Trust God and Nothing Else

 The following is from Handley Moule's The Sacred Seasons:

"No outward ordinances ever yet shut out the deceitfulness of sin.  The will and thought can run riot in the sanctuary of God; yea, at the Table of the Savior.  No holy connections ever shut out the deceitfulness of sin.  It is possible to despise and reject and exclude the Lord even when you daily see Him glorified in the lives of His people; even when those people are your heart's own beloved.

"What shall we do?  Is it all meant to teach us to despair?  No, brethren; the very opposite.  It is meant, if it may be, to drive us from false refuges to the everlasting arms, to the sure refuge, to the Almighty influence, even to the Lord Jesus and to the Spirit of our God.

"It is to warn--but also to invite us with love divine.  It is to say to the soul that knows its sin a little, but not its Savior:  Trust nothing else, nothing less than a real coming, your very self, to Christ.  Ask nothing else, nothing less, than a real visitation of the Holy Spirit, to expose and to subdue your iniquities, by making plain to you your Redeemer's preciousness.  Use every means indeed, BUT mistake none of them for the fountain.

"Acquaint yourself with Him, and you shall not 'be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin' [Heb. 3:13].  And it says always, to the very end, to the awakened and believing, 'Take heed.  No past experience, no present privilege . . . will ever do to keep down the traitor and keep out the enemy.'

"Daily--now as ever, and so to the end--you must clasp your Lord's right hand, you must take home your Lord's presence, you must welcome your Lord's indwelling, which alone can overcome the deceitfulness of sin.  To the end of the day, as in its morning hour, you must be washed, you must be sanctified, only in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God."