When we realize that all our daily mercies come to us as the gifts of
our Father in heaven, it makes them doubly precious to us. There is
nothing which tastes as sweet to the school-boy as that which comes from
home. So with the Christian. All his mercies are sweeter because they
are home-mercies–they come “from above;” the land in which he lives is
not like the land of Egypt, fed by a river; but it “drinketh water of
the rain or heaven.” Happy the lot of that man who thus receives
everything as coming from God, and thanks his Father for it all! It
makes anything sweet, when he knows it comes from heaven. This thought, also, has a tendency to keep us from an overweening love of the world.
The spies went to Eshcol, and fetched thence an immense cluster of the
grapes which grew there; but you do not find that the people said, “The
fruits we have received from the land of promise, make us contented to
stay in the wilderness.” No; they saw that the grapes came from Canaan,
and thereupon they said, “Let us go on and possess the land.” And so,
when we get rich mercies, if we think they come from the natural soil of
this earth alone, we might well feel a wish to stay here. But if we know
that they come from a foreign clime, we are naturally anxious to go
“Where our dear Lord His vineyard keeps,
And all the clusters grow.”
Christian, rejoice then in the thought that all thou hast cometh from
above; thy daily bread cometh not so much from thine industry as from
thy heavenly Father’s care; thou seest stamped upon every mercy heaven’s
own inscription, and every blessing comes down to thee perfumed with the ointment, and the spikenard, and the myrrh of the ivory palaces, whence
God dispenses His bounties.
“ Grace Doth Much More Abound. ”
There has never been a period in this world’s history when it was
wholly given up to sin. God has always had His servants on earth; at
times they may have been hidden by fifties in the caves, but they have
never been utterly cut off. Grace may be low; the stream might be very
shallow, but it has never been wholly dry. The clouds have never been so
universal as to hide the day. But the time is fast approaching when
grace shall extend all over our world, and “the earth shall be full of
the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” “Grace doth
much more abound;” and whatever possessions the world has lost by sin,
it has gained far more by grace. It is true we have been expelled from
a garden of delights, where peace, love, and happiness found a glorious
habitation, but we have through Jesus a fairer inheritance. The plains
of heaven exceed the fields of paradise in the ever-new delights which
they afford, while the tree of life, and the river from the throne,
render the inhabitants of the celestial regions more than imparadised.
It is true that we have become subject to death by sin, yet has not
grace revealed an immortality for the sake of which we are glad to die?
Life lost in Adam is more than restored in Christ. Our original robes
were rent asunder by Adam, but Jesus has clothed us with a divine
righteousness, far exceeding in value even the spotless robes of created
innocence. We mourn our low and miserable condition through sin, but we rejoice at the thought, that we are now more secure than before we fell,
we are brought into closer alliance with Jesus than our creature
standing could ever boast. O Jesus! Thou hast won us an inheritance more
wide than Adam ever lost; Thou hast filled our coffer with greater
riches than our sin has ever lavished; Thou hast loaded us with honors,
and endowed us with privileges far more excellent than our natural
birthright could have procured us. Truly, truly, “grace doth much more
abound.”