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{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…
Exhortation to Those Who Began the Heavenly Trade But Have Backslidden
Advice: Settle on Friendly Terms with Your Creditor}
Next, settle on friendly terms with your Creditor. Make peace with God through Christ. Make haste to prevent seizure of your goods and person by a timely settlement.1330 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison” (Matthew 5:25 NASB). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31 NKJV). “For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29 NKJV). Oh, tremble with a sense of His righteous judgment and do not, by your delays, force the Lord to start a lawsuit against you and begin to take away all you have. “So do this, my son, and deliver yourself; For you have come into the hand of your friend: Go and humble yourself; Plead with your friend” (Proverbs 6:3 NKJV). Fall down before your Creditor and sue for terms of reconciliation. Throw yourself at the feet of mercy and confess your sin. Pay the debt you cannot pay by going to beg remission and offer a Surety [Christ] to discharge the full amount, even such a One with whom the Father Himself is well pleased. Your Creditor must be satisfied, or you are undone; but you can never do this yourself. Therefore go to the Mediator to obtain terms of settlement and procure peace. Make Christ your friend; He is able to satisfy all the Father’s demands, settle the account, and discharge your debt by the Spirit of grace who can bear witness of the pardon of all your sins to your consciences. Come to Him with a sense of your folly, bearing your shame. Forsake your wasteful ways and, like the prodigal son, return from harlots to your Father’s house. Consider yourselves unworthy of the least of His mercies and consent to the lowest condition. Thus, He will take you in again (Luke 15:17–21).1331 Agree to all His terms and make a new surrender of yourself and your all to Christ, to be no more your own, but more entirely His than ever (Jeremiah 50:5).1332 Enter into a new covenant with God in Christ, taking Him for your Surety, and depend on Him for your ability to fulfill it. Get your soul more firmly bound to the Lord in your covenant by the bond of the Spirit.
1330This was written at a time when debtor’s prison was a real threat. These prisoners were confined to locked workhouses to work off their debt and also had to pay for their confinement.
1331“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son’” (Luke 15:17–21 NKJV).
1332“They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, let us join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten’” (Jeremiah 50:5 ESV).
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