Providence Points Devotional: February 11, 2008

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Providence Points eNewsletter
February 11, 2008
Vol. 2 No. 2

IX. A REVIVAL. "Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my
Spirit unto you."--i. 28.

"TURN you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit;"--the
command and the promise joined, and constituting one harmonious whole.
How strictly in concord are the several intimations of the
Scriptures ! " Work
out your own salvation; for it is God that worketh in you" (Phil . ii.
12). To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. It
is to those who turn that the promise of the Spirit is addressed.
These two reciprocate. The Spirit poured out arrests a sinner, and
turns him ; then, as he turns, he gets more of the Spirit poured out.
The sovereignty of God, and the duty of men, are both alike real, and
each has its own place in the well ordered covenant. It is true, that
unless a man turn, he will not get God's Spirit poured out; and it is
also true, that unless he get God's Spirit poured out, he will not
turn. When the dead is recalled to life, the blood, sent circling
through the system, sets the valves of the heart a-beating, and the
valves of the heart, by their beating, send the life-blood circling
throughout the frame. It would be in vain to inquire what was the
point in the reciprocating series to which the life-giving impulse was
first applied. The mysteries of the human spirit are deeper still than
those of the body. The way of God, in the regeneration of man, is past
finding out. One part of it He keeps near himself, concealed by the
clouds and darkness that surround his throne ; another part of it He
has clearly revealed to our understandings, and pressed on our hearts.
His immediate part is to pour out the Spirit; our immediate part is to
turn at his reproof. If, instead of simply doing our part, we
presumptuously intrude into his, we shall attain neither. If we
reverently regard the promise, and diligently obey the command, we
shall get and do--we shall do and get. We shall get the Spirit,
enabling us to turn; and turn, in order to get more of the Spirit. The
command is given, not to make the promise unnecessary, but to send us
to it for help. The promise is given, not to supersede the command,
but to encourage us in the effort to obey. Turn at his reproof, and
hope in his promise; hope in his promise, and turn at his reproof.

...A valorous hand to hand struggle with inherent corruptions is
distressingly rare, in the wide spread religious
profession of the day. You read and pray, and worship in the assembly,
and complain that, notwithstanding,
your souls do not prosper; you have not comfort; you are not sensible
of growth in grace. But all this is mere
hypocrisy, if you be not " turning"--tearing yourself asunder from
besetting sins, as from a right arm or a
right eye. The evil speaking, watch it, catch it on your lips, crush
it as it swells and germinates in the seed-bed
of your thoughts within. The equivocations, the half-untruths, down
with them. Out with the very truth, although it should break off the
nearly completed bargain-- although it should freeze the friendship
that seems necessary to your success. Anger, malice, envy,--seize these
vipers, that twist and hiss in your bosom ; strangle
them outright there. Your religion is nothing better than a cheat, if
you are not busy with the work of ceasing
to do evil . " Herein do I exercise myself," said Paul, " that I may
have a conscience void of offence." How can the feeblest learners of
the truth attain, by an idle wish, that actual progressive
purification, which its greatest human teacher only strove after by
incessant exercise ?

...Getting freely and doing faithfully,-together constitute true
religion. Get and do, do and get . Nor is it a artitioning of
salvation between God and man, as if a part of it were his gift, and a
part of it man's act. The turning which constitutes salvation is,
supremely, all God's gift, and, subordinately, all the doing of the
man. From the springhead in the heart, to the outermost streams of
life, He makes all things new; and yet the man himself must, at God's
bidding, turn from all iniquity.

We speak of a revival; we pray for it; perhaps we long for it. But all
this, and an hundredfold more in the same direction, will not bring it
about. God's arm is not shortened: his ear is not heavy. Our
iniquities separate between us and Him. The way to invite his presence
is to put away the evil of our doings: for He cannot dwell with sin.
And if any one, conscious of his knowledge and jealous of orthodoxy,
should say in opposition, it is God's presence, sovereignly
vouchsafed, that makes the visited man put away his evil, we answer,
that is a glorious truth, but is not an argument against our
injunction. That is the upper end of a revealed truth which reaches
from earth to heaven. It is too high for us. If you put forth your
hand to touch it at the top, it will consume you. That high thing is
for God to handle, and not man. The end that leans on earth and lies
to your hand is--"turn you at my reproof." The only safe way of moving
the heaven-high extreme of the divine sovereignty for revival, is by
throwing ourselves with our whole weight on this which is the
visible, tangible, lower end of that incomprehensible mystery--this
turning from our own evil in obedience to the command of God.

The grand hinderance to a revival by the Spirit poured out is the
general conformity of Christians to the fashion
of the world. The short road to a revival is to turn from the error of
our ways. If there were more of the doing which religion demands,
there would be more of the getting which it promises. Turn at my
reproof. God looketh on the heart . He measures the motive as well as
the deed. There is such a thing as a proud atheistic morality, which
is as offensive to God as more vulgar vice. To abstain from common and
gross transgressions, is not holiness. It is a partial process. It is
to diminish the bulk of wickedness on one side, by directing all the
stream of internal corruption to the other side. When a man turns from
wickedness because God hates it, he will turn alike from every sin. If
we reform ourselves, we will select despised and shameful lusts of the
flesh to be sacrificed, but retain and cherish certain favourite lusts
of the mind If we permit God's word to search, and God's authority to
rule, idols alike of high and low degree will be driven forth of the
temple. If the turning be at His reproof, it will be a turning both
complete in its comprehension and true in its character--a turning
without partiality and without hypocrisy.

When we turn at his reproof, He will pour out his Spirit: when He
pours out his Spirit we will turn at his reproof. Blessed circle for
saints to reason in. He formed the channel wherein grace and duty
chase each other round. He supplied the material alike of the getting
and the doing. He set the stream in motion, and He will keep it going,
until every good work begun shall be perfect in the day of Christ
Jesus. Hear that voice from heaven,'" I will pour out." Yea, Lord ;
then we must draw away. We are placed at the open orifice in the
lowest extremity of the outbranching channel: the fountain head is
with God on high. When He pours out, we draw forth : when we draw
forth, He pours out. It is because there is a pressure constant and
strong from that upper spring of grace, that we can draw any here
below for the exercises of obedience; but the covenant is ordered so
that, if we do not draw for the supply of actual effort, none will
gravitate toward us from the fountain head. It is the still stagnant
dead mass of inert profession, sticking in the lower lips of the
channel, that checks the flow of grace, and practically seals for us
its unfathomable fountain. If there were a turning, a movement, an
effort, an expenditure, a need, a vacancy, at our extremity below,
there would be a flow of the divine compassion to make up the want,
and charge every vessel anew with fresh and full supply. Prove Him now
herewith ; exert and expend in his service, and see whether He will
not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing, greater than
the room made vacant to receive it.