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True Spiritual Desires? |
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Having been unable, from my own personal library of over 4000 hardcopy volumes, (and several times that number of mostly different titles on CDs) to find the exact birthdate for Mr. John Flavel, I shall be content here to give the date of the dedication he wrote for his most famous work, "The Fountain of Life," a collection of 42 sermons on Christ in His mediatorial glory. That date was March 14, 1671. (NOTE: A reader of our Gospelweb site has recently kindly informed the Webmaster/Editor that John Flavel was born in 1628 and died on June 26, 1691. Flavel was one of the truly great preachers and writers from an era of great ones. Though I do not agree in every detail with his theology, I look forward to seeing and hearing him on the Golden Street! Both he and his father before him are of that great company of the period who suffered much for the cause of Christ! Are they ARDENT? Has Christ the supreme place in our hearts? Do we esteem all things but dung that we may win Christ and be found in Him? Are they UNIVERSAL? Is everything about Christ desirable in our eyes? The hypocrite is for a divided Christ. The believer loves His government and His grace, His sovereignty and His mercy, His Lordship and His priesthood. Do our desires after Christ lead us to EFFORT, to use all the means of grace to accomplish His will? He is revealed in His Word; do we read it? He is preached in the gospel; do we hear it? He will be found of those who seek Him: do we seek Him? Are our desires after Christ PERMANENT or only a sudden fit of emotion, fear and impulse? If our hearts and our longing for union with Him are a work of grace, we will only be satisfied when we awake with His likeness. Nothing that this world affords can possibly take us from this goal Do our desires after Christ spring from a DEEP SENSE OF OUR NEED of Christ? Has conviction opened our eyes to see our misery, to feel our burden of sin, to understand our inability and to make us sensible that the remedy lies only in the Lord Jesus Christ? Bread and wine are made necessary by hunger and thirst. Christ becomes precious to those who need Him. |