. …

      Beware of committing willful sin, lest God should say, “Let him alone.”  Dread of being thus let alone is a sure sign that God has not let us alone, and safe way of keeping us from being let alone.  May the good Lord preserve us from such a fearful fate!

The Pulpit Commentary, Hosea p. 114, Hosea 4:15-19, (J. J. Given)

Gold Nugget 189

Let Him Alone

Gold Nugget 188 - A Loftier State

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      They who sink self shall rise into the possession of a better nature and of a loftier state.  To live for others is heroic – god-like.  Real goodness thinks little about itself – is blind to its own virtues and charms.  It deems others’ merits superior to its own, others’ faults to be less.  Its eye is mainly fixed upon the true standard of excellence, and it strains every nerve to reach that.  So long as that is beyond, unattained, it mourns and grieves.

      The mark of true saints, in their present state, is not perfection, but consecration.  They are God’s devoted ones – “the sacramental host of his elect.”  Their characteristic mark is loyalty – growing holiness.  They are devoid of personal ambition.  If they have crowns thrust upon them, they will place them at once at the service of their Lord.  To acquire wisdom, righteousness, love, - this is their ambitious aim, even to be worthy friends of the King of grace.  In process of time they become “more than conquerors,” for they acquire a conquest which is permanent and irreversible – a conquest which serves as a vantage-ground for higher conquest yet.    

The Pulpit Commentary, Daniel p. 236, Daniel 7:15-28, (J. D. Davies)

Gold Nugget 188

A Loftier State

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Gold Nugget 182 - Suppositions of the Universe

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* The following “Pulpit” discourse may be better appreciated with these thoughts in mind: 

 

Christianity does not deny evolution within the universe - as to the changes of living things in accordance with their environment, good or bad, in which they live.  We have seen changes in men, the hue of their skin, their height and weight, and other physical, and even mental, characteristics that have evolved over the centuries because of environmental changes.  That physical characteristics of man and beast have changed, no reasonable person would deny.  We have evidences of all manner of changes within species of plant and animals that have occurred over the centuries.

 

 The evolution that is denied is:  that by evolutionary force, dead matter became living matter; that plant life evolved into animal life; or that animal life evolved into human life.  There is no non-disputable evidence that any of these things have ever occurred in nature or within the laboratory.  The theories are speculative, varied and many, and are ever changing and that is a good thing, not necessarily for the scientist of the present age, but for all men in the ages to come.

 

A curious fact in my own mind, as simple as it may be, has always been the fact that man, in all parts of the world, are, in essence, the same.  There are minor differences, but no degrees of evolutionary advancement within the human species.  Is this not a curious phenomenon?  What would be the evolutionary cause or explanation of why man has evolved so evenly throughout the ages, and over the entire surface of the world, at the same level given the variety of differing climates, topographies, circumstances and societies?  Why are there not lower and higher levels of human beings so far as the physical and mental dimensions?  Would it not make more sense, from an evolutionary standpoint, that this be the case?

 

 Or will we buy into the theory that after so many generations, every race of man has now reached the limit of human evolution?  This is a serious matter to contemplate for a trans-species evolutionist.  What species of life will man next evolve into now that we have all reached the human limit of evolution? Are we now on the evolutionary-edge of becoming a new species?  Has it already begun?  Are there now, within our very midst, “persons” who are actually between human and the next post-human species?  How would we tell?  What would the measurement be?  Could it be measured, and if not, why not? --- Perchance, were humans, at their inception, then and for all time, the highest order of being in the world?  What a radical proposal!

 

The Christian, with proper understanding of both spiritual and physical “science” may, perhaps, have a better “theory”.  That evolution is true, it is real, it is a fact.  But, we intuitively, and from a belief in the revelations from the Divine, have substantial reason to believe that not only is the spiritual world ordered according to the universal Mind and from the universal Energy, but that the physical universe, of which the earth is no more than a sub-particle of dust, was thus formed, ordered and established, and now operates according to the Eternal and fixed “laws” that now govern it.

 

As great a mind as even Einstein possessed could not fathom that the universe, so complex, so ordered and so magnificent, could be so without a “God” who would leave nothing to chance.  Although he did not believe in a God who was active in the daily affairs of man, he, nevertheless, could never achieve a belief in the God-less theories that are so prevalent among those who deem themselves too intelligent to believe in intelligent design and purpose of our universe.  An interesting and quixotic state of mind indeed!  Maybe Einstein was a dummy after all.                         --  (C. A. Hatcher)  

      

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      To suppose the universe nothing but a congeries of minute atoms, existing from all eternity, and moving as chance directs, combining accidentally into forms more or less permanent and after a while falling apart, ungoverned by any mind, without object, intention, or cause; and to suppose life, intelligence, thought, the accidental results of certain positions or combinations of the atoms; - is a theory so intrinsically absurd and ridiculous, that it might have seemed impossible for the wildest fancy to have conceived it, much more of any man of sane mind to have persuaded himself of its truth.

      Yet this theory, elaborated by Democritus and Leucipus about B.C. 430 – 400, embraced by Epicurus about B.C. 300 – 270, and recommended by the genius of Lucretius about B.C. 75, became the favourite creed of educated Greeks and Romans. … Among the adversaries which Christianity had to meet and subdue … Epicurian philosophy was one of the most formidable. …

      That God exist and nothing else; that he is “the One without a second;” that individual men are God, duplications of him, imagining themselves separate; that the material world is absolutely non-existent; and that all sights and sounds and actions are “illusions,” cheats, nonentities with a semblance of being; - this, which is the creed of the educated Hindoo, is another belief so contradictory to common sense, that it might have been supposed impossible of acceptance by any considerable number of men.  It is held, however, by thousands, who see no absurdity in it, and are convinced that it is the only rational theory of existence; and, so far as present appearances go, there seems to be no probability that either Christianity or modern science will succeed in shaking the belief, however absurd it may be and however mischievous. …

      The spontaneous origin of life from inorganic matter, the development of protoplasm from molecules, of vegetable life from protoplasm, of animal life from vegetable life, and of humanity from advanced animals, which, though a pure hypothesis, has been accepted almost universally by physicist in the present day, is intrinsically as absurd and unthinkable a theory as either Epicureanism or Hindoo pantheism.  But its absurdity is not seen by those who have been taught it from the time that they first turned their attention to physical science, who find it accepted by all their teachers, and assumed as a basis by every book that is put into their hands, who live as it were in an atmosphere saturated with evolutionism, and absorb it with every breath that they inhale.

      The time will probably come, perhaps after no great delay, when a reaction will set in, and the ability of unintelligent matter to improve itself and advance to perfection will be seen to be as absurd and as self-contradictory as the ability or images carved out of wood and stone to affect the course of events …

      Meanwhile, however, the existing false system is almost as impervious to argument and criticism as was the system of heathen idolatry.  It has possession of the field (the so-called scientific field), as that had on the general field of human society; it supports itself by a number of interconnected propositions, no one of which rests upon any sure basis; and it does not even perceive the force of the arguments which are brought against it.  This it may keep its hold upon for some considerable time, before it takes its final place as “a chapter in the history of human error.”       

 

Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah II p. 101-102, Isaiah 41:21-29, (G. Rawlinson)

 

Gold Nugget 182

Suppositions of the Universe

 

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Gold Nugget 187 - Nothing More Dreadful

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      There is a natural condition for plants, which they lose in their decay.  There is a natural condition for animals, which they lose in their death.  So there is a natural condition for rational beings, which they lose in what we call spiritual death.  And, as there is nothing higher in kind than spiritual life, so there is nothing more dreadful than spiritual death.

      It is not extinction, but it is a condition against nature, on the ground of an immortal existence.  It is not loving God with our whole soul and strength and mind, but living at enmity with him; and how wearing out to contend with the Maker!  It is not loving our neighbour as ourselves, but seeking our own selfish ends; and how narrowing is this to our souls!

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Ephesians p. 87, Ephesians 2:1-10, (R. Finlayson)

 

Gold Nugget 187

Nothing More Dreadful

 

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Gold Nugget 186 - A Wonderfully Different Book

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      The Bible is a wonderfully different book from anything the wisest of men could have imagined as a revelation of God.  Philosophers and men of genius, had they been consulted, would have agreed that it must be a book for the select few, not the multitude.  The notion of teaching peasants, slaves, children, the deep things of God, would have seemed to them folly.  But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”

      He has given us a book for the cottage, the schoolroom, the sick-chamber, as well as for the college, the palace, the cathedral.  A compilation of short books that look as though collected by chance, yet with wondrous living unity.  Depth is concealed by clearness; sublimity by simplicity.  Its deepest, highest lessons are given in words a child may understand.  No words are too homely, no similitudes too humble, if only they can point the arrow of truth, or wing it home to the heart.

      We read of God’s eye, ear, hand, face; his throne, footstool, sword; of his remembering, forgetting, being angry, grieved, repenting, being well-pleased.  A long unlovely name has been invented by learned men to express this setting forth of Divine things in human language, “anthropomorphism”.  It is used as though a reproach, indicating the ignorance and narrowness of the sacred writers. 

      Suppose the Bible had been a book to please philosophic critics, what would have been its value to mankind?  Suppose our heavenly Father had disdained to speak to us in our own language, how should we have learned that we are his children?  The aim of his Word, his message to men, is not to make us philosophers, but to bring us sinners home to God.  That teaching which best secures this end is worthiest of God.

The Pulpit Commentary, Psalms I p. 123, Psalms 18:35, (E. R. Conder, W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 186

A Wonderfully Different Book

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Gold Nugget 185 - Gentleness of the Immense Forces

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      Human life is like a flower, that can thrive only if fenced from storms and frosts.  We are in a world filled with forces which, if they broke loose, would be our destruction.  There is power sleeping in the winds and waves to wreck or drown all our navies; in earthquakes, to overthrow all our cities; in blight and insect ravages, to destroy our harvest.  Even the light snowflakes, if they fell for a fortnight twenty feed deep all over our land, would turn it into a desert of the dead.

      On the other hand, how gently those immense forces work which minister to life!  How smoothly earth flies in her yearly circle!  No eye, or ear, or sense of ours can make the vapour rising from the ocean to fill the springs and water the plains; the secret ministry of the world of plants of the life of the animal world – pouring forth from numberless millions of millions of invisible mouths vital air, and removing what otherwise would soon poison and stifle us; or the pulse of growth in bud and blade, leaf, flower, and fruit, in spring and summer, as the returning tide of life answers to the gentle sunshine. …

      How gently the great machine works!  How gently the sunbeam touches the eye, after its flight over ninety millions of miles in eight minutes!  How gently the force of gravity, that holds suns and worlds in their places, draws the child’s food to the ground and poises the gnat in the air! 

      True, nature has a stern side, by fixing our thoughts on which a gloomy view may be made out.  But take in the whole scope of natural law and Divine providence.  For one city overthrown by earthquake, how many have stood safe for ages!  For one shipwreck, how many prosperous voyages!  For a season of local scarcity, how many plenteous harvest!  For one home in mourning, how many bright with health and love! – how many happy years, perhaps, in that very home!

The Pulpit Commentary, Psalms I p. 122, Psalms 18:35, (E. R. Conder, W. Clarkson)

Gold Nugget 185

Gentleness of the Immense Forces

 

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