---

I. THE CHRISTIAN IS TO BE ESTABLISHED. Consider what this means —

1. Progress. The foundation is laid; now the superstructure must be built upon it.

2. Fixity. The progress is not that of a flowing river, but that of a building in the course of erection. We are to hold fast what we have attained. A periodic unsettlement, pulling down to day what we built up yesterday, will have a poor result.

3. Strength. The building is to be no mere bower of branches, no tent of the wilderness, for temporary occupation, but a permanent, solid house in the eternal city of God. It will have to stand the stress of wind and weather.

4. Order. That which is established is not heaped together in a rude formation, like the cyclopean walls seen in granite mountains. The true building follows the designer's plan. The Christian life must be built on the pattern of its great Architect.

5. Elevation. The house is built up. We raise the structure tier after tier. So in Christian life we should rise nearer heaven. Like the soaring pinnacles of a Gothic cathedral, the latest aspirations of the Christian experience should rise far above the earth and point to the sky.

6. Room for contents. The house has its inhabitants and furniture. The established Christian should have room for Divine stores of truth and holy thought, and for thief and fire proof safes which can keep his treasures in security. The complete building is not to be a solid pyramid for the sole purpose of hiding the mummy of its owner, but a glorious temple in which God may dwell.

II. THE CHRISTIAN IS TO BE ESTABLISHED BY GOD. Men tried to raise the tower of Babel up to heaven, but failed in their pride and self-will. We cannot build up our own characters. God is the great Builder, and He is raising the structure of the Christian life by all the discipline of daily experience.

1. Truth. Solid character must be built of solid materials — realities, facts, truths. By His revelations in nature, the Bible, Christ, God brings the stones of truth with which to establish our characters.

2. Work. The human building, unlike the material, is not inactive. Character is built up by means of service. God sets us this, and raises us from childish pettishness to manly largeness of soul by the discipline of duty.

3. Trial. Trouble and temptation help to wedge the character into place, as the arch is strengthened by the very weight laid upon it, driving its stones more closely together.

4. Spiritual grace. We are built up from precious stones hewn in the quarries of the everlasting hills of God, not from the clay bricks of earth. The great Builder brings His own heavenly materials.

III. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN IS ASSURED BY THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD.

1. It is not yet accomplished. It took forty years to build Herod's temple. It takes well nigh twice forty years to establish the characters of some of God's children. Nay, who shall say that the process is completed when brief life is done? Christian people die in all stages of imperfection and partial progress. Are they to be fixed forever in these initial conditions, half a column here, a wall commenced there, arches not yet locked with their key stones? There must be a continued establishing in the future life, till the last golden spire gleams aloft in the cloudless blue of heaven.

2. How do we know that this will ever be realized? We are often tempted to despair at our own slow progress. Now it is much to be assured that it is all assured by the faithfulness of God. Of course, this implies our continued faithfulness. The whole tenor of God's Word implies that He will not abandon the good work He has commenced.

(W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

---

---

KJV: But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.

WEB: But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you, and guard you from the evil one.