Post by Eli Brayley on Feb 27, 2009 14:05:00 GMT -7
Reduced to Despair
from the book 'Royal Insignia' by Edwin and Lillian Harvey
"We were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." (2 Cor. 1:8)
Principal James Denney was a Scotch, Reformed Presbyterian, who as a student in Glasgow University, was considered "the most distinguished of his times." Touchstone in a periodical of the Brethren, summed up his attainments in this way: "James Moffat said of him that he impressed people with the consciousness of 'being far more than anything he said or did, or wrote, no matter how you admired those products of his mind.' He was said to know thoroughly seven different languages. He could quote the New Testament with as much ease in the original as in English...
"He wrote much in the Expositor and the British Weekly, though his books are his most enduring memorial. Dr. Campbell Morgan used to describe his book The Death of Christ as, perhaps, the greatest written exposition of the Atonement." The following extract from one of his commentaries reveals his grasp of this cardinal truth:
"The Apostle, who has a divine gift for interpreting experience and reading its lessons, tells us why he and his friends had to pass such a terrible time. It was that they might trust, not in themselves, but in God Who raises the dead. It is natural, he implies, for us to trust in ourselves. It is so natural, and so confirmed by the habits of a lifetime, that no ordinary difficulty or perplexities avail to break us of it. It takes all God can do to root up our self-confidence. He must reduce us to despair... It is out of this despair that the superhuman hope is born. It is out of this abject helplessness that the soul learns to look up with new trust to God...
"How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence? Is it not by proving through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to fell that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benignant than our own, life is a moral chaos? How, above all, do we come to any faith in Redemption? To any abiding trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior of our souls? Is it not by this same way of despair? Is it not by the profound consciousness that in ourselves there is no answer to the question, How shall man be just with God? and that the answer must be sought in Him?
"Is it not by failure, by defeat, by deep disappointments, by ominous forebodings hardening into the awful certainty that we cannot with our own resources make ourselves good men - is it not by experiences like these that we are led to the Cross?
"Only desperation opens our eyes to God's love. We do not heartily own Him as the Author of Life and Health, unless He has raised us from our sickness after the doctor has given us up. We do not acknowledge His paternal guidance of our life, unless in some sudden peril, or some impending disaster, He provides an unexpected deliverance. We do not confess that salvation is of the Lord, until our very soul has been convinced that in it there dwells no good thing. Happy are those who are taught even by despair, to set their hope in God; and who, when they learn this lesson once, learn it like St. Paul, once for all.
"Faith and hope like those which burn through this Epistle were well worth purchasing, even at such a price; they were blessings so valuable that the love of God did not shrink from reducing Paul to despair that he might be compelled to grasp them. Let us believe when such trials come into our lives - when we are weighed down exceedingly beyond our strength, and are in darkness without light, in a valley of the shadow of death with no outlet - that God is not dealing with us cruelly or at random, but shutting us up to an experience of His love which we have hitherto declined."
"You can't in preaching produce at the same time," said Denney, "the impression that you are clever and that Christ is wonderful."
from the book 'Royal Insignia' by Edwin and Lillian Harvey
"We were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life." (2 Cor. 1:8)
Principal James Denney was a Scotch, Reformed Presbyterian, who as a student in Glasgow University, was considered "the most distinguished of his times." Touchstone in a periodical of the Brethren, summed up his attainments in this way: "James Moffat said of him that he impressed people with the consciousness of 'being far more than anything he said or did, or wrote, no matter how you admired those products of his mind.' He was said to know thoroughly seven different languages. He could quote the New Testament with as much ease in the original as in English...
"He wrote much in the Expositor and the British Weekly, though his books are his most enduring memorial. Dr. Campbell Morgan used to describe his book The Death of Christ as, perhaps, the greatest written exposition of the Atonement." The following extract from one of his commentaries reveals his grasp of this cardinal truth:
"The Apostle, who has a divine gift for interpreting experience and reading its lessons, tells us why he and his friends had to pass such a terrible time. It was that they might trust, not in themselves, but in God Who raises the dead. It is natural, he implies, for us to trust in ourselves. It is so natural, and so confirmed by the habits of a lifetime, that no ordinary difficulty or perplexities avail to break us of it. It takes all God can do to root up our self-confidence. He must reduce us to despair... It is out of this despair that the superhuman hope is born. It is out of this abject helplessness that the soul learns to look up with new trust to God...
"How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence? Is it not by proving through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to fell that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benignant than our own, life is a moral chaos? How, above all, do we come to any faith in Redemption? To any abiding trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior of our souls? Is it not by this same way of despair? Is it not by the profound consciousness that in ourselves there is no answer to the question, How shall man be just with God? and that the answer must be sought in Him?
"Is it not by failure, by defeat, by deep disappointments, by ominous forebodings hardening into the awful certainty that we cannot with our own resources make ourselves good men - is it not by experiences like these that we are led to the Cross?
"Only desperation opens our eyes to God's love. We do not heartily own Him as the Author of Life and Health, unless He has raised us from our sickness after the doctor has given us up. We do not acknowledge His paternal guidance of our life, unless in some sudden peril, or some impending disaster, He provides an unexpected deliverance. We do not confess that salvation is of the Lord, until our very soul has been convinced that in it there dwells no good thing. Happy are those who are taught even by despair, to set their hope in God; and who, when they learn this lesson once, learn it like St. Paul, once for all.
"Faith and hope like those which burn through this Epistle were well worth purchasing, even at such a price; they were blessings so valuable that the love of God did not shrink from reducing Paul to despair that he might be compelled to grasp them. Let us believe when such trials come into our lives - when we are weighed down exceedingly beyond our strength, and are in darkness without light, in a valley of the shadow of death with no outlet - that God is not dealing with us cruelly or at random, but shutting us up to an experience of His love which we have hitherto declined."
"You can't in preaching produce at the same time," said Denney, "the impression that you are clever and that Christ is wonderful."