(FROM A GOSPEL ADDRESS.)
A WOMAN I once knew was for months troubled because she could not feel what her mother felt when she was converted. Her mother had passed through deepest exercises of soul, and when at last she found peace she was exceedingly happy. She told her daughter that when she got up from her knees, after God had saved her, everything looked different, even the trees and the flowers in the garden looked different. So the daughter first tried to feel as miserable as her mother had, but never could be satisfied that she had been made sufficiently miserable. Then she tried to feel happy. She tried to pray herself into this joy, and would occasionally get up from her knees and look out of the window to see how the trees looked. When she did not find that they looked any different she would go down upon her knees and try again.
Now if the trees had looked ever so different―had she seen them covered with silver and gold―it would not have proved that she was saved. So I said to our friend, “Where, then, are you resting for assurance now?”
“Oh, I have got the Word of God for it now!” What GOD had said she could believe.
So must it be with you, anxious soul. You must believe it first, and feel it next. If some dear mother here tonight heard tomorrow morning that her son was ill, when would she feel troubled―before she believed the letter, or afterward? Why afterward, of course. She would not say, “I know he is ill because I feel so troubled; but I feel troubled because I know he is ill.”
“But how do you know he is ill?” we inquire. “You have not seen him. It is years since he left home, and he is now in a foreign hospital.”
“I know it because he says so.”
So there were three items in this change in her feelings.
First, she received the letter.
Second, she believed it because of her son’s word.
Third, she knew he was ill because she believed it, and was troubled in consequence.
Now there is somebody here tonight who would fain feel it first. If you could only feel what some other Christians have felt, if your convictions were as deep as theirs, if your joy was as full as theirs, you think you might say for certain that you were saved.
Let us suppose then for a moment that you had such deep joys, and that when I ask you how you know you are saved, you tell me it is because you feel so happy On whose opinion would you be relying for that assurance? Why you have only got your own opinion after all, and that opinion based upon your own feelings. You are like the spider who spins a web out of his own body, and then trusts himself to it, though some strong hand may sever it the next moment. You cannot rest upon any feeling of your own. The next circumstance in your path may scatter your bright feelings to the winds, and leave you in dark, bewildering uncertainty. Perhaps you ask, “Then you do not believe in happy feelings?” Yes, I believe in the Christian having every week, while on the road to glory, seven little heavens of spiritual joy― “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and the Christian ought to be happy; and if he does not grieve the Spirit he will be. It is your right, fellow-believer, to be happy, and there is something wrong with your ways if you are not. But do not build your peace upon your happiness. That is the common mistake. “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”