Who Paul Prayed To
In Ephesians 1:17, the apostle gives a short summary of his prayer to God for the Ephesian believers.
First, Paul refers to God the Father (to whom he is praying) as “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ” and “the Father of glory”. The Father is in His own nature infinitely glorious, the fountain of the whole Godhead and all the divine attributes in the Son and the Holy Ghost. All glory is due to Him from created beings.
What Paul Prayed for His Friends
Paul then mentions what he sought from God for the Ephesian believers. This was “wisdom,” or a further increase of the saving knowledge of God which the Holy Spirit gives, together with a clearer insight into the Scripture where the same Spirit reveals these truths. This “wisdom” mainly consists in the saving, believing, and operative “knowledge of him,” i.e., of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wants the Holy Spirit to remove the natural blindness of their understandings and to bestow a clear discerning of the things of God.
We Should Have Definite Things to Pray For
We should not necessarily restrict ourselves to a set form of words when we pray. Yet we should have set purposes worked out, and a definite point to aim at, when we pray, so that we would be able to give an account of what we are praying for, whether that is for ourselves or for others.
We Must Pray to the True God
Our prayers should be directed to God only. No one else knows us, or the secrets of our hearts. Anyone or anything else is unfit to receive our prayers.
Also when we draw near to God in prayer (whether for ourselves or others), we should do so with confidence and reverence – for these are not mutually exclusive. We should think about God, and express what we are thinking about Him, in a way that will most strengthen our faith and most strike our hearts with reverence towards Him. To strengthen his faith, Paul refers to God as “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ” and to bring his heart into deep reverence he calls him “the Father of glory,” or “glorious Father.”
We Should Pray Out of Faith in Christ
In order to have access to God with boldness through Christ, it is necessary to renew the act of faith which applies and appropriates Christ to ourselves. Then, being made one with Christ, we will be seen by the Father as clothed with Christ’s righteousness. This is the way that God will accept both our persons and our imperfect prayers – that is, through Christ. Paul here appropriates Christ to himself as his own, calling Him “our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is necessary also that when we embrace Christ in this way, we do not divide Him into parts, but take to ourselves the fullness of all the perfections which are in Him. This is an evidence of our sincerity in embracing Him, but additionally, nothing less than the whole Christ is necessary to cover all our imperfections, bear us up under all our discouragements, and help us in all the infirmities which beleaguer us in our approaches to God.

Christ is fully equipped and qualified to do all that He has purposed for His people. There is nothing required for the work which He does not have. David Dickson imagines a poor soul asking, “Christ may be able to do all I need; but is He willing to employ His wisdom and strength for me?” He answers that Christ not only has wisdom and strength, but He will deal prudently. He foresees all the impediments in His way, anything that could mar the work of salvation. There is no wound His soldiers get that He has no cure for. There is no adversary He does not know how to defeat. In a word, everything from eternity to eternity is managed prudently. Dickson is expounding and applying Isaiah 52:13 “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently” and in the course of doing this he brings out the way in which Christ applies His wisdom. There are twelve ways this is identified in the following updated extract (Dickson’s fifteen ways have been summarised into twelve).
1. Christ Deals with God’s Justice Wisely
The justice of God must lose nothing, before we are reconciled or get heaven, a just God must be satisfied. Our prudent Lord answers, “If these people cannot get to heaven until justice is satisfied, behold I am come to satisfy it.” And yet the Lord’s mercy will have as great a place as it pleases; for He deals so prudently that He makes mercy and justice kiss each other. Mercy runs like a river, and justice is satisfied — is not that prudent dealing?
2. Christ Deals with God’s Law Wisely
The law says, “I will take satisfaction from Christ for past sins; but what obedience will I have for the future? Will those whom Christ has redeemed, be permitted to break me in the future?” Prudent Christ answers, “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Before the law could only get punishment for its being broken, now, it gets full obedience by Christ. Christ did not come to abolish but to fulfil the law; He came only to abolish the cursing part of it, but to establish the obeying part of it. Here is prudent dealing.
3. Christ Conquers Satan Wisely
In comes Satan the jailer and death with him; he flies at Christ to get Him overthrown. But prudent Christ destroyed him who had the power of death by the means of death. He overcomes him who had the power of death, and says, he will be the death of death.
So death lies down in the grave and all his own die and lie down with him. Satan thinks to have Christ held in this way. But He could not be held by the sorrows of death. He rises and breaks an opening with Him through death. Like Samson, He takes away the gates and bars of death and has left death neither door nor lock to hold us in. Here is prudence.
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In John 4, John records what Christ did and the success He had on His way to Galilee, in bringing a soul to Himself. While He was sitting by the well, a woman of Samaria came to draw water. They had a conversation, in which He led her from one thing to another, till she came to know Him to be the Messiah.
Jesus Comes Close to Sinners
Providence may be intending much mercy to those who are unworthy of it, and who have little thought of it. This woman, who was guilty of vile sins, came to fetch water, and no thought of anything else. Yet providence brought her to meet the Saviour of sinners, and at a time when He was actually feeling weary and thirsty. In this way He was an appropriate Lord to deal with such an unfeeling woman.
Christ is a Lord who will not be stopped by any impediment, but will overcome everything, to reconcile sinners to Himself. He doesn’t even keep a distance from Samaritans, not even a lewd woman among them. He counts it His glory to win someone so unlikely to Himself.
Jesus Introduces Himself to Those Who Do Not Know Him
When Christ spoke to her, He lets her see how much she mistook her own mercy (verse 10). If she had known Him, she would not only not have refused His request, but would have instead requested something from Him, and He would have given her better and living water (by which we are to understand the Spirit of God, and the graces of the Spirit acted by Him, John 7:38-39). Christ’s meekness passes over a lot of frowardness, which He finds in His own in the time of their conversion. By His goodness He overcomes their badness.
Ignorance of Christ, and what He has (and is ready) to give, is a major reason why sinners treat Him so badly. “If only you knew!” Christ says. He is known rightly and savingly when He and all He has are looked on as freely gifted to the world by the Father (as well as by Himself) and made theirs by offer to be embraced. This is why He is named “the gift of God.”
It greatly adds to Christ’s reputation that He is the one who makes the effort to come to sinners, and He pre-empts them by making offers of Himself. And when Christ is rightly known, as offered to the world for the salvation of lost sinners, it will beget a thirst for Him. It gets souls seeking for Him by prayer to supply their thirst, and they cannot stay away from Him. They see Him seeking sinners, to give something – salvation! – to them, more than to receive anything from them.
This woman, rather than refusing Him a drink of water, should have asked for water from Him! Christ has better things to give sinners, then anything He can ask from them, or anything they can offer Him. The well of life is in Christ’s hand, to dispense it as He wishes. Instead of her water, He has living water to give her.
Christ, who makes offer of grace before we seek it, will not refuse it to those who ask it. Nor do our past sins hinder us from being accepted by Him when we come to seek grace from Him. Even to this wicked woman He says, “If you had asked, He would have given you living water.”
Jesus Persists Against Misunderstandings and Disbelief
When the woman replies, she argues against Christ’s offer, alleging that this water either had to come out of the well – which was impossible, seeing the well was deep, and he had nothing to draw with – or this water had to come out of a better well, which would mean Christ was making Himself out to be better than Jacob (verse 11).
When we are unconverted we can’t help taking up spiritual things in a carnal way. People are not able to discern grace till they have it. This woman understood Christ as if he were speaking of elementary water.
We are also naturally enemies to our own good. Far from preparing ourselves for conversion, we are prone to dispute against our own happiness, and deceive ourselves, just like this woman reasoning against this living water because, in her judgement, it was impossible to be had or given.
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Dying Means Going to Our Long Home
As King Solomon puts it in Ecclesiastes 12:5, we are all going to “our long home,” or as the original is, to “the house of eternity,” meaning the state where the soul will be eternally, without any further change.
It is our wisdom therefore, before this time comes, to make sure that we are reconciled to God in Christ. That will provide some suitable consolation for our souls, while our bodies will be [laid in the dust].
Therefore, while we are fit and healthy, we should employ our strength well, to make sure we are at peace with Him who is most high, so that He will not be a terror to us in the evil day (Jer. 17:17). If we have faith, then things that may present themselves as terrifying to others, will be no cause of fear to us.
Some people think that the best they will ever get is in this present life, and they promise to themselves that they will enjoy things on earth perpetually. Yet they shall find themselves after a little while miserably disappointed. They shall find that this is not their home. It would be wiser for them instead to look on their mansions here as short-stay residences, and to think of themselves as strangers and pilgrims, that so they would give all diligence to ensure they will have everlasting habitations.
After death there is no change of the state of souls as to their misery or the blessedness. They must remain for ever either with Satan in his prison, or with Christ in His Father’s house.
Death Affects Both Soul and Body
Solomon summarises our future state after death, making reference to both body and soul, the two principal parts of which we are made up: “Then shall the dust return to the earth, as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Eccles. 12:7).
The body, Solomon calls “dust,” because it was formed out of the dust (Gen. 2:7). When the body is separated from the soul, it is the most vile and loathsome piece of dust of all. He says it “returns to the dust,” because it is ordinarily buried in the earth, to remain there till the resurrection, and because it is in effect the same substance as the dust of the earth.
The more noble part is the soul, here called the “spirit” because it is immaterial, and because of its resemblance to God, the Father of spirits. The soul “returns to him who gave it.” This does not mean only the souls of the godly, but rather it is the common state of the souls of all humans after death.
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Pray that the Church Would Live up to Its Spiritual Status as Victors in Christ Over Sin
Jeremiah refers to the Lord’s people’s “crown” (Lamentations 5:16). The crown was their exclusive privileges in church and state, which they had beyond other people on the earth. God’s people are a royal people beyond all nations. All others are drudges to their own lusts, but God’s people are kings and conquerors, triumphing over principalities and powers, the world, and their own lusts and passions.
Use your spiritual privileges then, and be a crowned king over all that opposes you. Otherwise the royal crown will be taken off your head and you will be made an outcast. “The crown is fallen from our head” (verse 16). Of all men the most contemptible are you whom God would lift up and yet you are determined to make yourself base. Therefore, enjoy your kingship over sin, Satan, the world and your own lusts, in order that one day a crown of perfect gold may be set on your head.
Pray for a True Sense of Sin
The Lord’s people in Jeremiah’s time said, “Woe unto us, for we have sinned” (verse 16). Here they acknowledge that sin was the cause of all their misery and disgrace. Sin is the cause of all the trouble that comes on us. It defaces all our privileges and makes a people the tail and not the head (Deut. 28:44). If it was not for sin, God’s people would not need to lose their blessedness with anything.
The church cries, “Woe to us that we have sinned,” and not, “Woe unto us that we are miserable.” Sin is a greater evil than any misery, if only we were conscious of it, for we may blame ourselves and our sins for all our misery and for the feeling of our misery. Misery should turn all our grief against sin. If you tend to cry, “Woe is me because of my affliction,” learn to say instead, “Woe is me because of my sin.” Be more sorry for sin than for the judgment it has drawn down on you.
Pray for an Appropriate Dread of the Consequences of Our Personal and Collective Sin
“For this our heart is faint,” they say (verse 17). The reason for their grief and faintness of heart is both that God’s temple, which was the place of their comfort, is laid low and desolate and waste, and also that they were the ones who had moved God to cast it down. Now it has become a den for foxes and other wild animals. It shows that people’s sins not only draw wrath on themselves but also on the church and commonwealth of which they are members. So, in order not to bring a plague on church and state, put away sin.
Pray for a Sympathetic Attitude for the Troubled Church
Their grief is “because of Zion” (verse 18). We should be more grieved for the church drawn on by sin than for any other cause. The church’s grief should go nearer our heart than our own. If we lay God’s glory to heart, we will be more grieved for the evils that have come upon the church than anything that can happen to ourselves.
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It may look very presumptuous to read this book, or attempt to explain it. Indeed there is need of much humility and soberness in going about such a work, and much need that the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who has given this book as a benefit to His church, would help us to take it up rightly.
Reasons to Read Revelation
Yet its subject matter is very profitable and comforting to the church, to the end of the world. And when Christ gave it, as His last will and word to His church, his aim in doing so was to give a revelation, to make known His mind to them. This is why John is forbidden to seal it up – so that it would remain open for the good of His church. There is also plenty to motivate us and encourage us to read and search into it, for example the blessing in verse 3, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy,” a saying which is repeated again after the prophetic part is immediately closed (chapter 22:7,14).
These all add up to notable encouragements, not only to try to read and seek to understand the Book of the Revelation, but also to lay it on us as a duty. We therefore resolve, through God’s grace, to attempt it, so that it will not be altogether useless to the “servants of God” to whom it is sent, according to verse 1.
It is true that many things in this book are obscure. It is also likely that we cannot expect them to be fully cleared up till God opens them up in some singular way.
However, there are many clear, edifying, and comforting passages of God’s mind in it. The Holy Ghost mixes these in for us to feed on, and to sweeten the passages that are more obscure, and to encourage the reader to search for the meaning of these more obscure parts.
Additionally, even in the passages that are most obscure, we may identify doctrines about the disposition of the church’s enemies, and how God gives His people victory, preservation and deliverance. The very obscure passages are after all things where there is little risk to us of being ignorant, compared to the danger of ignorance in fundamental truths, and yet they are things which God allows folks to search out by wisdom (“Here is wisdom,” he says, as in chapter 13:18).
Revelation’s Introduction to itself
The whole style and shape of the Book of Revelation is by way of an epistle. It is Jesus Christ, by John, writing His last will to His church. And if any Scripture displays the sovereignty, majesty, justice, mercy and truth of God, for the comfort of His people, and in a way that makes the hearts of His enemies quake, this does.
It seems clear that the writer is John the Apostle, honoured here to bear Christ’s last message to His church. In chapter 1 he is simply called John, without any further designation, implying that he was the John so well known and famous for an infallible and extraordinary measure of the Spirit. This John was banished to the Isle of Patmos, which, from the ancient famous story, is clearly John the Apostle, as he was banished there under the persecution of Emperor Domitian. The description of him in verse 2 matches how he describes himself in his Gospel (John 21:24). Of course, this book (being prophetic) differs somewhat in style from his other writings, yet the style is not so unlike his, for there are many words and phrases in his Gospel, and in several chapters of this Book, which are very alike (such as, calling Christ the Word, and the Lamb, phrases which are distinctively John’s).
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According to Hugh Binning, challenging times when everything seems so much of a struggle are exactly the circumstances where faith should be prompted to be most active. “At such a time there ought to be all the more exercise of faith, and laying hold of the grounds of consolation in God.”
Challenges in a strange way can even strengthen faith, and certainly they give us ample motivation to keep seeking God until we know we have got through to him. How can we get out of our spiritual inertia? In this updated extract from a sermon on Isaiah 64, Binning tackles the question, When and how are we stirred up to spiritual activity?
1. Difficulties Call for Strong Faith
As difficulties grow, faith should fortify itself against them so much the more. The greater the storm, the quicker faith should flee into the chambers.Faith in a calm day gets no trial. Faith gets lazy when it does not have much to do. But without fresh and new supplies of grace, faith cannot hold out in a temptation. It is a singular sign of a noble and divine faith that it can lay hold on God and keep him when he makes to go away—that can recognise the kindness of Jesus even when he acts as if he does not know us —that can stand on the ground of the promises when there is not a foot-breadth of a hopeful sign in the circumstances to build on.
2. Difficulties Demand A Sure Faith
The most pressing time for making sure of your part in God is a time when there is no external advantage to beguile you, a time when the only happiness is to be one with God. Therefore, anyone who, in time of calamities and judgments, is not awakened to put their eternal estate out of question, is in a dangerous position.
3. Difficulties Call Out A Focused Faith
The Lord loves faith in a difficulty best. Then it is the most single-hearted and focused, and the cleanest. That is the kind which honours him most, and which most glorifies his truth and faithfulness, and sufficiency and mercy. In this way it is most purely elevated above created things, and pitches most fully on God. It is when people say, ‘No help for my soul, but thou art my portion.’ God is most commended when he is set alone. Prosperity brings him down among the creatures, and undisturbed, complacent faith makes little distinction. But awakening faith grips strongly and singly, and puts God alone.
4. Difficulties Require Special Seeking
Often, when God is departing, “none stirreth up himself to lay hold on him.” Although there may be plenty praying, and doing many duties, yet it is nothing beyond the ordinary. The varieties and combinations of new reasons for supplications results neither in greater frequency nor more fervency in our appeals to God.
5. Seek with Diligence
There is very little diligence in seeking God, even when God seems to be saying farewell to the land, and going away. Still nobody comes in as an intercessor. They keep on in their old way of praying, and never add to it, come what may. Does anyone rise above their ordinary ways, however high the tide of God’s dispensation rises?
Instead the impression made by God’s change of countenance should make an effect that would be visibly seen on how his people behave. There should be such a distance between your ordinary and such times as between sleeping and waking, that whatever access to God you normally have, you would stir up and go beyond it according as matters call.
Will God count your public fasts a performance of this duty? Unfortunately, we fast sleeping, and no one stirs himself up to these things! Is there any difference between your days of humiliation and any other sabbath? And is there any difference between a sabbath and a weekday, save the external duty?
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David Dickson explains more of the rich blessing of the Covenant of Grace in this updated extract.
1. The Covenant of Grace Runs Through Scripture
Immediately after the breaking of the covenant of works by Adam, it pleased the Lord to lay that new ground of a new covenant of grace in His Son, in that promise in the garden. The seed of the woman shall tread down the serpent (Genesis 3:15). And God renews the promise in form of a formal covenant to Abraham and his seed which is Christ, and all the faithful through Him (Genesis 17:7). The same covenant is repeated in the person of David and his seed (2 Samuel 7:14-15).
This is more fully explained Psalm 89:3-4. Where the Lord swears to the throne and kingdom of Christ who was to come from David unto all generations, and under the type of David and his successors, and his children, that is, all those that believe in Christ:

protection and defence against all evil;
provision of strength for every good employment;
freedom from the voluntary slavery of sin;
turning of everything to our good;
fighting for us, against our foes;
giving us all the good things that He promises to us;
to forgive us our sins;
to make us partakers of His eternal kingdom:
faith itself and the spirit of adoption, whereby we may call God, “Abba Father”. And
last of all, which of all is most wonderful, although the devil had so far prevailed as to make them forsake the law of God, and neglect the commandments, and transgress the statutes and ordinances; yet if you return to the Lord your God, and lay hold on the covenant, you may well be plagued with worldly judgments for your correction, but you shall not be excluded from the mercy of God, and His loving kindness. “If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” (Psalm 89:30-32). But observe that which follows: “Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” (Psalm 89:33-34), etc. O the wonderful love and goodness of our God in His Son Christ towards poor sinners! who, although we change every moment, He never changes.

This is the new covenant which our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did preach, and sealed with His blood, and left in legacy to us, under the broad seal of His own sacrament. For the last cup that ever He drank, He took the cup and giving thanks, He gave it to His disciples, saying, “Drink ye all of it: For this is my blood of the new covenant, or new testament which is shed for many, for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28). This is the covenant in which all the promises of grace are contained both in the Old and New Testament; for this cause it is called, the New Covenant of promises.
2. The Blessings of the Covenant of Grace
The excellence of it shall appear in considering its properties.(a) It is a new covenant, for that it makes us free from the covenant of works; yea now under the gospel twice, because it makes us free from the ceremonies of Moses’ law, with which the children of God were burdened before the coming of Christ (Hebrews 7:22).
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Praise is a special means of glorifying God (Psalm 50:23) and so it is frequently commanded. In the space of just two verses, we are commanded five times to sing praise to God (Psalm 47:6-7). But one of these is to sing praise with the understanding (v7 see 1 Corinthians 14:15). The whole psalm helps us to do this by giving reasons for joyful praise. In the psalms God gives us not just many commands to sing praise but also reasons for it and not only that but the very words to use. Using the same kind of ascension language as Psalm 68:18 it also points to a time of a gospel kingdom rather than simply the Jewish people praising God. It reveals a future king, clearly the Messiah who would subdue the nations and have everything under His rule (Ephesians 1:22).
David Dickson describes this psalm as a “prophecy of the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom, and of the conjunction of Jews and Gentiles in one body under Christ their Head and Lord”. It is an exhortation to “Jews and Gentiles, joyfully to praise the God and Saviour of His people Jesus Christ” whom the Psalmist sees “ascended into heaven triumphantly after the full payment made of the price of redemption”. Christ is gathering His redeemed people, Jews and Gentiles, out of all nations. The benefits of His kingdom belong to more nations than one “for in Him the redeemed in al the nations of the earth are blessed” (Psalm 47:1).
It is a matter of chief joy when the kingdom of Christ comes to anyone because it means deliverance from “sin, Satan, and misery”. He has conquered these enemies and also brings “sure mercies of righteousness, peace, and joy” with eternal life. The Gentiles are commanded “to clap their hands and shout, and to shout with the voice of triumph”. They are to “shout to God, the triumpher, who in all this Psalm is the Redeemer Christ” “distinctly to be praised for His work of victorious redemption of sinners”. Thus it says “shout unto God with the voice of triumph” (Psalm 47:1). In the following updated extract Dickson goes on to show the reasons that this psalm gives us for praise. “None can praise God, or praise Christ sincerely, who do not understand the reasons for which they should praise” so it follow that praising with the understanding stirs up the affections also.
1. Christ is Sovereign Over all the Earth
The first reason for joyful praising of Christ is taken from His sovereign majesty over all the world (Psalm 47:2). The Redeemer, the victorious triumpher is the Lord: very God, essentially Jehovah, the Lord most high. Christ has the right and just title to erect a church in what country and kingdom He pleases without asking the permission of any. He is able to set up the profession of His name and the practice of all His ordinances in doctrine, worship, and church government. “He is a great king over all the earth.”
2. Christ’s Kingdom is Increasing
The second reason for joyful praising of Christ is taken from the increase of His own kingdom, and the exalting of all His subjects above the rest of the world (Psalm 47:3).
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Earthly mindedness and heavenly living are contrasted in Philippians 3:19-20. But this heavenly mindedness is mainly connected to Paul’s example (v17) which is contrasted with that of the enemies of the cross of Christ. It is as though Paul was saying beware of following of those who mind earthly things, for their end is destruction; but rather follow those whose way of living is in heaven, for their end is, salvation. How can we identify those who have such a heavenly manner of living?
Jeremiah Burroughs says that they are those who esteem the things of heaven to have greater significance than those of the earth. They are able to be content with enjoying little in this world. A heavenly, godly man or woman can tell you how to live a joyful and happy life even if they lack the things of this world. They can not only live joyfully lacking many comforts, but they can suffer the loss of all. They can suffer hard things, afflictions, torments and tortures with joyful hearts (Hebrews 11:13- 14, 36-40 and Hebrews 10:32-34).
Their hearts are greatly filled with heavenly riches: much grace, holiness, much of the image of God, much spiritual life. A Christian’s life manifests much of the excellency of heaven, much of the glory of heaven shines in their faces. The hearts of the saints are filled with God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, grace and this is greatly manifest in their lives. They cannot be comfortable in the enjoyment of all things in this world if they are deprived of the heavenly enjoyments. They are troubled when they do not feel those influences from heaven in their souls they have previously. They are willing to die and leave this world with much comfort, joy and peace in the hope of eternal life.But the question is: how does such a person and way of living deal with the realities of this life or is it just an escape? Does it impact on others in this world? What use and what good does it have? Burroughs goes on in the following updated extract to provide some answers.
1. Heavenly Living is Convincing
Heavenly living will be very convincing. You will convince others that you have something more than they have when they see you live in a heavenly way. The men of the world know the things of the world and that they have set their hearts on them. But when they see those that profess religion mingle themselves with the earth in the same way that they do, they will think that such are motivated by the same principles they themselves are. But heavenly living will convince them, when they see Christians rising above this in the whole course of their lives. They see an evenness and proportion in their course. At all times and in all matters they conduct themselves as those who are of another world.
A stranger may act for a while act just like a native, but one who has been born there knows how to find out in one thing or another whether this is so. It is very hard for men to conduct in the right way if they do not have true grace though they may appear sometimes to be very heavenly. A true citizen of heaven will discern at one time or another if they do not have grace. The truth is also that unregenerate people will reveal their true heritage too.
But when Christians have a constant way of life that is heavenly, it is very convincing. There are the rays of heaven around them, they have the lustre of heaven shining wherever they go, and in all company. Surely such a person seems to be in heaven continually. This will force the very consciences of others to say: “certainly these are the citizens of heaven if any are.”
The rich man wanted Abraham to send someone to warn his brethren who had risen from the dead, because they would hear him. We might say that if God would send one from heaven to live among people and preach to them, surely they would pay attention to him. Would it not be a great benefit to the world if God would send a saint from heaven, or an angel to converse in a bodily way among us? Yet Christians should live as if they came from heaven every day, as if they had been in heaven conversing with God. When in the morning they seek to get alone between God and their souls, they should never stop striving until they get their hearts so much in heaven that when they come down to their family their very faces may shine. And that you may see by how they live that certainly they have been with God upon the mount.
Do you live in such a way that your family and your neighbours may see that you have been in heaven that morning? Every morning we should have some converse with heaven. If we did our way of living would be convincing all the day long and very profitable to the world. Christians that live in a heavenly way are of very great use in the places where they live. When Christ ascended up to heaven, He gave gifts to men. And if we would oftener ascend up to heaven, we would be more able to be beneficial to the world.
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