Part 10
Here, again, is the word of the Lord:
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
and see if there be any wicked way in me." Psalm 139:23, 24. That
is the word given to us for today and for all time. Another word goes
right along with it: "0 Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising...and art acquainted with
all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou
knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid
thine hand upon me." Another translation has it: "Thou has
compassed me all around; and holdest thine hand over me." Verses
1-5. That is a fact. He has compassed us all around, and his hand is
over us. Whether we accept it or not, is another matter; but that
is the fact with every man in all this wide world. That is how it is
that all things an naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we
have to do.
Then when it is a fact that he has searched us, and known us, and
does search out and know us all the time, why not accept it as a fact,
and have the benefit of it? Why not present to him the word,
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my
thoughts"? What for?— "And see if there be any wicked way in
me." 0, that sets me before his face; for his glorious eyes of
light to look upon me, and to shine through me, as the fire, searching
out if there be any wicked way in me! And having searched it out, and
being a consuming fire, he consumes it all away, and leads me in the way
everlasting.
So, then, the sure way to escape the flaming fire of that great
day is to welcome that flaming fire this day. Therefore, I
say again, Let it never escape from your thought that "our God is a
consuming fire;" and that the sure way to escape from that
consuming fire in that great day when there will be no chance to
change, and no time to choose, is to choose today the blessed
change that is wrought, by welcoming freely, gladly, into the life, our
God, who is a consuming fire.
I remember the word that was spoken to Moses. As Moses had come
nearer and nearer to God, he said at last: "I beseech thee, show me
thy glory." That is exactly what appears in the coming great day
that is at hand: he comes "in the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory." His glory covers the heavens in that day, and the
earth is filled with his praise. In that day he is "wrapped in a
blaze of boundless glory," "and every eye shall see him."
But who shall endure it? That is the question; and the answer is: Only
those who have prayed, and now pray, that Christian prayer, "I
beseech thee, show me thy glory."
Moses
prayed a Christian prayer. |