Job 1:19

"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." - Job 1:19

My soul, is there nothing in this account which the messenger to Job gave concerning himself which suits thy case and circumstances? Nay, mayest thou not in a great variety of ways, both in providence and grace, adopt similar language, in which thou art escaped alone to tell? Pause! look back to thy boyish days. Nay, look further back, even to the birth, and to the womb; for had not the Lord carried thee from thence, surely from the womb wouldest thou have died and given up the ghost. And what was thy childhood, but years of perils and dangers, in which multitudes dropped all around thee, so that thou mightest say, while contemplating them, "and I only am escaped alone to tell thee?" And where are numbers with whom the stages of thy youth, and years at school were spent? Where are they? May it not here again be said, "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee?" Go on, and trace the wonderful history in the eventful path of riper years: through what sicknesses, pains and deaths hast thou passed; and mayest thou not, my soul, here again cry out," And I only am escaped alone to tell?" Oh the wonders of distinguishing love, even in common providences, towards his people, before that the highly favoured objects have any consciousness how that love is watching over them, and whereby they are preserved to the day of their calling! Who shall count the sum of distinguishing mercy, in preserving and upholding providences, during the whole of an unconverted state! My soul, hadst thou died in any one of these perilous seasons, and how very near sometimes hath death seemed, the language of Job's messenger would not then have been thine as it is now; "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." Pause once more. Art thou now, my soul, indeed escaped to tell of converting grace? Canst thou now look round, and amidst the dying and the dead in trespasses and sins, unawakened, unconcerned, unregenerated; canst thou indeed say, "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee!" Oh then, my soul, proclaim with earnestness the glorious truth. Invite all, as far as thy sphere of information can reach, as if thou, and thou alone, weft escaped to tell of the wonders of redeeming love; and let thy daily language be: "Oh come hither, and hearken, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul."