FEBRUARY 20TH, 1899
FEBRUARY 20TH, 1899
... There are, indeed, many souls in the condition to which you refer. With most of them it has been the case that at some time they have failed to respond to what has been presented to them by God. That is, at some crisis in their spiritual history they have chosen the world or the earth in preference to Christ and spiritual blessings. After a time — months or years — God may come in again, and give them another chance, but in such cases it is quite like a second conversion.
I believe God is faithful and does not fail to present Christ to every converted soul, and so long as the soul is responsive it is led on in a path of growing light. Hence the joy and spiritual prosperity of a bright young convert. Christ is before him, and he is responsive to every ray of light that reaches him. But as he goes on many a subtle snare is laid for his feet, and the enemy is ever seeking to divert him by earthly things. A testing moment comes — perhaps over some little thing — and he chooses that which is not Christ. The Spirit is grieved the heavenly communications which have hitherto sustained him are interrupted; and if the consciousness of this does [p. 28] not at once turn him to the Lord in self-judgment and confession, he quickly drops down to earth’s level, and remains there.
Yet even in such a case the Lord will not fail to exercise the conscience, nor to remind the heart of the joys it has lost. And if there be response to this gracious activity of divine love, repentance and confession will result, and entire restoration be the happy issue.
There is another important point to consider. Probably the greater part of those to whom you refer have never had any definite link with Christ. They have never come properly and personally into touch with Him. That is, they have never been truly in the good of the gospel. Grace has never yet had its all-victorious and all-subduing way with them. They may know something of the shelter of the blood, but they need a Philip to preach Christ to them, or a Paul to espouse them unto Christ.
If such souls in all humility and reality would go to God in the honest truth of their condition and tell Him that they had no deep, inward joy such as their spirits craved for, and that their souls had no acquaintance with Christ as a living Person in glory — if they cried to Him to bring them into the full blessing and joy of His own wondrous grace — He would not fail to answer them, and to fill them with marrow and fatness. They would find that Jeremiah 33: 3 holds good yet. Alas! there are not so many in whom these holy thirstings of heart are found. The most are content with a decent “form of godliness” now and the assurance of heaven by and by.
If a man wants spiritual blessing let him go to the living God, and verily he shall be rewarded, Hebrews 11: 6.
The whole thing may be summed up in this — God is ever working in secret and by ministry to awaken desire for spiritual blessings in the hearts of His saints, and if we desire them we get them.
Of course a man whose heart is set upon things above will turn from things on the earth — he cannot pursue both. Things here have lost their value in his eyes.