December 18 - Morning"Rend your heart, and not your garments." — Joel 2:13
Garment-rendering and other outward signs of religious emotion, are easily
manifested and are frequently hypocritical; but to feel true repentance is far
more difficult, and consequently far less common. Men will attend to the
most multiplied and minute ceremonial regulations — for such things are
pleasing to the flesh — but true religion is too humbling, too
heart-searching, too thorough for the tastes of the carnal men; they prefer
something more ostentatious, flimsy, and worldly. Outward observances
are temporarily comfortable; eye and ear are pleased; self-conceit is fed,
and self-righteousness is puffed up: but they are ultimately delusive, for in
the article of death, and at the day of judgment, the soul needs something
more substantial than ceremonies and rituals to lean upon. Apart from vital
godliness all religion is utterly vain; offered without a sincere heart, every
form of worship is a solemn sham and an impudent mockery of the
majesty of heaven.
HEART-RENDING is divinely wrought and solemnly felt. It is a secret
grief which is personally experienced, not in mere form, but as a deep,
soul-moving work of the Holy Spirit upon the inmost heart of each
believer. It is not a matter to be merely talked of and believed in, but
keenly and sensitively felt in every living child of the living God. It is
powerfully humiliating, and completely sin-purging; but then it is sweetly
preparative for those gracious consolations which proud unhumbled
spirits are unable to receive; and it is distinctly discriminating, for it
belongs to the elect of God, and to them alone.
The text commands us to rend our hearts, but they are naturally hard as
marble: how, then, can this be done? We must take them to Calvary: a
dying Saviour's voice rent the rocks once, and it is as powerful now. O
blessed Spirit, let us hear the death-cries of Jesus, and our hearts shall be
rent even as men rend their vestures in the day of lamentation. December 18 - Evening"Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds." — Proverbs 27:23
Every wise merchant will occasionally hold a stock-taking, when he will
cast up his accounts, examine what he has on hand, and ascertain
decisively whether his trade is prosperous or declining. Every man who is
wise in the kingdom of heaven, will cry, "Search me, O God, and try me";
and he will frequently set apart special seasons for self-examination, to
discover whether things are right between God and his soul. The God
whom we worship is a great heart-searcher; and of old His servants knew
Him as "the Lord which searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the
children of men."
Let me stir you up in His name to make diligent search
and solemn trial of your state, lest you come short of the promised rest.
That which every wise man does, that which God Himself does with us
all, I exhort you to do with yourself this evening. Let the oldest saint look
well to the fundamentals of his piety, for grey heads may cover black
hearts: and let not the young professor despise the word of warning, for
the greenness of youth may be joined to the rottenness of hypocrisy.
Every now and then a cedar falls into our midst. The enemy still continues
to sow tares among the wheat.
It is not my aim to introduce doubts and
fears into your mind; nay, verily, but I shall hope the rather that the rough
wind of self-examination may help to drive them away. It is not security,
but carnal security, which we would kill; not confidence, but fleshly
confidence, which we would overthrow; not peace, but false peace, which
we would destroy. By the precious blood of Christ, which was not shed to
make you a hypocrite, but that sincere souls might show forth His praise,
I beseech you, search and look, lest at the last it be said of you, "Mene,
Mene, Tekel: thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." December 18 |