Henry Smith

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REST AND WORK, WORK AND REST

“God of glory and grace, who calls his people to do his will on earth, always goes with them as they obey his calling. When he sends you, he doesn’t give you a bunch of stuff to help you along the way. He always gives you himself because he is what you need” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Sept 27th).

“He knows that we cannot keep the law which He has set before us. Yet for the exercise of our faith, and for the testing of our duty and obedience to Him, He will always have us to aim at it. And although we come short of that duty and obedience which He requires at our hands, yet He will accept and reward our good endeavor” Henry Smith (ref#225, Nov 18th).

“It never works to ask people to do for you what only God can do. It never works to wait for God to do what he has clearly called you to do. God promises to provide, but he calls us to labor, pray, and give. God alone has the power to save, but he calls us to witness, testify, proclaim, teach, live, and preach. God not only determines outcomes, but he rules over the means by which those outcomes are realized. [T]he life of faith is all about rest and work. We rest in God’s presence and constant care, and we toil with our hands, busy at the work we have been commanded to do. We rest in our work and work in our rest. At times, we work because we believe that God who is at work calls us to work. At other times, we rest from our work because we believe that the work that needs to be done only God can do. So rest and work and work and rest. It is the rhythm of the life of faith” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, June 2nd).

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking –around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Rom 12:1-2 MSG).

“[W]e have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him” (Eph 3:12 ESV).

“I’m glad from the inside out, ecstatic” (Acts 2:22-28 MSG).

“[T]he joy of the LORD is [my] strength” (Neh 8:10 ESV).

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SCRIPTURE

“Let us learn from this single fact if we learn nothing else. [T]he high authority of the Bible and the immense value of a knowledge of its contents. Let us read it, search into it, pray over it, diligently, perseveringly, unweariedly. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with its pages that its text may abide in our memories and stand ready at our right hand in the day of need. The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well if we would use it with effect” J.C. Ryle (ref#374, p13).

“Learn to meet Satan’s suggestions, to answer his arguments, and to repel his temptations by the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ . . .He too can quote and apply Scripture, only to misquote and misapply it” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p42).

“Our whole life is beset with temptations. Satan watches all opportunities to break our peace, to wound our consciences, to lessen our comforts, to impair our graces, to slur our evidences, and to damp our assurances, etc. Oh! What need, then, have we to be always upon our watchtower so that we keep close to God and His Word” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p35).

“Lend not your ear for a moment to a temptation that comes clad in Scripture authority. Suspect Satan. The Word of God is very pure. It is on the side of holiness, of uprightness, of goodness, of love. It teaches the protection, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of Jesus. It unfolds many exceeding great and precious promises; announces many gracious and free invitations; and it is designed to support the tempted, to comfort the mourner, to soothe the sorrowful, to hold out the promise of pardon to the guilty, salvation to the lost, and to reveal the hope of glory to all those who humbly and simply believe in Christ. The moment, then, beloved, that a text of God’s Word is suggested to your thoughts in favor of sin, of distrust of God, of disbelief of Christ, of self-injury, repel it” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p42-43).

“If you would not be taken by any of Satan’s devices, then walk by rule [of the Word]. When men throw off the Word, then God throws them off; then, Satan takes them by the hand and leads them into snares at his pleasure. He that thinks himself too good to be ruled by the Word will be found too bad to be owned by God” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p32).

“Labor to remember what you read, Satan would steal the Word out of your mind. [R]eading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart. The only cause why you forget so fast as you hear is because you went from sermon to dinner, and never thought any more of the matter” Henry Smith (ref#225, p246).

“He Who was ‘fully of the Holy Ghost’ was yet not ashamed to make the Holy Scripture His weapon of defense and His rule of action” J.C. Ryle (ref#374, p13).