The Spiced Wine of My Pomegranate 2

Cry out to the Lord Jesus to fill the dry beds of your rivers until they overflow, and then empty you the channels which have hitherto been filled with your own self-sufficiency, and beseech Him to fill these also with His superabundant grace. If your heavy trials sink you deeper in the flood of His consolations, be glad of them; and if your vessel shall be sunken up to its very bulwarks, be not afraid. I would be glad to feel the mast-head of my soul twenty fathoms beneath the surface of such an ocean; for, as Rutherford said, "Oh, to be over the ears in this well! I would not have Christ's love entering into me, but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love." Cultivate an insatiable hunger and a quenchless thirst for this communion with Jesus through His communications. Let your heart cry forever, "Give, give," until it is filled in Paradise.

Overcome with Jesus' condescending love for me,
Brought into sweet fellowship with Him,
And feasting with Him in His house of wine,
I am sick with His love for me.

And yet I pant for more dealings with You, my loving Lord.
Visit me with buckets full of Your choicest wine,
Pressed from Your heart upon Mount Calvary,
To cheer and comfort my love-conquered soul.

Lord Jesus, You alone I crave!
Your presence is my life, my joy, my heaven,
And all, without You, is rubbish to me.
Visit me with basketfuls of Your love,
My Savior, hear my cry.

Let Your promises, like apples, comfort me;
Apply Your atoning blood, and covenant love,
Until I see Your radiant face,
At the great eternal wedding feast."
-Joseph Irons (adapted)

This is the only covetousness which is allowable: but this is not merely beyond rebuke, it is worthy of commendation. O saints, do not be straitened in your own affections, but enlarge your desires, and so receive more of your Savior's measureless fulness! I charge you, my soul, thus to hold continual fellowship with your Lord, since He invites and commands you thus to partake of His riches.

Rejoice yourself in benefits received. Let the satisfaction of your spirit overflow in streams of joy. When the believer reposes all his confidence in Christ, and delights himself in Him, there is an exercise of communion. If he forgets his psalm-book, and instead of singing is found lamenting, the mercies of the day will bring no communion. Awake, O music! stir up yourself, O my soul, be glad in the Lord, and exceedingly rejoice! Behold His favors, rich, free, and continual; shall they be buried in unthankfulness? Shall they be covered with a winding-sheet of ingratitude? No! I will praise Him. I must extol Him. Sweet Lord Jesus, let me kiss the dust of Your feet, let me lose myself in thankfulness, for Your thoughts unto me are precious, how great is the sum of them! Lo, I embrace You in the arms of joy and gratitude, and herein I find my soul drawn unto You!

This is a blessed method of fellowship. It is kissing the divine lip of blessing with the sanctified lip of affection. Oh, for more

rejoicing grace, more of the songs of the heart, more of the melody of the soul!

Seek to recognize the source of your mercies as lying alone in Him who is our Head. Imitate the chicken, which, every time it drinks of the brook, lifts up its head to heaven, as if it would return thanks for every drop. If we have anything that is commendable and gracious, it must come from the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit is first bestowed on Jesus, and then through Him on us. The oil was first poured on the head of Aaron, and thence it ran down upon his garments. Look on the drops of grace, and remember that they distill

from the Head, Christ Jesus. All your rays are begotten by this Sun of Righteousness, all your showers are poured from this heaven, all your fountains spring from this great and immeasurable depth. Oh, for grace to see the hand of Jesus on every favor! So will communion be constantly and firmly in exercise. May the great Teacher perpetually direct us to Jesus by making the mercies of the covenant the handposts on the road which leads to Him. Happy is the believer who knows how to find the secret abode of his

Beloved by tracking the footsteps of His loving providence: herein is wisdom which the casual observer of mere second causes can never reach. Labor, O Christian, to follow up every clue which your Master's grace affords you! Labor to maintain a sense of your entire dependence upon His good will and pleasure for the continuance of your richest enjoyments. Never try to live on the old manna, nor seek to find help in Egypt. All must come from Jesus, or you are undone forever. Old anointings will not suffice to impart unction to our spirit; your head must have fresh oil poured upon it from the golden horn of the sanctuary, or it will cease from its glory.

Today you may be upon the summit of the mount of God; but He who has put you there must keep you there, or you will sink far more speedily than you dreams. Your mountain only stands firm when He settles it in its place; if He hide His face, you will soon be troubled. If the Savior should see fit, there is not a window through which you see the light of heaven which he could not darken in an instant. Joshua bade the sun stand still, but Jesus can shroud it in total darkness. He can withdraw the joy of your heart, the light of your eyes, and the strength of your life; in His hand your comforts lie, and at His will they can depart from you. Oh! how rich the grace which supplies us so continually, and does not refrain itself because of our ingratitude! O Lord Jesus, we would bow at Your feet, conscious of our utter inability to do anything without You, and in every favor which we are privileged to receive, we would adore Your blessed name, and acknowledge Your unexhausted love!

When you have received much, admire the all-sufficiency which still remains undiminished, thus shall you commune with Christ, not only in what you obtain from Him, but also in the superabundance which remains treasured up in Him. Let us ever remember that giving does not impoverish our Lord. When the clouds, those wandering cisterns of the skies, have poured floods upon the dry ground, there remains an abundance in the storehouse of the rain: so in Christ there is ever an unbounded supply, though the most liberal showers of grace have fallen ever since the foundation of the earth. The sun is as bright as ever after all his shining, and the sea is quite as full after all the clouds have been drawn from it: so is our Lord Jesus ever the same overflowing fountain of fulness. All this is ours, and we may make it the subject of rejoicing fellowship. Come, believer, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for as far as the eye can reach, the land is your, and far beyond the utmost range of your observation it is your also, the gracious gift of your gracious Redeemer and Friend. Is there not ample space for fellowship here?

Regard every spiritual mercy as an assurance of the Lord's communion with you. When the young man gives jewels to the virgin to whom he is affianced, she regards them as tokens of his delight in her. Believer, do the same with the precious presents of your Lord. The common bounties of providence are shared in by all men, for the good Householder provides water for His swine as well as for His children: such things, therefore, are no proof of divine complacency. But you have richer food to eat; "the children's bread" is in your wallet, and the heritage of the righteous is reserved for you. Look, then, on every motion of grace in your heart as a pledge and sign of the moving of your Savior's heart towards you. There is His whole heart in the affections of every mercy which He sends you. He has impressed a kiss of love upon each gift, and He would have you believe that every jewel of mercy is a token of His boundless love. Look on your adoption, justification, and preservation, as sweet enticements to fellowship. Let every note of the promise sound in your ears like the ringing of the bells of the house of your Lord, inviting you to come to the banquets of His love. Joseph sent to his father donkeys laden with the good things of Egypt, and good old Jacob doubtless regarded them as pledges of the love of his son's heart: be sure not to think less of the kindnesses of Jesus.

Study to know the value of His favors. They are no ordinary things, no paste jewels, no mosaic gold: they are every one of them so costly, that, had all heaven been drained of treasure, apart from the precious offering of the Redeemer, it could not have purchased so much as the least of His benefits. When you see your pardon, consider how great a boon is contained in it! Bethink you that hell had been your eternal portion unless Christ had plucked you from the burning! When you are enabled to see yourself as clothed in the imputed righteousness of Jesus, admire the profusion of precious things of which your robe is made. Think how many times the Man of sorrows wearied Himself at that loom of obedience in which He wove that matchless garment; and reckon, if you can, how many worlds of merit were cast into the fabric at every throw of the shuttle!

Remember that all the angels in heaven could not have afforded Him a single thread which would have been rich enough to weave into the texture of His perfect righteousness. Consider the cost of your maintenance for an hour; remember that your needs are so large, that all the granaries of grace that all the saints could fill, could not feed you for a moment. What an expensive dependent you are! King Solomon made marvellous provision for his household (1 Kings 4:22), but all his beeves and fine flour would be as the drop of the bucket compared with your daily needs. Rivers of oil, and ten thousand rams or fed beasts, would not provide enough to supply the necessities of your hungering soul. Your least spiritual want demands infinity to satisfy it, and what must be the amazing aggregate of your perpetually repeated draughts upon your Lord! Arise, then, and bless your loving Emmanuel for the invaluable riches with which He has endowed you. See what a dowry your Bridegroom has brought to His poor, penniless spouse.

He knows the value of the blessings which He brings you, for He has paid for them out of His heart's richest blood; do not be you so ungenerous as to pass them over as if they were but of little worth. Poor men know more of the value of money than those who have always reveled in abundance of wealth. Ought not your former poverty to teach you the preciousness of the grace which Jesus gives you? For remember, there was a time when you would have given a thousand worlds, if they had been your, in order to procure the very least of His abundant mercies.

Remember how impossible it would have been for you to receive a single spiritual blessing unless you had been in Jesus. On none of Adam's race can the love of God be fixed, unless they are seen to be in union with His Son. No exception has ever been made to the universal curse on those of the first Adam's seed who have no interest in the second Adam. Christ is the only Zoar in which God's Lots can find a shelter from the destruction of Sodom. Out of Him, the withering blast of the fiery furnace of God's wrath consumes every green herb, and it is only in Him that the soul can live. As when the prairie is on fire, men see the heavens wrapped in sheets of flame, and in hot haste they fly before the devouring element. They have but one hope. There is in the distance a lake of water. They reach it, they plunge into it, and are safe.

Although the skies are molten with the heat, the sun darkened with the smoke, and the earth utterly consumed in the fire, they know that they are secure while the cooling flood embraces them. Christ Jesus is the only escape for a sinner pursued by the fiery wrath of God, and we would have the believer remember this. Our own works could never shelter us, for they have proved but refuges of lies. Had they been a thousand times more and better, they would have been but as the spider's web, too flail to hang eternal interests upon. There was but one name, one sacrifice, one blood, by which we could escape. All other attempts at salvation were a grievous failure.

For, "though a man could scourge out of his body rivers of blood, and in neglect of himself could outlast Moses or Elias; though he could wear out his knees with prayer, and had his eyes nailed on heaven; though he could build hospitals for all the poor on earth, and exhaust the mines of India in alms; though he could walk like an angel of light, and with the glittering of an outward holiness dazzle the eyes of all beholders; no (if it were possible to be conceived) though he should live for a thousand years in a perfect and perpetual observation of the whole law of God, if the only exception to his perfection were the very least deviation from the law, yet such a man as this could no more appear before the tribunal of God's justice, than stubble before a consuming fire." How, then, with your innumerable sins, could you escape the damnation of hell, much less become the recipient of bounties so rich and large?

Blessed window of heaven, sweet Lord Jesus, let Your Church forever adore You, as the only channel by which mercies can flow to her. My soul, give Him continual praise, for without Him you had been poorer than a beggar. Be you mindful, O heir of heaven, that you could not have had one ray of hope, or one word of comfort, if you had not been in union with Christ Jesus! The crumbs which fall from your table are more than grace itself would have given you, had you not been in Jesus beloved and approved.

All you have, you have in Him: in Him chosen, in Him redeemed, in Him justified, in Him accepted. You are risen in Him, but without Him you had died the second death. You are in Him raised up to the heavenly places, but out of Him you would have been damned eternally. Bless Him, then. Ask the angels to bless Him. Rouse all ages to a harmony of praise for His condescending love in taking poor guilty nothings into oneness with His all-adorable person. This is a blessed means of promoting communion, if the sacred Comforter is pleased to take of the things of Christ, and reveal them to us as ours, but only ours as we are in Him. Thrice-blessed Jesus, let us never forget that we are members of Your mystical body, and that it is for this reason that we are blessed and preserved.

Meditate upon you gracious acts which procured your blessings. Consider the ponderous labors which your Lord endured for you, and the stupendous sufferings by which He purchased the mercies which He bestows. What human tongue can speak forth the unutterable misery of His heart, or describe so much as one of the agonies which crowded upon His soul? How much less shall any finite comprehension arrive at an idea of the vast total of His woe! But all His sorrows were necessary for your benefit, and without them not one of your unnumbered mercies could have been bestowed. Do not be unmindful that—

"There's never a gift His hand bestows,
But cost His heart a groan."

Look upon the frozen ground of Gethsemane, and behold the bloody sweat which stained the soil! Turn to the hall of Gabbatha, and see the victim of justice pursued by His clamorous foes! Enter the guard-room of the Praetorians, and view the spitting, and the plucking of the hair! and then conclude your review upon Golgotha, the mount of doom, where death consummated His tortures; and if, by divine assistance you are enabled to enter, in some humble measure, into the depths of your Lord's sufferings, you will be the better prepared to hold fellowship with Him when next you receive His priceless gifts. In proportion to your sense of their costliness will be your capacity for enjoying the love which is centered in them.

Above all, and chief of all, never forget that Christ is your. Amid the profusion of His gifts, never forget that the chief gift is Himself, and do not forget that, after all, His gifts are but Himself. He clothes you, but it is with Himself, with His own spotless righteousness and character. He washes you, but His innermost self, His own heart's blood, is the stream with which the fountain overflows. He feeds you with the bread of heaven, but do not be unmindful that the bread is Himself, His own body which He gives to be the food of souls. Never be satisfied with a less communication than a whole Christ. A wife will not be put off with maintenance, jewels, and attire, all these will be nothing to her unless she can call her husband's heart and person her own. It was the Paschal lamb upon which the ancient Israelite did feast on that night that was never to be forgotten. So do you feast on Jesus, and on nothing less than Jesus, for less than this will be food too light for your soul's satisfaction. Oh, be careful to eat His flesh and drink His blood, and so receive Him into yourself in a real and spiritual manner, for nothing short of this will be an evidence of eternal life in your soul!

What more shall we add to the rules which we have here delivered? There remains but one great exhortation, which must not be omitted. Seek the abundant assistance of the Holy Spirit to enable you to put into practice the things which we have said, for without His aid, all that we have spoken will but be tantalizing the lame with rules to walk, or the dying with regulations for the preservation of health. O you Divine Spirit, while we enjoy the grace of Jesus, lead us into the secret abode of our Lord, that we may sup with Him, and He with us, and grant unto us hourly grace that we may continue in the company of our Lord from the rising to the setting of the sun! Amen.

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