I will lift up my hands in thy name....Psalm lxiii. 4. FROM the little carnal men see of the conduct of saints, they pronounce them fools and madmen: but were they to follow them to their closets, and be witnesses to what passes there, between God and their souls, they would deem it the excess of folly and the height of madness. Two christian friends were conversing together of the plague of their hearts, the working of hypocrisy and evil in their best duties: an unconverted brother of one of them overheard and upbraided them, saying, "I always thought you were two hypocrites, now I have heard it from your mouths. I have no wandering thoughts at church; I always go with a good heart." "Brother," replied the christian, putting a piece of money in his hand, "that is your own, if, when you go to church next, you will watch your heart and tell me honestly if you found no wandering thoughts." The poor man faithfully returned the money, and frankly owned, "I was scarce got into church, but I thought how many looms might be set to work in it." He was a weaver. O what an awful thing it is to be ignorant of one's own heart! And yet the knowledge of its desperate wickedness and superlative deceitfulness, often dejects and puts disciples to the stand. Here is a blessed remedy at all times, THE LOVING KINDNESS OF THE LORD. This is better than life: this super-abounds all the aboundings of sin in us: this enables us to say joyfully, "I will bless the Lord while I live:" and with boldness, "I will lift up my hands in thy name." In our work and warfare, against all our spiritual enemies, there is a blessed name which is above every other name, to animate us with courage, even the name Jesus. However dejected or despised, can we think of, believe in, and look to that glorious name, person, work, and salvation with which God is well pleased, without lifting up our hands with comfort and joy? Here I am to-night, a poor sinner, empty of all good, full of all evil. No worth, work or excellency to recommend me to God, yet will I lift up my empty hand to receive a gift from the God of all grace. O that under a sight of my ruined state and helpless impotency, the Spirit may teach me that heavenly art, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God, I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only," O Jesu....Psalm Ixxi. 16. It is from hence that feeble knees are strengthened, hands which hang down are lifted up, and fearful hearts made strong. "Consider Christ Jesus."....Heb. iii. 1. What name so sweet to sinners' ears, My hands to thee I will lift up, 'Tis this repels our doubts and fears, A blessing to receive, M. Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father....Rom. viii. 15. THE Spirit of God never was, never is, nor ever can be the spirit of bondage to any soul: some have asserted it, but it is a mistake: it is contrary to his name, THE COMFORTER: he is a free spirit, a spirit of liberty to the soul: it is inconsistent with his office he takes of the things of Christ, and shews them to us : testifies of Christ: brings us into the liberty of Christ: enables us to glory in the adoption of children, and to call God Father, in the faith of Christ. When he convinces of sin, it is not to bring the soul into bondage, but to break the bondage of sin, of the law, of death and of satan in the conscience, and to cast away the cords thereof, that the soul may be united to Christ by faith. In all this he is THE COMFORTER. What then is this spirit of bondage? It is the spirit of the law: just as the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage....Exod. i. 14. So does the law all those who are under it. Do what they would, they could never please, never get a good word from their task-masters. So let the poor legal sinner labour, tug and toil from day to day to fulfil the law, and be made righteous by obedience to it, yet, like hard hearted Pharaoh, it says, "ye are idle, ye are idle," pay me what thou owest me, my full due: I am not satisfied: you have not fulfilled my righteous demands: you are still cursed: thus a legal spirit is always in bondage: his soul is always subject TO FEAR. Though he works like a slave, yet he gets nothing but slavish dread of God, and fear of being damned at last; for the law works nothing but wrath in the conscience.... Rom. iv. 15. This is fearful bondage indeed. Glory to the spirit of adoption for bringing us from it, and enabling us to cry, Abba, Father. How does he effect this? We receive the spirit of adoption by the faith of Jesus: we see a righteous law perfectly fulfilled by the one obedience of Christ's life by this, we sinners are made righteous....Rom. v. 19. Here our hearts take refuge: through this righteousness, the Spirit brings peace to our consciences: discharges from the condemnation of the law: frees us from guilty fears and terrors of God; and instead thereof, breathes this precious cry in our hearts, Abba, my loving, my adopted Father in Christ. Now love takes place in the soul. Once a child of God, and for ever so. The Spirit of adoption never becomes a spirit of bondage again: but if you do not walk in faith and love, he may leave you to the awful bondage of your own spirit, and under the terrors of a broken law. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God."....Ephes. iv. 30. And the Lord spake unto Moses, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend....Exod. xxxiii. 11. IN the sight of infidels, Moses is as vile a hypocrite and as great an enthusiast as ever existed. You see your calling brethren. What shall be done unto the men whom the King of saints delights to honor? Treat them as the filth and off-scouring of all things, say the world. Thank you, ye sons of folly: you give us an evident token of our salvation, and that of God....Phil. i. 28. If Moses is not to be credited, Christ is to be rejected. He puts his cause upon the testimony of Moses, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me."....John v. 46. He was a friend of the bridegroom: he was admitted to close and intimate converse with him before he appeared in flesh. Our Saviour saith to all his disciples, ye are my friends."....John xv. 14. He admits them into sweet fellowship and free communion with himself. A precious minister of Christ, late on earth, now in glory, says in his diary, "I walked in the fields, and conversed much with our Saviour, about the wickedness of my heart," &c. Paul says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty:" freedom from the veil of nature's blindness and ignorance: liberty, to draw nigh to God, and to pour out our hearts before him. For, WE ALL: all true believers in Christ, "behold as in a glass," the clear glass of the gospel, "the glory of the Lord," in the face of Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth to poor sinners. That is God's greatest glory; that is our highest mercy. This unspeakable privilege believers in common are admitted to. This constitutes our heaven below. It creates heaven in the soul. It brings God and the soul near: yea, face to face. God's face is towards us in Christ: our face is towards him by the faith of Christ. His countenance smiles upon us; that makes us of a joyful heart: "My sheep hear my voice," says Christ....John x. 27. Yes, saith the soul, "it is the voice of my beloved."....Song v. 2. See then your calling, O believer, and thou my soul: live not below your exalted privilege : draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Speak humbly to God, of your sin, misery, and wretchedness: he will speak graciously to you, of his love and salvation in his Son. "I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain: I the Lord speak in righteousness.” "Am mighty to save."....Isa. xlv. 19. Ixiii. 1. O the blessedness of thus beholding the face of the Lord! We are changed into the same image, by the Lord the Spirit. For God hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ....2 Cor. iv. 6. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee....Isa. xlix. 15. LORD, remember David and all his afflictions....Psalm cxxxii. 1. How comprehensive is this short petition! What a holy boldness, what a filial confidence breathes in it! Yes, says a poor doubting, dejected soul, but it came from an eminent saint, but I am a miserable sinner: I am afraid the Lord hath forgotten and forsaken me. Is your mind pained at the thoughts of this? That is a godly sorrow, which the wicked are strangers to. This is one of the afflictions of the righteous. Lord remember me, is the prayer of faith to a covenant God. Here is a precious cordial, a heart-reviving answer from the Lord. Look at that woman with her smiling babe at her breast see how fond she is of it, how delighted with it: it is part of herself: she bore it with pains, and brought it into the world with labour its innocent look and helpless cry call for her tenderest affection and regard. Can she forget it? Can she refuse to shew compassion to it? Will she neglect to administer to its wants, and to preserve from danger the dear and tender son of her womb? Is it possible? Here is an image in nature which strikes one with the most tender affection, to set forth the love and care of the Lord to his people but strong and striking as it is, it fails. There have been, there may be such monsters in nature, who have not had compassion upon the offspring of their womb. Therefore, knowing the fears and surmises of our nature, the Father of love and the friend of sinners, as it were, corrects himself, and says, "yea, they may forget"....the comparison fails....this image, yea, all nature is too weak to borrow a representation from. YET WILL I NOT FORGET THEE. O, may faith catch, fasten, and live upon this precious word. O, may love be excited and joy increased by it. As though our dear Lord had said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love," saved thee with an everlasting salvation, called thee by my grace, made thee know thy poverty and vileness, thy hopeless and helpless state: shall I ever be unmindful of thy distress, deaf to thy cry, and unwilling to relieve thy wants? Impossible! Is the tender infant part of its mother? Remember, "we are members of Christ's body, of his flesh and of his bones."....Ephes. v. 30. In pain and sorrow did the mother bring the infant forth? O, what agonies did it cost our Lord to redeem us! Has he been at the pains to bring us to himself for salvation? After all this, will he leave us to perish by sin, to be overcome by the world, or to be a prey to satan? If we think so, we must sadly forget him who says, " Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."....Isa. xlix. 16. Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?....Rom. ix. 20. THE Sovereignty of God, in dispensing his grace to whom he pleaseth, which he oweth to none, ever was a bone of contention. Unawakened people, with self-righteous hearts and stubborn freewill pride, rise with indignation of spirit, daringly call in question the ways of God to man, and impiously reply against God, as though he had not an absolute right to do what he will with his own, and confer his favors when, and on whom he pleases. "Ye shall be as gods," says the father of lies....Gen. iii. 5. Our first parents believed him. They have tainted our whole race with this proud lie. Hence the poet most sarcastically says to repliers against God, Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge his justice, be the God of God. Paul meets such: he puts a question to them: he demands an answer from them. Who art thou? The Lord in the sovereignty of grace, and with the glory of his majesty, issues his royal proclamation from heaven, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy: and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Now who? What art thou who darest to reply? What! Reply against God? What thou, O man; worm of the earth: a creature of a day: born like a wild ass' colt, without understanding: by nature a child of wrath, dead in trespasses and sins, blind to thy own existence: thou vain fool, thou child of pride, and son of folly, dost THOU exalt thy ignorance, and display thy enmity, by opening thy mouth against God, his truths and his ways? This is one of the severest reproofs of the holy Spirit in the whole Bible: improve it. Remember there is "a woe to him who striveth with his Maker."....Isa. xlv. 9. Know, you have nothing you can properly call your own, but sin that is the parent of ignorance and pride. Wilt thou exalt these against the wisdom and grace of God? Shall our corrupt reason reply against God, call him to an account of his ways, and say unto him, what doest thou? Consider, have we not forfeited all right to God's favor? Does any good thing dwell in our nature to entitle us to his mercy? O fall down and bless God for the unmerited gift of his Son Jesus. Adore the riches of his abundant mercy, that "at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace; and if by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace." &c....Rom. xi. 5, 6. While others wrangle and reply, Dear Spirit, teach my soul the truth |