God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
No man ought to flatter and deceive himself in deferring his conversion by alleging the example of the penitent thief, saved even at the last hour upon the cross, and carried to Paradise that same day with Christ, for this act was a special miracle, reserved for the manifestation of Christ’s power and glory at that hour upon the cross; and, besides, this act was upon a most rare confession made by the thief at that instant when almost all the world forsook Christ.
It will be a wonderful moment for some of us when we stand before God and find that the prayers we clamored for in early days and imagined were never answered, have been answered in the most amazing way, and that God’s silence has been the sign of the answer. If we always want to be able to point to something and say, “This is the way God answered my prayer,” God cannot trust us yet with His silence.
