"A man's steps are directed by the Lord. How then can
anyone understand his own way?"--Proverbs 20:24 Does not your heart sometimes quake with fear lest you
have nothing but a nominal profession, lest the god of this world is
blinding you, and lest your conscience be hardened through the deceitfulness
of sin? It is good to have such fears. He who fears not, who has no solemn
apprehensions, no anxious inquiries, who is never exercised with some
internal trepidation of soul, it is much to be feared has never known what
it is to have "the candle of the Lord searching the inward parts of the
belly." But if God has quickened your soul into spiritual life,
and you have ears to hear, I would just put two questions to you--Have you
obtained righteousness by a manifestation of Christ's righteousness; pardon
by the application of Christ's blood; love by a shedding abroad of love;
deliverance by a discovery of God's outstretched hand? My other question is
this--If you have not, and let conscience bear its honest testimony--if you
have never experienced righteousness, pardon, love, and deliverance, is
there a cry in your soul after them? Is there anything like fervent
supplication that God would bestow them? Is there anything of a groan in the
depth of your spirit that the Lord would reveal them? These are marks of
life; and he that has these marks will have the blessing, because God has
quickened him into spiritual life. It may be long delayed, but it will come
at last; "it will surely come, it will not tarry." It may be withheld for
wise purposes, and you may have to travel through many a dark season and
many an anxious hour, but deliverance is sure; it is reserved for you in
Christ, and you are reserved for it, kept by God himself unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. January 23 |