Believers are a little flock. This passage contains a gracious word of consolation for all true believers (Luke 12:32). Our Lord knew the hearts of his disciples well. He knew how ready they were to be filled with fears of every description, fears because of the fewness of their number, fears because of the multitude …
“The Iniquity of the Holy Things.”- Exodus 28:38 What a veil is lifted up by these words, and what a disclosure is made! It will be humbling and profitable for us to pause awhile and see this sad sight. The iniquities of our public worship, its hypocrisy, formality, lukewarmness, irreverence, wandering of heart and forgetfulness …
If you be a child of God, you will seek thy Father’s face, and live in thy Father’s love. Pray that this year you may be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, and enter oftener into the banqueting-house of his love.
“Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4
He who wishes to attain right views about Christian holiness must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin. He must dig down very low if he would build high. A mistake here is most mischievous. Wrong views about holiness are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption. I make no apology for beginning this volume of messages about holiness by making some plain statements about sin.
My brethren, this is a lesson for us; let us never reckon that we have learned a doctrine till we have seen its bearing upon our lives. Whatever we discover in God’s word, let us pray the Holy Spirit to make us feel the sanctifying influence of it. You know not a man because you recognize his features, you must also know his spirit, and so the mere acquaintance with the letter of truth is of small account — you must feel its influence and know its tendency.
Let it be a settled principle in our minds that the true Christian must always enter the kingdom of God “through much tribulation” (Acts 14:22). His best things are yet to come. This world is not our home. If we are faithful and decided servants of Christ, the world will certainly hate us, as it hated our Master. In one way or another grace will always be persecuted. No consistency of conduct, however faultless, no kindness and amiability of character, however striking, will exempt a believer from the world’s dislike, so long as he lives.