November 24

What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God?" (2 Peter 3:11-12). Every believing soul is Christ's spouse. The day of conversion is the day when she is betrothed by faith to Christ; and therefore she lives in hope for their marriage day when He will come and take her home to His Father's house--as Isaac took Rebekah into his mother's tent. And there they will live in His sweet embraces of love, world without end. When the bridegroom comes, does the bride want him to find her in dirty garments? "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?" (Jeremiah 2:32). Has a bride ever forgotten to have her wedding dress ready on her marriage day? Or does she forget to put it on when she expects her bridegroom's coming?

Holiness is the "raiment of needlework" in which you will be "brought unto the king," your husband (Psalm 45:14). Why has this wedding day been put off for so many years? It has taken a long time for the bride's garment to be completed. But when its preparation is finished and you are dressed in it, then that joyful day will come: "The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7).

Christian, you have no more effective argument to defeat temptation than your hope. Of course it is good when temptation is defeated, no matter what the weapon is. Yet the Israelites used the poor judgment when they borrowed the Philistines' grindstone to "sharpen every man...his axe, and his mattock" (1 Samuel 13:20). So the Christian's choice is inferior when he must use the wicked man's argument to cut through temptation. The saint has more purity of spirit than this. Hope's innocent argument will put you into a stronger tower against sin than all the sophisticated weapons of the uncircumcised world.

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