Dr A. Moody Stuart was the Edinburgh preacher under whose ministry Robert Murray McCheyne spent his student days.
Many lose the words they once have found. God's children often lose the help provided for them against the dark and cloudy day, by forgetting the words of the Lord once brought home with power to their souls. Sometimes, in the abounding joy of salvation, they know not all the value of the precious words sealed to them by the Spirit of Life. They fondly fancy that they can have them again in the same abundance whenever they choose, and they keep not carefully the words of power spoken to them from on high It is good indeed not to look on things behind but on things before; otherwise the soul will feed on pastures that have been grazed before, and are no longer green or fresh. Yet the Lord will have none of His words wasted or forgotten; He remembers all that He has ever spoken to us by His Spirit; and He takes it ill if we forget His words of life and love. If it has been given us to hear, let us make sure to keep the words of our God and Saviour.
If you are a follower of Christ, your life will be full of greatness and of interest. Grace is great, and it abounds towards you; heaven is great, and it is your own sure inheritance. Great sorrow, great joy, great fear, great hope in your own heart, with great works of the Lord wrought on your behalf - all these belong to your course on earth, and yours, therefore, is not mean or common life. Yet much depends on your pondering the ways of the Lord with you: for the old saying holds true; that to those who are given to observation, things happen that are worth observing.
In the first reception of the great salvation through Jesus Christ, of the full forgiveness of sin, the free gift of the Spirit, and the heritage of eternal life, we are apt to conclude that all labour, conflict, and darkness are over, and that we have nothing to do for the future but to rejoice and praise. But Christ soon sends us into spiritual toil and wrestling, perhaps into spiritual darkness and difficulty. After we have had faith to eat and to distribute the Bread of Life, there follows the trial of obedience - whether we are willing to go at Christ's word into duty, and toil without any visible success. Many who begin well turn aside at this trial. They are willing to take the joys of salvation, but not its conflicts; they will not consent to the truth that "through much tribulation they must enter the kingdom;" and they are either make shipwreck of the faith, or at least turn out but sorry soldiers of the Cross.
Every command of Christ contains a secret promise - the promise of strength to fulfil it, and the promise of blessing when fulfilled.
"As the fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise." But neither Christ's extolling of His Church universal, nor His personal commendation of the saint, over hurts the child of God. The praise of man injures man. The praise of the world injures; the praise of the Church even injures. But none is injured either by seeking or obtaining the praise that cometh from God only.
Other friends will fail you, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. Other friends may mistake you, but He knows His sheep. Other friends may be estranged from you, but "whom he loveth he loveth to the end."
Without providential teaching, a man is but a half-taught minister of the Word. Even if he have both grace and gift, he will yet lack one great branch of that knowledge with which the people require to be daily fed.
Let us also remember that the utmost honour man can render to God on earth is the well-kept vineyard of his own heart and life, and that the greatest benefit he can bestow on his fellow-men is to set before them the example, the warning, the attraction, the encouragement, and the holy provocation of his own vineyard well-kept. Well walled, well watched, well watered, well dug, well weeded, well planted, well pruned - a vineyard bearing through Jesus Christ by the Spirit, "much fruit" to the Great Husbandman, even the Father.