Lesson 21: Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in You.
www.bible.com/bible/59/psa.25

O Lord, Lord! the word of Paul fills me with terror, where he says, "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12). "For if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself" (Galatians 6:3). For the flesh, destitute of Your Spirit, is perfectly blind in divine things, ignorant, entirely false and unjust, in sin and death, as I have remarked publicly in speaking of David and Peter. For though David was a great prophet, a man after Your own heart, faithful in all Your ways, yet he became an open adulterer, murderer, and boaster of his own glory until Your Spirit again convicted him by the word of the prophet, and he acknowledged the deadly sin he had committed, how foolishly he had acted before You.

In the same way Peter acknowledged Christ, Your beloved Son, not by flesh and blood, but by the Spirit of Your grace. He was called by Christ a stone and a rock and was ready to go with Christ into prison and to death. Then trial came. He could not bear the trifling expression of a maid; he denied Christ and swore he knew him not. But as soon as Christ looked upon him he acknowledged his fall. He wept bitterly, and afterwards publicly preached the name of Jesus among all nations, paying no regard to his having been strictly forbidden to do so, by imprisonment, stripes and menacing words. He frankly answered, "We ought to obey God rather than men"(Acts 5:29). I beseech You, therefore, blessed Lord, that You will keep my soul, which is bought with so dear a price, lest I turn from Your truth.


Though I may now think with Peter that I could give my life for You and with Paul, that neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, nor sword, nor life, nor death, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from Your love, yet I do not sufficiently know myself. All my trust is in You. I have not yet resisted unto blood. Although I have drunk a little of the cup of Your affliction, yet I have not tasted the dregs. For when prisons and bonds are suffered, when life and death, fire and sword are threatened, then will the gold be separated from the wood, silver from the straw, and pearls from the stubble. Forsake me not, therefore, gracious Lord, for trees of deepest root are torn up from the earth by the violence of the storm and the lofty, firm mountains are rent asunder by the force of the earthquake. Did not Job and Jeremiah, men of Your love, lose all patience in temptation and murmured against Your will? Suffer me not, therefore, gracious Lord, to be tempted above what I am able to bear, for You are true and faithful, lest my soul be ashamed. I pray not for my flesh, being well aware that I must once suffer and die.

But this alone I desire, that You strengthen me in my warfare. Assist and preserve me; make a way for me to escape in temptation. Deliver me and let me not be ashamed for I put my trust in You.