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Thursday, March 28th, 2024
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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: March 2nd

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THE GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF GOD’S LIGHT IN THE SOUL

Our lamps are going out. - Matthew 25:8

ALL spiritual emotions, and vitality, like every other kind of emotion and vitality, die unless nourished. Let no theological difficulties about "the final perseverance of the saints," or "the indefeasibleness of grace," and the impossibility of slaying the Divine life that has once been given to a man, come in the way of letting this parable have its full, solemn weight. These foolish virgins had oil and had light; the oil gave out by their fault, and so the light went out, and they were startled, when they awoke from their slumber, to see how, instead of brilliant flame, there was smoking wick.

Let us take the lesson. There is nothing in our religious emotions which has any guarantee of perpetuity in it, except upon certain conditions. We may live, and our life may ebb. We may trust, and our trust may tremble into unbelief. We may obey, and our obedience may be broken by the mutinous risings of self-will. We may walk in the paths of righteousness, and our feet may falter and turn aside. There is certainty of the dying out of all communicated life, unless the channel of communication with the life from which it was first kindled be kept constantly clear. The lamp may be "a burning and a shining light," or, more accurately translating the phrase of our Lord, "a light kindled and" (therefore) "shining," but it will only be light "for a season," unless it is fed from that from which it was first set alight - and that is, from God Himself

" Our lamps are going out." A slow process that! The flame does not all die into darkness in a minute. There are stages in the process. The white portion of the flame becomes smaller and the blue part extends; then the flame flickers, and finally shudders itself, as it were, off the wick; then nothing remains but a charred red line along the top; then that line breaks up into little points, and one after another these twinkle out, and then all is black, and the lamp is gone out. And so, slowly, like the ebbing away of the tide, like the reluctant long-protracted dying of summer days, like the dropping of the blood from some fatal wound, by degrees the process of extinction creeps, creeps, creeps on, and the lamp that was going is finally gone out.

The infinite mercy of God is not mere weak indulgence, which so deals with a man’s failures and sins as to convey the impression that these are of no moment whatsoever. And the severity which said, "No! such work is not fit for such hands until the heart has been ’ broken and healed,’ " is of a piece with the severity which is love. "Thou wast a God that forgavest them, and didst visit them for their inventions." Let us learn the difference between a weak charity which loves too foolishly, and therefore too selfishly, to let a man inherit the fruit of his doings, and the large mercy which knows how to take the bitterness out of the chastisement, and yet knows how to chastise.

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