Chapter 16: Justifiction By Faith Do you feel a sense of acceptance with God, of pardoned sin, of communion with God?
This must be a matter of experience, if it exists. Don't imagine you can be in a justified state, and yet have no evidence of it. You may have great peace in reality, filling your soul, and yet not draw the inference that you are justified. I remember the time, when my mind was in a state of such sweet peace, that it seemed to me as if all nature was listening for God to speak; but yet I was not aware that this was the peace of God, or that it was evidence of my being in a justified state. I thought I had lost all my conviction, and actually undertook to bring back the sense of condemnation that I had before. I did not draw the inference that I was justified, till after the love of God was so shed abroad in my soul by the Holy Ghost, that I was compelled to cry out, "Lord, it is enough, I can bear no more." I do not believe it possible for the sense of condemnation to remain, where the act of pardon is already past.
(4.) Have you the spirit of adoption? If you are justified, you are also adopted, as one of God's dear children, and he has sent forth his Spirit into your heart, so that you naturally cry, "Abba, Father!" He seems to you just like a father, and you want to call him father. Do you know any thing of this? It is one thing to call God your father in heaven, and another thing to feel towards him as a father. This is one evidence of a justified state, when God gives the spirit of adoption.
I. I would go around to all my dear hearers tonight, and ask them one by one, "Are you in a state of justification? Do you honestly think you are justified?"
I have briefly run over the subject, and showed what justification is not, and what it is, how you can be saved, and the evidences of justification.
Have you it? Would you dare to die now? Suppose the loud thunders of the last trumpet were now to shake the universe, and you should see the Son of God coming to judgment are you ready? Could you look up calmly and say. "Father, this is a solemn sight, but Christ has died, and God has justified me, and who is he that shall condemn me?"
II. If you think you ever was justified, and yet have not at present the evidence of it, I want to make an inquiry. Are you under the discipline of the covenant? If not, have you any reason to believe you ever were justified? God's covenant with you, if you belong to Christ, is this "If they backslide, I will visit their iniquity with the rod, and chasten them with stripes."
Do you feel the stripes? Is God awakening your mind, and convicting your conscience, is he smiting you? If not, where are the evidences that he is dealing with you as a son? If you are not walking with God, and at the same time are not under chastisement, you cannot have any good reason to believe you are God's children.
III. Those of you who have evidence that you are justified, should maintain your relation to God, and live up to your real privileges. This is immensely important. There is no virtue