The following is taken from a message by Rev. Albert P. Graves which was delivered in Rock Island, Illinois, Sunday Evening, Feb 25, 1877. The text was from 2 Kings 4:26 — \u201cRun now I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well.\u201d<\/p>\n
What could you say if that question was put to you, dear father, to whom God has given a wife and children, and you never prayed with them yet, and never asked a blessing at your table? What if God should send a cohort of angels down from the capital of the universe tonight to press the question to your heart, \u201cIs it well with you?\u201d Would you say, \u201cI am a moralist,\u201d or \u201cI am a Universalist,\u201d or something of that kind?\u201d Would you try to palm off the idea, that because it is some way, as you hope, well with you, that you are not going to be judged? I want every person in this room, as far as the human mind, aided by Divine truth, can do it, to settle this question tonight, right before your God, \u201cIs it well with you?\u201d What say you, my dear friend, in the light of eternity?\u201d If you should be called to go into eternity before twelve o\u2019clock tonight, is it well with you?<\/p>\n
I propose, dear friends, to consider the divine welfare for a little while. Let me take a few minutes to consider the process of the divine welfare. I shall show this in two ways. First, I will give you an incident, and then a passage of Scripture.<\/p>\n
It is said that Whitefield at one time dined with Lady Huntington: an unconverted brother of his was present. During the dinner hour, Mr. Whitefield and Lady Huntington had a religious conversation. Such was the nature of it that this brother\u2019s attention was arrested, and he was so deeply impressed that all at once he dropped his knife and fork, and threw up his hands and cried, \u201cI am lost! I am lost! I am lost!\u201d \u201cThank God!\u201d said Lady Huntington. \u201cWhy? Why do you exult over my lost condition?\u201d \u201cO, I can not help it,\u201d she says; \u201cI am so glad you are lost — so glad!\u201d \u201cBut why, why, do have such ecstasies over my lost condition?\u201d \u201cSimply because Jesus Christ came into the world to seek and save that which was lost. Now, sir, if you have found out that you are lost, there is some hope of your being saved.\u201d<\/p>\n
I want to give that to every person in this room tonight. There is no hope of being saved until one owns himself to be a lost sinner. God has never sent His Son into the world to save the righteous. Jesus says Himself that He \u201ccame not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.\u201d Some of you self-righteous men here in Rock Island, I don\u2019t know whether the angels in glory could live with you if you could get into heaven under your self-righteousness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following is taken from a message by Rev. Albert P. Graves which was delivered in Rock Island, Illinois, Sunday Evening, Feb 25, 1877. The text was from 2 Kings 4:26 — \u201cRun now I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[385,176],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}