Christ Jesus the LORD - His elect's Great Reward!
"A
little that a righteous man hath is
better
than the riches of many wicked."
-Psalm
37:16 [KJV]
Hard
may be your lot here below, ye suffering saints of the most High, as
regards external matters; painful may be the exercises through which
you almost daily pass, through the rebellion and desperate wickedness
of your carnal mind; grievous temptations may be your continual
portion; many a pricking thorn and sharp brier may lie in your path;
and so rough and rugged may be the road, that at times you may feel
yourself of all men to be the most miserable; and so indeed you would
be but for the grace of God in your heart now and the glory prepared
for you beyond the grave. Yet with it all, were your afflictions and
sorrows a thousand times heavier, well may it be said of you—"Happy,
thrice happy, art thou, O Israel!" Whom upon earth need you
envy if you have the grace of God in your heart? With whom would you
change, if ever the love of God has visited your soul?
Look
around you; fix your eyes upon the man or woman who seems surrounded
with the greatest amount of earthly happiness, and then ask your own
conscience—"Would I change with thee, thou butterfly of
fashion, or with thee, thou gilded dragon-fly, that merely livest thy
little day; sunning thyself for a few hours beneath the summer sun,
and then sinking into the dark and dismal pool which awaits thee at
evening-tide?" Then with all your cares at home and abroad—with
all your woes and trials, sunk under which you feel yourself at times
one of the most miserable beings that can crawl along in this vale of
tears—would you change with anybody, however healthy, or rich,
or favoured with the largest amount of family prosperity, if
at the same time destitute of the grace of God?
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
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