Bro. H.H.: “May I ask, exactly what you meant when you said, Many are hindered from enjoying assurance
through unnecessary fears? My reason for asking is because in Philippians 2:12 God bids His people work out
their salvation with fear and trembling.” Editor: “Your question is well taken. We must distinguish sharply
between the fears of godly jealousy and the fears of unbelief: the one is a distrusting of self, the other is a
doubting of God; the former is opposed to pride and carnal confidence, the latter is the enemy of true peace. The
eleven Apostles manifested the fear of godly jealousy when the Saviour announced that one would betray Him,
and each of them enquired, ‘Lord, is it I?’ David gave way to the fear of unbelief when he said, ‘I shall now
perish one day by the hand of Saul’ (1 Sam. 27:1). But I have interrupted your narrative; tell me how Sister
Fearing responded to your giving her Ezra 9:8.”
Bro. H.H.: “Really, it seemed to make little impression. She sighed deeply, and for a while said nothing. Then
she continued, ‘I fear it would be presumption for me to say that I have ever been revived, for a dead soul cannot
be—he must first be quickened; probably the raising of my spirits under the reading or hearing of the Word is
nothing more than the joy of the stony-ground hearer’ (Matt. 13:20, 21). To which I replied, ‘But one who has
never been quickened has no pantings after God, never seeks Him at all, but seeks to banish Him entirely from
his thoughts.
True, he may go to church, and keep up a form of godliness before others, but there is no diligent
seeking after Him in private, no yearnings for communion with Him.’
“Perhaps, dear Sister, it may be a day of ‘small things’ (Zech. 4:10) with you. Often there is life, where there
is not strength. A child may breathe and cry, yet cannot talk or walk. If God be the object of your affection, if sin
be the cause of your grief, if conformity to Christ be the longing of your heart, then a good work has begun in
you (Phil. 1:6).
If it is indwelling sin which makes you so wretched from day to day, if it be deliverance from its
polluting affects you yearn and pray for, if it be the lustings of the flesh you are struggling against, then it must
be because a principle of holiness has been implanted in your heart. Such godly exercises are not in us by nature;
they are the products of indwelling grace. Despair not, for it is written of Christ, ‘a bruised reed shall He not
break, and smoking flax shall He not quench’ (Matt. 12:20).”
Sister Fearing: “Yes, it is one thing to understand these things intellectually, but it is quite another for God to
apply them in power to the heart: that is what I long for, and that is what I lack.
My wound is far too deadly for
any man to heal. O that I could be sure as to whether my disrelish of sin arises from mere natural convictions of
conscience that every ungodly person feels more or less, whether they are suggestions from Satan for the purpose
of deceiving me, or whether they actually are the strivings of the new nature against the old. Nothing short of the
personal, mighty, and saving power of the Holy Spirit realized in my heart, will or can give me genuine relief.”
Pink
Blessings
J.
through unnecessary fears? My reason for asking is because in Philippians 2:12 God bids His people work out
their salvation with fear and trembling.” Editor: “Your question is well taken. We must distinguish sharply
between the fears of godly jealousy and the fears of unbelief: the one is a distrusting of self, the other is a
doubting of God; the former is opposed to pride and carnal confidence, the latter is the enemy of true peace. The
eleven Apostles manifested the fear of godly jealousy when the Saviour announced that one would betray Him,
and each of them enquired, ‘Lord, is it I?’ David gave way to the fear of unbelief when he said, ‘I shall now
perish one day by the hand of Saul’ (1 Sam. 27:1). But I have interrupted your narrative; tell me how Sister
Fearing responded to your giving her Ezra 9:8.”
Bro. H.H.: “Really, it seemed to make little impression. She sighed deeply, and for a while said nothing. Then
she continued, ‘I fear it would be presumption for me to say that I have ever been revived, for a dead soul cannot
be—he must first be quickened; probably the raising of my spirits under the reading or hearing of the Word is
nothing more than the joy of the stony-ground hearer’ (Matt. 13:20, 21). To which I replied, ‘But one who has
never been quickened has no pantings after God, never seeks Him at all, but seeks to banish Him entirely from
his thoughts.
True, he may go to church, and keep up a form of godliness before others, but there is no diligent
seeking after Him in private, no yearnings for communion with Him.’
“Perhaps, dear Sister, it may be a day of ‘small things’ (Zech. 4:10) with you. Often there is life, where there
is not strength. A child may breathe and cry, yet cannot talk or walk. If God be the object of your affection, if sin
be the cause of your grief, if conformity to Christ be the longing of your heart, then a good work has begun in
you (Phil. 1:6).
If it is indwelling sin which makes you so wretched from day to day, if it be deliverance from its
polluting affects you yearn and pray for, if it be the lustings of the flesh you are struggling against, then it must
be because a principle of holiness has been implanted in your heart. Such godly exercises are not in us by nature;
they are the products of indwelling grace. Despair not, for it is written of Christ, ‘a bruised reed shall He not
break, and smoking flax shall He not quench’ (Matt. 12:20).”
Sister Fearing: “Yes, it is one thing to understand these things intellectually, but it is quite another for God to
apply them in power to the heart: that is what I long for, and that is what I lack.
My wound is far too deadly for
any man to heal. O that I could be sure as to whether my disrelish of sin arises from mere natural convictions of
conscience that every ungodly person feels more or less, whether they are suggestions from Satan for the purpose
of deceiving me, or whether they actually are the strivings of the new nature against the old. Nothing short of the
personal, mighty, and saving power of the Holy Spirit realized in my heart, will or can give me genuine relief.”
Pink
Blessings
J.
