In our anxiety to see souls brought into peace there is one special danger we need to watch and pray against — intruding (however unintentionally) between God and the spiritual exercises of the awakened.
This danger was possibly never greater than in a superficial day like the present. It is easy nowadays to have a careless expression in religious things without the soul having been divinely awakened at all. Or if the root of the matter is there, it is of such a shallow character as hardly to be perceptible in their daily life.
There can be no doubt that there are many wrong impressions as to the very foundation truths of the gospel. This may come from unscriptural habits of thought and expression current throughout the professing Church. Many are sad and confused who might otherwise have the “joy and peace in believing.” Doesn’t this also explain the unsatisfactory life of many? Until we have a firm foundation under our feet our walk is never steady.
My prayer is that these thoughts may prove a blessing to many, an occasion of stumbling to none. What a comfort that “He satisfied the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness”! (Psalm 107:99For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. (Psalm 107:9)).
Soul-Trouble
There is no trouble in the world like soul trouble. Who can endure the torments of a guilty conscience? “A wounded spirit who can bear?” (Proverbs 18:1414The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear? (Proverbs 18:14)).
Next to the anguish of waking up in eternity to find the soul is “lost,” is the bitterness of making that discovery in time, though the great gulf isn’t yet finally “fixed,” nor the souls’ doom eternally sealed.
Let a man be made alive to the truth that the end of a sinful life (his life) is hell. Let the Spirit of God remind him that his next heartbeat may be his last and that the God against whom he has so long and so willfully rebelled holds his breath in His mighty hand. Then there will be little wonder if he go supper-less to bed, to spend the night, not in peaceful sleep, but in fear and trembling, in tossing and turning, in prayer and weeping.
The eternal damnation or the eternal salvation of the soul is no light issue, and how can he rest until it is settled? He richly deserves damnation, yet he ardently hopes for salvation. He seems to hope against hope, yet he does hope, and cannot help it. On one side stands “truth,” showing the inevitable future and the undeniable past, and fully exposing both. On his other side stands “grace,” witnessing to him that in spite of his wickedness, and entirely on the ground of Christ’s merits, eternal blessing may still be his.
This brings intense inward struggle until pardon is known and peace possessed; until the soul’s eternal destiny is beyond the possibility of doubt or question!
Then there is another important factor in this fierce struggle. Satan, with his suggestions and lies, is now very active. Now he must use every effort that satanic craft can devise in order to stop, if possible, the purposes of grace. If he fails, his once willing slave will be another witness of the value of the Redeemer’s blood to cleanse, of His power to save.
Sometimes he whispers, “You are too good to be lost.” At others he says, “You are too bad to be saved; at least, too bad to be saved just as you are; wait till you are better first.” Satan’s clock is always either too fast or too slow. There is, according to his dangerous counsel, either “plenty of time to think of these things,” or he whispers, “God is too harsh and too exacting to show mercy to a sinner like you; you are too late now.”