February 15, 2018

The Christian in Complete Armour - Gurnall - LII - Direction Nine continued

Required readingThe Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read the Fourth Office of the Second General Part of Direction Ninth.


My summary
This week we continue Direction Nine: 'And take the helmet of salvation' (Ephesians vi. 17) by examining the fourth office that hope performs for the Christian: quieting his spirit when God delays to perform his promise.

Firstly Gurnall shows us three things regarding this last office of hope:
(i) God often stays long before he pays in the good things of the promise;
(ii) our duty is to wait when God stays his longest before fulfilling his promise;
(iii) hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest.

Under the final point, Gurnall gives us three assurances with which hope pacifies the Christian, when the promise seems to stay long.  Hope assures the soul that though God stays long before he performs the promise:
(i) yet he doth not delay;
(ii) yet when he does come he will abundantly recompense his longest stay;
(iii) yet he shall have the absence thereof supplied with the presence of another.

What grabbed me

I liked the encouragement not to snatch what is not yet ours: 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life;' Prov. 13:12—that is, when it cometh in God's time after long waiting, then it causeth an overflowing joy. As there is a time which God hath set for the ripening the fruits of the earth, before which, if they be gathered, it is to our loss; so there is a time set by God for the good things of the promise, which we are to wait for, and not unseasonably pluck, like green apples, off the tree—as too many do, who, having no faith or hope to quiet their spirits while [until] God's time comes, do therefore snatch that by unwarrantable means, which would in time drop ripe into their bosoms.'

When the time is ripe, God will provide.

Next week's readingRead the First and Second Points of Improvement of the Third General Part of Direction Ninth.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.

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