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A beautiful description of the privileges and joys appointed for such as follow on to know the Lord. His gracious visitation is compared to the brightness of the daybreak, to the falling of the refreshing and fertilizing showers. The language is doubly applicable to those who receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I. A SUGGESTION OF HUMAN NEED. It is implied that our state in sin and ignorance is a state of darkness and of drought.

1. Absence of Divine knowledge and favor are as darkness covering the soul with gloom, and society with moral night.

2. The same privation is as drought to the thirsty land. Where no water is, there is barrenness and death. An emblem of those who are without God.

II. A REPRESENTATION OF DIVINE PROVISION.

1. Christ is the Light of the world, the Morning at whose presence darkness flees away. He brings daylight and healing on his wings. Where he comes, he scatters the night of error, ignorance, and sin; he sheds the light of truth and purity.

2. The Holy Spirit is as the rain which falls upon and fertilizes the soil - as "the latter and former rain." The Spirit of God was given in Pentecostal showers, and his influences are diffused throughout the Church. These influences are like the rain - heavenly in origin, silent in operation, free and full in measure, yet individual in appropriation.

III. AN ANTICIPATION OF SPIRITUAL RESULTS. As the sunlight and the showers co-operate to evoke and sustain and perfect life, and to produce fruitfulness and abundance, so is it with the provision made under the gospel. Where Christ is preached, and where his Spirit works, there life abounds and spiritual fertility is apparent.

APPLICATION.

1. Acknowledge the Source of true blessing.

2. Come under the range of spiritual influence.

3. Seek the diffusion throughout humanity of these priceless blessings. - T.

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KJV: Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

WEB: Let us acknowledge Yahweh. Let us press on to know Yahweh. As surely as the sun rises, Yahweh will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth."