The Heart Perfumed
(No. 3339)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1913.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING
SEPTEMBER 13, 1866.
"The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who
was given unto us." Romans 5:5.
As one reads the opening verses of this Chapter, one cannot help
saying, "What marvelous treasures are those which belong to the people
of God!" Hezekiah took the Babylonian ambassadors through all his
varied treasure houses and herein he did evil–but if you can conduct
your mind through the spiritual treasure houses and the minds of your
friends in the same direction, you will do well. What is the wealth of
God's people? Who can count it? It is wondrous and beyond conception!
The Apostle seems to have taken up a whole handful of brilliants in the
first verses of this Chapter and he now holds them up, one by one, and
lets them glitter in the light, no not merely a handful plucked at
random, but they seem to be striving together, for one follows on after
the other! "Therefore" is the link which connects justification with
"peace," and then there is a connection between this "peace" and
"access," and from this "access" to God we go on to "rejoice in hope of
the glory of God." And when we have got as far as this string of
pearls, the Apostle adds, "And not only so," and then he holds up a
cluster–and when he has spoken of them he adds that "tribulation works
patience, and patience experience, and"–another, "and"–"experience
hope," and then another, "and"–"and hope makes not ashamed." And then
at the end of this string ofjewels he brings up the language of the
text–"Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit who was given unto us."
I suppose the allusion in the text is to the pouring out of water–the
love of God being to us like a spring shut up, a fountain sealed until
the Holy Spirit comes–and then the love of God flows in, a pure and
crystal stream being shed abroad in our hearts!
But perhaps another figure may suit us as well tonight. The love of God
is comparable to precious spikenard, but it is in the alabaster box.
The Holy Spirit opens that box and then the sweet perfume is "shed
abroad" in our hearts, not merely "shed," but, "shed abroad." Not only
poured out as the oil was on Aaron's head, but running down to the
skirts of his garments and perfuming all the room, just as it did in
his case.
Now observe, to some extent we can shed abroad the love of God in this
house. While the preacher is preaching of it, there will be a sweet
savor Christ. There is, as it were, a spiritual perfume in the assembly
of the righteous whenever Jesus Christ is spoken of, for, "Your name is
as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love You." But the
text means something more than this. It is the love of God shed abroad,
not in the assembly, but in the heart. The one is the aggregate, but
this is the individual and personal sense of it–not in the house, I
say, but in the heart! The preacher sheds abroad this love when he
preaches of Christ, but he cannot shed it abroad in the heart. He can
only speak of it. He cannot bring it home to your own personal
realization. It must be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit,
but if it once gets there, the sweet perfume of it is always recognized
by your inner man. It is not the preacher–neither is it the letter of
this Book–it is the Holy Spirit who most graciously comes there to
shed abroad the love of God in your heart! Oh, see, then, how much we
are indebted to the third Person of the blessed Trinity! With what
reverence should we always speak of Him! With what rapture should we
love Him! With what devotion should we adore Him! The love of God,
itself, is, even to us, as spikenard unperceived until He brings it to
the spiritual senses and makes it sweet to us! The love of God is like
light to a blind eye until the Holy Spirit opens that eye! It is like
food and raiment to a dead man until the Holy One of Israel comes and
gives us life to enjoy these mercies. Oh, then, may the Holy Spirit now
be here in each one of us, to shed abroad the love of God in our
hearts!
I shall first, then, and for a very little time, speak of the precious
ointment which is here said to be shed abroad, namely, the love of God.
Secondly, upon the shedding of it abroad. Thirdly, upon the blessed
results of its being shed abroad in the heart and then, fourthly, upon
some matters which tend to hinder our enjoyment of the shedding abroad
of this love in our hearts. First, let us speak of–
I. THE PRECIOUS OINTMENT WHICH IS HERE SPOKEN OF–"the love of God."
Now, although I have to speak of this, yet it is a thing which, as to
its essence, is not to be spoken of. It is to be enjoyed and to be
felt, but no words can convey its unmistakable sweetness!–
"The love of Jesus, what it is None but His loved ones know." No words,
either of the pen or the tongue will ever be able to convey it either
to hearer or reader. We receive the love of God doctrinally and I think
we do well to do so. We may speak of it in various theological senses.
We may declare the love of God to be in some respects universal–for,
"His tender mercies are over all His works" and, "the Lord is good to
all."
But we may delight most of all to speak of it in its discriminating and
distinguishing character, as revealing itself in the full blaze of its
splendor to those whom He has chosen unto Himself.
I believe the preacher does well who descants upon this love of God in
its eternity, who says of it that it is an ancient thing, more ancient
than the hoary mountains, or the aged sea, who speaks of it as an
unchangeable and inimitable thing, abiding forever fast to those chosen
ones who possess it. He does well, I believe, who speaks of it as being
without an end, who shall declare in God's name that Christ, having
loved His own who were in the world, loves them to the end and that
this is but a picture of the great love which is in God our Father
towards us–that having loved us once, He will never cease to love us,
but we shall always be the object of His heart's affection. But,
Brothers, it is very easy to talkdoc-trinally about the love of God,
but you may not know anything about the love of God when you know all
that! If I were to give a description of a father's love to some poor
orphan, here, I dare say I might make him feel envious. I might make
him desirous to have something of the kind, but it would be quite
impossible by any mere words to tell him what a father's love really is
if he had never known it. It would be something like showing a skeleton
to an angel who wished to see a man. A man is something more than a set
of bones, nerves, muscles and ligatures–you cannot present the man by
any description that you may give, however anatomically correct!
Neither can you describe the love of God by merely doctri-nally giving
an outline of it, as the theologian would do, for there is vastly more
there than the mere theologian has ever learned! You know some people
have a herbarium in which they preserve specimens of various plants.
Among the Alps you are asked by persons to buy collections of the flora
of such-and-such districts. Well, you may buy them, and you will be
interested in them when you get them home, but when you turn over the
leaves and find the plants dried between the papers, they are nothing
at all like what they are as they bloom on the Alps! The gentian has
not the marvelous yellow blooms which startles you as you find it on
the side of the glaciers. It is a dry, dead thing now–you cannot
convey to your friends what the flower is really like when at home–to
know that fully you must take them to see it! So is it with
theology–it is easy to preserve the living things of the Truth of God
in a dry form, but you have not really understood them until you have
seen them in life and known them by experience!
Again, you may think about the love of God historically and what a
wonderful topic is here! Begin–where? Well, since there is no
beginning, begin where you will. Begin with the council chambers of
eternity! Begin with the purpose, the election, the Covenant, the
suretyship engagement. Then go on to the love revealing itself in the
first promise–love sparing guilty man, love manifesting itself by slow
degrees through the mist and smoke of the Mosaic ritual and, at last,
bursting into its full splendor upon the Cross in the Person of the
dying Savior! Then go on to love developing itself in our experience,
beginning by convincing us of our folly and our danger and proceeding
until it takes us into the arms of God, and puts us there forever in
the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision! But, my dear Friends, you know
reading the story of a battle cannot give you any idea of the battle
itself! Every man who has heard the sound of the cannon and has marked
the pain and misery of those who fall beneath the sword of war will
tell you that no description, however graphic, can ever make you feel
what a battle is. So with regard to the love of God. You may give the
history of it with the greatest accuracy, but when you have given it
all, you do not know what it is unless you have really tasted and
handled it in your
own soul's experience! So that if I am to speak of this ointment, I
know not where I shall find words. I must rather ask that you may have
it shed abroad in your hearts.
I think there is a way, too, of speaking of the love of God in such a
manner as to get none of it I think that arguing over practical Gospel
Truths is about the surest way of depriving you of the unction and the
savor of them. I think we ought to treat Divine Truth very much as the
true mother treated her child when they were before Solomon. Let us not
rend it. But there are some who rend it anyway, as long as they can
keep their share of it. Oh, yes, for a hair's breadth of a doctrine,
for some infinitesimal point, for one Greek article, or a half a word,
some men would mar the fellowship of the saints and drive away some of
the best-beloved of God out of their communion! They are like the
simpletons who, to find out who shall drink a jug of milk, spill it
altogether and neither of them get a drop of it. They have some choice
of rare fruit, but they trample it under their feet in a strife as to
who should eat it! Let us beware of so doing with the love of God–and
yet we have sometimes felt that we have handled themes connected with
the love of God in such a controversial spirit as to take the bloom
from the surface and the very juice from the grape.
After all, dear Friends, the best we can say of the love of God is just
this–you must know it and feel it for yourselves. But oh, the wondrous
love! Angels marvel at it! To think that God should love His sinful
creatures! You will marvel at it, even in Heaven! When you shall have
grown accustomed to wonders, this will still strike you as being a
great marvel. I believe you will–
"Sing with rapture and surprise His loving kindness in the skies"
and that when you have dived into the greatest deeps that your
intellect can bear, you will find the wondrous depth of love both
beneath and above you! When your faculties shall have been expanded to
the heavenly size and you shall be elevated to become the peer of the
angelic host, even thenyou shall feel that the love of God surpasses
your powers of knowledge and comprehension!
This, then, is all we will say concerning it, that the love of God is
the precious ointment. But secondly, the text says–
II. THIS LOVE OF GOD IS "SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS."
What does this mean? Does it mean our merely knowing that God is Love?
We must know that as a preliminary step, but oh, the shedding abroad of
the love of God is vastly more than that! It does not mean merely
prizing that love, the coming into a state of desiring after it. When
we feel that it must be a precious thing to be beloved of God. That is
a very proper state of mind, but it is not what is meant here. It is
not even believing in the love of God. That is the Christian's
privilege and should be his constant position–believing that God loves
him, resting confident that even under affliction's cross the love of
God is still the same–and that if God should hide His face, yet His
heart is not changed. But the love of God shed abroad is more than
that. It is not even the waiting for visits from God's face. It is a
sweet thing to sit at Christ' s door and wait until He comes to us. If
I may not feast at the table, I may be grateful to be allowed to hunger
and thirst to do it! Next to having Christ, a real longing after Him is
one of the most precious gifts of the Holy Spirit. But still, a great
deal more than this is meant here. It is not even remembering former
love-visits. That is often very consolatory–
"Our former favors we recount When with Him on the holy mount."
And we sometimes think on the Hermonites and the hill Mizar, and find
great comfort in the thought that He did once shine upon us–He did
once show His love to us and we rejoice greatly. But the shedding
abroad of His love is more than this. It is not the remembrance of a
thing, however precious, that is past and gone, but the deep enjoyment
of something that is now present!
What is it, then? Well, is it not just this? When the Holy Spirit
brings home to our souls a sense of the love of God, we no longer
entertain the slightest doubt–we are assured of God's love to us. We
are now far past the range of questioning. It is no longer with us–
"'Tis a point I long to know Oft it causes anxious thought."
It is there and we know it is there! I called today upon a friend whose
business calls him to the use of many perfumes. And I was shown into
his little room where there were various articles with which the
perfumes were made. Now, I can suppose him to lose one of those pots of
perfume, but I cannot suppose him to lose it and not know where it is
when it is shed abroad, for then he cannot help smelling it and
perceiving it–and then he says, "Why, here it is–the room is filled
with it." So when the love of God is shed abroad, you do not ask where
it is! Your heart is filled with it. All your passions and powers are
flavored and scented with it. It is not, "Where is it?" but, "Here it
is!" Oh, the joy of saying, "Here it is!" If all the powers of earth
and Hell combined say that God does not love me, I can deny and refute
them all, for I feel that love shed abroad in my heart! It is a clear
perception of the fact that God loves me as a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ! It is a persuasion of the Presence of the Holy Spirit, of
the sealing of the Spirit, of the Spirit bearing witness with our
spirit that we are born of God!
And even more than that. It is a thing that we hardly need a witness
about I t is a consciousness, a perception, of the love of God as it is
shed abroad in our soul, so that this love of God being shed abroad
seems to us to mean that it is deeply and intensely enjoyed. Treasure
it up in the bottle and you do not enjoy the perfume–shed it abroad
and then all the fragrance fills the room and every nostril is regaled.
Oh, there are times when we are as full of Heaven as we can hold this
side of the Jordan! And when we know Christ's love because He kisses us
"with the kisses of His mouth" and we drink deep draughts of His love,
it is better than wine! We do not look on at the feast–we feed! We do
not admire the rich clusters–we take them and drink the nectar
thereof! We do not look from Pisgah's brow, as did Moses, with the eyes
of faith–we come to the woods that drop with honey and, like Jonathan,
we dip our spear into it and feel that our eyes are enlightened as
doves' eyes. Oh, Christian! You know what this means! You have had it
in the prayer chamber when you have been alone with God! You have had
it in the depth of trouble–some of you have had it on a sick bed, some
in the furnace–and yet so manifestly was Christ with you there that
the furnace glowed with joy as with the pain you felt! You rejoiced in
Christ Jesus and as your tribulations abounded, so your consolations
also abounded. The love of God was enjoyed by you–you felt it, you
were ravished with it!
Where the love of God is shed abroad, it fills the whole man. There are
some perfumes which if you once spill but a few drops of them, you
would not only know it yourself, but everybody else would know it, too.
"Gently," said my friend, when he was showing me a certain perfume and
I was going to pour out a drop, "if you do not want to smell of that
for a month, do not do that," and as I did not particularly desire to
smell of anything for so long a time as that, I kept my fingers off! If
you could once get the love of God shed abroad in your heart, you would
be flavored by it–and when it is once shed abroad, there, it will be
there to all eternity! There will be no fear of its being taken away
from us when it is once fully poured out in all its glorious efficacy
into our hearts. You must have felt it, my Brothers and Sisters in
Christ, when from morning till night the whole day was full of the love
of God! When you woke, you did not know how it was, but instead of a
care and a fear about the day, you woke with a hymn, a verse, a
comfortable promise, as though you had put a wafer made with honey
between your lips when you went to sleep and it had been melting there
till it had sweetened your mouth and your whole soul! And when you went
downstairs, it did not matter whether things went cross or not–they
seemed to you to go well all the day, for your will was, through this
love of God, brought to His will–and that pleased you which pleased
Him!
You were very rich, today, not that you had more than formerly, but you
had the love of God to sweeten all! You were today kept from using the
tongue too freely–you did not need to speak about the great many
things which once had engrossed your conversation because your
meditation of Him was sweet and you wanted to speak with Him. That day
persons noticed you–they could not help it. If your face did not
shine, your conversation did! And if you met with any of God's people
who had a spiritual taste to appreciate your conversation, they
remembered that you dropped pearls of soul-enriching from your mouth,
for you spoke as one who had "been with Jesus and learned of Him."
Do you remember, too, locking up your heart at night and giving God the
key? And then when you woke up remembering David's words, "When I wake
I am still with You"? Perhaps you did not remain with Him long, but,
whether longer or shorter, it was the best exposition that could have
been given you of the meaning of our text, "The love of God shed abroad
in your heart by the Holy Spirit."
I know this, dear Friend, if you have ever known this, you will thirst
and hunger after it again! This wine of Heaven is such that if a man
drinks of it, the more he drinks, the more he needs. If you have ever
eaten the Bread of Heaven, the
bread of earth will never satisfy you! If you have ever eaten of the
bread which drops from Heaven, and on which angels feed, the food of
common mortals will have lost its sweetness for you! You have been made
to feast at the "feast of fat things, full of marrow, and of wines on
the lees well-refined"–you have been taken up from where men grovel
and where you are, yourself, now groveling–and on the wings of eagles
you have been made to mount into a clearer atmosphere! And you will
feel heavily oppressed in the dense smoke of this world and you will be
wanting to be away with Christ again. Perhaps you are singing–
"Ah, woe is me that I In Meshech sojourn long! That I in tents do
dwell, To Kedar which belong!'
But it shall not always be so. You shall soon see His face if you seek
after Him and again shall the "love of God be shed abroad in your
hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us." And now, may God
help us, while for a few minutes we go over what we have said, and
ponder–
III. THE RESULTS OF THIS LOVE BEING SHED ABROAD IN OUR HEARTS.
I have anticipated some of these already, but we remind ourselves more
definitely that the love of God in our hearts sweetens everything. It
sweetens our duties and they become privileges–
"'Tis love that makes our willing feet In swift obedience move."
Oh, when you feel that God loves you, how you can watch and pray! Then
you can fight and wrestle! "All things are possible to him that
believes," and more than all is possible to him that loves! When the
heart gets the love of God in it, it–
"Laughs at impossibilities, And cries, 'It shall be done!"
A Believer may have the most desperate enterprises and they may involve
the most serious self-denial, but they will be accomplished with
readiness when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart. It sweetens
all our trials. Trials are scarcely trials when we see them coming from
a Father's hand. The gardener wept, you know, when he found that his
choicest rose had been cut. But when he knew that it was the Master who
had taken it, he wept no more, for the Master had a right to it. There
are no murmurings in the heart of him who can say, "The Lord gave and
the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And,
Beloved, it sweetens, I am certain, all our pursuits. We are very apt
to think that our engagements in the world are too humble, too
obscure–and then they become a drudgery when we think so. Do you not
know that Jesus counts the very hairs of your head and He seems to
intimate by that, that your very humblest pursuits are the objects of
His careful observation? He knows where you are, whatyou are and what
you have to do–and He knows how to sweeten it all! But when the love
of God is shed abroad in the heart, how cheerfully the poor woman, with
her eyes all weary and red, plies her needle and how the hard-toiling
man finds his load grow light! Poverty seems to grow rich and the hut
and the hovel seem to grow into a mansion–and even rags seem to
glisten like robes when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart!
Have you never heard how the martyrs used to sing at the stakes? Why
was it? Not because the fire was made of roses–they did not find the
firewood to be less hot to them than they would have been to
others–but it was because the love of God was shed abroad in their
hearts and, therefore, they could endure all things for Christ's sake,
seeing that love was theirs. It sweetens all.
Then again, it overpowers all other things. There are some perfumes
that if they were let loose in a room, would overpower and kill all
others. There may be other sweet scents in the chamber, but just unstop
this bottle and now where are they? They are all swallowed up, as
Aaron's rod swallowed up Egypt's rods! When the love of Jesus fills our
souls we have love towards our dear friends and relatives–God forbid
that we should not! But still, the love we have to Jesus seems to
swallow them all up–His love towers above all other loves, like some
mighty Alp above molehills! Best of all, when this love masters the
soul, it kills all evil loves. During cholera times, people are very
anxious to get something that will destroy all noxious vapors and bad
smells. Ah, there is many a bad odor in our hearts! There is the old
swamp of natural depravity which is capable of spreading death and
destruction every time we encounter it. But when the love of God is
shed abroad in the heart, how effectually it kills this! Then the love
of sin dies! The loving principle within subdues and
tramples underfoot all lusts and all corruption–and we rejoice in the
Lord Jesus Christ and are not daunted by the conflict we feel within.
This love kills all evil. And how blessedly it destroys all doubt! As I
have said, when you are smelling a perfume you cannot doubt but that it
is there. If you go into a field at this time of the year, you might
walk all down a path and not know that there was any game there, but as
soon as ever the partridges begin to fly, or the hares begin to run,
you know immediately that there is game there because you can see it.
So when our graces are slumbering and we do not know that they are
there, as soon as ever they get into active exercise, then we discover
them and we are sure of them! So is it with the love of God. When it
has been slumbering in our hearts, we have had some doubt–but when it
is poured out and shed abroad–its fragrance fills the entire man and
then doubts and fears are given to the winds!
And where this perfume is, once more, it is quite sure to communicate
itself from the man, instrumentally, to his fellows. He who has been in
beds of spices will smell, thereof, and they who sit with their Lord
will bear away some tokens of His companionship. All the ways of the
Lord Jesus are full of perfume, because "His garments smell of myrrh,
and aloes, and cassia." And when your garments smell of the same,
through having been with Him, you will communicate something of the
savor, instrumentally, to those whom you meet. God grant you Grace to
seek this as a holy ambition, that, having the love of God in your
hearts, it may be as when one has a candle lit and others bring their
candles to his, and he imparts the light, for it makes him none the
poorer, while they rejoice therein. And now, to conclude, I think we
all who love the Lord desire to feel His love shed abroad in our
hearts, but we sometimes mourn because we do not feel it. What, then,
is
IV. THE REASON WHY WE DO NOT FEEL THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD IN OUR
HEARTS? May it not be, Brothers and Sisters, because we have restrained
prayer?The common sin of God's people is slackness in prayer. If there
is one sin that needs to be preached about more than another just now,
it is the sin of the omission of secret dealings with God. This is the
secret of our spiritual leanness, the secret of many of our trials, of
our lack of joy, our loss of confidence in God.
Neglect the prayer chamber? Why, the merchant might as well neglect his
office and counting house! This is the place where you will be
impoverished if you neglect it. I am persuaded more and more the longer
I observe myself, and certainly the longer I observe others, that when
we grow weak on our knees, it is a sign of weakness throughout the
entire man. How can you expect to know much of the love of God if you
will not go with Him? If you give no time to meditation, if you have no
season for searching the Scriptures, if you have no periods for
communion with God, why wonder if you should miss enjoyment with Him?
I am persuaded, too, that a great many of us lose a good deal through
neglecting the means of Grace. I do not think that this applies to the
most of you as a congregation. I believe there are none who frequent
the assembling of themselves altogether as much as you do. I have no
cause to complain. There are some of you who are always here as often
as the doors are opened–and Prayer Meeting and Lecture Nights are no
burden to you. You come with willing feet to meet with your God. But it
is not so with some professors. Step into most of the places of worship
in London and look at the weeknight service–and in some country places
they have to give up theirs because there are not enough to come to
make it worth their while to hold such meetings. There is a sad
deficiency in some places of a love of the means of Grace. There are
some professors who, when they get by the seaside, or a little away in
the country, are always glad of an excuse not to go out to hear the
Word of God. They know but little of the emotion of David when he
counted that to be a dry and thirsty land when he could not go up to
the public worship of God! Brothers and Sisters, we must use the means
of Grace or else, as we despise them, we must not expect a blessing! We
must dig the well when we go through the valley of Baca. We must not
depend upon that well, for it does not, in this case, fill from the
bottom–it is filled from above! But still, the well must be dug. There
must be our gracious exertions and then there shall come the Divine
blessing.
May we not also say that many Christians lose much joyous fellowship
with Christ because of idleness?Christ is a worker. If we are idlers,
we shall not have communion with Him. "The Father," says He, "works
hitherto, and I work." If your possessions are unconsecrated, if your
talents are unused, if your time is misspent, you cannot wonder if the
Lord Jesus Christ should give you the whip! The "whip is for the ass,
and the rod for the fool's back." Idle Christians must expect to feel
the whip or the rod, but if we will do what we may for Christ, we shall
have sweet consolation in the doing of it, and the love of God shall be
shed abroad in our hearts!
Worldliness, too, is a bar to the shedding abroad of the love of God in
our hearts. Those who do as worldlings do, who can be amused and
interested as they are, must not wonder if the love of God is not shed
abroad in their hearts. I am very far from desiring to keep Christians
from certain places of amusement where the amusement is simple, and
only such as may be derived from social fellowship, science, music and
so on. But I am satisfied that the frequenting of such places, even the
very best, must be unfavorable to the piety of the very best Christian.
You will gain but very little compared with the risk you run of losing
very much! If these things charm you, it is not likely that Christ will
charm you longer. If you get worldly, you cannot be spiritual at the
same time.
Is it not, also, very probable that our little faith prevents this love
of God from being shed abroad in our hearts? If we trusted Christ more
and honored Him more by resting upon the faithful love of His Father,
would we not find His love shed abroad in us?
And may it not also be our ingratitude as to past favors We have not
thanked God enough for the comfortable seasons that we have enjoyed
and, therefore, He keeps us hungering until we thank Him for what He
did in days gone by.
And, dear Friends, is it not because we do not sincerely seek
conformity to the likeness of our Savior, that we have not, as we
might, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts? It is even this, my
Brothers and Sisters, it is even this! If you have ever known the
sweetness of the love of Christ, you understand that I cannot
exaggerate when I praise it. It is the sweetest, best and happiest
thing of which a mortal can sing. It is a bliss which angels might
envy–the sense of the love of God in a man or woman's heart! Then how
is it that you and I can endure to be without it? The true wife would
be grieved, indeed, if she had a doubt as to her husband's love–she
could not be happy unless she could have an assurance of being its
possessor. And oh, how is it that we can bear ourselves when we are
saying, "Does He love me?" How is it we can endure, as some professors
do, day after day, not to have a word from His lips, or a smile from
His countenance? Do we really love Him, or is it all mere talk? Has our
heart any deep affection for Him, or is it only formal profession? Have
we caught it up from others? Have we stirred merely natural emotions in
ourselves and then thought we loved Him? Oh, I do hope we may say, "It
is not so, we do love Him! We would be very wretched if we did not. We
might sooner wish to die than cease to love Him. He is the Chief among
ten thousand to our hearts–we feel He is."
Oh, then, without making vows and resolutions which we shall soon
break, let us pray, "Oh, Savior, shed abroad Your love in our hearts by
the Holy Spirit! Oh, God the Father, reveal Yourself in all the
fullness of Your love to us now and we may never lose a sense of it,
but have it abiding with us forever!" What a Church would this be if we
all had fellowship with Christ! Oh, how trivial would the world's
troubles become! We would then go on serving the Master like seraphs. I
think we would scarcely rest day nor night, but be always praising and
blessing His dear name! This place would be a paradise! We would have
to bless God so continually and our songs might rival those before the
Throne of God! "The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak,"
but, "we have a High Priest who can be touched with a feeling of our
infirmities." Let us draw near to Him with confidence and let this be
the burden of our prayer, "Abide with me! Continue with me, for Your
love's sake, Amen."