FAITH Looks to Eternal & Precious Promises

"These all died in faith." -Hebrews 11:13 [KJV]

An officer in the Navy, who held me exceedingly in derision on account of religion, was taken dangerously ill. To my great surprise, he sent for me. I found him in distress of soul: spoke freely to him of our lost estate, of Christ’s love and salvation, and prayed with him. He wept sore: clapping his hands to his breast, he cried out, “O, my God! have I got a soul?” As though he had never known it before. Turning to the place where I kneeled, he said, “Where have I lived, that I never heard these things before? O I shall never forget what I have heard this night!” I visited him to his last moments, and trust he died in the faith, and hope to see him in glory. 

“Heaven is a house full of the miracles of Christ’s free-grace,” says one. There is the once idolatrous Manasseh; the murdering, adulterous David; the persecuting Saul; the Christ-denying Peter, etc. O my God, shall wretched I be there? Yes, if I die in the faith of Christ. My vileness, sinfulness, and unworthiness do but, as it were, qualify me for Christ and His free grace. Christ, by His free grace, qualifies me for heaven. 

See the nature of this faith. (1st.) It looks to precious promises. Though seen afar off; yet it brings assurance of their existence into the mind, and the soul embraces them. O Christian, when you complain of your faith, you forget the great and precious promises, which are the ground and support of it. 

(2d.) It not only eyes Christ in the promises, but it receives Christ, In Whom are all the promises, yea and amen, to the glory of God, (II Corinthians 1:20.) O when Christ dwells in the heart by faith!—What then? 

(3d.) We confess ourselves strangers and pilgrims in the earth. We see we have a heavenly inheritance: we are only passing through this world to it. This world is not our home. We are not of the world. Our hearts are above the world. Our souls long to be at home with our Father, God; our elder Brother, Christ; and our brethren in glory. 

For, (4th.) with Abraham, we see the day of Christ. He saw the first coming of Messiah, long before His advent. We see by faith His second coming, to take us to Himself in glory: hence we rejoice. 

(5th.) Consider the comfort of living, and the joy of dying in this faith. It realizes heaven and glory to the soul. Hope is its constant attendant. By faith and hope in the promises, love springs up in the heart to the Promiser. Thus the sinner is fit for the enjoyment of God. Die when he may, he dies in faith—dies in the Lord, and shall live eternally with the Lord. “By grace ye are saved, through faith.” -Ephesians 2:8

 

‘Tis sweet to live by faith in Christ, 

In peace with God above: 

False hope and sin we do resist, 

For faith does work by love. 

Soon we must die—then we shall prove 

The precious joy of faith, 

Safely in everlasting love, 

To breathe our latest breath.

 

-preacher Wm. Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)

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