Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation” (Psalm 106:4).
How is a man brought and taught to want to be “visited with” God’s salvation? He must know something first of condemnation. Salvation only suits the condemned. “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost,” and therefore salvation only suits the lost. A man must be lost—utterly lost—before he can prize God’s salvation. And how is he lost? By losing all his religion, losing all his righteousness, losing all his strength, losing all his confidence, losing all his hopes, losing all that is of the flesh; losing it by its being taken from him, and stripped away by the hand of God. A man who is brought into this state of utter beggary and complete bankruptcy—to be nothing, to have nothing, to know nothing—he is the man who in the midnight watches, in his lonely hours, by his fireside, and at times well-nigh night and day, is crying, groaning, begging, suing, seeking, and praying after the manifestation of God’s salvation to his soul.
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