Finding Rest in God.

Rest

by D. L. Moody

 “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and My burden is light."  Matthew 11:28

If you probe the human heart, you will find a want, and that want is rest. The cry of the world to day is, “Where can rest be found?” Why are theaters and places of amusement crowded at night? What is the secret of Sunday driving, of the saloons and brothels? Some think they are going to get it in pleasure, others think they are going to get it in wealth, and others in literature. They are seeking and finding no rest."

I like to have a text like this, because it takes us all in. “Come unto me all ye that labor.” That doe not mean a select few—refined ladies and cultured men. It does not mean good people only. It applies to saint and sinner. Hospitals are for the sick, not for healthy people. Do you think that Christ would shut the door in anyone’s face, and say, “I did not mean all; I only meant certain ones”? If you cannot come as a saint, come as a sinner. Only come! A lady told me once that she was so hard-hearted she couldn’t come. “Well,” I said, “my good woman, it doesn’t say all ye soft-hearted people come. Black hearts, vile hearts, hard hearts, soft hearts, all hearts come. Who can soften your hard heart but Himself?

The harder the heart, the more need you have to come. If my watch stops I don’t take it to a drug store or to a blacksmith’s shop, but to the watchmaker’s, to have it repaired. So if the heart gets out of order take it to its keeper, Christ, to have it set right. If you can prove that you are a sinner, you are entitled to the promise. Get all the benefit you can out of it. Now, there are a good many believers who think this text applies only to sinners; It is just the thing for them too. What do we see to-day? The Church, Christian people, all loaded down with cares and troubles. “Come unto me all ye that labor.” All! I believe that includes the Christian whose heart is burdened with some great sorrow. The Lord wants you to come.

Sometimes Christians go into their closet and close their door, and they get so carried away and lifted up that they forget their trouble; but they just take it up again the moment they get off their knees.

I was in Wales once, and a lady told me this little story: An English friend of hers, a mother, had a child that was sick. At first they considered there was no danger, until one day the doctor came in and said that the symptoms were very unfavorable. He took the mother out of the room, and told her that the child could not live. It came like a thunderbolt. After the doctor had gone the mother went into the room where the child lay and began to talk to the child and tried to divert its mind. “Darling, do you know you will soon hear the music of heaven? You will hear a sweeter song than you have ever heard on earth. You will hear them sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. You are very fond of music. Won’t it be sweet, darling?

And the little tired, sick child turned its head away, and said, “Oh mamma, I am so tired and so sick that I think it would make me worse to hear all that music.” “Well,” the mother said, “you will soon see Jesus, You will see the seraphim and cherubim and the streets all paved with gold”; and she went on picturing heaven as it is described in Revelation. The little tired child again turned its head away, and said, “Oh mamma, I am so tired that I think it would make me worse to see all those beautiful things!” At last the mother took the child up in her arms, and pressed her to her loving heart. And the little sick one whispered: “Oh mamma, that is what I want. If Jesus will only take me in His arms and let me rest!”

Dear friend, are you not tired and weary of sin? Are you not weary of the turmoil of life? You can rest on the bosom of the Son of God.

Let Your Light Shine as the Stars.

Excerpts from the chapter: True Wisdom

from the book, "Overcoming Life and Other Sermons".

by D.L. Moody

“They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; 

and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”  Dan. 12:3

God has left us down here to shine. We are not here to buy and sell and get gain, to accumulate wealth, to acquire worldly position. This earth, if we are Christians, is not our home; it is up yonder. God has sent us into the world to shine for Him—to light up this dark world. Christ came to be the Light of the world, but men put out that light. They took it to Calvary, and blew it out. Before Christ went up on high, He said to His disciples: “Ye are the light of the world. Ye are my witnesses. Go forth and carry the Gospel to the perishing nations of the earth.” So God has called us to shine, just as much as Daniel was sent into Babylon to shine.

Let no man or woman say that they cannot shine because they have not so much influence as some others may have. What God wants you to do is to use the influence you have. Daniel probably did not have much influence down in Babylon at first, but God soon gave him more, because he was faithful and used what he had.

Then we must remember that we are to let our light shine. It does not say, “Make your light shine.” You do not have to make light to shine; all you have to do is to let it shine. I remember hearing of a man at sea who was very seasick. If there is a time when a man feels that he cannot do any work for the Lord it is then—in my opinion. While this man was sick, he heard that someone had fallen overboard. He was wondering if he could do anything to help to save the man. He laid hold of a light, and held it up to the port-hole. The drowning man was saved. When this man got over his attack of sickness, he went on deck one day and was talking with the man who was rescued. The saved man gave this testimony. He said he had gone down the second time, and was just going down again for the last time, when he put out his hand. Just then, he said, someone held a light at the port-hole, and the light fell on it. A sailor caught him by the hand and pulled him into the lifeboat. It seemed a small thing to do to hold up the light; yet it saved the man’s life.

 There is one thing you cannot bury with a good man; his influence still lives. They have not buried Daniel yet: his influence is as great today as it ever was. Do you tell me that Joseph is dead? His influence still lives and will continue to live on and on. You may bury the frail tenement of clay that a good man lives in, but you cannot get rid of his influence and example. Paul was never more powerful than he is to-day.

 Let me quote a few words by Dr. Chalmers:  "Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storms of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love and mercy, on the hearts of the thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven."

 "Let your light shine before others, 

that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."  Matthew 5:16

Our Restless Heart.

Unspoken Sermons

by George Macdonald

If I find my consciousness to be that of one in some sort of prison;
If I find that I can neither rule the world in which I live nor my own thoughts or desires;
That I cannot quiet my passions, order my likings, determine my ends, will my growth, forget when I want to, or recall what I forget;
That I cannot love when I would, or hate where I would;
That I am no king over myself;
That I cannot supply my own needs, do not even always know which of my seeming needs are to be supplied and which should be treated as impostors;

If, in a word, my own being is in every way too much for me;
If I can neither understand it, be satisfied with it, nor better it;
May it not well give me pause - the pause that ends with prayer?

When my own scale seems too large to manage;
When I reflect I cannot account for my existence, have had no poor hand in it, neither, should I not like it, can do anything towards causing it to cease;
When I think that I can do nothing to make up to those I love, any more than to those I hate, for evils I have done them and sorrows I have caused them;

That in my worst moments I disbelieve in my best, in my best I loathe my worst;
That there is in me no wholeness, no unity;
That life is not a good to me, for I scorn myself;
When I think all or any of these things, can it be strange if I think also that surely there ought to be somewhere a being to account for me, one to account for himself, and make the round of my existence just;

One whose very being accounts and is necessary to account for mine;
Whose presence in my being is imperative, not merely to supplement it, but to make to myself my existence a good thing?

To know God is present, to have consciousness of God where he is the essential life, must be absolutely necessary to that life!
He that is made in the image of God must know him or be desolate; the child must have the Father!

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” 
― Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine

What is it to Covet?

cov·et

  

verb 

1.

to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others: to covet 

another'sproperty.

2.

to wish for, especially eagerly: He won the prize they all coveted.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/covet

1.

yearn to possess or have (something).

"the president-elect covets time for exercise and fishing"

synonyms:

desire, yearn for, crave, have one's heart set on, want, wish for, long for, hanker after/for, hunger after/for, thirst for

Covetousness

by D.L. Moody

The most dangerous thing about this sin is that it is not generally regarded as very heinous. Of course we all have a contempt for misers, but all covetous men are not misers. Another thing to be noted about it is that it fastens upon the old rather than upon the young. Let us see what the Bible says about covetousness:—

“Mortify therefore your members . . . covetousness, which is idolatry.” “No covetous man hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God.” “They that will be (that is, desire to be) rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Timothy 6: 9, 10

Covetousness enticed Lot into Sodom. It caused the destruction of Achan and all his house. It was the iniquity of Balaam. It was the sin of Samuel’s sons. It left Gehazi a leper. It sent the rich young ruler away sorrowful. It led Judas to sell his Master and Lord. It brought about the death of Ananias and Sapphira. It was the blot in the character of Felix. What victims it has had in all ages!

Do you say: “How am I going to check covetousness?” Well,—I don’t think there is any difficulty about that. If you find yourself getting very covetous—very miserly—wanting to get everything you can into your possession—just begin to scatter. Just say to covetousness that you will strangle it, and rid it out of your disposition.

A wealthy farmer in New York state, who had been a noted miser, a very selfish man, was converted. Soon after his conversion a poor man came to him one day to ask for help. He had been burned out, and had no provisions. This young convert thought he would be liberal and give him a ham from his smoke house. He started toward the smoke-house, and on the way the tempter said, “Give him the smallest one you have.” He struggled all the way as to whether he would give a large or a small one. In order to overcome his selfishness, he took down the biggest ham and gave it to the man. The tempter said, “You are a fool.” But he replied, “If you don’t keep still, I will give him every ham I have in the smoke-house.”

If you find that you are selfish, give something. Determine to overcome that spirit of selfishness, and to keep your body under, no matter what it may cost. Mr. Durant told me he was engaged by Goodyear to defend their rubber patent, and he was to have half of the money that came from the patent, if he succeeded. One day he woke up to find that he was a rich man, and he said that the greatest struggle of his life then took place as to whether he would let money be his master, or he be master of money, whether he would be its slave, or make it a slave to him. At last he got the victory, and that is how Wellesley College was built.

We Are In A War.

THE CHRISTIAN’S WARFARE. 

by Dwight L. Moody

From the Book: The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons

“For everyone born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”  John 5:4,5

When a battle is fought, all are anxious to know who are the victors. In these verses we are told who is to gain the victory in life. When I was converted I made this mistake: I thought the battle was already mine, the victory already won, the crown already in my grasp. I thought that old things had passed away, that all things had become new; that my old corrupt nature, the Adam life, was gone. 

But I found out, after serving Christ for a few months, that conversion was only like enlisting in the army, that there was a battle on hand, and that if I was to get a crown, I had to work for it and fight for it.

 Salvation is a gift, as free as the air we breathe. It is to be obtained, like any other gift, without money and without price: there are no other terms. “To him that worketh not, but believeth.” But on the other hand, if we are to gain a crown, we must work for it. Let me quote a few verses in First Corinthians: “For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire: and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work, of what sort it is. If any man’s work shall abide, which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.

We see clearly from this that we may be saved, but all our works burned up. I may have a wretched, miserable voyage through life, with no victory, and no reward at the end; saved, yet so as by fire, or as Job puts it, “with the skin of my teeth.” I believe that a great many men will barely get to heaven as Lot got out of Sodom, burned out, nothing left, works and everything else destroyed. 

It is like this: when a man enters the army, he is a member of the army the moment he enlists; he is just as much a member as a man who has been in the army ten or twenty years. But enlisting is one thing, and participating in a battle another. Young converts are like those just enlisted. It is folly for any man to attempt to fight in his own strength. The world, the flesh and the devil are too much for any man. But if we are linked to Christ by faith, and He is formed in us the hope of glory, then we shall get the victory over every enemy. 

It is believers who are the overcomers. “Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ.” Through Him we shall be more than conquerors. I wouldn’t think of talking to unconverted men about overcoming the world, for it is utterly impossible. They might as well try to cut down the American forest with their penknives. But a good many Christian people make this mistake: they think the battle is already fought and won. They have an idea that all they have to do is to put the oars down in the bottom of the boat, and the current will drift them into the ocean of God’s eternal love. But we have to cross the current. We have to learn how to watch and fight, and how to overcome. The battle is only just commenced. The Christian life is a conflict and a warfare, and the quicker we find it out the better...

 It is God's power that makes all the means of grace effectual. The story is told that Frederick Douglas, the great slave orator, once said in a mournful speech when things looked dark for his race:— “The white man is against us, governments are against us, the spirit of the times is against us. I see no hope for the colored race. I am full of sadness.” Just then a poor old colored woman rose in the audience, and said.— “Frederick, is God dead?” 

My friend, it makes a difference when you count God in. Now many a young believer is discouraged and disheartened when he realizes this warfare. He begins to think that God has forsaken him, that Christianity is not all that it professes to be. But he should rather regard it as an encouraging sign. No sooner has a soul escaped from his snare than the great Adversary takes steps to ensnare it again. He puts forth all his power to recapture his lost prey. The fiercest attacks are made on the strongest forts, and the fiercer the battle the young believer is called on to wage, the surer evidence it is of the work of the Holy Spirit in his heart. God will not desert him in his time of need, any more than He deserted His people of old when they were hard pressed by their foes.

"Who am I?"

Moses

So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."

But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you.  Exodus 3:10-12

Gideon

The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?"  

"Pardon me, my lord," Gideon replied, "but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."  The LORD answered, "I will be with you."    Judges 6:14-16

"Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: "Who am I, Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?" 2 Samuel 7:18

Jeremiah

The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

before you were born I set you apart;

I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you...

Amos

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 

Johah

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord. Jonah 1:1-3

But the Lord would not leave Jonah alone, because the message he was sent to give would help Jonah himself. He learned to conquer his fear and to realize the Assyrians were loved by God as well as the Jews. He learned that God would be with him. Traditional writings say that Jonah stayed in Ninevah teaching the Assyrians about the one true God.

The Lord used all these men who were humble. They did not think too highly of themselves, but were amazed that God had chosen them for a service. I think this is always the type of people God uses. If we think we can do a job well - without God's help - he cannot use us for that job.

The Child-Likeness of God.

This is an excerpt from a sermon called, The Child in the Midst, by George MacDonald.

 "And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receives me; and whosoever shall receive me, receives not me, but him that sent me."——MARK 9: 33-37

Then to receive a child in the name of Jesus is to receive Jesus; to receive Jesus is to receive God; therefore to receive the child is to receive God himself

How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God…Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain. They would not admit this, but follow out what they say, and it comes much to this. 

Brothers, have you found our king? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There he is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on his bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well. The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were but a true type of our God beside that monstrosity of a monarch.  

The God who is ever uttering himself in the changeful profusions of nature; who takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand him and be blessed; who never needs to be, and never is, in haste; who welcomes the simplest thought of truth or beauty as the return for seed he has sown upon the old fallows of eternity, who rejoices in the response of a faltering moment to the age-long cry of his wisdom in the streets; the God of music, of painting, of building, the Lord of Hosts, the God of mountains and oceans; whose laws go forth from one unseen point of wisdom, and thither return without an atom of loss; the God of history working in time unto Christianity; this God is the God of little children, and he alone can be perfectly, abandonedly simple and devoted. 

The deepest, purest love of a woman has its well-spring in him. Our longing desires can no more exhaust the fullness of the treasures of the Godhead, than our imagination can touch their measure. Of him not a thought, not a joy, not a hope of one of his creatures can pass unseen; and while one of them remains unsatisfied, he is not Lord over all.  Therefore, with angels and with archangels, with the spirits of the just made perfect, with the little children of the kingdom, yea, with the Lord himself, and for all them that know him not, we praise and magnify and laud his name in itself, saying Our Father. We do not draw back for that we are unworthy, nor even for that we are hard-hearted and care not for the good. For it is his child-likeness that makes him our God and Father. 

The perfection of his relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defects, all our evils; for our childhood is born of his fatherhood. That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and his desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to him, "Thou art my refuge, because thou art my home."