Alas! brethren, you may expect, perhaps, to have sterner trials than these.
If you resolve to cling to Jesus Christ with constancy, you must expect to
have many trials. God loves to try his people that he may get glory out of
their trials, and I am sorry to say I have known some who in the depths of
poverty, when it has suddenly come upon them like an armed man, have felt as
if religion itself could not support them, and they have actually given up
their profession. It is poor Christianity that cannot bear the loss of all
things. Now you may be poor yet, and you may be sore sick, but may you have
such faith as that you may be able to say, “Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him.” It is no gold if it will not stand the fire, and it is no
grace if it will not bear affliction.
You may expect to have great depression of spirit within. Some of us know
what this is very, very frequently. There are times when the joy of religion
is gone, and our soul is in the dark, and yet is feeling after God, blessed
be his name; but this is the pinch, to believe in an angry Christ, to hold to
his hand and never let him go, though that hand should seem to pull itself
away; to lodge with Christ when he gives you no supper; to go and sleep in
Christ’s bed when he has not made it, but left it hard for you; to say, “With
my desire have I desired thee in the night, and with my spirit will I seek
thee early.” May you have faith like that faith, that will not, under any
difficulties, turn aside from Christ.
Thus you see, then, that this resolution will be a tried one, and between
here and heaven God knows what trials will befall us. But again:-
III. THIS RESOLUTION MAY BE CARRIED OUT.
What I have said might tempt you to declare that you would not try it, but it
may be carried out. There are thousands, tens of thousands upon earth who
have been with Jesus wherever he has been throughout the whole of their
lives, and will be with him in death, and after death; and there are
millions-there they stand-wearing their white robes and waving their palms.
Listen; you may almost hear their song. These are they that overcame; they
endured unto the end; they came through great tribulation, and washed their
robes in the Lamb’s blood, and, therefore, are they before the throne of God.
What was done, in them may be done in you.
But how was it, then, that they held on and kept close to their Lord? Answer-
it was not in their own strength; it was the Holy Spirit, who day by day
preserved them, led them in knowledge and true holiness, purged them from
sin, and at last made them to enter upon the heritage of the perfect. There
was not a single moment in which they persevered apart from the Spirit’s
strength. Poor human nature at its best must start aside like a broken bow.
‘Tis only grace that holds a single Christian, and well and truly do we sing
in that hymn:-
“‘Tis grace that’s kept me till this day,
And will not let me go.”
Now, subject to the power of the Holy Spirit, the way to accomplish our
resolve to be with Christ as his servants for ever, is, first of all, to be
much in prayer. If you cannot persevere with God, you are not likely to
persevere in contest with man. More prayer, beloved, many of you want. As
your temptations grow, let your prayers become more intense and full of fire,
and conquer hell by assaulting heaven. You shall prevail against all
temptations if you can prevail with God.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
