Salvation
"Hold
Thou
me up, and I shall be safe."
-PSALM
119:117 [KJV]
We
are surrounded with snares; temptations lie spread every moment in
our path. These snares and temptations are so suitable to the lusts
of our flesh, that we shall infallibly fall into them, and be
overcome by them but
for the restraining providence or the preserving grace of God.
The Christian sees this; the Christian feels this. He has had,
it may be, a bitter experience of the past. He has seen how, from
want of walking in godly fear, for want of circumspection and
standing upon his watch-tower, he has been entangled in times past in
the snares of death. He has rued the consequences, felt the misery of
having slipped and fallen; the iron has entered into his soul; he has
been in the prison house, in bondage, in darkness, and death; in
consequence of his transgressions he has been "the fool"
described in Psalm 108, as "afflicted because of his iniquity,"
and can re-echo Hart's mournful description of his own miserable
folly: "That mariner's mad part I played, Who sees, yet strikes
the shelf."
As,
then, a burnt child dreads the fire, so he dreads the consequence of
being left for a moment to himself; and the higher his assurance
rises and the clearer his views become of the grace of God which
bringeth salvation, and of his own interest in it, the more is he
afraid that he shall fall. If his eyes are more widely opened to see
the purity of God, the blessedness of Christ, and the efficacy of
atoning blood, the more also does he see of the evil of sin, and his
own weakness and inability to stand against temptation in his own
strength. And all these feelings combine to raise up the earnest cry,
"Hold Thou me up, and I shall
be safe."
-Gospel
report by preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
January
24th, EARS FROM HARVESTED SHEAVES
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