Revelation 13:18

REFLECTIONS

IN reading this Chapter, well may the child of God, cry out with the Apostle, how doth the mystery of iniquity already work! What an awful account is here, of him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs, and lying wonders? And how hath the Lord, for this cause given the ungodly up, and sent them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie!

Can the imagination conceive any view of the dark and ignorant state of the human mind, as great in point of self deception, as is here stated? That men should be brought to worship the beast, and with him the devil, to hear his blasphemy, to receive his mark, and to call him by names which belong to none but God. And that this delusion should descend from father to son, in a regular succession; from one age to another; no man being able to deliver his soul and say, is there not a lie in my right hand? Blessed Lord Jesus! be thou adored, and loved, and praised, and delighted, in that thou hast kept thy people, and secured them from the possibility of worshipping the beast, for thou hast marked all their names in thy book of life. Oh! the blessedness of electing, preserving, redeeming, regenerating grace! Lord! do thou keep my soul in the hour, and from the power of temptation that is coming on the earth! Lord! give me to see the sure cause of rejoicing, in that my name is written in thy book of life.