The Imminent Danger (Pt 19)

2. What we must do

Your part and mine is to watch and pray. Let us pray for ourselves, that we may be found waiting, with our loins girded up, and our lamps burning, that we may be prepared to meet His will in every event. Let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for His church, which is dear to Him as the pupil of His eye, for the spread of His Gospel and the extension of His kingdom, till His great name be known and adored from the rising to the setting of the sun, and the whole earth shall be filled with His glory.

Many splendid prophecies are yet unfulfilled, and He is now bringing forward their accomplishment. Light will undoubtedly arise out of this darkness. Let us earnestly pray for a blessing from on high, upon our rulers, upon the counsels of government, and upon all subordinate authority in church and state—that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty, that religion and good order may be established, and iniquity be put to shame and silence. Thus we may hope to be secured, by the sure though secret mark of divine protection.

The Lord will be our shield, though many should suffer or fall around us. The very hairs of our heads are numbered. Or if, for the manifestation of our faith and the power of His grace, He should permit us to share in common calamities, we may rely upon Him to afford us strength according to our day. He is always near to His people, a very present help in the time of trouble; and He can make the season of their greatest tribulations into the season of their sweetest consolations.

John Newton:
The Imminent Danger and Only Sure Resource of Our Nation

from: http://www.chapellibrary.org/

The Imminent Danger (Pt 18)

Aug28

l. What God will do

He who loved you, and died for your sins, is the Lord of glory. All power in heaven and in earth is committed unto Him. The Lord reigneth, let the earth be never so unquiet. All creatures are instruments of His will. The wrath of man, so far as it is permitted to act, shall praise Him and be made subservient to the accomplishment of His great design; and the remainder of that wrath, all their projected violence, which does not coincide with His wise and comprehensive plan, He will restrain. In vain they rage and fret and threaten. They act under a secret commission, and can do no more than He permits them. If they attempt it, He has a hook and a bridle in their mouths. When the enemies would come in like a flood, He can lift up a standard against them. As He has set bounds and bars to the tempestuous sea, beyond which it cannot pass, saying, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed” (Job 38:11); so, with equal ease, He can still the madness of the people.

You do well to mourn for the sins and miseries of those who know Him not. But if you make Him your fear and your dread, He will be a sanctuary to you and keep your hearts in peace, though the earth be removed and the mountains cast into the midst of the sea.

John Newton:
The Imminent Danger and Only Sure Resource of Our Nation

from: http://www.chapellibrary.org/

The Imminent Danger (Pt 17)

Aug27

“Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things” (Deu 28:47-48). These words of Moses to rebellious Israel emphatically describe the former and the present state of many nations who have been spoiled, insulted, and glad if they could escape (great numbers could not so escape) with the loss of their all, and at the peril of their lives, to a more hospitable shore. May their sufferings remind us of our deserts! Who can tell if the Lord may yet be merciful unto us, and exempt us from similar calamities!

IV. Our Only Sure Resource

But though we have much cause to mourn for our sins, and humbly to deprecate deserved judgments, let us not despond. The Lord our God is a merciful God! Who can tell but He may repent, and turn from the fierceness of His anger, that we perish not. If the professed business of this day be not confined to a day, but if, by His blessing, it may produce repentance not to be repented of, then I am warranted to tell you from His Word that there is yet hope. You that tremble for the ark and the cause of God, whose eyes affect your hearts, who grieve for sin and for the miseries which sin has multiplied upon the earth—take courage! Let the hearts of the wicked shake like the leaves of the trees when agitated by a storm; but be not you like them. The Lord God is your refuge and strength, your resting place, and your hiding place; under the shadow of His wings you shall be safe (Psa 46:1; 119:114; 36:7).

John Newton:
The Imminent Danger and Only Sure Resource of Our Nation

from: http://www.chapellibrary.org/

The Imminent Danger (Pt 16)

Aug26

Let us not trust in outward privileges, nor rest in a form of godliness destitute of the power. It will be in vain to say, “The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these” (Jer 7:4), if the Lord of the temple should depart from us. When the Israelites were afraid of the Philistines, they carried the ark of the Lord with them to battle (1Sa 4:3). But God disappointed their vain confidence. He delivered the ark of His glory into the hands of their enemies to teach them, and to teach us, that formal hypocritical worshippers have no good ground to hope for His protection.

Alas, then, who can tell? Appearances are very dark at present. Besides what we may expect or fear from the rage and madness of our foreign enemies, we have much to apprehend at home. A spirit of discord has gone forth. Jeshurun has waxed fat, and kicked (Deu 32:15). Many seem weary of liberty, peace, and order. Our happy constitution, our mild government, our many privileges, admired by other nations, are despised and depreciated among ourselves—not only by the thoughtless and licentious, and those who, having little to lose, may promise themselves a possibility of gain in a time of disturbance and confusion, but they are abetted and instigated by persons of sense, character, and even of religion. I should be quite at a loss to account for this, if I did not consider it as a token of the Lord’s displeasure. When He withdraws His blessing, no union can long subsist!