Required reading
Twenty-One Sermons on Hebrews 10:20-24 in Volume III of the Works of Robert Traill (Available from Reformation Heritage Books or free here) - Read Sermon X.
My summary
Today Traill continues exhorting us to answer the divine faithfulness by our faith.
This week he tells us we should answer the divine faithfulness by believing that all promised good things shall be given unto us by the way.
Thus firstly Traill teaches us the grounds of this faith that he is calling for:
(i) from the state of the believer;
(ii) from the nature and order and condition of the covenant.
Secondly Traill gives us cases wherein this faith is especially to be acted:
(i) affliction;
(ii) desertion by God;
(iii) temptation;
(iv) delays and disappointments;
(v) conscience for sin;
(vi) some special piece of hard work.
What grabbed me
I appreciated Traill's encouragement to exercise faith in God when tempted: 'In the case of temptation, (I name these things which are so common, that, in truth believers lives are spent about them), temptations from Satan. Sirs, if Christians were wise they would learn, if I may so speak, of the devil ; the more the Lord loves us, the more the devil hates us ; and the morethe devil hates us, the more we should love the Lord. As soon as a Christian gets faith, the devil falls upon him ; and when the devil falls upon him, he should believe the more. The time was, saith a believer, when he let me alone ; what makes this great change, that he is turned to a roaring lion? It is because I left his camp, and turned to another master. Faith is especially to be acted in temptation, and victory over temptation is by faith.'
The devil is real and cannot be trusted. The one who can be trusted is God.
Next week's reading
Read Sermon XI.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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