OCTOBER 1
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."Matt 5:16
Let your life be a clear reflection of the glory of the Redeemer. The saints of God are the only witnesses to this glory and the only reflectors the Lord has in this dark and Christ-denying world. Holiness, springing from the fount of the Spirit's indwelling grace, cherished and matured by close views of the cross, will be the highest testimony you can bear to the Redeemer's glory, imparting a character of sanctity of beauty to every act of your life. That glory is entrusted to your hands. It is committed to your guardianship. Seeing, then, that it is so, "what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness" (2 Pet 3:11)! How exact in principles, and upright in conduct; how watchful over temper, and how vigilant where most assailed; how broad awake to the wiles of the devil, and how sleepless against the encroachments of sin; how strict in all transactions with the world, and how tender, charitable, meek, and forgiving, in all our conduct with the saints! Alas, we are at best but dim reflectors of this great glory of our Lord. We are unworthy and unfaithful depositories of so rich a treasure. How much clinging infirmity,
unmortified sin, carelessness of spirit, unsanctified temper, tampering with temptation, or lack of strict integrity of uprightness dims our light, neutralizes our testimony for God, and weakens, if not entirely destroys, our moral influence. We are not more eminently useful because we are not more eminently holy. We bring so little glory to Christ because we seek so much our own. We reflect so faint and flickering a beam because our posture is so seldom that of the apocalyptic angel, "standing in the sun." We realize so imperfectly our unity with and standing in Christ, and this will always foster a feeble, fruitless, and drooping profession of Christianity. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me" (John 15:4).
Oh, to know more of this abiding in Christ! See how Jesus invites His saints to it. Are they fallen? He bids them take hold of His strength. Are they burdened? He bids them cast that burden on His arm. Are they wearied? He bids them recline on Him for rest. Does the world persecute them, do the "daughters of Jerusalem" smite them, does the watchman treat them unkindly? He bids them take refuge within the hallowed sanctuary of His own pierced and loving heart. Do they need grace? He bids them sink their
empty vessel beneath the depths of His full ocean and freely draw more grace. Whatever corruptions distress them, whatever temptations assail them, whatever adversity grieves them, whatever cloud darkens them, He bids, as a watchful Shepherd, tender Brother, faithful Friend, and great High Priest, His saints draw near and repose in His love.
Oh, He has room; there is a chamber in that heart for you , my Christian reader. Do not think your lot is desolate, lonely, and friendless. Do not think that everyone has forsaken you, and that in sadness and in solitude you are treading your way through an intricate desert. There is One that loves you, thinks of you, has His eye upon you, and is at this moment guiding, upholding, and caring for thee; that one is Jesus! If you could but look into His heart, and see how He loves you; if you could but hear Him say so gently, so earnestly, "Abide in my love" (John 15:10). Cheer up! You are in Christ's heart, and Christ is in your heart. You are not alone; thy God and thy Father is with you. Thy Shepherd guides you; the Comforter spreads His wings around you, and heaven is bright before you. Soon you will be there. The pilgrim will rest his weary limbs; the voyager will be anchored in his harbor of rest; the warrior will put off his armor, and shout his song of triumph.
Then look up! Christ is thine, God is thine, heaven is thine. If God is for you, who can be against you? And if you find disappointment in created good, it will only endear Jesus; if you know more of the inward plague, it will but drive you to the atoning blood; if you have storms and tempests, they will but shorten the voyage, and push you all the more quickly to glory.
OCTOBER 2
"My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him."Ps 62:5
This trust implies a ceasing from self, and from all confidence in the arm of flesh, and from all reliance in unbelieving, carnal plans and schemes to obtain deliverance from the pressure of present trial, and supplies for present need. It involves a constant, prayerful, and believing leaning on the Lord; a quiet, patient waiting for the Lord; a peaceful, childlike, passive resting in the Lord; and a holy, filial walking with the Lord. Remember: a leaning upon Christ, a waiting for Christ, a resting in Christ, and a walking with Christ. Do this in all your trials and temptations, wants and sorrows. Only trust Him to lead you by a right way to bring you to heaven. Only trust Him to appear in His own good time to deliver you from a present cross, to remove a present burden, to
supply a present need, and to conduct you into the green pastures and beside the sweet flowing waters of His truth and love. So delightful to Him will be this calm submissive trust, so honoring of His faithfulness, and so glorifying to His name this full implicit confidence that He will honor and bless you by granting the desires of your heart and bestowing every blessing that you ask and need from the plenitude of His resources.
Above all other trusts, trust to Jesus your priceless soul. Relax your grasp upon everything else but Jesus. Let go of your religious duties and doings, your sacraments and prayers, your works and righteousness and Babel-built hopes of heaven, and trust only in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. He never rejected a poor penitent sinner; He was never known to cast any away. If you come and trust in His righteousness alone to justify you, and to give you acceptance with God and a title to eternal glory, you will be the first that ever perished at His feetif you perish there!
Hear the Father and thy God say, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deut 33:25). Each new burden shall bring its support; each new difficulty, its guidance; each new sorrow, its soothing; and each new day, its strength. Let it be your only care to deny all ungodliness and to walk worthy of your high vocation; to separate yourself more
widely and distinctly from the world, its practices and its spirit; more closely to resemble Christ in His gentle, charitable, forgiving temper; and yielding yourself more entirely to the disposal of the Lord, to do as seems good to Him. And when called to meet death, to hear the summons that bids you rise, then, when all other things are receding from your view, and all other voices are dying upon your ear, Jesus will approach, and amid the gloom and steadiness of the shadowy vale you shall see His person, and hear Him say, "Be not afraidonly trust me!"
OCTOBER 3
"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."Jude 24-25
What is the great evil of which the true saints of God most stand in jeopardy, and which their timid, fearful hearts most dread? Is it not secret and outward backsliding from God after conversion? Surely it is, as the experience of every honest, upright, God-fearing man will testify. It is his consolation, then, to know that Jesus is "able to keep him from falling." This is the most overwhelming evil that
stares the believer in the face. Some, imperfectly taught in the Word, are dreading awful apostasy from the faith in this life, and final condemnation from the presence of God hereafter, believing that, though Christ has made full satisfaction for their sins to divine justice, has cancelled the mighty debt, has imputed to them His righteousness, has blotted out their iniquities, has called, renewed, sanctified, and taken full possession of them by His Spirit, and has ascended up on high, to plead their cause with the Father, yet, after this incredible exercise of power and matchless display of free grace, they may be left to utter apostasy from God and be finally and eternally lost. If there is one doctrine more awful in its nature, distressing in its consequences, and directly opposed to the glory of God and the honor of Christ than any other, I think it is this.
Others more clearly taught by the Spirit are heard to say, "I believe in the stability of the covenant, in the unchangeableness of God's love, and in the faithfulness of my heavenly Father; but I fear lest some day under some sharp temptation, some burst of indwelling sin, when the enemy shall come in as a flood, I shall fall, to the wounding of my peace, to the shame of my brethren, and to the dishonoring of Christ."
Dear believer, truly thou wouldst fall, if He were to leave thee to thine own keeping for one moment; but Jesus is able to keep thee from falling. Read the promises, believe them, rest on them. A simple glance will present to the believer's eye a threefold cord by which he is kept from falling. The first cord is that God the Father keeps him"kept by the power of God" (1 Pet 1:5). The power that created and upholds the world keeps the believer. The eternal purpose, love, and grace of the Father keep him. Also, God the Son keeps him: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:27-28). The covenant engagement, the perfect obedience, and the atoning death of Immanuel keep the believer; this is the second cord. Further, God the Holy Ghost keeps him: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him" (Isa 59:19), or shall put him to flight. The tender love, the covenant faithfulness, and the omnipotent power of the Eternal Spirit keep the believer; this is the third cord. And "a threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Eccles 4:12). But with these promises of the triune God to keep His people from falling, He has wisely and graciously
connected the diligent, prayerful use of all the means that He has appointed for this end.
OCTOBER 4
"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."Jude 20-21
Nowhere in the Bible is the believer spoken of or addressed as a lifeless machine, a mere automaton, but rather as one "alive unto God," "created in Christ Jesus," a "partaker of the divine nature" (Rom 6:11; Eph 2:10; 2 Pet 1:4) As such, he is commanded to "work out his own salvation with fear and trembling," to "give diligence to make your calling and election sure," to "watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation" (Phil 2:12; 2 Pet 1:10; Matt 26:41). God thus throws a measure of the responsibility of his own standing upon the believer himself, that he might not be slothful, unwatchful, and prayerless, but be ever sensible to his solemn obligations to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world," remembering that he is not his own, but is bought with a price (Titus 2:12; 1 Cor 6:20).
If the power of God is the efficient cause of the eternal security of the believer, yet, as supports which God has appointed and by which He instrumentally works, the believer is to diligently use all holy means of keeping himself from falling. As a temple of the Holy Ghost, as the subject of the divine life, as a pardoned and justified man, he is called to labor perseveringly, pray ceaselessly, and watch vigilantly. He is not to run willfully into temptation, to expose himself needlessly to the power of the enemy, to surround himself with unholy and hostile influences, and then take refuge in the truth so that the Lord will keep him from falling. God forbid! That would most awfully abuse the "doctrine that is after godliness," to "hold the truth in unrighteousness," and to make "Christ the minister of sin" (1 Tim 6:3; Rom 1:18; Gal 2:17). Dear reader, watch and pray against this!
Let the cheering prospect of that glory unto which you are kept stimulate you to all diligent perseverance in holy duty, and constrain you to all patient endurance of suffering. In all your conflicts with indwelling sin, under the pressure of all outward trial, let this precious truth comfort you: your heavenly Father hath "begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation" (1 Pet 1: 3-5). Soonoh, how soon!all that now loads the heart with care and wrings it with sorrow, all that dims the eye with tears and renders the day anxious and the night sleepless, will be as though it had never been. Emerging from the entanglement, the dreariness, the loneliness, and the temptations of the wilderness, you shall enter upon your everlasting rest and your unfading inheritance where there is no sorrow, no declension, no sin; where there is no sunset, no twilight, no evening shades, no midnight darkness. All is one perfect, cloudless, eternal day, for Jesus is the joy, the light, and the glory thereof.
OCTOBER 5
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be."Rev 22:11-12
It would seem to be the cherished delusion of many that a kind of moral transformation transpires in death; that because death itself is a change of relation, around which gather new
sensations, new feelings, new thoughts, new solemnities, and new prospects, that therefore the soul passes through a kind of spiritual preparedness to meet its approaching destiny. But such is not the case. The character which time has been shaping for years yields to the demands of eternity in the precise mold in which it was formed. Death hands over the soul to the scrutiny and the decisions of the judgment exactly as life relinquished it. The "king of terrors" has received no commission and possesses no power to effect a moral change in the transit of the spirit to the God who gave it. Its office is to unlock the cell and conduct the prisoner into court. It can furnish no plea, it can suggest no argument, it can correct no error, it can whisper no hope to the pale and trembling being on his way to the bar. The warden must present the criminal to the Judge precisely as the officer delivered him to the warden, with all the marks and evidences of criminality and guilt clinging to him as at the moment of arrest. The supposition of the multitudes seems to be just what we have stated: that when the strange and mysterious but unmistakable signs of death are stealing upon them, when the summons to appear before the Judge admits no doubt and allows no delay, what has been held as truth and now, in the mighty illumination of an unveiling
eternity, is found to be error, may be with ease abandoned. However negligent of religion they who have lived all their lifetime without God may have been while the last day appeared distant, and however careless they who had made a Christian profession may have been of the ground of their confidence and the reason of their hope, under an indefinite expectation of appearing in the presence of God, yet now that the footfall of death is heard approaching and the invisible world becomes visible through the opening chinks of the earthly house of their tabernacle, they will be enabled to summon all the remainder of strength and, with the utmost strenuousness, turn their undivided attention to the business of saving the soul.
But is it really so? Is not the whole course of experience against a supposition as false as this? Do not men die mostly as they have lived? The infidel dies in infidelity, the profligate dies in profligacy, atheists die in atheism, the careless die in indifference, and the formalist dies in formality. There are exceptions to this, undoubtedly, but the exceptions confirm rather than disprove the general fact that men die as they lived. In view, then, of this solemn statement, deeply affecting it must be to the Christian professor if it be thus that our death will derive much of its character
and complexion from the present tenor of our life. In proportion to the lack of spirituality and the undue influence which the world has had upon the mind, to the habitual distance of the walk with God, and the gradual separation from us of those holy, sanctifying influences which go to form the matured, influential, and useful Christian will be the lack of that bright evidence and full assured hope in death, which will give to the departing soul an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. Then of what great moment is it that every individual professing godliness should know the exact state of his soul before God.
OCTOBER 6
"And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God."1 Kings 19:7-8
We have here an illustration of one of the most wonderful, precious, and influential principles in the divine lifethe principle of faith: "The just shall live by faith" (Rom 1:17). In this way, the Lord prepares His people for what He has prepared for them in the future of their history.
That history is to them wisely and graciously concealed; the path of the future is to them all unknown, a veil of impenetrable mystery enshrouding it from view. In all this we trace the love of our heavenly Father. There may be, for all that we know, a long season of abstinence before us; many a weary stage is yet untravelled, many a new path is yet untrodden, many a battle is yet unfought, and many a temptation and trial are yet unmet. But faith, living upon the nourishment received in the strength and sustaining power of some view of God which the Spirit has presented, of some special grace which Christ has meted out, of some higher attainment in truth and experience and holiness, of some profounder lesson learned, of some special mercy experienced, of some bright realizing view of glory caught, the believer may travel many a long a toilsome stage of his journey to the "rest that remaineth for the people of God."
How often has the Lord anticipated the future events of your life by His present dealings! For what circumstances of danger, of trial, and of want has Jesus provided! He appointed every step and every incident of your journey; He well knew the deep and dark waters through which you were to wade, the sands you were to cross, the mountains you were to climb, and the valleys into which
you were to descend. That cup of sorrow was not mixed, nor that fiery dart winged, nor that heavy cross sent, before all the necessities it would create and all the supplies it would demand had been thought of and provided for by Him who knew the end from the beginning. And when the voice of love gently awoke you as from the stupor of your grief, you marveled at the table spread, and wondered at the supply sent. You could not define the reason why so much love took possession of your heart and so much grace flowed into your soul, why so much nerve clothed your spirit, and so much hope and joy bathed you in their heavenly sunlight and shed their radiance upon your onward way, little thinking that this was the Lord's mode of providing nourishment for the journey. And when the period and event of your life, thus anticipated, arrived, then the recollection of God's preparatory dealings rushed upon your memory, and in an instant you saw how for the forty days and the forty nights of solitary travel, thy God and Savior had been graciously and amply providing. The life of faith, by which the justified live, fully explains all this mystery.
OCTOBER 7
"For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished."Jer 30:11
The Lord's love appears in appointing the rebuke, and in tempering the chastisement. The rebuke might have been heavier, the chastisement might have been more severe. The deep and dark waters might have engulfed the soul. Thus, perhaps, your prayer has been answered, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing" (Jer 10:24). And then has followed the pleasant psalm of grateful acknowledgment and praise: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities" (Ps 103:8-10).
Oh, if we always analyzed the cup, how astonished we would be to find that in the bitterest draught that ever touched our lips, the principal ingredient was love! That love saw the discipline needful, love selected the chastisement sent, love appointed the instrument by which it should
come, love arranged the circumstances by which it should take place, love fixed the time when it should transpire, and love heard the sigh, and saw the tear, and marked the anguish, and never for one moment withdrew its beaming eye from the sufferer.
How much is this truth overlooked by the disciplined believer! Think, suffering child of God, of the many consoling, alleviating, and soothing circumstances connected with your chastisement. How much worse your position might be, how much more aggravated the nature of your sorrow, and how much heavier the stroke of the rod. Think of the disproportion of the chastisement to the sin, for "know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth" (Job 11:6). Think of the many divine supportsthe precious promises, the tenderness of God, the gentleness of Christ, the sympathy and affection dwelling in the hearts of the saintsand all this will demonstrate to you that the chastisement of the saints is the chastening of love.
OCTOBER 8
"Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."Col 1:12
Beautiful is the order of the Holy Ghost here. Observe to whom this grateful acknowledgment
is made: "unto the Father." Then the sweet truth stands revealed, luminous in its own celestial light, that heaven is a Father's gift. And oh, how sweet, to trace all our mercies to a Father's love, to a Parent's heart; to look to Jesus, whose righteousness gives us a title; to look to the Holy Spirit, whose sanctifying grace makes us worthy of the precious gifts of a Father's love; to then rise through these up to the Father Himself, and trace the gift of heaventhe consummation of the inner lifeto the heart of the First Person of the glorious Trinity. Who, after reading this passage, will any longer rest entirely and exclusively in Jesus, precious as He is? Who will not, through Jesus as the Mediator, rise to the Father and trace up all the blessings of redemption and all His hope of glory, to the part which the Father took in the great and wondrous work? Oh, how unutterably blessed to see the Father engaged, equally with the Son and the Spirit, in preparing for us, and in preparing us for, "the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col 1:12)! "Giving thanks unto the Father" (Col 1:12). Upon what grounds, beloved? It was the Father who provided the Savior, His beloved Son. The Spirit who renews and sanctifies emanates from the Father. It is the Father who has prepared the inheritance, and who, by His upholding power, will bring us safely there at last. All
thanks, then, and all adoration and praise unto the Father, "who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col 1:12).
Let me affectionately ask you, my reader, in what does your suitability for heaven consist? Put not the question from you; do not transfer it to another. Let it come home to your own conscience, for in a little while your destiny will be fixedeternally, irrevocably fixedand one half-second of hell's torment will fill your soul with remorse, terror, and unavailing regret that in the land of hope and in the day of grace you turned your back upon both, refused the mercy of God in Christ, rejected His dear Son, and died in your sins. In what does your suitability for heaven, then, consist? If it is only the suitability of a mere profession, if it is but the suitability of a mere notional reception of truth, if it is the suitability merely of an external waiting upon the sanctuary, the public means of grace, then it is a suitability not for heaven, but for banishment from heaven. Are you born again of the Spirit of God? Have you fled to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? Have you the down payment, the pledge of heaven, in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, in the life of God in your soul? Have you the first sheaf of the harvest bound up in your
heart? Have you been sealed by God's Spirit as an heir of glory?
To God's saints I would say, cultivate an habitual, a growing preparation for heaven. Be not satisfied with past attainments or with your present measure of grace and standard of holiness; but, beloved, since heaven is a holy place, cultivate holiness, a habitual growing suitability for "the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col 1:12). Be advancing, be progressing, be pressing onwards; put on the whole armour of God, laying aside the weight that so easily besets you, the garment that trails upon the earth, pressing onward and heavenward, until you reach the confines of bliss and enter within the portals of glory (Eph 6:11; Heb 12:1).
OCTOBER 9
"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began."Titus 1:2
Look upon all the Lord's covenant dealings with you as but preparatory to your approaching emancipation from all sin, suffering, and sorrow. Welcome your trials; they are sent by your Father. Welcome the stroke of His rod; it is a Parent smiting. Welcome whatever detaches you from earth, and wings your spirit heavenward. Welcome the furnace that consumes the dross and the tin, and
brings out the precious gold and silver to reflect the dawnings of future glory in your soul, even now. Be submissive, meek, and quiet under God's chastening and afflicting hand, and receive all His dispensations as only tending to prepare you more perfectly for "the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col 1:12). Let his hope of eternal life cheer and comfort the bereaved of the Lord, from whose heart has fled the loved and sanctified ones of earth, to the eternal heaven. Oh, how full of consolation is this prospect! Where have the departed fled, who sleep in Jesus? They have but exchanged the region of darkness and shadow for the regions of light and glory. They have gone from the scene of impurity, defilement, and sin to the place of perfect holiness, complete sanctification, and eternal love.
Then dry your tears; press the consolations of the gospel to your sorrowing heart, and look up with the eye of faith that penetrates the dark clouds that intervene between them and you, and behold them now, "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" (Col 1:12). And anticipate yourselves the blessed moment when the Savior shall send not an enemy, but a friendfor such is death to the Christianto open the cage that imprisons your spirit and let you escape to the abodes of eternal glory. Oh, anticipate and, by
anticipating, be preparing, day by day, for its realization; anticipate the happy moment which releases you from the body of sin and death and ushers you into the full enjoyment of eternal life. Such is heaven, and such is the consummation of the inner life. As that life descended from God, so to God it shall ultimately and finally return. It shall never, never die. Not a spark shall be quenched, nor shall a pulse cease to beat; not a thought that it has conceived, a desire it has cherished, a prayer it has breathed, a work it has accomplished, nor a victory it has won shall die; all shall survive in ever-growing, ever-enduring glory.
The babe in grace shall be there. The young man, strong in overcoming the wicked one, shall be there. The father, matured in experience and laden with the golden fruits of age, shall be there. All shall reach heaven at last, the end and the consummation of the life of God in their souls. Oh, to have this heaven in our hearts now! Heaven is love, the place of love, the perfection of love. And what is God's love in our hearts but the foretaste of heaven, the first gatherings of the vintage, the pledge and earnest of all that is to come?
OCTOBER 10
"Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your father; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."1 Pet 1:18-19
What a powerful motive does this truth supply to daily and unreservedly consecrate ourselves to the Lord! If, under the old economy, the utensil or the garment touched with blood was sacred and solemn, how much more the soul washed in the heart's blood of Christ! When the king of Israel, in the heat of battle and in the agony of thirst, cried for water, and some of his attendants procured it for him at the hazard of their lives, the God-fearing and magnanimous monarch refused to taste it, because it was the price of blood, but rather "poured it out before the Lord" (1 Sam 7:6). Christian soldier, it was not at the risk of His life, but more. It was by the sacrifice of His life that your Lord and Savior procured your redemption and brought the waters of salvation, all living and sparkling from the throne of God, to your lips. You are the price of blood! "Bought with a price" (1 Cor 6:20). Will you not, then, glorify God in your soul, body, and substance, which are His? Will you not pour it all out before
the Lord, presenting it as a living sacrifice upon the altar flowing with the lifeblood of God's own Son?
If there is a vital, and therefore a deathless, principle in the atoning blood of Jesus, then it will avail to the salvation of the chief of sinners to the last period of time. Ages have rolled by since it was shed, and millions have gone to heaven in virtue of its merits; yet it still avails! Listen, lowly penitent, to these glad tidings. Approach the blood of Jesus, simply believing in its divine appointment and sovereign efficacy, and the pardon it conveys and the peace it gives will be yours. Behold the sacred stream, as vital, as efficacious, and as free as when, eighteen hundred years ago, all nature was convulsed at the sight of this blood flowing from the pierced heart of its Incarnate Creator, and when the expiring malefactor bathed in it was saved. No, more; if the virtue of the Savior's blood before it was shed extended back to the time of Adam and of Abel, for He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8), surely since it has actually been offered, it will continue its virtue through all the revolutions of time to the remotest age of the world, and to the last sinner who may believe. If Jesus is a Priest forever, the virtue of His sacrifice must abide forever, for He cannot officiate as a priest without a sacrifice. As
His gospel is to be preached to all nations, even to the end of the world, so the saving efficacy of His blood, upon which the gospel depends for its power and its success, must be as lasting as time.
OCTOBER 11
"Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."Isa 50:10
How prone the believer is to attach an undue importance to the mere article of comfort! To give place to the feeling that when comfort vanishes, all other good vanishes with it; thus, in fact, making the real standing of the soul to depend upon an ever-fluctuating emotion. But let it be remembered that the comfort of grace may be suspended, and yet the existence of grace may remain; the glory of faith may be beclouded, and yet the principle of faith continue. Contemplate, as affording an example of this, our Lord upon the cross. Was there ever sorrow like His sorrow? Was there ever desertion like His desertion? Every spring of consolation was dried up. Every beam of light was clouded. All sensible joy was withdrawn. His human soul was now passing through its strange, total eclipse. And still His
faith hung upon God. Hear Him exclaim, "My God! my God!" (Matt 27:46). My strong One! My strong One! His soul was in the stormand oh, what a storm was that! But it was securely anchored upon His Father. In His case, there was the absence of all consolation, the suspension of every stream of comfort; and yet in the darkest cloud that ever enshrouded a soul, and the deepest sorrow that ever broke a heart, He stayed His soul upon God.
And why should the believer, the follower of Christ, when sensible comfort is withdrawn, "cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward" (Heb 10:35)? Of what use is the anchor but to keep the vessel in the tempest? What folly it would be in the mariner to weigh his anchor, or to slip his cable, when the clouds gather blackness and the waves swell high! It is then that he needs them both the most. It is true he has cast his anchor into the deep, and the depth hides it from his view. But though he cannot discern it through the foaming waves, still he knows that it is firmly fastened, and will keep his storm-tossed vessel from stranding upon a shore. And why should the believer, when trouble is near and sensible comfort is withdrawn, resign his heart to unbelieving fears, and cherish in his bosom the dark suspicion of God? Would
this not be to part with the anchor of his hope at the very moment he most needed it? I may not be able to pierce the clouds and look within the veil with an eye beaming with an undimmed and assured joy, but I know that the Forerunner is there; that the Priest is upon His throne; that Jesus is alive, and is at the right hand of God. Then all is safe: faith demands, hope expects, and love desires no more.
OCTOBER 12
"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."1 John 2:1
We are prone to read in the Bible of one Intercessor and of one advocacy. But the believer's prayer has two courts with which to do. In the court below, where prayer is offered, the Spirit is his Intercessor. In the court above, where prayer is presented, Jesus is his Intercessor. What an honored, what a privileged man, is the praying man! On earth, the lower court, he has a Counselor instructing him for what he should pray, and how he should order his case. In heaven, the higher court, he has an Advocate presenting to God each petition as it ascends, separating from it all that is ignorant, sinful, and weak, and pleading for its gracious acceptance and asking for its full bestowment.
Here, then, is our vast encouragement in prayer. The indictings of the Spirit, the Intercessor of earth, are always in agreement with the mind of God. In prayer we need just such a divine counselor. Is it temporal blessing that we crave? We need to be taught how to regulate our request to our necessity, and how to shape our necessity to our heavenly calling. Supplication for temporal good is, we think, limited. And this is the limit: "Having food and raiment let us be therewith content" (1 Tim 6:8). What child of God is warranted in asking worldly wealth or distinction or rank? And what child of God, in a healthy state of soul, would ask them? "But," says the apostle, "my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:19). Should God, in His providence, send either of these temporal things undesired, unasked, and unexpected, receive it as from Him, and use it as to Him.
But with regard to spiritual blessings, our grant is unlimited; our requests may be boundless. "Ask what thou wilt," is the broad, unrestricted warrant. When we ask to be perfected in the love of God, we ask for that which is in accordance with the will of God, for God is love. When we ask for an increase of faith, we ask for that which is in accordance with the will of God; for "without
faith it is impossible to please him" (Heb 11:6). When we ask for more divine conformity, we ask for that which is in harmony with God's will; for He hath said, "Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 Pet 1:16). And when we ask for comfort, we plead for that which it is in His heart to give, for He is the "God of all comfort" (2 Cor 1:3). Oh, to possess a divine counselor, dwelling in our hearts, who will never indict a wrong prayer, nor suggest a weak argument, nor mislead us in any one particular of the solemn, important, holy engagement of prayer; who is acquainted with the purpose of God; who knows the mind of God; who understands the will of God; who reads the heart of God; yea, who is God Himself. What encouragement is this to more real prayer!
Are you moved to pray? While you muse, does the fire burn? Is your heart stirred up to ask of God some special blessing for yourself, or for others? Are you afflicted? Oh, then, rise and pray; the Spirit prompts you, the Savior invites you, and your heavenly Father waits to answer you.
With such an Intercessor in the court on earth, so divine, so loving, and so sympathizing, and with such an Intercessor in the court in heaven, so powerful, so eloquent, and so successful, "let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace,
that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb 4:16).
OCTOBER 13
"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer."1 Pet 4:7
Watch unto prayer with all diligence and perseverance. Expect an answer to your prayer, a promise to your request, a compliance with your suit. Be as much assured that God will answer as that you have asked, or that He has promised. Ask in faith; only believe. Watch daily at the posts and at the gates of the return; look for it at any moment, and through any providence. Expect it not in your own way, but in the Lord's; be not astonished if He should answer your prayer in the very opposite way from what you had anticipated, and it may be dictated. With this view, watch every providence, even the smallest. You know not when the answer may comeat what hour, or in what way. Therefore watch. The Lord may answer in a great and strong wind, in an earthquake, in a fire, or in a still small voice; therefore watch every providence to know which will be the voice of God to you. Do not pray as if you asked for or expected a refusal. God delights in your holy fervency, your humble boldness, and your persevering importunity. "The effectual fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16). Pray submissively, expect hopefully, watch vigilantly, and wait patiently.
Behold then the throne of grace! Was a resting place ever so sacred and so sweet? Could God himself invest it with richer or greater attraction? There are dispensed all the blessings of sovereign gracepardon, justification, adoption, sanctificationand all that connects the present state of the believer with eternal glory. Grace itself is dispensed theregrace to guide, support, comfort, and help in time of need. There sits the God of grace, proclaiming Himself "the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and sin" (Exod 34:6-7). There is extended the scepter of grace, bidding welcome the sons and daughters of want, the weary and the heavy laden, the guilty, the broken in heart, the poor, the friendless, the bereaved. There stands Jesus the High Priest and Mediator, full of grace and truth, waving His golden censer from which pours forth the fragrant incense of His atoning merits, wreathing in one offering the name, the wants, and the prayer of the lowly worshipper as it ascends. And there, too, the Spirit of grace is breathing in the soul, discovering the want, forming the petition, and
making intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Behold, then, the throne of grace, and draw near. Thou art welcome. Come with thy cross, come with thy infirmity, come with thy guilt, come with thy wounded spirit, come with thy broken heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace. Come without price, worthiness, preparation, or fitness; come with thy hard heart; come and welcome to the throne of grace. God, thy Father, bids thee welcome. Jesus, thy Advocate, bids thee welcome. The Spirit, the Author of prayer, bids thee welcome. All the happy and the blessed who cluster around it bid thee welcome. The spirits of just men made perfect in glory bid thee welcome. The ministering spirits, "sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb 1:14), bid thee welcome. All the holy below, and all the glorified above, bid thee, poor trembling soul, welcome, thrice welcome, to the throne of grace!
OCTOBER 14
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, as I ought to speak."Eph 6:18-19
The two blessings which Paul craved through the prayers of his flock were utterance and boldness. He knew that only He who made man's mouth could open his lips to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. Great as were his natural endowments, rich and varied as were his intellectual acquirements, he felt their inadequacy when working alone. We should never fail to distinguish between the natural eloquence of man and the holy utterance which the Spirit gives. Paul had splendid gifts and commanding powers of eloquence. But what were they? He needed more; he asked for more.
Dear reader, if the ministry of reconciliation comes to your soul with any power or sweetness, remember whose it is. Give not to man but to God the glory. Be very jealous for the honor of the Spirit in the ministry of the word. It is spirit and life to you only as He gives utterance to him that speaketh. It is mournful to observe to what extent the idolatry of human talent and eloquence
is carried, and how little glory is given to the Holy Spirit in the gospel ministry.
But there was yet another ministerial qualification which Paul sought. He desired to be unshackled from the fear of man. "That I may open my mouth boldly" (Eph 6:19). Had we heard him utter this request, we might have been constrained to reply, "Do you desire boldness? You are the most courageous of the apostles. You fear no man!" We forget that when God stirs up the heart of a believer to deeply feel his need, and earnestly to desire any particular grace of the Spirit, that grace will be the distinguishing trait of his Christian character. The very possession and exercise of a grace strengthens the desire for its increase. The more we have of Christ, the more we desire of Christ. The heart is never satiated.
Do we see a man earnest and importunate in prayer for faith? Faith will be his distinguishing grace. See we another wrestling with God for deep views of the evil of sin? That man will be marked for his humble walk with God. Is it love that He desires? His will be a loving spirit. Be sure of this: the more you know of the value and the sweetness of any single grace of the Spirit, the more ardently will your heart be led out after an increase of that grace. The reason why our desires for grace are so faint may be traced to the small
measure of grace that we already possess. The very feebleness of the desire proves the deficiency of the supply. As all holy desire springs from grace, so the deeper the grace, the more fervent will be the desire. Pray that the Lord will rouse us from our slothful seeking of Him upon our beds.
OCTOBER 15
"Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God."Rev 3:2
An incipient state of declension does not involve any alteration in the essential character of divine grace, but is a secret decay of the health, vigor, and exercise of that grace in the soul. As in the physical frame, the heart loses nothing of its natural function, when, through disease, it sends but a faint and languid pulsation through the system; so in the spiritual constitution of the believer, divine grace may be sickly, feeble, and inoperative, and yet retain its character and its properties. The pulse may beat faintly, but it still beats; the seed may not be fruitful, but it "liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Pet 1:23); the divine nature may be languid, but it can never assimilate or coalesce with any other, and must always retain its divinity untainted and unchanged. And yet, without changing its nature, divine grace may
decline to an alarming extent in its power and exercise. It may be sickly, drooping, and ready to die; it may become so enfeebled through its decay as to present an ineffectual resistance to the inroads of strong corruption, bent so low that the enemy may ride roughshod over it at his will. The divine nature may be so inoperative and yielding that hate, sloth, worldliness, pride, carnality, and their kindred vices may obtain an easy and unresisted conquest. This decay of grace may be advancing, too, without any marked decline in the spiritual perception of the beauty and fitness of spiritual truth. The loss of spiritual enjoyment, not spiritual perception, of the loveliness and harmony of the truth shall be the symptom that betrays the true condition of the soul. The judgment shall lose none of its light, but the heart much of its fervor; the truths of revelation, especially the doctrines of grace, shall occupy the same prominent position as to their value and beauty, and yet the influence of these truths may be scarcely felt. The Word of God shall be assented to; but as the instrument of sanctification, abasement, and nourishment, the believer may be an almost utter stranger to it. He must necessarily be so, while this process of secret declension is going forward in his soul.
This incipient state of declension may not involve any lowering of the standard of holiness, and yet there shall be no ascending of the heart, no reaching forth of the mind, towards a practical conformity to that standard. The judgment shall acknowledge the divine law, as embodied in the life of Christ, to be the rule of the believer's walk. Yet, vital godliness may have declined to so low and feeble a state in the soul that there is no panting after conformity to Christ, no breathing after holiness, no striving against sin. Oh, it is an alarming condition for a Christian man, when the heart contradicts the judgment, and the life belies the professionwhen there is more knowledge of the truth than experience of its power, more light in the understanding than grace in the affections, more pretension in the profession than holiness and spirituality in the walk! And yet it is possible for a Christian professor to be reduced to this sad and melancholy state. How should it lead the man of empty notions, mere creed, lofty pretension, and cold and lifeless orthodoxy to pause, search his heart, examine his conscience, and ascertain the true state of his soul before God!
OCTOBER 16
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."Ps 66:18
The true spiritual mortification of indwelling sin and the entire forsaking of the known cause of the heart's declension, whatever it is found to be, constitute the true elements of a believer's restoration to the joys of God's salvation. There cannot possibly be any true, spiritual, and abiding revival of grace while secret sin remains undiscovered and unmortified in the heart. True and spiritual mortification of sin is not a superficial work; it consists not merely in pruning the dead tendrils that hang here and there upon the branch or lopping off outward sins and an external observance of spiritual duties. It includes essentially far more than this; it is a laying the axe at the root of sin in the believer; it aims at nothing less than the complete subjection of the principle of sin; and until this is effectually done, there can be no true return of the heart to God.
Christian reader, what is the cause of thy soul's secret declension? What is it that at this moment feeds upon the precious plant of grace, destroying its vigor, its beauty, and its fruitfulness? Is it an inordinate attachment to the creature? Mortify it. The love of self? Mortify it. The love of the world? Mortify it. Some sinful habit secretly
indulged? Mortify it. It must be mortified, root as well as branch, if you would experience a thorough return to God. Dear though it be, as a right hand or as a right eye, if it yet comes between thy soul and God, if it crucifies Christ in thee, if it weakens faith, enfeebles grace, and destroys the spirituality of the soul, rendering it barren and unfruitful, rest not short of its utter mortification.
Nor must this great work be undertaken in your own strength. It is preeminently the result of God the Holy Ghost working in and blessing the efforts of the believer: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Rom 8:13). Here is a recognition of the believer's own exertions, in connection with the power of the Holy Ghost: "If ye" (believers, ye saints of God) "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds," etc. It is the work of the believer himself, but the power is of the Spirit of God. Take, then, your discovered sin to the Spirit that He, bringing the cross of Jesus, with a killing, crucifying power, into your soul, giving you such a view of a Savior suffering for sin, as it may be you never had before, will in a moment lay your enemy slain at your feet.
Oh, yield not to despair, distressed soul! Art thou longing for a gracious revival of God's work within thee? Art thou mourning in secret over
thy heart's declension? Hast thou searched and discovered the hidden cause of thy decay? And is thy real desire for its mortification? Then look up, and hear the consolatory words of thy Lord: "I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exod 15:26). The Lord is thy healer; His love can restore thee; His blood can heal thee; His grace can subdue thy sin.
Take with you words, and turn to the Lord. Say unto Him, "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously," and the Lord will answer, "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him" (Hos 14:4).
OCTOBER 17
"To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."Rom 3:26
In Jesus, shines the awful glory of divine justice. Justice is but another term for holiness. It is holiness in strict and awful exercise; yet it is a distinct perfection of Jehovah, in the revelation of acknowledgment of which He will be glorified. The basis of the atonement is righteousness or justice. So the apostle argues, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins" (Rom 3:25). Before the apostasy of man, the only revelation of God's justice was the
threatening annexed to the law: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (Gen 2:17). Subsequent to the fall, the appointment of a sanguinary ritual in the institution of expiatory sacrifices not only recognized the existence, but illustrated the nature of this awful attribute. There are those who madly dream of acceptance with a holy God at the expense of this perfection of His nature. In vain, they acknowledge Him in some of His perfections, but they deny Him in others, trampling them with indifference beneath their feet. Such was Cain in the offering that he presented to the Lord; there was an acknowledgment of His dominion and goodness, but no distinct recognition of His holiness, no solemn apprehension of His justice, no conviction of guilt, no confession of sin. The claims of God's moral government were entirely set aside, and, by consequence, the necessity of a Mediator totally denied. Not so Abel; his offering honored God in that in which He most delights to be honored, in His spotless purity, His inflexible justice, and His infinite grace in the appointment of a Savior for the pardon of iniquity, transgression, and sin. Therefore it is recorded, and we do well deeply to ponder it, the "he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain" (Heb 11:4).
But this was only an outline of God's justicethe mere type and shadow. The great Antitype and embodiment are seen in Jesus offering Himself up a whole burnt offering to God amid the fearful blaze which was beheld ascending from the summit of Mount Calvary. Then this perfection appeared in its most fearful form: Jesus bearing sin, Jesus enduring the curse of the law, Jesus sustaining the wrath of His Father, Jesus surrendering His holy soul a sacrifice for man's transgression. Oh, never did divine justice so imperatively assert its claims and so loudly demand its rights, never did it so strictly exact its penalty, and so fearfully grapple with its victim, as now; and never before or since had such a sacrifice been bound to its altar. Never did Jehovah appear so just as at the moment the fire descended and consumed His only begotten and well-beloved Son.
OCTOBER 18
"Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."John 11:3
This is the truth, dear invalid reader, upon which the Lord would pillow and sustain your soul: that you are the sick one whom He loves. Doubtless the enemy, ever on the watch to distress the saints of God, eager to avail himself of every circumstance in their history favorable to the
accomplishment of His malignant designs, has taken advantage of your illness to suggest hard and distrustful thoughts of the Lord's love to you. "Does He love you? Can He love you, and afflict you thus? This hectic fever, these insufferable tortures, this long wasting, this low insidious disease, and yet loved by God? Impossible!"
Such has been the false reasoning of Satan, and such is the echo of unbelief. But Lazarus was loved of Jesus, and so are you! That darkened room and the curtained bed contain one for whom the Son of God came down to earth to live, to labor, and to die. That room is often radiant with His presence, and that bed is often made with His hands. Jesus is never absent from that spot! The affectionate husband, the tender wife, the fond parent, the devoted sister, and the faithful nurse are not in more constant attendance at that solemn post of observation than is Jesus. They must be absent; He never is, for one moment, away from that couch. Sleep must overcome them; but He who guards that suffering patient neither slumbers nor sleeps. Long-continued watching must cease; but He, the divine watcher, "fainteth not, neither is weary" (Isa 40:28). Yes, Jesus loves you, nor loves you the less, but loves you the more, now that you are prostrate upon that bed of languishing, a weak one hanging upon Him.
Again I repeat that this is the only truth that will now soothe and sustain your soul. Not the thought of our love to Jesus, but of Jesus' love to you, is the truth upon which your agitated mind is to rest. In the multitude of your thoughts within you, this is the comfort that will delight your soul"Jesus loves me." Your love to Christ affords you now no plea, no encouragement, no hope. You can extract no sweetness from the thought of your affection to the Savior. It has been so feeble and fluctuating a feeling, an emotion so irregular and fickle in its expression, the spark so often obscured, and to appearance lost, that the recollection and the review of it now only tends to depress and perplex you. But oh, the thought of the Lord's love! To fix the mind upon His eternal, unpurchased, and deathless affection to you and to be enabled to resolve this painful illness, this protracted suffering, this "pining sickness," into lovedivine, tender, unwearied, inextinguishable lovewill renew the inward man while the outward is decaying day by day, and will strengthen the soul in its heavenly soaring while its tenement of dust is crumbling and falling from around it.
All in the heart of God is love towards you. This sickness may indeed be a correction, and correction always supposes sin; but it is a loving
correction, and designed to increase your greatness. Not one thought dwells in the mind of God nor one feeling throbs in His heart but that of love. And your sickness is sent to testify that God is love, and that you, afflicted though you are, are one of its favored objects. The depression of sickness may throw a shade of obscurity over this truth, but the very obscuration may result in your good, and unfold God's love by bringing you to a more simple reliance of faith.
Oh, trace your present sickness, dear invalid reader, to His love who "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses" (Matt 8:17). If He could have accomplished the important end for which it is sent by exempting you from its infliction, you would not have known one sleepless hour, nor a solitary day; not a drop of sweat would have moistened your brow, nor one moment's fever would have flushed your cheek. He, thy loving Savior, thy tender Friend, the redeeming God, has borne it all for thee Himself, even as He bore its tremendous cursethy curse and sin in His own body on the tree. Yield your depressed heart to the soothing, healing influence of this precious truth, and it will light up the pallid hue of sickness with a radiance and a glow, the reflection of the soul's health, heavenly
and divine. "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick" (John 11:3).
OCTOBER 19
"The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary."Isa 50:4
The Lord Jesus gives His people the tongue of the learned so that they may sometimes speak a word in season to His weary ones. Have you not a word for Christ? May you not go to a tried believer in sickness, in poverty, in adversity, or in prison, and tell of the balm that has often healed your spirit, and of the cordial that has often cheered your heart? "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" A text quoted, a sentiment repeated, an observation made, a hint dropped, a kind caution suggested, a gentle rebuke given, a tender admonition leftoh, the blessing that has flowed from it! It was a word spoken in season! Say not with Moses, "I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue"; or with Jeremiah, "Ah! Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child" (Exod 4:10). Hear the answer of the Lord: "Who hath made man's mouth? have not I, the Lord? Now therefore go: I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say" (Exod 4:11).
How frequently and effectually does the Lord speak to His weary ones, even through the weary. Perhaps all was conflict within, and darkness without; but one word falling from the lips of a man of God has been the voice of God to the soul. And what an honor conferred, thus to be the channel conveying consolation from the loving heart of the Father to the disconsolate heart of the child, to go and smooth a ruffled pillow, lift the pressure from off a burdened spirit, and light up the gloomy chamber of sorrow, sickness, and death, as with the first dawning of the coming glory!
Go, Christian reader, and ask the Lord so to clothe your tongue with holy, heavenly eloquence, that you may know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. It is impossible to speak of the preciousness of Christ to another, and not, while we speak, feel Him precious to our own souls. It is impossible to lead another to the cross, and not find ourselves overshadowed by its glory. It is impossible to establish another in the being, character, and truth of God, and not feel our own minds fortified and confirmed. It is impossible to quote the promises and unfold the consolations of the gospel to another, and not be sensible of a tranquillizing and soothing influence stealing softly over our own hearts. It is impossible
to break the alabaster box, and not fill the house with the odor of the ointment.
In contending for the faith, remember that the Lord Jesus can give you the tongue of the learned. Listen to His promises: "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist" (Luke 21:15). Thus the most unlearned and the most weak may be so deeply taught, and be so skillfully armed in Christ's school as to be able valiantly to defend and successfully to preach the truth, putting to "silence the ignorance of foolish men" (1 Pet 2:15).
OCTOBER 20
"O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds."Ps 116:16
It is a circumstance worthy of remark and important in the instruction which it conveys that, among all the examples of deep humility, self-abasement, and consciousness and confession of sin recorded of the saints in the word, not one instance of a denial or undervaluing of the Spirit's work in the heart appears. Keen as appears the sense of unworthiness to have been felt by Jacob, David, Job, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and others, deep as was their conviction, and humiliating as were
their confessions of sin's exceeding sinfulness, not one expression seems to betray a denial of the work of the Holy Ghost in their souls. They felt and mourned, they wept and confessed as men called of God, pardoned, justified, and adopted, not as men who had never tasted that the Lord was gracious, and who therefore were utter strangers to the operation of the Spirit on their hearts. They acknowledged their sinfulness and their backslidings as converted men, always ready and prepared to crown the Spirit in His work. What can grieve the tender loving heart of the Spirit more deeply than a denial of His work in the soul? And yet there is a perpetual tendency to this in the unbelieving doubts, legal fears, and gloomy forebodings which those saints yield to, who, at every discovery of the sin that dwells in them, resign themselves to the painful conviction that they have been given over of God to believe a lie.
To such we would earnestly say, Grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God. Deep self-abasement and the consciousness of utter worthlessness does not need to necessarily involve a denial of the indwelling grace in the heart; in fact, this blessed state is perfectly consistent with the most elevated hope of eternal life. He that can confess himself the chief of sinners and the least of saints,
is most likely to acknowledge, "I know in whom I have believed"(2 Tim 1:12), and "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us" (Eph 5:2).
What! Is it all fantasy that you have believed? Is it all a delusion that you have experienced? Have you been grasping at a shadow, believing a lie, and fighting as one that beats the air? Are you willing to yield your hope, and cast away your confidence? What! Have you never known the plague of your own heart, the sweetness of godly sorrow at the foot of the cross? Have you never felt your heart beat one throb of love to Jesus? Has His dear name never broken in sweet cadence on your ear? Are you willing to admit that all the grief you have felt, all the joy you have experienced, and all the blessed anticipations you have known were but as a "cunningly devised fable," a device of the wicked one, a moral hallucination of the mind? Oh, grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God! Deny not, undervalue not His blessed work within thee! What if you have been led into deeper discoveries of your fallen nature, your unworthiness, vileness, insufficiency, declensions, and backsliding from God? We ask, Whose work is this? Whose, but that same blessed, loving Spirit whom you are thus wounding, quenching, grieving, denying? How many whose
eye may trace this page are in this very state, not merely writing hard and bitter things against themselves, but also against the blessed, loving, faithful Spirit of God, calling grace nature, denying His work in them, and, in a sense most painful to His tender heart, "speaking words against the Holy Ghost."
OCTOBER 21
"I do not frustrate the grace of God."Gal 2:21
There is much spurious humility among many saints of God, and this is one of its common forms. It is not pride to gratefully acknowledge what great things the Lord hath done for us; it is pride that refuses to acknowledge them. It is not true humility to doubt and underrate until it becomes easy to deny the work of the Holy Ghost within us altogether; it is true humility and lowliness to confess His work, bear testimony to His operation, and ascribe to Him all the power, praise, and glory. See then, dear reader, that you cherish not this false humility, which is but another name for deep, unmortified pride of heart. Remember that as Satan may transform himself into an angel of light, so may his agencies assume the disguise of the most holy and lovely graces. Thus pride,
one of his master-agents of evil in the heart, may appear in the shape of the profoundest humility.
I would have you bear in mind, too, that though the work of the Spirit in your heart may, to your imperfect knowledge and dim eye, be feeble, and the outline scarcely visible amid so much indwelling sin, the spark almost hid amid so much abounding corruption; yet, to the Spirit's eye, that work appears in all its distinctness and glory. "The Lord knoweth them that are his" (2 Tim 2:19). This declaration will apply with equal truth to the knowledge which the Holy Ghost hath of His own work in the believer. His eye is upon the gentlest bud of indwelling grace, the faintest spark of love, the softest whisper of holy desire, the most feeble yearnings of the heart towards Jesus; all is known to, and loved by, the Spirit. It is His own work, and strange if He would not recognize it.
Suffer this consideration to have its proper weight in hushing those murmurings, soothing those fears, and neutralizing those doubts that so deeply grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Yield yourself up unto Him; humbly acknowledge what He has done in you. Follow the little light He has given you, calling into constant and active exercise the small degree of grace and faith which He has imparted, and seek, with all prayer and
supplication, an enlarged degree of His holy, anointing, sanctifying, and sealing influence.
OCTOBER 22
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."John 20:29
The circumstances of the Savior's resurrection were in harmony with its lonely and solemn grandeur. No human witness was privileged to behold it. The mysterious reunion of the human soul with the body of Christ was an illustrious event, upon which no mortal eye was permitted to gaze. There is a moral grandeur of surpassing character in the resurrection of Christ unseen. The fact is not an object with which sense has so much to do, as faith does. That no human eye was permitted to witness the stupendous event was doubtless designed to teach man that it was with the spiritual, and not with the fleshly, apprehension of this truth that He especially had to do. What eye but that of faith could see the illustrious Conqueror come forth, binding with adamantine chains hell, death, and the grave? What principle but the spiritual and mighty principle of faith could enter into the revealed mind of God, sympathize with the design of the Savior, and interpret the sublime mystery of this stupendous event?
It was proper, therefore, and worthy of God, and in harmony with the character and the design of the resurrection of our Lord, that a veil should conceal its actual accomplishment from the eye of His church, and that the great evidence they should have of the truth of the fact should be the power of His resurrection felt and experienced in their souls. Oh yes! The only power of the Savior's resurrection which we desire to know is that which comes to us through the energy of an all-seeing, all-conquering, all-believing faith. Give me this rather than to have witnessed with these eyes the celestial attendants clustering around the tomb, the rolling away of the stone that was upon the sepulcher, the breaking of the seal, and the emerging form of the Son of God, bearing in His hands the emblems and the tokens of His victory. The spiritual infinitely transcends the carnal, the eye of faith is so much more glorious than the eye of sense, that our Lord Himself has sanctified and sealed it with His own precious blessing: "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20:29). Blessed Jesus! In faith would I then follow Thee each step of Thy journey through this vale of tears; in faith would I visit the manger, the cross, and the tomb; for
Thou hast pronounced him blessed above all, who, though he sees not, yet believes in Thee. "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).
OCTOBER 23
"The just shall live by faith."Heb 10:38
The experience of every believer is, in a limited degree, the experience of the great apostle of the Gentiles, the tip of whose soaring pinion we, who merely skim the earth's surface, can scarcely touch. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal 2:20). "Like precious faith" with his dwells in the hearts of all the regenerate. God ordained that all His people should travel along this royal highway. It is the way their Lord traveled before them; it is the way they are to follow after Him. The first step they take out of the path of sense is into the path of faith. And what a mighty grace do they find it, as they journey on! Do they live? It is by faith (Heb 10:38). Do they stand? It is by faith (Rom 11:20). Do they walk? It is by faith (2 Cor 5:7). Do they fight? It is by faith (1 Tim 6:12). Do they overcome? It is by faith (1 John 5:4). Do they see what is invisible? It is by faith (Heb 11:27). Do they receive what is incredible? It is by faith (Rom 4:20). Do they achieve what is
impossible? It is by faith (Mark 9:23). Glorious achievements of faith!
Oh, how eminently is Jesus thus glorified in His saints! Was it not glory to Joseph that, having the riches of Egypt in his hands, all the people were made to live daily and hourly upon him? Was no fresh accession of glory brought to his exaltation by every fresh acknowledgment of his authority and every renewed application to his wealth? And is not Jesus glorified in His exaltation and in His fullness, in His love and in His grace, by that faith, in the exercise of which "a poor and afflicted people," a needy and a tried church, are made to travel to and live upon Him each moment? Ah, yes, every corruption taken to His sanctifying grace, every burden taken to His omnipotent arm, every sorrow taken to His sympathizing heart, every want taken to His overflowing fullness, every wound taken to His healing hand, every sin taken to His cleansing blood, and every deformity taken to His covering righteousness swells the revenue of glory which ascends to our adorable Redeemer from His church every second of time.
You may have imagined (for I will now suppose myself to be addressing a seeking soul) that Christ has been more glorified by your hanging back from Him, doubting the efficacy of His
blood to cancel your guilt, the power of His grace to mortify your corruption, the sufficiency of His fullness to supply your need, the sympathy of His nature to soothe your grief, and the loving willingness of His heart to receive and welcome you as you are, empty, vile, and worthless. You were little thinking, on the contrary, how much He has been grieved and wounded, dishonored, and robbed of His glory by this doubting of His love and this distrusting of His grace after all the melting exhibitions of the one, and all the convincing evidences of the other. But, is it the desire of your inmost soul that Christ should be glorified by you? Then forget not the grand, luminous truth of the Bible that He is the Savior of sinners, and of sinners as sinners; that, in the great matter of the soul's salvation, He recognizes nothing of worthiness in the creature; and that whatever human merit is brought to Him with a view of commending the case to His noticebe it even the incipient work of His own Spirit in the heartand appended to His finished work as a ground of acceptance with God, is so much detraction from His glory as a Redeemer. Of nothing is He more jealous, and consequently, these detractions place the soul at a great distance from His grace. But like Bartimaeus, casting the garment from you, be that garment what it maypride of merit, of
intellect, of learning, of family, of place, or whatever hinders your entering the narrow way and prevents your receiving the kingdom of God "as a little child" and coming to Jesus to be saved by Him alonebrings more real glory to Him than imagination can conceive, or words can describe.
OCTOBER 24
"Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"Heb 12:9
It is the revealed will of God that His child should meekly and silently bow to His chastening hand. And when the tried and afflicted believer hears the rod and who hath appointed it, and with a humble and filial acquiescence justifies the wisdom, the love, and even the tenderness that sent it, surely such a soul is a rich partaker of God's holiness. In all these particulars, there is a surrender of the will to God and, consequently, a close approximation to the holiness of His nature.
Dear reader, the point we now have is one of the great moment. It involves your holy and happy walk as much as it does the glory of God. We present the simple questions: "Can there be any advance of sanctification in the soul when the will is running counter to the divine will?" and,
"Can that believer walk happily when there is a constant opposition in his mind to all the dealings of his God and Father?" Oh no! Holiness and happiness are closely allied; both are the offspring of a humble, filial, and complete surrender of the will in all things to God. I speak not of this as an attainment in holiness soon or easily gained. Far from it. In many, it is the work of years; in all, of painful discipline. It is not on the high mount of joy but in the low valley of humiliation that this precious and holy surrender is learned. It is not in the summer day, when all things smile and wear a sunny aspect. Then it would be easy to say, "Thy will be done"; but, when a cloudy and a wintry sky looks down upon thee, when the chill blast of adversity blows, when health fails, when friends die, when wealth departs, when the world turns its back, when all is gone and thou art like a tree of the desert over which the tempest has swept and stripped of every branch, when thou art brought so low that it would seem you could not be lower, then to look up with filial love and exclaim, "My Father, Thy will be done!" Oh, this is holiness, this is happiness indeed. It may be that God, thy God and Father, is dealing thus with thee now. Has He taken from thee health? Have riches taken to themselves wings? Does the world frown? Ah, little
dost thou think how God is now about to unfold to thee the depths of His love and to cause thy will sweetly, filially, and entirely to flow into His.
Let me repeat the observation: a higher degree of sanctification there cannot be than a will entirely swallowed up in God's. Earnestly pray for it; diligently seek it. Be jealous of the slightest opposition of your mind, watch against the least rebellion of the will, wrestle for an entire surrender to be where, and to be what, your covenant God and Father would have you. So shall you be made a partaker of His holiness.
OCTOBER 25
"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness."Heb 12:10
Beloved reader, hast thou long asked for the removal of some secret, heavy, painful cross? Perhaps thou art still urging thy request and yet the Lord seems not to answer thee. And why? Because the request may not be wise in itself. Were He now to remove that cross, He may close up a channel of mercy which thou wouldst never cease to regret. Oh, what secret and immense blessing may that painful cross be conveying into thy soul! Is it health thou hast long petitioned for? And is
the request denied thee? It is wisdom that denies. It is love, too, tender, unchangeable love to thy soul, that refuses a petition which a wise and gracious God knows, if granted, would not be for thy real good and His glory. Do you not think that there is love and tenderness enough in the heart of Jesus to grant you what you desire, and ten thousand times more, if He saw that it would promote your true holiness and happiness? Could He resist that request, that desire, that sigh, that tear, that beseeching look, if infinite wisdom did not guide Him in all His dealing with your soul? Oh no!
But He gives you more than the denied request. He gives you Himself. Can He give you more? His grace sustains you, His arm supports you, His love soothes you, His Spirit comforts you; though it may be not the scene of health and high spirits and joyousness, yet your chamber of solitude may be the secret place where a covenant God and Father puts His grace into your soul, and where Jesus seeks to meet you with the choicest unfoldings of His love.
Could He not, would He not, heal you in a moment, if it were for your good? Then ask for a submissive spirit, a will swallowed up in God the Father's. And it may be, when the lesson of secret and filial submission is learned so that health shall
no longer be desired but as a means of glorifying God, He may put forth His healing power, and grant you your request. But, forget not, the Lord best knows what will most promote His own glory! You may have thought that health of body would better enable you to glorify Him. He may think that the chamber of solitude of the bed of languishing are most productive of glory to His name. The patience, resignation, meek submission, and child-like acquiescence which His blessed Spirit works in your soul through this means may more glorify Him than all the active graces that were ever brought into exercise.
OCTOBER 26
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."Ps 51:17
There is a sense in which the history of the world is the history of broken hearts. Were the epitaph of many over whose graves, those "mountain-peaks of a new and distant world," we thoughtlessly pass, faithfully inscribed upon the marble tablet that rears its beautifully chiseled form above them so proudly, it would be this: "Died of a broken heart." Worldly adversity, blighted hope, the iron heel of oppression, or the keen tongue of slander crushed the sensitive spirit, and it fled where the
rude winds blow not, and "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Passing beyond the limit of time, we visit in imagination the gloomy precincts of the lost, and lo, we find that the abodes of the finally impenitent are crowded with weeping, mourning, despairing souls. Yes, there are broken hearts there, there are tears there, and there is repentance there such as the betrayer of his Lord felt before he "went to his own place." But, alas! It is the "sorrow of the world" that "worketh death" (2 Cor 7:10). In all this grief, there enters nothing of that element of its character and complexion which resembles the sorrow of Davidthe broken and contrite heart, the sacrifice of God which He despiseth not. A man may weep, and a lost soul may despair, from the consequences of sin; but in that sorrow and in that despair, there can be no real heartfelt grief for sin itself as a thing against a holy and a righteous God. But we are now to contemplate not merely the broken spirit, but also the contrite heartthe sorrow of sincere repentance and deep contrition springing up in the soul for sin and its exceeding sinfulness and abomination in the sight of God.
This state defines the first stage in conversion. The repentance which is kindled in the heart at the beginning of the divine life may be legal
and tend to bondage; nevertheless, it is a spiritual, godly sorrow for sin, and leads to life. The newly awakened and aroused sinner may at first see nothing of Christ; he may see nothing of the blood of atonement or of God's great method of reconciliation with him; he may know nothing of faith in Jesus as the way of peace to his soul; yet he is a true and sincere spiritual penitent. The tear of holy grief is in his eye. Ah, we forget not with what ease some can weep; there are some whose fountain of sensibility lies near the surface; an arousing conversation, an affecting book, or a thrilling story will quickly moisten the eye. But we must still acknowledge that the religion of Jesus is the religion of sensibility; that there is no godly repentance without feeling, and no spiritual contrition apart from deep emotion. Yes, the tear of holy grief is in his eye, and if ever it is manly to weep, surely it is now, when the soul that had long resisted every appeal to its moral consciousness is now smitten to the dust for the first time, the stubborn heart is broken, and the lofty spirit laid low before the cross of Jesus. Oh, it is a holy and a lovely spectacle upon which angels, and the Lord of angels Himself, must look with ineffable delight. Reader, have you reached this primary stage in the great change of conversion? Have you taken this first step in the
soul's travel towards heaven? It is the knowledge of the disease which precedes the application of the remedy; it is the consciousness of the wound which brings you into contact with the Healer and the healing.
Who, once having experienced the truth, would wish to escape this painful and humiliating process? Who would refuse to drink the wormwood and the gall, if along this path only he could reach the sunlit spot where the smiles of a sin-pardoning God fill the heart with joy and gladness? Who would not bare himself to the stroke when the hand that plucks the dart and heals the wound is the hand through whose palm the rough nail was driven when "wounded for our transgressions" and "bruised for our iniquities" (Isa 53:5)? Who would not endure the uneasiness of sin to feel the rest that Jesus gives to the weary? And who would not experience the mourning for transgression to know the comfort which flows from the loving heart of Christ?
Again the question is put: has the Spirit of God revealed to you the inward plague? Has He brought you just as you are to Jesus, to take your stand upon the doctrine of His unmerited, free mercy, asking for pardon as a beggar, praying for your discharge as a bankrupt, and beseeching Him
to take you as a homeless wanderer into the asylum of His loving and parental heart?
OCTOBER 27
"And all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."Rev 2:23
Whose prerogative is it to search the heart? Who can fathom this fathomless sea of iniquity? Who can follow it in all its serpentine windings? Who can detect its deep subtlety? Who? "I, the LORD search the heart, I try the reins" (Jer 17:10). A mere creature, as any denier of Christ's proper Deity would make Him, cannot know the heart. It is a perfection distinctive to God and must in its own nature be incommunicable; for if it were communicable to a creature, it could not be distinctive of God Himself. If it were possible that God should delegate the power and prerogative of searching the heart and trying the reins of the children of men to a mere created being, then it could with no propriety be said of Him, that He only searches the heart. And yet this attribute belongs to Jesus only. Is not, then, the evidence of His Deity most conclusive? Who can resist it?
What blessedness flows to the believing soul from this attribute of Christ! It is always a
consolation to him to remember that Jesus knows and searches the heart. He sees and subdues its iniquity, for the promise is, "He will subdue our iniquities" (Mic 7:19). He detects some lurking evil, some latent corruption, and before it develops itself in the outward departure and the overt act, He checks and conquers it.
"Cheering thought," the believer may say, "that all my inbred evil, the hidden corruption of my heart, is known to my Savior God. Lord, I would not conceal a thought; but would cry, 'Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'"
He sees, too, His own gracious work in the soul. The little spiritual life that He has breathed there, the little grace that He has implanted, the little spark of love that He has kindled, the faint and feeble longings after Him, the inward strugglings with sin, the hungering and thirsting for holiness, the panting for divine conformityall is known to Jesus. The Lord Jesus knows and recognizes His own work; the counterfeit He soon detects. The outward garb and the unhumbled spirit, the external profession and the unbroken heart do not escape His piercing glance. Man may be deceived; the Lord Jesus, never. We may not be able to discern between the righteous and the
wicked, between nature and grace, between the outward profession and the inward reality; but Jesus knows what is genuine and what is base, what is the mere effect of an enlightened judgment and an alarmed conscience.
OCTOBER 28
"Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee."John 21:17
Dear reader, this is His own solemn declaration of Himself: "I, the Lord, search the heart" (Jer 17:10). Can you open all your heart to Him? Can you admit Him into its most secret places? Are you willing to have no concealments? Are you willing that He should search and prove it? Oh, be honest with God! Keep nothing back; tell Him all that you detect within you. He loves the full, honest disclosure; He delights in this confiding surrender of the whole heart. Are you honest in your desires that He might sanctify your heart, and subdue all its iniquity? Then confess all to Him; tell Him all. You would not conceal from your physician a single symptom of your disease, you would not hide any part of the wound; but you would, if anxious for a complete cure, disclose all to him. Be as honest with the Great Physician, the Physician of your soul. It is true, He knows your case; it is true, He anticipates
every want; yet He will have, and delights in having, His child approach Him with a full and honest disclosure. Let David's example encourage you: "I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin" (Ps 32:5).
And while your heart is thus pouring itself out in full and minute confession, let your eye of faith be fixed on Christ. It is only in this posture that the soul shall be kept from despondency. Faith must rest itself upon the atoning blood. And oh, in this posture, beloved reader, may you fully and freely pour out your heart to God! Disclosures you dare not make to your tenderest friend, you may make to Him; sins you would not confess, corruption your would not acknowledge as existing within you, you are privileged thus, "looking unto Jesus," to pour into the ear of your Father and God. And oh, how the heart will become unburdened, the conscience purified, and peace and joy flow into the soul by this opening of the heart to God! Try it, dear reader. Let no consciousness of guilt keep you back; let no unbelieving suggestion of Satan that such confessions are inappropriate for the ear of God restrain you. Come at once; come now to your Father's feet, and, bringing in your hands the precious
blood of Christ. Make a full and free disclosure. Thus may a humble believer extract much consolation from the attribute of Christ's omniscience, permitted to appeal to it at all times, and say with Peter, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee" (John 21:17).
OCTOBER 29
"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."Matt 28:20
Omnipresence is an attribute of Deity ascribed to Christ. We would refer the reader to two portions of Scripture for proof; they run parallel with each other. In Matt 18:20, we have this encouraging declaration from Christ, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt 18:20). Compare this with Exod 20:24, "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee and will bless thee." Thus the reader will perceive that the promise which God gave to His ancient church when He established her in the wilderness, gave to her the law, built for her the tabernacle, and instituted for her a sacrifice is identical to that which the Lord Jesus makes of Himself.
Consoling thought! Jesus is with His saints at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. He is "God with us" (Matt 1:23). He is
with them to comfort them in the hour of sorrow, to enlighten them in the hour of darkness, to guide them in the hour of doubt and perplexity, to deliver them in the time of conflict, to support them in the hour of death. Oh for faith to realize this! He was with His three faithful servants in the fiery furnace; He was with Daniel in the lions' den; He was with Jacob in his wrestlings at Bethel; He was with John in his exile at Patmos. Jesus is at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances with His dear people.
Reader, are you a child of sorrow? Perhaps you are a son or a daughter of affliction. You may now be passing through the furnace; you may now be draining adversity's bitter cup; the rod of the covenant may be heavy upon you, or friends unkind, the world empty, everything earthly changing, faith weak, corruptions strong, and, what embitters the cup, and deepens the shade, your Father hiding from you His dear reconciled face. Is it so? Still your omnipresent Jesus is with you. Be not cast down; this furnace is but to consume the tin and burnish the gold; this draught is but to work your inward good. These painful dispensations, by which you are learning the changeableness of everything earthly, are but to wean you from a poor, unsatisfying world and to draw you near and yet nearer to Jesus. Then be
of good cheer, for He hath promised never to leave or forsake you. Thus, you may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper" (Heb 13:6).
OCTOBER 30
"Our lamps are gone out."Matt 25:8
There are two periods of awful solemnity which will be found to utterly extinguish the mere lamp of a Christian profession. Will you follow me, reader, to the death bed of a false professor? It is an awful place. It is an affecting spectacle. No hope of glory sheds its brightness around his pillow. There is no anchor within the veil to which the soul now clings in its wrenching from the body. No divine voice whispers in cheering, soothing accents, "Fear not, for I am with thee" (Gen 26:24). No light is thrown in on the dark valley as its gate opens and the spirit enters. Coldness is on his brow, earth recedes, eternity nears, the vault damps ascend and thicken around the parting spirit, and the last wail of despair breaks from the quivering lip, "My lamp is going out." And so will it be when the Son of man cometh. This great event will unchangeably fix the destiny of each individual of the human race. It will break like the loud artillery of heaven upon a slumbering church and a careless world. It will find the
true saints, though in an unwatchful state, with "oil in their vessels with their lamps" (Matt 25:4).
It will come upon the nominal professor, grasping firmly his lamp of profession but utterly destitute of the oil of grace, and in a state of as little expectation of, as preparedness for, the advent of the Lord. It will overtake and surprise the ungodly world as the flood did in the days of Noah, and the fire in the days of Lot: "They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and until the same day that Lot went out of Sodom" (Matt 24:38). "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed" (Luke 17:30).
The true saints will arouse from their slumber and the spirit of slothfulness and lethargy into which they had fallen, and, trimming their lamps by a fresh exercise of faith in Jesus, will go forth as the children of the light to welcome their approaching Lord. False professors, too, startled by the cry which breaks upon the awful stillness of midnight, solemn as the archangel's trumpet, will eagerly feel for their lamps in their evidences of acceptance based upon an outward profession of the gospel, when to their surprise and consternation, they find themselves destitute of one drop
of oil with which to feed the flickering, waning flame, and they exclaim in despair, "Our lamps are going out!" Now the intellectual light goes out, the moral light goes out, the professing light goes out, and the official light goes out. While they have fled to human sources to procure the grace they needed, their backs being thus then turned upon Christ, the "bridegroom came; and they that were ready go in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut" (Matt 25:10). They return with what they suppose are the necessary evidences, but now they learn that to have had a professing name to live, to have outwardly put on Christ by baptism, to have united externally with the church of God, to have partaken of the Lord's Supper, to have promoted His truth and furthered His cause, to have preached His gospel, and even to have won converts to the faith will avail nothing, alone and apart from union to Jesus by the Spirit, in obtaining admittance to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Oh, that they should have learned it too late! "Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not" (Matt 25:11-12). In view of such a catastrophe, how poor, contemptible, and insignificant appears everything, however splendid in intellect, beautiful in morals, or costly
in sacrifice, save the humble consciousness of having Christ in the heart the hope of glory.
OCTOBER 31
"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."Isa 60:1
There are those whose lamps of Christian profession will not go out when the Lord appears. They are His own chosen, redeemed, and called people. Their light, by reason of manifold infirmities, may often have only burned dimly through life; but there is vital religion in the soul, the golden precious oil of grace, flowing from Jesus into their hearts. This can never be extinguished. Many were the hostile influences against which their weak grace had to contend, many were the trials of their feeble faith; but the light never quite went out. The waves of sorrow, the floods of inbred evil, and the cold blasts of adversity threatened to extinguish it; the stumbling of the walk, the inconstancy of the heart, the declension of the soul, often weakened and obscured it for awhile; but there it is, living, burning, and brightening, as inextinguishable and as deathless as the source from whence it came.
The grace of God in the heart is as imperishable, and the life of God in the soul is as immortal, as God Himself. That light of
knowledge enkindled in the mind, of love glowing in the heart, and of holiness shining in the life will burn in the upper temple in increasing effulgence of glory through eternity. The divine light of Christian profession, which holy grief for sin, love to God, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has enkindled, will outshine and outlive the sun in the firmament of heaven. That sun shall be extinguished, those stars shall fall, and that moon shall be turned into blood, but the feeblest spark of grace in the soul shall live forever. The Lord watches His own work with sleepless vigilance. When the vessel is exhausted, He stands by and replenishes it. When the light burns dimly, He is near to revive it. When the cold winds blow rudely, and the rough waves swell high, He is riding upon those winds and walking upon the waves to protect this spark of His own kindling. The light that is in you is light flowing from Jesus, the Fountain of light. And can an infinite fountain be exhausted? When the sun is extinguished, then all the lesser lights, deriving their faint effulgence from Him, will be extinguished, too; but not until then. Who is it that has often fanned the smoking flax? Even He who will never quench the faintest spark of living light in the soul. "Thou wilt light my candle" (Ps 18:28). And if the Lord lights it, what power can put it out? Is not His
love the sunshine of thy soul? Is He not Himself thy morning star? Is it not in His light that you see light, even the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:6)? Oh, then, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."