Phil D.
ὁ βαπτιστὴς
So is it with the believer—there are dark days and cloudy days in his experience, but he is just as truly saved in the dark and cloudy day as when the sun is shining brightly and the clouds have all been blown away. In the old days of slavery, when a slave’s freedom had been purchased, there may have been times when he had not much to eat, or when he had many aches and pains, but such things did not affect the fact that he was a free man.
...There may be some Christians here who need to learn a lesson that one good Methodist tried to teach another whom he met at a class meeting. It grieved him as he heard over and over again the story of his brother’s trials and troubles, but nothing about the multitudes of mercies with which he was continually being crowned. So one day he said to him, “My brother, I wish you would change your residence—you do not live in the right part of the town.” “How is that?” inquired the other. “Why, you live where I used to live, down in Murmuring Street. It is very dark and narrow, the chimneys always smoke, the lamps never burn brightly there, and all sorts of diseases abound in that unhealthy quarter. I got tired of living in Murmuring Street, so I took a new house in Content Street. It is a fine, wide, open street where the breezes of heaven can freely blow, so the people who dwell there are healthy and happy. And though all the houses in the street are of different sizes, it is a very remarkable thing that they are all of them just the right size for the people who live in them. The apostle Paul used to live in that street, for he said, ‘I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content,” so I would advise you, my brother, to move into Content Street as soon as you can.”
(Unparalleled Lovingkindness; Metropolitan Park Tabernacle; Sermon No. 3242)
