24th October
“Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Romans 7:24
If the Lord the Spirit has implanted that piteous cry in our soul, “O wretched man that I am!” this will follow as a necessary consequence—”Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Where shall I look for deliverance? From what quarter can it come? Shall I look to the law? O no! that curses and condemns me, because I am continually breaking it. Can I look to friends? They may pity and sympathise; but they cannot remove the body of sin and death; it is too fast linked on for them to remove. Shall I go to ministers of truth? I may hear what they say with approbation; but there is something more wanted to remove this chilling embrace of the body of sin and death. Shall I look to the Scriptures? They contain the remedy; but I want that remedy to be sweetly applied.
“Who then shall deliver me?” What refuge can I look to? Whither can I go, or whither shall I turn? From what quarter can help or deliverance come? See the embarrassment! view the perplexity of an exercised soul!—looking here, and looking there; turning to the right hand and turning to the left. Yet from one quarter only can the deliverance come. And thus, when the Apostle was brought here—when he was sunk down to a low spot, and anxiously turning his eyes to every quarter to see whence deliverance could come—God blessed his soul with a view of his precious Son. God the Spirit wrought in his heart that living faith whereby he saw Jesus, and whereby there was a communication of the blood and love of the Lamb to his conscience.
J. C. Philpot 1802-1869