PEARLS from PHILPOT - Volume 11

Sovereign, supreme disposal "And God has put all things under the authority of Christ, and He gave Him this authority for the benefit of the church." Ephesians 1:22 God has put all things, events, and circumstances under the authority of Christ! How vast, how numerous, how complicated are the various events and circumstances which attend the children of God here below, as they travel onward to their heavenly home! What an intricate maze they often seem, and how much they appear opposed to us, as if we never could get through them, or scarcely live under them! Yet, there cannot be a single circumstance over which Jesus has not supreme control. Everything in providence and everything in grace are alike subject to His disposal. There is not . . . a trial, a temptation, an affliction of body or soul, a loss, a cross, a painful bereavement, a vexation, a grief, a disappointment, a case, state, or condition, which is not put under Jesus' authority! He has sovereign, supreme disposal over all events and circumstances! As possessed of infinite knowledge, He sees them. As possessed of infinite wisdom, He can manage them. As possessed of infinite power, He can dispose and direct them for our good and His own glory! How much trouble and anxiety we would save ourselves, could we firmly believe, realize, and act on this! If we could see by the eye of faith that . . . every foe and every fear, every difficulty and perplexity, every trying or painful circumstance, every looked-for or unlooked-for event, every source of anxiety, whether at present or in prospect, are all under His dominion, and at His sovereign disposal—what a load of anxiety and care would be taken off our shoulders! "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me." Matthew 28:18 Pride, worldliness, and covetousness Pride, worldliness, and covetousness may reign rampant, where grosser sins are not committed, or kept hidden from observation. "The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I know! I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives." Jeremiah 17:9-10 All of us used to live that way "Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins! You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of the children of disobedience. All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature. We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God's wrath just like everyone else!" Ephesians 2:1-3 Paul reminds us of the state and condition in which we used to live, that he may thereby magnify the riches of God's grace, and bring before us what should be a matter of the deepest humiliation and self-abhorrence. How clearly does he show that there is no difference between the saved and the lost—except what grace makes between them; that all, elect and non-elect, are equally dead in sin; that all equally live according to the ways of this world in their unregenerate condition; and that all are equally led and acted upon by Satan, that foul and accursed spirit which we see now working everywhere around us in the children of disobedience. If we view the children of God only as they are by nature, there is no difference between them and the lost. Their sins are as great, if not greater; their nature as corrupt; their hearts as evil; the whole bent and course of their thoughts, words, and works, were as saturated with sin and crime. And all these things deserve wrath, and would draw down wrath as their everlasting portion—but for the sovereign grace of God! The very sweetness of grace lies in this—that it has put away deserved wrath! Paul's object is to remind us of our obligations to distinguishing, sovereign grace, by showing us that we deserve nothing at God's hands but wrath; and that had we our just due, wrath would be poured out upon us to the uttermost! Surely every one who has felt anything of the wrath of God as his just due, on account of his personal sins, will freely acknowledge that he is by nature a child of wrath, and that there are thousands in hell who have not sinned as great as he has! "But God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when He raised Christ from the dead. It is only by grace that you have been saved!" Ephesians 2:4-5 Fall down in reverent astonishment "His great love for us." Ephesians 2:4 "You love them as much as You love Me." John 17:23 The love of God to His dear Son must be so infinite as to exceed all conception of men or angels. Now, that He should love the people of His choice with the same love—the same in nature, the same in degree as that with which He loves His dear Son—is one of the most overwhelming thoughts which can move and stir a human bosom! Indeed, so overwhelming is it in its sublime mystery and unapproachable depth, that as it can only be received by faith! Faith itself can only fall down in reverent astonishment and admiration before it, and cry out, "O the depth! O the blessedness of this love!" "I love you the same way as My Father has loved Me." John 15:9 Don't you realize! "Don't you realize that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" 1 Cor. 3:16 Alas! how little is this truth contemplated and acted upon! Were we more deeply and powerfully impressed with the solemn truth that God Himself dwells in us through the Spirit, how much more careful we would be to maintain . . . truth and reality, life and power in experience, godliness and holiness in life! What a reverential fear would possess our minds, that we might not defile the Lord's temple, or sin against and before, so holy and all-seeing a Guest! If we realized this, and lived under its solemn weight and influence, how careful we would be not to defile that body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. How desirous and anxious we would be not to pollute . . . our eyes by wandering lusts; our ears by listening to worldly and carnal conversation; our lips by speaking deceit, or light and frothy talk; our hands by putting them to anything that is evil; our feet by running on errands of vanity and folly. We are to view our body as God's temple, and therefore sanctified to His service and to His glory! "God bought you with a high price! So you must honor God with your body." 1 Corinthians 6:20 Strangers! "To God's elect, strangers in the world." 1 Peter 1:1 "I am a stranger with you and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." Psalm 39:12 "I am but a stranger here on earth." Psalm 119:19 "They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Hebrews 11:13 The main character of a child of God is that he is a stranger upon earth. One of the first effects of the grace of God upon our soul was to separate us from the world, and make us feel ourselves strangers in it. The world was once our home—the active, busy center of all our thoughts, desires, and affections. But when grace planted imperishable principles of life in our bosom, it at once separated us from the world in heart and spirit, if not in actual life and walk. We are strangers inwardly and experimentally, by the power of divine grace making this world a wilderness to us. Money! "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money." 2 Timothy 3:2 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." 1 Timothy 6:10 Money feeds the lusts of the flesh by giving its possessor the power to gratify them. Money nurses his pride by making its possessor, so to speak, independent of the providence of God. Money fosters the love of the world by giving its possessor a portion in it. "You cannot serve both God and Money!" Luke 16:13 "Not greedy for money." 1 Peter 5:2 "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have." Heb. 13:5 "The Pharisees, who dearly loved their money, scoffed at all this." Luke 16:14 All the ravishments of His presence and love! "Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:9 What is to be compared with the salvation of the soul? What are riches, honors, health, long life? What are all the pleasures which the world can offer, sin promise, or the flesh enjoy? What is all that men call good or great? What is everything which the outward eye has seen, or natural ear heard, or has entered into the carnal heart of man —put side by side with being saved by Jesus with an everlasting salvation? Consider what we are saved from—as well as what we are saved unto. From a burning hell—to a blissful heaven! From endless wrath—to eternal glory! From the dreadful company of devils and damned spirits, mutually tormenting and tormented—to the blessed companionship of the glorified saints, all perfectly conformed in body and soul to the image of Christ, with thousands and tens of thousands of holy angels! And, above all, to seeing the glorious Son of God as He is, in all the perfection of His beauty, and all the ravishments of His presence and love! To be done forever with . . . all the sorrows, troubles, and afflictions of this life; all the pains and aches of this poor clay tabernacle; all the darkness, bondage, and misery of the body of sin and death—to be perfectly holy in body and soul, being in both without spot, or blemish—and ever to enjoy uninterrupted union and communion with God! O what a heaven lies before the children of God! Fashionable sins "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil lusts you had when you lived in ignorance." 1 Peter 1:14 Peter warns us against yielding ourselves to the power and practice of any of those lusts which had dominion over us in the days of our ignorance—such as the base and sensual lusts of the flesh—or the more refined lusts of . . . money, power, pleasure, fashion, pride, worldliness, fleshly ease —those more fashionable sins in which a man may live and walk, and yet preserve his character and good name. Let the children of disobedience follow after and be conformed to all these worldly lusts; but let the children of obedience shun and abhor them as . . . hateful to God, deceitful and dangerous to themselves, and contrary to a holy, godly profession. "But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do." 1 Peter 1:15 At the cross alone "Jesus has become our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption." 1 Corinthians 1:30 "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14 An experimental knowledge of crucifixion with his crucified Lord, made Paul preach the cross—not only in its power to save, but in its power to sanctify. The cross is not only the meritorious cause of all salvation—but is the instrumental cause of all sanctification. As there is no other way of salvation than by the blood of the cross—so there is no other way of holiness than by the power of the cross. Through the cross, that is, through union and communion with Him who suffered upon it, not only is there a fountain opened for all sin—but for all uncleanness! All our . . . pardon and peace, acceptance and justification, happiness and holiness, wisdom and strength, victory over the world, mortification of the body of sin and death, hope and confidence, prayer and praise, gracious feelings, spiritual desires, warm supplications, honest confessions, godly sorrows for sin, spring from the cross! At the cross alone can we . . . be made wise unto salvation, become righteous by a free justification, receive of His Spirit to make us holy, and be redeemed and delivered from . . . sin, Satan, death and hell. To the cross we are to bring . . . our sorrows, our trials, our temptations, our sufferings, to get life from His death, pardon and peace from His atoning blood, justification from His divine obedience, and resignation to the will of God from His holy example. At the cross alone is . . . the world crucified to us, and we to the world; sin mortified, and its reigning power dethroned; the old man crucified and put off, and the new man put on. For the most part, it is only through a long series of . . . afflictions, bereavements, disappointments, vexations, illnesses, pains of body and mind, hot furnaces, and deep waters, as sanctified to his soul's profit by the Holy Spirit, that the child of God comes to the cross. The kingship of Christ "King of kings and Lord of lords!" Revelation 19:16 The kingship of Christ is full of sweet consolation to the tried family of God. As Zion's enthroned King, He supplies His people out of His own inexhaustible fullness! To Him, as our enthroned King, we give the allegiance of our hearts. Before His feet, as our rightful Sovereign, we humbly lie. And we beg of Him, as possessed of all power, to subdue our iniquities and rebellious lusts, and sway His peaceful scepter over every faculty of our soul. The kingship of Christ is a blessed subject of meditation, when we consider its bearing upon our helpless, defenseless condition. We stand surrounded by foes . . . internal, external, infernal, all armed against us with deadly enmity! Every child of God is surrounded by a multitude of enemies without and within, who, unless they are overcome—will

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PEARLS from PHILPOT - Volume 11

J.C. Philpot

J.C. Philpot (1802 - 1869)

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