Category: Golden Nuggets

Edward Dennett – Rules or Communion

Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?

Edward Dennett (1831-1914)

In conclusion I may add that the essential thing in service is to have the mind of the Lord concerning that on which we are engaged.  It is impossible, therefore, to lay down absolute rules which will meet every case, but if I am in communion with Him who deigns to send me, the path will be plain, however difficult it may be to walk in it.  To be, however, in communion, I must be both obedient and dependent.  Our Lord thus said to His disciples – and surely also to us – “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it will be done unto you”, John 15: 7.  The order is significant: abiding in Him first, i.e. living in constant dependence upon Him, and then His words abiding in us, controlling and governing us altogether; yea, forming Christ Himself in us; that is, first state of soul, and then the walk, life, activity, formed by the Word.  Begin with Christ, and then there is not much difficulty in knowing what is suitable to Him in our path and service.  May I ask you then, dear brother, to look away from your own thoughts, from your own service, and from the thoughts and face of your fellow-believers, and let your gaze be directed singly to Christ as you cry, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6).   For, “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).

Golden Nugget Number 290

(Edward Dennett, Foundational Ministry.  Suggested by an English subscriber)- From a letter ‘Why so-called ‘Brethren’ cannot unite with other Christians in Service’

Short Biography of Edward Dennett

 

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD  UK

Arthur House – I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day

 

‘I John, your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus, was in the island called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus.  ‘I became in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day’ (Rev 1:9-10)

 The verses read in Revelation 1, bring under our notice John in a way that indicates the position at the end of the dispensation.

Though deprived of the privileges of fellowship, so long enjoyed with the saints, John is in exile for the testimony – a matter that might well be raised with each one of us in our movements and locations.

If he is in greatly restricted circumstances outwardly, he indicates the great possibilities for us in our day should conditions become similar.  That is what is available by way of abstraction – “I became in the Spirit”– no doubt carrying him away from the physical circumstances of the island and giving him access to that which is entirely unrestricted, as the sequel shows.  So, we read in ch. 4:1

‘I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven. . . and I heard . . . saying, Come up here.’

What a wonderful reaction from the contracted circumstances of Patmos – entering in through an opened door into heaven, to have unfolded all that the Revelation indicates, terminating in the wonderful sight in the twenty-first chapter!

“Come here, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit, and set me on a great and high mountain, and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God.”

We have no recorded word that John, personally or through others, attempted to interfere with the circumstances the Lord allowed to come upon him, and I would earnestly commend to all the acceptance of limitations which may be imposed upon us by conditions ordered or allowed by God.

Golden Nugget Number 289

(Arthur House, Auckland, N.Z., 1941  “Words of Grace and Comfort”  Suggested by an American subscriber)

 

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J B Stoney – Be like a Tree that has its Roots in Heaven, and its Branches down Here. 

Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish

Roots in Heaven – Planted in the House of the Lord

 It is a simple question for every heart in this room….You say you are clear about Christ’s death and resurrection.  Are you?  Do you mean to tell me you are in the liberty of His life, when your heart is indifferent as to where He is…?  I could not believe it while you are engrossed with the things of this life.

Hence the argument of the apostle is, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God,” Col. 3:1.  I put a plain question to every one of you, how much of the things above have you sought today?  You belong to another sphere altogether.  You have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Be like a tree that has its roots in heaven, and its branches down here.  You say, that is a miracle.  Very likely; nevertheless, in reality your roots are in heaven, and your branches down here.  No doubt they are fretted and nipped by the atmosphere here, but nothing can touch the roots up there.  “Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God”,” Psalm 92: 13.  Planted inside, they flourish outside.

 

(J B Stoney, NS vol.1 p300.  Suggested by an English subscriber.)

G V Wigram – I have a Saviour

G V Wigram (1805-1879)

I have a Saviour. He is in heaven and I upon earth. He has saved, is saving, and will save me from all that He can find to save me from, until, having saved me from and through all, He will safely deliver me up faithfully to Him who entrusted me to Him, to be my Saviour, even His Father and God. Possessed of such an One, I need to have nothing in mine own hand.

I have a Saviour! Yes! I have not only a Saviour God, but God has given to me the Christ, His Christ, and He is my Saviour.

In what details, O God! my God! (in and through Jesus Christ), wilt Thou this day enable me to work out with fear and awe, the deep sense of Thy presence and nearness upon me, mine own deliverance.

For verily it is Thou only that energisest in us the being, willing, and acting energetically, according to Thine own good pleasure. (See Phil. 2:13)

Golden Nugget Number 284

(Memorials of the Ministry of G V Wigram Vol I)

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD UK

Alfred Gardiner, The Presence of the Holy Spirit

The presence with us of the Spirit is the outstanding pledge of the faithfulness of God

Alfred J Gardiner 1884-1976
I believe the presence of the Holy Spirit is one of the most outstanding examples of the faithfulness of God…He came down at Pentecost, has remained with the church all through that long period of departure from the truth…and now recovering the truth with a view to our being guided into all the truth. The presence with us of the Spirit is the outstanding pledge of the faithfulness of God and the pledge too, that if only we will hold ourselves available to Him, we can be led into all the thoughts of God.

A J Gardiner, Ilford, 1951

Golden Nugget Number 283

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD UK

C H Mackintosh – The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven

 

C.H.Mackintosh

The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:6) with a summons designed only for the ears and hearts of His own.  Not one uncircumcised ear shall hear—not one un-renewed heart be moved.  The dead in Christ, including, as we believe, the Old Testament saints, as well as those of the New, who shall have departed in the faith of Christ—all those shall hear that blessed sound, and come forth from their sleeping places.   All the living saints shall hear it and be changed in a moment.  And oh! What a change!  The poor crumbling tabernacle of clay exchanged for a glorified body, like unto the body of Jesus.

Look at yonder bent and withered frame—that body racked with pain, and worn out with years of acute suffering.  It is the body of a saint.  How humiliating to see it like that!  Yes, but wait a little.  Let but the trumpet sound, and in one moment that poor crushed and withered frame shall be changed, and made like to the glorified body of the descending Lord.

And there, in yonder mental hospital is a poor patient.  He has been there for years.  He is a saint of God.  How mysterious!  True; we cannot fathom the mystery; it lies beyond our present narrow range.  But so it is; that poor patient is a saint of God, an heir of glory.  He too shall hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and leave his illness behind him forever, while he mounts into the heavens, in his glorified body, to meet his descending Lord.

Oh! What a brilliant moment!  How many sick beds will be vacant then!  What marvellous changes shall then take place!  How the heart bounds at the thought, and longs to sing, in full chorus, that lovely hymn,

Christ, the Lord, will come again,
None shall wait for Him in vain:
I shall then His glory see:
Christ will come and call for me.
Amen and Amen!

Joseph Swain (1761-1796)

Stem Publishing – Hymns and Spiritual Songs No 266

Golden Nugget Number 281

(C H Mackintosh,  The Lord’s Coming, pp40-41.  Suggested by an English subscriber)

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD  UK

C H Mackintosh – When I come again

Finally, as if to complete the picture, he says, “when I come again.” (Luke 10: 35 KJV) He awakens in the heart by these last words, “the blessed hope” of seeing him again. What a lovely picture! And yet it is all a divine reality. It is the simple story of our blessed Jesus who, in His tender compassion, looked upon us in our low and utterly hopeless condition, left His eternal dwelling-place of light and love, took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh, was made of a woman, made under the law, lived a spotless life, and fulfilled a perfect ministry down here for 33 years, and finally died on the cross as a perfect atonement for sin so that God might be just and the Justifier of any poor, ungodly, convicted sinner that simply trusts in Jesus.

Yes, dear reader, whoever you are, high or low, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, Jesus has done all this; and He is now at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. The One who was nailed to the cross for us, is now on the throne. Eternal Justice has wreathed His sacred brow with the wreath of victory, and that, be it remembered, on our behalf. Nor is this all. He has said, “I will come again.” Precious words! Would you be glad to see Him? Do you know Him as the Good Samaritan? Have you felt His loving hand binding up your spiritual wounds? Have you known the healing virtues of His oil, and the restoring, invigorating, and cheering influence of His wine? Have you heard Him speak the thrilling words, “Take care of him”? If so, then, surely, you will be glad to see His face: you will cherish in your heart’s tender affections the blessed hope of seeing Him as He is and of being like Him and with Him forever. The Lord grant it may be so with you, beloved reader, and then you will be able to appreciate the immense difference between the law and the gospel — between what we ought to do for God and what God has done for us — between what we are to Him and what He is to us — between “do and live” and “live and do” — between “the righteousness of the law” and “the righteousness of faith.”

From C H Mackintosh ‘THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL ‘ Short Papers

Golden Nugget Number 279

(READ LUKE 10:25-35)

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Brian Deck – Millions dying through Famine (or Coronavirus)

Dreadful straits; millions dying through [the Sudan] famine. [like the Coronavirus epedemic in 2020 – Sosthenes]  Is God unmindful?  He is not.  You may be assured, He will get His harvest through grace

…the masses of humanity, everyone needing a Saviour…and let our hearts share God’s feelings for men.  Dreadful straits; millions dying through [the Sudan] famine. [like the Coronavirus epidemic in 2020 – Sosthenes]  Is God unmindful?  He is not.  You may be assured, He will get His harvest through grace in all these calamities; it must be, in all things he has the pre-eminence; it is a great comfort to think of that.  God allows these things to happen and we should not do other than reflect His feelings.  We should never live remote from the needs of men.  A calamity should bring out in us sympathies and express God in them.

…

Oh, the relief of a living faith in a living Man who bore that load for me.  Why did He do it?  Oh that “why”;  “why hast Thou forsaken me?”  Who can answer that “why”?  We would have to tell you of the ocean of the love that lay behind the reason why Jesus died.  Love held Him there.  He could have come down.  He could have called on all those angels.  He did not.  He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross…But more than that, as my substitute He bore the judgement  due to me because of my sins. Oh, do you not know and love a Saviour like that?  Thank God I do and I commend Him to you.

 

(Extracts from a preaching by Brian Deck, Adelaide,

1986)

From

The Love of the Truth and Other Ministry

Edited by Andrew Burr – available from Lulu

Golden Nugget Number 278

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD  UK

Robert Fear – Our God holds us in His Everlasting Arms

Golden Nugget Number 276

(Editor’s Note: Several subscribers have suggested this poem is of comfort at the present time. – coronavirus March 2020 )

Our God Isaiah 40

He hath fixed the set proportions of the oceans and the land
According to the details of His plan;
He hath “measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand”
And meted out the heavens with His span.”

He controls th’ unconquered orbit of “the light that rules the day”
And guides the myriad worlds that shine at night;
And brings forth the host of heaven by their numbers to display
The uncontested brilliance of His might!

But although His arm is power to the infinite expanse,
That same unerring arm is in control
To determine and to govern my every circumstance—
To claim complete submission in my soul!

Yes! And though He counts the nations as “the dust upon the scale” And soars above their triumphs and alarms,
He remembers all about us—that our frame of dust is frail,
And holds us in His “everlasting arms.”

(R G Fear: Composed en route to France for the Invasion of Europe, June 5th, 1945.)

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD UK

 

 

Andrew Martin – Be thou Faithful unto Death (Rev 2:10) – The Martyrs’ Memorial

 18 Protestant martyrs were burnt for the pure faith of Jesus Christ.  ‘They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb’ 

Martyrs Memorial

The following details are from a Memorial erected in 1878 in Stratford Parish Church, East London, “To the glory of God in His suffering saints”.

 18 Protestant martyrs were burnt for the pure faith of Jesus Christ.  ‘They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb‘  (Rev.12:11)

Patrick Packingham, aged 23, burnt at the stake on 28th August 1555. Condemned by Bonner unheard

Elizabeth Warne, widow and gentlewomen taken at a prayer meeting and burned to death on the same day.  (Her husband had been burned at Smithfield, her daughter burnt and her son died in prison).

‘Of whom the world was not worthy‘. (Hebrews 11:38)

Hugh Laverick, a lame man and John Apprice, a blind man, burned to death on 15th May 1556.  Hugh said, “Hold on John, It won’t be for long”.

On Saturday, 27th June 1556, eleven men and two women were brought pinioned from Newgate and burned before 20,000 people for the Word of God.

Based on the above Andrew Martin has written a book ‘Of Whom the World was not Worthy’ – available from Lulu.

Golden Nugget Number 274

Golden Nuggets are published by Saville Street Distribution, Venture, Princes Esplanade, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8QD  UK

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