FROM OBEDIENCE TO BLESSING-C.H.SPURGEON

"From this day will I bless you" (Haggai 2:19).

Future things are hidden from us. Yet here is a glass in which we may see the unborn years. The LORD says, "From this day will I bless you." It is worthwhile to note the day which is referred to in this promise. There had been failure of crops, blasting, and mildew, and all because of the people's sin. Now, the LORD saw these chastened ones commencing to obey His word and build His temple, and therefore He says, "From the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid, consider. From this day will I bless you." If we have lived in any sin, and the Spirit leads us to purge ourselves of it, we may reckon upon the blessing of the LORD. His smile, His Spirit, His grace, His fuller revelation of His truth will all prove to us an enlarged blessing. We may fall into greater opposition from man because of our faithfulness, but we shall rise to closer dealings with the LORD our God and a clearer sight of our acceptance in Him. LORD, I am resolved to be more true to Thee and more exact in my following of Thy doctrine and Thy precept; and I pray Thee, therefore, by Christ Jesus, to increase the blessedness of my daily life henceforth and forever. (From Faith's Checkbook for November 19th).

BREAK MY HEART OF STONE

SCRIPTURE MEDITATIONS by W.F. Bell

"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord....And Peter went out and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:61-62). Referring to this story, Charles Wesley wrote these lines:

Turn, and look upon me, Lord,

And break my heart of stone!

Give me, through Thy dying love,

The humble, contrite heart.

Do you and I not need this "look" from Christ to melt us down, causing us to weep over our sins? It is true that Jehovah "looks" to those who are "poor and of a contrite spirit" (Isaiah 66:2), but it is actually this "look" from the Lord to us personally (as to Peter) that enables us to be "poor and contrite," and weep before Him. O for weepers to be restored to the modern church! How we need this vital order to become reality to us: looking, remembering, weeping!

And why? Because, as Wesley says, only by this look can our hearts of stone be changed. Calvary's cry was, "Father, forgive them." Does this not melt your

heart of stone? Does this not cause you to go to a secret place, weeping over your personal sins that sent Christ to the cursed tree? What else could possibly break our hard, stony hearts but Calvary's love?

Today I watched a portion of a Roman Catholic "Solemn Mass." I marvelled at the blindness and ignorance of priests and people in bowing before idols, and going through elaborate rituals. It did nothing for me spiritually. But all too often neither do our Protestant religious services. Let us "examine ourselves" here. Why be critical of Catholics and those of other denominations when we ourselves may be religiously as hard-hearted as they? With Wesley, let us ever seek the Lord Jesus Christ to be truly merciful to us, and say,

Turn, and look upon me, Lord,

And break my heart of stone.

THOUGHTS FROM THOMAS BROOKS

"Reader, remember this: if thy knowledge do not now affect thy heart, it will at last, with a witness, afflict thy heart; if it do not now endear Christ to thee, it will at last provoke Christ the more against thee; if it do not make all the things of Christ to be very precious in thy eyes, it will at last make thee the more vile in Christ's eyes."

"A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions. "

"The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others; the best way to gather is to scatter. "

Thomas Brooks, English Puritan, 1608-1680