Hold me up, Alexander McLaren. Hold me up, and I shall be safe. Psalm 119, 117. The first lesson we have to learn
is that without divine help we cannot stand, and that with it
we cannot fall. We must cultivate a spirit of
lowly dependence and conscious weakness. We need a mightier
strength than our own, which shall curb all this evil nature
of ours, and restrain us from sin's deceits. When God's Spirit
comes into a man's heart, He will deaden his desires after
the world and forbidden ways. He will make us love and desire
blessed and holier objects. He who has been fed on the hidden
manna will not be likely to hanker after the leeks and onions that
grew in the Nile mud in Egypt, however strong their smell and
pungent their taste. He who has tasted the higher
sweetness of God will have his heart's desires after worldly
delights strangely deadened and cooled. My heart, touched by
the indwelling Spirit of God, will turn to Him, and I shall
find little sweetness in the otherwise tempting delicacies
that earth can offer. God desires to cleanse us from
the filth of the swine trough and the rags of our exile, and
clothe us in fine linen, clean and white. If you will submit
yourself into His hands, He will give you abilities to detect
the serpents in the flowers and new resolution to shake off the
vipers into the fire. Hold me up, and I shall be safe. Psalm 119, 117.