Tag: quote

Reverberations

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That is why I think this Grand Miracle is the missing chapter in this novel, the chapter on which the whole plot turns; that is why I believe that God really has dived down into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulder. The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on. Christ has risen, and so we shall rise. St Peter for a few seconds walked on the water; and the day will come when there will be a re-made universe, infinitely obedient to the will of glorified and obedient men, when we can do all things, when we shall be those gods that we are described as being in Scripture. To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, “The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago” in the same spirit in which he says, “I saw a crocus yesterday.” Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference, that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not. We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on into those “high mid-summer pomps” in which our Leader, the Son of man, already dwells, and to which He is calling us. It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go on into that spring and that summer.

-C.S. Lewis, The Grand Miracle (God in the Dock, page 85)

Devotional

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But this is that which giveth life unto the affections of believers; they know that in the enjoyment of God in Christ their eternal blessedness doth consist. How this is their happiness and glory, how it will give them an everlasting, overflowing satisfaction and rest, they understand in the first-fruits of it which they here receive. And this is the ultimate object of their affections in this world, and they go forth unto all other spiritual things in order hereunto. The more, therefore, their affections are fixed on them, the more they are kept up unto that due exercise, the nearer approaches they make unto this blessed state.

When their minds are possessed with this persuasion, when it is confirmed in them by daily experience of that sweetness, rest, and satisfaction, which they find in cleaving unto God with fervent love and delight, in vain shall any other objects rise up in competition to draw them off unto themselves. The more we love God, the more like we are unto him, and the more near the enjoyment of him.

-John Owen, Works, Vol. VII, page 482

The Temporal in Light of the Eternal

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Wherefore, in all these things, be persuaded sometimes to have an eye to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Behold how he is set before us in the gospel, poor, despised, reproached, persecuted, nailed to the cross, and all by this world. Whatever be your designs and aims, let his cross continually interpose between your affections and this world. If you are believers, your hopes are within a few days to be with him forevermore.

Unto him you must give an account of yourselves, and what you have done in this world. Will it be acceptable with him to declare what you have saved of this world, what you have gained, what you have preserved and embraced yourselves in, and what you have left behind you? Was this any part of his employment and business in this world? Hath he left us an example for any such course? Wherefore, no man can set his affections on things here below who hath any regard unto the pattern of Christ, or is in any measure influenced with the power and efficacy of his cross. “My love is crucified,” said a holy martyr of old: he whom his soul loved was so, and in him his love unto all things here below.

Do you, therefore, find your affections ready to be engaged unto, or too much entangled with, the things of this world? Are your desires of increasing them, your hopes of keeping them, your fears of losing them, your love unto them and delight in them, operative in your minds, possessing your thoughts and influencing your conversations?

-turn aside a little, and by faith contemplate the life and death of the Son of God; a blessed glass will it be, where you may see what contemptible things they are which you perplex yourselves about. Oh, that any of us should love or esteem the things of this world, the power, riches, goods, or reputation of it, who have had a spiritual view of them in the cross of Christ!


-John Owen, Vol 7, page 399

A staggering And most Achingly perfect Montage produced To most Dazzling effect

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Besides, faith itself, as acted on the death of Christ, hath a peculiar efficacy
unto the subduing of sin: for, “beholding” him thereby “as in a glass, we are
changed into the same image,” 2 Cor. iii. 18; and that which we peculiarly
behold, we are peculiarly transformed into the likeness of.  And, moreover,
it is the only means whereby we actually derive from Christ the benefits of
our union with Him.  From thence we have all grace, or there is no such
thing in the world; and the communication of it unto us is in and by the
actual exercise of faith principally.  So it being acted with respect unto
His death, we have grace for the killing of sin, and thereby become
dead with Him,
crucified with Him,
buried with Him,
as in the testimonies before produced.
This is that which we call the application of the death of Christ unto us,
or our application of ourselves to the death of Christ for the
mortification of sin.

-John Owen, Works, Vol III, p 563

The Steward and the King

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‘Then you think that the Darkness is coming?’ said Éowyn.
‘Darkness Unescapable?’ And suddenly she drew close to him.
‘No,’ said Faramir, looking into her face.
‘It was but a picture in my mind.
I do not know what is happening.
The reason of my waking mind tells me
that great evil has befallen
and we stand at the end of days.
But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light,
and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny.
Éowyn, Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan,
in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure!’
And he stooped and kissed her brow.

And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor,
and a great wind rose and blew,
and their hair, raven and golden,
streamed out mingling in the air.
And the Shadow departed,
and the Sun was unveiled,
and light leaped forth;
and the waters of Anduin shone like silver,
and in all the houses of the City men sang
for the joy that welled up in their hearts
from what source they could not tell.

-Tolkien, LotR, p962

the Pathetique

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Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale.
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains,
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.  The beauty of it smote his heart,
as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.
For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end
the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:
there was light and high beauty
forever beyond its reach.

-Tolkien, LotR, p922

Glories Unbounded

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For when God designed the great and glorious work of recovering fallen man and the saving of sinners,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, He appointed, in His infinite wisdom, two great means thereof.
The one was the giving of His Son for them, and the other was the giving of His Spirit unto them.
And hereby was way made for the manifestation of the glory of the whole blessed Trinity; which is the
utmost end of all the works of God. Hereby were the love, grace, and wisdom of the Father, in the
design and projection of the whole; the love, grace, and condescension of the Son, in the execution,
purchase, and procurement of grace and salvation for sinners; with the love, grace, and power of the
Holy Spirit, in the effectual application of all unto the souls of men, – made gloriously conspicuous.
Hence, from the first entrance of sin, there were two general heads of the promise of God unto men,
concerning the means of their recovery and salvation. The one was that concerning the sending of His
Son to be incarnate, to take our nature upon Him, and to suffer for us therein; the other, concerning
the giving of His Spirit, to make the effects and fruits of the incarnation, obedience, and suffering
of His Son, effectual in us and towards us. To these heads may all the promises of God be reduced.
-John Owen, Works, Vol 3, The Holy Spirit,pg 23

the City of the Wind

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For to receive the grace of God in Jesus Christ means not
only that my sins are forgiven because of His death for me on the cross on
Calvary’s hill, but also that I have been given a new life and a new nature. It means
that Christ is being formed in me, that I have become a partaker of the divine
nature, that old things have passed away and all things have become new. It
means that Christ is dwelling in me, and that the Spirit of God is in me. The
man who has been born again, and who has the divine nature within him, is a
man who is righteous and his righteousness does exceed that of the scribes and
Pharisees. He is no longer living for self and his own attainments, he is no
longer self-righteous and self-satisfied. He has become poor in spirit, meek, and
merciful; he hungers and thirsts after righteousness; he has become a peacemaker.
His heart is being purified. He loves God, yes unworthily, alas, but he
loves Him and longs for His honour and glory. His desire is to love God and
to keep and honour and fulfil His law. The commandments of God to such a
man ‘are not grievous’. He wants to keep them, for He loves them. He is no longer
at enmity against God; but he now sees the holiness of the law and nothing
so appeals to him as the living of this law and the exemplifying of it in his daily
life. It is a righteousness that far exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees.

Some of the most vital questions that can be asked, then, are these. Do you
know God? Do you love God? Can you honestly say that the biggest and the
first thing in your life is to glorify Him and that you so want to do this that you
do not care what it may cost you in any sense? Do you feel that this must come
first, not that you may be better than somebody else, but that you may honour
and glorify and love that God who, though you have sinned against Him grievously,
has sent His only begotten Son to the cross on Calvary’s hill to die for
you, that you might be forgiven and that He might restore you unto Himself?
Let every man examine himself.
-D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, page 182-183

A Loveliness Upon the Horizon Waits

James HoganLeave a comment

A wonderful Sunday of peace and rest slowly winds to a close.

And deliciously-spiced chicken cooks on the stove in anticipation of a beautiful chicken parm dinner – it may be a slightly late 9 o’clock dinner, but all the better for the waiting. And now – shall I mar this evening with more writing? A plethora of words does not a masterpiece make. I shall just share a few words from my afternoon reading that warmed my heart…

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places;
but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now
mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
-J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, page 348

Clarion Calls

James HoganLeave a comment

No-one will see the need of the Lord Jesus Christ as a
Saviour but the person who has seen himself as lost before God; and
the only true motive to live a moral and worthy life is thankfulness to
God and the realization that one day we shall stand before Him.
This is the call which goes out to religious people today: we must
realize our unworthiness before God, our distance from the saints of
the ages, our terrible dissimilarity from the Christians of the New
Testament; then we must repent and re-consecrate ourselves to God
in Christ, and we must make sure that our religion regulates our
lives. But more than anything, we must realize that the state of the
world is such that nothing but the power of the Holy Spirit can cure
it, and we must feel this to such an extent that we are brought down
upon our knees to pray to God in His mercy to look down upon us in
pity, and for His great name, that He should send a mighty revival
among us. That is the only way, that is the only hope, because with
men it is impossible, but not with God, for ‘with God, all things are
possible'(Matt. 19:26).
-D.M. Lloyd-Jones, Knowing the Times, pg. 31