CONDITIONS ON WHICH GOD'S KEEPINGS DEPENDS Part 1
The wisdom of the fathers
CONDITIONS ON WHICH GOD'S KEEPING DEPENDS Part 1
There are conditions. All God's promises are linked with certain attitudes on our part. It is the willing mind and the surrendered heart that are assured of God's protection and grace. “God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.” That which is “committed” to Him He is able to keep. The principle of spiritual perseverance has never been better stated than in Samuel's language to Saul three thousand years ago: “If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord; then both you, and also the king that reigns over you, will continue following the Lord your God.”
More particularly if we would be preserved blameless: 1. Let us expect to be preserved. If we go out anticipating failure we will have it; or, at least, we will never know certainly but that the next temptation we meet is the one in which we are to fall; and as the chain is never stronger than its weakest link, we will be sure to fall. It is the reputation of an army that secures its victory; it is the quickening assurance that it has never been defeated that carries it irresistibly against the foe.
2. Let us also expect to be tempted. Most persons, after a step of faith, are looking for sunny skies and unruffled seas, and when they meet a storm and tempest they are filled with astonishment and perplexity. But this is just what we must expect to meet if we have received anything of the Lord. The best token of His presence is the adversary's defiance, and the more real our blessing, the more certainly will it be challenged. It is a good thing to go out looking for the worst, and if it comes we are not surprised; while if our path be smooth and our way be unopposed, it is all the more delightful, because it comes as a glad surprise.
But let us entirely understand what we mean by temptation. You, especially, who have stepped out with the assurance that you have died to self and sin, may be greatly amazed to find yourself assailed with a tempest of thoughts and feelings that seem to come wholly from within, and you will be impelled to say, “Why, I thought I was dead, but I seem to be alive.” This, beloved, is the time to remember that temptation has power to penetrate our inmost being with thoughts and feelings that seem to be our own, but are really the instigations of the evil one. “We wrestle with principalities and powers”; that is to say, they entwine themselves around us as wrestlers do about the limbs of their opponents, until they seem to be a part of ourselves. This is the essence of temptation, and we are almost constrained to conclude that the evil is within ourselves, and that we are not cleansed and sanctified as we had believed. Do not wonder if you are assailed with temptation that comes to you in the most subtle forms, the most insinuating feelings, the most plausible insinuations, and apparently through your inmost being and nature.
(from "Wholly Sanctified" by A.B. Simpson)