When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there. The first wonder will be to see people there I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many persons whom I did expect to see; and the third and greatest wonder of all will be to find myself there.
Our righteousness is in Him, and our hope depends, not upon the exercise of grace in us, but upon the fullness of grace and love in Him, and upon His obedience unto death.
My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.
When I was young, I was sure of many things; now there are only two things of which I am sure: one is, that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour. He is well-taught who learns these two lessons.
He knows our sorrows, not merely as He knows all things, but as one who has been in our situation, and who, though without sin Himself, endured when upon earth inexpressibly more for us than He will ever lay upon us.
Salvation is wholly of grace, not only undeserved but undesired by us until God is pleased to awaken us to a sense of our need of it. And then we find everything prepared that our wants require or our wishes conceive; yea, that He has done exceedingly beyond what we could either ask or think. Salvation is wholly of the Lord and bears those signatures of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness which distinguish all His works from the puny imitations of men. It is every way worthy of Himself, a great, a free, a full, a sure salvation. It is great whether we consider the objects (miserable, hell-deserving sinners), the end (the restoration of such alienated creatures to His image and favor, to immortal life and happiness) or the means (the incarnation, humiliation, sufferings and death of His beloved Son). It is free, without exception of persons or cases, without any conditions or qualifications, but such as He, Himself, performs in them and bestows upon them.
I am well satisfied it will not be a burden to me at the hour of death, nor be laid to my charge at the day of judgment, that I have thought too highly of the Lord Jesus Christ, expected too much from myself, or labored too much in commending and setting Him forth to others, as the Alpha and Omega, the Lord our righteousness, the sufficient atonement for sin, the only Mediator between God and men, the true God and eternal life.
On the contrary, alas! my guilt and grief are, that my thoughts of Him are so faint, so infrequent, and my commendations of Him so lamentably cold and disproportionate to what they ought to be.
Here we are too prone to think highly of our knowledge; but when we arrive in yonder world of light, to see Him as He is, we shall be ashamed of the highest conceptions we had of Him, and of our most labored attempts to express them, while we were imprisoned in this distant land. Then we shall say with the queen of Sheba, 'Behold the half, the thousandth part, was not told us!' In the meantime, He is pleased to accept our imperfect stammerings, to assist our feeble inquiries, and does not disdain (as He justly might) to hear us take His name upon our polluted lips!
I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.
There is no name for Messiah more significant, comprehensive or endearing, than the name Redeemer. The name of Saviour expresses what he does for sinners. He saves them from guilt and wrath, from sin, from the present evil world, from the powers of darkness, and from all their enemies. He saves them with an everlasting salvation. But the word "Redeemer" intimates likewise the manner in which he saves them. For it is not merely by the word of his power, as he saved his disciples when in jeopardy upon the lake, by saying to the winds and the seas, 'Peace, be still: and there was a great calm;' (Mark 4:39) but by price, by paying a ransom for them, and pouring out the blood of his heart, as an atonement for their sins. The Hebrew word for Redeemer, Goel, primarily signifies, a near kinsman, or the next of kin. He with whom the right of redemption lay, and who by virtue of his nearness of relation, was the legal avenger of blood. Thus Messiah took upon him our nature, and by assuming our flesh and blood, became nearly related to us, that he might redeem our forfeited inheritance, restore us to liberty, and avenge our cause against Satan, the enemy and murderer of our souls. But thus he made himself also responsible for us, to pay our debts, and to answer the demands of the justice and law of God on our behalf. He fulfilled his engagement. He suffered, and he died on this account. But our Redeemer, 'who was once dead is now alive, and liveth forevermore, and has the keys of death and hades.' (Rev. 1:18) This is he of whom Job saith, 'I know that he liveth' (was then living,) though he was not to 'stand, upon the earth, until the latter day.' He is the living One, having life in himself, 'the same yesterday, today, and forever.' (Heb. 13:8) Such was his own language to the Jews, 'Before Abraham was, I am.' (John 8:58) Therefore the Redeemer is mighty, and his redemption is sure. He is able to save to the uttermost. His power is unlimited, and his official authority, as Mediator, is founded in a covenant, ratified by his own blood, and by the oath of the unchangeable God. (Ps. 110:4).
To be enabled to form a clear, consistent, and comprehensive judgment of the truths revealed in the Scripture, is a great privilege; but they who possess it are exposed to the temptation of thinking too highly of themselves, and too meanly of others, especially of those who not only refuse to adopt their sentiments, but venture to oppose them. We see few controversial writings, however excellent in other respects, but are tinctured with this spirit of self-superiority...I know nothing as a means more likely to correct this evil, than a serious consideration of the amazing difference between our acquired judgment, and our actual experience; or, in other words, how little influence our knowledge and judgment have upon our own conduct. This may confirm to us the truth and propriety of the apostle's observation, 'If any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.'....if we estimate our knowledge by its effects, and value it no farther than it is experimental and operative (which is the proper standard whereby to try it), we shall find it so faint and feeble as hardly to deserve the name....From hence we may observe, that believers who have most knowledge, are not therefore necessarily the most spiritual.
God often takes a course for accomplishing His purposes directly contrary to what our narrow views would prescribe. He brings a death upon our feelings, wishes, and prospects when He is about to give us the desire of our hearts.
I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of faggots, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to the load, before we are required to bear it.
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