“Keep Yourselves in the Love of God.”
By C. Lawton
If this exhortation of Jude were essential in the days of the apostles, how much more in these last days—the time of the Judgment. Do we find it difficult to keep our hearts in the love of God? to gain a perfect victory over our fallen natures? The world with all its distracting cares besets our way, and there are trials well calculated to test our patience. Satan, whose malice toward God and his people never raged more fiercely than at the present time, is using every stratagem his ingenuity can invent to ensnare and deceive. Then how dangerous to live without the favor of God! Our safety is only in coming up to the Bible standard. It is by God’s holy law that we are to form characters for the Judgment; if Satan can get us to form a low estimate of purity, he knows it will be a great detriment in the work of overcoming. We must see and feel the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and realize how deeply fallen we are by nature. We must have a clear and vivid sense of the holiness of God’s character and of those who will finally overcome and sit down with Christ on his throne. Nothing short of entire consecration will fit us for the Judgment. The Judgment! the word, even, should bring conviction to our hearts. Never to me did this word seem so deeply solemn, or full of meaning as at the present time. A brother speaks of calling up the sins of his youth in the silent watches of the night, of seeking pardon with earnest prayer and deep humiliation, and of obtaining victory. Is not this a very appropriate work to engage in? Is it not hazardous to defer it? Probation is fast closing; the day of God’s wrath hastens greatly. Then let us make thorough work, and live in the enjoyment of the favor of God. Can we not say with Paul, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” “The day approaches, O my soul,
The great decisive day,
Which from the verge of mortal life
Shall bear thee far away.
“Yet does one short, preparing hour,
One precious hour remain;
Rouse, then, my soul, with all thy power,
Nor let it pass in vain.” Adams’ Center, Jeff. Co., N. Y.