There is no more distinguishing mark of a true believer than this, that he commends the Saviour to others, even if he is in darkness with no sense of Christ’s presence. To the unawakened there is no form nor comeliness in Christ—no beauty that they should desire Him. Even awakened souls have no true sense of Christ’s perfect comeliness. If they saw how Christ answers their need, they could not be anxious. But to believers in darkness there is all comeliness in Christ. He is fairer than ever He was before. And when the sneering world, or cold-hearted brethren, ask: “What is thy beloved more than another beloved?” he delights to enumerate His perfections, His person, His offices, His everything; he delights to tell that “He is the chiefest among ten thousand”—”His mouth is most sweet”—Yea, “He is altogether lovely.”
A word to believers in darkness. There may be some who are walking in darkness, not having any light. Be persuaded to do as the bride did—not only to seek your Beloved, but to commend Him, by going over His perfections.
- Because this is the best of all ways to find Him. One of the chief reasons of your darkness is your want of considering Christ. Satan urges you to think of a hundred things before he will let you think about Christ. If the eye of your faith be fully turned up on a full Christ, your darkness will be gone in the instant. “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” Now, nothing so much engages your eye to look at Christ as going over His perfections to others.
- Because you will lead others to seek Him with you. Oh! dear brethren, the great reason of our having so many dark Christians nowadays is that we have so many selfish Christians. Men live for themselves. If you would live for others, then your darkness would soon flee away. Commend Christ to others, and they will go with you.
Parents, commend Him to your children; children, commend Him to your parents, and who knows but God may bless the word, even of a believer walking in darkness, that they shall cry out:
“Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women?
Whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee?”
(Song of Solomon, 6, vi).
COMFORT FOR CHRIST’S SOLDIERS
Dear children of God! that poor woman who made her way into the presence of her Lord, through the chilling atmosphere of the Pharisee’s house, and through those barriers of Pharisaism which were enough to debar her entrance:—that poor woman who was notoriously “a sinner,” when she came in contact with Jesus, when she believed His Truth, she was as righteous as David the King, or as Paul the Apostle, as righteous as any one of those, and who were one and all saved by grace, washed in atoning blood, complete in the righteousness of Him who is “Jehovah our Righteousness.” You must never lose sight of this blessed truth; you must never part from it. It is everything to the poor sinner.
The very moment you begin to measure yourselves one with another, you get away from the right standard, and then you are at sea. The righteousness of God is to be the standard by which you are to be measured.—Krause.
When men are really renewed in the spirit of their minds, their regard unto the ordinances of Divine worship is, as they are appointed of God, a blessed means of communion and intercourse between Himself in Christ and their souls. By them doth Christ communicate of His love and grace unto us; in and by them do we act faith and love on Him. It is the treasure hid in the field, which, when a man hath found, he purchaseth the whole field; but it is that he may enjoy the treasure hid therein.—Dr. Owen.
Christ is an overflowing fountain, and He would have believers to partake abundantly of what He is in them. He cannot abide that any should content themselves with a present stock of grace. Christ is not as a stream that fails, or as a channel that runs dry; Christ is not as water in a ditch, which hath no living spring to feed it; no, no; Christ is the fountain of life, He is the Chief ordinance of life that ever God set up. I know there are other means of Christ’s appointment; but if thou wilt live at the spring, and drink it there, yea, drink abundantly, according to the over-flowings of this fountain, oh, the life and grace that would come! Oh the virtue of Christ’s resurrection that (Christ’s Spirit meeting and assisting) would flow into thy soul for thy vivification.—Isaac Ambrose.
Dear child of God, consider what He hath given thee, and sent unto thee, and put into thy hand, even some of His rarest and choicest dainties from His banqueting house; some flagons of His most excellent and richest wine, which is full of spirit and life; one taste is able to cheer and revive thy heart; yea, ravish and raise thy fainting spirit with love into love, yet drink freely, the more the better; be filled with them, there is enough. Christ’s dainties are durable, His fountain is bottomless and infinite: it can never be exhausted, or drawn dry, therefore eat, O friends, and drink abundantly.—S. Richardson, 1647.
All the justified saints must take down their top-sail, and go to Heaven halting, and that they carry their bolts and fetters of in-dwelling sin through the field of free grace, even to the gates of glory; Christ daily washing, and we daily defiling, to the end that grace may be grace.—Ambrose.