"I have much
people in this city." - Acts 18:10 |
This should be a great encouragement
to try to do good, since God has among the vilest of the vile,
the most reprobate, the most debauched and drunken, an elect
people who must be saved. When you take the Word to them, you
do so because God has ordained you to be the messenger of life
to their souls, and they must receive it, for so the decree of
predestination runs. They are as much redeemed by blood as the
saints before the eternal throne.
They are Christ's
property, and yet perhaps they are lovers of the ale-house,
and haters of holiness; but if Jesus Christ purchased them he
will have them. God is not unfaithful to forget the price
which his Son has paid. He will not suffer his substitution to
be in any case an ineffectual, dead thing. Tens of thousands
of redeemed ones are not regenerated yet, but regenerated they
must be; and this is our comfort when we go forth to them with
the quickening Word of God.
Nay, more, these ungodly
ones are p rayed for by Christ before the throne. "Neither
pray I for these alone," saith the great Intercessor, "but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word." Poor,
ignorant souls, they know nothing about prayer for themselves,
but Jesus prays for them.
Their names are on his
breastplate, and ere long they must bow their stubborn knee,
breathing the penitential sigh before the throne of grace.
"The time of figs is not yet." The predestinated moment has
not struck; but, when it comes, they shall obey, for God will
have his own; they must, for the Spirit is not to be withstood
when he cometh forth with fulness of power-they must become
the willing servants of the living God.
"My people
shall be willing in the day of my power." "He shall justify
many. " "He shall see of the travail of his soul. " "I will
divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong. "
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"Even we
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to
wit, the redemption of our body." - Romans 8:23
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This groaning is universal among the
saints: to a greater or less extent we all feel it. It is not
the groan of murmuring or complaint: it is rather the note of
desire than of distress. Having received an earnest, we desire
the whole of our portion; we are sighing that our entire
manhood, in its trinity of spirit, soul, and body, may be set
free from the last vestige of the fall; we long to put off
corruption, weakness, and dishonour, and to wrap ourselves in
incorruption, in immortality, in glory, in the spiritual body
which the Lord Jesus will bestow upon his people.
We
long for the manifestation of our adoption as the children of
God. "We groan," but it is "within ourselves." It is not the
hypocrite's groan, by which he would make men believe that he
is a saint because he is wretched.
Our sighs are
sacred things, too hallowed for us to tell abroad. We keep our
longings to our Lord alone. Then the apostle says we are
"waiting," by which we l earn that we are not to be petulant,
like Jonah or Elijah, when they said, "Let me die"; nor are we
to whimper and sigh for the end of life because we are tired
of work, nor wish to escape from our present sufferings till
the will of the Lord is done.
We are to groan for
glorification, but we are to wait patiently for it, knowing
that what the Lord appoints is best. Waiting implies being
ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to
open it and take us away to himself.
This "groaning"
is a test. You may judge of a man by what he groans after.
Some men groan after wealth-they worship Mammon; some groan
continually under the troubles of life-they are merely
impatient; but the man who sighs after God, who is uneasy till
he is made like Christ, that is the blessed man. May God help
us to groan for the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection
which he will bring to us.
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