Behold: All the gates of heaven unfold!

Gabriel's message does away

Words: Piae cantiones, 1582; trans. John Mason Neale (1818-1866)
Tune: Angelus emittitur

Gabriel's message does away
Satan's curse and Satan's sway,
out of darkness brings our Day:

So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

He that comes despised shall reign;
he that cannot die, be slain;
death by death its death shall gain:

So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

Weakness shall the strong confound;
by the hands, in grave clothes wound,
Adam's chains shall be unbound.

So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

By the sword that was His own,
by that sword, and that alone,
shall Goliath be o'erthrown:

So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold.

Art by art shall be assailed;
to the cross shall Life be nailed;
from the grave shall hope be hailed:

So, behold,
All the gates of heaven unfold!

Alleluia!

Selah.

When oceans vast their depths reveal

When oceans vast their depths reveal

Words: Morgan Rhys (1716-1779) translated by Edward M Powell (1852-1928)
Tune: Wiltshire

When oceans vast their depths reveal
And moons have ceased to wane,
The Lamb who died and rose again,
On Zion's hill shall reign.

His glorious Name must long endure
When suns have ceased to shine,
And through eternity the saints
Will sing His praise divine.

As countless as the drops of dew,
Or sand upon the shore,
Are blessings which the ransomed have
In Him for evermore.

Let every other name recede,
His Name alone extol;
In Him reserved, there is the grace
To satisfy my soul.

Selah.

Why stagger at this word of promise?

By grace I'm saved, grace free and boundless

Words: Christian L Scheidt (1709-1761)

By grace I'm saved, grace free and boundless;
My soul, believe and doubt it not.
Why stagger at this word of promise?
Hath scripture ever falsehood taught?
No! then this word must true remain:
By grace thou, too, shalt heaven obtain.

By grace! None dare lay claim to merit;
Our works and conduct have no worth.
God in His love sent our Redeemer,
Christ Jesus, to this sinful earth;
His death did for our sins atone
And we are saved by grace alone.

By grace! O, mark this word of promise
When thou art by thy sins oppressed,
When Satan plagues thy troubled conscience
And when thy heart is seeking rest.
What reason cannot comprehend
God by His grace to thee doth send.

By grace! This ground of faith is certain;
So long as God is true, it stands.
What saints have penned by inspiration,
What in His word our God commands,
What our whole faith must rest upon,
Is grace alone, grace in His Son.

Selah.

Arise, my soul, my joyful powers

Arise, my soul, my joyful powers

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Arise, my soul, my joyful powers,
And triumph in my God;
Awake, my voice, and loud proclaim
His glorious grace abroad.

He raised me from the depths of sin,
The gates of gaping hell,
And fixed my standing more secure
Than 'twas before I fell.

The arms of everlasting love
Beneath my soul He placed;
And on the Rock of Ages set
My slippery footsteps fast.

The city of my blest abode
Is walled around with grace;
Salvation for a bulwark stands
To shield the sacred place.

Satan may vent his sharpest spite,
And all his legions roar:
Almighty mercy guards my life,
And bounds his raging power.

Arise, my soul, awake, my voice,
And tunes of pleasures sing;
Loud hallelujahs shall address
My Savior and my King.

Selah.

Lord, thou hast made the blind to see

Lord I was blind: I could not see

Words: William Tidd Matson (1833-1899)
Tune: Breslau

Lord I was blind: I could not see
in thy marred visage any grace;
but now the beauty of thy face
in radiant vision dawns on me.

Lord, I was deaf: I could not hear
the thrilling music of thy voice;
but now I hear thee and rejoice,
and all thine uttered words are dear.

Lord, I was dumb: I could not speak
the grace and glory of thy name:
but now, as touched with living flame,
my lips thine eager praises wake.

Lord I was dead: I could not stir
my lifeless soul to come to thee:
but now, since thou hast quickened me,
I rise from sin's dark sepulchre.

Lord, thou hast made the blind to see,
the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak,
the dead to live: and lo, I break
the chains of my captivity.

Alleluia!

Selah.

A kiss that stops self-condemnation

The Goodness of God

P.T. Forsyth

"The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Romans 2:4

The Cross of Christ is much more than a refuge from the repentance produced by God's holy law—it is the great and constant source of the truest repentance we can know. As the Cross retires from religion it becomes a religion more and more emptied of repentance.

... Culture, even moral culture, ousts theology, and its retreat goes with the abeyance of repentance. A humanist Christianity brings no repentance, or but a sentimental at most. There is a great phrase of Luther's which says "Theology makes sinners." Theology does. Orthodoxy does not, and philosophy does not, and litterae humaniores do not, nor does social reform. But theology does. It makes—not pedants (it is too near life), and not saints (it is too near the burning bush)—but it makes sinners, for God's love there makes repentance.

False culture says "No repentance. Sin is a superstition, a nightmare, the fancy of moral neurotics, the fiction of moral rigorists." False religion says "No more repentance. With your conversion, and your forgiveness, and your new sense that God is love, repentance has done its part. It is a frost to the blossom of Christian trust if it come again. Beware, for the sake of your healthy Christian growth, beware of a habit of repentance. Because some need grace, you may not. Or you may not need it all your life."

But you do not think that the prodigal settled in at home to a life of enjoyable religious interests; that he became a cheery and delightful optimist, of the sympathetic kind, which can be so devoid of any moral insight or measure of guilt. You do not think that he settled into his new spiritual place as dully as he found his brother settled in his social place. You do not think he was prepared to love everybody who was interesting enough to be loved, or important enough for him to wish to love, even if they laughed at the moral regulations of the old man's home or the costly passion of his grace. You do not think that he would settle down to hold his brother's view of their father to be as right in its way as his own, and as deserving of publication to the world.

When was his repentance deepest—on the way back, or in the new home? Was it while he expected his father's word of rebuke, or when he was overwhelmed by having no word of rebuke? Was it under the fear of condemnation, or under the experience of "no condemnation"? Was it in bracing himself for the penalty, or in his shock and bewilderment to find that there was none? Was it not, then, when he was taken aback by the absence of all censure, that he knew what guilt really was—when love was given him liberally, without upbraiding, without parade, or even indication, of its cost?

That is the word of the Cross. "I have seen to the judgment. I can provide for my own holiness. Let us not dwell on that now. That has been seen to. Thy sins are forgiven thee. Abide in My peace."

God says little of what His mercy cost Him—what it cost Him not to make it mercy, but because it was mercy. And in our wicked hours we say that if it had cost Him so much as some believe, He would not have been silent about it. How ignoble! If you did a fine thing which you paid for heavily, how would you regard the person who rasped out that if it had cost you so much we should soon all have heard of it? God is too great and royal to parade what it cost Him to save, and thrust His outlay in our face with His gift. But we cannot let it alone—the full mercy, the dreadful cost. His confessors, apostles, martyrs, say it for Him. The immeasurable love becomes the measure of our guilt. The prayer in an agony means the cost. The love which could find no utterance but the healing heartbreak of the Cross becomes an awful mercy. It is the goodness of God, His holy love, as it sinks in, that brings home to us what Schiller teaches, that "the greatest bane of life is guilt"; because it makes us first know and feel that the greatest boon of life is grace. Only the good know how bad they were. There are no pessimists like those who read the old ruin in the regenerating light. "Repent, for the kingdom of God is here." "Be confounded, for your Holy One is your Redeemer." Our greatest hope is our greatest humiliation. And where grace abounds there does sin abound. The Christian life is repentant praise; if much praise, much grief; if much good labour, also much deep sorrow; if much confidence, much amazement. And sin is always the more deeply confessed for ourselves and our world, because we confess much more than sin—a Saviour to our own worst depths and to the wide ends of the earth.

I found a verse of a foreign poetess once, just one verse quoted, and it set me thinking how the rest could have gone. I have translated the verse, and then gone on to continue the note.

"I was able to laugh, my heart was light,
When I stiffened to Thy displeasure;
But it broke me down to be forgiven
Without rebuke or measure."

I had set my face for a grudging grace,
My rags I was half parading;
But I never did look for the crushing rebuke—
To be taken without upbraiding.

To be stopped with a kiss in upbraiding myself,
To be stript of the rags I clung to;
To be treated as more than servant or son,
To be feted and fed, and sung to.

And of cost to Thee, as of wrath for me,
Thou wert dumb, in Thy lordly way;
Of Thyself unspared while thou sparedst me,
Of the ransom Thyself didst pay.

But can I sit mute in my Father's house?
Or remember without amaze?
Can I ever live but to bless Thee and serve,
And the deeper to grieve in praise?

Do I dream? Can I sleep under mercy deep?
'Twas a whole world's guilt I shared.
And my Saviour feels in me anew
The wound we all prepared.

Selah.

P.T. Forsyth, "The Goodness of God," Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962) [A College Communion address, as reported in The British Congregationalist, 10th August, 1911]. Full address at Paul Moser's Idolaters Anonymous page here.

The role of true men & women in the life of a nation

Will our nation perish for lack of true men & women?

See how the ancient cities fell because their men were citizens and no more. They had no heavenly citizenship. They were not kindled by the vision of the righteous city of God, growing up through all the cities of men. They did not seek first the Kingdom of God. What have we among us to make men, to make good men and discredit bad ones? What is to protect us from that nation-killing passion for sport and pleasure, for instance, which is breeding gamblers and bleeding citizenship, which throngs to football but cannot be dragged to service?

We are in more danger from the slow perdition of subtle selfishness and popular materialism than from gross and palpable wickedness. The one is the soil in which the other thrives. On what is our citizenship, our public spirit to live in future? The men, who have done most for our cities in the past, have been moved by the faith, brotherhood, and Kingdom of God.

What are we trusting to, to keep that flame alive and burning in time to come? What is the tendency of our current religious life? It is making true humans or religious consumers, citizens or sectarians, mere delegates of interests, mere self-seekers even in their Salvation, mere fugitives from Hell?

"The sheep of my pasture are men, saith the Lord." What a text! And when God would save the world, He sent it a Man to set up a Divine Kingdom out of all the cities of earth. And if our public life is not made by men who are made by Christ, we have nothing to look for but the doom of the old Empires. The men we need are men who are not only unashamed of a Christian faith but men who consult the will of God in private about every great public movement or step in which they are engaged.

Selah.

P.T. Forsyth, "The Ideal City," preached at the Congregational Church, Llandrindod Wells, on 20th July, 1913. From Revelation Old and New: Sermons and Addresses by P.T. Forsyth, edited by John Huxtable (London: Independent Press, 1962).

The relation of Christ to human self

First order: True to Christ = true to self

Christ is ours not because He represents our best but because He redeems our worst, not because He set a seal to our manhood but because He saves it, not because He elicits it but because He gives it. You must not tell men that the way to understand God is to understand the human heart, nor that the way to be true to men is to be true to their own selves. We are not true to men till we are in Christian relation to them; and that comes from being true to Christ and to the Word of His grace.

Selah.

P.T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, 83.

Crowns of glory are His right

Crowns of glory, ever bright

Words: Thomas Kelly (1769-1855)
Tune: Harts

Crowns of glory, ever bright,
Rest upon the Victor's head;
Crowns of glory are His right,
His, who liveth and was dead.

Jesus fought and won the day;
Such a fight was never fought;
Well His people now may say,
See what God, our God, has wrought.

He subdued the powers of hell;
In the fight He stood alone;
All His foes before Him fell,
By His single arm o'erthrown.

They have fall'n to rise no more;
Final is the foe's defeat:
Jesus triumphed by His power,
And His triumph is complete.

Selah.

Living from one true center

Can a faithful person serve both flesh and Spirit?

A religion which teaches men to live from two centres instead of one, and that one the conscience, is a non-moral religion; it serves God and Mammon. It has a fearful looking for of judgment. It has the soul of schism in it, which takes effect in the wars of churches, classes, and nations.

Selah.

P.T. Forsyth, “Salvation Theological But Not Systematic,” The Justification of God: Lectures for War-Time on a Christian Theodicy (Independent Press LTD: London, 1957), 96.

The positive of negative past

All things work together for good

"The greatest value of the past is how wisely we invest it in the future."

Jim Rohn

The loving slowness of awful omnipotence

How God conquers evil
Subtitle: Why this long valley of suffering, waiting and pain?

There are many who think to reverence the Most High by assuming that He can and should do anything or everything that pleases Him in a mere moment. In their eyes power is a grander thing than love. But His Love is higher than His omnipotence. See what it cost Him to redeem the world! He did not find that easy, or to be done in a moment without pain or toil. Yes, God is omnipotent -- awfully omnipotent. For He wills, effects, and perfects the thing which, because of the bad in us, He has to carry out in suffering and sorrow. Evil is a hard thing, even for God to overcome. Yet thoroughly and altogether and triumphantly will He overcome it. But not by crushing it underfoot -- any god of man's idea could do that! -- but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all. Nothing shall be too hard for God that fears not pain, but will deliver and make true and blessed at His own severest cost.

Selah.

George MacDonald, "Down the Hill," The Gentlewoman's Choice, edited by Michael R. Phillips.

Give us ourselves and thee to know

Come, O thou all-victorious Lord

by Charles Wesley

Come, O thou all-victorious Lord,
Thy power to us make know;
Strike with the hammer of thy word,
And break these hearts of stone.

Give us ourselves and thee to know,
In this our gracious day;
Repentance unto life bestow,
And take our sins away.

Conclude us first in unbelief,
And freely then release;
Fill every soul with sacred grief,
And then with sacred peace.

Impoverish, Lord, and then relieve,
And then enrich the poor;
The knowledge of our sickness give,
The knowledge of our cure.

That blessèd sense of guilt impart,
And then remove the load;
Trouble, and wash the troubled heart
In the atoning blood.

Our desperate state through sin declare,
And speak our sins forgiven;
By perfect holiness prepare,
And take us up to heaven.

Selah.

Grace is free but not easy

God in Christ: teleology and theodicy

There was an occasion when Christ was asked a question of theological curiosity—if the goal of salvation would include few or many. And His answer, nationally viewed, was disappointing—as if for Him such an inquiry was academic, or only inquisitive. He convened it at once into a religious occasion. He turned it into the central and primary theology, where we are not merely curious but concerned. He said that such inquiries could only be solved practically only if a greater question were first settled for our own soul; that eschatology was a matter of soteriology, and soteriology a matter of personal salvation; that we had no key to the eternal future of others except what we had for our own; that our interest in the saving of the world might be perverted to submerge our own salvation; that, in the desire to know, or even in our haste to effect, the destiny of the race, we might miss in our soul the certainty which was the root of all other.

‘Are the saved few?’ ‘Few enough to make you afraid you may not be there. See to your entry. The religious inquisitives may be eternal failures. So may the religious bustlers. You must taste salvation to discuss it. You must experience the world’s salvation to deal with the saving of the world’ (Luke xiii. 23). As if He should say: ‘Acquaint yourself with what God has done. Immerse yourself in it. The consummation will not come by man’s gradual organization under a law of love, but by the consummating Act and Gift of God in His Kingdom and its righteousness—by that and each man’s part in it.’

But that Act it was far from easy to take home. Grace is free but not easy. It was not in the growth of man’s delectable breadth and charity that Christ found the way to heaven; He cast His inquirers upon a narrow way ending in a strait gate. It was not to a wider knowledge or a larger vision that He looked for the central and final theodicy. The only final theodicy He knew was God’s saving Act, in which He Himself grew more and more straitened till it was accomplished. To know and taste that was everything. The world’s history did not make for Him the world’s final judgment; it worked up to such a judgment, where He is Himself on the bench. Love’s straightening for a tangled world was a cure for its sin – it was propitiation, the mercy of the Cross. ‘Herein is love—that He gave His Son as propitiation.’

Love that meets need finds that to be the chief need. Its first and last gift to man is the Cross. This Cross became not only a rescue from a strait but the principle and measure of the whole world. The Lord of the Cross is the final trustee of universal judgment. The whole purpose of history, if we are to believe Christ, was something more than the disentangling of a moral muddle, the evolution of a moral order, or even the growth of a moral personality; it was the redemption of that personality. Its final ethic is that involved in faith with its justifying, regenerating power. It was to bring every man to deal with Him as Savior, to plant every man at last before the judgment-seat of His Cross and Grace, to work in every man the supreme conviction of belonging to Him, and finding in Him his own new soul—new, yet his own. So that no man comes to himself till he come to Him, and the world does not’ arrive’ till it settle to rest in Him.

That is the Christian teleology of history, whether we accept it or do not. Christ, judge and justifier, is the one theodicy. The whole race says, ‘for me to live is Christ.’ Everything exists for Him—love, culture, war, tragedy, glory. He is the one moral touchstone of God and man for ever, the crucial point of the eternal and immutable morality of the Holy.

Selah.

P.T. Forsyth, The Justification of God, 54-44.

Crown Him, ye morning stars of light

All hail the power of Jesus' name

Words: Edward Perronet (1726-92) alt. John Rippon (1751-1836) and others
Tune: Coronation

All hail the power of Jesus' name
let angels prostrate fall;
bring forth the royal diadem,
and crown him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye morning stars of light,
who fixed this floating ball;
now hail the Strength of Israel's might
and crown Him Lord of all.

Ye prophets who our freedom won,
ye searchers, great and small,
by whom the work of truth is done,
now crown him Lord of all.

Ye seed of Israel's chosen race,
ye ransomed of the fall,
hail Him who saves you by His grace,
and crown him Lord of all.

Hail Him, the heir of David's line,
whom David Lord did call,
the God incarnate, Man divine,
and crown Him Lord of all.

Sinners whose love can ne'er forget
the wormwood and the gall,
go, spread your trophies at His feet,
and crown Him Lord of all.

Bless him, each poor oppressèd race
that Christ did upward call;
His hand in each achievement trace,
and crown Him Lord of all.

Let every tribe and every tongue
before Him prostrate fall,
and shout in universal song
the crownèd Lord of all.

O that with yonder sacred throng
we at His feet may fall,
join in the everlasting song,
and crown Him Lord of all.

Alleluia!

Selah.

God is working out His purpose

God is working His purpose out

Words: Arthur Campbell Aigner, 1894
Tune: Purpose

God is working His purpose out
as year succeeds to year:
God is working his purpose out,
and the time is drawing near;
nearer and nearer draws the time,
the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

From utmost east to utmost west,
wherever foot hath trod,
by the mouth of many messengers
goes forth the voice of God;
give ear to me, ye continents,
ye isles, give ear to me,
that earth may filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

What can we do to work God's work,
to prosper and increase
the brotherhood of all mankind--
the reign of the Prince of Peace?
What can we do to hasten the time--
the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

March we forth in the strength of God,
with the banner of Christ unfurled,
that the light of the glorious gospel of truth
may shine throughout the world:
fight we the fight with sorrow and sin
to set their captives free,
that earth may filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

All we can do is nothing worth
unless God blessed the deed;
vainly we hope for the harvest-tide
till God gives life to the seed;
yet nearer and nearer draws the time,
the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

Selah.

A word for the day: grace, endurance, hope

A song of the justified: Hope is not in vain

Romans 5 selections

Through Christ we have gained access
to the grace in which we stand,
and rejoice in our hope of the glory of God.
We even exult in our sufferings,
for suffering produces endurance,
And endurance brings hope,
and our hope is not in vain,
Because God's love has been poured into our hearts,
through the Holy Spirit, given to us.

Selah.

A word for the day: discipline, perseverance, trust, blessing

Trust, persevere in the fear of the Lord

Readings from Ecclesiasticus 2

My child, when you come to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for testing.
Set your heart right and be steadfast,
and do not be impetuous in time of calamity.
Cling to Him and do not depart,
so that your last days may be prosperous.
Accept whatever befalls you,
and in times of humiliation be patient.
For gold is tested in the fire,
and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.
Trust in Him, and He will help you;
make your ways straight, and hope in Him.

You who fear the Lord, wait for His mercy;
do not stray, or else you may fall.
You who fear the Lord, trust in Him,
and your reward will not be lost.
You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
for lasting joy and mercy.
Consider the generations of old and see:
has anyone trusted in the Lord and been disappointed?
Or has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord and been forsaken?
Or has anyone called upon Him and been neglected?
For the Lord is compassionate and merciful;
He forgives sins and saves in time of distress.

Delight yourself in the LORD!

Readings from Psalm 37

Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the LORD
and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in Him and He will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.
A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy great peace.

If the LORD delights in a man's way,
He makes his steps firm;
though he stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with His hand.
I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
They are always generous and lend freely;
their children will be blessed.
Turn from evil and do good;
then you will dwell in the land forever!

The salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD;
He is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The LORD helps them and delivers them;
He delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in Him.

Alleluia!

Selah.

A word for the day: *Hesed -- covenant love

The healing *Hesed of God

Psalm 103

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits.
He forgives all your sins
and heals all your infirmities;
He redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
He satisfies you with good things,
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.
The Lord executes righteousness
and judgment for all who are oppressed.
He made His ways known to Moses
and His works to the children of Israel.

Alleluia!

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
He will not always accuse us,
nor will He keep His anger for ever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so is His mercy great upon those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our sins from us.
As a father cares for his children,
so does the Lord care for those who fear Him.
For He himself knows whereof we are made;
Hremembers that we are but dust.
Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
When the wind goes over it, it is gone,
and its place shall know it no more.
But the merciful goodness of the Lord
endures for ever on those who fear Him,
and His righteousness on children's children;
On those who keep His covenant
and remember His commandments and do them.
The Lord has set His throne in heaven,
and His kingship has dominion over all.
Bless the Lord, you angels of His,
you mighty ones who do His bidding,
and hearken to the voice of His word.
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
you ministers of His who do His will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of His,
in all places of His dominion;
bless the Lord, O my soul!

Alleluia!

Selah.

A thanksgiving for the wilderness

I am not what I ought to be.
I am not what I wish to be.
I am not even what I hope to be.
But by the cross of Christ,
I am not what I was.

-- John Newton

Selah.