PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Assembly of God. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. III
Mackintosh, Charles Henry, 1820-1896 · 125,713 words · 192 reading sections
THE EARNEST SEEKER.
The laborious apostle, in the course of his missionary journeyings, came to Troas, and there a vision appeared to him in the night, "There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly g…
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Now it is quite possible that there are persons who, having been rocked in the cradle of easy-going evangelical profession, and trained up in the flippant formalism of a self-indulgent, heaven-made-easy religion, are ready to condemn the pious conduct of Cornelius, and pronounce it the fruit of ignorance and legality. …
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It is ever a moment of deepest interest when a prepared soul is brought in contact with the full gospel of the grace of God. It may be that that soul has been under deep and painful exercise for many a long day, seeking rest but finding none. The Lord has been working by His Spirit, and preparing the ground for the goo…
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What force and beauty in those words, "Whose heart the Lord opened, that _she attended_ unto the things that were spoken of Paul." Lydia was not one of those who go to meetings to think of anything and everything but the things that are spoken by the Lord's messengers. She was not thinking of her purple, or of the pric…
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Hence, therefore, we call upon the reader to be, like Lydia, in earnest about his soul's salvation--to let every other question, every other point, every other subject, sink into utter insignificance in comparison with this one momentous question--the salvation of his precious soul. Then, he may depend upon it, the One…
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It is a serious reflection for the evangelist, that wherever God's Spirit is at work, there Satan is sure to be busy. We must remember and ever be prepared for this. The enemy of Christ and the enemy of souls is always on the watch, always hovering about to see what he can do, either to hinder or corrupt the work of th…
321 wordsSECTION 127THE DECEIVER.
"It came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many day…
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But mark, friend, do not go on, week after week, mocking God, hardening thine own heart, and carrying out the schemes of the great enemy of Christ, by a false profession. This marks the damsel possessed by a spirit of divination, and here her history links itself with the present awful condition of Christendom. What wa…
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Thus the enemy seemed to triumph; but be it remembered that Christ's warriors gain their most splendid victories by apparent defeat. The devil made a great mistake when he cast the apostle into prison. Indeed it is consolatory to reflect that he has never done anything else but make mistakes, from the moment that he le…
333 wordsSECTION 130THE HARDENED SINNER.
It was very unlikely that the jailor would ever have found his way to the prayer-meeting at the river side. He had little care for such things. He was neither an earnest seeker, nor a deceiver. He was a hardened sinner, pursuing a very hardening occupation. Jailors, from the occupation of their office, are, generally s…
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Now if Paul had not been in full communion with the mind and heart of Christ, he would assuredly have turned to Silas and said, "Now is the moment for us to make our escape. God has most manifestly appeared for us, and set before us an open door. If ever there was an opening of divine Providence surely this is one." Bu…
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What a marvelous change! The ruthless jailor has become the generous host! "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new." How clearly we can now see that Paul was right in not being guided by _providences_! How much better and higher to be led by the "eye…
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[XXV.] The reader will notice that in Matthew vi. I, the marginal reading is the correct one: "Take heed that ye do not your _righteousness_ before men, to be seen of them." Then we have the three departments of this righteousness, namely, alms-giving (ver. 2); prayer (ver. 3); fasting (ver. 16). These were the very th…
160 wordsSECTION 134DEAREST A----,
I have been much interested, and I trust profited, of late, by tracing, through the Gospels and the Acts, the various notices of the work of evangelization; and it has occured to me that it may not be amiss to present to you, as one much occupied in the blessed work, a few of the thoughts that have suggested themselves…
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No doubt it may be said, "It is much better to allow the Spirit of God to follow up His own work. We may do more harm than good. And besides, people do not like to be spoken to: they will look upon it as an impertinent intrusion, and they will be driven away from the place altogether." There is considerable weight in a…
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But I think I hear you saying, "Where is all the Scripture we were to have had? where the many quotations from the Gospels and the Acts?" Well, I have gone on jotting down the thoughts which have for some considerable time occupied my mind; and now, space forbids my going further at present. But if you so desire, I sha…
126 wordsSECTION 137LETTER II.
There is one point in connection with our subject which has much occupied my mind; and that is, the immense importance of cultivating an earnest faith in the presence and action of the Holy Ghost. We want to remember, at all times, that we can do nothing, and that God the Holy Ghost can do all. It holds good in the gre…
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Well, what was the special character of that work in its earlier stages? Was it not most manifestly a work of God's Spirit? Did not He take up and use instruments the most unfit and unfurnished, according to human thinking, for the accomplishment of His gracious purpose? Do we not remember the style and character of th…
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I often recall a sentence of yours. I remember your once saying to me, "Heaven will be the best and safest place to hear the results of our work." This is a wholesome word for all workmen. I shudder when I see the names of Christ's servants paraded in the public journals, with flattering allusion to their work and its …
380 wordsSECTION 140LETTER III.
There is another point which stands intimately connected with the subject of my last letter, and that is, the place the word of God occupies in the work of evangelization. In my last letter, as you will remember, I referred to the work of the Holy Ghost, and the immense importance of giving Him His proper place. How cl…
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I assert all this, mark you, in the full and clear recognition of the fact with which I commenced this letter, namely, that the Word is the grand instrument in the work of conversion. This fact must never be lost sight of, never weakened. It matters not what agency may be used to make the furrow, or in what form the Wo…
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No, no; I believe we want to look seriously into this great practical subject. It demands the solemn and dispassionate consideration of all who are engaged in the work. There are dangers on all sides. There are conflicting opinions on all sides. But I cannot conceive how any Christian man can be satisfied to shirk the …
255 wordsSECTION 143LETTER IV.
When I took up my pen to address you in my first letter, I had no idea that I should have occasion to extend the series to a fourth. However, the subject is one of intense interest to me; and there are just two or three points further on which I desire very briefly to touch. And in the first place I deeply feel our la…
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It is of no use for any one to say, "God can work without our earnest pleading; He will accomplish His purposes; He will gather out His own." We know all this; but we know also that He who has appointed the end has appointed the means; and if we fail in waiting on Him, He will get others to do His work. The work will b…
846 wordsSECTION 145LETTER V.
It seems as though I must once more take up my pen to address you on certain matters connected with the work of evangelization, which have forced themselves upon my attention for some time past. There are three distinct branches of the work which I long to see occupying a far more definite and prominent place among us;…
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I shall have occasion to refer more particularly to this point, when I come to treat of the Preaching and the Sunday-school. All I want now, is to establish the fact that the Tract depot is a branch, and a most important and efficient branch, of evangelistic work. If this be thoroughly grasped by our friends, a great p…
330 wordsSECTION 147LETTER VI.
I have, in some of the earlier letters of this series, dwelt upon the unspeakable importance of keeping up with zeal and constancy, a faithful preaching of the gospel--a distinct work of evangelization, carried on in the energy of love to precious souls, and with direct reference to the glory of Christ--a work bearing …
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All this has to be carefully guarded against: but my object in referring to it now is to clear up the point with respect to the gospel preaching. The true evangelist is not the minister of any chapel; or the organ of any congregation; or the representative of a body; or the paid agent of any society. No; he is the amba…
453 wordsSECTION 149LETTER VII.
Through want of space I was obliged to close my last letter without even touching upon the subject of the Sunday-school: I must, however, devote a page or two to a branch of work which has occupied a very large place in my heart for thirty years. I should deem my series incomplete were this subject left untouched. Som…
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But I shall not dwell upon this, inasmuch as my theme is the Sunday-school, and not those who neglect or oppose it. I bless God for what I see in the way of encouragement. I have often been exceedingly refreshed and delighted by seeing some of our very oldest friends rising from the table of their Lord, and proceeding …
344 wordsSECTION 151THE LIVING GOD AND A LIVING FAITH
There is one great substantial fact standing prominently forth on every page of the volume of God, and illustrated in every stage of the history of God's people--a fact of immense weight and moral power at all times, but specially in seasons of darkness, difficulty, and discouragement, occasioned by the low condition o…
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These are the breathings of faith--faith that enables the soul to take the very highest possible ground. It mattered not what unsettled questions there might be between Esau and Jacob; there were none between Abraham and the Almighty God. Now, God had given the land to Abraham, His friend. For how long? _For ever._ Thi…
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But for this, too, grace had provided an answer--an answer which faith knew well how to appropriate. Jehoshaphat reminds Jehovah of the house which Solomon had built to His name. "They have built Thee a sanctuary therein for Thy name, saying, If, when evil cometh upon us, as a sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine,…
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This is all-important. It is impossible to stand against the enemy, if there is anything equivocal in our position. If there be any secret misgiving as to our being in our right place--if we cannot give a "Thus saith the Lord" for the position which we occupy, the path we tread, the associations in which we stand, the …
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All this is full of solid comfort and richest consolation. It assures the anxious inquirer that he has the self-same ground and authority to rest upon that Abraham had, with an immensely higher measure of light thrown on that ground, inasmuch as Abraham was called to believe in a promise, whereas we are privileged to b…
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Being all this, it must needs be fully adequate to meet all the need of the anxious soul, of what kind soever that need may be. If Christ is enough for God He must of necessity be enough for man--for any man--for the reader; and that He is enough is proved by the very passage just quoted. He is God's own foundation, la…
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Oh! the unspeakable blessedness of having such a foundation in a world like this where death, decay, and change are stamped upon all; where friendship's fondest links are snapped in the twinkling of an eye by death's rude hand; where all that seems, to nature's view, most stable, is liable to be swept away in a moment …
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What an answer! "The battle is not yours, but God's." Only think of God's having a battle with people! Assuredly there could be little question as to the issue of such a battle. Jehoshaphat had put the whole matter into God's hands, and God took it up and made it entirely His own. It is always thus. Faith puts the diff…
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We call the special attention of the reader to this point. It concerns the integrity of Holy Scripture. The grand question is this, Is God's word sufficient or not? Do we really want man's authority to make us sure that God has spoken? Far be the thought! This would be placing man's word above God's word, and thus depr…
881 wordsSECTION 160THE SABBATH.
If it were merely a question of the observance or non-observance of a day, it might be easily disposed of, inasmuch as the apostle teaches us in Rom. xiv. 5, 6, and also in Col. ii. 16, that such things are not to be made a ground of judgment. But seeing there is a great principle involved in the Sabbath question, we d…
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But it will be said, "We are not under the Mosaic law; we are the subjects of the Christian economy." Granted; most fully, freely and thankfully granted. All true Christians are, according to the teaching of Romans vii. and viii. and Galatians iii. and iv., the happy and privileged subjects of the Christian dispensatio…
762 wordsSECTION 162THE LAW.
As regards the law, it is looked at in two ways; first, as a ground of justification; and secondly, as a rule of life. A passage or two of Scripture will suffice to settle both the one and the other: "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of si…
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It may seem a paradox to some to be told that "the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us" (Rom. viii. 4), and yet that we cannot be justified by the law, nor make the law our rule of life. Nevertheless, thus it is if we are to form our convictions by the word of God. Nor is there any difficulty to the renewed min…
739 wordsSECTION 164THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY;
in reference to which we have only to say, that we hold it to be a divine institution: its source, its power, its characteristics, are all divine and heavenly. We believe that the great Head of the Church received in resurrection gifts for His body. He, and not the Church, or any section of the Church, is the reservoir…
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We thank God for Christian ministry; and we feel assured that there are many truly gifted servants of Christ in the various denominations around us; but they are ministers of Christ on the ground of possessing His gift, and not, by any means, on the ground of man's ordination. Man cannot add aught to a heaven-bestowed …
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Instead of "proving" Him, we "limit" Him, and therefore we are shorn of our strength and left in barrenness and desolation; or, what is worse, we betake ourselves to the miserable provisions of human expediency. However, we believe it is far better, if we have not God's reality, to remain in the position of real, felt,…
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But where have we anything like this now? Where is the Timothy or the Titus now? Where is there the least intimation in the New Testament that there should be a succession of men invested with the power to ordain elders or pastors? True, the apostle Paul, in his second epistle to Timothy, says, "The things which thou h…
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Having thus, so far as our limits would permit, treated of the questions of the Sabbath, the Law, and the Christian Ministry; having shown that we honor and observe the Lord's day, that we give the Law its divinely appointed place, and finally, that we hold the sacred and precious institution of the Christian Ministry,…
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[XXVII.] For a fuller exposition of the doctrine of the sabbath, see "Notes on Genesis" (chap. ii.); also, "Notes on Exodus" (chaps. xvi. and xxxi.). [XXVIII.] We would here offer a remark in reference to the appointment of deacons in Acts vi. This case has been adduced in proof of the rightness of a congregation elec…
389 wordsSECTION 170PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
(Scriptures read before lecture, Exodus xxi. I-6; John xiii. I-10; Luke xii. 37.) "For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Mark x. 45.) It is very necessary, beloved friends, to retire from all thoughts about our service to the Lord, and our w…
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Now, though the primary object of this meeting, brethren, is for those who are saints of God, who have set out on their course, still I do not think it would be according to the heart and sympathies of Christ to overlook the fact that there may be some soul in this congregation that wants, as I said, just to begin at t…
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And what, let me ask, was the effect of all this upon the heart of David? We have the answer in that one pithy statement: "Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord, and said, 'Who am I?'" Mark the attitude, and ponder the question. They are full of deep meaning. "_He sat._" This is rest and sweet repose. He wan…
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Here, then, we have one of the shadows of good things to come--a shadow or figure of the True Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, that blessed One who loved the Church and gave Himself for it. The Hebrew servant, having served the legal time, was perfectly free to go out; but he loved his wife and his children, and that, t…
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Now, we cannot possibly overestimate the importance of dwelling upon the fact that there was no necessity whatever laid upon our blessed Lord Jesus Christ to die on the cross, and to endure the wrath of God. Neither in His person, in His nature, nor in His relations was He obnoxious to death. He was God over all, bless…
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This, brethren, is ineffably precious and edifying for our souls. It was in the sense of His personal glory, in the consciousness that He had come from God and was going to God, that He could stoop down and wash His people's feet. There was nothing, could be nothing, higher than the place whence Jesus had come; there w…
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This is replete with solid comfort for the soul. We are passing through a defiling world, where we are constantly liable to contract evils of one kind or another which, though they cannot touch our eternal life, can very seriously affect our communion. It is impossible for us to tread the sanctuary of the divine presen…
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Now, here, brethren, we have illustrated for us the present ministry of Christ--the action of the Word upon the soul--the application of the basin to the feet--the washing of water by the Word. It is Jesus stooping down to wash the feet of this young disciple. The question is, How will she receive the action? Will she …
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Brethren, of what use, may I ask you, would a blind love be to you or to me? Surely, none whatever. How could we ever repose in a love which only acted toward us in ignorance of our blots and blemishes! Impossible. What we want is a love superior to all our imperfections, and a love that can deliver us from them. This …
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What a grand reality! With what perfect confidence may we refer every objector, every accuser, every opposer, to this blessed manager! And what folly, on our part, to attempt to answer such ourselves! Oh, beloved brethren, may we learn to lean more confidently on that blessed One who thus presents Himself before our so…
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I shall add no more on this point, save to warn all the Lord's dear people against the terrible error of denying our continual need of the priestly ministry, the precious intercession and all-prevailing advocacy of our Lord Jesus Christ--an error second only to the denial of His atoning work. For most surely our need o…
534 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.