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Tag Archives: How shall I go to God?

What if it be all True?

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Church History, Horatius Bonar, John Newton

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Evangelism, Gospel, Horatius Bonar, How shall I go to God?, John Newton

John Newton had a pious mother, who was taken from him when he was only seven years old. She taught him, when but an infant, to pray, and sowed in his young heart the seeds of his future spiritual life.

When a boy, he was led to think much of God and of eternal things; but his impressions wore off, and he entered on a course of sin. It seemed as if he had broken loose from all bonds, and delighted only in what was evil.

While in this impenitent state he was thrown from a horse, and was in great danger, but his life was preserved. Then his conscience awoke once more, and he trembled at the thought of appearing before God, sinful and unready. Under this dread he forsook his sins for a while, and gave up his profane living and speaking; but the reformation was only outward, and did not last long.

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What Will a Shadow Do For Your?

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Horatius Bonar

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Death, Horatius Bonar, How shall I go to God?, shadow, The Word Passeth Away, Vanity

“The World Passeth Away”

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 “Lake Noir” courtesy of David Kracht

 

The things that are seen are temporal. Ours is a dying world, and here we have no continuing city. But a few years,—it may be less,—and all things here are changed. But a few years,—it may be less,—and the Lord shall have come, and the last trumpet shall have sounded, and the great sentence shall have been pronounced upon each of the sons of men.

There is a world that passeth not away. It is fair and glorious. It is called “the inheritance in light”. It is bright with the love of God, and with the joy of heaven. “The Lamb is the light thereof.” Its gates are of pearl; they are always open. And as we tell men of this wondrous city, we tell them to enter in.

The Book of Revelation (chap. 18:21, 22) tells us the story of earth’s vanity: “A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee. And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee.”

Such is the day that is coming on the world, and such is the doom overhanging earth,—a doom dimly foreshadowed by the sad commercial disasters that have often sent sorrow into so many hearts, and desolation into so many homes.

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Whither, Whither

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Horatius Bonar

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eternity, Horatius Bonar, How shall I go to God?, Whither Whither

A traveller, some years ago, tells that in the room of a hotel where he lodged there was hung a large printed sheet, with these solemn words:—

“Know these things, O Man,—
A GOD, a Moment, an Eternity.”

Surely it would be our wisdom to think on words like these,—so brief, yet so full of meaning.
Richard Baxter mentions the case of a minister of his day, the whole tone of whose life-preaching was affected by the words which he heard when visiting a dying woman, who “often and vehemently” (he says) “did cry out” on her deathbed, “Oh, call time back again, call time back again!” But the calling of time back again is as hopeless as the shortening of eternity. “This inch of hasty time,” as that noble preacher calls it, cannot be lengthened out; and if not improved or redeemed, is lost for ever. While God lives, the soul must live; for “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.”
Our internal future is no dream nor fable. It will be as real as our past has been,—nay, more so. Unbelief may try to persuade us that it is a shadow or a fancy. But it is not. It is infinitely and unutterably real; and the ages before us, as they come and go, will bring with them realities in comparison with which all past realities will be as nothing. All things pertaining to us are becoming every day more real; and this increase of reality shall go on through the ages to come.
Whither? whither? This is no idle question; and it is one to which every son of man ought to seek an immediate answer. Man was made that he might look into the long future; and this question is one which he ought to know how to put, and how to answer. If he does not there must be something sadly wrong about him. For God has not denied him the means of replying to it aright.
Horatius Bonar, How Shall I Go to God? And Other Readings (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1881), 58–60.

The Essence of Self-Righteousness

04 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Horatius Bonar, Luke

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Gospel, Grace, Horatius Bonar, How shall I go to God?, I Can't Let Go, Luke 15, Prodigal Son, Self-Righteousness

Suppose when the father, in receiving back the prodigal, had said, “Go into the house, and get the best robe and put it on and come to me,” there might have been some meaning in the son’s saying, “I can’t!” But when the father says to the servants, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him,” such an excuse would have been absurd, and would only have betrayed the son’s unwillingness to receive the robe at all. For the father leaves nothing for the son to do; all he desires is that he should receive: and it is as if he had said, “Allow me to clothe you; allow me to put the best robe upon you.” He undertakes for everything; for the putting on the robe as well as for the robe itself.
That which many call the difficulty of believing is the essence of self-righteousness. Yes; it is this that lies at the root of, or rather is the root of, this difficulty. Men cling to self as the lad clung to the rope; they will not let it go; and they cry all the while that they can’t.

“I Can’t Let Go”, Hoartius Bonar in How Shall I Go to God

Bonar alludes to the parable of the Prodigal Son. It appears in Luke 15 and reads as follows:

11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons.
12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them.
13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.
14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.
16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”‘
20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.
27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’
28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,
29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.
30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'”

He does not mock the Creature

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Ecclesiastes, Hope, Horatius Bonar, Idolatry

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Hope, Horatius Bonar, How shall I go to God?, idolatry, Vanity, What is my hope

Man cannot be trusted here with the endurance of any earthly things. They become idols, and must be broken; for “the idols He will utterly abolish.” Our cherished hopes of a bright future here—of a long life, of health, of comfort, of money, of prosperity—must be checked, else we should make earth our home and our heaven, forgetting the glory to be revealed, and the pleasures that are at God’s right hand for ever. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent.”

But God quenches no hope without presenting a brighter one,—one that will last for ever; for He does not mock the creature that He has made, nor wither up his fairest flowers without a reason, and that reason fraught both with wisdom and with love. He cares for us. He yearns over us. He would fain make us happy. He loves us too well to cheat us with dreams.

Man’s hope must be destroyed, that God’s hope may be built upon its ruins. The human is swept away only that the divine may come in its stead. The temporal is in mercy wrested from our grasp, that the eternal may be our portion and inheritance.

–Horatius Bonar, “What is my hope?” from How Shall I Go to God, and other readings.

How shall I go to God?

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Evangelism, Horatius Bonar, Justification, Uncategorized

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Evangelism, Gospel, Grace, Horatius Bonar, How shall I go to God?, Johnny Cash, Just as I am, Music

Horatius Bonar asks the question, “How Shall I go to God?” He answers:

It is with our sins that we go to God, for we have nothing else to go with that we can call our own. This is one of the lessons that we are so slow to learn; yet without learning this we cannot take one right step in that which we call a religious life.

He then develops this concept over the remainder of the chapter.He works out the development in the form of a conversation, question-answer, explanation. Working through questions and objections he finally ends with this statement of the ultimate marrow of Christianity:

Yes; pardon, peace, life, are all of them gifts, Divine gifts, brought down from heaven by the Son of God, presented personally to each needy sinner by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are not to be bought, but received; as men receive the sunshine, complete and sure and free. They are not to be earned or deserved by exertions or sufferings, or prayers or tears; but accepted at once as the purchase of the labours and sufferings of the great Substitute. They are not to be waited for, but taken on the spot without hesitation or distrust, as men take the loving gift of a generous friend. They are not to be claimed on the ground of fitness or goodness, but of need and unworthiness, of poverty and emptiness

How Shall I Go to God? and other readings, by Horatius Bonar, D.D., The Religious Tract Society, 56 Paternoster Row, 1883.

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