Using the Rod for Conversion!

William Grimshaw was pastor in Haworth, England in the mid-18th century. There was a great revival under his pastorate. Many amazing conversions took place. A woman refused to go to church with her converted husband. One day this man forcefully dressed her in her Sunday best and he took a rod and he drove her the 6 miles to Haworth to church. She said "as men drive a beast to market and I went, cursing Grimshaw all the way." She was converted, and returned the next week going of her own accord. Grimshaw soon came to their farmhouse and returned regularly to preach.

Spurgeon on Philippians 3:21

Often when we are racked with pain and unable to think or worship, we feel that this indeed is “the body of our humiliation.” And when we are tempted by the passions which rise from the flesh, we do not think the word “vile” at all too vigorous a translation. Our bodies humble us, and that is about the best thing they do for us. Oh, that we were duly lowly, because our bodies ally us with animals, and even link us with the dust!
But our Savior, the Lord Jesus, shall change all this. We shall be fashioned like His own body of glory. This will take place in all who believe in Jesus. By faith their souls have been transformed, and their bodies will undergo such a renewal as shall fit them for their regenerated spirits. How soon this grand transformation will happen we cannot tell, but the thought of it should help us to bear the trials of today and all the woes of the flesh. In a little while we shall be as Jesus now is—no more aching brows, no more swollen limbs, no more dim eyes, no more fainting hearts. The old man shall be no more a bundle of infirmities, nor the sick man a mass of agony. “Like unto his glorious body.” What an expression! Even our flesh shall rest in hope of such a resurrection!

Flavel on Justification

How dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God! Jesus Christ will never endure this; it reflects upon His work dishonorably. He will be all, or none, in our justification. If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions? And if not, to what purpose are they? Can we finish that which Christ Himself could not complete? Did He finish the work, and will He ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no; Christ is no half-Savior.
It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ for righteousness. God humbles the proud by calling sinners wholly from their own righteousness to Christ for their justification.
- John Flavel

Flavel

It is easier to cry against one-thousand sins of others than to kill one of your own.

John Flavel

Three Christmas Hymns

This week we are singing three Christmas hymns that aren’t as familiar to 21st century American ears, but are rich in beauty & theological depth. See, amid the Winter’s Snow was written by Edward Caswall in 1851. Caswall was an Anglican convert to Catholicism who is much more famous in Catholic circles as a translator of Latin texts. However, we often sing two of his famous translations: When Morning Gilds the Skies (167) and Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee (645). Note how Caswall’s text focuses on the humiliation of Christ: “Lo, within a manger lies he who build the starry skies” and “… thus to come from highest bliss down to such a world as this.” His final verse and chorus calls us (as does our recent study in Philippians) to imitate Christ is his humility (“teach us to resemble thee, in thy sweet humility”) and to proclaim the good news of his birth through the world.

Twentieth century missionary Frank Houghton (1894 – 1972) spent his entire career working to advance the kingdom in China. He wrote Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Spendor in 1934, a particularly difficult time for the China Inland Mission (founded by Hudson Taylor). While visiting churches there, he contemplated 2 Cor. 8:9, “Christ … was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor” and later wrote this contemplative Christmas hymn. Note the stark contrast between Christ’s rightful glory and his willing humiliation for our sake: “thrones for a manger didst surrender”, “sapphire paved courts for stable floor”, and “stooping so low, but sinners raising heavenward by thine eternal plan.”

As with Gladness Men of Old by William Chatterton Dix is a poetic call to imitate the shepherds pursuit and proclamation of Christ. Unlike many hymn writers, Dix was not a clergyman. He sold insurance for his entire career, but he inherited a love of poetry from his surgeon father who wrote a biography of the poet Thomas Chatterton (the source of William’s middle name.) Dix wrote more than 40 hymns , including What Child Is This (213) and Come unto Me, Ye Weary (462) which are included in our hymnal. Verses 1-3 encourage us to pursue Jesus in this life (“As with joyful steps they sped to that lowly cradle bed … so may we with willing feet ever seek thy mercy seat”) while the final two verses point us to heaven where we will find rest in him and “there forever may we sing alleluias to our king.”

Kenneth Jackson

Edwards as a Young Christian

Jonathan Edwards talks about his early life as a Christian:

"I had vehement longings of soul after God and Christ, and after more holiness, wherewith my heart seemed to be full, and ready to break . . . I spent most of my time thinking of divine things, year after year; often walking alone in the woods, and solitary places, for meditation, soliloquy, and prayer, and converse with God; and it was always my manner, at such times, to sing forth my contemplations. I was almost constantly in ejaculatory prayer, wherever I was. Prayer seemed to be natural to me, as the breath by which the inward burnings of my heart had vent."

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley was born this day in 1707. He never wrote words more appropriate to the season than the following:

Hark the herald angels sing, "Glory to the new-born king." Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!

A. W. Pink (1886-1952)

Toward the end of 1932, A. W. Pink wrote the following in his Annual Letter:

"For another year the eidtor and his wife have been spared a single day's sickness. What mercy this is! Though the editor spends at least twelve hours everyday in his study, engaged in heavy mental work, yet this close confinement, year after year, has not impaired his health to the slightest degree. Though he has now read the Bible through over fifty times, and upwards of one million pages of theological literature, he has no glasses, and reads the finest print as comfortably as he did twenty-five years ago. Though the editor's wife does all her own housework, making of bread and her own clothes, looks after a garden, and has canned and preserved, jellied and pickled between two hundred and fifty and three hundred pints of fruit and vegetables; and though she does all the typing and addressing of envelopes for this magazine, yet, in spite of a frail body, God has graciously sustained and granted all needed strength." Working hard for the kingdom!

Simeon and Wesley

Following is a story related by Charles Simeon. It is of a conversation between himself, a Calvinist, and John Wesley, an Arminian.

"Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?"

"Yes, I do indeed."

"And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?"

"Yes, solely through Christ."

"But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?"

"No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last."

"Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?"

"No."

"What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother's arms?"

"Yes, altogether."

"And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?"

"Yes, I have no hope but in Him."

"Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree." (Moule, 79f)

O Little Town of Bethleham

Hymn Notes: “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

It was the sight of Bethlehem itself, one feels very sure, that gave Phillips Brooks the impulse to write this hymn. He was then rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, in Philadelphia, and had spent a year’s vacation traveling in Europe and the East. “After an early dinner, we took our horses and rode to Bethlehem,” so he wrote home in Christmas week of 1865. “It was only about two hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better built than any other we have seen in Palestine. . . . Before dark, we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been. . . . As we passed, the shepherds were still “keeping watch over their flocks or leading them home to fold.” Mr. Brooks returned in September, 1866, and it must have been while meditating at home over what he had seen that the carol took shape in his mind. The late Dr. Arthur Brooks assured the writer that it was not written until 1868.

Louis Benson

Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley says the following in a poem titled Ozymandias:

"And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

The king Ozymandias is declaring that all that remains of his kingdom is this pedestal that is decaying in the sand. And, indeed, that is what remains of the kingdoms of this world. But the church remains forever . . . it is a lasting kingdom!

Worship of Early Christians

Justin Martyr in his Apology written c. 150 A.D. describes a worship service that took place in a home in the early years of the church in the following way:

"On the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a city or a rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long at time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things. Next we all rise together and send up prayers. And, as I said before, when we cease from our prayer, bread is presented and wine and water. The president in the same manner sends up prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability, and the people sing out their assent saying the 'Amen.' A distribution and participation of the elements for which thanks have been given is made to each person, and to those who are not present it is sent by the deacons. Those who have means and are willing, each according to his own choice, gives what he wills, and what is collected is deposited with the president. He provides for the orphans and widows, those who are in want on account of sickness or some other case, those who are in bonds and strangers who are sojourning, and in a word he becomes the protector of all who are in need."

Christ's Victory

So be it, Lord! Thy throne shall never,
Like Earth's proud empires pass away;
Thy Kingdom stands, and grows for ever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

Faithfulness of God

In 1662 Richard Baxter was thrown out of his pulpit and church under the Act of Uniformity. This was the "Great Ejectment" when thousands of Puritans were tossed out of their pulpits because they would not agree to the demands of the Church of England. Baxter's response was simple: "Never did God break His promise to me. Never did He fail me or forsake me. The sun may cease to shine on man, and the earth to bear us, but God will never cease to be faithful to His promise." Baxter's confidence was never shaken in the midst of such darkness.

M'Cheyne

If you get the opportunity you ought to read Andrew Bonar's Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. As Charles Spurgeon said, "Read McCheyne's Memoirs . . . it is the story of the life of a man who walked with God."