The work of Grace counts for nothing with them, but just the peculiarity of sect, or the peculiarity of religious rite is made a world of. Blind creatures to despise the medicine which heals because of the bottle which contains it, or the label by which it is named! Yet this poor soul you encountered, blind in her rudeness, needs that same medicine you have received. Value every part of the work of Divine Grace because it came from God and leads to God. God's gifts are always worthy of the Giver. God gives not trinkets and counterfeits, His gifts are solid gold and lasting treasure.
Knowing that tribulation works patience. A man cannot prove that he has patience if he has never been tried. Christian patience is not a weed, it is a cultivated plant. We only get patience through our trials. How often it happens that when the Lord commences a work of Grace on men He begins with some terrible judgment, laying them low that He may lift them up in due time. But how often these visitations end in disappointment! The man is sick, he lies suffering on the brink of eternity. Ah, my Friends, all the afflictions in the world, apart from the Grace of God, will only harden men! Yet see Grace reigning in the midst of spiritual death, spiritual bondage, spiritual despair, Grace reigning in the effort of judgment, Grace in the battle of temptation, Grace in the quagmires of infirmity, and Grace triumphant in the midst of our direst afflictions!
Grace has much more abounded even where sin did most abound. Grace comes in and finds man under sentence of death, hopeless and polluted and full of everything that is obnoxious in God's sight! What does Grace do in such a case at that? What a marvel of patience our heavenly Father has been in His dealings with us! I look at my pulpit work and I have to confess that sin has abounded there. I look at my private life and I have to acknowledge that sin has abounded there. Yet He gives grace. You will not get Grace from out of yourselves! It will never spring up within us apart from God. He will give Grace. If you go forth to work for God, He will give Grace. In the vineyard you shall find Him furnishing you with tools, yes, and giving you strength equal to your day. He will give Grace.
If you have been saved by the Grace of God, your salvation has put you under obligation to do what Jesus bids you. Are you redeemed? Then you are not your own, you are bought with a price! The outcome of our union with Christ must be holiness. What concord has Christ with Belial? What union can He have with men that love sin? Let us live so that all may see how Grace abounds in us and let us help to spread the wondrous story of what this Grace has done for us, that others may seek that Grace for themselves, that Grace which abounds to the chief of sinners, that Grace which is the portion of all who believe in Jesus, that Grace. Grace shall robe you about with Jesus' Righteousness; Grace shall make you bold to stand where sinners tremble, and Grace shall say to you, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation.
He will give Grace, and though you must die, yet Grace will enable you to go through the Jordan singing in its utmost depths, triumphing in the Grace which will surely bring you safe to the other side! He will give Grace, Grace of all sorts to those who earnestly seek it. The fountain of Divine Love pours forth its streams of grace at all seasons without pressure. There is no need to tread the grapes of mercy to force forth their cheering juice. The paths of the Lord drop fatness, distilling spontaneously as the dew and the rain. O Grace of God, bring in the great sinners, for Jesus' sake. Amen.