Calvin asks the 'death row' trainee Gospel ministers to pray for him. But he continues to pray for them, asking that God will make His holy protection effective for them, and that they might ‘feel what care He takes of your salvation.’ Again, the experiential comes to the fore in his closing words.
I sometimes think that we deprive ourselves of much heavenly blessing by not seeking the Lord to allow us to feel His blessings on us, and His presence near us. When God revives His church—
and, my, that is urgently needed at this hour—experience of God’s gracious salvation is magnified. Sinners feel their sin and feel they are under the wrath of God, feel their guilt, feel the judgement of God about to fall on them; and they come to feel the sweetness of Christ’s love for them, feel the Spirit’s power and work in their hearts, feel as if they did trust Christ, and had been born again. Calvin speaks in these terms to these condemned prisoners, but we ought to sue God for an awareness of His lovely presence with us and upon us.
Let us not be content to ‘walk by faith not by sight’ at all times, but let us sue God to give us a sense of His presence among and in us.
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