Now I cannot imagine a more important principle than this for all those who really desire to partake of all the blessings of redemption. Of course there are some who do not trouble their minds about it, being satisfied with their own religious respectability; but there are multitudes deeply concerned about it. They earnestly desire to be able to say, ‘Thou hast redeemed my life,’ but they cannot do so; and yet possibly they have been really taking pains to do so for many years, although without the least sign of progress. Now may not their difficulties arise in many cases from their having reversed the order of the dealings of God? They have hoped to climb up partially out of the pit, and to reach redemption at the top, instead of accepting it as a free gift of God while they are still helpless at the bottom. In other words, they are endeavouring first to remove their difficulties, and then to trust redemption. No wonder then that they completely fail! for how are they to climb up out of the pit? and how are they to overcome their difficulties while they are still at a distance from redeeming grace? It is redemption that is to deliver, redemption that is to raise us from the dead, redemption that removes the difficulty, how then can we ever hope to rise until redemption is applied and realised? If redemption is not sufficient to reach down to one in a state of utter hopelessness, it is insufficient for the conscience-stricken sinner. Remember, therefore, the case of Jeremiah. Consider his case as an illustration of your own, and if you are yourself at the bottom of what I may term the religious pit, in a low dungeon from which you cannot rise, remember how the Lord drew near to him when he was at the bottom, and did not wait till he had climbed even half-way to reach His hand. Just so it must be with you. He must stoop to reach you before you can rise to reach Him. Your first act of faith must be when you are at the bottom. It will be there, and not at the top, or half-way up, that for the first time you will realise a finished redemption. If ever you have the unspeakable joy of saying in all the happiness of personal appropriation, ‘Thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life,’ you will have to do so before you have risen above your present level. Do not therefore wait to make some poor, feeble, ineffective effort to rise; but as you are in the midst of your discouragements, though the stone still seems to stop the mouth of the low dungeon, trust at once with a bold act of fearless faith, and without waiting to deserve it, act at once on His own invitation, ‘Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.’