HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
LET us consider the last verse of this chapter for a minute— “The word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” If this word was really believed as enduring forever, what would be the effect?
Abel came into God’s presence pleading his own need of the cleansing blood, and went out justified by faith. Men are conscious they want something with which to come before God, and oh! the presumptuous religious quackery with which man would prop us up in the presence of the Almighty, who has declared all our righteousnesses to be filthy rags. The gospel brings man into God’s presence denuded and stripped bare, and there he finds the blood to cleanse and the wedding garment, and goes out washed and clothed and filled with the peace and joy of the Father’s house. To hear God speak of the worm that never dies and the fire never quenched on the one hand, and on the other heaven open, the promise of an inheritance that fadeth not away.
How blessed that third verse, the “abundant mercy” of the Father thus revealed for our comfort in these last days; what a testimony to His much mercy and His grace, the same from everlasting to everlasting. If we turn to the twentieth verse, “Foreordained from before the foundation of the world,” how this leads us to sit down in the lowest place, and learn how our little being, passing away as the flower of the field, today here, tomorrow gone, is set at naught. Where were you before the foundations of the world? How that verse shows God’s character from eternity. God is love. Eternal life without a shadow of change. That blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In verse 3 what a pillar for the saint, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; if raised, our faith is not vain. All our earthly hopes and projects, how vain! Their enjoyment is only in the anticipating thought, not in the reality. If we could but attain this or that object, we should surely be satisfied and happy. No sooner has the hand grasped it than disappointment comes with it. There is a hidden worm in all our gourds, bitter dregs at the bottom of every cup of pleasure, and when we lean on man, and look to those we love for something sure and lasting, alas! we find them as grass and the flower of the field, withering and falling away. But not so that inheritance that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you; not left in man’s keeping; not dependent on our inconstant, varying experience and changing frames, but kept, as we ourselves are, by God’s almighty power, ready to be revealed in the last times. Its character, nature, and permanency is of God.
Strengthened by His Spirit with might in the inner man, we should see more of this inheritance if we hated self more. Men working in the pits can see the stars at noonday, so when God, by His Spirit, plows up the heart, we perceive its blackness contrasted with the bright shining of the sun. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though... if needs be,” and oh! how manifest are the needs be’s, if we could see our condition, as God sees it. Oh! to know and understand the needs be; why this trial came, and that one was cut off; why poverty was sent, and difficulties and divers temptations. The old man breaking out again and again when we hoped he had been dead. A needs be in every smallest stroke; in everything in our walk and calling, a needs be; and for what that needs be? Why, the trial of faith, and whatever God gives He will try: this is the object. Why did the Lord Jesus leave the Father’s house on high and die? There was a needs be, because He would not have us rest anywhere but in that bosom. Hell would have been our resting-place else. Oh! what a needs be for us! Faith is God’s precious gift, and having given it, He will try it. May we be willing that He should. Faith cometh by hearing, but it is God’s gift. Work begins when Christ is received, but then goes on to the end. We show our faith by our works. The apostle Paul says, “I have fought the good fight; I have kept the faith.”
How little is the spirit of the world withered up by our spiritual blessings. What mean these falls, these outbreaks? but because we are not keeping the faith as Paul kept it. Aye, but you say, the times are different now. Yes, but the Word and precepts of God are unchanged. What are the worst of times but harvest days for faith in God. Is not He able to stem the torrent for us? “Wherein ye greatly rejoice.” There is in the believer’s heart a joy unshaken by anything earthly, a peace that passes all understanding. When all has been tried, and the poor sinner feels more and more condemned, let God’s Christ be tried, and the result, “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Wonderful that a man should walk into the presence of the cross and there lose all his sins—that every sinner may come into the presence of God, looking to Christ, and go out saying Father. Oh, what a salvation this, into which the prophets inquired and searched diligently, and prophesied of the grace that should come unto us, and shall it be said we turn away from such grace? Hath no one believed our report? See you no beauty in Christ? If your eyes could but see Him, how would you loathe that which you roll under your tongue as a sweet morsel. Oh! thus to hate what we loved; to find all things become new in the sight of the cross and grace of God.
But they searched diligently—all that they saw on before as in a glass dimly has been unrolled for us. Oh! those sufferings which our hearts can dwell upon in meditation as having had a terrible reality in this bloodstained earth—the life of sorrow and woe, the bloody sweat, the nails, the spear, the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” all passes before the mind with dreadful distinctness, all has been fulfilled. He of whom the Spirit testified as appointed unto suffering has indeed suffered all in order that blessing might be accomplished. Blessed, blessed Lord Jesus! it would have been suffering enough to live in such a world as this, but to come, and die such a death! The mind sinks under the effort to paint as it ought that life, that death. The Holy Ghost must fill up the sketch—glory connected with suffering.
Oh! what times our lot is cast in. We hear many say, “Not too much religion.” We are told to beware of going too far, as if we ever could go far enough. Are there any here afraid to seek after salvation lest man should say he is beginning to be religious? Would you know the value of your soul, your precious soul? By the sufferings of Christ I know the value of mine. Your soul! You are busy and occupied with perishing things, and your immortal soul never thought of. Your soul! Look to Calvary. By all that Jesus suffered bleeding there, think of your soul. Afraid to think any should think you cared for your soul? Better break away from every one and everything so only you find time for your soul. Oh! to make Christ everything in life instead of a secondary object.
Perhaps, poor sinner, you would fain come, but you dread all the cross will show you of yourself. Oh! happy sinner, you will find He never wounds but to heal, never probes but to raise up, blessed to get into that place of deep loathing, that deep disgust at the blackness and iniquity of the heart. None but God can make the sinner so view himself as to cry out— “I loathe myself; I see all I gloried in before so withered up and blighted. What shall become of my soul. Whither shall I flee?”
Poor sinner, there is none but God in Christ that can help you. We are passing through a world of trial and sorrow—a worm is at the root of our best-loved gourds; but we are passing on to an inheritance that fadeth not away, and what are the sorrows of the way? “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” How utterly crowns and earthly honors and riches are withered up before that inheritance. What care we what our circumstances may be when we are rejoicing in Christ. We are redeemed with His precious blood, not with anything so corruptible as silver and gold. Shall that, or anything earthly, occupy our hearts and thoughts? Look at the early saints—they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. Look at us—how we gather them together. Where are we fallen?
For what period were the Scriptures written? Alas! alas! flesh is indeed as grass, but the word of the Lord by which the gospel is preached to the saints in these last days cannot change—it endureth forever. Beware we add not to it or diminish its strength to suit the dwarf-like and stunted Christianity of these last days. Christ gives the hope, and His resurrection sustains. This is the security for it, not all hanging on His death only, but our title to the inheritance all hanging on the living Person of the Lord Jesus; safe in His keeping, resurrection and inheritance hand in hand. We that had nothing being heirs to such an inheritance! Not like grass withering and falling; not like a portion here of earthly glory or distinction in which many a weary heart has found but vanity and vexation of spirit; not like anything here, but undefiled that fadeth not away.
“Being born again not of corruptible seed” what wondrous words! Incorruptible, nothing can change or alter, nothing taint it! Oh, beloved friends, we are passing away as the grass and the flower of the field, the objects of our affection fading and falling around us; soon our place shall know us no more, but we are hastening to our inheritance that fadeth not away—every passing hour brings us nearer. May we be holy in all manner of conversation, and pass the time of our sojourning here in fear.
J. WILLANS.
DAVIES STREET, 1857.