"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." — Isaiah 1:18
My soul! your God summons you to His audience chamber! Infinite purity seeks to reason with immense vileness! Deity stoops to speak to dust! Do not dread the meeting. It is the most gracious — as well as most wondrous of all conferences. Jehovah Himself breaks silence! He utters the best tidings a lost soul or a lost world can hear, "God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses." What! Scarlet sins, and crimson sins! and these all to be forgiven and forgotten! The just God "justifying" the unjust! — the mightiest of all beings, the kindest of all!
Oh! what is there in you to merit such love as this? You might have known your God only as the "consuming fire," and had nothing before you except "a fearful looking for of vengeance!" This gracious conference bids you to dispel your fears! It tells you that it is no longer a "fearful thing," but a blessed thing to fall into His hands! Have you consented to His overtures? Until you are at peace with Him, happiness must be a stranger to your bosom.
Though you have all else beside, if bereft of God — you must be bereft indeed! Lord! I come! As your pardoning grace is freely offered, so shall I freely accept it. May it be mine, even now, to listen to the gladdening accents, "Son! Daughter! be of good cheer! Your sins, which are many — are all forgiven!"
NEEDFUL GRACE
"As your days — so shall your strength be." — Deuteronomy 33:25
God does not give grace — until the hour of trial comes. But when it does come — the amount of grace, and the nature of the special grace required, is granted. My soul! do not dwell with painful apprehension on the future. Do not anticipate coming sorrows; perplexing yourself with the grace needed for future emergencies; tomorrow will bring its promised grace — along with tomorrow'strials.
God, wishing to keep His people humble, and dependent on Himself, does not give a stock of grace; He metes it out for every day's exigencies, that they may be constantly traveling between their own emptiness — and Christ's fullness; their own weakness — and Christ's strength. But when the exigency comes, you may safely trust an Almighty arm to bear you through!
Is there now some "thorn in the flesh" sent to lacerate you? You may have been entreating the Lord for its removal. Your prayer has, doubtless, been heard and answered; but not in the way, perhaps, either expected or desired by you. The "thorn" may still be left to goad, the trial may still be left to buffet; but "more grace" has been given to endure them. Oh! how often have His people thus been led to glory in their infirmities, and triumph in their afflictions — seeing that the power of Christ rests more abundantly upon them! The strength which the hour of trial brings — often makes the Christian wonder to himself!
ALL-SUFFICIENT GRACE
"God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things — may abound to every good work." — 2 Corinthians 9:8
All-sufficiency in all things! Believer! Surely you are "thoroughly equipped for every good work!" Grace is no scanty thing, doled out in pittances. It is a glorious treasury, which the key of prayer can always unlock — but can never empty. It is a fountain — full, flowing, ever flowing, over flowing!
Mark these three ALL'S in this precious promise. It is a three-fold link in a golden chain, let down from the throne of grace by the God of grace. "All grace!" "all-sufficiency!" in "all things!" and these to "abound." Oh! precious thought! My need cannot impoverish that inexhaustible treasury of grace!Myriads are hourly hanging on it, drawing from it — and yet there is no diminution. Out of that fullness we, too, may all receive, "grace upon grace!"
My soul, do you not love to dwell on that all-abounding grace? Your own insufficiency in everything, met with a divine "all-sufficiency in all things!" Grace in all circumstances and situations, in all vicissitudes and changes, in all the varied phases of the Christian's being. Grace in sunshine — and in storm; in health — and in sickness; in life — and in death! Grace for the old believer — and the young believer. Grace for the tried believer, and the weak believer, and the tempted believer. Grace for duty — and grace in duty; grace to carry the joyous cup with a steady hand — and grace to drink the bitter cup with an unmurmuring spirit; grace to have prosperity sanctified — and grace to say through tears, "May Your will be done!"
COMFORTING GRACE
"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." — John 14:18
Blessed Jesus! How Your presence sanctifies trial; takes loneliness from the chamber of sickness; and the sting from the chamber of death! Bright and Morning Star! Precious at all times, You are never so precious as in "the dark and cloudy day!" The bitterness of sorrow is well worth enduring — to have Your promised consolations.
How well qualified, Man of Sorrows, are You to be my Comforter! How well fitted to dry my tears — You who shed so many Yourself! What are my tears — my sorrows — my crosses — my losses, compared with Yours, who shed first Your tears, and then Your blood for me! Mine are all deserved, and infinitely less than I deserve. How different, O Spotless Lamb of God — those pangs which rent Your guiltless bosom!
How sweet those comforts which You have promised to the comfortless, when I think of them as flowing from an Almighty Fellow Sufferer, "A brother born for adversity" — the "Friend that sticks closer than any brother!" — one who can say, with all the refined sympathies of a holy exalted human nature, "I know your sorrows!"
My soul! calm your griefs! There is not a sorrow you can experience but Jesus, in His treasury of grace — has an exact corresponding solace: "In the multitude of the sorrows I have in my heart — Your comforts delight my soul!"
RESTRAINING GRACE
"Satan has desired to have you — that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you — that your faith may not fail." — Luke 22:31, 32
What a scene does this unfold!
Satan tempting — Jesus praying!
Satan sifting — Jesus pleading!
"The strong man assailing" — "the stronger than the strong" beating him back!
Believer! here is the past history and present secret of your safety in the midst of temptation. An interceding Savior was at your side, saying to every threatening wave, "Thus far shall you go — and no farther!" God often permits His people to be on the very verge of the precipice, to remind them of their own weakness; but never farther than the brink! The restraining hand and grace of Omnipotence is ready to rescue them, "Although he stumbles — yet he shall not be utterly cast down." And why? "For the Lord upholds him with His right hand!"
The wolf may be prowling for his prey; but what can he do when the almighty Shepherd is always there, tending with the watchful eye that "neither slumbers nor sleeps!" Who cannot subscribe to the testimony, "When my foot slipped, Your mercy, O Lord! held me up!" Who can look back on his past pilgrimage, and fail to see it crowded with Ebenezers, with this inscription: "You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling!" My soul, where would you have been this day, had you not been "kept" by the power of God?
"Hold me up — and I shall be safe!" Psalm 119:117
RESTORING GRACE
"I will heal their backsliding!" — Hosea 14:4
Wandering again! And has He not left me to perish? Stumbling and straying on the dark mountains, away from the Shepherd's eye and the Shepherd's fold — shall He not leave the erring wanderer to the fruit of his own ways, and his truant heart to go hopelessly onward in its career of guilty estrangement?
"My thoughts," says God, "are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways."
Man would say, "Go, perish! ungrateful apostate!"
God says, "Return, O backsliding children!"
The Shepherd will not, cannot, allow those sheep to perish, whom He has purchased with His own blood! How wondrous His forbearance towards His wandering sheep! — tracking its guilty steps, and not ceasing the pursuit until He lays the wanderer on His shoulders and returns with it to His fold rejoicing! My soul! why increase by farther departures, your own distance from the fold? Why lengthen the dreary road your gracious Shepherd has to traverse in bringing you back? Do not delay your return! Do not provoke His patience any longer!
Do not venture farther on forbidden ground! He waits with outstretched arms to welcome you once more to His tender bosom! Be humble for the past, trust Him for the future. Think of your former backslidings — and tremble! Think of His patience — and be filled with holy gratitude! Think of His promised grace — "and take courage."
SANCTIFYING GRACE
"Being confident of this very thing — that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus!" — Philippians 1:6
Reader! Is the good work begun in you? Are you holy? Is sin being crucified? Are your heart's idols abolished, one by one? Is the world less to you — and eternity more to you? Is more of your Savior's image impressed on your character; and your Savior's love more enthroned in your heart? Is Salvation to you, "the one thing needful?" Oh! take heed! There can be no middle ground, no standing still; or if it is so, your position must be a false one.
The Savior's blood is not more necessary — to give you a title to Heaven; than the Spirit's work — to give you a fitness for Heaven. "If any man has not the Spirit of Christ — he is none of His!"Onwards! should be your motto. There is no standing still in the life of faith. "The man," says Augustine, "who says 'Enough,' that man's soul is lost!"
Let this be the superscription in all your ways and doings, "Holiness to the Lord!" Let the admonishing word exercise over you its habitual power, "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord." Moreover, remember, that to be holy — is to be happy. The two are equivalent terms. Holiness! It is the secret and spring of the joy of angels; and the more of holiness attained on earth — the nearer and closer my walk is with God — the more of a sweet pledge shall I have of the bliss that awaits me in a holy Heaven. Oh! my soul, let it be your sacred ambition to "Be Holy!"
REVIVING GRACE
"But those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles! They shall run — and not be weary; and they shall walk — and not faint." — Isaiah 40:31
"Will You not revive us, O Lord?" My soul! are you conscious of your declining state? Is your walk less with God, your affections less heavenly? Have you less conscious nearness to the mercy-seat, diminished communion with your Savior? Is prayer less a privilege than it has been? Are the pulsations of spiritual life more languid, and fitful, and spasmodic? Is the bread of life less relished? Are the seen, and the temporal, and the tangible, displacing unseen and eternal realities? Are you sinking down into this state of drowsy self-contentment, this conformity of your life with the world, forfeiting all the happiness of true religion and risking and endangering the better life to come? Arise! Call upon your God! "Will you not revive us, O Lord?"
He might have returned nothing but the withering repulse, "How often would I have gathered you — but you were not willing!" "Ephraim is joined to his idols — let him alone!" But "in wrath, He remembers mercy." "They shall revive as the corn." "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it." How and where is reviving grace to be found? He gives you, in this precious promise, the key. It is on your bended knees — by a return to your deserted and unfrequented prayer-chamber! "Those who wait upon the Lord!" "Wait on the Lord; be of good cheer, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!"
PERSEVERING GRACE
"The righteous shall hold on his way." — Job 17:9
Reader! How comforting to you amid the ebbings and flowings of your changing history — to know that the change is all with you, and not with your God! Your spiritual vessel may be tossed on waves of temptation, in many a dark midnight storm. You may think your Pilot has left you, and be ready continually to say, "Where is my God?"
But fear not! The ship which bears your spiritual destiny, is in better hands than yours! A golden chain of covenant love links it to the eternal throne! That chain can never snap asunder. He who holds it in His hand gives you this as the pledge of your safety, "Because I live — you shall live also!"
"Why are you then cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? hope in God!" You will assuredly ride out these stormy surges, and reach the desired haven! But be faithful with yourself: see that there is nothing to hinder or impede your growth in grace. Think how little may retard your progress. One sin indulged — one temptation tampered with — one bosom traitor — may cost you many a bitter hour and bitter tear, by separating between you and your God. Make it your daily prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life!"
DYING GRACE
"I have the keys of hell and of death!" — Revelation 1:18
And from whom could dying grace come so welcome — as from You, O blessed Jesus? Not only is Your name, "The Abolisher of Death;" but You Yourself have died! You have sanctified the grave by Your own presence, and divested it of all its terrors.
My soul! are you at times afraid of this, your last enemy? If the rest of your pilgrimage-way is peaceful and unclouded, does there rest a dark and portentous shadow over the terminating portals? Fear not! When that dismal entrance is reached — He who has the keys of the grave and of death suspended at His golden belt, will impart grace to bear you through!
Death is but the messenger of peace — it is your Savior calling for you! The promptings of nature, when, at first, you see the darkening waves, may be that of the frightened disciples, when they said, "It is a ghost! and cried out for fear!" But a gentle voice will be heard high above the storm,"It is I! Do not be afraid!"
Death, indeed, as the wages of sin, must, even by the believer, be regarded as an enemy. But, oh! blessed thought, it is your last enemy — the cause of your last tear! In a few brief moments after that tear is shed — and your God will be wiping every vestige of it away! "O Death! where is your sting? O Grave! where is your victory? Thanks be unto God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" Welcome, vanquished foe! Birthday of Heaven! "To die is gain!"
AFTER GRACE — GLORY
"The Lord will give grace — and glory!" — Psalm 84:11
Oh! happy day: when this toilsome warfare will all be ended — Jordan crossed — Canaan entered — the multitude of enemies of the wilderness no longer dreaded — sorrow, sighing, death, and, worst of all, sin, no more either to be felt or feared! Here is the terminating link in the golden chain of the everlasting covenant. It began with predestination; it ends with glorification. It began with sovereign grace in eternity past, and no link will be lacking until the ransomed spirit is presented faultless before the throne!
Grace — and glory! If the pledge is sweet — then what must be the reality? If the wilderness table contains such rich provision — then what must be the glories of the eternal banqueting house? Oh! my soul, make sure of your saving interest in the grace — as the blessed prelude to glory. "Having access by faith into this grace, you can rejoice in hope of the glory of God;" for "whom He justifies — those He also glorifies!"
Has grace begun in you? Can you mark — though it should be but the drops of the beginning streamlet which is to terminate in such an ocean — the tiny grains which are to accumulate and issue in such "an exceeding weight of glory?" Do not delay the momentous question! The day of offered grace is on the wing! "No grace — no glory!"
