The question of supreme and vital importance for each of us is to take account of things as we find them in this world, and act accordingly, leaving much that may appear mysterious in abeyance until another day. For what we know not now, we shall know hereafter; let us therefore quietly wait, assured of this:the Judge of all the earth will do right (Gen. 18:25).

This one thing therefore I do:I take my stand, and stake my all, on the written Word of the Living God. It brings to light the two great forces in the world, good and evil, light and darkness, God and Satan, a friend and a foe in ceaseless conflict the one with the other.

This one thing also I know:I am a guilty, unclean, helpless sinner, sin and Satan have ruined me. I have forfeited my life through sin, I have exposed myself to the just judgment of a Holy God, I have fallen under the power of the devil, I need a Saviour; and I know that the one and only Saviour is the Lord Jesus Christ.

So for me to live now, is to be taken up with this precious Saviour, the Eternal Son, the Sent One of the Father, the Great Redeemer, the Creator of the ends of the earth, my Deliverer, my Lord, my Master.

I also know that many theories in vogue to-day which deny the foregoing statements, are nothing but foolish speculations of fallen humanity, Satanic rubbish, a delusion and a snare. Moreover, they are not new, but old notions revived. They leave the soul in hopeless confusion, and are in fatal antagonism to revealed truth. They deny what the Holy Spirit teaches as to the Son of God, His miraculous birth, His atoning sacrifice, His death and resurrection, and His ascension into heaven.

I know, too, that Adam's sinful race will not do for God. He has set it aside, superseded it, and brought in another race, another stock, of which Christ in resurrection is the Head, as He is also the source of its new life.

I know, too, that this blessed One has established in His own Person at God's right hand, an order of things to which sin, death, Satan's power and God's judgment have nothing to say, and that I have been delivered from the authority of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. 1:13).

I also know God does not purpose to set His people up again as in Adam innocent, but in Christ glorified, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). I am to awake in heavenly glory in Christ's likeness, both morally and bodily, being predestinated to be conformed to His image(Rom. 8:29).

I know, meantime, I possess eternal life, have the forgiveness of all my sins, am a child of God, indwelt by His Spirit, an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ, a member of His Body, and to be soon displayed as forming with others, His Bride.

What a deliverance! What present enjoyment! What a destiny! With the great Apostle may the language of our hearts be, "But one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13,14). Thomas Oliver