God's Word taking hold.
I. THE FLIGHT. Men strive to get away from God. Some try one device, some another (cf. Adam, Genesis 3:10; Jonah 1:3; Paul, Acts 26:9). Such conduct is unnatural, wicked, and vain (Psalms 139:7).
II. THE PURSUIT. The sinner followed. He feels that God knows all, and that the day of reckoning will come. Memory, conscience, Law, Scripture, prophecy of judgment. The officer of justice is on the sinner's track. Any moment he may feel his hand on his shoulder, and hear the awful words, "You are my prisoner."
III. THE OVERTAKING. Certain, for good or for evil. In the day of conviction, of true penitence, or of righteous retribution—amidst the songs of rejoicing angels or the weeping and wailing of lost souls. What has been our experience? God's Word "takes hold," as truth of the intellect, as righteousness of the conscience, as love of the heart. Mark Augustine in the garden at Milan (Romans 13:13, Romans 13:14); Luther painfully climbing the church steps at Rome (Romans 1:17). Study Bunyan's 'Grace Abounding.' So of all the redeemed. Happy are we when we recognize that God's Word comes, not as a foe, but as a friend; not to compel by force, but to constrain by love; not to drag us with fear and trembling before the Judge, hut to draw us gently to the cross and the Saviour.—F.