Unfaithfulness and Faithfulness

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
" By their fruits ye shall know them."
It may be asked, why put " Unfaithfulness" first? Because, alas! it is so much more common than "Faithfulness." How subtle is self and its workings! How needful not only to start from Gilgal " (where judgment on the flesh was carried out and the reproach of Egypt rolled away, Josh. 5.—for us the practical application of the cross, see 2 Cor. 4:1010Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:10)), but to return thereto, especially after any victory that grace may have enabled us to obtain. How apt is a feeling of self-gratulation to creep over the heart, and unless we are consciously in the Lord's presence it is not detected. It is not always we can detect the enemy who may be using a friend to puff up the flesh in us, like what is recorded of the well known and (through grace) faithful preacher Rowland Hill, who, on one occasion after preaching, when a friend came up and said how beautifully he had preached, replied, " So the devil whispered to me before I left the pulpit." Thus Satan was detected and defeated. How sad when a preacher (as alas! one has sometimes known to be the case) even when speaking of Christ and the truth, does so in such a way that the preacher is the prominent thing left on the mind of those listening. The following incident gives a good illustration of what I refer to:
"Two godly young men went up to London (England) a few years ago, determined to hear some of the leading preachers of the metropolis. One night they wended their way to a well known church, and listened spell-bound to the masterly discourse of its minister. On their way out, they heard various remarks: ' What a great preacher he is! What a powerful sermon we have had! What an intellectual treat! ' And so forth. The next evening they found their way to another place, and the preacher took for his text the last clause of Heb. 2:1010For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10), To make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.' After the meeting was over, they heard one say, What a Savior we have! ' And, further on another said to a friend, What a gracious Lord we have heard about to-night!' and a third one of a group exclaimed What an all-sufficient and glorious Redeemer is made known to us in the blessed Gospel!' These young men wrote home to their families, and gave their impressions of the two services in these words-' In the first sermon we heard, the Lord Jesus Christ was lost in the preacher; in the second the preacher' was lost in the glory of the Savior! "
But there is another thing still more painful, if possible, and that is when prayer is going on, and the one who at the moment is the mouthpiece instead of being really " inside the veil " and consciously in the presence of God and addressing Him-attempts to produce an effect oh those present. Two, Scriptures come before me in this connection: " I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me," and " Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire "(Lev. 10:33Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace. (Leviticus 10:3); Heb. 12:28, 2928Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29For our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28‑29)).