November 30

"But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." 1 Corinthians 11:32.

How great the dignity, and how precious the privilege, of chastened believers! They are the children of God. "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" Angels, bright, sinless angels, stand not so closely and endearingly related to God as they. Wonderful love of God! that He should not think it a dishonor to own them as His sons, and to call Himself their Father who by nature are the children of wrath, slaves to Satan, and the servants of sin. How great our dignity! Seek, Christian reader, to know it, to enjoy it, to live according to it. If there has been no sealing of your adoption upon the heart, give the Holy Spirit no rest until there is. If, in the holy, humble confidence of faith, there never has been an "Abba, Father," upon your lip—as one professing to be a child, and soon to be in eternity, it is time that there should be. Seek it earnestly, seek it importunately, seek it believingly, and you will have it. "You shall call me, my father." "If I then be a Father," says the same God, "where is mine honor?" Have you ever honored Him, loved Him, obeyed Him, glorified Him as your Father? Bending over you, the Spirit of adoption waits to impress the sacred seal upon your heart. Loving you, the Father yearns to clasp you to His bosom, assuring you that you are His loved, pardoned, accepted child. As the loved, then, whom the Lord rebukes and chastens, let our carriage be that of children, even as His discipline is that of a Father. Let us receive the correction with meekness, and hear the voice of the Lord with reverence, since God is parental and loving in all His conduct towards His saints.

Nor let us fail to remember, for our comfort, that all the chastisements of the children of God are on this side of heaven. Not so with the ungodly. Sinner! unconverted soul! you may laugh now, sport now, rejoice now, but remember—your chastisement is to come! your condemnation is to come! your stripes are to come! all your real woe is to come! It is coming now, it comes fast, it is near at hand, even at your door—for there is but a step between you and hell! Have you ever thought what it must be to lie down in eternal torment, what it must be to meet an angry God, to confront a despised Savior?—to take the fearful plunge, without one ray of hope, into a starless, sunless, hopeless eternity? Oh happy moment! if the Eternal Spirit so bless to your soul the perusal of this page, as to awaken you to a solemn, an honest, and earnest seeking of the Lord; to give up your procrastinations, your waiting for a more convenient season—your worldly excuses—your refuges of lies—the sparks of your own kindling in which you must lie down in sorrow—your dream of a future, a death-bed repentance; and, casting all aside, you hasten as a poor, lost, dying sinner to Christ, exclaiming, "I am a dying man! I want a Savior! I want the influence of the Holy Spirit to reveal that Savior, to lead me to that Savior, and to tell me that Savior is mine." But no future sorrow awaits the children of God beyond the grave. They are chastened now, that they may not be condemned hereafter. All to come is joy and gladness, is purity and bliss. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Learn from this subject that you are not less the object of God's love, because He corrects you. The suspicion has, perhaps, pressed coldly and darkly upon your heart—"He cannot love me, and force this bitter cup to my lips." Hush, that murmur! Be still, that thought! and know, O chastened child, O daughter of sorrow, that "God is love;" and, because you are His loved child, His loving correction now makes you great. Then, in the words of your suffering Head, say, "The cup that my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"