Jacob and the Angel
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is a case of life or death, they will earnestly cry unto God, and appeal
to him in regard to their past sorrow and humble repentance of their
many sins, and then will refer to his promise, “Let him take hold of
my strength, and make peace with me, and he shall make peace with
me.” Thus will their earnest petitions be offered to God day and night.
God would not have heard the prayer of Jacob, and mercifully
saved his life, if he had not previously repented to his wrongs in
obtaining the blessing by fraud.
The righteous, like Jacob, will manifest unyielding faith, and
earnest determination, which will take no denial. They will feel their
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unworthiness, but will have no concealed wrongs to reveal. If they had
sins, unconfessed and unrepented of, to appear then before them, while
tortured with fear and anguish, with a lively sense of all their unworthi-
ness, they would be overwhelmed. Despair would cut off their earnest
faith, and they could not have confidence to plead with God, thus
earnestly for deliverance, and their precious moments would be spent
in confessing hidden sins, and bewailing their hopeless condition.
Those professed believers who come up to the time of trouble
unprepared, will, in their despair, confess their sins before all in words
of burning anguish, while the wicked exult over their distress. The
case of all such is hopeless. When Christ stands up, and leaves the
most holy place, then the time of trouble commences, and the case of
every soul is decided, and there will be no atoning blood to cleanse
from sin and pollution. As Jesus leaves the most holy, he speaks in
tones of decision and kingly authority, “He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that
is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be
holy still. And behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to
give every man according as his work shall be.”
Those who have delayed a preparation for the day of God cannot
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obtain it in the time of trouble, or at any future period. The righteous
will not cease their earnest agonizing cries for deliverance. They
cannot bring to mind any particular sins, but in their whole life they
can see but little good. Their sins had gone beforehand to judgment,
and pardon had been written. Their sins had been borne away into the
land of forgetfulness, and they could not bring them to remembrance.
Certain destruction threatens them, and like Jacob they will not suffer
their faith to grow weak, because their prayers are not immediately