Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel, of which two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in the Mount of Bethel, and one thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.
 So it is with our souls, and in all our Christian experiences. There is many a man that tries not to think of all that he has been. Many a person when first converted to. God essays to look only at what is bright, joyous, and encouraging. His eye quickly finds out all the comforting passages of the word of God. He slips over what tries and searches the heart. It is all quite intelligible, but is it really wise? It is not the mode in which the Spirit of God works to form the saint. Not that there is not abundant comfort in all the ways and word of God from first to last; but be assured, my brethren, that the best wisdom is when grace strengthens us to look at the truth, and the whole truth, whether about God or man, at the church, or our own souls; and hence it is that many a person who, if I may so say, staves off the full view of what he himself is when brought to God, has to repeat the lesson another day under more painful circumstances. Far better to face at the very starting-point what we are, as well as what God is in His nature, counsels, relationships, and will; else perhaps, when we have been following the Lord for five or ten years, we may need to be broken on the wheel for some grievous unfaithfulness, and this mainly owing to the folly of refusing to look at the full reality of what we were from the very beginning.
