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The Word Appreciated by C. H. Spurgeon

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon, Reforming Reflections on December 30, 2009|

The Word Appreciated by C. H. Spurgeon

“How sweet are thy words unto my taste!  Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” — Psalm 119:103

It is delightful to find how exactly the experience of David, under the Jewish dispensation, tallies with the experience of the saints of God in these gospel times.  David lived in an age of miracles and divers manifestations.  He could have recourse to the Urim and the Thummim and the priesthood; he could go up to Zion and listen to the holy songs of the great assembly; he could converse with the priesthood; but, still, the food of his soul was supplied to him from the written Word of God, just as it is with us now.  As that is the food of our souls, so it was the food of David’s soul.

Martin Luther says, “I have covenanted with the Lord that I would neither ask him for visions, nor for angels, nor for miracles, but I would be satisfied with his own Word, and if I might but lay hold upon Scripture by faith, that shall be enough for me.”  Now it seems to be so with David here.  The honey that gratifies his taste is not found in angels’ visits or miraculous signs or officiating priesthoods or special revelations, but in the words of God’s mouth and in the testimonies of Holy Writ.

Let us, then dear brethren, prize this Book of God.  Be not ambitious, as some are, of seeking new revelations, or enquire for the whispers of disembodied spirits, but be satisfied with this good household bread which God has prepared for his people; and while others may loathe and dislike it, let us be thankful for it and acknowledge with gratitude the bread which came down from heaven, testifying to us, as it does, of the Lord Jesus, the Word of life that liveth and abideth forever.

This exclamation of David is clear proof that he set the highest possible value upon the Word of God.  The evidence is more valuable, because the Scripture that David had was but a slender book compared with this volume which is now before us.  I suppose he had little more than the five Books of Moses, and yet, as he opened that Pentateuch, he said, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste!”  If that first morsel so satisfied the psalmist, surely this fuller and richer feast of heavenly dainties ought to be yet more gratifying to us.  If, when God had but given him the first dish of the course, and that by no means the best, his soul was ravished with it, how should you and I rejoice with joy unspeakable, now that the King has brought on royal dainties and given us the revelation of his dear Son!

Think a minute.  The Pentateuch is what we would call, nowadays, the historical part of Scripture; and haven’t you frequently heard persons say, “Oh, the minister read a passage out of the historical parts of the Word.”  I have, with great pain, heard persons speak in a very depreciating manner of the histories of Holy Writ.  Now, understand this.  The part of the Word which David loved so much is mainly historical, and if the mere history of the Word was so sweet, what ought those holy Gospels and sacred Epistles to be which declare the mystery of that narrative — which are the honey whereof the Old Testament is but the comb — which are the treasures of which the Old Testament is but the casket?  Surely we are to be condemned indeed who do not prize the Word now that we have it all.

That Word of God, which David so much prized, was mainly typical, shadowy, symbolical.  I do not know that he understood it all.  I do know that he understood some of it, for some of his Psalms are so evangelical that he must have perceived the great sacrifice of God foreshadowed in the sacrifices described in the books of Numbers and Leviticus, or it would not have been possible that he should, in so marvelous a style, express his faith in the great offering of our Lord Jesus.  I put it to some professors here: do you often read these at all?  If, now, your Bible was so circumscribed that all was taken from you but the Pentateuch, would you be able, to say, “Thy Word is sweet unto my taste?”  Are not many of us so little educated in God’s Word that, if we were confined to the reading of that part of it, we should be obliged to confess it was unprofitable to us?  We could not give a good answer to Philip’s question, “Understandest thou what thou readest?”  Oh, shame upon us that, with so many more Books, and with the Holy Spirit so plenteously given to guide us into all truth, we should seem to value at least half of the Word of God even less than David did!

A great portion of the Pentateuch is taken up with precepts, and I may say of some of them that they are grievous.  Those commandments which are binding upon us are not grievous.  Some of the commands of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are so complex, that they were a yoke of bondage, according to Peter, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear.  Yet, that wondrous 20th chapter of Exodus with its ten commandments and all the long list of the precepts of the ceremonial law, which you may perhaps account wearisome to read, David says were sweet to his taste, sweeter than honey to his mouth.  What!  Did he so love to hear his heavenly Father speak that it did not much matter to him what he said so long as he did but speak, for the music of his voice was gladdening in its every tone to him?  Now that you and I know that all the bondage of the ceremonial law is gone, that nothing remains of it but blessing to our souls, and now that we are not under the law, but under grace, and have become inheritors of rich and precious and unspeakably great promises, how is it that we fall so far short, and do not, I fear, love the Word of God to anything like the degree that David loved it?

David here speaks of all God’s words, without making any distinction concerning some one of them.  So long as it was God’s Word, it was sweet to him, whatever form it might take. Alas, this is not true of all professors.  With an unwise partiality, they pronounce some of God’s words as very sweet, but other portions of God’s truth are rather sour and unsavory to their palates.  There are persons of a certain class who delight in the doctrines of grace.  Therein they are to be commended, for which of us do not delight in them if we know our interest in them?  The covenant and the great truths which grow out of the covenant, these are unspeakably precious things and are rightly enough the subjects of joy to all believers who understand them.  Yet certain of these persons will be as angry as though you had touched them with a hot iron if you should bring a precept anywhere near them; and if you insist upon anything being the duty of a believer, the very words seem to sting them like a whip; they cannot endure it.  If you speak of the “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord,” and speak of it as a holiness which is wrought in us by God the Holy Spirit and as a holiness of mind and thought and action — a personal holiness which is to be seen in the daily life — they are offended.  They can say, “How sweet are thy doctrinal words to my taste, but not thy precepts, Lord; those I do not love; those I call legal.  If thy servants minister them, I say they are gendering bondage and I go away from them and leave them as Arminians or duty-faith men or something of that kind; for I love half thy Word and only half of it.”  Alas, there are not a few of that class to be found every here and there.

And there are some who go on the other side they love God’s Word in the precepts of it, or the promises, but not the doctrines.  If the doctrine be preached, they say it is dangerous — too high; it will elevate some of God’s servants to presumption it will tempt them to think lightly of moral distinctions; it will lead them to walk carelessly, because they know they are safe in Christ.  Thus they love one half of the truth and not the whole of it.  But, my dear brethren and sisters, I hope you are of the same mind as David.  If God shall give you a promise, you will taste it, like a wafer of honey, and feed on it; and if he shall give you a precept, you will not stop to look at it, and say, “Lord, I don’t like this as well as the promise;” but you will receive that and feed upon that also.  And when the Lord shall be pleased afterwards to give you some revelation with regard to your inward experience or to your fellowship with his dear Son, you welcome it with joy, because you love any truth and every truth so long as you know it to be the truth of God’s own Word.

It is a blessed sign of grace in the heart when God’s words are sweet to us as a whole — when we love the truth, not cast into a system or a shape,  but as we find it in God’s Word.  I believe that no man who has yet lived has ever proposed a system of theology which comprises all the truth of God’s Word.  If such a system had been possible, the discovery of it would have been made for us by God himself: certainly it would if it had been desirable and useful for our profit and holiness.  But it has not pleased God to give us a body of divinity; let us receive it as he has given it each truth in its own proportion — each doctrine in harmony with its fellow — each precept carefully carried out into practice and each promise to be believed and by-and-by received.  Let the truth and the whole truth, be sweet to our taste.  “How sweet are thy words!”

There seems to be an emphasis on the pronoun, “How sweet are thy words!”  O my God, if the words be thine, they are sweet to me.  Had they come to me from the prophet, and I had perceived them to be merely the words of man, I might then have estimated them at their own weight, without reference to their authority; but when my Father speaks, when the Spirit lives and breathes in the truth to which I listen, when Jesus Christ himself draws near to me in the preaching of the gospel — then it is that the Word becomes sweet unto my taste.  Beloved, let us not be satisfied with the truth except we can also feel it to be God’s truth.  Let us ask the Lord to enable us, when we open this Book, to feel that we are not reading it as we read a common book — truths put there by some means, unimportant to us how; but let us recollect that we are reading truth put there by an inspired pen — that we have there God’s truth such as he would have us receive — such as he thought it worth his while to write and to preserve to all ages for our instruction.

The psalmist is not content to say, “God’s Word is sweet, and sweeter than honey,” but “How sweet are thy words unto my taste!  Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”  After all, the blessedness of the Word is a matter to be ascertained by personal experience.  Let others choose this philosophy and that form of thought, let them gad abroad after the beauties of poetry, or dote upon the charms of oratory; my palate shall be satisfied with thy Word, O God, and my soul shall find an excess of sweetness in the things which come from thy mouth into my mouth!

The Word of God, then, while in itself certainly most sweet, and all the sweeter when we recognize it as coming from God, will only be sweet to us in proportion as we are able to receive it and to feed upon it.  Every man must in this case feed for himself.  There can be no proxy here.  I wonder not at those who think lightly of God’s Word, notwithstanding the rapturous admiration they have heard expressed by others; for, unless they have tasted it, and felt and handled it, they still must be strangers to its unspeakable sweetness.

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Honoring the Spirit by A. W. Pink

Posted in A. W. Pink, Reforming Reflections on December 30, 2009|

Honoring the Spirit by A. W. Pink

It seems fitting that we should close this lengthy discussion upon the Person, office, and operations of the Holy Spirit by dwelling upon what is due Him from those in whom He has wrought so graciously, for it is very evident that some recognition and response must be made Him by us.

There is, however, the more need for us to write something thereon, because there are quite a number who belong to a company which refrains from all direct worship of the Third Person in the Godhead, deeming it unscriptural and incongruous to do so.  It seems strange that the very ones who claim to give the Spirit a freer and fuller place in their meetings than any branch of Christendom, should, at he same time, demur at prayer being immediately directed to Him.  Yet it is so: some of them refuse to sing the Doxology because it ends with “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

From time to time one and another of our readers have written, taking exception to occasional statements made by us, such as “what praise is due the Spirit for His grace and goodness unto us!” challenging us to point to any definite passage wherein we are bidden to worship or pray to the Spirit distinctively.

First, let us point out that there are many things clearly implied in Scripture which are not formally and expressly stated, and to assert we must for that reason reject them is absurd—some have refused the canonicity of the book of Esther because the name of God is not found therein, yet His superintending Providence, His overruling power, His faithfulness and goodness, shine forth in each chapter!  We build not our faith on any isolated texts, but on the Word of God as a whole, rightly and spiritually interpreted.  We have begun thus not because we are unable to find any definite statements in the Word which obviously warrant the position we have taken, but because we deemed it well to refute an erroneous principle.  Even if there were no clear cases recorded of prayer and praise being offered immediately to the Holy Spirit, we should surely require some strong positive proof to show the Spirit is not to be supplicated.

But where, we ask, is there anything in Holy Writ which informs us that one Person in the Godhead must be excluded from the praises that we make unto the Lord?  Here we are meeting the objector on his own ground: if what we are about to advance fails to convince him, he must at least allow that he knows of no texts which refute or condemn us, no verse which warns us against rendering to the blessed Spirit that recognition and honor to which we consider He is fully entitled.

Worshipping The Spirit As A Member Of The Trinity

“Thou shalt fear (worship—Matthew 4:10) the LORD thy God, and serve Him” (Deuteronomy 6:13). Now the Lord our God is a Unity in Trinity, that is, He subsists in three Persons who are co-essential and co-glorious.  Therefore the Holy Spirit, equally with the Father and the Son, is entitled to and must receive devout homage, for we are here commanded to render the same to Him.

This is confirmed by the “holy, holy, holy,” of Isaiah 6:3, where we find the seraphim owning separately and worshipping distinctively the Eternal Three.  The words that follow in verse 8, “Who will go for Us?” make it quite clear that the threefold “holy” was ascribed to the Blessed Trinity. Still further confirmation is found in Acts 28:25, 26, where the Apostle prefaces his quotation of Isaiah 6:9 with “well spake the Holy Spirit by Isaiah the Prophet.”  If, then, the angels ascribe glory and render worship to the Holy Spirit, shall we, who have been regenerated by Him, do less!?

“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our Maker” (Psalm 95:6).  Who is our “Maker?” Perhaps you answer, Christ, the eternal Word, of whom it is said, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3 and cf. Colossians 1:16).  That is true, yet Christ is not our “Maker” (either naturally or spiritually) to the exclusion of the Holy Spirit.  The Third Person of the Godhead, equally with the Father and the Son, is our “Maker.”  In proof of this assertion, we quote, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the Breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33:4).  Let the reader carefully compare Job 26:13 with Psalm 33:6.  Let it also be duly noted that this 95th Psalm (vv. 7-11) is quoted in Hebrews 3:7-11 and prefaced with, “Wherefore as the Holy Spirit

saith.”  Thus not only may we worship the blessed Spirit, but here in Psalm 95:6 we are commanded to do so.

It does indeed seem strange that any professing Christian should raise any objection and question the propriety of worshipping the Spirit.  Are we not to acknowledge our dependence upon and obligations unto the Holy Spirit?  Surely!  Surely!  He is as much the Object of faith as is the Father and the Son: He is so in His Being and perfections, His Deity and personality, His offices and operations.  Moreover, there are particular acts of trust and confidence to be exercised on Him.  As He is God, He is to be worshipped, and that cannot be done aright without faith. We are to trust Him for His help in prayer and the discharge of every duty!  We are to exercise confidence that He will complete the good work which He has begun in us.  Especially should ministers of the Word look to Him for His help in and blessing upon their labors.  “Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the Wind (Breath), prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live” (Ezekiel 37:9).

We sincerely trust that none of our readers will suppose that the Lord bade His servant to perform an idolatrous act by invoking the literal “wind.”  No, a comparison of verses 9 and 10 with verse 14 shows plainly that it was the Holy Spirit Himself who was referred to—see John 3:8.  Nor does this passage stand alone. In Song of Solomon 4:16 we find the Spouse praying to the Spirit for renewal and revival: “Awake, O north Wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.”  She expressed her desires metaphorically, but this is what she breathed after. It is the Spirit of life, then, we should always apply to for quickening, for the enlivening and exciting of His graces in us.

Worshipping The Spirit Directly

This subject is (alas) new to many.  Not a few seem to have been misled through a wrong understanding of that word concerning the Spirit in John 16:13, as though, “He shall not speak of Himself,” signified He shall never occupy the saints with His own Person and work, but always direct them to Christ.  It is true that the Spirit is here to glorify Christ, yet that by no means exhausts His mission.  His first work is to direct the attention of sinners to God as God, convicting them of rebellion against their Creator, Ruler, and Judge.  Then, too, He occupies the saints with the Father: His love, grace, and providential care. But John 16:13 no more means that the Spirit does not magnify Himself than Christ’s, “I have not spoken for Myself” (John 12:49) meant that He never occupied people with His own Person—His “come unto Me” (Matthew 11:28, John 7:37) proves otherwise.

Others create difficulty out of the fact that in the economy of redemption the Spirit now occupies the place of Servant of the Godhead, and as such it is incongruous to worship Him.  Such a cavil hardly deserves reply.  But lest some of our readers have been misled by this sophistry, let it be pointed out that during the days of His flesh, Christ occupied the place of “Servant,” the One who came here not to be ministered unto, but to minister—nevertheless, even during that season of His humiliation we are told, “Behold there came a leper and worshipped Him” (Matthew 8:2).  And have we not read that when the wise men from the east entered the house where He was, they “fell down and worshipped Him” (Matthew 2:11)?

Thus, the fact that the Holy Spirit is the Executive of the Godhead by no means debars Him of His title to our love and homage.  Some say that because the Spirit is in us, He is not a suitable Object of worship, as the Father and Son without us. But is the Spirit within the only relation He sustains to us?  Is He not omnipresent, infinitely above us, and as such an appropriate Object of worship?

That the Holy Spirit is to be publicly owned and equally honored with the Father and the Son is very evident from the terms of the great commission, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).  Now to be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit is either a real act of worship, or otherwise it would be a mere formality—which of the two is not difficult to determine. In view of this verse, no one need have the slightest hesitation in rendering homage to the Spirit as he does to the Father and the Son.  This is not a case of reasoning on our parts nor of drawing an inference, but is a part of Divinely-revealed Truth.  If we praise and revere the Son for what He has done for us, shall not the Spirit be adored for what He has wrought in us!?  The Spirit Himself loves us (Romans 15:30), by whose authority, then, are we to stifle our love for Him!?

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen” (2 Corinthians 13:14).  Here again the Holy Spirit is honored equally with the Father and the Son—the Apostles certainly did not slight Him as do some of our moderns.  Let it be duly weighed that “communion” is a mutual thing, a giving and receiving.  In our communion with the Father, we receive from Him, and then return to Him love and obedience.  From the Son we receive life, and acknowledge it in our praises.  From the Spirit we receive regeneration and sanctification; shall we render Him nothing in return?  We understand this verse to signify, “O Lord Jesus Christ, let Thy grace be with us; O God the Father, let thy love be manifested unto us; O Holy Spirit, let Thy saints enjoy much of thy communion.”  This invocatory benediction revealed the longings of Paul’s heart unto the Corinthian saints, and those longings prompted his petition on their behalf.

“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5).  What could be plainer? Here each of the three Divine Persons is distinguished, and the Apostle prays directly to the Lord the Spirit—obviously “the Lord” here cannot refer to the Son, for in such case it would signify “The Lord (Jesus) direct your hearts into the patient waiting for Christ.”  As it is the Spirit’s office to “guide us into all truth” (John 16:13), to “lead us into the paths of righteousness” (Psalm 23:3), so to “direct” our hearts into the love of God and longings after Christ.  He it is who communicates God’s love to us (Romans 5:50), and He it is who stirs us up to the performance of duty by inflaming our hearts with apprehensions of God’s tenderness toward us—and for this we are to pray to Him!  It is just as though the Apostle said, “O thou Lord the Spirit, warm our cold hearts with a renewed sense of God’s tender regard for us, stabilize our fretful souls into a patient waiting for Christ.”

“John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:4, 5).  This is as much a prayer—an invocation of blessing—as that recorded in Numbers 6:24-26.  The Apostle John desired and supplicated God the Father (“Him who is,” etc.), God the Holy Spirit in the plenitude of His power (“the seven Spirits”), and God the Son, that the seven churches in Asia might enjoy Their grace and peace.  When I say “The Lord bless you, dear brother,” I should utter empty words unless I also pray the Lord to bless you.  This “grace and peace be unto you,” then, was far more that a pleasantry or courtesy:  John was making known to the saints his deep longings for them, which found expression in ardent supplication for these very blessings to be conferred upon them. In conclusion let us say that every verse of the Bible which bids us “Praise the Lord” or “worship God” has reference to each of the Eternal Three.

“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:38).  Here is something very plain and expressive, the only point needing to be determined is, Who is “The Lord of the harvest?”  During the days of His earthly ministry, Christ Himself sustained that office, as is clear from His calling and sending forth of the Twelve; but after His ascension, the Holy Spirit became such.  As proof thereof, we refer to “The Holy Spirit said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them… so they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, departed” (Acts 13:2, 4)!

So again we read, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers” (Acts 20:28).  It is the Holy Spirit who now appoints the laborers, equips them, assigns their work, and blesses their efforts. In 1 Corinthians 12:5 and 2 Corinthians 3:17, the Holy Spirit expressly is designated “Lord.”

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all you creatures here below. Praise Him above you heavenly hosts—praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” Amen!

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Love for Christ and Obedience by A. W. Pink

Posted in A. W. Pink, Reforming Reflections on December 30, 2009|

Love for Christ and Obedience by A. W. Pink

“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21).

In this instance, we shall depart from our customary method of expounding the different clauses of a verse in the order in which they occur; instead, we shall treat this verse more or less topically.  That in it which is of such vital importance is the final clause, where the Savior promised to manifest Himself to the obedient believer.  Now there is nothing the real Christian desires so much as a personal manifestation of the Lord Jesus.  In comparison with this, all other blessings are quite secondary.

In order to simplify, let us ask and attempt to answer three questions: How does the Savior now “manifest” Himself?  What are the effects of such manifestation?  What are the conditions which I have to meet?

In what way does the Lord Jesus now manifest Himself? It is hardly necessary to say, not corporeally.  No longer is the Word made flesh, tabernacling among men.  No more does He say, as He said to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side” (John 20:27).  No longer may He be seen by our physical eyes (1 John 1:1).  Nor is the promise of Christ which we are now considering made good through visions.  We recall the vision which Jacob had at Bethel, when a ladder was set upon earth, whose top reached unto heaven, upon which the angels of God ascended and descended.  We think of that wondrous vision given to Isaiah when he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne before which the seraphim cried, “holy, holy, holy.”  No, it is not in visions or in dreams that the Lord promises to come to His people.

What then?  It is a spiritual revelation of Himself to the soul!  It is a vivid realization of the Savior’s being and nearness, in a deep and abiding sense of His favor and love.  “By the power of the Spirit, He makes His Word so luminous, that as we read it, He Himself seems to draw near.  The whole biography of Jesus becomes in this way a precious reality.  We see His form.  We hear His words.”  It is through the written Word that the incarnate Word “manifests” Himself to the heart!

And what are the effects upon the soul of such a manifestation of Christ. First and foremost, He Himself is made a blessed and glorious reality to us.  The one who has been granted such an experience can say with Job, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye (the eye of the heart) seeth thee” (Job 42:5).  Such a one now discerns the surpassing beauty and glory of His person and exclaims, “Thou art fairer than the children of men.”  Again: such a manifestation of Christ to the soul assures us of His favor.  Now we hear Him saying (through the Scriptures), “As the Father hath loved me, so I have loved you.”  And now I can respond, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.”

Another consequence of this manifestation of Christ is “comfort and support in trials, especially in those trials, which, on account of their Personal nature, are beyond the reach of human sympathy and love — the trials of desertion and loneliness from which Jesus Himself suffered so keenly; heart trials, domestic trials, secret griefs, too sacred to be breathed in the ears of men — all these trials in which nothing can sustain us but the sympathy which His own presence gives.”  Just as the Son of God appeared to the three faithful Hebrews in the fiery furnace, so does He now come to those in the place of trial and anguish.  So too in the last great trial should we be called upon to pass through it ere the Savior comes.  Then to earthly friends we can turn no longer.  But we may say with the Psalmist, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”

Now, let us inquire, What are the terms on which the Savior thus draws near? Surely every Christian reader is most anxious to secure the key to an experience so elevating, so blessed.  Listen now to the Savior’s words, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”  The faith by which we are saved does not destroy the necessity for an obedient walk.  “Faith is the root of which obedience is the beautiful flower and fruit.  And it is only when faith has issued in obedience, in an obedience which stumbles not at sacrifices and halts not when the way is rough and dark; in an obedience that cheerfully bears the cross and shame — it is only then that this highest promise of the Gospel is fulfilled…  When love for the Savior shall lead us to keep His holy Word — lead us to an immediate, unreserved, unhesitating obedience — lead us to say, in the spirit of entire self-surrender and sacrifice, ‘Thy will, not mine, be done,’ then, farewell to doubt and darkness, to loneliness and sorrow!  Then shall we mourn no more an absent Lord. Then shall we walk as seeing Him who is invisible, triumphant over every fear, victorious over every foe.”

This manifestation of Christ is made only to the one who really loves Him, and the proof of love to Him is not by emotional displays but by submission to His will.  There is a vast difference between sentiment and practical reality.  The Lord will give no direct and special revelation of Himself to those who are in the path of disobedience.  “He that hath my commandments,’’ means, hath them at heart.  “And keepeth them,” that is the real test.  We hear, but do we heed?  We know, but are we doing His will?  “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18)!  “And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father.”

There are three different senses in which Christians may be considered as objects of the loving favor of the Father and of the Son: as persons elected in sovereign grace to eternal life; as persons actually united to Christ by believing: and as persons transformed by the sanctifying work of the Spirit.  It is in this last sense that Christ here speaks.  Just as the Father is said to love the Son because of His obedience (John 10:17, 18), so is He said to love the believer for the same reason.  It is the love of complacency, as distinguished from the love of compassion.  The Father was well pleased with His incarnate Son, and He is well pleased with us when we honor and glorify His Son by obeying His commandments.

“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).

The Lord here repeats that God has fellowship only with those whose hearts welcome Him, who love Him, and whose love is manifested by submission to His Word.  Then He loves in return.  The Old Testament taught precisely the same thing. “I love them that love me” (Proverbs 8:17).  “If a man love me he will keep my word.”  Let not renewed souls torture themselves by attempting to define too nicely the extent of their “keeping.”  Let those who are tempted to do so meditate upon John 17:6 — “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy Word.”  Mark it well that this was said by the Savior in full view of all the infirmities and failures of the disciples and said prior to the day of Pentecost!

To “keep” God’s commandments is to obey them, and the primary, fundamental thing in obedience is the desire of the heart, and it is on the heart that God ever looks.  Two things are true of every Christian: deep down in his heart there is an intense, steady longing and yearning to please God, to do His will, to walk in full accord with His Word.  This yearning may be stronger in some than in others, and in each of us it is stronger at some times than at others; nevertheless, it is there!  But in the second place, no real Christian fully realizes this desire.  Every genuine Christian has to say with the apostle Paul, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may lay hold of that for which I am laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12).   Now we believe that it is this heart-obedience, this inward longing to be fully conformed to His will, this burning desire of the renewed soul, of which Christ here speaks.  “If a man love me, he will keep my word.”

Every true believer loves Christ; therefore every true believer “keeps” His Word, keeps it in the sense thus defined.  Let it be repeated, God looks at the heart; whereas we are constantly occupied with the outward  appearance.  As we scrutinize our deeds, if we are honest, we have to acknowledge that we have “kept his word” very imperfectly; yea, it seems to us, that we are not entitled to say that we have “kept” it at all.  But the Lord looks behind the deeds, and knows the longings within us.  The case of Peter in John 21 is a pertinent illustration.  When Christ asked him a third time, “Lovest thou me?” His disciple answered, “Lord, thou knowest all things; THOU knowest that I love thee” (John 21:17).  My disgraceful actions contradicted my love; my fellow-disciples have good reason to doubt it, but Thou who searchest the heart knowest better.  In one sense, it is an intensely solemn and searching thing to remember that nothing can be hidden from Him before whom all things are open and naked; but in another sense it is most blessed and comforting to realize that He can see in my heart what I cannot often discover in my ways, and what my fellow-believers cannot — a real love for Him, a genuine longing to please and glorify Him.

Let not the conclusion be drawn that we are here lapsing into Antinomian laxity, or making it a matter of no moment what our outward lives are like.  To borrow words which treat of another subject, “As there was a readiness to will so there should be a performance also” (2 Corinthians 8:11).  Though the apostle acknowledged that he had not “already attained,” yet he continued to “follow after.”  Where there is love for Christ, there cannot but be bitter sorrow (as with Peter) when we know that we have grieved Him.  And more; there will be a sincere confession of our sins, and confession will be followed by earnest supplication for grace to enable us to do what He has bidden.

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Lovest Thou Me? by Alexander MacLaren

Posted in Alexander MacLaren, Reforming Reflections on December 30, 2009|

Lovest Thou Me? by Alexander MacLaren

‘Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him. Feed My lambs.’ — John 21:15

Peter had already seen the risen Lord.  There had been that interview on Easter morning on which the seal of sacred secrecy was impressed; when, alone, the denier poured out his heart to his Lord and was taken to the heart that he had wounded.  Then there had been two interviews on the two successive Sundays in which the Apostle, in common with his brethren, had received, as one of the group, the Lord’s benediction, the Lord’s gift of the Spirit, and the Lord’s commission.

But something more was needed.  There had been public denial; there must be public confession.  If he had slipped again into the circle of the disciples with no special treatment or reference to his fall, it might have seemed a trivial fault to others, and even to himself.  And so, after that strange meal on the beach, we have this exquisitely beautiful and deeply instructive incident of the special treatment needed by the denier before he could be publicly reinstated in his office.

The meal seems to have passed in silence.  That awe which hung over the disciples in all their intercourse with Jesus during the forty days lay heavy on them, and they sat there, huddled round the fire, eating silently the meal which Christ had provided, no doubt gazing silently at the silent Lord.  What a tension of expectation there must have been as to how the oppressive silence was to be broken!  And how Peter’s heart must have throbbed and the others’ ears been pricked up, when it was broken by ‘Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?’  We may listen with pricked-up ears too.  For we have here, in Christ’s treatment of the Apostle, a revelation of how He behaves to a soul conscious of its fault; and, in Peter’s demeanor, an illustration of how a soul, conscious of its fault, should behave to Him.

There are three stages here: the threefold question, the threefold answer and the threefold charge.  Let us look at these.

I. The threefold question. The reiteration in the interrogation did not express doubt as to the veracity of the answer nor dissatisfaction with its terms; but it did express, and was meant, I suppose, to suggest to Peter and to the others that the threefold denial needed to be obliterated by the threefold confession; and that every black mark that had been scored deep on the page by that denial needed to be covered over with the gilding or bright coloring of the triple acknowledgment.  And so Peter thrice having said, ‘I know Him not;’ Jesus with a gracious violence forced him to say thrice, ‘Thou knowest that I love Thee.’  The same intention to compel Peter to go back upon his past comes out in two things besides the triple form of the question.

The one is the designation by which he is addressed, ‘Simon, son of Jonas,’ which travels back, as it were, to the time before he was a disciple, and points a finger to his weak humanity before it had come under the influence of Jesus Christ.  ‘Simon, son of Jonas,’ was the name that he bore in the days before his discipleship. It was the name by which Jesus had addressed him, therefore, on that never-to-be-forgotten turning-point of his life when he was first brought to Him by his brother Andrew.  It was the name by which Jesus had addressed him at the very climax of his past life when, high up, he had been able to see far, and in answer to the Lord’s question, had rung out the confession: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!’  So the name by which Jesus addresses him now says to him in effect: ‘Remember thy human weakness; remember how you were drawn to Me; remember the high-water mark of thy discipleship, when I was plain before thee as the Son of God, and remembering all these, answer Me — lovest thou Me?’

The same intention to drive Peter back to the wholesome remembrance of a stained past is obvious in the first form of the question. Our Lord mercifully does not persist in giving to it that form in the second and third instances: ‘Lovest thou Me more than these?’  More than these, what?  I cannot for a moment believe that that question means something so trivial and irrelevant as ‘Lovest thou Me more than these nets and boats and the fishing?’  No; in accordance with the purpose that runs through the whole, of compelling Peter to retrospect, it says to him, ‘Do you remember what you said a dozen hours before you denied Me, “Though all should forsake Thee, yet will not I”?  Are you going to take that stand again?  Lovest thou Me more than these, that never discredited their boasting so shamefully?’

So, dear brethren! here we have Jesus Christ, in His treatment of this penitent and half-restored soul, forcing a man, with merciful compulsion, to look steadfastly and long at his past sin and to retrace step by step, shameful stage by shameful stage, the road by which he had departed so far.  Every foul place he is to stop and look at and think about.  Each detail he has to bring up before his mind.  Was it not cruel of Jesus thus to take Peter by the neck, as it were, and hold him right down, close to the foul things that he had done, and say to him, ‘Look! look! look ever! And answer, Lovest thou Me?’  No; it was not cruel; it was true kindness. Peter was never so abundantly and permanently penetrated by the sense of the sinfulness of his sin, as after he was sure, as he had been made sure in that great interview, that it was all forgiven.  So long as a man is disturbed by the dread of consequences, so long as he is doubtful as to his relation to the forgiving Love, he is not in a position beneficially and sanely to consider his evil in its moral quality only.  But when the conviction comes to a man, ‘God is pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done;’ and when he can look at his own evil without the smallest disturbance rising from slavish fear of issues, then he is in a position rightly to estimate its darkness and its depth.  And there can be no better discipline for us all than to remember our faults and penitently to travel back over the road of our sins, just because we are sure that God in Christ has forgotten them.  The beginning of Christ’s merciful treatment of the forgiven man is to compel him to remember, that he may learn and be ashamed.

And then there is another point here in this triple question.  How significant and beautiful it is that the only thing that Jesus Christ cares to ask about is the sinner’s love! We might have expected: ‘Simon, son of Jonas, are you sorry for what you did?  Simon, son of Jonas, will you promise never to do the like any more?’  No!  These things will come if the other thing is there.  ‘Lovest thou Me?’  Jesus Christ sues each of us, not for obedience primarily, not for repentance, not for vows, not for conduct, but for a heart; and that being given, all the rest will follow.  That is the distinguishing characteristic of Christian morality: that Jesus seeks first for the surrender of the affections, and believes, and is warranted in the belief, that if these are surrendered, all else will follow.  And love being given, loyalty and service and repentance and hatred of self-will and of self-seeking will follow in her train.  All the graces of human character which Christ seeks and is ready to impart, are, as it were, but the pages and ministers of the regal Love, who follow behind and swell the cortege of her servants.

Christ asks for love.  Surely that indicates the depth of His own!  In this commerce, He is satisfied with nothing less and can ask for nothing more; and He seeks for love because He is love and has given love.  Oh! to all hearts burdened, as all our hearts ought to be — unless the burden has been cast off in one way — by the consciousness of our own weakness and imperfection, surely, surely, it is a gospel that is contained in that one question addressed to a man who had gone far astray, ‘Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?’

Here, again, we have Jesus Christ, in His dealing with the penitent, willing to trust discredited professions. We think that one of the signs of our being wise people is that experience shall have taught us ‘once’ being ‘bit, twice’ to be ‘shy,’ and if a man has once deceived us by flaming professions and ice-cold acts, never to trust him any more.  We think that is ‘worldly wisdom’ and ‘the bitter fruit of earthly experience’ and ‘sharpness’ and ‘shrewdness’ and so forth.  Jesus Christ, even whilst reminding Peter by that ‘more than these,’ of his utterly hollow and unreliable boasting, shows Himself ready to accept once again the words of one whose inveracity He had proved.  ‘Charity hopeth all things, believeth all things,’ and Jesus Christ is ready to trust us when we say, ‘I love Thee,’ even though often in the past our professed love has been all disproved.

We have here, in this question, our Lord revealing Himself as willing to accept the imperfect love which a disciple can offer Him. Of course, many of you well know that there is a very remarkable play of expression here.  In the two first questions, the word which our Lord employs for ‘love’ is not the same as that which appears in Peter’s two first answers.  Christ asks for one kind of love; Peter proffers another.  I do not enter upon discussion as to the distinction between these two apparent synonyms.  The kind of love which Christ asks for is higher, nobler, less emotional and more associated with the whole mind and will.  It is the inferior kind, the more warm, more sensuous, more passionate and emotional, which Peter brings.  And then, in the third question, our Lord, as it were, surrenders and takes Peter’s own word, as if He had said, ‘Be it so!  You shrink from professing the higher kind; I will take the lower and I will educate and bring that up to the height that I desire you to stand at.’  Ah, brother! however stained and imperfect, however disproved by denials, however tainted by earthly associations, Jesus Christ will accept the poor stream of love – though it be but a trickle when it ought to be a torrent – which we can bring Him.

These are the lessons which it seems to me lie in this triple question.  I have dealt with them at the greater length because those which follow are largely dependent upon them.  But let me turn now briefly, in the second place, to —

II. The triple answer. ‘Yea, Lord! Thou knowest that I love Thee.’  Is not that beautiful, that the man who by Christ’s Resurrection (as the last of the answers shows) had been led to the loftiest conception of Christ’s omniscience and regarded Him as knowing the hearts of all men should, in the face of all that Jesus Christ knew about his denial and his sin, have dared to appeal to Christ’s own knowledge?  What a superb and all-conquering confidence in Christ’s depth of knowledge and forgivingness of knowledge that answer showed!  He felt that Jesus could look beneath the surface of his sin and see that below it there was, even in the midst of the denial, a heart that in its depths was true.  It is a tremendous piece of confident appeal to the deeper knowledge and therefore the larger love and more abundant forgiveness of the righteous Lord — ‘Thou knowest that I love Thee.’

Brethren! a Christian man ought to be sure of his love to Jesus Christ.  You do not study your conduct in order to infer from it your love to others.  You do not study your conduct in order to infer from it your love to your wife or your husband or your parents or your children or your friend.  Love is not a matter of inference; it is a matter of consciousness and intuition.  Whilst self-examination is needful for us all for many reasons, a Christian man ought to be as sure that he loves Jesus Christ as he is sure that he loves his dearest upon earth.

It used to be the fashion long ago — this generation has not depth enough to keep up the fashion — for Christian people to talk as if it were a point they longed to know, whether they loved Jesus Christ or not.  There is no reason why it should be a point we long to know.  You know all about your love to one another and you are sure about that.  Why are you not sure about your love to Jesus Christ?  ‘Oh! but,’ you say, ‘look at my sins and failures;’ and if Peter had looked only at his sins, do you not think that his words would have stuck in his throat?  He did look, but he looked in a very different way from that of trying to ascertain from his conduct whether he loved Jesus Christ or not.  Brethren, any sin is inconsistent with Christian love to Christ.  Thank God, we have no right to say of any sin that it is incompatible with that love!  More than that; a great, gross, flagrant, sudden fall like Peter’s is a great deal less inconsistent with love to Christ than are the continuously unworthy, worldly, selfish, Christ-forgetting lives of hosts of complacent professing Christians today.  White ants will eat up the carcass of a dead buffalo more quickly than a lion will.  To have denied Christ once, twice, thrice, in the space of an hour, and under strong temptation, is not half so bad as to call Him ‘Master’ and ‘Lord,’ and day by day, week in, week out, in works to deny Him.  The triple answer declares to us that in spite of a man’s sins, he ought to be conscious of his love and be ready to profess it when need is.

III. Lastly, we have here the triple commission. I do not dwell upon it at any length because in its original form it applies especially to the apostolic office.  But the general principles which underlie this threefold charge, to feed and to tend both ‘the sheep’ and ‘the lambs,’ may be put in a form that applies to each of us, and it is this — the best token of a Christian’s love to Jesus Christ is his service of man for Christ’s sake.  ‘Lovest thou Me?’  ‘Yea! Lord.’  Thou hast said: go and do, ‘Feed My lambs; feed My sheep.’  We need the profession of words; we need, as Peter himself enjoined at a subsequent time, to be ready to ‘give to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope’ and an acknowledgment of the love that is in us.  But if you want men to believe in your love, however Jesus Christ may know it, go and work in the Master’s vineyard.  The service of man is the garb of the love of God.  ‘He that loveth God will love his brother also.’  Do not confine that thought of service and feeding and tending to what we call evangelistic and religious work.  That is one of its forms, but it is only one of them.  Everything in which Christian men can serve their fellows is to be taken by them as their worship of their Lord and is taken by the world as the convincing proof of the reality of their love.

Love to Jesus Christ is the qualification for all such service.  If we are knit to Him by true affection, which is based upon our consciousness of our own falls and evils and our reception of His forgiving mercy, then we shall have the qualities that fit us and the impulse that drives us to serve and help our fellows.  I do not say — God forbid! — that there is no philanthropy apart from Christian faith, but I do say that, on the wide scale, and in the long run, they who are knit to Jesus Christ by love will be those who render the greatest help to all that are ‘afflicted in mind, body, or estate.’  The true basis and qualification for efficient service of our fellows is the utter surrender of our hearts to Him who is the Fountain of love and from whom comes all our power to live in the world, as the images and embodiments of the love which has saved us that we might help to save others.

Brethren! let us all ask ourselves Christ’s question to the denier.  Let us look our past evils full in the face, that we may learn to hate them and that we may learn more the width and the sweep of the power of His pardoning mercy.  God grant that we may all be able to say, ‘Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee!’

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Lukewarmness in the Pulpit by C. H. Spurgeon

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon, Reforming Reflections on December 30, 2009|

Lukewarmness in the Pulpit by C. H. Spurgeon

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16

Yet once more, notice that, wherever there is lukewarmness in religious matters, it is out of place. There is no spot, near to the throne of God, where lukewarmness could stand in a seemly position. Take the pulpit, for instance. Ah, my brethren, of all spots in the world, if lukewarmness cometh here, then is the preacher indeed undone!  He should be, of all men, the most in earnest who undertakes the charge of souls, for he has that solemn charge ringing in his ears: “I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.  When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”  They who have to deal with hardhearted sinners – they who have to preach unpalatable truths – surely they should not make men’s hearts harder, and the truth more unpalatable, by uttering it in a half-hearted manner.  It will go hard with the man who has exercised his ministry with indifference.  “If,” said one of old, “there be a man who finds the ministry an easy place, he will find it a hard matter, at the last, to give in his account before God.”  If, my brethren, there should be any professed ministers of Christ, who never know what it is to travail in birth for souls; if there be men who take up the ministry merely as a profession and exercise it as they might do in any secular calling if they preach merely as a matter of routine or because they consider it is a pleasant occupation; it would have been better for them if they had never been born.  Far better would it have been for them to have broken stones by the wayside than to have been preaching the gospel and leaving their hearts out of their sermon; yea, I know not whether it would not have been better to have been a devil in hell than to have been a minister in the pulpit without his heart in his work.

Baxter’s “Reformed Pastor” stirs my very soul whenever I read its glowing periods – those fiery thunderbolts which he hurls at the heads of idle shepherds and lazy minister I have read nearly the whole book through to those who are studying for the ministry in connection with this church, and often have I seen the tears start from their eyes while listening to the burning language of that fervent preacher and writer.  Every time I have read a chapter in that book, I have felt that, the next Sabbath, I could preach – I must preach – with greater earnestness after reading the solemn words of that mightiest of ministers, Richard Baxter.  Ah, beloved, we need to have more of that earnestness in the pulpit!  What though my young brethren should study less and be more earnest?  Rather let them study a much as ever they can; but, oh! if the Holy Spirit will but shed his sacred fire upon the dry fuel of their studies, how much more will be accomplished for the kingdom of Christ than is done now!  So, you see, dear friends, that lukewarmness is out of place in the pulpit.

So it is, my brethren and sisters, in the Sunday school, with the tract-distributor, and even with the private Christian, the humble attendant upon the means of grace. Everywhere, lukewarmness in religion is to be loathed and abandoned, for it is a gross and glaring inconsistency.  I would not have you go, with a lukewarm heart, even to distribute tracts.  I would not have you dare to visit the sick unless your heart is filled with love to Christ.  Either do such work well or do not do it at all.  Either put your heart into the work or let someone else do it.  We have had too many men of straw filling up our ranks; we have had too many automatons going forth to fight our battles.  We have counted our legions, and said, “A brave host they will be;” but if our army is sifted, if our ranks are thinned, we shall probably find that fewer true soldiers of the cross will accomplish more if they are not impeded in their onward march by the mixed multitude of those who pretend to join the army of the living God.

I hope that lukewarm professors will find themselves thoroughly out of place amongst us; I do not think they could long be happy here.  There are so many brethren here with a red-hot spirit that they would soon get burned, and they would say “This is not the spot for us.”  If you, lukewarm professors, come amongst us, you will be asked to do fifty things, and you will be teased till you do them, for the good people here will not be content unless you do all that you can, and they will probably want you to do two or three times more than you can.  I am sure that, in all places where God has sent warm-hearted men to preach the gospel, you will find yourselves extremely uncomfortable if you want to be lukewarm.  I certainly could tell you of some chapels where you could take your seat, and where you would be greatly needed for the support of the ministry.  The minister would never wake you; I daresay, if you paid an extra half-crown a quarter, he would let you sleep on as long as you liked.  If you did not join the church, nobody would ever think of asking you whether you were a member or not.  In our fashionable churches, of course, people do not speak to one another; that would be quite beneath their assumed dignity.  No man would dare, in such a place as that, to turn to his neighbor, and say, “Are you a child of God?”  Well, if you mean to be lukewarm, go to one of those places; but do not stay here, lest we should worry you by our importunities.  I question whether anybody would come here, for a few Sundays, without some brother walking up to him, and asking him whether he was a follower of Christ, or not; and the question would be repeated, by one or another, until he came to some decision concerning his soul.

Let me remind you that you have to do with solemn realities. You have to do with death, with eternity, with heaven, with hell, with Christ, with Satan, with souls that must live forever; can you deal with these things in a cold spirit?  If you can deal thus with them successfully, it will be one of the greatest marvels in the world, for these things demand the whole man.  If but to praise God requires that we call up all the powers of our soul, how much more is needed to serve God, and to serve him, not in the hewing of wood and the drawing of water, but in the winning of souls, in preaching his gospel, in propagating his cause, and extending his kingdom.  Here, my brethren, are stern and solemn things for us to deal with, and they must not be touched by any but those who come warm-heartedly to deal with them.

And remember, further, that there have been times, with you, when these things did seem worthy of a warm heart.  Perhaps you recollect when a child out of your Sunday-school class died, and then you thought, “Oh, that I had taught that child more earnestly, and prayed over it with all my heart!”  Possibly, when your own child died, you cried, “O Absalom, my son, my son!” and the thought wounded you to the quick, that you had not taught that child as you might have done, and that you had not wrestled with God in prayer for that child’s soul as you ought to have done.  Have not I also had to think like this when I have buried some of your kinsfolk or acquaintances?  As I have looked down into the grave of some unconverted hearer, the tears have streamed from my eyes; and, afterwards, I have awoke at night with some solemn and terrible dream embodying this black thought, “Have I been faithful to that soul?  Have I dealt with that spirit, now departed, as I would deal with it if I had another opportunity of preaching to it?”  Sometimes, I feel that I can even say, with the apostle Paul, “I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men.  For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”  But there are other seasons of awful questioning when I tremble lest, out of so numerous a flock, the loss of even one should be attributed to the shepherd’s neglect.

Let me remind you, also, that the day is coming when you will think these things worthy of your whole heart, when you and I shall be stretched upon our dying beds; I think we shall have to regret, above everything else, our coldness of heart.  Among the many sins, which we must then confess, perhaps this will lie the heaviest upon our heart and conscience, “I did not live as I ought to have done; I was not as earnest in my Lord’s cause as I should have been.”  Then will our cold sermons, like sheeted ghosts, march before our eyes in dread array.  Then will our neglected days start up and to look right into our hearts and make our very blood curdle in our veins.  Then will our Sunday-school classes appear again before us; and those who taught us to teach others will come and reprove us for having despised their training and not having profited by that holy instruction which we received when we were set apart for God’s cause and were first trained to serve in his great army.  We may reckon these things of small importance now; but when we lie on the borders of eternity, we shall think them worth living for, and worth dying a thousand deaths for.    If you have lived lukewarmly, the things of God will then, even though you be a child of his, darken your dying hour, and weigh down your spirit with a fearful load of sad reflections.

Ay, and there will come a time when the things of God will seem yet more real than even on our dying bed; that will be when we stand at the bar of God.  Am I prepared to stand there with a ministry half discharged?  What shall I do if I have to give account before God for sermons preached without my heart being put into them?  How shall I appear before my Maker if I have ever kept back anything which I thought might have been useful to you, if I have shunned to rebuke any of you when I ought to have done so, if I have not warned you faithfully, and loved you tenderly, even as my own soul, and sought to woo you to the Savior?  How can I give in my account, as a steward of the Lord, if I have only served him half-heartedly?  O God, grant, I beseech thee that, notwithstanding a thousand infirmities, thy servant may ever be free from that great sin of being lukewarm in thy cause!

I am fearful, full often, in addressing the same congregation, Sabbath after Sabbath, and week after week, now by the space of seven years, lest my voice should grow stale to you; and I can truthfully say that, I would rather cease to preach at all than preach to people to whom my voice had become so familiar that it was only like the ringing of an old bell to which they gave no heed.  No, there must be feeling in the congregation as well as earnestness in the preacher; otherwise, let me resign my commission.  I pray God, if I am spared to minister to you, year after year, and you are spared to sit in the pew to hear the Word, that there may be earnestness in you, and earnestness in me that we may never come down to the dead level of some of the churches of which I spoke a little while ago – as you may think, in a spirit of censure; but as God knows, in a spirit of loving faithfulness – old churches that have come to be like pools without outlets, covered over with the sickly duckweed of respectability.  Stagnation in a church is the devil’s delight. I do not think he cares how many Baptist chapels you build nor how many churches you open, if you have only lukewarm preachers and people in them.  He cares not for your armies if your soldiers will but sleep; nor for your guns if they are not loaded.  God give us grace to make our religion all, that we may put our whole heart into it, and live it out, and then be prepared to die for it, if need be, and God so please, that we may live to enjoy the results of it in glory everlasting!

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