As long as souls are occupied with themselves or their feelings, they are sure to be subject to doubts and fears, which are a clear evidence that they are still expecting some good from the flesh. But
“the flesh profiteth nothing.”
“In me,” says the Apostle, “(that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing.” (Rom. 7:18.)
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and remains incorrigible flesh as long as we live upon the earth. As surely as you expect anything good from the flesh, the law condemns, and the conscience is burdened with a feeling of short-coming and a sense of sin. Hence come doubts and fears, and the cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Many stop here for years, living in wretchedness. Are you one, my reader? What is the remedy?
Look by faith to Christ from self, and add with the Apostle, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 7:25.) Deliverance will be the result, and you will be enabled to say with him also, “We are always confident” (2 Cor. 5:6), instead of continually doubting and fearing.
“I am full of doubts and fears at times,” said one, “because I feel I still sin; and then I think that I cannot be a child of God, and that I have lost what I had, and must be saved again.”
“How many sins do you think that you commit in a day—ten?”
“O, more than that.”
“Well, let us say three—that is a very low average—one in thought, one in word, and one in deed. That makes twenty-one in a week, or over a thousand in a year. So that, according to your doctrine, you must be saved again and again and again, a thousand times every year, all the way to the glory.”
“O, that is stupid, isn’t it?” was the reply. “Yes, indeed it is.”
The perfect love of God casts out all fear.
(1 John 4:18)