Walk in Truth & From Sin Depart: Help us, LORD JESUS

"Keep thy heart with all diligence." -Proverbs 4:23 [KJV]

Camden reports, that “Redwald, king of the east Saxons, the first prince of this nation who was baptized; yet, in the same church, allowed an altar for Christ, and another for the heathen idols.” How many professors imitate him! Their hearts are not whole with Christ. They are sons of folly. This a charge of wisdom to all her children. Consider, there is but one object can make your heart happy. There are a thousand that promise happiness, but only give misery. Keep thy heart in [the sense of] the love of God, (Jude 1:21.) 

Give all diligence to this blessed end. Unless you do, vanity may prevail in the mind, error in the understanding, perverseness in the will, the affections may be inordinately set upon other objects, than thy Lord; and so thy conscience will contract fresh guilt. Then thou mayest be left to bemoan a hard heart, and an absent God: darkness may surround thee; fears and terrors haunt thee; the ghost of long departed sins may arise and distress thee; the prospect of death and eternity appear horrible to thee: the day of judgment most dreadful, while Satan will triumph over thee, with “There, there! so would I have it.” 

Then may thy heart upbraid thee, with, All this is come upon thee, because thou wast not diligent, to watch its motions, to keep out the enemy, and to keep up sweet, communion and holy fellowship with thy best Friend, thy loving Saviour. O! say not with some, (who have more of the notion of Christianity in the head, than the experience of it in the heart) Why all this legal stuff about keeping the heart? Hath not the Lord said, “I will keep it night and day, lest any hurt it?” (Isaiah 27:3.) 

Yes, blessed be His name, He has. Would you therefore abuse His love? Behold, I show you a mystery. But it is the mystery of iniquity, which works in such, causing them to oppose the declaration and promises of the Lord, to His commands and exhortations. The former are taken up as a plea, for such corrupt notions. Because you depend on the Lord’s providence for preservation, would you be careless of the doors of your house, and not use diligence and care to keep out thieves? 

Lord, stir up my soul to give all diligence. Though, not for our diligence, we shall be saved; yet, in a way of diligence, we shall escape many snares and evils, and enjoy safety and comfort. “The soul of the diligent shall be made fat,” (Proverbs 13:4.) Such shall feed upon heavenly truth, grace, and love. Their souls shall prosper, and be in good health; whilst careless triflers with God and their own souls, shall go to rest with dejection, rise with distress, and live in awful suspense. 

 

No peace of soul, no joy of heart, 

Unless we watchful are 

To walk in truth, from sin depart, 

And shun each treach’rous snare. 

Then, O my soul, would’st thou enjoy 

The smile of thy dear Christ? 

Whatever would thy peace destroy, 

Be careful to resist.

 

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

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