highway_user, <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/hello.gif" alt="" /> Welcome to the Highway! We just discussed the Hebrews passages last night at our Bible Study. I am convinced that these people were never true believers and are like Judas and King Saul who had many privileges, and lived among God's people, were even influenced by the Holy Spirit but were not God's elect. Baalam prophesied by the Spirit of God, but was a false prophet. If you see the filthiness of your sin, there is hope for you! Take comfort, the Lord came for us vile sinners, not for the righteous!
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from Ryle's Old Paths. "You want peace! Then seek it without delay from Him who alone is able to give it,--Christ Jesus the Lord. Go to Him in humble prayer, and ask Him to fulfil His own promises and look graciously on your soul. Tell Him you have read His compassionate invitation to the "laboring and heavy laden". Tell Him that this is the plight of your soul, and implore Him to give you rest. Do this, and do it without delay. You must speak to the physician and open your whole case to Him. Christ Himself can alone satisfy the soul. p.234 Seek Christ, and wait for nothing. Wait not till you feel you have repented enough. Wait not till your knowledge is increased. Wait not till you have been sufficiently humbled because of your sins. Wait not till you have no ravelled tangle of doubts and darkness and unbelief all over your heart. Seek Christ just as you are. You will never be better by keeping away from Him. From the bottom of your heart I subscribe to old Traill's opinion, "It is impossible that people should believe in Christ too soon." Alas, it is not humility, but pride and ignorance that make so many anxious souls hang back from closing with Jesus. They forget that the more sick a man is, the more need he has of a physician.The more bad a man feels his heart, the more readily and speedily ought he to flee to Christ. Seek Christ and do not fancy that you must sit still. Let not Satan tempt you to suppose that you must wait in a state of passive inaction, and not strive to lay hold upon Jesus... Let me, in the next place, offer some encouragement to those who have good reason to hope they have peace with God, but are troubled by doubts and fears. You have doubts and fears! But what do you expect? What would you have? Your soul is married to a body full of weakness, passions, and infirmities. You live in a world that lies in wickedness, a world in which the great majority do not love Christ. You are constantly liable to the temptations of the . That busy enemy, if he cannot shut you out of heaven, will try hard to make your journey uncomfortable. Surely all these things ought to be considered. I say to every believer, that so far from being surprised that you have doubts and fears, I should suspect the reality of your peace if you had none. I think little of that grace which is accompanied by no inward conflict. Beware that you do not help Satan by becoming an unjust accuser of yourself, and an unbeliever in the reality of God's work of grace. Let doubts and fears drive you to the throne of grace, stir you up to more prayer, send you more frequently to Christ. But do not let doubts and fears rob you of your peace. Believe me, you must be content to go to heaven as a sinner saved by grace. And you must not be surprised to find daily proof that you really are a sinner so long as you live. It must never be forgotten that a believer's sense of his own justification and acceptance with God admits of many degrees and variations. At one time it may be bright and clear; at another dull and dim. At one time it may be high and full, like the flood tide; at another low, like the ebb. Our justification is a fixed, changeless, immovable thing. But our sense of justification is liable to many changes.p. 236
