SUPPORT GSPS |
The Gold, Silver, Precious Stones team appreciates your contributions in support of this work. Please send your correspondence to:
Gold, Silver, Precious Stones
P.O. Box 240
Harvest, AL 35749
|
|
|
|
Roman viii. 28
THE PURPOSE OF GOD brought to view in the passage
above, must be to God’s children a source of great consolation.
The call, too, we are aware is a subject of interest to those who
have heard the voice of the Son of God and do live. Our motive
however at present is to mention a few of the all things which
work together for good to them that love God.
First, the providences of God work together for good to
them that love him. This is proven by the care he manifested in
providing for the necessities of all his children, in every circumstance
and situation. Whether in poverty or riches, in sickness
or health, in infancy or age, at home or among strangers, he
supplies all our need—not always, however according to our
wishes; for as our children often desire things to please their
fancy which would not be for their good nor ours, we being
little children, are not proper judges of what will be for our
good. If God should give us all we desire, we should desire
more, and our desires would increase faster than our substance,
and I greatly fear that it would not be for our good: for, “They
that will be rich fall into temptation, and a snare, and into
many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men into destruction
and perdition.” Adversity is as necessary for our good as
prosperity: therefore God has set the one over against the other.
Secondly, God’s grace works for good to them that love him.
Every sinner, before he obtains an evidence of God’s forgiving
grace, is brought to yield every particle of Arminianism and cry
God be merciful to me a sinner! Yet, strange as it may seem, as
soon as we feel the quickening influence of God’s Spirit, and are
delivered from that guilt and horror of mind that lay so heavily
upon us, and are brought to gaze on the beauty of God and
godliness, we begin to act upon principles. These, however, are
more in promises than acts,—such as, we will nevermore sin
against God: we will always live faithfully in his service, and set
good examples in the world. This is Arminian in its nature; because
that we, instead of saying, “If the Lord will, we shall live
and do this or that,” depend upon our own will, strength and
zeal for the accomplishment of our promises.
Here God, for our good, begins a course of discipline with
us, in order that we may grow in grace (not in works) and in
the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. He therefore leaves us
to try us as he did Hezekiah, that we may know what is in us, or
that we may, act out what is in us. As soon as he hides himself
from us, as he did from Job, all our promises fail us, our experience
appears like a delusion, and we fear that we shall never
more see the light. When our own strength is all gone, and we
are about to give up all for lost, the Lord again causes his countenance to shine upon us: then all is well with us again. And
now, although we have had another evidence of our weakness,
we immediately begin again to make Arminian promises: (Now
we will certainly serve God all our days, &c.) as such resolutions
were better than the first we made, and as though we
would be more likely to fulfil them, the Lord, who will not give
his glory to another, will have us to understand that we are kept
(not by our own faithfulness, but) by the power of God.
|
|
