Commemorating the 239th anniversary of the birth of the Welsh Calvinistic minister, John Elias (May 6, 1774- June 8, 1841)... Here's an excerpt from "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays" by Edward Morgan:

Most feelingly did Elias expostulate in letters ... with sleepy, starving professors. One of those is the following; may it be blessed still!

From 28 June 1831

Is there not reason to fear that the prayers of many of us are merely customary and formal, asking many things without feeling the need of them? We seldom inquire whether our prayers are answered; and if not, what hinders them? Do we avoid indulging in those thoughts or practices that hinder and mar our prayers? Are we in a state of reconciliation with God? Do we live in the exercise of faith in Christ? Are we indifferent as to the aid of the Spirit in prayer? O seek his face - his face; seek him with all your heart! There are many in the church, I believe, who have seen better days, and have felt something greater and stronger; but they sleep so heavily now, that they scarcely recollect the days they once saw and the divine impressions they once experienced! Alas, what a state! Love is growing cold, because, perhaps, some iniquity has abounded. O that I could lift up my voice, and cry to those that sleep - ‘Alas, it is a great pity that you live so poor, and that your sustenance is so wretched! You, children of the King. You, the spouse of Christ! You, that saw better days, how is it that your support is so poor, and your appearance so miserable now, while the riches of your Father are so great, his house so full, and his table so loaded, and the love of God not changed, and the great salvation as full as ever? Oh! why will you live in poor prisons, and on empty husks? Homeward, homeward, prodigal sons! Our day in the world is nearly coming to a close! Believers, you draw near the heavenly world. Should you not then be more holy and heavenly, as you approach that world? Oh! children of God, be not satisfied to live in such a lethargy, and at such a distance from your God.

Hypocrites are not aware of the spiritual food that some have tasted. They draw their joys out of other wells, lusting after forbidden things, desiring the enjoyments of the world, delighting in the company of worldlings, and following their customs! There are many in the church that never had a kid - that never had a small portion of spiritual food to make merry - that know nothing of the spiritual feasts that are enjoyed on the return of prodigals! These have but a poor religion to meet death and judgment with! O my dear friends, let each of us examine, and see what he has. Let us not sleep, and let us not be indifferent about knowing whether our religion is sound; and if not, let us strive to obtain that which is so. The most worthless of all things is false religion. Oh! the truth, the truth! O! brethren, let us not be discouraged; but, like the watchmen, look for the morning. Say, in faith, ‘I shall see it yet again.’ I know that some souls are like the thirsty land, longing for God, and crying out, ‘When shall I come to thee?’ Believers, if we must live in some degree of darkness till we arrive at Jordan, it is a consolation that it is day light, without any clouds, on the other side. You shall be there soon. I long in these days to fly higher than the tumultuous atmosphere of this world. If we fly high enough, we shall not meet with clouds, thunders, and the stormy wind and tempest, but with a bright, delightful day! I am obliged to finish - I am very poorly. Oh, brethren, pray for me!

Source: "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays" by Edward Morgan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973, revised edition published in one volume), 138-140.

Luke 15:11  And he said, A certain man had two sons: 12  And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 13  And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. 14  And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. 15  And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16  And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

25  Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. 26  And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 27  And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28  And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. 29  And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: 30  But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 31  And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 32  It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

my other posts on John Elias:

the fitness HE requireth: in distress, in debt, discontented ~ I Samuel 22:2
"It is a dark night on the church, the depth of winter ..." ~ John Elias
"as if ... God was dead" | letter 160 on assurance & fighting for joy
... while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended...
"The dawn is to be seen... you may by prayers" (John Elias)

my posts on nominal Christianity - click here
my posts on true and false religion and legalism - click here

Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor
Advent # 7 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might be satisfied with Him
Advent # 8: WHY HAS JESUS COME? "so that [we] might be WITH HIM" ~ Mark 3:14
Advent # 9 WHY HAS JESUS COME? Adoption: the highest privilege the gospel offers ~ J.I. Packer

The Christian should not just believe the truth, and know it..." | the Father's assurance
update w/ excerpt: Lloyd-Jones' sermons on the role of experience in Christianity
five years ago ~ for your joy (AND an inheritance | Richard Sibbes & the Sealing of the Spirit)
birthday reflection: "the great & glorious possibilities" ~ "Now therefore, give me this mountain"

postcards from England: are we excited over a dead fish and a car wreck?
"Brother, we are only half awake" ~ Legh Richmond
"Saving faith is wanting Jesus" ~ Are you loving His appearing or this present world?
Jesus said to her, "... Whom are you seeking?" - John 20:15
Why read Christian biography? To help us examine our love for God.

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A.Cortina_El_sue%C3%B1o.jpg / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}}.

This past Sunday, Christians around the world celebrated the empty tomb and the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ. We worshiped by singing lyrics such as:

(Robert Lowry)

How many of us are living AS IF GOD WERE DEAD?

How many of us become fearful, fretful, and frozen when faced with changing, perplexing, challenging, and trying circumstances all because we live as if God were dead? (Can we really call that living? ...) When storms come our way, how quickly do we forget that God's covenant mercies and love for His elect in Jesus Christ are everlasting, that His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, that His government has no end, and that our God is working all things for our good, and our Father delights to give us the Kingdom and to shower out upon us and to load us up daily with His unsearchable, inexhaustible, incorruptible, undefiled riches, and that our inheritance in Christ is a good and pleasant and blessed inheritance ~ He is our great reward and is altogether lovely! ... that there is none that compares to our Beloved! How often do we pray to our Father in heaven for earthly bread for our bodies (or how often do we pray for other earthly blessings) –– and yet how seldom do we ask, seek, and knock for the gift of the Holy Spirit to renew, restore and revive our souls when we are dry and weary? (See Luke 11:1-13 and Isaiah 44:1-5; see also here.) 

William Roberts... "had lost sight of providence... had slipped in his mind ... as if God was dead."

William Roberts was a friend of the Welsh Calvinistic minister John Elias (1774-1842). When faced with a time of trial and great loss, Mr. Roberts was discovered to be a Christian who was living as if Christ were dead...

    Mrs Elias dealt in drapery and millinery, it was her name 'Elizabeth Elias' – which appeared above the door of the shop. The goods for sale came from the wholesale merchants in Liverpool and were shipped from the to the little harbour of Porth Amlwch Elias' s kinsman, William Roberts of Amlwch, and his wife were engaged in the same trade. In April 1818 the new ship, Marchioness, carrying goods from Liverpool to Anglesey was driven by a storm and was wrecked on Dulas beach. Pirates and thieves ran to the wreck, and completed the work of the storm, by taking away everything moveable from the ship and numbers of small business people of the island – including Mr and Mrs Roberts, and Mrs Elias suffered great losses.

    William Roberts, who was newly married, was distracted, and in his desperation went to Llanfechell to consult with his kinsman; but Elias was not at home. The nature of Roberts’ visit is made clear in the following playful yet penetrating letter which Elias wrote to his kinsman after returning home.

Llanfechell I8 April 1818

My dear brother, I am sorry that I have to make a complaint against a kinsman of mine, who lives a short distance from me to the east, who one day visited my family, who were beset by a little trial. I would have thought that my pious kinsman would have given them good counsel, cautioning them against grumbling, and exhorting them to submit to the wise vicissitudes of providence; comforting them, and showing them that all things work for good, etc. But my kinsman, too, was in a misfortune of the same nature; he had lost sight of providence in what had happened to him, and had slipped in his mind as if God had forgotten him, or that God was dead; and that no one could sustain him any more, and prosper him in his circumstances and give him a bite of bread. He had forgotten Job’s example; he had forgotten the 6th of Matthew and the 12th of Luke, or else he had cast doubt on the veracity of these chapters. Thus, instead of giving my family a good example, and good counsel suitable for the occasion, he behaved as one who had no belief in God, knowing not how to trust him under his chastisement, looking up to him through clouds hid him from sight. He spoke like the Gentiles who know not God, and threw my family into a deeper despondency. If you know my kinsman, and if you are conversant with the state of his mind these days, please endeavour to convince him; try to turn his face towards God’s rule over all things; that he at all times orders matters for the best purpose; that in tribulations and crosses one must exercise trust and submission; and must avoid thinking, in the midst of the darkest night, that God cannot change it into shining daylight, causing the light to chase away the blackest darkness. Say, also, to my kinsman (if you find opportunity to meet him), to beware of killing the new kind and tender wife that he has been presented, through his dissatisfaction; and remember to quote these words to him: ‘Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest not thou thyself?' Please also inform him that I have not written this as a Stoic, but with my eye fixed on God’s providence, believing that he makes all things good, and that it is possible to be joyful in him though bereft of the things of this world.

    Yet, in spite of all this, I would gladly welcome my kinsman here as often as he likes!

    Give my kind regards to Mrs Roberts. I hope she finds support to live far more devoutly than the person mentioned above.

    I am, your afflicted friend and brother and fellow-labourer.

~ from "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays" by Edward Morgan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973, revised edition published in one volume), 77-78, emphasis mine.

Thou bruised and broken Bread,
My life-long wants supply;
As living souls are fed,
O feed me, or I die.
(John Samuel Bewley Monsell, Jr.)

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
(William Williams, tr. by Peter Williams)

Do you doubt the veracity of Jesus' own words in Matthew 6 and Luke 12, and stagger at His promise to provide all-sufficient and overflowing spiritual sustenance to you through Himself?

John 6:35  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst....  47  Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48  I am the bread of life. 49  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

John 7:37  On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

John 4:13  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

When was the last time you fervently sought to experience and enjoy the birthright that is already yours as a child of God and pleaded His promises to Him to give you this water?

Rather than standing firm in faith, do you find yourself reacting like Roberts –– as if you have "no belief in God, knowing not how to trust him under his chastisement"?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

* * *

He [Robert Murray M'Cheyne] came to Edinburgh on the 11th, to attend the meeting of ministers and elders who had come together to sign the Solemn Engagement in defence of the liberties of Christ's Church. He hesitated not to put his hand to the Engagement. He then returned to Dundee; and scarcely had he returned, when he was laid aside by one of those attacks of illness with which he was so ofted tried. In this case, however, it soon passed away. "My health," he remarked, "has taken a gracious turn, which should make me look up." But again, on September 6th, an attack of fever laid him down for six days. On this occasion, just before the sickness came on, three persons had visited him, to tell him how they were brought to Christ under his ministry some years before. "Why," he noted in his journal, "Why has God brought these cases before me this week? Surely he is preparing me for some trial of faith." The result proved that his conjecture was just. And while his Master prepared him beforehand for these trials, he had ends to accomplish in his servant by means of them. There were other trials also, besides these, which were very heavy to him; but in all we could discern the husbandman pruning the branch, that it might bear more fruit. As he himself said one day in the church of Abernyte, when he was assisting Mr Manson, "If we only saw the whole, we should see that the father is doing little else in the world but training his vines."

~ from "Memoir & Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne" by Andrew A. Bonar, 137

May the God of all grace make all grace abound to us,
so we might not live as if God was dead,
so we might not grumble, doubt, and languish in times of trial and loss,
but rather be strengthened in faith and thrive through Him
as we enter into a true and lively knowledge of God as
the Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to us!

Related:

My other letters on assurance and fighting for joy here, including:

• Letter 11 on assurance and fighting for joy (the Lord is at hand! - Philippians 4)
• Letter 15 on assurance and fighting for joy (Joy is a gift of God, more than a feeling)
• Letter 16 on assurance and fighting for joy (our prayers, His wise denials and joy)
• Shall we not drink the cup the Father has given us? (Letter 53 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• our Father's discipline, William Cowper on trials & sufferings (letter 61 on assurance & joy)
• Are you a radiant Christian or a drunken old woman? (letter 82 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• Rejoicing here on the Potter's Wheel (Psalm 66) | Letter 96 on assurance & joy
• disappointment ~ appointment | letter 119 on assurance & fighting for joy
• Three Years Later: Dancing & Skipping with Mrs. Durham | Letter 147 on fighting for joy

Other related posts:

• What is your attitude toward trials and sufferings? ~ Whitefield's Journals
• Her Eyes Were Still Restrained ~ "When it looks like he is buried for good..."
• Lent I.–Suffering and Glory
• Our Twisted View of God
• Kingdom-Obsessed People don't keep looking in the rear view mirror at past hurts, # 5
• All things (even bad things) work together for good...
• The story of Job: bad luck, God's sovereign will or ?
• praying cancer is for the glory of God
• some reflections about prayer
• Bible Reading: II Corinthians 1-Blessings out of buffetings (Alan Redpath)
• God's sovereign grace & care in Genesis (the story of Joseph)
• To take whatever thy Father's pleasure | "May adversities uninterrupted be my lot" ~ Edward Griffin
• "you would begin by blowing out all his lamps..." ~ Edward Payson
• Are you keeping calm & carrying on? Do you react or respond? ~ Isaiah 7:1-9
• Bible Reading-Isaiah: When We Think the LORD Has Forsaken and Forgotten Us
• "Ah! But the Comforter!" (Pentecost's Peace and Rest ~ John 14:1, 23-27)
• Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

HT for the M'Cheyne text:  http://books.google.com/books?id=JIY6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caravaggio_-_La_Deposizione_di_Cristo.jpg / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}} / CC BY-SA 3.0.