IF NEEDS BE...

"Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." -I Peter 1:6 [KJV]

As everything by nature in us is contrary to the life of God, there is a needs be for manifold trials and temptations to bring us out of those things which are opposed to the grace of God, and to conform us to the image of His dear Son. Thus we need trial after trial, and temptation upon temptation, to cure us of that worldly spirit, that carnality and carelessness, that light, trifling, and empty profession, that outside form of godliness, that spirit of pride and self-righteousness, that resting short of divine teachings, heavenly blessings, and spiritual manifestations, that settling on our lees and being at ease in Zion, that being mixed up with all sorts of professors, that ignorance of the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear Him—all which marks of death we see so visibly stamped upon the profession of the day.  

There is a needs-be to be brought out of all this false, deceptive, hypocritical, and presumptuous profession, whether high or low, sound in doctrine or unsound, so as to be made simple and sincere, honest and upright, tender and teachable, and to know something experimentally of that broken and contrite spirit in which the Lord himself condescends to dwell. And as the Lord works this spirit of humility and love for the most part through trials and temptations, there is a needs-be for every one, of whatever nature it may be, or from whatever quarter it may come. 

-J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.) 


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