Spurgeon.
I sleep, but my heart waketh.
- Songs of Solomon_5:2
Paradoxes abound in Christian experience, and here is one-the spouse
was asleep, and yet she was awake. He only can read the believers
riddle who has ploughed with the heifer of his experience. The two
points in this evenings text are-a mournful sleepiness and
a hopeful wakefulness. I sleep. Through sin that dwelleth in us
we may become lax in holy duties, slothful in religious exercises,
dull in spiritual joys, and altogether supine and careless. This
is a shameful state for one in whom the quickening Spirit dwells;
and it is dangerous to the highest degree. Even wise virgins sometimes
slumber, but it is high time for all to shake off the bands of sloth.
It is to be feared that many believers lose their strength as Samson
lost his locks, while sleeping on the lap of carnal security. With
a perishing world around us, to sleep is cruel; with eternity so
near at hand, it is madness. Yet we are none of us so much awake
as we should be; a few thunder-claps would do us all good, and it
may be, unless we soon bestir ourselves, we shall have them in the
form of war, or pestilence, or personal bereavements and losses.
O that we may leave for ever the couch of fleshly ease, and go forth
with flaming torches to meet the coming Bridegroom! My heart waketh.
This is a happy sign. Life is not extinct, though sadly smothered.
When our renewed heart struggles against our natural heaviness,
we should be grateful to sovereign grace for keeping a little vitality
within the body of this death. Jesus will hear our hearts, will
help our hearts, will visit our hearts; for the voice of the wakeful
heart is really the voice of our Beloved, saying, Open to
me. Holy zeal will surely unbar the door.
Oh lovely attitude! He stands
With melting heart and laden hands;
My soul forsakes her every sin;
And lets the heavenly stranger in.
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The Lord
is saying.....Do not become dull of hearing. Do that which
I have told you to do diligently and you will hear my voice
more clearly to show you the next step.
Oh!
Love that will not let me go.
Hebrews
12 & 13 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down,
and the feeble knees,and make straight paths for your feet,
so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be
healed.
It
seems to me that the Lord is such a good Father to us that
He lets us make our mistakes and then turns them round to
good for us and others. There are times when we believe we
are so right and yet we can be so utterly wrong. Somehow we
believed that it is the Lords voice that tells us to jump
off the pinnacle and that he will catch us. Yet, although
sometimes He might let us crash to let us learn our lesson
well , he is there to pick up the pieces.
Where
we have not built with the gold of love and have found only
ashes, after the fires of testing; When we have not married
love and patience to our unswerving faith; When we have built
our house upon the sand by not heeding our own Lord's voice
on the sermon on the mount: When the tempest has raged and
our "house" has come crashing down, the Lord is
there to pick up the pieces and to kiss our bleeding knees
better and to say something like this... "Keep walking...
its not over till its over - its time to build again - this
time with bricks of gold..
Hebrews
12:5-13 (New King James Version)
Me.... Shirley amongst a field of musical
instruments. Please note the hole in ceiling;
my son Jan's DIY went a little wrong when laying a new
floor in his bedroom. For a while it was easier to shout him
for dinner!!!
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email:
shirleyhowitt@houseofbread.net |
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