December 22
Evenings With JesusI shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. - Psalms 17:15.
WE are assured, by infallible authority, that “the righteous is more excellent than his neighbour.” It would be very easy to exemplify this preeminence in numberless instances, but we shall only remark on one,-namely, his prospects. The sinner, when he looks back, finds a thousand things filling his mind and conscience with pain and remorse. And what pleasure can he feel if he looks forward? He sees death and eternity approaching, and feels unprepared for their approach. All his relief must arise from his banishing these subjects from his thoughts; and this is no easy matter. But this putting the evil day far off is not putting it away. Come it must.
And so also the Christian feels sorrow in the review and in the remembrance of the days of his unregeneracy, and of his deficiencies since he has known God, or, rather, been known of him. But then he sorrows after a godly sort, and he feels more pleasure in his sorrow than he ever found in all the pleasures of sin or dissipations of folly. It was “a time of love,” when God passed by, and said unto him, “Live;” and the thought of the means he employed to turn his feet into the way of peace, and the various dispensations which so often surpassed and surprised his hope, fills him “with joy unspeakable and full of glory,” which strangers intermeddle not with. Oh, what a scene opens before him beyond this vale of tears! The proverb says, “All is well that ends well.” It is the end that proves, all, that finishes all, and that crowns all. We are far from denying that there are very many present advantages in religion; but now in regard to the Christian, in all his service, in all his sacrifice, in all his sorrowing, we should reckon that the sufferings and enjoyments of^ this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
The believer has now much in hand, but more in hope; he has much in possession, but more in reversion. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”