"I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there." 1 kings 17:4.

There is nothing which delights an upright mind like being trusted, and there is no greater reward for sincere love than unquestioning confidence. That is why faith has such an immense place in the Scriptures. It is what man owes to a God who has surrounded him with every proof of uprightness, of love, of wisdom, and of power equal to any emergency. In creation and in redemption, all this about Him, and much more, has been revealed. He therefore now looks for man's confidence in Him-for that faith which questions not one word of His lips.

Whoever looks to Him in that implicit confidence is blest of Him. Whoever gives Him that honor which exalts His judgment over any mind of our own, which closes our mouth and bows our heart the moment He speaks, cannot fail to experience that the pleasure of the Lord is with him.

But that confidence will be put to the test sometimes. Our text is one of those instances. Elijah, whose heart yearned for God's just claims in Israel, has just delivered a solemn message, and now God sends him in a desolate path away from all human succor. It is "there" God wants him, and there He will take care of him, even if it is the ravens who are to be His ministers.

Thus the man who seeks to restore God's rights among His people acknowledges those rights first upon himself. He obeys, he is cared for, he glorifies God. " Blessed is the man that endureth temptation:for when he is tried (has been found true by trial) he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him " (James 1:12)

Sanctification.

Sanctification is twofold. It is first positional, and then practical. God's people are called saints, not because of the degree of practical holiness which they have reached, but because of the holy place and relationship in which they stand in Christ Jesus. Had God but forgiven us our sins, it would be great mercy indeed, and it is great mercy; but He has done much more:He has set us in a new place before Him, just as the people of Israel were put in a new place by the crossing of the Red Sea and of Jordan. They were taken out of the old, and placed into the new. So we, by the death and resurrection of Jesus, with whom faith has identified us, have passed out of our old place, "in Adam," "in the flesh," and have been put into a new place, "in Christ," "in. the Spirit." It is a God-made and a God-given place, to which no sin, no guilt, no death, can ever attach. It is a holy place; and being put in that place, we are a sanctified people, separated to God, His sons and daughters.

Our being holy in practice springs from that. Since we are in a holy place, and in a holy relationship, let us be practically holy, according to what we are, and the place we are in. Since we are the sons and the daughters of God, let us be holy, as becomes the holiness of God our Father.

We are saints by virtue of being called of God ; we ought to be saintly in our daily life by virtue of what we are. Thus has sovereign grace its blessed place, with our responsibility flowing from it.

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith Eph. 3 :17.
It is evident from all Scripture that there is no place God delights in so much for His habitation as the human heart. He has by creation so constituted man that He can say, " My delights were with the sons of men" (Prov. 8; 31).Sin has alienated man from God, yet God yearns for his heart." My son, give Me thy heart," and to win it our Saviour came and suffered all.

As many as have received that blessed Saviour are reconciled to God. His precious blood has removed their sins. They love Him therefore. He dwells in their hearts.

But how slow we are to give Him the whole place there! How much of it is taken up by self and the things of self! Therefore is much discipline required to help us get rid of what hinders thus in us the object of the Holy Spirit. He (the Spirit) dwells in us to enthrone Christ in our hearts, and to form in us a character answering to that of Christ. He values our service for Him, but far, far more His image produced in us.

Let none therefore faint in the trials which beset their path. We are living in a day when men deny sin and its terrible effects in us; when they set aside the holiness of God and His great hatred of sin; when they would have it that all is lovely, and no discipline required anywhere; but the word of God changes not, nor His manner of forming His people for His own blessed ends. If He has called us to reign with Christ by and by, we must suffer with Christ now.

May we all be "strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and
long-suffering with joy fulness" (Col. i :ii).Thus shall we grow, and thus will our text be fulfilled.