From Whitefield's Journal

Evesham, April 8. Several persons came to see me, amongst whom was Mr. Benjamin Seward, whom God has been pleased to call by his free grace very lately. It pleased God to cast him down, by eight days sickness; in which time, he scarce ever ate, or drank, or slept, and underwent great inward agonies and tortures. After this, God sent a poor travelling woman, that came to sell straw toys, to instruct him in the nature of our second birth, and now he is resolved to prepare for holy orders, and to preach Christ and those truths which once he endeavored to destroy. He is a gentleman of a very large fortune, which has has now devoted to God. Blessed be God, that although not many rich, not many mighty, not many noble are called, yet some are.

A poor seller of straw toys is the means God uses to bring a rich man to faith!

M'Cheyne on 1 John 1:1-4

"Learn the true way of coming to peace.-It is by looking to manifested Jesus. Some of you think you will come to peace by looking in to your own heart. Your eye is riveted there. You watch every change there. If you could only see a glimpse of light there, oh, what joy it would give you! If you could only see a melting of your stony heart, if you could only see your heart turning to God, if you could only see a glimpse of the image of Jesus in your heart, you would be at peace; but you cannot,-all is dark within. Oh, dear souls, it is not there you will find peace! You must avert the eye from your bosom altogether. You must look to a declared Christ. Spread out the record of God concerning His Son. The Gospels are the narrative of the heart of Jesus. Spread them out before the eye of your mind, till they fill your eye. Cry for the Spirit to breathe over the page, to make a manifested Christ stand out plainly before you; and the moment that you are willing to believe all that is there spoken concerning Jesus, that moment you will wipe away your tears, and change your sighs for a new song of praise"~Robert Murray M'Cheyne from sermon on 1 John 1:1-4

The Example of Mrs. Talbot

In the 18th century, the godly curate of St. Giles church in Reading, a Rev. Talbot, died. He was to be replaced by a godless man, W. B. Cadogan, who was Oxford educated and had obtained many literary honors. "Mr. Cadogan's views of religion were entirely different from those of his predecessor; and the people heard of his appointment with grief . . . Many left the church. Mrs. Talbot, however, considered it her duty to remain, hoping for a better state of things, and that she might encourage and help forward those to whom her husband's labours had been blessed. She opened her house for religious services, and invited clergymen like-minded with herself to conduct them. At the same time prayer was continually offered up under her roof for Mr. Cadogan's conversion. By all this he was greatly offended. Letters passed full of remonstrance and even reproach on Mr. Cadogan's part, but which Mrs. Talbot's letters answered with meekness and wisdom. Mr. Cadogan was overcome, and ever afterwards confessed that Mrs. Talbot's letters and example were the principal means of leading him to the saving knowledge of Christ." Then he preached the truths of Jesus, those truths that he had so strenuously opposed. Multitudes began to flock to hear him preach the gospel.

Grimaldi

I came across the story of a young man who came to a famous doctor in Paris complaining about depression, lack of peace, and no happiness. The doctor thought of another young man named Grimaldi who was living a life of carousing in the night-life of Paris. The doctor said to the patient, "Introduce yourself to Grimaldi. Let him show you how to enjoy yourself and your will get well." The downcast young patient looked up with a sardonic smile and said to the doctor, "I am Grimaldi."

Two Quotes from Spurgeon

Here are two quotes from Charles Spurgeon used in yesterday's sermon:

"A short life should be wisely spent. We have not enough time at our disposal to justify us in misspending a single quarter of an hour. Neither are we sure of enough life to justify us in procrastinating for a moment."

"Thy presence alone can reconcile us to this transient existence."

Solitude

Spurgeon writes the following on the early church father Jerome:

"That was a grand action by Jerome, one of the Roman fathers. He laid aside all pressing engagements and went fulfill the call God gave him, viz., to translate the Holy Scriptures. His congregations were larger than many preachers of today, but he said to his people, 'Now it is necessary that the Scriptures be translated; you must find another minister: I am bound for the wilderness and shall not return until my task is finished.' Away he went and labored and prayed until he produced the Latin Vulgate, which will last as long as the world stands. So we must say to our friends, 'I must go away and have time for prayer and solitude.' And though we did not write Latin Vulgates, yet our work will be immortal: Glory to God."

Ryle on Christian Labor

"Take, for an illustration of this, two English emigrants, and suppose them set down side by side in Australia or New Zealand. Give each of them a piece of land to clear and cultivate. Secure that land to them by every needful legal instrument, let it be conveyed as freehold to them and their for ever, let the conveyance be publicly registered, and the property made sure to them by every deed and security that man's ingenuity can devise. Suppose, then, that one of them shall set to work to bring his land into cultivation, and labour at it day after day without intermission or cessation. Suppose, in the meanwhile, that the other shall be continually leaving his work, and repeatedly going to the public registry to ask whether the land really is his own -- whether there is not some mistake -- whether after all there is not some flaw in the legal instruments which conveyed it to him. The one shall never doubt his title, but just diligently work on; the other shall never feel sure of this title, and spend half his time in going to Sydney or Auckland with needless inquiries about it. Which, now, of these two men will have made most progress in a year's time? Who will have done the most for his land, got the greatest breadth under tillage, have the best crops to show? You all know as well as I do -- I need not supply an answer. There can be only one reply.

Brethren, so will it be in the matter of our title to 'mansions in the skies.' None will do so much for the Lord who bought them as the believer who sees that title clearly." J.C. Ryle

Newton: "I am what I am"

John Newton once preached in Reading on 1 Corinthians 15:10, "By the grace of God I am what I am." The outline of that sermon is as follows: "1. I am not what I ought to be. Ah! how imperfect and deficient. 2. Not what I might be, considering my privileges and opportunities. 3. Not what I wish to be. God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him. 4. I am not what I hope to be; ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as He is. 5. Not what I once was, a child of sin, and slave of the devil. Though not all these, not what I ought to be, not what I might be, not what I wish or hope to be, and not what I once was, I think I can truly say with the apostle, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.'"

Paton on His Father's Prayers

In his autobiography the missionary John Paton tells the story of his father's prayer time: "Our home consisted of a kitchen, a living room and a mid-room -- or chamber -- called the 'closet.' The closet was a very small compartment between the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair, with a diminutive window shedding an extremely small amount of light on the scene. This was the sanctuary of that cottage home. Daily, and many times during the day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retire, and shut the door. We children got to understand, by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about), that prayers were being poured out there for us, just as in the days of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice, pleading as if for life. We learned to slip in and out past that door on tiptoe, so as not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew whence came that happy light, like that of a newborn smile, that always was dawning on my father's face. It was a reflection from the divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathedral, in mountain or glen, can I hope to feel the Lord God more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than he did under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oak framework."

Muller on Prayer

George Muller gives a striking testimony regarding the value of prayer. He says, "I never remember, in all my Christian course, a period of sixty-nine years and four months, that I ever sincerely and patiently sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have been always directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait before God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellowmen to the declarations of the Word of the living God, I made great mistakes."

Martyrdom of Michael Sattler

In 1527, Michael Sattler was arrested and tried in Rotterdam on charges that he violated Catholic doctrine and practice. He was sentenced: "Michael Sattler shall be committed to the hangman, who shall take him to the square and there first cut out his tongue, then chain him to a wagon, tear his body twice with hot tongs there and five times more before the gate, then burn his body to powder as an arch-heretic." Both in the town square and at the place of execution, Sattler prayed for his executioners. Leonard Cross reports, "Among the chagrined onlookers was 25-year-old Klaus von Grafeneck. He had been summoned there to protect the court while it was in session. To his amazement, through the condemned man's slurred speech, Grafeneck heard Sattler pray specifically for him . . . Sattler was thrown into the fire. When the ropes on his hands burned through, the dying man raised his hands in a sign of triumph, and prayed, 'Father, I commend my spirit into Thy hands.'"

Grafeneck left Rotterdam shaken. A condemned man had prayed for him. He decided that someone needed to tell the story of Michael Sattler, and it was Grafeneck who wrote the story. He concluded the biography with these words: "All this I saw with my own eyes. May God grant us also to testify of Him so bravely and patiently."