What a scene does this unfold! Satan tempting—Jesus praying! Satan sifting—Jesus pleading! “The strong man assailing”—“the stronger than the strong” beating him back! Believer? here is the past history and present secret of thy safety in the midst of temptation. An interceding Saviour was at thy side, saying to every threatening wave, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther?” God often permits His people to be on the very verge of the precipice, to remind them of their own weakness; but never farther than the verge! The restraining hand and grace of Omnipotence is ready to rescue them. “Although he fall, yet shall he not be cast down utterly; and why? for the Lord upholdeth him with His right hand!” The wolf may be prowling for his prey; but what can he do when the Shepherd is always there, tending with the watchful eye that “neither slumbers nor sleeps?” Who cannot subscribe to the testimony, “When my foot slipped, Thy mercy, O Lord! held me up?” Who can look back on his past pilgrimage, and fail to see it crowded with Ebenezers, with this inscription: “Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling?” My soul, where wouldst thou have been this day, hadst thou not been “kept” by the power of God?
“REMEMBER THIS WORD UNTO THY SERVANT, UPON WHICH THOU HAST CAUSED ME TO HOPE!”
6th Day.
“He is Faithful that Promised.”
“I will heal their backsliding.”—Hosea xiv. 4.
Restoring Grace.
Wandering again! And has He not left me to perish? Stumbling and straying on the dark mountains, away from the Shepherd’s eye and the Shepherd’s fold, shall He not leave the erring wanderer to the fruit of his own ways, and his truant heart to go hopelessly onward in its career of guilty estrangement? “My thoughts,” says God, “are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” Man would say, “Go, perish! ungrateful apostate!” God says, “Return, ye backsliding children!” The Shepherd will not, cannot suffer the sheep to perish He has purchased with His own blood. How wondrous His forbearance towards it!—tracking its guilty steps, and ceasing not the pursuit till He lays the wanderer on His shoulders, and returns with it to His fold rejoicing! My soul! why increase by farther departures thine own distance from the fold?—why lengthen the dreary road thy gracious Shepherd has to traverse in bringing thee back? Delay not thy return! Provoke no longer His patience; venture no farther on forbidden ground. He waits with outstretched arms to welcome thee once more to His bosom. Be humble for the past, trust Him for the future. Think of thy former backslidings, and tremble; think of His forbearance, and be filled with holy gratitude; think of His promised grace, “and take courage.”