Morning “Rend your heart, and not your garments.” / Joel 2:13
Garment-rending and other outward signs of religious emotion, are easily
manifested and are frequently hypocritical; but to feel true repentance is far
more difficult, and consequently far less common. Men will attend to the most
multiplied and minute ceremonial regulations–for such things are pleasing to
the flesh–but true religion is too humbling, too heart-searching, too
thorough for the tastes of the carnal men; they prefer something more
ostentatious, flimsy, and worldly. Outward observances are temporarily
comfortable; eye and ear are pleased; self-conceit is fed, and
self-righteousness is puffed up: but they are ultimately delusive, for in the
article of death, and at the day of judgment, the soul needs something more
substantial than ceremonies and rituals to lean upon. Apart from vital
godliness all religion is utterly vain; offered without a sincere heart, every
form of worship is a solemn sham and an impudent mockery of the majesty of
heaven.
Heart-rending is divinely wrought and solemnly felt. It is a secret grief
which is personally experienced, not in mere form, but as a deep, soul-moving
work of the Holy Spirit upon the inmost heart of each believer. It is not a
matter to be merely talked of and believed in, but keenly and sensitively felt
in every living child of the living God. It is powerfully humiliating, and
completely sin-purging; but then it is sweetly preparative for those gracious
consolations which proud unhumbled spirits are unable to receive; and it is
distinctly discriminating, for it belongs to the elect of God, and to them
alone.
The text commands us to rend our hearts, but they are naturally hard as
marble: how, then, can this be done? We must take them to Calvary: a dying
Saviour’s voice rent the rocks once, and it is as powerful now. O blessed
Spirit, let us hear the death-cries of Jesus, and our hearts shall be rent
even as men rend their vestures in the day of lamentation.
Evening “Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy
herds.” / Proverbs 27:23
Every wise merchant will occasionally hold a stock-taking, when he will cast
up his accounts, examine what he has on hand, and ascertain decisively whether
his trade is prosperous or declining. Every man who is wise in the kingdom of
heaven, will cry, “Search me, O God, and try me”; and he will frequently set
apart special seasons for self-examination, to discover whether things are
right between God and his soul. The God whom we worship is a great
heart-searcher; and of old his servants knew him as “the Lord which searcheth
the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men.” Let me stir you up in
his name to make diligent search and solemn trial of your state, lest you come
short of the promised rest. That which every wise man does, that which God
himself does with us all, I exhort you to do with yourself this evening. Let
the oldest saint look well to the fundamentals of his piety, for grey heads
may cover black hearts: and let not the young professor despise the word of
warning, for the greenness of youth may be joined to the rottenness of
hypocrisy. Every now and then a cedar falls into our midst. The enemy still
continues to sow tares among the wheat. It is not my aim to introduce doubts
and fears into your mind; nay, verily, but I shall hope the rather that the
rough wind of self-examination may help to drive them away. It is not
security, but carnal security, which we would kill; not confidence, but
fleshly confidence, which we would overthrow; not peace, but false peace,
which we would destroy. By the precious blood of Christ, which was not shed to
make you a hypocrite, but that sincere souls might show forth his praise, I
beseech you, search and look, lest at the last it be said of you, “Mene, Mene,
Tekel: thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”
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