Watts conveys himself, also to build all of us break out towards the earnest words of brand new regal psalmist, “My personal soul thirsts to own Thee O Jesus, yea, on living Jesus
? To have, in the event the strolling which have God, because you say, is such a keen honorable and you can lovely point, whence is it the name of the people on the strategy is shed out as the worst, and each where verbal facing? Just how happens it to pass they are frequently affected, attracted, destitute, and tormented? Is it brand new prize, which the fresh fulfillment, you discuss about it?” I answer, Yes. Prevent some time; end up being perhaps not very hasty. Court perhaps not predicated on ??appearance, but legal righteous wisdom, and all of could be better. It is true, i recognize the fresh new “folks of like that” possess its names cast aside because the worst, and they are almost everywhere spoken facing. But by just who? From the opponents of the very higher Jesus. And you may do you believe it is disgrace getting verbal evil out-of by her or him? Blessed getting God, we have not too discovered Christ. All of our royal Grasp possess pronoun- ced people “privileged, that are persecuted, while having all of the technique of worst verbal against him or her falsely.” He’s demanded him or her “in order to celebrate and get surpassing happy,” for it is the right of their discipleship, and this the reward is great inside the heaven. The guy himself try thus addressed. And certainly will here be an elevated prize put-upon a creature, than to become concurred to your actually-blessed Guy regarding Jesus?
And Goodness is the same today as he ended up being, and you may requires worry therefore to help you sweeten sufferings and disorders together with his like, that Their disciples pick, of the pleased experience, that since the conditions abound, consolations carry out alot more are plentiful
Then, it’s similarly true that individuals of way was seem to stricken, lured, destitute, and you can tormented. But what of all this? Does this destroy the pleasure of walking with God? No, in no wise; for those that walk with God are enabled, through Christ strengthening them, to joy even in tribulation, and to rejoice when they fall into divers temptations. And I believe I may appeal to the experience of all true and close walkers with God, whether or not their suffering times have not frequently been their sweetest times, and that they enjoyed most of God when most cast out and despised by men? This we find was the case of Christ’s primitive servants, when threatened by the Jewish Sanhedrin, and commanded to preach no more in the name of Jesus; they rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for the sake of Jesus. Paul and Silas sang praises even in a dungeon; and the face of Stephen, that glorious martyr of the Christian church, shone like the face of an angel. And therefore these objections, instead of destroying, do only enforce the motives before urged, to excite you to walk with God. But supposing the objections were just, and walkers with God were as despicable and unhappy as you would represent them to be; yet I have a third motive to offer, which if weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, will over-weigh all objections, and it is this:
3rd, that there surely is a paradise after it walking. For, to use the words of pious bishop Beveridge, “Though the way be narrow, yet it is not long: and though the gate be strait, yet it opens into everlasting life.” Enoch found it so. He walked with God on earth, and God took him to sit down with him for ever in the kingdom of heaven. Not that we are to expect to be taken away as he was: no, I suppose we shall all die the common death of all men. But after death, the spirits of those who have walked with God shall return to God that gave them; and at the morn- ing of the resurrection, soul and body shall be for ever with the Lord; their bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body, and their souls filled with all the fullness of God. They shall sit on thrones; they shall judge angels. They shall be enabled to sustain an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, even that glory which Jesus Christ enjoyed with the Father before the world began. “O gloriam quantam et qualem,” said the learned and pious Arndt, just before he bowed down his head, and gave up the ghost. The very thought of it is enough to make us “wish to leap our seventy years,” as good Dr. When shall I come to appear in the presence of my God?” I wonder not that a sense of this, when under a more than ordinary irradiation and influx of divine life and love, causes ????some persons to faint away, and even for a time lose the power of their senses. A less sight than this, even the sight of Solomon’s glory, made Sheba’s queen astonished; and Daniel, when admitted to a distant view of this excellent glory, fell down at the feet of the angel as one dead. And if a distant view of this glory be so excellent, what must the actual possession of it be? If https://www.datingranking.net/pentecostal-dating/ the first fruits are so glorious, how infinitely must the harvest exceed in glory?