The LIGHT Dwells With Him
"For
we walk by faith, not by sight"
-II
Corinthians 5:7 [KJV]
The
nature of faith is to trust in the dark, when all appearances are
against it; to trust that a calm will come, though the storm be
overhead; to trust that God will appear, though nothing but evil be
felt. It is tender, child-like, and therefore is an implicit
confidence, a yielding submission, a looking unto the Lord.
There is something filial in this; something heavenly and spiritual;
not the bold presumption of the daring, nor the despairing fears of
the desponding; but something beyond both the one and the
other—equally remote from the rashness of presumption, and from the
horror of despair. There is a mingling of holy affection connected
with this trust, springing out of a reception of past favours,
insuring favours to come; and all linked with a simple hanging and
depending of the soul upon the Lord, because He is what He is.
There is a looking to, and relying upon the Lord, because we have
felt Him to be the Lord; and because we have no other refuge.
And
why have we no other refuge? Because poverty has driven us out of
false refuges. It is a safe spot, though not a comfortable one, to be
where David was, "Refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul"
(Psalm
142:4). And until refuge fails us in man, in self, in the
world, in the church, there is no looking to Christ as a divine
refuge. But when we come to this spot, "Thou
art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living"
(Psalm
142:5)—"if I perish I will perish at Thy
feet—my faith centres in Thee—all I have and all I
expect to have, flows from Thy bounty, I have nothing
but what Thou freely givest to me, the vilest of the
vile"—this is trust. And where this trust is, there will
be a whole army of desires at times pouring themselves into the bosom
of the Lord; there will be a whole array of pantings and longings
venting themselves into the bosom of "Immanuel,
God with us."
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802 – 1869 A.D.)
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