Grace Gems

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The only sure medicine for troubled hearts!

(J.C. Ryle)

"Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God--believe also in Me!" John 14:1

This verse is rich in precious truth. For eighteen centuries it has been peculiarly dear to Christ's believing servants in every part of the world. Many are the sick rooms which it has lightened! Many are the dying hearts which it has cheered!

We have in this passage, a precious remedy against an old disease. That disease is trouble of heart. That remedy is faith.

Heart-trouble is the commonest thing in the world!
No rank, or class, or condition is exempt from it.
No bars, or bolts, or locks can keep it out.
Partly from inward causes--and partly from outward causes;
partly from the body--and partly from the mind;
partly from what we love--and partly from what we fear
--the journey of life is full of trouble! Between grace and glory--even the best of Christians have many bitter cups to drink. Even the holiest saints find the world to be a valley of tears! "Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows!" John 16:33

Faith in the Lord Jesus is the only sure medicine for troubled hearts!
To believe more thoroughly,
to trust more entirely,
to rest more unreservedly,
to lay hold more firmly,
to lean back more completely--
this is the prescription which our Master urges on the attention of all His disciples.

Never let us forget that there are degrees in faith, and that there is a wide difference between weak and strong believers. The weakest faith is enough to give a man a saving interest in Christ, and ought not to be despised--but it will not give a man such inward comfort as a strong faith. Vagueness and dimness of perception are the defect of weak believers. They do not see clearly what they believe and why they believe. In such cases more faith is the one thing needed. Like Peter on the water, they need to look more steadily at Jesus--and less at the waves and wind.

"You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You! Isaiah 26:3

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The Devil's Beans!

(Rowland Hill)

The other day I was going down the street and I saw a drove of pigs following a man. This excited my curiosity, so that I determined to follow. I did so, and to my great surprise I saw them follow him to the slaughterhouse! I was very anxious to know how this was, and I said to the man, "My friend, how did you manage to induce those pigs to follow you here?"

"Oh, did you not see?" said the man; "I had a basket of beans under my arms, and I dropped a few as I came along, and so they followed me."

Yes, and I thought, so it is--the devil has a basket of beans under his arm, and he drops them as he goes along, and what multitudes he induces to follow him to an everlasting slaughter house! Yes, friends, and all your broad and crowded thoroughfares are strewn with the beans of the devil!

"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes!" Ephesians 6:11

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We need more sermons in shoes!

(Theodore Cuyler)

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven!" Matthew 5:16

The demand of the day is for a higher standard and style of Christian life. Every follower of Christ must represent His religion purely, loftily, impressively, before that multitude of "Bible-readers" whose only Bible is the Christian.

We need more sermons in shoes, men and women going up and down the roads of life preaching Christianity by their imitation of Christ!

"Leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps!" 1 Peter 2:21

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So it died, buried in pleasure!

(Dr. Edmund)

"Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" 2 Timothy 3:4

Did you ever read of the bee in the fable, that found a pot of honey, and thought it would be fine to save all the trouble of flying about the meadows and gathering its sweet stores, little by little, out of the cups of flowers? Soon it went in the pot and reveled in the sweets; but when it began to get tired and cloyed, it found--poor bee!--that its wings were all clogged and would not open, nor could it drag its body out of the mass. So it died, buried in pleasure!

There are many people, like this bee, who find death in their pleasures!

"You have lived on earth in pleasure and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter!" James 5:5

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A bad book is a big thief!

(Charles Spurgeon)

A bad book is a big thief! For it robs a man of his time, and of his good principles. Many young people have been ruined by the vile literature which is now so common. A German writer says, "Such books rob the public of time, money, and the attention which ought properly to belong to good literature with noble aims. Of bad books, we can never read too little; of the good books, never too much."

Books should conduce to one of these four ends:
   for wisdom,
   for piety,
   for delight, or
   for usefulness.

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Polishing God's jewels!

"They will be Mine in the day when I make up My jewels!" Malachi 3:17

(Robert Leighton, 1611-1684)
God has many sharp-cutting instruments and rough files for the polishing of His jewels. Those He especially loves and means to make the most resplendent--He most often uses His tools upon!


(Richard Newton, "Bible Jewels")
Jewels are polished for the sake of removing specks and blemishes from them. They are often cut and polished on purpose to make them look more beautiful. If a large diamond is to be put on the crown of some great king, it is only by cutting and polishing that it can be made to shine with all its brilliance.

When you look at a diamond, you see that it has many faces or sides. These don't belong to diamonds naturally. When they are found in the mines, they have none of these smooth faces. They are then like little pebble-stones, without any particular shape. These smooth, even sides are made by the jeweler, by grinding and polishing. And they are made on purpose to make the diamond look more beautiful.

In the same way, God cuts and polishes His jewels in order to make them shine more brightly and beautifully in the crown of His glory in Heaven.

Sometimes we see good Christian people who have very heavy trials which they are obliged to bear for many years. And when we see them bearing those trials, we often wonder what it is all for.

God is using those trials just as the jeweler uses the files and wheels--to polish His jewels so as to make them brighter and more beautiful in Heaven.

There was that poor beggar at the gate of the rich man, of whom we read in the New Testament. He was left to be so poor, and to have all those dreadful sores, not because God could not help it; He could easily have made him a rich man and have kept him from having any sores at all, if He had so pleased. But Lazarus was one of God's jewels, and God was making use of his poverty and beggary and sores--in order to polish that jewel and make it shine more beautifully in Heaven!

All of God's jewels need polishing!

"I have refined you in the furnace of suffering!" Isaiah 48:10

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It is a fact of life!

(Albert Barnes, "Life at Three-score and Ten" 1868.)

It is a fact of life, that all of our thoughts, words, and actions are fixed and unchangeable.

Now, at the age of seventy, my work for good or for evil is done.
I cannot go back and repair what has been amiss.
I cannot now do what has been left undone.
I cannot do in a better manner, what has been imperfectly performed.
I cannot recover the hours that have been wasted.
I cannot correct the evils which may have resulted from my errors.
I cannot overtake and stop what I have spoken or written, as it has gone out into the world.
I cannot summon back the opportunities for usefulness which have been neglected.
I cannot obliterate the reality or the memory of wrong thoughts, or wrong motives, or wrong words, or wrong actions.
All that has been thought or said or done in these seventy years, has become fixed as a reality--never to be changed.
Past errors and follies may be forgiven--but they are never to be changed.

The hope of a man at seventy years of age--at any age--is not that the errors, and sins, and follies of the past can be changed--it is only . . .
  that they may be pardoned by a merciful God;
  that they may be covered over by the blood of the atonement;
  that though they must remain forever as facts--facts fully known to the Great Searcher of hearts--their guilt may be so taken away that they will not be punished;
  that by the blood shed on the cross, they themselves may be so covered over--so hidden--that they will not be disclosed on the final trial before assembled worlds!

That hope, the religion of Christ offers to all.

How different would men try to make their lives, if they habitually felt that all--literally all--that they do, or say, or think--even their most fugitive thoughts--becomes thus fixed and unchangeable forever!

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That always brings down the wrath of the religious majority!

(A.W. Tozer)

Pragmatism is having a powerful influence upon contemporary Christianity!

Pragmatism asks no embarrassing questions about the Scripturalness of what we are doing. It accepts our chosen ends as right and good--and casts about for efficient means and ways to get them accomplished. When it discovers something that works, it soon finds a text to justify it, then "consecrates" it to the Lord, and plunges ahead.

As one fairly familiar with the contemporary religious scene, I say without hesitation that a very large part of the activities carried on today in evangelical circles are not only influenced by pragmatism--but almost completely controlled by it!
Religious methodology is geared to it;
it appears large in our youth meetings;
magazines and books constantly glorify it;
conventions are dominated by it; and
the whole religious atmosphere is alive with it!

What shall we do to break its power over us? The answer is simple. We must acknowledge the right of Jesus Christ to control the activities of His church. The New Testament contains full instructions, not only about what we are to believe--but what we are to do and how we are to go about doing it. Any deviation from those instructions, is a denial of the Lordship of Christ.

The answer is simple, but it is not easy--for it requires that we obey God rather than man, and that always brings down the wrath of the religious majority! It is not a question of knowing what to do--we can easily learn that from the Scriptures. It is a question of whether or not we have the courage to do it!

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The Utilitarian Christ!

(A.W. Tozer)

Our Lord forewarned us that false Christs would come. Mostly we think of these as coming from the outside--but we should remember that they may also arise within the church itself.

We must be extremely careful that the Christ we profess to follow, is indeed the very Christ of Scripture. There is always danger that we may be following a Christ who is not the true Christ--but one conjured up by our imagination and made in our own image.

I confess to a feeling of uneasiness about this when I observe the questionable things Christ is said to do for people these days. He is often recommended as a wonderfully obliging, but not too discriminating, Big Brother--who delights to help us to accomplish our ends, and who further favors us by forbearing to ask any embarrassing questions about the moral and spiritual qualities of those ends.

Within the past few years, Christ has been popularized by some so-called evangelicals as one who, if a proper amount of prayer were made--would help the pious prize fighter to knock another fighter unconscious in the ring.

Christ is also said to help the big league pitcher to get the proper hook on his curve.

In another instance He assists an athlete to win the high jump; and in another case, not only to come in first in a track meet--but to set a new record in the bargain.

He is said also to have helped a praying businessman to beat out a competitor in a deal. He is even thought to lend support to a praying movie actress while she plays a role so lewd as to bring the blood to the face of a professional prostitute!

Thus our Lord becomes the Christ of utility--a kind of Aladdin's lamp to do minor miracles in behalf of anyone who summons Him to do his bidding.

Apparently no one stops to consider that if Christ were to step into a prize ring and use His divine power to help one prize fighter to paralyze another--that He would be putting one fighter at a cruel disadvantage and violating every common instinct of fair play. If He were to aid one businessman to the detriment of another, He would be practicing favoritism and revealing a character wholly unlike the Bible picture of the real Christ. All this is too horrible to contemplate.

Theirs is a Christ of carnal convenience--not too far removed from the gods of paganism.

The whole purpose of God in redemption is to make us holy and to restore us to the image of Christ. To accomplish this, He disengages us from earthly ambitions and draws us away from the cheap and unworthy prizes that worldly men set their hearts upon. A holy man would not dream of asking God to help him beat an opponent, or win over a competitor. No man in whom the Spirit dwells, could bring himself to ask the Lord to help him knock another man unconscious, for filthy lucre or the plaudits of the vulgar spectators.

To teach that Christ will use His sacred power to further our worldly interests, is to wrong our Lord and injure our own souls.

We modern evangelicals need to learn the truths of the sovereignty of God and the lordship of Christ. Christ will not be manipulated by any of Adam's selfish brood! We had better learn these things fast if this generation of young Christians is to be spared the supreme tragedy of following a Christ who is merely a Christ of convenience--and not the true Lord of glory after all!

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The poor worm is secretly indulging self-applause!

(Letters of John Newton)

Among the many general causes of decline in grace, we may assign a principal place to  spiritual pride and self-admiration. If our attainments in knowledge and giftedness, and even in grace--seduce us into a good opinion of ourselves, as if we were wise and good--we are already ensnared, in danger of falling every step we take, of mistaking the right path, and proceeding from bad to worse--without a power of correcting or even of discovering our deviations! That is--unless and until the Lord mercifully interposes, by restoring us to a spirit of humility, and dependence upon Himself. For God, who gives more grace to the humble--resists the proud! He beholds them with abhorrence--in proportion to the degree in which they admire themselves! It is the invariable law of His kingdom, that everyone who exalts himself--shall be abased!

True Christians, through the remaining evil of their hearts, and the subtle temptations of their enemy, are liable, not only to the workings of that pride which is common to our fallen nature--but to a certain kind of pride, which, though the most absurd and intolerable in any person--can only be found among those who make profession of the gospel. We have nothing but what we have received, and therefore to be proud of our titles, wealth, knowledge, success, or any temporal advantages by which the providence of God has distinguished us--is downright sinful! For those who confess themselves to be 'sinners', and therefore deserving of nothing but misery and wrath--to be proud of those peculiar blessings which are derived from the gospel of God's grace--is a wickedness of which even the demons are not capable of!

The apostle Paul was so aware of his danger of being exalted above measure, through the abundant revelations and peculiar favors which the Lord had afforded him--that he says, "There was given me a messenger of Satan to buffet me." He speaks of this sharp trial as a great mercy, because he saw that it was necessary, and designed to keep him humble and attentive to his own weakness.

Ministers who are honored with singular abilities and success, have great need of watchfulness and prayer on this account! Simple-hearted hearers are apt to admire their favorite preacher--taking it for granted that he is deeply affected himself with the truths, which, with so much apparent liberty and power--he proposes to them. While, perhaps--the poor worm is secretly indulging self-applause, and pleasing himself with the numbers and attention of those who hang upon his words!

Perhaps such thoughts will occasionally rise in the minds of the best ministers; but, if they are allowed, if they become habitual, and enter strongly into the idea he forms of his own importance; and if, while he professes to preach Jesus Christ--he is preaching himself, and seeking his own glory--he is guilty of high treason against the Majesty of Him in whose name he speaks! And sooner or later, the effects of his pride will be visible and noticed. Doctrinal errors, gross misconduct, an abatement of zeal, of gifts, of influence--are evils always to be dreaded, when spiritual pride has gained an ascendancy, whether in public or in private life.

"The Lord Almighty has planned it, to bring low the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth." Isaiah 23:9

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He will not spare the pruning knife if He sees that we need it!

"Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes so that it may bear more fruit." John 15:2

We learn from this verse, that God will often increase the holiness of true Christians by His providential dealings with them. The meaning of this language is clear and plain. Just as the gardener prunes and cuts back the branches of a fruitful vine, in order to make them more fruitful--so does God purify and sanctify believers by the circumstances of life in which He places them.

Trial, to speak plainly, is the instrument by which our heavenly Father makes Christians more holy. By trial, He calls out their passive graces, and proves whether they can suffer His will as well as do it. By trial, He . . .
  weans them from the world,
  draws them to Christ,
  drives them to the Bible and prayer,
  shows them their own hearts,
  and makes them humble.
This is the process by which He "prunes" them, and makes them more fruitful.

The lives of the saints in every age, are the best and truest commentary on the text. Never, hardly, do we find an eminent saint, either in the Old Testament or the New, who was not purified by suffering, and, like His Master, a "man of sorrows."

Let us learn to be patient in the days of darkness, if we know anything of vital union with Christ. Let us remember the doctrine of the passage before us, and not murmur and complain because of trials. Our trials are not meant to do us harm, but good. God chastens us "for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness." Hebrews 12:10

Fruit is the thing that our Master desires to see in us--and He will not spare the pruning knife if He sees that we need it!

In the last day, we shall see that all was well done.

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Only as much religion as will save them from Hell!

(Horatius Bonar)

There are multitudes of professing Christians among us, who want only as much religion as will save them from Hell--not an atom more! The world is their real god. Gold is their idol. They worship in mammon's temple!

Love God with all their heart!--they do not so much as understand the meaning of such a thing.

Sacrifice riches, place, honor, and friends to Christ!--they scoff at the thing as madness.

Oh, be out and out for God!
Do not trifle with religion.
Do not mock God and Christ.
Do not love the world.
Be pious in your inmost soul.

Do not mistake mere sentimentalism for saving religion--or a good character for the new birth. You may go very far--and yet not be a Christian. You may follow Christ in some things--but if not in all, what is your following worth?

This world, or the world to come--that is the alternative. Not this world, and the world to come.

Christ is all--or nothing. There is no middle ground; no half-discipleship; no compromise. No! The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Come out and be separate.

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Clowns entertaining the goats!

(Charles Spurgeon)

"Feed My sheep." John 21:17

A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats!

"In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge:  Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth, and turn aside to myths!" 2 Timothy 4:1-4

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He has a numerous and necessitous family!

(Letters of John Newton)

"Let us therefore approach the Throne of Grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need!" Hebrews 4:16

What a multitude of eyes and hearts wait at the Throne of Grace! He has a numerous and necessitous family--but He is rich enough to supply them all--and His tender compassions extend to the poorest and most unworthy of them! Like the sun--He can cheer and enlighten millions of His poor pensioners at once! He gives to each one as bountifully--as if there were no others to partake of His favor!

His best blessings are not diminished--by being shared among many. The greatest earthly monarch would soon be poor--if he was to give but a pittance to all his subjects. But Jesus has unsearchable, inexhaustible riches of grace to bestow!

The innumerable assembly around the Eternal Throne are all continually supplied from His fullness; and yet there is enough and to spare for His earthly children also--and for all who shall come after us! May He give us an eager appetite--a hunger and thirst that will not be satisfied with anything short of the Bread of Life. We may confidently open our mouths wide--for He has promised to fill them!

"Let us therefore approach the Throne of Grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need!" Hebrews 4:16

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These are tailor-made for the flesh!

(A.W. Tozer)

Jesus Christ has almost no authority at all today, among the groups that call themselves by His name. By these I mean not the Roman Catholics, nor the liberals, nor the various quasi-Christian cults.

I do mean Protestant churches generally, and I include those that protest the loudest that they are in spiritual descent from our Lord and His apostles, namely the evangelicals.

We evangelicals also know how to avoid the plain instructions, and sharp point of obedience of our Lord in the New Testament--by means of fine and intricate explanations. These are tailor-made for the flesh! They excuse disobedience, worldliness, and carnality and make the words of Christ of no effect. And the essence of it all is that Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His teachings are accepted even theoretically, only after they have been weakened by our interpretations.