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The ministry of home; or, Brief expository lectures on divine truth
The ministry of home or Brief expository lectures on divine truth Author:Octavius Winslow Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE HEART OPENED. Acts xvi. 14. " Whose heart the Lord opened." Such is conversion! Multitudes, it is to be feared, remain in an unrenewed state from not ... more »knowing what real conversion is: mistaking its nature, they come short of its experience, and so perish in their sins. They are not aware that an error on this vital point— that, substituting false conversion for true—will prove as fatal to the soul as poison, taken through ignorance, will to the body. Of what infinite moment is it, then, that we clearly understand what it is to be converted. For this purpose I have selected as an illustration, and for your serious study, a case in point. It is that of Lydia, "whose heart the Lord opened." But little is known of her history; but that little involves all of importance that we need know—that she was truly converted to Christ. It is comparatively of little moment whether in this life we have a history or not, if we possess but an assured hope of an interest in the happiness of the life that is to come. We may be little and unknown, until divine grace draws us forth fromour obscurity and numbers us among the children of God, the disciples of Jesus, the precious jewels which the Lord will own as His in the day that He makes them up. It is conversion alone that truly immortalizes us. The rank, the learning, the wealth, the honours of this life disappear, and the very names and memories of those who possessed them may perish; but, the righteous are had in everlasting remembrance, while, as we are told, " the name of the wicked shall rot." Thus did divine grace attach a history and interest to the name and character of Lydia, which will fill all future time with their instruction and fragrance, and eternity with their praise. She being dead yet speaketh by her genuine conversion a...« less