Tried With Fire

“I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” Isaiah 48:10. "“I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” I chose you before you were here. Yea, I chose you before you had a being, and when all creatures lay before Me in the pure mass of creatureship, and I could create or not create as I pleased, I chose and created you a vessel of mercy appointed unto eternal life. And when you, in common with the whole race, had fallen, though I might have crushed you with them and sent you down to hell, I chose you in your fallen condition and I provided for your redemption. In the fullness of time, I sent My Son, who fulfilled My law and made it honorable. I chose you at your birth, when a helpless infant you did sleep upon your mother’s breast. I chose you when you did grow up in childhood, with all your follies and your sins. Determined to save you, I watched o’er your path when, as Satan’s blind slave, you did sport with death. I chose you when, in manhood, you did sin agai...

“Why seek you the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen; remember how He spoke unto you when He was yet in Galilee.” Luke 24:5, 6. “He is not here, but He is risen!” This was amazing news to His enemies. They said, “We have killed Him; we have put Him in the tomb; it is all over with Him.” Aha! Scribe, Pharisee, Priest! What have you done? Your work is all undone, for He is risen! It was amazing news for Satan. He, no doubt, dreamed that he had destroyed the Savior, but He is risen! What a thrill went through all the regions of hell! What news it was for the grave! Now it was utterly destroyed, and Death had lost his sting! What news it was for trembling saints. “He is risen, indeed.” They plucked up courage, and they said, “The good cause is still the right one, and it will conquer, for our Christ is still alive as its head.” It was good news for sinners. Yes, it is good news for every sinner here. Christ is alive! If you seek Him, He will be found of you. He is ...

I don't consider myself a very emotional person, but I was a watering pot yesterday. It started with Pastor Ryan's sermon on Hosea which culminates in God's call to return to him in chapter 14. This chapter is very personal because it was the text of one of the first sermons I ever read by C.H. Spurgeon after my ex-husband walked out. I wept then as I prayed for him to return to God and to his family. So yesterday's sermon brought a flood of memories. But God's faithfulness to the unfaithful isn't only true of those who commit obvious "bad" sins. His faithfulness extends to all of us because who among us hasn't gone after other gods in our hearts? Yet God continues to draw us again and again with a love that does not let us go. Then in the evening, a lay brother, Will Brown, spoke on Christ fulfilling the office of prophet, priest, and king using John 17 as the text. There were so many messianic expectations over the years, so many wrong ideas...

Here's a link to a post I wrote recently for one of the columns at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. One of the joys of gathering with my local church on Sundays is sitting under the ministry of the Word. This is especially dear to me after having been un-churched for many years. I was spiritually malnourished by the time God providentially led me to the church I now call home. Hearing sound preaching was a feast for my soul after those lean years, and it still is. During the sermon, I take notes. Some may prefer to devote all their attention to listening and forego the pen and paper, but taking notes helps me learn and to recall what I have heard. So here are a few thoughts that may encourage you in your note-taking. Read the rest here .

What, then, is our joy? It is, first, that Christ is not dead. He is alive, He is risen from the dead! Next, He reigns as well as lives, and He reigns for us—He is ruling all things on our behalf, and as He sees us with His royal eyes, He also pleads for us before the eternal throne of God! And He is coming again! We know not when, but we know that He is coming quickly, and that He is already on the road. He shall descend in like manner as they saw Him go up into heaven.  All this is the joy of the Christian which no man takes from him! No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead! I know that He did—there is no historical fact that is so certainly attested as this, that Christ died, was buried, and on the third day rose again from the dead! And therein I do rejoice, yes, and will rejoice! If He rose not from the dead, then my preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain—but as He surely rose from the dead, then every trouble has gone! I do not think...

Say unto my soul, I am your salvation. Psalm 35:3 There are some who say it is better that a man should stand in jeopardy of his soul every hour— better for him to be exercised with doubts and fears, than that he should grow confident, and have the joy of knowing assuredly that he is a saved man, is in the favor of God, and shall never be condemned. We will hear these objectors for a moment, and answer them speedily. One of them advances, and he says, “First, I object to your preaching this morning, the doctrine of full assurance, because I believe it to be impossible. I cannot conceive that any man can know in this life whether he shall be saved in the life to come. Perhaps I may grant you that, in the dying hour, some men may get a little confidence; but, with the exception of a few of the eminently holy, and the profoundly spiritual, it cannot be possible that Christians should attain to a full confidence, and an infallible assurance of being saved. ” To this, sir, I reply th...

Even to your old age I am He; and even to gray hairs will I carry you. I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. Isaiah 46:4. An old man is not anxious about many things, as we are, for he has not so many things for which to concern him. He has not the cares of starting in business, as he once had. He has no children to launch out in business. He has not to cast his anxious eyes on his little family. But his concern has somewhat increased in another direction. He has more concern about his bodily frame than he once had. He cannot now run as he used to do. And he must walk with a more sober gait. He fears, every now and then, that the pitcher will be “broken at the cistern,” for “the noise of the grinders is low.” He has, no longer, that strength of desire he once possessed—his body has begun to totter, to shake and to quiver. The old tenement has stood these 50 years and who expects a house to last forever? A bit of mortar has gone off from one place an...

Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6. [I]f those who have believed in Christ are not saved, then surely all the attributes of God are in peril; if He begins, and does not finish His work, all the parts of His character are dishonored. Where is His wisdom? Why did He begin that which He did not intend to finish? Where is His power? Will not evil spirits always say “that He could not do what He did not do”? Will it not be a standing jeer throughout the halls of hell that God began the work, and then stayed from it? Will they not say that the obstinacy of man’s sin was greater than the grace of God, that the hardness of the human heart was too hard for God to dissolve? Would there not be a slur at once cast upon the omnipotence of divine grace? And what shall we say of the immutability of God, if He casts away those whom He loves? How shall we think that He does not change? How wi...

If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31.  God the Father cannot be against us. He is our Father! He cannot be against His own children! He has chosen us—He will not cast us away—He has adopted us into His family, He will never discard us; He has been pleased to ordain us unto eternal life, He will never reverse the decree. He was for us in the covenant of grace when He planned the way to save rebellious man. He has been for us in the great ordering of providence—all things have worked together for good for us until now. We wonder how we have arrived where we now are—but surely providence, under God, has worked wondrously on our behalf! He is for us in all the decrees which are yet to be fulfilled; there is not a single line in the great book which is against the Christian. You may rest assured that whether the earth shall rock and reel, or the moon is black as a sackcloth of hair, or the earth is licked up with tongues of fire, still Jehovah has not a single thoug...

We can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for He Himself is also compassed with infirmity. Hebrews 5:2 Many of us, I trust, have a desire within out hearts to come to God, but we need a high priest. But we need a high priest in order that we may draw near—one who shall be a man as well as God. We may reflect with joy upon the Godhead of our great High Priest. Inasmuch as it is His right, He counts it not robbery to be equal with God, but He communes with the Father as one that was by Him, as one brought up with Him, who was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him. But we ought also to be very grateful that we can come into touch with our High Priest on His human side and rejoice that He is truly man. For thus says the Lord, “I have laid help upon One that is mighty: I have exalted One chosen out of the people.” He is anointed, it is true, with the oil of gladness above His fellows, but still, He and they are one, “for which cause He is not...

Behold, I have inscribed you upon the palms of My hands. Isaiah 49:16 “I have inscribed you upon the palms of My hands.” My Lord, do You mean me ? Yes, even me, if I, by faith, cling to Your cross. “I am not shut out from Your heart of love, if by faith I have entered into Your happy family. I know that You remember me or You would never have helped me to remember You. Glory be to You, O my gracious Lord.” But I want you, my beloved brothers and sisters, to notice that the word runs, “I have inscribed you .” It does not say, “ Your name .” The name is there, but that is not all—“I have inscribed you.” See the fullness of this! I have inscribed your person, your image, your case, your circumstances, your sins, your temptations, your weaknesses, your needs, your works; I have inscribed you —everything about you—all that concerns you; I have put you altogether there! It is not an outline sketch, you see; it is a full picture, as though the man himself were there. What? Do you dare d...

At that day you shall ask in my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from God. John 16:26-27 To ask anything of God does not require that you should use a set form of words. The children in your family do not read a petition to you when they need any favor at your hands. They state their need in childish language, you understand them and grant their request, if it is a right and proper one and compliance with it is within your power. Act in just the same way with your God.  We are often far too careful about picking and choosing the phrases that we use in prayer. Do you think that God is pleased with a display of oratory, or that He takes notice of your elocution when you come to the throne of grace? It may suit a teacher of English composition to criticize your sentences, but God thinks much more of your desires than of the words in which they ar...

Now, let it be known and understood that our faith is that those very limbs that lay stiff and cold in death, became warm with life again; that the very body with its bones, and blood, and flesh which lay there, became again instinct with life, and came forth into a glorious existence! Those hands broke the piece of honeycomb, and the fish in the presence of the disciples; and those lips partook of the same. And He held out those wounds, and said, “Reach here your finger, and put it into the print of the nails.” And He bared His side, the same side, and said, “Reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side and be not faithless, but believing.” He was no phantom, no spectra! As He Himself said, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have.” He was a real man as much after the resurrection as He had been before! And He is real man in glory now, even as He was when here below! He has gone up—the cloud has received Him out of our sight. The same Christ who asked Peter, “Do you ...

This do in remembrance of Me. Luke 22:19 I am never happier than when I am in your midst, my beloved brethren, and we all sit around the table, because I think of all the Lord has done for you and for me. Why, it is not worth while going to heaven alone. A little lost child sits down on the doorstep of a West end mansion and cries because it is so lonely; is that to be our position in heaven? Are we to take no friends there with us? Who wants to be solitary in the New Jerusalem? But oh, to come with all of you to the table, and to look into the faces of all God’s people, and to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is in each one of them! They are a poor lot, full of mistakes, full of errors, full of infirmities, just like their minister, but the Lord has loved them, and bought them with His blood. A precious Christ He is, not only to have saved me but tens of thousands of His saints everywhere, for there are people of His in all churches, even in the churches that are most full of e...

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36.  The Son of God can make the prisoner free. No matter who you are, nor what you are, nor how many years you may have remained the slaves of Satan—the Son, the glorious Liberator—can make you free. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost, who come unto God by Him.” Perhaps that which weighs upon you most heavily is a sense of your past guilt. “I have offended God—I have offended often, willfully, atrociously, with many aggravations. On such-and-such a day, I offended Him in the foulest manner, and with deliberation. On other days, I have run greedily in a course of vice. Nothing has restrained me from disobedience, and nothing has impelled me to the service of God. All that His Word says against me, I deserve; and every threat, which His Book utters, is justly due to me, and may well be fulfilled. Is there a possibility that I can escape from guilt? Can so foul a sinner as I am be made clean? I know that t...

“I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.” Isaiah 48:10.  [Y]ou have the Son of Man with you in the furnace. In that silent bedchamber of yours, there sits by your side one whom you have not seen but whom you love. And oftentimes when you know it not, He makes all your bed in your affliction and smoothes your pillow for you. You are in poverty. But in that lonely house of yours, that has nothing to cover its bare walls—where you sleep on a miserable pallet—do you know that the Lord of life and glory is a frequent visitor? He often treads those bare floors and putting His hands upon those walls, He consecrates them! Were you in a palace He might not come there. He loves to come into these desolate places where He may visit you. The Son of Man is with you, Christian. You cannot see Him, but you may feel the pressure of His hands. Do you not hear His voice? It is the Valley of the Shadow of Death—you see nothing, but He says, “Fear not, I am with you, be not dismayed, for ...

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that You have sent Me. John 17:20, 21. [T]he Holy Spirit, who indwells in every believer, is the true fountain of oneness. Some of the Christians in this land of ours 200 years ago were strangely different in outward manners from their brothers and sisters of 1866; but when we talk with them through their old folios and books, we find, if we are the Lord’s people, that we are quite at home with them. Though the manifestation may vary, yet the same Spirit of God works the same graces, the same virtues, the same excellences, and thus helps all saints to prove they are of one tribe. I meet an Englishman anywhere in the wide world over, and I recognize in him some likeness to myself; there is some characteristic or other about him by which his nationality is betrayed; ...

“Even to your old age I am He.” He is always the same in Himself, and always the same to His people. If you are indeed a believer in the Lord, and resting in Christ Jesus, He says to you at this time with regard to all the future unknown, and, perhaps greatly dreaded, “Be not afraid, for I am the Lord your God; even to your old age I am He.” Dear friends, we rightly expect trials between here and heaven, and the ordinary wear and tear of life, even if life should not be clouded by an extreme trial, will gradually wear us out. We shall come, by and by, if life is spared, to that bottom of the hill where the eye grows dim, and the ear is heavy, and the arms are trembling, and the strong men bow themselves. Well, what then? What says our God concerning the days of decline and decay? He says to us, “I AM HE.” He will not grow weak. His eye will not be dim. His ear will not be heavy. His arm will not be shortened that He cannot help us, or His hand palsied that He cannot deliver us. C...

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 8:1. He that believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is in Christ. By an act of simple dependence upon Jesus he realizes his position as being in Christ. By nature I am in myself, and in sin, and I am, therefore, condemned, but when the grace of God awakens me up to know my ruined state, then I fly to Christ. I trust alone in His blood and righteousness, and He becomes to me the cleft of the rock, wherein I hide myself from the storm of vengeance justly due to me for my many offenses. The Lord Jesus is typified by the city of refuge. You and I are like the manslayer that was pursued by the avenger, and we are never safe till we pass through the gate of the city of refuge—I mean, till we are completely enclosed by the Lord Jesus. Inside the walls of the city the manslayer was secure, and within our Savior’s wounds we are safe. By a humble, simple, undivided...

“The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Observe what a full knowledge God has of each one of His children. If there were nobody else in the world except you, and God had nothing else to do but to think of you, and there were no objects of His attention beyond yourself, and His eternal mind had no object of consideration but you only, the Lord would not then know more about you than He does now. The omniscience of God is concentrated upon every single being, and yet it is not divided by the multiplicity of its objects; it is not the less upon any single one because there are so many. How it should astonish us, that the Lord knows us at this moment so intimately as to count every hair of our heads! The knowledge which the Lord has concerning His people is most minute, and takes in those small matters which men set down as unconsidered trifles. He knows what you and I hardly wish to know; He knows that which we may be content to leave unknown, “The very hairs of your head are ...