Dead and dark seasons

(J. C. Philpot, "REVIEWS")


All Christians, even the most eminent servants 
of God, have their dead and dark seasons--when
the life of God seems sunk to so low an ebb as to 
be hardly visible--so hidden is the stream by the 
mud-banks of their fallen nature. 

By these very dark and dead seasons, the people
of God are instructed. They see and feel what 'the 
flesh' really is--how alienated from the life of God; 
they learn in whom all their strength and sufficiency 
lie; they are taught that in them, that is, in their flesh, 
dwells no good thing; that no exertions of their own 
can maintain in strength and vigor the life of God; and 
that all they are, and have--all they believe, know, feel,
and enjoy--with all their ability, usefulness, gifts, and 
grace--flow from the pure, sovereign grace--the rich, free, 
undeserved, yet unceasing goodness and mercy of God! 

They learn in this hard school of painful experience, their 
emptiness and nothingness--and that without Christ they 
can do nothing. They thus become clothed with humility, 
that rare, yet lovely garb; cease from their own strength 
and wisdom; and learn experimentally that Christ is, and 
ever must be, all in all to them, and all in all in them.