2 Peter 1:4
“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
PARDONING GRACE
Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
My soul! your God summons you to His audience chamber! Infinite purity seeks to reason with infinite vileness! Deity stoops to speak to dust! Dread not 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 dispel your fears! It tells you it is no longer a "fearful," but a blessed thing to fall into His hands! Have you closed with these His overtures? Until you are at peace with Him, happiness must be a stranger to your bosom. Though you have all else beside, bereft of God you must be "bereft indeed." Lord! I come! As your pardoning grace is freely tendered, 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 you."
ALL-SUFFICIENT GRACE
2 Corinthians 9:8
“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:”
All-sufficiency in all things! Believer! Surely you are "thoroughly furnished!" Grace is no scanty thing, doled out in pittances. It is a glorious treasury, which the key of prayer can always unlock, but never empty. 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 a throne of grace by a 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, and drawing from it, and yet there is no diminution—"Out of that fullness all we too may receive, and grace for grace!"
My soul, do you not love to dwell on that all-abounding grace? Your own insufficiency in everything, met with an "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 storm—in health and in sickness—in life and in death. Grace for the old believer and the young believer, 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, grace to drink the bitter cup with an unmurmuring spirit—grace to have prosperity sanctified—grace to say, through tears, "Your will be done!"
DYING GRACE
Revelation 1:18
“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”
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 be 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. Your Savior calls 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, 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
Psalms 84:11
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
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, what must be the reality? If the wilderness table contains such rich provision, what must be the glories of the eternal banqueting house? Oh! my soul, make sure of your saving interest in the one, as the blessed prelude to the other. "Having access by faith into this grace, you can rejoice in hope of the glory of God;" for "whom He justifies, them He also glorifies!"
Has grace begun in you? Can you mark—though it should be but the drops of the incipient 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; its hours are fast numbering; and, "No grace, no glory!"
BLISS IN DYING
Revelation 14:13
“And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.”
My Soul! is this blessedness yours in prospect? Are you ready, if called this night to lie down on your death-pillow, sweetly to fall asleep in Jesus? What is the sting of death?—It is sin. Is death, then, to you, robbed of its sting, by having listened to the gracious accents of pardoning love, "Be of good cheer, your sins, which are many, are all forgiven?" If you have made your peace with God, resting on the work and atoning blood of His dear Son, then is the Last Enemy divested of all his terror, and you can say, in sweet composure, of your dying couch and dying hour—"I will both lay down in peace and sleep, because You, Lord, make me to dwell in safety!" Reader! ponder that solemn question, "Am I ready to die? Am I living as I should wish I had done when that last hour arrives?"
And when shall it arrive? Tomorrow is not yours. "Truly, there may be but a step between you and death." Oh! solve the question speedily—risk no doubts and no peradventure. Every day is proclaiming anew the lesson, "The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong." Seek to live, so that that hour cannot come upon you too soon, or too unexpectedly. Live a dying life! How blessed to live—how blessed to die, with the consciousness, that there may be but a step between you and glory!
AN END OF WEEPING
Isaiah 60:20
“Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”
Christ's people are a weeping band, though there be much in this lovely world to make them joyous and happy. Yet when they think of sin—their own sin, and the unblushing sins of a world in which their God is dishonored—need we wonder at their tears?—that they should be called "Mourners," and their pilgrimage home a "Valley of Tears?" Bereavement, and sickness, and poverty and death following the track of sin, add to their mourning experience; and with many of God's best beloved, one tear is scarce dried when another is ready to flow!
Mourners! rejoice! When the reaping time comes, the weeping time ends! When the white robe and the golden harp are bestowed, every remnant of the sackcloth attire is removed. The moment the pilgrim, whose forehead is here furrowed with woe, bathes it in the crystal river of life—that moment the pangs of a lifetime of sorrow are eternally forgotten! Reader! if you are one of these careworn ones, the days of your mourning are numbered! A few more throbbings of this aching heart, and then the angel who proclaims "time," shall proclaim also, sorrow, and sighing, and mourning, to "be no longer!" Seek now to mourn your sins more than your sorrows; reserve your bitterest tears for forgetfulness of your dear Lord. The saddest and sorest of all bereavements, is when the sins which have separated you from Him, evoke the anguish-cry, "Where is my God?"
HEAVENLY ILLUMINATION
John 13:7
“Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”
As the natural sun sometimes sinks in clouds, so, occasionally, the Christian who has a bright rising, and a brighter meridian, sets in gloom. It is not always "light" at his evening time; but this we know, that when the day of immortality breaks, the last vestige of earth's shadows will forever flee away. To the closing hour of time, Providence may be to him a baffling enigma; but before the first hour has struck on heaven's chronometer, all will be clear. My soul! "in God's light you shall see light;" the Book of His decrees is a sealed book now—"A great deep" is all the explanation you can often give to His judgments; the why and the wherefore He seems keep from us, to test our faith, to discipline us in trustful submission, and lead us to say, "Your will be done!"
But rejoice in that hereafter—light which awaits you! Now we see through a glass darkly; but then, face to face. In the great mirror of eternity all the events of this chequered scene will be reflected; the darkest of them will be seen to be bright with mercy—the severest dispensations, "only the severer aspects of His love!" Pry not, then, too curiously; pronounce not too censoriously on God's dealings with you. Wait with patience until the grand day of disclosures; one confession shall then burst from every tongue, "Righteous are You, O Lord!"
A GLORIOUS REUNION
John 14:3
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
If the meeting of a long absent friend, or brother, on earth, be a joyous event, what, my soul, must be the joy of your union with this Brother of brothers, this Friend of friends! "I will come again!" Oh! what an errand of love, what a promised honor and dignity is this!—His saints to share, not His Heaven only, but His immediate presence. "Where I am, there you shall be also!" Father, I will (It was His dying wish—a wondrous addition in that testamentary prayer) that those whom You have given me be with me where I am." Happy reunion! Blessed Savior, if Your presence be so sweet on a sin-stricken earth, and when known only by the invisible eye of faith, what must be that presence in a sinless Heaven, unfolded in all its unutterable loveliness and glory!
Happy reunion! it will be a meeting of the whole ransomed family—the Head with all its members—the Vine with all its branches—the Shepherd with all His flock—the Elder Brother with all His kinsmen. Oh, the joy, too, of mutual recognition among the death-divided—ties snapped asunder on earth, indissolubly renewed—severed friendships reunited—the triumph of love complete—love binding brother with brother, and friend with friend, and all to the Elder Brother! My soul! what do you think of this Heaven? Remember who it is that Jesus says shall sit with Him upon His throne—"He who overcomes."
A JOYFUL RESURRECTION
1 Corinthians 15:53
“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
Marvel of marvels! The sleeping ashes of the sepulcher springing up at the tones of the archangel's trumpet!—the dishonored dust rising into a glorified body, like its risen Lord's! At death, the soul's bliss is perfect in kind; but this bliss is not complete in degree, until reunited to the tabernacle it has left behind to mingle with the sods of the valley. But tread lightly on that grave, it contains precious, because ransomed dust! My body, as well as my spirit, was included in the redemption price of Calvary; and "those also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Oh! blessed Jubilee-day of creation, when Christ's "dead men shall arise"—when, together with His dead body, they shall come; and the summons shall sound forth, "Awake, and sing, you who dwell in the dust!"
All the joys of that resurrection morn we cannot tell; but its chief glory we do know—"When He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." Like Him!—My soul, are you waiting for this manifestation of the sons of God? Like Him!—Have you caught up any faint resemblance to that all-glorious image? Having this hope in you, are you purifying yourself, even as He is pure? Be much with Jesus now, that you may exult in meeting Him hereafter. Thus taking Him as your Guide and Portion in life, you may lay down in your dark and loathsome grave, and look forward with triumphant hope to the dawn of a resurrection morn, saying, "What time I awake, I am still with You!"
A CROWN OF LIFE
1 Peter 5:4
“And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.”
What! is the beggar to be "raised from the ash-heap, set among Princes, and made to inherit a throne of glory?" Is dust and ashes, a puny rebel, a guilty traitor—to be pitied, pardoned, loved, exalted from the depths of despair, raised to the heights of Heaven—gifted with kingly honor—royally fed—royally clothed—royally attended—and, at last, royally crowned? O my soul, look forward with joyous emotion to that day of wonders, when He whose head shall be crowned with many crowns, shall be the dispenser of royal diadems to His people; and when they shall begin the joyful ascription of all eternity, "Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us Kings—to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."
Will you not be among the number? Shall the princes and monarchs of the earth wade through seas of blood for a corruptible crown; and will you permit yourself to lose the incorruptible diadem, or barter it for some perishable nothings of earth? Oh! that you would awake to your high destiny, and live up to your transcendent privileges as the citizen of a Kingly Commonwealth, a member of the blood-royal family of Heaven. What would you not sacrifice—what effort would you grudge, if you were included at last in the gracious benediction, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world?"
THE VISION AND FRUITION OF GOD
Revelation 21:3-5
"And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful."
Glorious consummation! All the other glories of Heaven are but emanations from this glory that excels. Here is the focus and center to which every ray of light converges. God is "all in all." Heaven without God!—it would send a thrill of dismay through the burning ranks of angels and archangels; it would dim every eye, and hush every harp, and change the whitest robe into sackcloth. And shall I then, indeed, "see God?" What! shall I gaze on these inscrutable glories, and live? Yes, God Himself shall be with them, and be their God; they shall "see His face!" And not only the vision, but the fruition. Oh! how does sin in my holiest moments damp the enjoyment of Him! It is the "pure in heart" alone who can "see," far more—who can "enjoy" God. Even if He did reveal Himself now, these eyes could never endure His intolerable brightness.
But then, with a heart purified from corruption—a world where the taint of sin and the power of temptation never enters—the soul again a bright mirror, reflecting the lost image of the Godhead—all the affections devoted to their original high destiny—the love of God the motive principle, the ruling passion—the glory of God the undivided object and aim—the will no opposing or antagonist bias—man will, for the first time, know all the blessedness of his chief end—"to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever!"
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