February 27, 2022

Gentlemen:

     A very weird thing just happened this evening while I was listening to Greg Laurie’s sermon: The Book of Revelation In One Hour. At about 42:21 minutes into the sermon, Greg started quoting Revelation 22:17.         

     Now, I have been trying to take excerpts out of the book An Ark for All God’s Noahs in a Gloomy Stormy Day by Thomas Brooks---originally published in 1666. My intention is to make a devotional book out of the excerpts. (The book by Thomas Brooks is based upon the verse: The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Lam. 3:24)

     Anyway, while I was choosing a few more excerpts, I was partially listening to Greg’s sermon on The Book of Revelation In One Hour. And what happened next had to be of God!

     I was proofing a section found on page 129 of The Works of Thomas Brooks, vol. II – Alexander B. Grosart’s 1866 edition.

     The excerpt I had chosen included the verse of Rev. 22:17: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

     And at the very same moments as I was typing in the quotation marks, the semi-colons, and the commas of that verse, I was hearing Greg quoting the very same verse in his sermon!

     Now THAT timing has to be of God!

     Below is the actual excerpt I had chosen from page 128-129 on An Ark for All God’s Noahs in a Gloomy Stormy Day by Thomas Brooks

 

     Third Position. The third position is this, That where there is an hearty willingness in any man to accept of God to be his God, to own God for his God, and to close with God as his God, there God is certainly that man’s God, Isa. 55:1-2; John 7:37-38. If there be a cordial willingness in you to take God to be your God, then without all peradventure God is your God. A sincere willingness to accept of God to be your God is accepted of God, and is sufficient to enter into a gracious covenant with God. O sirs! a sincere willingness to accept of God to be your God, flows from nothing below the good will and pleasure of God. No power below that glorious power that made the world, and that raised Christ from the grave, is able to raise a sincere, an hearty willingness in man to accept of God to be his God, and to take God for his God: Ps. 110:3, “Thy people shall be willing,” or willingnesses, in the abstract and in the plural number, “in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness.” There is no power below the power of the Lord of hosts, that can raise up a willingness in the hearts of sinners. It is not in the power of all the angels in heaven, nor of all the men on earth, to beget a sincere willingness in the heart of man to accept of God to be his God. This is work that can only be effected by an omnipotent hand. Though an emperor may force a woman to marry him that is his slave, because she is his purchase, yet he cannot by all his power force her will; he may force her body to the action, but he cannot force her will to the action. The will is always free, and cannot be forced. But God is that great emperor that hath not only a power to marry the soul, which he hath redeemed from being Satan’s bond-slave, but also a power to make the soul that is unready ready, and that is unwilling willing, to marry him, and to bestow itself freely upon him. If there be in thee, O man, O woman, a sincere willingness to take God upon his own terms to be thy God, that is, to take him as an holy God, and as a ruling God, and as a commanding God, in one thing as well as another, then he is certainly thy God: Rev. 22:17, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”                                                                                    (by Thomas Brooks)

Now don’t we have a wonderful God!