All Saving Truth is in the Word of God
"Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me." -Psalm 25:5 [KJV]
What wonderful things does God sometimes shew us in His word! How our eyes sometimes seem to be anointed with eye-salve "to behold wondrous things out of God's law!" (Psalm 119:18.) Sometimes in reading a chapter we see such beauty, such fulness, such sweetness, such glory in it, that it seems, as it were, to fill our very hearts. And what our souls want (I am sure my soul wants it, and it is my frequent cry to the Lord in secret that I may feel it) is to have this blessed truth taken out of the word of God, and applied to and sealed upon our hearts by the Spirit of God.
I want no new revelation. Day by day I seem more satisfied of
this, and more established in it—that all saving truth is in the word of
God. I seek no visions, I desire no dreams, I want no airy
speculations; but when my heart is brought to lie at the footstool of
mercy, this seems to be the panting and breathing of my soul—to know
experimentally and spiritually the blessed truths that my eyes see in
the word of God, to have them opened up to my understanding, brought
into my heart, grafted into my soul, applied to my conscience, and
revealed with such supernatural and heavenly power that the truth as it
is in Jesus may be in me a solemn and saving reality, that it may bring
with it such a divine blessing as to fill me with grace, enlarge my
heart into the enjoyment of the gospel, gird up my loins with spiritual
strength, give and increase faith, communicate and encourage hope, shed
abroad and draw forth love, and fill me with joy and peace in believing.
"I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given
you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you," Luke 11:9. Wherever there is true prayer, there is importunity. Wherever
the Lord brings trials upon the soul, He pours out upon it the spirit of
grace and supplications. He thus encourages and enables the soul to be
importunate with Him. The blessings and benefits of perseverance and
importunity in prayer the Lord has brought prominently before us in two
parables—one, of the man in bed with his children, who would not get up
and relieve his friend, but yet was overcome by his importunity; and the
other, of the woman, who had a cause at issue, and went before the
judge, who feared not God, neither regarded man; yet by her continual
going to him, overcame him at last by her importunity (Luke 11:5-8;
18:1-7).
Thus importunity and perseverance form the very feature of true
prayer. If the child of God has a burden—if he is labouring under a
strong temptation—if his soul is passing through some pressing trial—he
is not satisfied with merely going to a throne of grace and coming away.
There is at such times and seasons, as the Lord enables, real
importunity; there is a holy wrestling; there are fervent desires; there
are unceasing groans; there is a labouring to enter into rest; there is
a struggling after deliverance; there is a crying unto the Lord, until He appears and manifests Himself in the soul.
-preacher J.C. Philpot (1802-1869 A.D.)
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