Encouragement in Christ JESUS ~ 30 October, 2024 A.D.

"For I know that this shall turn to my salvation, through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." -Philippians 1:19 [KJV]

Blessed frame of mind! when, like Paul, however unpromising circumstances are, to be able to say, `I know that this exercise, be it what it may, is among the all things which work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose!' My soul, do thou, once for all, mark down this one certain and never-to-be-questioned truth: that thy God, thy Jesus, hath but one end in view from all the providences He appoints to His people, and is invariably and everlastingly promoting it, however to thy apprehension at times, things seem to run counter. And when thou hast settled this in thy mind, as a certain fixed principle, next take into the account all, or (at least as thou canst not know all,) some of the many foundations on which the certainty, for the accomplishment of a final issue of good to the people of God, rests.

Think of the ability, power, wisdom, and purpose of thy Lord. Call to mind the grace, the love, the fixed affection, Jesus bears, and from everlasting hath always borne to His people. Then recollect the plentiful means in His own almighty hand, which He hath, to make all purposes minister to His will, and all creatures to become instruments of His pleasure. And when thou hast studied, and well studied these blessed things in Christ's school, under the supply of the Spirit's teaching, make application of the doctrine to every event in the dispensations of thy Lord's providences and grace, which thou meetest with through life.

Art thou afflicted in soul; in sickness of body; in want or weakness; with inward trials, or outward evils; tempted by sin, or tempted by Satan? Jesus knows all, appoints all, is carrying thee through all, and will finally bless thee in all. The enjoyment of ordinances, or interruption of ordinances; heart-straitenings in prayer, or enlargement in prayer; in short, all things, past, present, and future; all circumstances, times, and occasions; the blessings of heaven, yea, the very malice of hell, Jesus will over-rule, arrange, direct, and order; that, like the hidden springs of a machine, a beautiful design is in the whole, and not a pin could be left out without injury to the work.

Learn these things, my soul, and get, through grace, into the practical use of those lessons, and then wilt thou be able to say, and with the same degree of assurance as Paul did, let thy trials be what they may, under every one of them; I know that this shall turn to my salvation, through the prayer of the faithful, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

 

-preacher Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.) 

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