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37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent forth a raven, which went forth, to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. The unclean bird made its escape, and found, no doubt, a resting-place upon some floating carcase. It sought not the ark again. Not so the dove."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark ... and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark: and the dove came in to him, in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive-leaf, pluckt off. Sweet emblem of the renewed mind, which, amid the surrounding desolation, seeks and finds its rest and portion in Christ; and not only so, but also lays hold of the earnest of the inheritance, and furnishes the blessed proof, that judgment has passed away, and that a renewed earth is coming fully into view. The carnal mind, on the contrary, can rest in any thing and every thing but Christ. It can feed upon all uncleanness."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The olive-leaf has no attraction for it. It can find all it needs in a scene of death, and hence is not occupied with the thought of a new world and its glories; but the heart that is taught and exercised by the Spirit of God, can only rest and rejoice in that in which he rests and rejoices. It rests in the Ark of his salvation"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "May it be thus with you and me, beloved reader! May Jesus be the abiding rest and portion of our hearts, that so we may not seek them in a world which is under the judgment of God! The dove went back to Noah, and waited for his time of rest; and we should ever find our place with Christ, until the time of his exaltation, and glory, in the ages to come."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. All we want, as to this, is a little patience. May God direct our hearts into his love, and into"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark. The same God that had said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Make thee an ark and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come thou into the ark, now says,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Go forth of the ark."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And Noah went forth ... and builded an altar unto the Lord. All is simple obedience. There is the obedience of faith and the worship of faith: both go together. The altar is erected, where, just before; all had been a scene of death and judgment. The ark had borne Noah and his family safely over the waters of judgment. It had carried him from the old into the new world, where he now takes his place as a worshipper.[14] And, be it observed, it was"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In itself it was only a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nehushtan,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In life, and in death, the lower animals were to be at the service of man. All creation is delivered, by God's everlasting covenant, from the fear of a second deluge. Judgment is never again to take that shape."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The world that then was, being overflowed with _water_, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto _fire_ against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And God said, This is the token of the covenant ... I do set my bow in the cloud ... and I will remember my covenant. The whole creation rests, as to its exemption from a second deluge, on the eternal stability of God's covenant, of which the bow is the token; and it is happy to bear in mind, that when the bow appears, the eye of God rests upon it; and man is cast, not upon his own imperfect and most uncertain memory, but upon God's."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I, says God,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that _the bow shall be seen in the cloud_. Beautiful and most expressive emblem! The beams of the sun, reflected from that which threatens judgment, tranquillize the heart, as telling of God's covenant, God's salvation, and God's remembrance. Precious, most precious sunbeams, deriving additional beauty from the very cloud which reflects them! How forcibly does this bow in the cloud remind us of Calvary. There we see a cloud indeed,--a dark, thick, heavy cloud of judgment, discharging itself upon the sacred head of the Lamb of God,--a cloud so dark, that even at mid-day"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, blessed be God, faith discerns, in that heaviest cloud that ever gathered, the most brilliant and beauteous bow that ever appeared; for it sees the bright beams of God's eternal love darting through the awful gloom, and reflected in the cloud. It hears, too, the words,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is finished,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation; and Noah walked with God."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "(James iii. 17.) The wisdom which is from beneath would put"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "which"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "we get, not by baptism, how important soever it may be, as an ordinance of the kingdom, but"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": ""
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "&c. In a word, Satan's Babylon is always seen as the instrument moulded and fashioned by his hand, for the purpose of counteracting the divine operations, whether in Israel of old, or the Church now. Throughout the Old Testament Israel and Babylon are seen, as it were, in opposite scales; when Israel is up, Babylon is down; and when Babylon is up, Israel is down. Thus, when Israel had utterly failed, as Jehovah's witness,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and swallowed him up. The vessels of the house of God, which ought to have remained in the _city_ of Jerusalem, were carried away to the _city_ of Babylon. But Isaiah, in his sublime prophecy, leads us onward to the opposite of all this. He presents, in most magnificent strains, a picture, in which Israel's star is in the ascendant, and Babylon entirely sunk."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!... since _thou_ art laid down, no feller is come up against _us_."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a _mighty one in the earth_. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, _in the land of Shinar_. Here, then, we have the character of the founder of Babylon. He was"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Such was the origin of Babylon; and its character, throughout the entire book of God, remarkably corresponds therewith. It is always seen as a mighty influence in the earth, acting in positive antagonism to every thing which owes its origin to heaven; and it is not until this Babylon has been totally abolished, that the cry is heard, amid the hosts above,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Alleluia; for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Then all Babylon's mighty hunting will be over forever, whether it be its hunting of wild beasts, to subdue them; or its hunting of souls, to destroy them. All its might, and all its glory, all its pomp and pride, its wealth and luxury, its light and joy, its glitter and glare, its powerful attractions and wide-spread influence, shall have passed away forever. She shall be swept with the besom of destruction, and plunged in the darkness, the horror and desolation, of an everlasting night."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How long, O Lord?"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.... And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. The human heart ever seeks a name, a portion, and a centre in the earth. It knows nothing of aspirations after heaven, heaven's God, or heaven's glory. Left to itself, it will ever find its objects in this lower world; it will ever"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city. Such was the end of man's first association. Thus it will be to the end."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces ... gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. (Isa. viii. 9.) How different it is when God associates men! In the second chapter of Acts, we see the blessed One coming down in infinite grace to meet man in the very circumstances in which his sin had set him. The Holy Ghost enabled the messengers of grace to deliver their message in the very tongue wherein each was born. Precious proof this, that God desired to reach man's heart with the sweet story of grace! The law from the fiery mount was not thus promulgated. When God was telling what man ought to be, he spoke in one tongue; but when he was telling what he himself was, he spoke in many. Grace broke through the barrier which man's pride and folly had caused to be erected, in order that every man might hear and understand the glad tidings of salvation,--"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Lord _had_ said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and _from thy kindred_, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. (Chap. xii. 1.) Such was the communication made to Abraham,--a communication of the most definite character, designed of God to act upon Abraham's heart and conscience."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into a land that I will show thee. Then went he forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran, (or Haran;) and from thence, _when his father was dead_, he removed him into this land wherein ye now dwell. (Acts vii. 2-4.) The result of this communication is given in Chapter xi. 31:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, _to go into the land of Canaan_: and they came _unto Haran, and dwelt there_ ... and Terah died in Haran."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "had called him. This is full of meaning. The influences of nature are ever hostile to the full realization and practical power of"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "because, evidently, if we fail to apprehend the calling, we cannot"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "thereof. I must know where I am called to go, before I can go thither. Had Abraham's soul been fully under the power of the truth that"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God's calling was to Canaan, and that there, too, lay"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "he could not have remained in Charran. And so with us. If we are led by the Holy Ghost into the understanding of the truth, that we are called with a heavenly calling; that our home, our portion, our hope, our inheritance, are all above,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--our high, our holy, our heavenly calling,--our"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "put away, as to the root or principle thereof, and I see my"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "borne. I see God to be, in very deed,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All that he has said,--all that he has done, from the very beginning, indicates that it was ever uppermost in his heart. And no wonder! His dear and well-beloved Son was to hang there, between heaven and earth, the object of all the shame and suffering that men and devils could heap upon him, because he loved to do his Father's will, and redeem the children of his grace. It will be the grand centre of attraction, as the fullest expression of his love, throughout eternity."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To him that hath shall more be given."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And for what purpose? To set before his soul's vision an attractive object,--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This was not compulsion but attraction. God's land was in the judgment of the new nature,--the judgment of faith, far better than Ur or Charran: and albeit he had not seen the land, yet, inasmuch as it was God's land, faith judged it to be worth having, and not only worth having, but also fully worth the surrender of present things. Hence we read,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That is to say,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and no"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This gospel reveals God himself coming down in perfect grace, and putting away sin by the sacrifice of the cross; putting it away, in the most absolute manner, on the ground of eternal righteousness, inasmuch as Christ suffered for it, having been made sin for us. And not only is God seen putting away sin, but also imparting a new life, even the risen life of his own risen, exalted, and glorified Son, which life every true believer possesses, in virtue of being linked, in God's eternal counsels, with him who was nailed to the cross, but is now on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. This nature, as we have remarked, he graciously guides by the precepts of his holy word, applied in power by the Holy Ghost. He also animates it by the presentation of indestructible hopes. He reveals, in the distance,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of the Father's house, on high--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--everlasting association with himself, in those regions of bliss and light, where sorrow and darkness can never enter--the unspeakable privilege of being led, throughout the countless ages of eternity,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. The presence of the Canaanite in God's land would, necessarily, prove a trial to Abraham. It would be a demand upon his faith and hope, an exercise of heart, a trial of patience. He had left Ur and Charran behind, and come into the country of which"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "had spoken to him, and there he finds"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But there, too, he finds the Lord."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. The connection between the two statements is beautiful and touching."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Canaanite was then in the land, and lest Abraham's eye should rest upon the Canaanite, the present possessor of the land, Jehovah appears to him as the One who was going to give the land to him and to his seed forever. Thus Abraham was taken up with the Lord, and not with the Canaanite. This is full of instruction for us. The Canaanite in the land is the expression of the power of Satan; but, instead of being occupied with Satan's power to keep us out of the inheritance, we are called to apprehend Christ's power to bring us in."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We wrestle, not with flesh and blood, ... but with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies. The very sphere into which we are called is the sphere of our conflict. Should this terrify us? By no means. We have Christ there,--a victorious Christ, in whom we are"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hence, instead of indulging"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "we cultivate a spirit of worship."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And there builded he an _altar_ unto the Lord, who appeared unto him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his _tent_. The altar and the tent give us the two great features of Abraham's character. A worshipper of God, a stranger in the world,--most blessed characteristics! Having nothing on earth,--having our all in God. Abraham had"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Should he, therefore, have concluded that he was not in his right place? Assuredly not. That would have been to judge according to the sight of his eyes, the very thing which faith never does. No doubt it was a deep trial to the heart, an inexplicable puzzle to nature; but to faith it was all plain and easy. When Paul was called into Macedonia, almost the first thing he had to encounter was the prison at Philippi. This, to a heart out of communion, would have seemed a death-blow to the entire mission. But Paul never questioned the rightness of his position. He was enabled to"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Abraham had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and men servants, and maid servants, and she asses, and camels. Substantial proofs, the natural heart would, doubtless, say, of the rightness of his step, in going down to Egypt. But, ah! he had no altar,--no communion. Egypt was not the place of God's presence. He lost more than he gained by going thither. This is ever the case. Nothing can ever make up for the loss of our communion with God. Exemption from temporary pressure, and the accession of the greatest wealth are but poor equivalents for what one loses by diverging a hair's breadth from the straight path of obedience. How many of us can add our amen to this! How many, in order to avoid the trial and exercise connected with God's path, have slipped aside into the current of this present evil world, and thereby brought leanness and barrenness, heaviness and gloom, into their souls! It may be they have, to use the common phrase,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "increased their store, obtained the world's favor, been"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "for which nothing can compensate. Should trial come, let us, instead of turning aside into Egypt, wait on God; and thus the trial, instead of proving an occasion of stumbling, will prove an opportunity for obedience. Let us, when tempted to slip into the course of the world, remember him"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and in nothing are we so prone to limit him as in his restoring grace. In the case now before us, we see that Abraham was not only delivered out of Egypt, but brought back"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nothing can satisfy God, in reference to a wanderer or backslider, but his being entirely restored. We, in the self-righteousness of our hearts, might imagine that such an one should take a lower place than that which he had formerly occupied; and so he should, were it a question of his merit or his character; but, inasmuch as it is, altogether, a question of grace, it is God's prerogative to fix the standard of restoration; and his standard is set forth in the following passage:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If thou wilt return, O Israel, return _to me_. It is thus that God restores, and it would be unworthy of himself to do any thing else. He will either not restore at all, or else restore in such a way as to magnify and glorify the riches of his grace. Thus, when the leper was brought back, he was actually conducted"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When the prodigal returned, he was set down at the table with the father. When Peter was restored, he was able to stand before the men of Israel and say,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "--the very thing which he had done himself, under the most aggravated circumstances. In all these cases, and many more which might be adduced, we see the perfectness of God's restoration. He always brings the soul back to himself, in the full power of grace and the full confidence of faith."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If thou wilt return, return _to me_."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Abraham came unto the place where his tent had been at _the beginning_."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The deeper my sense of the _grace_ of divine restoration, the deeper will be my sense of the _holiness_ of it also. This principle is taught and established throughout all scripture; but especially in two well-known passages, namely, Psalms xxiii. 3, and 1 John i. 9:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He restoreth my soul: _he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness_ for his name's sake. And again:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to _cleanse us from all unrighteousness_. The proper path for a divinely-restored soul is"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In other words, having tasted divine grace we walk in righteousness. To talk of grace, while walking in unrighteousness, is, as the apostle says, to turn"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A mixed multitude followed them, and caused much defilement, weakness, and sorrow; for we read, in Numbers xi.,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So also, in the early days of the Church; and not only so, but in every revival which has taken place therein, down to the present day, many have been acted upon by various influences, which, not being divine, proved evanescent; and the persons so acted upon sooner or later gave way, and found their proper level. Nothing will endure but that which is of God. I must realize the link between me and the living God. I must know myself as one called of him into the position which I occupy, else I shall have no stability, and exhibit no consistency therein. It will not do for us to follow in the track of other people, merely because it is their track. God will graciously give each a path to walk in, a sphere to move in, and a responsibility to fulfil; and we are bound to know our calling and the functions thereof, that, by his grace ministered to our souls daily, we may work therein effectually to his glory. It matters not what our measure may be, provided it be what God hath dealt to us. We may have"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or we may have but"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "still, if we use the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "with our eye fixed on the Master, we shall be just as sure to hear from his gracious lips the words,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as if we had used the"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ur of the Chaldees, but he fell in the plains of Sodom. The call of God had not reached his heart, nor the inheritance of God filled his vision. Solemn thought! may we ponder it deeply! Blessed be God, there is a path for each of his servants, along which shines the light of his approving countenance, and to walk therein should be our chief joy. His approval is enough for the heart that knows him. True, we may not always be able to command the approval and concurrence of our brethren; we may frequently be misunderstood; but we cannot help these things."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The day will set all this to rights, and the loyal heart can contentedly wait for that day, knowing that then"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is truly lamentable and humiliating. Our language should ever be,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee ... for we are brethren. Still, why did not Abraham make choice of Sodom? Why did not the strife drive him into the world? Why was it not an occasion of stumbling to him? Because he looked at it from God's point of view. No doubt, he had a heart that could be attracted by"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "just as powerfully as Lot's heart; but then he did not allow his own heart to choose. He first let Lot take his choice, and then left God to choose for him. This was heavenly wisdom. This is what faith ever does: it allows God to fix its inheritance, as it also allows him to make it good. It is always satisfied with the portion which God gives. It can say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It matters not where"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "fall; for, in the judgment of faith, they always"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Its future destiny was"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--to be destroyed by"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, it may be said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Lot knew nothing of all this. Perhaps not, nor Abraham either; but God did; and had Lot allowed God to"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "he certainly would not have chosen a spot that he himself was about to destroy. He did not, however. He judged for himself. Sodom suited him, though it did not suit God. His eye rested on the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and his heart was attracted by them."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He pitched his tent _toward_ Sodom. Such is nature's choice!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. The"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "so far from damaging Abraham's spiritual condition, rather brought out, in full relief, his heavenly principles, and strengthened in his soul the life of faith. Moreover, it cleared the prospect for him, and delivered him from the company of one who could only prove a dead weight. Thus it worked for good, and yielded a harvest of blessing. It is at once most solemn, and yet most encouraging, to bear in mind that, in the long run, men find their proper level. Men who run unsent, break down, in one way or another, and find their way back to that which they profess to have left. On the other hand, those who are called of God, and lean on him, are, by his grace, sustained."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Their path is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The thought of this should keep us humble, watchful, and prayerful."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall, for truly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved, is a principle which, whatever be its specific application, has a wide moral bearing. Many a vessel has sailed out of harbor in gallant style, with all its canvas spread, amid cheering and shouting, and with many fair promises of a first-rate passage; but, alas! storms, waves, shoals, rocks, and quicksands, have changed the aspect of things; and the voyage that commenced with hope has ended in disaster. I am here only referring to the path of service and testimony, and by no means to the question of a man's eternal acceptance in Christ. This latter, blessed be God, does not in any wise rest with ourselves, but with him who has said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, how great is thy goodness which _thou hast laid up_ for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee, before the sons of men. He lost nothing by the strife. He had his tent and his altar before; and he had his tent and his altar afterwards."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then Abram removed _his tent_ and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there _an altar_ unto the Lord. Lot might choose Sodom; but as for Abraham, he sought and found his all in God. There was no altar in Sodom. Alas! all who travel in that direction are in quest of something quite different from that. It is never the worship of God, but the love of the world that leads them thither. And even though they should attain their object, what is it? How does it end? Just thus:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "when such movements are in anywise connected with the people of God. In the present case, Abraham personally had nothing whatever to do with the revolt or its consequences. His"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "yet Lot was. His position was such as to involve him in the whole affair. So long as we are enabled, through grace, to pursue the path of simple faith, we shall be thrown completely outside the range of this world's circumstances; but if we abandon our high and holy position as those whose"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and seek a name, a place, and a portion in the earth, we must expect to participate in earth's convulsions and vicissitudes. Lot had taken up his abode in the plains of Sodom, and was, therefore, deeply and sensibly affected by the wars of Sodom. It must ever be thus. It is a bitter and a painful thing for the child of God to mingle himself with the children of this world. He can never do so without serious damage to his own soul, as well as to the testimony with which he is entrusted. What testimony was Lot in Sodom? A very feeble one, indeed, if one at all. The very fact of his settling himself there was the death-blow to his testimony. To have spoken a word against Sodom and its ways would have been to condemn himself,--for why was he there? But in truth, it does not by any means appear that to testify for God formed any part of his object in"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Personal and family interests seem to have been the leading springs of action in his heart; and though, as Peter tells us,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When Abraham heard that _his brother_ was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan ... and he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. Lot was Abraham's brother, after all; and brotherly love must act."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A brother is born for adversity; and it often happens that a season of adversity softens the heart, and renders it susceptible of kindness, even from one with whom we have had to part company; and it is remarkable that, while in verse 12 we read,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "yet in verse 14 we read,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The claims of a brother's trouble are answered by the affections of a brother's heart. This is divine. Genuine faith, while it always renders us independent, never renders us indifferent. It will never wrap itself up in its fleece while a brother shivers in the cold. There are three things which faith does: it"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "it"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and it"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The king of Sodom went out to meet him, after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him. There was, evidently, a very deep and insidious design of the enemy in this movement."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The king of Sodom presents a very different thought, and exhibits a very different phase of the enemy's power, from what we have in"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him. In the former, we have rather the hiss of the serpent; in the latter, the roar of the lion; but whether it were the serpent or the lion, the Lord's grace was amply sufficient; and most seasonably was this grace ministered to the Lord's servant at the exact moment of need."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and not only so, but pronounces Abraham"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of that same God. This was effectually preparing him for the king of Sodom. A man who was"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of God did not need to take aught from the enemy; and if"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "filled his vision,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of Sodom could have but little attraction. Hence, as might be expected, when the king of Sodom made his proposal,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Give me the persons and take the goods to thyself, Abraham replies,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. (2 Chron. xvi. 9.) This is an encouraging truth for our poor, timid, doubting, faltering hearts. Christ will be our strength and shield. He will"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "he will"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and finally"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All this is unspeakably comforting to a heart sincerely desirous of making way against"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. The Lord would not suffer his servant to be a loser, by rejecting the offers of this world. It was infinitely better for Abraham to find himself hidden behind Jehovah's shield, than to take refuge beneath the patronage of the king of Sodom; and to be anticipating his"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "than to accept"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of Sodom. The position into which Abraham is put in the opening verse of our chapter, is beautifully expressive of the position into which every soul is introduced by the faith of Christ. Jehovah was his"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that he might rest in him; Jehovah was his"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If the Holy Ghost is grieved, he will not minister the enjoyment of that which is our proper portion, our proper hope. Hence in the section of Abraham's history now before us, we see that when he had returned from the slaughter of the kings and rejected the offer of the king of Sodom, Jehovah rose before his soul in the double character, as his"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go _childless_, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, thou hast given to me no _seed_: and lo, one born in my house is mine _heir_. Abraham desired a son, for he knew upon divine authority that his"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "should inherit the land. (Chap. xiii. 15.) Sonship and heirship are inseparably connected in the thoughts of God."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. Sonship is the proper basis of every thing; and moreover it is the result of God's sovereign counsel and operation, as we read in James,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Finally, it is founded upon God's eternal principle of resurrection. How else could it be? Abraham's body was"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "wherefore, in his case, as in every other, sonship must be in the power of resurrection. Nature is dead, and can neither beget nor conceive aught for God. There lay the inheritance stretching out before the patriarch's eye, in all its magnificent dimensions; but where was the heir? Abraham's body and Sarah's womb alike answered"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But Jehovah is the God of resurrection, and, therefore, a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "was the very thing for him to act upon. Had nature not been dead, God should have put it to death ere he could fully show himself. The most suitable theatre for the living God is that from which nature, with all its boasted powers and empty pretensions, has been totally expelled by the sentence of death. Wherefore, God's word to Abraham was,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it unto him for righteousness. The imputation of righteousness to Abraham is here founded upon his believing in the Lord as the Quickener of the dead. It is in this character that he reveals himself in a world where death reigns; and when a soul believes in him, as such, it is counted righteous in his sight. This necessarily shuts man out, as regards his co-operation, for what can he do in the midst of a scene of death? Can he raise the dead? Can he open the gates of the grave? Can he deliver himself from the power of death, and walk forth, in life and liberty, beyond the limits of its dreary domain? Assuredly not. Well, then, if he cannot do so, he cannot work out righteousness, nor establish himself in the relation of sonship."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed unto him; but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, _if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead_. Here the God of resurrection is presented"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "as the object of faith, and our faith in him as the alone ground of our righteousness. If Abraham had looked up into heaven's vault, spangled with innumerable stars, and then looked at"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "THROUGH GRACE, BY FAITH, WITHOUT WORKS OF LAW."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. Here comes out the great question of heirship, and the peculiar path along which the chosen heirs are to travel ere they reach the promised inheritance."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we _suffer_ with him, that we may be also glorified together. Our way to the kingdom lies through suffering, affliction, and tribulation; but, thank God, we can, by faith, say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And further, we know that"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Finally,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Christ also hath _once_ suffered for sins, and that"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "was on the tree and _nowhere else_. He never suffered for sins before, and he never can suffer for sins again."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Christ was _once_ offered."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and there he settled forever the question of our sins. _With_ this we had nothing to do, though _to_ this we are eternally indebted for every thing. He fought the fight and gained the victory, alone; but he divides the spoils with us. He was in solitude"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but directly he planted his foot on the everlasting"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of resurrection, he associates us with him. He uttered the _cry_ alone; he sings the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "in connection with it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If so be we suffer with him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If we suffer, we shall reign. There is no such question as to sonship. We do not reach the high dignity of sons through suffering, but through the quickening power of the Holy Ghost, founded on the accomplished work of Christ, according to God's eternal counsel. This can never be touched. We do not reach the _family_ through suffering. The apostle does not say,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Unto you _it is given_, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. (Phil. i. 29.) Moreover, there can be little doubt but that the real secret of suffering for Christ is to have the heart's affections centred in him. The more I love Jesus, the closer I shall walk with him, and the closer I walk with him, the more faithfully I shall imitate him, and the more faithfully I imitate him, the more I shall suffer with him. Thus it all flows from love to Christ; and then it is a fundamental truth that"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be. What was the goal of Christ's earthly career? Was it an elevated, influential position in this world? By no means. What then? He found his place on the cross, between two condemned malefactors."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, it will be said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God was in this."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And _when the sun was going down_, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years: and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.... And it came to pass, that _when the sun went down_, and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and the"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An horror of great darkness passed across the spirit of Abraham. Jacob had to endure twenty-one years of sore hardship, in the house of Laban. Joseph found his furnace of affliction in the dungeons of Egypt. Moses spent forty years in the desert. Thus it must be with all God's _servants_. They must be"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "first, that, being found"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "they may be"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God's principle, in reference to those who serve him, is expressed in those words of St. Paul,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. These words bespeak the usual impatience of unbelief; and Abram should have treated them accordingly, and waited patiently on the Lord for the accomplishment of his gracious promise. The poor heart naturally prefers any thing to the attitude of _waiting_. It will turn to any expedient, any scheme, any resource, rather than be kept in that posture. It is one thing to believe a promise at the first, and quite another thing to wait quietly for the accomplishment thereof. We can see this distinction constantly exemplified in a child. If I promise my child any thing, he has no idea of doubting my word; but yet, I can detect the greatest possible restlessness and impatience in reference to the time and manner of accomplishment. And cannot the wisest sage find a true mirror in which to see himself reflected in the conduct of a child? Truly so. Abraham exhibits faith, in Chapter xv. and yet he fails in patience in Chapter xvi. Hence the force and beauty of the apostle's word, in Hebrews vi."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Lord has failed me; it may be, my Egyptian maid will prove a resource for me. Any thing but God for a heart under the influence of unbelief. It is often truly marvellous to observe the trifles to which we will betake ourselves when once we have lost the sense of God's nearness, his infallible faithfulness, and unfailing sufficiency. We lose that calm and well-balanced condition of soul so essential to the proper testimony of the man of faith; and, just like other people, betake ourselves to any or every expedient, in order to reach the wished-for end, and call that"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nature has failed me, but God is my resource, how different it would have been! This would have been her proper ground; for nature really had failed her. But then it was nature in one shape, and therefore she wished to try nature in another. She had not learnt to look away from nature in every shape. In the judgment of God and of faith, nature in Hagar was no better than nature in Sarah. Nature, whether young or old, is alike to God; and, therefore, alike to faith; but, ah! we are only in the power of this truth when we are experimentally finding our living centre in God himself. When the eye is taken off that glorious Being, we are ready for the meanest device of unbelief. It is only when we are consciously leaning on the only true, the only wise, the living God, that we are enabled to look away from every creature stream. It is not that we shall despise God's instrumentality. By no means. To do so would be recklessness and not faith. Faith values the instrument, not because of itself, but because of him who uses it. Unbelief looks only at the instrument, and judges of the success of a matter by the apparent efficiency thereof, instead of by the sufficiency of him who, in grace, uses it. Like Saul, who, when he looked at David, and then looked at the Philistine, said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for thou art but a youth."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "by having recourse to Hagar; for"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Sarai said, My wrong be _upon thee_. When we act wrong, we are ofttimes prone to lay the blame on some one else. Sarah was only reaping the fruit of her own proposal, and yet she says to Abraham,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My wrong be upon thee; and then, with Abraham's permission, she seeks to get rid of the trial which her own impatience had brought upon her."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. This will not do."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The bond-woman"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. This is an unalterable principle, meeting us again and again on the page of inspiration, and also on the page of our personal history. Grace forgives the sin and restores the soul, but that which is sown must be reaped. Abraham and Sarah had to endure the presence of the bond-woman and her son for a number of years, and then get rid of them in God's way. There is peculiar blessedness in leaving ourselves in God's hands. Had Abraham and Sarah done so on the present occasion, they would never have been troubled with the presence of the bond-woman and her son; but, having made themselves debtors to nature, they had to endure the consequences. But, alas! we are often"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "when it would be our exceeding comfort to"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The flesh is, in this important passage, contrasted with"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and thus we not only get the divine idea as to what the term"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "implies, but also as to Abraham's effort to obtain the seed by means of Hagar, instead of resting in God's"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The two covenants are allegorized by Hagar and Sarah, and are diametrically opposite the one to the other. The one gendering to bondage, inasmuch as it raised the question as to man's competency"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and made life entirely dependent upon that competency."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The man that doeth these things shall live in them. This was the Hagar-covenant. But the Sarah-covenant reveals God as the God of promise, which promise is entirely independent of man, and founded upon God's willingness and ability to fulfil it. When God makes a promise there is no"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "attached thereto. He makes it unconditionally, and is resolved to fulfil it; and faith rests in him in perfect liberty of heart. It needs no effort of nature to reach the accomplishment of a divine promise. Here was, precisely, where Abraham and Sarah failed. They made an effort of nature to reach a certain end, which end was absolutely secured by a promise of God. This is the grand mistake of unbelief. By its restless activity, it raises a hazy mist around the soul, which hinders the beams of the divine glory from reaching it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He could there do no mighty works, because of their unbelief."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth crucified among them. This was not merely promise divinely made, but promise divinely and most gloriously accomplished. A crucified Christ settled every thing in reference both to God's claims and man's necessities. But the false teachers upset all this, or sought to upset it, by saying,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. This, as the apostle teaches them, was in reality"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Christ must either be a _whole_ Saviour, or _no_ Saviour at all. The moment a man says,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Except _ye_ be this or that, ye cannot be saved,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You must be so and so, in order to be saved,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This being so, the inspired apostle hesitates not to say to the Galatians,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Christ is become of no effect unto you; whosoever of you are justified by law ([Greek: en nomô]), ye are fallen from grace. If man has any thing to do in the matter, God is shut out; and if God is shut out, there can be no salvation, for it is impossible that man can work out a salvation by that which proves him a lost creature; and then if it be a question of _grace_, it must be all grace. It cannot be half grace, half law. The two covenants are perfectly distinct. It cannot be half Sarah and half Hagar. It must be either the one or the other. If it be Hagar, God has nothing to do with it; and if it be Sarah, man has nothing to do with it. Thus it stands throughout. The law addresses man, tests him, sees what he is really worth, proves him a ruin, and puts him under the curse; and not only puts him under it, but keeps him there so long as he is occupied with it,--so long as he is alive."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I marvel --"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who hath bewitched you? --"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am afraid of you --"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I stand in doubt of you --"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I would they were even cut off that trouble you. This is the language of the Holy Ghost, who knows the value of a full Christ and a full salvation; and who also knows how essential the knowledge of both is to a lost sinner. We have no such language as this in any other epistle; not even in that to the Corinthians, although there were some of the grossest disorders to be corrected amongst them. All human failure and error can be corrected by bringing in God's grace; but the Galatians, like Abraham in this chapter, were going away from God, and returning to the flesh. What remedy could be devised for this? How can you correct an error which consists in departing from that which alone can correct any thing? To fall from grace, is to get back under the law, from which nothing can ever be reaped but"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, _I am the Almighty God_: walk before _me_, and be thou _perfect_."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Walk before _me_. This is true power. To walk thus, implies our having nothing whatever before our hearts save God himself. If I am founding my expectation upon men and things, I am not walking before God, but before men and things. It is of the utmost importance to ascertain who or what I have before me as an object. To what am I looking? On whom or what am I leaning, at this moment? Does God _entirely_ fill my future? Have men or circumstances aught to do therein? Is there any space allotted to the creature? The only way in which to get above the world is to walk by faith, because faith so completely fills the scene with God, that there is no room for the creature,--no room for the world. If God fills up my entire range of vision, I can see nothing else; and then I am able to say with the Psalmist,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My soul, wait thou _only_ upon God; for my expectation is from him. He _only_ is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence, I shall not be moved. (Ps. lxii. 5, 6.) This word"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is deeply searching. Nature cannot say this. Not that it will, save when under the direct influence of a daring and blasphemous skepticism, formally shut out God altogether; but it, assuredly, cannot say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and this, too, in reality. It will not do to have the language of dependence upon God on our lips, while our hearts are really leaning on some creature resource. God will make all this fully manifest; he will test the heart; he will put faith into the furnace."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Walk before me, and be thou perfect. Thus it is we reach the proper point. When the soul is enabled, by grace, to get rid of all its fondly-cherished creature expectations, then, and only then, it is prepared to let God act; and when he acts all must be well. He will not leave any thing undone. He will perfectly settle every thing on behalf of those who simply put their trust in him. When unerring wisdom, omnipotent power, and infinite love combine, the confiding heart may enjoy unruffled repose. Unless we can find some circumstance too big or too little for"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "we have no proper base on which to found a single anxious thought. This is an amazing truth, and one eminently calculated to put all who believe it into the blessed position in which we find Abraham in this chapter. When God had, in effect, said to him,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Leave _all_ to me and I will settle it for you, beyond your utmost desires and expectations; the seed and the inheritance, and every thing pertaining thereto, will be fully and everlastingly settled, according to the covenant of the Almighty God, --then"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Truly blessed attitude! the only proper one for a thoroughly empty, feeble, and unprofitable sinner to occupy in the presence of the living God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the possessor of all things,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And God talked with him. It is when man is in the dust that God can talk to him in grace. Abraham's posture here is the beautiful expression of entire prostration, in the presence of God, in the sense of utter weakness and nothingness. And this, be it observed, is the sure precursor of God's revelation of himself. It is when the creature is laid low that God can show himself in the unclouded effulgence of what he is. He will not give his glory to another. He can reveal himself, and allow man to worship in view of that revelation; but until the sinner takes his proper place, there can be no unfolding of the divine character. How different is Abraham's attitude in this and the preceding chapter! There, he had nature before him; here, he has the Almighty God. There, he was an actor; here, he is a worshipper. There, he was betaking himself to his own and Sarah's contrivance; here, he leaves himself and his circumstances, his present and his future, in God's hands, and allows him to act in him, for him, and through him. Hence, God can say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I will make --"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will establish --"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I will give --"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will bless."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh, for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man-child, whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people: he hath broken my covenant. We are taught in Romans iv., that circumcision was"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Being thus counted righteous, God set his"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This is founded upon his everlasting connection with Christ, and his perfect identification with him, in death and resurrection; as we read, in Colossians,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. In whom also ye are _circumcised_ with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. This is a most glorious passage, unfolding to us the true idea of what circumcision was meant to typify. Every believer belongs to"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God's mighty power, or, as it may be rendered,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When Abraham was called upon to be"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "it did not mean perfect to himself; for this he never was, and never could be. It simply meant that he should be perfect as regards the object before his heart,--that his hopes and expectations were to be perfectly and undividedly centred in the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Almighty God."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "used in at least four distinct senses. In Matt. v. 48, we read,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Be ye therefore _perfect_, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Here we learn from the context that the word"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "refers to the principle of our walk. At verse 44, we read,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hence to be"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "in the sense of Matt. v. 48 is to act on a principle of grace toward all, even toward those who are injurious and hostile. A Christian going to law, and asserting or contending for his rights, is not"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "not because of having owed"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but because of not having forgiven the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "_The master_ had ample grace to settle the former, but _he_ had not grace to settle the latter. This parable has a solemn voice for all Christians going to law; for although in the application of it, it is said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here, too, the context settles the import of the word. It is"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The apostle says,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and yet a little farther on he says,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let as many as be _perfect_ be thus minded."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me. (Rev. iii. 20.) Again, we read,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jesus answered, and said unto him, If a man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "is hypocrisy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If a man love me, he will keep my words. Hence, if we are not keeping Christ's words, it is a sure proof we are not walking in the love of his name. Love to Christ is proved by doing the things which he commands, and not by merely saying,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lord, Lord. It is of very little avail to say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I go, sir,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The path of Christ furnished a continual feast to heaven. His ways were ever sending up a fragrant incense to the throne of God. From the manger to the cross, he did always the things which pleased his Father. There was no interruption, no variation, no salient point. He was the only perfect One."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There only can the Spirit trace a perfect life below."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with _laughter_, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them; the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "(Ps. cxxvi. 2.) When Jehovah makes us to laugh, we may laugh heartily."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. Unbelief makes us cowards and liars; faith makes us bold and truthful. It enables us to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and to"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "in the assurance of faith, having the heart and conscience perfectly at rest, being able to repose in God as to the past, the present, and the future,--that soul will be able and willing to intercede for others. The man who has on"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "will be able to pray for all"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And, oh! what a view this gives us of the intercession of our Great High-priest, who has passed into the heavens!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What infinite repose he enjoys in all the divine counsels!"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will speak _yet but this once_, and there he stopped short, as if afraid of having presented too large a draft at the treasury of infinite grace, or forgetting that faith's check was never yet dishonored at God's bank. It was not that he was straitened in God. By no means. There was abundance of grace and patience in him to have hearkened to his dear servant, had he proceeded even to three or one. But the servant was limited. He was afraid of overdrawing his account. He ceased to ask, and God ceased to give. Not so our blessed Intercessor. Of him it can be said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He is able to save _to the uttermost_, ... seeing he _ever_ liveth to make intercession."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to _wait for his Son from heaven_. (1 Thess. i. 9, 10.) Now, evidently, those Thessalonian saints could, at the moment of their conversion, have known little, if any thing, of prophecy, or the special subject thereof; and yet they were, at that very moment, put into the full possession and power of the specific hope of the Church,--even the coming of the Son. Thus is it throughout the entire New Testament. There, no doubt, we have prophecy,--there, too, we have God's moral government; but, at the same time, numberless passages might be adduced in proof of the fact that the common hope of Christians in apostolic times--the simple, unimpeded, and unencumbered hope--was, THE RETURN OF THE BRIDEGROOM. May the Holy Ghost revive"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "in the Church,--may he gather in the number of the elect, and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The second is, by faithfully declaring the evanescent and shakeable nature of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The close of Hebrews xii. furnishes a beautiful example of each of these methods. After stating the truth, that we are come unto mount Zion, with all its attendant joys and privileges, the apostle goes on to say,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven; whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once I shake, not only the earth, but also heaven. Now this word Once signifieth the removal of the shakeable things, as of things that are made, that the unshakeable things may remain."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the place of authority. He has evidently made progress. He has"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Looked at from a worldly point of view, his course has been a successful one. He at first"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then, no doubt, he found his way into it; and now we find him sitting in the gate,--a prominent, influential post. How different is all this from the scene with which the preceding chapter opens! But, ah! my reader, the reason is obvious."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We have no such statement in reference to Lot.[16] It could not be said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By faith Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Alas! no: he gets no place among the noble army of confessors,--the great cloud of witnesses to the power of faith. The world was his snare, present things his bane. He did not"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He looked at"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "whereas Abraham looked at"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There was a most material difference between those two men, who, though they started together on their course, reached a very different goal, so far as their public testimony was concerned. No doubt Lot was saved, yet it was"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "for, truly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "On the other hand, Abraham had"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What a rebuke! How different from the willing acceptance of Abraham's invitation, as expressed in the words,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So do as thou hast said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will come in unto him, and sup _with him_, and _he with me_."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that _God remembered Abraham_, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. This is strongly marked. It was simply for Abraham's sake that Lot was suffered to escape: the Lord has no sympathy with a worldly mind; and such a mind it was that had led Lot to settle down amid the defilement of that guilty city. Faith never put him there; a spiritual mind never put him there;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "never put him there. It was simple love for this present evil world that led him first to"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "then to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and finally, to"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Be content with such things as ye have. Why? Is it because you are so well off in the world? Because you have all that your poor rambling hearts would seek after? Because there is not so much as a single chink in your circumstances, through which a vain desire might make its escape? Is this to be the ground of our contentment? By no means. What then?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge. This will never do. The true way to judge is to stand apart, in the moral power of grace, not in the supercilious spirit of Pharisaism. To attempt to reprove the world's ways while we profit by association with it, is vanity; the world will attach very little weight to such reproof and such testimony. Thus it was, too, with Lot's testimony to his sons-in-law;"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh! not so, my Lord: behold, now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy which thou hast showed unto me in saving _my life_; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me and I die: behold, now, _this city_ is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live. What a picture! He seems like a drowning man, ready to catch even at a floating feather. Though commanded by the angel to flee to the mountain, he refuses, and still fondly clings to the idea of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "--some little shred of the world. He feared death in the place to which God was mercifully directing him,--yea, he feared all manner of evil, and could only hope for safety in some little city, some spot of his own devising."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, let me escape _thither, and my soul shall live_. How sad! There is no casting himself wholly upon God. Alas! he had too long walked at a distance from him; too long breathed the dense atmosphere of a"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "to be able to appreciate the pure air of the divine presence, or lean on the arm of the Almighty. His soul seemed completely unhinged; his worldly nest had been abruptly broken up, and he was not quite able to nestle himself, by faith, in the bosom of God. He had not been cultivating communion with the invisible world; and, now, the visible was passing away from beneath his feet with tremendous rapidity. The"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "were about to fall upon that in which all his hopes and all his affections were centred. The thief had broken in upon him, and he seems entirely divested of spiritual nerve and self-possession. He is at his wits' end; but the worldly element, being strong in his heart, prevails, and he seeks his only refuge in"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Love not the world!"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The earth also, and the things that are therein, shall be burned up. All that about which the children of this world are so intensely anxious--after which they are so eagerly grasping--for which they are so fiercely contending--all--all will be burned up. And who can tell how soon?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where is Sodom? Where is Gomorrah? Where are the cities of the plain,--those cities which were once all life, and stir, and bustle? Where are they now? All gone! swept away by the judgment of God! Consumed by his fire and brimstone!"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Am I doing this by faith?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Whatever is not of faith is sin; and,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Without faith it is impossible to please God."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They are as Christ is before God. They are perfected forever, as to their standing in Christ."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They are not in the flesh but in the Spirit."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither have I seen perverseness in Israel."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel. Again, when Satan stands forth to resist Joshua, the word is,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, ... is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Behold, thou art but a dead man; and of Abraham he says,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee. Yes, with all"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the king of Gerar was"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and, moreover, he must be a debtor to the prayers of the erring and inconsistent stranger for the restoration of the health of his household. Such is the manner of God: he may have many a secret controversy with his child on the ground of his practical ways; but directly the enemy enters a suit against him, Jehovah ever pleads his servant's cause."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and the Lord must"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and faith must wait, and nature must be still; yea, must be entirely set aside as a dead, worthless thing, and then the divine glory can shine out, and faith find in that outshining all its rich and sweet reward."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, _at the set time_ of which God had spoken to him. There is such a thing as God's"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "his"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and for this the faithful must be content to wait. The time may seem long, and hope deferred may make the heart sick; but the spiritual mind will ever find its relief in the assurance that all is for the ultimate display of God's glory."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For the vision is for an appointed time, but _at the end_ it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry ... but the just shall live by his faith. (Hab. ii. 3, 4.) This wondrous faith! It brings into our present all the power of God's future, and feeds upon God's promise as a present reality. By its power the soul is kept hanging upon God, when every outward thing seems to be against it; and,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "the mouth is filled with laughter."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Abraham was an hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him. Thus nature had nothing to glory in."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Man's extremity was God's opportunity; and Sarah said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How can that which is thus spoken of ever undergo any improvement? The apostle goes on to say,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If it _cannot be_ subject to the law of God, how can it be improved? How can it undergo any change? Again,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Do what you will with flesh, and it is flesh all the while. As Solomon says,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. (Prov. xxvii. 22.) There is no use in seeking to make foolishness wise: you must introduce heavenly wisdom into the heart that has been heretofore only governed by folly. Again,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "(Col. iii. 9.) He does not say, Ye have improved or are seeking to improve"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "(8-10.) Here was the only remedy."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That which is crooked cannot be made straight;"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. Here salvation was made to depend upon something that man could be, or man could do, or man could keep. This was upsetting the whole glorious fabric of redemption, which, as the believer knows, rests exclusively upon what Christ is, and what he has done. To make salvation dependent in the most remote manner upon any thing in, or done by, man, is to set it entirely aside. In other words, Ishmael must be entirely cast out, and all Abraham's hopes be made to depend upon what God had done and given in the person of Isaac. This, it is needless to say, leaves man nothing to glory in. If present or future blessedness were made to depend upon even a divine change wrought in nature, flesh might glory. Though my nature were improved, it would be something of _me_, and thus God would not have _all_ the glory. But when I am introduced into a new creation, I find it is all of God, designed, matured, developed by himself alone. God is the actor, and I am a worshipper; he is the blesser, and I am the blessed; he is"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and I am"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "or on that principle ([Greek: ex ergôn nomou]). This is very plain. The bond-woman only genders to bondage, and can never bring forth a free man. How can she? The law never could give liberty, for so long as a man was alive it ruled him. (Rom. vii. 1.) I can never be free so long as I am under the dominion of any one. But while I live, the law rules me; and nothing but death can give me deliverance from its dominion. This is the blessed doctrine of Romans vii."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. This is freedom; for,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John viii. 36.)"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Cast out this bond-woman and her son. If I am not consciously free, I shall be seeking to attain liberty in the strangest way possible, even by keeping the bond-woman in the house; in other words, I shall be seeking to get life by keeping the law; I shall be establishing any own righteousness. No doubt, it will involve a struggle to cast out this element of bondage, for legalism is natural to our hearts."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight, because of his son. Still, however grievous it may be, it is according to the divine mind that we should abidingly"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Lord, Lord, or,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I go, sir. The heart must be probed to the very bottom, in order that no element of hypocrisy or false profession may be allowed to lodge there."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My son, give me _thine heart_. He does not say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Give me thine head, or thine intellect, or thy talents, or thy tongue, or thy money; but"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Give me thine heart: and in order to prove the sincerity of our response to this gracious command, he will lay his hand upon something very near our hearts. Thus he says to Abraham,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering, upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. This was coming very close to Abraham's heart. It was passing him through a searching crucible indeed. God"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No; Sodom tempted Lot. He never reached a sufficiently high elevation to warrant his being tried by the hand of Jehovah. It was too plainly manifest that there was plenty between his heart and the Lord, and it did not, therefore, require the furnace to bring that out. Sodom would have held out no temptation whatever to Abraham. This was made manifest in his interview with Sodom's king, in Chapter xiv. God knew well that Abraham loved him far better than Sodom; but he would make it manifest that he loved him better than any one or any thing, by laying his hand upon the nearest and dearest object."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, that we can also add,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And Abraham rose up early in the morning. There is ready obedience."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I made haste and delayed not to keep thy commandments. Faith never stops to look at circumstances, or ponder results; it only looks at God; it expresses itself thus:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I and the lad will go yonder and _worship_. The really devoted servant will keep his eye, not on his service, be it ever so great, but on the Master, and this will produce a spirit of worship. If I love my master, according to the flesh, I shall not mind whether I am cleaning his shoes or driving his carriage; but if I am thinking more of myself than of him, I shall rather be a coachman than a shoeblack. So it is precisely in the service of the heavenly Master: if I am thinking only of him, planting churches and making tents will be both alike to me. We may see the same thine in angelic ministry. It matters not to an angel whether he be sent to destroy an army, or to protect the person of some heir of salvation. It is the Master who entirely fills his vision. As some one has remarked,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This is most true, and so should it be with us. The servant should ever be combined with the worshipper, and the works of our hands perfumed with the ardent breathings of our spirits. In other words we should go forth to our work in the spirit of those memorable words,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I and the lad will go yonder and worship."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises, offered up his only-begotten. (Heb. xi. 17.) It is only as we are walking by faith that we can begin, continue, and end our works in God. Abraham not merely set out to offer his son, but he went on, and reached the spot which God had appointed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife: and they went both of them together. And further on we read,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And Abraham built an altar there; and laid the wood in order; and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. This was real work,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "in the highest sense. It was no mere mockery--no drawing near with the lips, while the heart was far off--no saying,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I go, sir, and went not. It was all deep reality, just such as faith ever delights to produce, and which God delights to accept. It is easy to make a show of devotedness when there is no demand for it. It is easy to say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but the point is to stand the trial. When Peter was put to the test, he entirely broke down. Faith never talks of what it will do, but does what it can in the strength of the Lord. Nothing can be more thoroughly worthless than a spirit of empty pretension. It is just as worthless as the basis on which it rests. But faith acts"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He accounted that God was able. He never accounted that Isaac was able. Isaac without God was nothing; God without Isaac was every thing. This is a principle of the very last importance, and one eminently calculated to test the heart most keenly. Does it make any difference to me to see the apparent channel of all my blessings dried up? Am I dwelling sufficiently near the fountain-head to be able, with a worshipping spirit, to behold all the creature streams dried up? This I do feel to be a searching question. Have I such a simple view of God's sufficiency as to be able as it were to"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Abraham was enabled to do this, because his eye rested on the God of resurrection."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": ""
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. Mark, it is"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It had never been proved before. It was there, no doubt; and, if there, God knew it; but the valuable point here is, that God founds his knowledge of it upon the palpable evidence afforded at the altar upon Mount Moriah. Faith is always proved by action, and the fear of God by the fruits which flow from it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son on the altar? (James ii. 21.) Who could think of calling his faith in question? Take away faith, and Abraham appears on Moriah as a murderer and a madman. Take faith into account, and he appears as a devoted worshipper,--a God-fearing, justified man. But faith must be proved."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man _say_ he hath faith, and have not works?"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Abraham was justified when"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Abraham was justified when"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "In the former case we have his secret standing; in the latter, his public acknowledgment by heaven and earth. It is well to understand this distinction. There was no voice from heaven when"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Abraham believed God, though in God's view he was there, then, and thus"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "but"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God could say,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Jehovah Jireh. It is only when we are really put to the test that we discover what God is. Without trial we can be but theorists, and God would not have us such: he would have us entering into the living depths that are in himself,--the divine realities of personal communion with him. With what different feelings and convictions must Abraham have retraced his steps from Moriah to Beersheba! from the mount of the Lord to the well of the oath! What very different thoughts of God! What different thoughts of Isaac! What different thoughts of every thing! Truly we may say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Happy is the man that endureth trial. It is an honor put upon one by the Lord himself, and the deep blessedness of the experience to which it leads cannot easily be estimated. It is when men are brought, to use the language of the 107th Psalm,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; for because _thou hast done this thing_, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of _his enemies_; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed: because thou hast obeyed my voice. This beautifully corresponds with the Spirit's notice of Abraham's acting, as put before us in Heb. xi. and also in James ii., in both of which scriptures he is looked upon as having offered Isaac his son upon the altar. The grand principle conveyed in the whole matter is this: Abraham proved that he was prepared to have the scene entirely cleared of _all_ but God; and, moreover, it was this same principle which both _constituted_ and _proved_ him a justified man. Faith can do without every one and every thing but God. It has the full sense of his sufficiency, and can, therefore, let go all beside. Hence Abraham could rightly estimate the words,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, this wondrous word,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "was every thing to the man of faith."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself.... For men verily swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "which it is calculated to afford. How little prepared are we, in the power of faith, in the promise of God, to slay our Isaac! We need to cry to God that he would be graciously pleased to endow us with a deeper insight into the blessed reality of a life of faith in himself, that so we may understand better the import of that word of St. John:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "(1 Thess. iv. 12:)"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "(2 Cor. viii. 21:)"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. The child of God must meet such things; but he must not meet them as others. The great fact of resurrection comes in to his relief, and imparts a character to his sorrow quite peculiar. (1 Thess. iv. 13, 14.) The man of faith can stand at the grave of a brother or sister, in the happy consciousness that it shall not long hold its captive,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Faith cannot long keep death in view; it has a higher object, blessed be the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "who has given it. Resurrection is that which ever fills the vision of faith; and, in the power thereof, it can rise up from before the dead. There is much conveyed in this action of Abraham. We want to understand its meaning much more fully, because we are much too prone to be occupied with death and its consequences. Death is the boundary of Satan's power; but where Satan ends, God begins. Abraham understood this when he rose up and purchased the cave of Machpelah as a sleeping-place for Sarah. This was the expression of Abraham's thought in reference to the future. He knew that in the ages to come, God's promise about the land of Canaan would be fulfilled, and he was able to lay the body of Sarah in the tomb,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight. It might, and manifestly did, appear strange to them to make so much ado about a grave; but,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "These all died in (or according to) faith, ([Greek: kata pistin]) not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Heb. xi. 13.) This is a truly exquisite feature in the divine life. Those"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "of whom the apostle is speaking in Heb. xi. not merely lived by faith, but even when they arrived at the close of their career, they proved that the promises of God were as real and satisfying to their souls as when they first started. Now, I believe this purchase of a burying-place in the land was an exhibition of the power of faith, not only to live, but to die. Why was Abraham so particular about this purchase? Why was he so anxious to make good his claim to the field and cave of Ephron on righteous principles? Why so determined to weigh out the full price"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. This is our hope. What is the moral effect of this?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and they would fain have done him a favor; but Abraham had learnt to take his favors only from the God of resurrection, and while he would pay _them_ for Machpelah, he would look to _him_ for Canaan. The sons of Heth knew well the value of"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and Abraham knew the value of the cave of Machpelah. It was worth much more to him than it was to them."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The land was worth to them"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The middle wall of partition needed to be broken down, ere the"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you-ward: how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery ... which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, _as it is now_ revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets (i. e., New-Testament prophets, [Greek: tois hagiois apostolois autou kai prophêtais]) by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. (Eph. iii. 1-6.) This is conclusive. The mystery of the Church, composed of Jew and Gentile, baptized by one Spirit into one body, united to the glorious Head in the heavens, had never been revealed until Paul's day. Of this mystery the apostle goes on to say,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "(Ver. 7.) The apostles and prophets of the New Testament formed, as it were, the first layer of this glorious building. (See Eph. ii. 20.) This being so, it follows as a consequence that the building could not have been begun before. If the building had been going on from the days of Abel downwards, the apostle would then have said,"
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning."
}
]
|
37915 | Unknown Title | Unknown Author | [
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In thy book were all my members written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them. (Ps. cxxxix. 16.)"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ; according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. (Eph. i. 3, 4.)"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Rom. viii. 29, 30.) These scriptures are all in beautiful harmony with the point immediately before us. The call, the justification, and the glory of the Church, are all founded on the eternal purpose of God,--his word and oath, ratified by the death, resurrection, and exaltation of the Son. Far back, beyond the bounds of time, in the deep recesses of God's eternal mind, lay this wondrous purpose respecting the Church, which cannot, by any means, be separated from the divine thought respecting the glory of the Son. The oath between Abraham and the servant had for its object the provision of a partner for the son. It was the father's desire with respect to the son that all led to Rebekah's after-dignity. It is happy to see this. Happy to see how the Church's security and blessing stand inseparably connected with Christ and his glory."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. (1 Cor. xi. 8, 9.) So it is in the beautiful parable of the marriage-supper;"
}
]
|
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