To Rev. John Newton,
Oh, what is man! How easily we spy the vanity and inconsistency in another, and how hardly we discern it in ourselves.
The foulest stain, and worst absurdity in our nature, is pride! And yet this vile hedgehog so rolls himself up in his bristly coat, that we can seldom get a sight of his claws.
Pride cleaves to us, like a shirt soaked in tar cleaves to the skin. No sharp ploughing and harrowing will clear the ground of it. This foul weed will be sure to spring up with the next rain!
Pride follows me like my shadow!
This diabolical sin has brought more scourges on my back than everything else! It is of so insinuating a nature, that I know not how to rid myself of it.
I hate it and love it.
I quarrel with it and embrace it.
I dread it and yet allow it to lie in my bosom.
It pleads a right, through the fall, to be a tenant for life. It has such an amazing appetite that it can feed both on grace and garbage! It will be as warm and snug in a monastery, as a brothel and be as much delighted with a fine prayer, as a foul curse!
Lord, save me! If pride must dwell with me, let it not be a lordly master, but a loathed viper!
Oh, that I could once say unto you, foul pride: "Farewell forever!"
There is no Christian grace, but pride will creep into its bosom and mix with it as freely as oil with oil.
Nor is Lady Pride ever so delighted as when she becomes intimate with humility, and by soft caresses and kind speeches, encourages the sweet damsel to think highly of herself, even when she looks and talks humbly.
One moment she whispers and tells me that I am a fine fellow and then I am elated.
By and by, she calls me a fool and then I am sullen.
I can do no religious act, but pride is skulking at my elbow and much affecting me both by her smiles and frowns.
This foul pride besieges my heart, besets all my steps, and meets me at every turn.
Pride has more heads than a Hydra! (A mythological serpentine water monster which had many heads. Every time someone would cut off one of them, two more heads would grow out!)
Pride has more shapes than Proteus! (A mythical Greek figure who could assume a different shape at will.)
It is such an odd mysterious evil that I can even be proud of loathing my pride.
Henceforth if you ask my real name, it is Pride!
Yours,
John Berridge
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Unbeliever, what is your hope?
The cemetery.
The judgment throne of God.
Sentence on your soul.
The trumpet of resurrection.
Final doom.
Body and soul in Hell forever.
You have no better prospect.
[Charles H. Spurgeon]
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Matthew 25:46 ... And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Hebrews 10:26-27 ... For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. ❤
Nature ever has a voice for those who will hearken to her teaching. The glorious sun, enlightening all with his cheering beams, reminds us of the Dayspring from on high, who came "to give light to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death."
The bright moon, reflecting as it does the light of the sun, reminds of the true Church of Christ. The moon above, the Church below, A wondrous race they run; But all their radiance, all their glow, each borrows of its Sun. The countless stars shining overhead, remind us of the eternal glory of the children of God.
The birds of the air teach us their lesson of daily dependence upon the care of the great Provider. Luther, we are told, was once in much distress about provision for those whom he had gathered under his roof but was comforted as he hearkened to the note of a little songster. It seemed to him in its note ever to be repeating, again and again Mortals, cease from care and sorrow; God provides for the morrow.
The lily of the field has taught us, through the lips of Christ, that our Father forgets not to clothe His children. The vine and its branches have taught us much of the mystery of grace. It shows to us the necessity of ever abiding in Christ by faith and prayer; and assures us that all grace and strength flow from Him, the Living Stem, into the hearts of His believing people.
Let us learn from the book of nature another lesson, very different from any of these. Our teacher shall be a remarkable plant, that grows very abundantly in the forests of Brazil. It bears the name of the Sipo Matador and has been thus described: "Its stem is at first so exceeding slender, that it has no natural support in itself. It entwines and creeps along the ground until it reaches some lofty vigorous tree then its mode of growth is most peculiar. It lays hold of it with a clinging grasp, and spreads itself, like a flattened bark-like stem, over one side of the trunk, cleaving to it with the greatest tenacity: from both the edges of this bark it sends out very delicate arm-like tendrils, exactly opposite to each other.
What is the lesson this plant may teach us? Is it not this; The mysterious power of sin, and the danger to which its victim is exposed? Only carefully ponder the description of the plant which is given and then trace the striking analogy.
The very name suggests it. It is the "Sipo Matador" or "the Murderer".
The child frequently bears the name of the parent. The author of evil is spoken of by Christ as "a murderer from the beginning." Such also is sinning a destroyer a murderer!
O sin, sin! what have you done? How many, through you, have had to pass through the gloomy chamber of the grave! What multitudes, in all ages, through you, have forfeited the peace and salvation of a soul!
[George Everard]
Affliction, in some of its many and varied forms, is the lot of all the Lord's people. Indeed, if we do not have it, then we lack evidence of our true sonship, for the Father chastens every son whom He receives. Every believer is refined in the furnace of affliction.
To every follower of Jesus, how strong is the consolation flowing from this truth. God's afflictions are loving and parental towards His redeemed people; whereas towards His enemies, they are judicial and punitive. God refines His saints in the furnace of affliction, for their purification; but He places the ungodly in the furnace, for their destruction. The believer can welcome and patiently bear sickness, bereavement, and poverty; knowing that God's fatherly chastisements are not judgments, and His afflictions are not condemnations.
Through these trials, the Holy Spirit comforts the afflicted soul by unfolding the deep and unchangeable love of Jesus, showing the believer that his sorrow is the fruit of Divine love, sent to draw the soul nearer to Himself. The Comforter opens the believer's ears to hear the voice of God's chastening rod, causing the disciplined heart to return from its wanderings and seek the wounded, bleeding, suffering Savior more eagerly than ever. In the furnace of affliction, the believer attains a deeper knowledge of God's all-sufficiency, and a truer knowledge of his own spiritual poverty and unworthiness.
In each season of affliction, the believer must turn from all creature sympathy, and look to Jesus, who was preeminently the man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief and suffering; making Him able to sustain and sympathize with His afflicted people.
In every stormy wind, in every darksome night, and in every rising fear, the voice of Jesus is heard saying, "Take courage, it is I! Do not be afraid. Your affliction did not spring out of the ground but came down from above; a heaven-sent blessing clad in a robe of ebony, sent entirely in love."
[Octavius Winslow]
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Isaiah 48:10 ... Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
Romans 8:28 ... And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
2 Corinthians 4:17 ... For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; ❤
When our Father uses the word “argue," clearly, He’s not implying we’re to verbally fight with Him to have our own way. For its every evil thing, NOT YHWH, that dwells with strife and self-ambition. (James 3:16) Instead, we’re to “plead and argue” our case with Him just as attorneys do in earthly courtrooms. And since we know attorneys need to research the world’s laws before arguing their cases, how much more should we research YHWH’s Laws before arguing a case before Him? For example, can we successfully argue in Heaven’s Court that the curse of poverty, disease, or confusion is bound (declared unlawful) in our lives, then loose (declare lawful) YHWH’s Laws of prosperity, health, and wisdom? Yes! Those Laws to name a few are found in: Matthew 18:18; Galatians 3:13-14; Deuteronomy 28; 1 Peter 2:24; Jeremiah 30:17; James 1:5; and Colossians 2:2-3.
Dear Madam,
You thought right that I should pity you, when I knew the cause of the lameness of your hands. For whom that loves can forbear the greatest pity to a worthy friend who was used most cruelly? Cruel treatment was this from the creature but a love-stroke of God your Father! You have hereby seen the wonders of His infinite goodness which He has wrought for you in that support under and deliverance from those many and great distresses which at present are to your wonder, joy and praise, and shall be to the advance of your felicity in eternal glory and to God's honor, unto endless ages!
I think my afflictions are nothing if compared with those which you have passed through. Afflicted in body, from head to foot severely terrified in soul so exceedingly brought to the very brink of death and the grave in the former, and, as it were, into the belly of hell in the latter; and yet, everlasting arms underneath you in all this, the consolations of God given to your heart, and great deliverance to your body from its sore distress as an answer to social prayer how great, how wondrous was the grace! And when a little raised up yourself, to be so soon plunged into distress by the awful affliction of your dear sister, and ever since to be exercised with such various scenes of distresses through which you have been called to pass, and yet maintained in life in the life of nature and in the life of grace, and favored with the use of your natural and spiritual senses, how bright towards you have been the displays of the Lord's excellent loving-kindness! You may well say, "in deaths often; troubled on every side."
But when you shall have come up at last out of all great tribulations having washed your robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb and are presented faultless before the throne of God how sweet, how ineffably sweet, will be your eternal glory-rest! Then you will reflect with the highest pleasure upon all your past sorrows, and in unknown transports of joy and praise forever adore that wise grace which conducted you safely and advantageously through all the terrors and dangers of the wilderness. Most surely, your joy and glory, and God's joy and glory in yours, is to be exceeding great, or you would not have met with such great miseries and griefs in the present state.
I am glad that you long, dear Madam, to devote yourself and you're all unto God, and to be of special service to His praise, who has shown towards you such wonders of grace. And let the Lord's past appearances for you, in your great and sore troubles, encourage you to trust in Him for delivering grace, even to the last of your distresses. For He who said unto you, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God" is still the same. And so, He will be through all your earthly-necessities, and to an endless eternity. It is His covenant with you to "work marvels."
And think, O woman of sorrows, think, and think again Christ, the tree of life, is cast into all your deaths, and will not He well sweeten these bitter waters. Oh, what is Christ, your Christ? "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily!" He is God in your nature, a Father, a brother, a Husband, a Friend, that ever lives and ever loves! For love, in all relations, His is immense and endless; for life, He is the Lord of it an immensity, an eternity of life dwells in Him for you, to perpetuate and perfect your life of grace, and to ripen it into the life of glory! Yes, to maintain your unknown felicity to a boundless eternity. And having Him, who is love, who is life, your love and life with you in all your deaths will not He make every bittersweet, and swallow up all your deaths in the infinity of His love and life? Yes, verily, He will for you, both in soul and body, swallow up death in victory, in state and maintain you in a glorious immortality to a blessed eternity. And so wondrously will He work for you, that He will bring life, and an increase of it, out of every death that passes over you.
Is it not better, infinitely better to have Christ with you as your own Lord Jesus, amid ten thousand deaths, for this small moment of time, who will swallow them all up in perfect victory and eternal glory in the world to come than to be surrounded with all the outward felicity of the present state, with all the splendors of a worldling's honors and pleasures those ‘glow-worm glories’ which will suddenly be no more and sent away from Christ at last, with a "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire?" May you be enabled to rejoice then in your portion, your soul-sustaining, your soul-satisfying, your life-giving portion, and walk worthy of your portion, by a constant dependence on Him, and a joyful expectance from Him, until you are fully blessed with the complete possession of Him who fills all in all, and will fill you brimful of light and life, of joy and glory, endless and unknown!
Oh, dear Madam, you are straitened in me, a little babe, a little child, who cannot speak; but you are not straitened for immense and eternal bliss in your Jesus. The tongues of angels and archangels, in all their innumerable armies, can never, never tell a thousandth part of His infinite fullness, beauties, and glories! What then can an earthworm, the least, think or speak of that infinitely glorious Lord? When all is said that can be uttered by the greatest of men, it may be fitly said of their most comprehensive speeches concerning Him, "There was the hiding of His glory!" Yes, when the Lord Himself is set forth in the bright display of His power, it is said, "And there was the hiding of His glory!" What, in the display of it? Yes, with regard to the infinity of it in His own immense and unsearchable essence!
But it is enough, Madam, to make you inconceivably blessed, that in Him, this infinite Him, you have an entire and eternal interest. God grant you the joy of this ineffable felicity. I mourn that I can say no more of this vast and endless storehouse of blessings. Confusion covers me that I have thus veiled Him, when I would gladly have given you a glimpse of His glory. God grant you "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" to your unspeakable joy!
~ Anne Dutton
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Frequently we pray that God would not forsake us in the hour of trial and temptation but we too much forget that we have need to use this prayer at all times. There is no moment of our life, however holy in which we can do without His constant upholding. Whether in light or in darkness, in communion with Him, or in temptation we alike need the prayer, "Do not forsake me, O Lord!" "Hold me up and I shall be safe!" (Psalm 119:117)
Our hope in Jesus is our anchor!!
