THE HINDRANCE SURMOUNTED PREPARES ONE FOR SERVICE

THE HINDRANCE SURMOUNTED PREPARES ONE FOR SERVICE

I am cheered by your letter on account of the grace given you of God. I need not tell you that I have looked to the Lord for your blessing at this juncture, for I am assured that one’s aftercourse is greatly determined by the manner and power of one’s exit and deliverance from a false religion (the more difficult to escape from the nearer it approaches to the true), but according to the difficulty encountered, it imparts a character and a strength to the one who has escaped, if effected in faith. That which has most burdened you and stood in your way, if overcome, must necessarily be the point in which you are strongest; for there has been your victory; and speaking naturally, heroes connect their names with their greatest victories. But we should look at these victories in another light. They not only form the disciple, but (as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, who ^[p. 81] was after he was delivered the most unswerving and effectual exposer of the Jews’ religion - the very thing which had especially hindered him), the hindrance prepares one, and even defines for one, a line of service. It is on the same principle as “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Luke 22: 32). True, it would be the higher way to see and avoid everything false, but it is not always that we learn this way. We may be carried away by the effect of various influences in a corrupt state of things, and then the consequence is, that fort after fort has to be reduced before we are on the true and safe ground. But then we have learnt war, and are skilful to help others passing through the same sort of difficulties. It is plain to me that, if one has been led by faith to overcome the difficulties, especially those of the conscience, the nature of the difficulties overcome imparts a character to one’s after-life and testimony. According to the power of faith at the start, so is the course. I do not mean that there is no advance from the start, but I mean that the difficulties which you have overcome, you will, when on the true ground, be able the more effectively to expose. The triumph of faith over the pretension you have escaped from imparts to you a power and a colour in accordance with the difficulty overcome, so that you are now most valiant where you have been most ensnared. “Out of the eater came forth meat” (Judges 14: 14). This is the case where there has been faith, so that where the faith has worked, there will be testimony. If you have acted in faith you have had nothing to see around, but you will always from henceforth find that this same faith is like the reserve in the bank (as David recalls how he slew a lion and a bear), even a guarantee that you cannot fail, for God in whom you trust cannot fail, and it is to Him and for Him you have acted; and you hold on though every one around you fails and gives up. I am sure your trials and exercises have been deep and sore, and they are not over yet, but in faith all is sure, and ^[p. 82] pre-eminently, incipium belli dimidium facti. Your difficulties and trials are nothing if you have faith, for then God is before your soul, and not any of them, and He will assuredly prove Himself to you.