A ROMAN Catholic was going along a road one day, when a gentleman overtook him and heard him say, “Whenever shall I get enough?”
“What is the matter?” inquired the kindhearted fellow-traveler. And the poor man explained that the priest had told him that he had to find so much money before he could be free from the penalty of his sins.
The gentleman then told him that he had something in his pocket which would soon settle that matter. Pulling out his Bible, he read, “THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST HIS SON CLEANSETH US FROM ALL SIN” (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)), and told him that in the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, he might see the complete discharge of all his sins. “WITHOUT SHEDDING OF BLOOD IS NO REMISSION.”
A man dying from thirst could not have drunk in refreshing water more eagerly than this poor man drank in these words of life. As the light from heaven shone into this sin-distressed soul he said, “Let us get to the other side of the hedge and kneel down and thank Him.”
Oh! the deep heart-misery of trying to be what we can never be, trying to do what we can never do, and even trying to feel what we can never feel.
Thousands of sincere souls besides Romanists are making this serious mistake. They think they must be something, or do something, or feel something to make themselves more fit for God to accept them.
How very satisfied they would be if they only thought that in themselves they were more fit for God—fit to stand in His holy presence.
Many, because they cannot attain to what they would like to be, fall into the awful quagmire of fatalism and consequent despair.
Little is known of the deep heart-burnings and heart-breakings and misery that many are passing through, even at this moment, as the result of wrong thoughts of God.
Such would like to be better than they feel themselves to be. But every effort to attain their ideal only breaks down, to their great grief and utter disappointment.
Besides, sin having blinded man with regard to God, it has made him utterly powerless to meet his own state.
ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD.
It was said to Job years ago, “Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee” (Job 22:2121Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. (Job 22:21)). This was wise advice, but Job was slow to take it. He was in the dark about God and suffered misery untold in his spirit in consequence.
Moral darkness is blindness as to God. Blindness as to God is the blindness in which man is naturally. Job, in the end, got out of the darkness into the light of the blessed God.
As the happy result to himself, he justified God in all His ways with him and condemned himself.
It is not what I am, or what I can be for God, that is thy, basis of my peace. It is the knowledge of what God is always toward me in Christ. God has come out to me in Christ in the fullest grace. The knowledge of this gives me the fullest and happiest assurance.
All is right on God’s side. When I learn this it makes all right on my side as regards my present enjoyment. All the distance that sin has brought in between the creature and God has been removed in the death of Christ. The vail of the Temple was rent in twain from top to bottom, by the unseen hand of God Himself, when Jesus cried, “IT IS FINISHED.”
The distance is gone; and death, which is man’s enemy and Satan’s power, is broken. God having been propitiated has now come forth in the riches of His grace to bless man. There is nothing now but blessing in His heart for the creature that turned against Him. This is grace. Grace imputes nothing. If it did it would not be grace. “Grace that bath conditions, and grace that is fettered with precautions, is no grace.”
If God has not made all right on His own side, I cannot. Even with His help I could not make all my past right. How could I blot out all my guilty past and give myself a standing―a righteous standing in the presence of a pure and righteous God?
The fact that God is acting in grace toward men shows man’s incapacity of meeting his own state or the claims of God upon him. It is now the reign of grace, else God would have to deal unsparingly with men about their sins. That day will come, but it is not yet, thank God!
The reign of grace is through a risen Christ Who died for the sins of men. He glorified God in His death for sin. God has now put Him in the highest place in heaven in consequence. The death of Christ makes it now possible for God to act thus toward all classes and conditions of men. Grace is no respecter of persons.
How infinite in value the sacrifice must be! It was an Infinite Person who sacrificed Himself in love to us. He was “GOD over all, blessed forever.” He was as truly man made of a woman. Infinite love was behind it all, working for man’s richest, everlasting blessing.
No one but God could or even would act thus! But He has not only acted thus for our blessing, but for the display of Himself in all that He is morally. Love is displayed to me the sinner. Righteousness is displayed against my hateful sins.
The death of Jesus is the bringing of both love and justice into perfect harmony.
I am not blessed at the expense of righteousness, but on the ground of justice being perfectly vindicated.
PEACE IS MADE FOR ME―perfect peace. But peace is made by the blood of the cross of Jesus. “Having made peace by the blood of His cross.” He gave up His sacred life to God in atonement to make my peace. The claims of the throne against me are all settled by the suffering and death of Another for me.
This is where the love of God shines out in all its depth and greatness towards me. God “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” “Who was delivered for our (MY) offenses, and was raised again for our (MY) justification.”
Thus I get acquainted with God. I learn His heart, I see His attitude toward me. I learn in the cross of His beloved Son all His mind and disposition towards me. He cannot be against me when He gave His own Son up to death for me. He must be my Best Friend.
The reason of all the unrest around us today is that men are in utter darkness―ignorance of God. What will dispel this darkness? Light―the light of God that has been shown out to me in the death of Christ. What will dispel the ignorance? Knowledge—the knowledge through God’s holy word of His unchanging attitude towards me in Christ.
THOUGHTS OF PEACE.
He said to Israel, whose conduct had not been good, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jer. 29:1111For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (Jeremiah 29:11)). He calls Himself THE GOD OF PEACE. Judgment is His strange work. If He must judge men because they ignore His claims and reject His grace in Christ, He will not find pleasure in it.
Oh! that men would banish hard thoughts of God out of their minds by letting the thoughts of His love into them. What a mighty revolution these thoughts make in the minds of all who allow them a place!
He is now proclaiming peace by Jesus Christ. He now assumes a peaceful attitude towards all men. As I learn this I enter into peace for present enjoyment. Job was told to “BE AT PEACE.” Not peace with himself, but peace with God. As I enter into the knowledge of all that has been done for me on the cross, where my sins were all put away, my peace forever made with God, I become thoroughly happy.
If I am anxious and distressed about my unfitness for God and trying to remedy my own state and only learn my weakness and sinfulness thereby, if I turn to Him in my failure, He points me to Christ in Whom is no failure, Who is all perfection.
HE IS OUR PEACE.
It is by Jesus that God has made Himself known to men. It is by Him He offers to be on terms of peace with men. All who receive Him and rest on His finished atoning work are at peace with God. He is the Mediator between God and men. God has come near to men in His Son, as Man. Through His Son, as Man, we draw near to God.
As I look at Christ now in heaven at God’s right hand, I learn God’s estimate of His blessed Son. I learn also His estimate of His accomplished work. I see in that work, and in the One Who did the work, what God has found for Himself. The place of supreme power in which Christ now sits is the declaration, before men, angels and devils, of God’s value of the work of Christ.
As I learn that, I cease to be concerned about my own unfitness and look at Christ’s perfect fitness. HE IS FIT for the expression of the brightest glory of God. As Man He lives in all the holy love of God. The glory of God is the outshining of His nature, which is holy love. Christ’s fitness for the place He fills is my fitness to be there.
“God is not satisfied with you,” I said to a person once. She was in deep distress and could not understand me. She had been for a long time on the line of trying to make herself fit for God. Her soul anxiety was very real, I could see.
After waiting some time I said again to her, “God is satisfied with another Person, not with you―with Jesus. I have been in the enjoyment of peace for a number of years, and all my enjoyment flows from knowing God’s perfect satisfaction with Jesus instead of me.” Her eyes were opened and peace filled her heart.
I may change, but there never is any change in Jesus. He made my peace and is my peace. There never is any change in God’s estimation of Him or of the work He did which made my peace. I find my happiness in resting where God rests.
“That which can shake the cross
May shake the peace it made.”
Nothing can shake the work of the cross, therefore my peace and the peace of every believer is forever secure.
A WORD TO DOUBTERS.
Anxious reader, if you really desired at any time to be thoroughly miserable, you would only have to look long and deeply into your own heart. If you wanted to be continually distracted, you would only have to look at everybody around you for your desired satisfaction. But if you would be filled with peace and inexpressible gladness without the smallest admixture of disappointment, you have only to look up to heaven in the faith of your soul and see Jesus there as the very delight of the heart of God. He now appears “in the presence of God for us.” His place in heaven declares that He is triumphant. The victory is won and never can be lost. We triumph in His triumphs.
There is abundant proof of evil within. The flesh is there in all its unchanged and unchangeable character. Cease your efforts to mend it. You never will.
Fickleness and feebleness are all around you. Therefore “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” (Isa. 2:2222Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? (Isaiah 2:22)). In Christ there is the most considerate love. In Him there is greatness of strength, and willingness to help. In Him are inexhaustible resources. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Prove it for yourself. Why not? “O taste and see that the Lord is good.... There is no want to them that fear Him” (Psa. 34:8, 98O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. 9O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. (Psalm 34:8‑9)). “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him” (Ps. 11:12).
P. W.