Love That Can Hate # 3 (and others)
This instinctive, Christian love, like all true and pure love, is to manifest itself by preferring one another in honor; or as the word might possibly be rendered, "anticipating one another." We are not to wait to have our place assigned before we give our brother his. There will be no squabbling for the chief seat in the synagogue, or the uppermost rooms at the feast, where brotherly love marshals the guests. The one cure for petty jealousies and the miserable strife for recognition, which we are all tempted to engage in, lies in a heart filled with love of the brethren because of its love to Christ, and to the Father who is His Father as well as ours. What a contrast is presented between the practice of Christians and these precepts of Paul! We may well bow ourselves in shame and contrition when we read these clear-drawn lines indicating what we ought to be, and set by the side of them the blurred and blotted pictures of what we are. It is a painful but profitable task to measure ourselves against Paul's ideal of Christ's commandment; but it will only be profitable if it brings us to remember that Christ gives before He commands, and that conformity with His ideal must begin, not with details of conduct, or with emotion, however pure, but with yielding ourselves to the God who moves us by His mercies, and being transformed by the renewing of our minds, and the indwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith.
~Alexander MacLaren~
(The End)
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The Prosperity of the Wicked
"For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. From their callous hearts comes iniquity, the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They say, "How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?" This is what the wicked are like - always carefree, they increase in wealth. When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me - until I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. Surely You place them on slippery ground; You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!" (Psalm 73).
Oh, how little is that man's condition to be envied, who for these short pleasures of sin - must endure an eternity of torments!
O sirs! Do wicked men purchase their present pleasures at so dear a rate - as eternal torments? And do we envy their enjoyment of them so short a time? Would we envy a man going to execution, because we saw him go up the ladder with a gold chain around his neck and a scarlet gown on his back? Surely not! Oh, no more should we envy the grandeur of worldly men, for for every step they take is but a step to an eternal execution!
Oh, how much more worthy of our pity, than envy - is that man's condition, who has all his happiness confined to the narrow compass of this present life - but his misery extended to the uttermost bounds of an everlasting duration!
The rich man also died and was buried in hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus by his side. So he called to them - Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire!" (Luke 16:22-24).
~Thomas Brooks~
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The Sword of His Pure, infinite, and incensed Wrath
To see God thrust the sword of His pure, infinite, and incensed wrath through the very heart of His dearest Son, notwithstanding all His supplications, prayers, tears, and strong cries - is the highest manifestation of the Lord's hatred and indignation of sin - which ever was, or ever will be!
It is true God revealed His great hatred against sin by turning Adam our of paradise, and by casting the angels down to hell,, and by drowning the old world, and by raining hell out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and by the various and dreadful judgments which He has been pouring forth upon the world in all ages. But all this hatred is but an emblem of hatred, compared to that hatred which God manifested against sin in causing the whole curse to meet upon our crucified Lord. It is true God reveals His hatred of sin by those endless, easeless, and remediless torments, which He inflicts upon devils and damned spirits. But this is no hatred - compared to that hatred against sin, which God revealed when He opened all the floodgates of His envenomed wrath upon His Son - His own Son, His only Son, His Son who always pleased Him, His Son who never offended Him.
Cast your eye upon the actings of God the Father towards Jesus Christ, and you will find that He has inflicted more and greater torments upon the Son of His dearest love, than all mortals ever have or could inflict upon others. God made all the penalties and sufferings that were due to us - to fall upon Jesus Christ. God Himself inflicted upon dear Jesus whatever was requisite to the satisfying of His justice, to the obtaining of pardon, and to the saving of all His elect!
~Thomas Brooks~
Saturday, April 27, 2019
How Saints May Help the devil # 6 (and others)
How Saints May Help the devil # 6 (and others)
And now I conclude, by addressing the people of God with equal solemnity and earnestness.
My dear hearers, if I could weep tears of blood this morning, I could not show too much emotion concerning this most solemn point. I do not know that this text ever struck me before yesterday, but I no sooner noticed it than it came home to me as an accusation. I plead guilty to it, and I pray for forgiveness. I only wish that a like power may attend it to you, that you may feel that you have been guilty too. O friends, can you bear the thought that you may have helped to drag others down to hell? Christ has loved you and pardoned your sins; and will you push others downward? And yet if you are inconsistent, and especially if you are cold and lukewarm in your religion, you are doing it. "Well," says one, "I don't do much good, but I do not hurt." That is an impossibility. You must be either doing good or evil. There is no borderland between truth and sin; a man must be either on land or in the water; and you are either serving God or serving satan; each day you are increasing your Master's kingdom, or else diminishing it. I cannot bear the thought that any of you should be employed in satan's camp. Suppose there ever should be an invasion of this country by France. The tocsin rings from every church steeple, the drum is sounding in every street, and men are gathering at every market-cross. Peaceful men spring up to soldiers in an instant; and multitudes are marching away to the coast. When we come near it we behold a troop of soldiers who have climbed our white cliffs, and with bayonets fixed they are marching against us. We, with a tremendous cheer, rush on against them, to drive them back into the sea which girds our beloved country. Suddenly, as we rush forward, we detect scores of Englishmen marching in the same ranks with our foes, and seeking to ravage their own country. What should we say? Seize these traitors; let not one of them escape; put them all to death. Can Englishmen take the side of England's enemies? Can their fatherland, and take toe side of the tyrant Emperor? Can this be? Then let them die the death!" And yet this day I behold a more mournful spectacle yet. There is King Jesus marching at the head of His troops; and can it be that some of you, who profess to be His followers, are on the other side; that professing to be Christ's you are lighting in the ranks of the enemy - carrying the baggage of satan and wearing the uniform of hell, when you profess to be soldiers of Christ? I know there are such here: God forgive them! God spare them; and may the deserters yet come back, even though they come back in the chains of conviction! May they come back and be saved! O brethren and sisters, there are enough to destroy souls without us - enough to extend the kingdom of satan without our helping him. "Come out from among them; touch not the unclean thing; be ye separate." Church of God! Awake, awake, awake to the salvation of men! Sleep no longer, begin to pray, to wrestle, to travail in birth; be more holy, more consistent, more strict, more solemn in thy deportment! Begin, O soldiers of Christ, to be more true to your colors, and as surely as the time shall come when the church shall thus be reformed and revived, to surely shall the King come into our midst, and we shall march on to certain victory, trampling down our enemies, and getting to our King many crowns, through many victories achieved.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(The End)
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Would He not Stab It With A Thousand Wounds?
Sin never appears so odious, as when we behold it in the red glass of Christ's sufferings. Can we look upon sin as the occasion of all Christ's sufferings, can we look upon sin as that which made Christ a curse, and which made Him forsaken of His Father, and which made Him live such a miserable life, and which brought Him to die such a shameful, painful, and cruel death - and our hearts not rise against it?
Shall our sins be grievous unto Christ - and shall they not be odious unto us? Shall He die for our sins - and shall not we die to our sins? Did not He suffer for sin - that we might cease from sin?
If one would kill our father - would we hug and embrace him? Surely not! We would be revenged on him. Sin has killed our Saviour - and shall not be revenged on it?
Can a man look upon that snake which stung his dearly loved wife to death - and preserve it alive, warm it at the fire, and hug it in his bosom? Would he not stab it with a thousand wounds? It is sin which has stung our dear Jesus to death, which has crucified our Lord, clouded His glory, and shed His precious blood! Oh, how should this stir up our indignation against sin!
Ah, how can a Christian make much of those sins, which have killed his dearest Lord! How can he cherish those sins which betrayed Christ, and bound Christ, and condemned Christ, and scourged Christ, and which violently nailed Him to the Cross, and there murdered Him!
It was neither Judas, nor Pilate, nor the Jews, nor the soldiers - which could have done our Lord Jesus the least hurt - had not our sins, like so many butchers and hangmen, com in to their assistance!
~Thomas Brooks~
And now I conclude, by addressing the people of God with equal solemnity and earnestness.
My dear hearers, if I could weep tears of blood this morning, I could not show too much emotion concerning this most solemn point. I do not know that this text ever struck me before yesterday, but I no sooner noticed it than it came home to me as an accusation. I plead guilty to it, and I pray for forgiveness. I only wish that a like power may attend it to you, that you may feel that you have been guilty too. O friends, can you bear the thought that you may have helped to drag others down to hell? Christ has loved you and pardoned your sins; and will you push others downward? And yet if you are inconsistent, and especially if you are cold and lukewarm in your religion, you are doing it. "Well," says one, "I don't do much good, but I do not hurt." That is an impossibility. You must be either doing good or evil. There is no borderland between truth and sin; a man must be either on land or in the water; and you are either serving God or serving satan; each day you are increasing your Master's kingdom, or else diminishing it. I cannot bear the thought that any of you should be employed in satan's camp. Suppose there ever should be an invasion of this country by France. The tocsin rings from every church steeple, the drum is sounding in every street, and men are gathering at every market-cross. Peaceful men spring up to soldiers in an instant; and multitudes are marching away to the coast. When we come near it we behold a troop of soldiers who have climbed our white cliffs, and with bayonets fixed they are marching against us. We, with a tremendous cheer, rush on against them, to drive them back into the sea which girds our beloved country. Suddenly, as we rush forward, we detect scores of Englishmen marching in the same ranks with our foes, and seeking to ravage their own country. What should we say? Seize these traitors; let not one of them escape; put them all to death. Can Englishmen take the side of England's enemies? Can their fatherland, and take toe side of the tyrant Emperor? Can this be? Then let them die the death!" And yet this day I behold a more mournful spectacle yet. There is King Jesus marching at the head of His troops; and can it be that some of you, who profess to be His followers, are on the other side; that professing to be Christ's you are lighting in the ranks of the enemy - carrying the baggage of satan and wearing the uniform of hell, when you profess to be soldiers of Christ? I know there are such here: God forgive them! God spare them; and may the deserters yet come back, even though they come back in the chains of conviction! May they come back and be saved! O brethren and sisters, there are enough to destroy souls without us - enough to extend the kingdom of satan without our helping him. "Come out from among them; touch not the unclean thing; be ye separate." Church of God! Awake, awake, awake to the salvation of men! Sleep no longer, begin to pray, to wrestle, to travail in birth; be more holy, more consistent, more strict, more solemn in thy deportment! Begin, O soldiers of Christ, to be more true to your colors, and as surely as the time shall come when the church shall thus be reformed and revived, to surely shall the King come into our midst, and we shall march on to certain victory, trampling down our enemies, and getting to our King many crowns, through many victories achieved.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(The End)
____________________
Would He not Stab It With A Thousand Wounds?
Sin never appears so odious, as when we behold it in the red glass of Christ's sufferings. Can we look upon sin as the occasion of all Christ's sufferings, can we look upon sin as that which made Christ a curse, and which made Him forsaken of His Father, and which made Him live such a miserable life, and which brought Him to die such a shameful, painful, and cruel death - and our hearts not rise against it?
Shall our sins be grievous unto Christ - and shall they not be odious unto us? Shall He die for our sins - and shall not we die to our sins? Did not He suffer for sin - that we might cease from sin?
If one would kill our father - would we hug and embrace him? Surely not! We would be revenged on him. Sin has killed our Saviour - and shall not be revenged on it?
Can a man look upon that snake which stung his dearly loved wife to death - and preserve it alive, warm it at the fire, and hug it in his bosom? Would he not stab it with a thousand wounds? It is sin which has stung our dear Jesus to death, which has crucified our Lord, clouded His glory, and shed His precious blood! Oh, how should this stir up our indignation against sin!
Ah, how can a Christian make much of those sins, which have killed his dearest Lord! How can he cherish those sins which betrayed Christ, and bound Christ, and condemned Christ, and scourged Christ, and which violently nailed Him to the Cross, and there murdered Him!
It was neither Judas, nor Pilate, nor the Jews, nor the soldiers - which could have done our Lord Jesus the least hurt - had not our sins, like so many butchers and hangmen, com in to their assistance!
~Thomas Brooks~
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Love That Can Hate # 2
Love That Can Hate # 2
II. Let love abhor what is evil, and cleave to what is good.
If we carefully consider this apparently irrelevant interruption in the sequence of the apostolic exhortations, we shall, I think, see at once that the irrelevance is only apparent, and that the healthy vehemence against evil and resolute clinging to good is as essential to the noblest forms of Christian love as is the sincerity enjoined in the previous clause. To detest the one and hold fast by the other are essential to the purity and depth of our love. Evil is to be loathed, and good to be clung to in our own moral conduct, and wherever we see them. These two precepts are not mere tautology, but the second of them is the ground of the first. The force of our recoil from the bad will be measured by the firmness of our grasp of the good; and yet, though inseparably connected, the one is apt to be easier to obey than is the other. There are types of Christian men to whom it is more natural to abhor the evil than to cleave to the good; and there are types of character of which the converse is true. We often see men very earnest and entirely sincere in their detestation of meanness and wickedness, but very tepid in their appreciation of goodness. To hate is, unfortunately, more congenial with ordinary characters than to love; and it is more facile to look down on badness than to look up to goodness. But it needs ever to be insisted upon, and never more than in this day of spurious charity and unprincipled toleration, that a healthy hatred of moral evil and of sin, wherever found and however garbed, ought to be the continual accompaniment of all vigorous and manly cleaving to that which is good. Unless we shudderingly recoil from contact with the bad in our own lives, and refuse to christen it with deceptive euphemisms when we meet it in social and civil life, we shall but feebly grasp, and slackly hold, that which is good. Such energy of moral recoil from evil is perfectly consistent with honest love, for it is things, not men, that we are to hate; and it is needful as the completion and guardian of love itself. There is always danger that love shall weaken the condemnation of wrong, and modern liberality, both in the field of opinion and in regard to practical life, has so far condoned evil as largely to have lost its hold upon good. The criminal is pitied rather than blamed, and a multitude of agencies are so occupied in elevating the wrong-doers that they lose sight of the need of punishing.
Nor is it only in reference to society that this tendency works harm. The effect of it is abundantly manifest in the fashionable ideas of God and His character. There are whole schools of opinion which practically strike out of their ideal of the Divine Nature abhorrence of evil, and, little as they think it, are thereby fatally impoverishing their ideal of God, and making it impossible to understand His government of the world. As always, so in this matter, the authentic revelation of the Divine Nature, and the perfect pattern for the human are to be found in Jesus Christ. We recall that wonderful incident, when on His last approach to Jerusalem in the morning sunshine across the valley, and forgetting His own sorrow, shed tears over its approaching desolation, which yet He steadfastly pronounced. His loathing of evil was whole-souled and absolute, and equally intense and complete was His cleaving to that which is good. In both, and in the harmony between them, He makes God known, and prescribes and holds forth the ideal of perfect humanity to men.
III. Let sincere and discriminating love be concentrated on Christian men.
In the final exhortation of our text "the love of the brethren" takes the place of the more diffused and general love enjoined in the first clause. The expressing "kindly affectioned" is the rendering of a very eloquent word in the original in which the instinctive love of a mother to her child, or the strange mystical ties which unite members of a family together. irrespective of their differences of character and temperament, are taken as an example after which Christian men are to mold their relations to one another. The love which is without hypocrisy, and is to be diffused on all sides, is also to be gathered together and concentrated with special energy on all who "call upon Jesus Christ as Lord, both their Lord and ours." The more general precept and the particular are in perfect harmony, however our human weakness sometimes confuses them. It is obvious that this final precept of our text will be the direct result of the two preceding, for the love which has learned to be moral, hating evil, and clinging to good as necessary, when directed to possessors of like precious faith will thrill with the consciousness of a deep mystical bond of union, and will influence in all brotherly love and kindly affections. They who are like one another in the depths of their moral life, who are touched by like aspirations after like holy things, and who instinctively recoil with similar revulsion from like abominations,k will necessarily feel the drawing of a unity far deeper and sacred than any superficial likeness of race, or circumstance, or opinion. Two men who share, however imperfectly, in Christ's Spirit are more akin in the realities of their nature, however they may differ on the surface, than either of them is to another, however like he may seem, who is not a partaker in the life of Christ.
~Alexander MacLaren~
(continued with # 3)
II. Let love abhor what is evil, and cleave to what is good.
If we carefully consider this apparently irrelevant interruption in the sequence of the apostolic exhortations, we shall, I think, see at once that the irrelevance is only apparent, and that the healthy vehemence against evil and resolute clinging to good is as essential to the noblest forms of Christian love as is the sincerity enjoined in the previous clause. To detest the one and hold fast by the other are essential to the purity and depth of our love. Evil is to be loathed, and good to be clung to in our own moral conduct, and wherever we see them. These two precepts are not mere tautology, but the second of them is the ground of the first. The force of our recoil from the bad will be measured by the firmness of our grasp of the good; and yet, though inseparably connected, the one is apt to be easier to obey than is the other. There are types of Christian men to whom it is more natural to abhor the evil than to cleave to the good; and there are types of character of which the converse is true. We often see men very earnest and entirely sincere in their detestation of meanness and wickedness, but very tepid in their appreciation of goodness. To hate is, unfortunately, more congenial with ordinary characters than to love; and it is more facile to look down on badness than to look up to goodness. But it needs ever to be insisted upon, and never more than in this day of spurious charity and unprincipled toleration, that a healthy hatred of moral evil and of sin, wherever found and however garbed, ought to be the continual accompaniment of all vigorous and manly cleaving to that which is good. Unless we shudderingly recoil from contact with the bad in our own lives, and refuse to christen it with deceptive euphemisms when we meet it in social and civil life, we shall but feebly grasp, and slackly hold, that which is good. Such energy of moral recoil from evil is perfectly consistent with honest love, for it is things, not men, that we are to hate; and it is needful as the completion and guardian of love itself. There is always danger that love shall weaken the condemnation of wrong, and modern liberality, both in the field of opinion and in regard to practical life, has so far condoned evil as largely to have lost its hold upon good. The criminal is pitied rather than blamed, and a multitude of agencies are so occupied in elevating the wrong-doers that they lose sight of the need of punishing.
Nor is it only in reference to society that this tendency works harm. The effect of it is abundantly manifest in the fashionable ideas of God and His character. There are whole schools of opinion which practically strike out of their ideal of the Divine Nature abhorrence of evil, and, little as they think it, are thereby fatally impoverishing their ideal of God, and making it impossible to understand His government of the world. As always, so in this matter, the authentic revelation of the Divine Nature, and the perfect pattern for the human are to be found in Jesus Christ. We recall that wonderful incident, when on His last approach to Jerusalem in the morning sunshine across the valley, and forgetting His own sorrow, shed tears over its approaching desolation, which yet He steadfastly pronounced. His loathing of evil was whole-souled and absolute, and equally intense and complete was His cleaving to that which is good. In both, and in the harmony between them, He makes God known, and prescribes and holds forth the ideal of perfect humanity to men.
III. Let sincere and discriminating love be concentrated on Christian men.
In the final exhortation of our text "the love of the brethren" takes the place of the more diffused and general love enjoined in the first clause. The expressing "kindly affectioned" is the rendering of a very eloquent word in the original in which the instinctive love of a mother to her child, or the strange mystical ties which unite members of a family together. irrespective of their differences of character and temperament, are taken as an example after which Christian men are to mold their relations to one another. The love which is without hypocrisy, and is to be diffused on all sides, is also to be gathered together and concentrated with special energy on all who "call upon Jesus Christ as Lord, both their Lord and ours." The more general precept and the particular are in perfect harmony, however our human weakness sometimes confuses them. It is obvious that this final precept of our text will be the direct result of the two preceding, for the love which has learned to be moral, hating evil, and clinging to good as necessary, when directed to possessors of like precious faith will thrill with the consciousness of a deep mystical bond of union, and will influence in all brotherly love and kindly affections. They who are like one another in the depths of their moral life, who are touched by like aspirations after like holy things, and who instinctively recoil with similar revulsion from like abominations,k will necessarily feel the drawing of a unity far deeper and sacred than any superficial likeness of race, or circumstance, or opinion. Two men who share, however imperfectly, in Christ's Spirit are more akin in the realities of their nature, however they may differ on the surface, than either of them is to another, however like he may seem, who is not a partaker in the life of Christ.
~Alexander MacLaren~
(continued with # 3)
How Saints May Help the devil # 5
How Saints May Help the devil # 5
III. Thus I think I have expounded the solemn consequences of this fearful evil. And now I come, in conclusion, and I pray God to help me, while I deal earnestly, and solemnly with you, and bring out this great battering ram, to bear against this vain excuse of the wicked.
Among this great congregation, I have doubtless a very large number of persons who are not converted to God, and who have continually made this their excuse, "I see so much of the inconsistency of professors that I do not intend to think about religion myself." My hearer, I conjure thee by the living God, give me thine ear a moment, while I pull this vain excuse of thine to pieces. What hast thou to do with the inconsistencies of another? "To his own master he will stand or fall." What will it better thee, if one half of all the professors of religions be sent to hell? What comfort will that be to thee, when thou shalt come there thyself? Man, will God require the sins of other people at thine hands? Where is it said that God will punish thee for what another does? Or dost thou imagine that God will reward thee because another is guilty? Thou art surely not foolish enough for that. I ask thee, what canst thou have to do with another's servant? That man is a servant of God, or at least professes to be; if he be not so, what business can it possibly be of thine? If thou shouldst see twenty men drinking poison, would that be a reason why thou shouldst drink it? If, passing over London Bridge, thou shouldst see a dozen miserable creatures leaping off the parapet, there would be a good argument why thou thyself shouldst seek to stop them, but no argument why thou shouldst leap tool. What if there be hundreds of suicides? will that excuse thee, if thou shalt shed thine own blood? Do men plead thus in courts of law? Does a man say, "O Judge, excuse me for having been a thief, there are so many hundreds of men that profess to be honest that are as big thieves as I?" Thou wilt be punished for thine own offenses, remember not for the offenses of another. Man! I conjure thee, look this in the face. How can this help to assuage thy misery? How can this help to make thee happier in hell, because thou sayest there are so many hypocrites in this world?
But, besides, thou knowest well enough that the church is not so bad as thou sayest it is. Thou seest some that are inconsistent; but are there are not many that are holy? Dost thou dare to say there are none. I tell thee, man, thou art a fool. There are many bad coins in the world, many counterfeits; do you, therefore, say that are no good ones? If you say so, you are mad; for the very fact that there are counterfeits is a proof that there must be realities. Would any man think it worth his while to make bad sovereigns if there were no good ones? It is just the quantity of good ones that passes off the few false coins. And so no man would pretend to be a Christian unless there were some good Christians. There would be no hypocrites if there were not some true men. It is the quality of true men that helps to pass off the hypocrite in the crowd..
And then again, I say, when thou comest before the bar of God, dost thou think that this will serve thee as an excuse, to begin to find fault with God's own children? Suppose you were brought before a king, an absolute monarch, and you should begin to say, by way of appeal, "O king, I have been guilty, it is true, but your own sons and daughters I do not like; there are a great many faults in the princes of the blood." Would He not say, "Wretch! thou art adding insult to wickedness; thou art guilty thyself, and now thou dost malign mine own children, the princes of the blood?" The Lord will not have thee say that at last. He has pardoned his children; He is ready to pardon thee. He sends mercy to thee this day, but if thou reject it, imagine not that thou shalt escape by recounting the sins of the pardoned ones. Rather this shall be an addition to thy sin, and thou shalt perish the more fearfully.
But come, man, once again: I would entreat of thee with all my might. What! canst thou be so foolish as to imagine that because another man is destroying his own soul by hypocrisy, that this is reason why thou shouldest destroy tine by indifference? If there be thousands of untrue Christians, so much the more reason why I should be a true one: if there are hundreds of hypocrites, this should make me more earnest to search myself, and should not make me indifferent about the matter. O sinner! thou wilt soon be on thy dying bed, and will it comfort thee there to think, "I have rejected Christ, I have despised salvation, I am perishing in my sins," and to add, "But there are many Christians who are hypocrites!" No, death will tear away that excuse. That will not serve you. And when the heavens are ablaze, when the pillars of the earth shall reel, when God shall come on flying clouds to judge the children of men, when the eternal eyes are fixed upon you, and like burning lamps are enlightening the secret parts of your soul, will you then be able to make this an excuse - "Good God! it is true, I have damned myself, it is true, I have wilfully transgressed; but there were many hypocrites?" Then shall the Judge say, "What hast thou to do with that? Thou hadst nought to do, to interfere with my kingdom and with my judgeship; for thine own rejection of Christ thou shall perish everlastingly."
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 6)
III. Thus I think I have expounded the solemn consequences of this fearful evil. And now I come, in conclusion, and I pray God to help me, while I deal earnestly, and solemnly with you, and bring out this great battering ram, to bear against this vain excuse of the wicked.
Among this great congregation, I have doubtless a very large number of persons who are not converted to God, and who have continually made this their excuse, "I see so much of the inconsistency of professors that I do not intend to think about religion myself." My hearer, I conjure thee by the living God, give me thine ear a moment, while I pull this vain excuse of thine to pieces. What hast thou to do with the inconsistencies of another? "To his own master he will stand or fall." What will it better thee, if one half of all the professors of religions be sent to hell? What comfort will that be to thee, when thou shalt come there thyself? Man, will God require the sins of other people at thine hands? Where is it said that God will punish thee for what another does? Or dost thou imagine that God will reward thee because another is guilty? Thou art surely not foolish enough for that. I ask thee, what canst thou have to do with another's servant? That man is a servant of God, or at least professes to be; if he be not so, what business can it possibly be of thine? If thou shouldst see twenty men drinking poison, would that be a reason why thou shouldst drink it? If, passing over London Bridge, thou shouldst see a dozen miserable creatures leaping off the parapet, there would be a good argument why thou thyself shouldst seek to stop them, but no argument why thou shouldst leap tool. What if there be hundreds of suicides? will that excuse thee, if thou shalt shed thine own blood? Do men plead thus in courts of law? Does a man say, "O Judge, excuse me for having been a thief, there are so many hundreds of men that profess to be honest that are as big thieves as I?" Thou wilt be punished for thine own offenses, remember not for the offenses of another. Man! I conjure thee, look this in the face. How can this help to assuage thy misery? How can this help to make thee happier in hell, because thou sayest there are so many hypocrites in this world?
But, besides, thou knowest well enough that the church is not so bad as thou sayest it is. Thou seest some that are inconsistent; but are there are not many that are holy? Dost thou dare to say there are none. I tell thee, man, thou art a fool. There are many bad coins in the world, many counterfeits; do you, therefore, say that are no good ones? If you say so, you are mad; for the very fact that there are counterfeits is a proof that there must be realities. Would any man think it worth his while to make bad sovereigns if there were no good ones? It is just the quantity of good ones that passes off the few false coins. And so no man would pretend to be a Christian unless there were some good Christians. There would be no hypocrites if there were not some true men. It is the quality of true men that helps to pass off the hypocrite in the crowd..
And then again, I say, when thou comest before the bar of God, dost thou think that this will serve thee as an excuse, to begin to find fault with God's own children? Suppose you were brought before a king, an absolute monarch, and you should begin to say, by way of appeal, "O king, I have been guilty, it is true, but your own sons and daughters I do not like; there are a great many faults in the princes of the blood." Would He not say, "Wretch! thou art adding insult to wickedness; thou art guilty thyself, and now thou dost malign mine own children, the princes of the blood?" The Lord will not have thee say that at last. He has pardoned his children; He is ready to pardon thee. He sends mercy to thee this day, but if thou reject it, imagine not that thou shalt escape by recounting the sins of the pardoned ones. Rather this shall be an addition to thy sin, and thou shalt perish the more fearfully.
But come, man, once again: I would entreat of thee with all my might. What! canst thou be so foolish as to imagine that because another man is destroying his own soul by hypocrisy, that this is reason why thou shouldest destroy tine by indifference? If there be thousands of untrue Christians, so much the more reason why I should be a true one: if there are hundreds of hypocrites, this should make me more earnest to search myself, and should not make me indifferent about the matter. O sinner! thou wilt soon be on thy dying bed, and will it comfort thee there to think, "I have rejected Christ, I have despised salvation, I am perishing in my sins," and to add, "But there are many Christians who are hypocrites!" No, death will tear away that excuse. That will not serve you. And when the heavens are ablaze, when the pillars of the earth shall reel, when God shall come on flying clouds to judge the children of men, when the eternal eyes are fixed upon you, and like burning lamps are enlightening the secret parts of your soul, will you then be able to make this an excuse - "Good God! it is true, I have damned myself, it is true, I have wilfully transgressed; but there were many hypocrites?" Then shall the Judge say, "What hast thou to do with that? Thou hadst nought to do, to interfere with my kingdom and with my judgeship; for thine own rejection of Christ thou shall perish everlastingly."
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 6)
Saturday, April 13, 2019
How Saints May Help The devil # 4
How Saints May Help The devil # 4
II. And now for the second point - The consequences of this evil. And here I wish to speak very pointedly and personally to all of you who are professors of religion, and I do hope that you will take every point to yourself, in which you must feel that you have been and are guilty.
Friends, how often have you and I, in the first place, helped to keep sinners easy in their sin, by our inconsistency! Had we been true Christians, the wicked man would often have been pricked to the heart, and his conscience would have convicted him; but having been unfaithful and untrue, he has been able to sleep on quietly, without any disturbance from us. Do you not think, my dear brothers and sisters, that you have been guilty here? - that you have often helped to pacify the wicked in their rebellion against God? I must confess myself that I am guilty. I have labored to escape from the sin, but I am not clean delivered from it. I pray each one of you, make a full confession before God, if by your silence, when sin has been committed before your eyes, or by a smile, when a lascivious joke has been told in your hearing, or if by a constant indifference to the cause of Christ you have led sinners to sleep more securely in the bed of their iniquities.
But to go further still. Do you not think that very often, when a sinner's conscience has been roused, you and I have helped to give it a soporific draught by our coldness of heart, "Hush! Master Conscience," says the sinner, but he will not be still, but cries aloud, "Repent, repent!" And then you, a professing Christian pass by, and you administer the laudanum draught of your indifference and the sinner's conscience falls back again into its slumber, and the reproof that might have been useful is entirely lost upon him. I am sure that this is one of the great crying sins of the church, that we are not now the witnesses of God, as we should be, but often quiet the witness of conscience in the souls of men. Look now to your lives - I am speaking personally to each one - look at yesterday, and the days that went before, and I ask you, and I solemnly charge you to answer that question. Have you not often assisted, in the first place, to keep men's consciences quiet, and afterwards to send them to sleep when they have been aroused?
Further, is it not possible that often sinners have been strengthened in their sin by you? They were but beginning in iniquity, and had you rebuked with honesty and sincerity, by your own holy life, they might have been led to see their folly and might have ceased from sin; but you have strengthened their hands. They have gone forward confidently, because they have said, "See, a church member leads the way." "So-and-so is not more scrupulous than I," says such an one; "I may do what he does." And so you have helped to strength sinners in their sins.
Nay, is it not possible that some of you Christians have helped to confirm men in their sins and to destroy their souls? It is a master-piece of thy devil, when he can use Christ's own soldiers against Christ! But this he often does. I have known many a case. Let me tell you a story of a minister - one which I believe to be true and which convicts myself, and therefore I tell it with the hope that it may also waken your consciences and convict you too. There was a young minister once preaching very earnestly in a certain chapel, and he had to walk some four or five miles to his home along a country road after service. A young man, who had been deeply impressed under the sermon, requested the privilege of walking with the minister, with an earnest hope that he might get an opportunity of telling out his feelings to him, and obtaining some word of guidance or comfort. Instead of that, the young minister all the way along told the most singular tales to those who were with him, causing loud roars of laughter, and even relating tales which bordered upon the indecorous. He stopped at a certain house, and this young man with him, and the whole evening was spent in frivolity and foolish talking. Some years after, when the minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a dying man. He hastened thither with a heart desirous to do good. He was requested to sit down at the bedside and the dying man, looking at him, and regarding him most closely, said to him, "Do you remember preaching in such-and-such a village on such-and-such an occasion?" "I do," said the minister. "I was one of your hearers," said the man, "and I was deeply impressed by the sermon." "Thank God for that," said the minister. "Stop!" said the man, "don't thank God till you have heard the whole story; you will have reason to alter your tone before I have done." The minister changed countenance, but he little guessed what would be the full extent of that man's testimony. Said he, "Sir, do you remember, after you had finished that earnest sermon, I with some others walked home with you? I was sincerely desirous of being led in the right path that night; but I heard you speak in such a strain of levity, and with so much coarseness too, that I went outside the house, while you were sitting down to your evening meal; I stamped my foot upon the ground; I said that you were a liar, that Christianity was a falsehood, that if you could pretend to be so in earnest about it in the pulpit, and then come down and talk like that, the whole thing must be a shame; and I have been an infidel," said he, "a confirmed infidel, from that day to this. But I am not an infidel at this moment. I know better; I am dying, and I am about to be damned; and at the bar of God I will lay my damnation to your charge; my blood is on your head," - and with a dreadful shriek, and one demoniacal glance at the trembling minister, he shut his eyes and died. Is it not possible that we may have been guilty thus? The bare idea would make the flesh creep on our bones; and yet I think there are few among us who must not say, "That has been my fault, after all." But are there not enough traps, in which to catch souls, without your being made satan's fowlers to do mischief? Hath not satan legions enough of devils to murder men, without employing you? Are there no hands that may be red with the blood of souls beside yours? O followers of Christ! O believers in Jesus! Will ye serve under the black prince? Will ye fight against your Master? Will ye drag sinners down to hell? Shall we - (I take myself in here, more truly than any of you) - shall we: who profess to preach the gospel of Christ, by our conversation injure and destroy men's souls?
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 5)
II. And now for the second point - The consequences of this evil. And here I wish to speak very pointedly and personally to all of you who are professors of religion, and I do hope that you will take every point to yourself, in which you must feel that you have been and are guilty.
Friends, how often have you and I, in the first place, helped to keep sinners easy in their sin, by our inconsistency! Had we been true Christians, the wicked man would often have been pricked to the heart, and his conscience would have convicted him; but having been unfaithful and untrue, he has been able to sleep on quietly, without any disturbance from us. Do you not think, my dear brothers and sisters, that you have been guilty here? - that you have often helped to pacify the wicked in their rebellion against God? I must confess myself that I am guilty. I have labored to escape from the sin, but I am not clean delivered from it. I pray each one of you, make a full confession before God, if by your silence, when sin has been committed before your eyes, or by a smile, when a lascivious joke has been told in your hearing, or if by a constant indifference to the cause of Christ you have led sinners to sleep more securely in the bed of their iniquities.
But to go further still. Do you not think that very often, when a sinner's conscience has been roused, you and I have helped to give it a soporific draught by our coldness of heart, "Hush! Master Conscience," says the sinner, but he will not be still, but cries aloud, "Repent, repent!" And then you, a professing Christian pass by, and you administer the laudanum draught of your indifference and the sinner's conscience falls back again into its slumber, and the reproof that might have been useful is entirely lost upon him. I am sure that this is one of the great crying sins of the church, that we are not now the witnesses of God, as we should be, but often quiet the witness of conscience in the souls of men. Look now to your lives - I am speaking personally to each one - look at yesterday, and the days that went before, and I ask you, and I solemnly charge you to answer that question. Have you not often assisted, in the first place, to keep men's consciences quiet, and afterwards to send them to sleep when they have been aroused?
Further, is it not possible that often sinners have been strengthened in their sin by you? They were but beginning in iniquity, and had you rebuked with honesty and sincerity, by your own holy life, they might have been led to see their folly and might have ceased from sin; but you have strengthened their hands. They have gone forward confidently, because they have said, "See, a church member leads the way." "So-and-so is not more scrupulous than I," says such an one; "I may do what he does." And so you have helped to strength sinners in their sins.
Nay, is it not possible that some of you Christians have helped to confirm men in their sins and to destroy their souls? It is a master-piece of thy devil, when he can use Christ's own soldiers against Christ! But this he often does. I have known many a case. Let me tell you a story of a minister - one which I believe to be true and which convicts myself, and therefore I tell it with the hope that it may also waken your consciences and convict you too. There was a young minister once preaching very earnestly in a certain chapel, and he had to walk some four or five miles to his home along a country road after service. A young man, who had been deeply impressed under the sermon, requested the privilege of walking with the minister, with an earnest hope that he might get an opportunity of telling out his feelings to him, and obtaining some word of guidance or comfort. Instead of that, the young minister all the way along told the most singular tales to those who were with him, causing loud roars of laughter, and even relating tales which bordered upon the indecorous. He stopped at a certain house, and this young man with him, and the whole evening was spent in frivolity and foolish talking. Some years after, when the minister had grown old, he was sent for to the bedside of a dying man. He hastened thither with a heart desirous to do good. He was requested to sit down at the bedside and the dying man, looking at him, and regarding him most closely, said to him, "Do you remember preaching in such-and-such a village on such-and-such an occasion?" "I do," said the minister. "I was one of your hearers," said the man, "and I was deeply impressed by the sermon." "Thank God for that," said the minister. "Stop!" said the man, "don't thank God till you have heard the whole story; you will have reason to alter your tone before I have done." The minister changed countenance, but he little guessed what would be the full extent of that man's testimony. Said he, "Sir, do you remember, after you had finished that earnest sermon, I with some others walked home with you? I was sincerely desirous of being led in the right path that night; but I heard you speak in such a strain of levity, and with so much coarseness too, that I went outside the house, while you were sitting down to your evening meal; I stamped my foot upon the ground; I said that you were a liar, that Christianity was a falsehood, that if you could pretend to be so in earnest about it in the pulpit, and then come down and talk like that, the whole thing must be a shame; and I have been an infidel," said he, "a confirmed infidel, from that day to this. But I am not an infidel at this moment. I know better; I am dying, and I am about to be damned; and at the bar of God I will lay my damnation to your charge; my blood is on your head," - and with a dreadful shriek, and one demoniacal glance at the trembling minister, he shut his eyes and died. Is it not possible that we may have been guilty thus? The bare idea would make the flesh creep on our bones; and yet I think there are few among us who must not say, "That has been my fault, after all." But are there not enough traps, in which to catch souls, without your being made satan's fowlers to do mischief? Hath not satan legions enough of devils to murder men, without employing you? Are there no hands that may be red with the blood of souls beside yours? O followers of Christ! O believers in Jesus! Will ye serve under the black prince? Will ye fight against your Master? Will ye drag sinners down to hell? Shall we - (I take myself in here, more truly than any of you) - shall we: who profess to preach the gospel of Christ, by our conversation injure and destroy men's souls?
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 5)
How Saints May Help The devil # 3
How Saints May Help The devil # 3
Who would be a Christian? "I don't want to be converted," says the worldling." "Why should I pluck out the sunbeam from my eye, and take the smile from my lips? Why should I profess to follow a God whose servants only worship Him by weeping, and never offer any sacrifice but that of groans, and sighs, and murmurers?" Might not a wicked man come in often, when Christians are grumbling together about the badness of the times, about the high price of commodities, and the low rate of wages, and so forth; and might he not say, "Yes, I can see your God treat you very badly; if I were you I'd strike, and have nothing to do with Him." And he would go away laughing, and saying, "Ah! Baal treats me better; I get more pleasure in this world than these Christian people do. Let them have their brave heaven to themselves, if they like; I'm not going snivelling through this world with them; let me have joy and rejoicing while I may." Don't you think that in this way you and I have done a world of damage to the cause of Christ, and may have helped to comfort sinners in their iniquities?
One other point, and I will have done with this. Perhaps the greatest evil has been done by the coldheartedness, and indifference of religious professors. I charge thee not, O church of God, with inconsistency; I lay no crime at thy door now; it is with another fault I charge thee - one as grievous as thee. I pray thee, plead guilty to it, for thou wilt but speak the truth, and then I pray God that this thy guilt may be cleansed, and that thou mayest offend Him no longer with this thine evil. The church of God at the present age, is cold and lukewarm, and lifeless, compared with what it used to be. When I was preaching in Wales this week, I could not but observe the power which attended the ministry, when there was a living congregation and an earnest company gathered together to hear the Word of God. We have become accustomed to sit in a kind of solemn silence to hear the gospel. Not so in Wales. There is to be heard the voice of acclamation; every person expresses the feelings of his soul in audible prayers and cries to God; and at last, when the Spirit has descended, you hear the loud cries of "Gogoniant," - "Glory to God." As each precious sentence drops from the lips of the preacher, it seems to be taken up and fed upon by the people, while they shout aloud for joy. I believe it is a great improvement on our English congregations, and some of our English preachers could not go on in their dull style, if sometimes the people had a chance of either hissing them or cheering them on. That, however, is but an index of the cold state of the churches. We are a phlegmatic, cold nation; even Scotch divines are more alive than we are, they speak the Word of God with more earnestness than many of our ministers do in England. Cold as we think the north is, yet hath even it become warmer than we are. And now what says the world to all our coldness? Why, it says - "Ah, this is the kind of religion we like," says the worldling; "we don't like those raving Methodists; we can't stand them; we don't like those earnest indefatigable Christians of Whitefield; oh! no, they were a raving set of folks; we don't like them; but we like these quiet folks." "Yes, says the worldling, "I think it is quite right that every man should go to his church and his chapel on a Sunday; but I never could go and hear such raving a Mr. So-and-so gives." Of course you could not; you are an enemy to God, and that is why you like a Laodicean church. That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors. The world says, "We like everything to go on smoothly; we like a man to go to his own church, and hear a good, solid, substantial sermon read; we like to go up to the meeting house, and hear a sober, eloquent divine; we don't like any of this furious preaching, any of these earnest exhortations." No, of course you like that of which God has said, "Thou art neither cold nor hot;" God hates such, and that is why sinners love it. But what effect does all this have upon the worldling? Why, just this. He says, "I like you, because you don't rebuke me; I like that kind of religion, because it is no accusation against me. When I see a Christian hot and in earnest about being saved," he says, "it rebukes my own indifference; but when I see a professed Christian just as in indifferent about the salvation of men as I am, why, then I say, it is all a farce, nonsense! they don't mean it, the minister does not care a bit about whether souls are saved or not, and as for the church, they make a great deal of noise every now and then about saving some poor people far away, but they don't care about saving us." And so a worldling wraps himself up, and perseveres, even to the last declaring all the while that religion is but a sham, because he sees us careless in solemn matters, and cold concerning everlasting realities.
This I have, mournfully in my own soul, set forth the plan whereby satan comforts sinners in their sins, even by means of those who ought most sternly to rebuke them.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 4)
Who would be a Christian? "I don't want to be converted," says the worldling." "Why should I pluck out the sunbeam from my eye, and take the smile from my lips? Why should I profess to follow a God whose servants only worship Him by weeping, and never offer any sacrifice but that of groans, and sighs, and murmurers?" Might not a wicked man come in often, when Christians are grumbling together about the badness of the times, about the high price of commodities, and the low rate of wages, and so forth; and might he not say, "Yes, I can see your God treat you very badly; if I were you I'd strike, and have nothing to do with Him." And he would go away laughing, and saying, "Ah! Baal treats me better; I get more pleasure in this world than these Christian people do. Let them have their brave heaven to themselves, if they like; I'm not going snivelling through this world with them; let me have joy and rejoicing while I may." Don't you think that in this way you and I have done a world of damage to the cause of Christ, and may have helped to comfort sinners in their iniquities?
One other point, and I will have done with this. Perhaps the greatest evil has been done by the coldheartedness, and indifference of religious professors. I charge thee not, O church of God, with inconsistency; I lay no crime at thy door now; it is with another fault I charge thee - one as grievous as thee. I pray thee, plead guilty to it, for thou wilt but speak the truth, and then I pray God that this thy guilt may be cleansed, and that thou mayest offend Him no longer with this thine evil. The church of God at the present age, is cold and lukewarm, and lifeless, compared with what it used to be. When I was preaching in Wales this week, I could not but observe the power which attended the ministry, when there was a living congregation and an earnest company gathered together to hear the Word of God. We have become accustomed to sit in a kind of solemn silence to hear the gospel. Not so in Wales. There is to be heard the voice of acclamation; every person expresses the feelings of his soul in audible prayers and cries to God; and at last, when the Spirit has descended, you hear the loud cries of "Gogoniant," - "Glory to God." As each precious sentence drops from the lips of the preacher, it seems to be taken up and fed upon by the people, while they shout aloud for joy. I believe it is a great improvement on our English congregations, and some of our English preachers could not go on in their dull style, if sometimes the people had a chance of either hissing them or cheering them on. That, however, is but an index of the cold state of the churches. We are a phlegmatic, cold nation; even Scotch divines are more alive than we are, they speak the Word of God with more earnestness than many of our ministers do in England. Cold as we think the north is, yet hath even it become warmer than we are. And now what says the world to all our coldness? Why, it says - "Ah, this is the kind of religion we like," says the worldling; "we don't like those raving Methodists; we can't stand them; we don't like those earnest indefatigable Christians of Whitefield; oh! no, they were a raving set of folks; we don't like them; but we like these quiet folks." "Yes, says the worldling, "I think it is quite right that every man should go to his church and his chapel on a Sunday; but I never could go and hear such raving a Mr. So-and-so gives." Of course you could not; you are an enemy to God, and that is why you like a Laodicean church. That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors. The world says, "We like everything to go on smoothly; we like a man to go to his own church, and hear a good, solid, substantial sermon read; we like to go up to the meeting house, and hear a sober, eloquent divine; we don't like any of this furious preaching, any of these earnest exhortations." No, of course you like that of which God has said, "Thou art neither cold nor hot;" God hates such, and that is why sinners love it. But what effect does all this have upon the worldling? Why, just this. He says, "I like you, because you don't rebuke me; I like that kind of religion, because it is no accusation against me. When I see a Christian hot and in earnest about being saved," he says, "it rebukes my own indifference; but when I see a professed Christian just as in indifferent about the salvation of men as I am, why, then I say, it is all a farce, nonsense! they don't mean it, the minister does not care a bit about whether souls are saved or not, and as for the church, they make a great deal of noise every now and then about saving some poor people far away, but they don't care about saving us." And so a worldling wraps himself up, and perseveres, even to the last declaring all the while that religion is but a sham, because he sees us careless in solemn matters, and cold concerning everlasting realities.
This I have, mournfully in my own soul, set forth the plan whereby satan comforts sinners in their sins, even by means of those who ought most sternly to rebuke them.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 4)
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Love That Can Hate # 1
Love That Can Hate # 1
"Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honor preferring one another" (Romans 12:9-10).
Thus far the Apostle has been laying down very general precepts and principles of Christian morals. Starting with the one all-comprehensive thought of self-sacrifice as the very foundation of all goodness, of transformation as its method, and of the clear knowledge of our several powers and faithful stewardship of these, as its conditions, which at first sight seem to be very unconnected, but through which there may be discerned a sequence of thought.
The clauses of our text seem at first sight strangely disconnected. The first and the last belong to the same subject, but the intervening clause strikes a careless reader as out of place and heterogeneous. I think that we shall see it is not so; but for the present we but note that here are three sets of precepts which enjoin, first, honest love; then, next a healthy vehemence against evil and for good; and finally, a brotherly affection and mutual respect.
I. Let Love Be Honest
Love stands at the head, and is the rental source of all separate individualized duties. Here Paul is not so much prescribing love as describing the kind of love which he recognizes as genuine, and the main point on which he insists is sincerity. The "dissimulation" of the Authorized Version only covers half the ground. It means, hiding what one is; but there is simulation, or pretending to be what one is not. There are the words of love which are like the iridescent scum on the surface veiling the black depths of a pool of hatred. A Psalmist complains of have to meet men whose words were "smoother than butter" and whose true feelings were as "drawn swords"; but, short of such consciously lying love, we must all recognize as a real danger besetting us all, and especially those of us who are naturally inclined to kindly relations with our fellows, the tendency to use language just a little in excess of our feelings. The glove is slightly stretched, and the hand in it is not quite large enough to fill it. There is such a thing, not altogether unknown in Christian circles, as benevolence which is largely does not represent any corresponding emotion. Such effusive love pours itself in words, and is most generally the token of intense selfishness. Any man who seeks to make his words a true picture of his emotions must be aware that few harder precepts have ever been given than this brief one of the apostle's, "Let love be without hypocrisy."
But the place where this exhortation comes in the apostolic sequence here may suggest to us the discipline through which obedience to it is made possible. There is little to be done by the way of directly increasing either the fervor of love or the honesty of its expression. The true method of securing both is to be growingly transformed by the renewing of our minds, and growingly to bring our whole old selves under the melting and softening influence of the mercies of God. It is swollen self-love, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, which impedes the flow of love to others, and it is in the measure in which we receive into our minds the mind that was in Christ Jesus, and look at men as He did, that we shall come to love them all honestly and purely. When we are delivered from the monstrous oppression and tyranny of "self", we have hearts capable of a Christlike and Christ-giving love to all men, and only they who have cleansed their hearts by union with Him, and by receiving into them the purging influence of His own Spirit, will be able to love with hypocrisy.
~Alexander MacLaren~
(continued with # 2)
"Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. In love of the brethren be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honor preferring one another" (Romans 12:9-10).
Thus far the Apostle has been laying down very general precepts and principles of Christian morals. Starting with the one all-comprehensive thought of self-sacrifice as the very foundation of all goodness, of transformation as its method, and of the clear knowledge of our several powers and faithful stewardship of these, as its conditions, which at first sight seem to be very unconnected, but through which there may be discerned a sequence of thought.
The clauses of our text seem at first sight strangely disconnected. The first and the last belong to the same subject, but the intervening clause strikes a careless reader as out of place and heterogeneous. I think that we shall see it is not so; but for the present we but note that here are three sets of precepts which enjoin, first, honest love; then, next a healthy vehemence against evil and for good; and finally, a brotherly affection and mutual respect.
I. Let Love Be Honest
Love stands at the head, and is the rental source of all separate individualized duties. Here Paul is not so much prescribing love as describing the kind of love which he recognizes as genuine, and the main point on which he insists is sincerity. The "dissimulation" of the Authorized Version only covers half the ground. It means, hiding what one is; but there is simulation, or pretending to be what one is not. There are the words of love which are like the iridescent scum on the surface veiling the black depths of a pool of hatred. A Psalmist complains of have to meet men whose words were "smoother than butter" and whose true feelings were as "drawn swords"; but, short of such consciously lying love, we must all recognize as a real danger besetting us all, and especially those of us who are naturally inclined to kindly relations with our fellows, the tendency to use language just a little in excess of our feelings. The glove is slightly stretched, and the hand in it is not quite large enough to fill it. There is such a thing, not altogether unknown in Christian circles, as benevolence which is largely does not represent any corresponding emotion. Such effusive love pours itself in words, and is most generally the token of intense selfishness. Any man who seeks to make his words a true picture of his emotions must be aware that few harder precepts have ever been given than this brief one of the apostle's, "Let love be without hypocrisy."
But the place where this exhortation comes in the apostolic sequence here may suggest to us the discipline through which obedience to it is made possible. There is little to be done by the way of directly increasing either the fervor of love or the honesty of its expression. The true method of securing both is to be growingly transformed by the renewing of our minds, and growingly to bring our whole old selves under the melting and softening influence of the mercies of God. It is swollen self-love, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, which impedes the flow of love to others, and it is in the measure in which we receive into our minds the mind that was in Christ Jesus, and look at men as He did, that we shall come to love them all honestly and purely. When we are delivered from the monstrous oppression and tyranny of "self", we have hearts capable of a Christlike and Christ-giving love to all men, and only they who have cleansed their hearts by union with Him, and by receiving into them the purging influence of His own Spirit, will be able to love with hypocrisy.
~Alexander MacLaren~
(continued with # 2)
How Saints May Help the devil # 2
How Saints May Help the devil # 2
Now, these are only mentioned amongst us as inconsistencies - not as sins. Sins they verily are; and they are such sins that they restrain the Spirit of God from blessing the church. Sins, too, they are that render the wicked callous in their sins, blunt the edge of our rebukes, and prevents the Word of God from working in the hearts of men.
I might mention another sad fact with regard to the church, which often stings us sorely, - the various enmities, and strifes, and divisions, that arise. You tell the worldly man that Christians love each other. "Ah!" says he, "you should go over to Ebenezer or to Rehoboth, and see how they love each other. Don't talk of leading a cat and dog life! Look at many of your churches; see how the minister is treated, and how the deacons are in arms, and how the members hate one another. They can scarcely hold a church meeting without abusing each other!" How often is this proved to be true in many churches!" And then the worldling says, "You tell us that we bite and devour each other, and that our wars and fightings come from our lusts. Where do your wars and fightings is come from? You tell us that our anger and wrath are the effect of sin that dwelleth in us: what causes your divisions and your strifes?" In this way, you see, the testimony of the children of God is rendered invalid, and we help to comfort sinners in their sins.
2. Now it is my mournful duty to go a step further. It is not merely these inconsistencies, that have greatly assisted sinners in sheltering themselves from the attacks of the Word of God. Every now and then the cedar falls in the midst of the forest. Some one who stood prominent in the church of God, as a professed follower of Jesus, turns aside. "They go out from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of us, doubtless, they would have continued with us, but they went out from us, that it might be manifest that they were not of us." We have wept over high professors becoming drunkards; we have seen mighty men at religious public meetings becoming scoundrel bankrupts. We have had it dashed in our faces, dozens of times, that religion how often become a cloak for fraud, and that when the world has trusted a religious man with its wealth, that religious man has carried it off with him, and has not been found at the proper time. Oh! this is the great curse of the church. I was thinking only yesterday, with much sorrow in my heart, of the present age, and I could not but come to the conclusion, that all the burnings of pagan tyrants, that all the tortures of popish executioners, that all the bloody deaths to which God's people were ever put, in any one age of the world, have never done so much hurt to the cause of Christ as the inconsistences of professors of the present time. It was about three years ago I think, that failures among religious men seemed to be the order of the day, and our papers literally teemed with accusations against the church of God. O my brethren, let us not talk of these things except with mourning and tears. Wrap thyself in sackcloth, O church of God; put away thy laughter, and cast ashes on thine head, for the crown of thy glory is departed, thy garments are stained and the filthiness of thy skirts witnesses against thee. O church of Christ, thy Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, but now their visage is blacker than a coal, and their hands hare defiled with iniquity. Remember thou the time of thy purity, when thy priests were glorious, and thy sons and daughters were clothed in royal apparel. How art thou fallen! how art thou cast down from the high mountains! Thy princes are clothed in rags; the veils are plucked from the face of thy daughters, and thou thyself art become disconsolate and a widow, by reason of the iniquity of thy sons and of thy daughters. Woe unto us, for thy glory is departed, thy sun is covered with thick darkness, and thy stars withhold their light. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us that we have sinned.
My hearers, my soul has carried me away; breathless and panting I return to my humbler but not less earnest style. Remember how vast your powers for mischief? Your ministers may preach as long as they will; but you undo their preaching if you are unholy. If you are inconsistent in your lives, Paul, Apollos, and Cephas might preach with power; but they have not half the power to build up that you have to pull down. You are the mightiest workmen ye professors of religion; you can undo infinitely more than we can accomplish.
And now I pause, and relieve the shadow of this subject with something which, I fear, is in the sight of God equally vile. How often do the people of God comfort sinners in their sins by their murmurings and their complaints? Oh beloved, we are too much in the habit of covering our faces with sadness, on account of our temporal trials, and too little in the habit of weeping on account of the failings of the church of God! How frequently do you meet with a true Christian full of unbelieving cares! Ah! he says, "All these things are against me." He has food and raiment, but he is not content with it; he has more than that, but his store is a little diminished, and he is very cast down, and he has no faith, and cannot trust the Lord. "Oh!" says the worldling, "see these Christians; they talk about faith, but their faith is not of half so much service to them, as my desperation is to me that hardens my heart, and makes me stand up against affliction a great deal better than their faith om God's providence can do. Why, just look at these saints - a driveling set of crying creatures, they never have either peace or joy; they are everlastingly pulling long faces, and talking through their noses, about their sad trials and troubles; they never have an hour of happiness.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 3)
Now, these are only mentioned amongst us as inconsistencies - not as sins. Sins they verily are; and they are such sins that they restrain the Spirit of God from blessing the church. Sins, too, they are that render the wicked callous in their sins, blunt the edge of our rebukes, and prevents the Word of God from working in the hearts of men.
I might mention another sad fact with regard to the church, which often stings us sorely, - the various enmities, and strifes, and divisions, that arise. You tell the worldly man that Christians love each other. "Ah!" says he, "you should go over to Ebenezer or to Rehoboth, and see how they love each other. Don't talk of leading a cat and dog life! Look at many of your churches; see how the minister is treated, and how the deacons are in arms, and how the members hate one another. They can scarcely hold a church meeting without abusing each other!" How often is this proved to be true in many churches!" And then the worldling says, "You tell us that we bite and devour each other, and that our wars and fightings come from our lusts. Where do your wars and fightings is come from? You tell us that our anger and wrath are the effect of sin that dwelleth in us: what causes your divisions and your strifes?" In this way, you see, the testimony of the children of God is rendered invalid, and we help to comfort sinners in their sins.
2. Now it is my mournful duty to go a step further. It is not merely these inconsistencies, that have greatly assisted sinners in sheltering themselves from the attacks of the Word of God. Every now and then the cedar falls in the midst of the forest. Some one who stood prominent in the church of God, as a professed follower of Jesus, turns aside. "They go out from us because they were not of us; for if they had been of us, doubtless, they would have continued with us, but they went out from us, that it might be manifest that they were not of us." We have wept over high professors becoming drunkards; we have seen mighty men at religious public meetings becoming scoundrel bankrupts. We have had it dashed in our faces, dozens of times, that religion how often become a cloak for fraud, and that when the world has trusted a religious man with its wealth, that religious man has carried it off with him, and has not been found at the proper time. Oh! this is the great curse of the church. I was thinking only yesterday, with much sorrow in my heart, of the present age, and I could not but come to the conclusion, that all the burnings of pagan tyrants, that all the tortures of popish executioners, that all the bloody deaths to which God's people were ever put, in any one age of the world, have never done so much hurt to the cause of Christ as the inconsistences of professors of the present time. It was about three years ago I think, that failures among religious men seemed to be the order of the day, and our papers literally teemed with accusations against the church of God. O my brethren, let us not talk of these things except with mourning and tears. Wrap thyself in sackcloth, O church of God; put away thy laughter, and cast ashes on thine head, for the crown of thy glory is departed, thy garments are stained and the filthiness of thy skirts witnesses against thee. O church of Christ, thy Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, but now their visage is blacker than a coal, and their hands hare defiled with iniquity. Remember thou the time of thy purity, when thy priests were glorious, and thy sons and daughters were clothed in royal apparel. How art thou fallen! how art thou cast down from the high mountains! Thy princes are clothed in rags; the veils are plucked from the face of thy daughters, and thou thyself art become disconsolate and a widow, by reason of the iniquity of thy sons and of thy daughters. Woe unto us, for thy glory is departed, thy sun is covered with thick darkness, and thy stars withhold their light. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us that we have sinned.
My hearers, my soul has carried me away; breathless and panting I return to my humbler but not less earnest style. Remember how vast your powers for mischief? Your ministers may preach as long as they will; but you undo their preaching if you are unholy. If you are inconsistent in your lives, Paul, Apollos, and Cephas might preach with power; but they have not half the power to build up that you have to pull down. You are the mightiest workmen ye professors of religion; you can undo infinitely more than we can accomplish.
And now I pause, and relieve the shadow of this subject with something which, I fear, is in the sight of God equally vile. How often do the people of God comfort sinners in their sins by their murmurings and their complaints? Oh beloved, we are too much in the habit of covering our faces with sadness, on account of our temporal trials, and too little in the habit of weeping on account of the failings of the church of God! How frequently do you meet with a true Christian full of unbelieving cares! Ah! he says, "All these things are against me." He has food and raiment, but he is not content with it; he has more than that, but his store is a little diminished, and he is very cast down, and he has no faith, and cannot trust the Lord. "Oh!" says the worldling, "see these Christians; they talk about faith, but their faith is not of half so much service to them, as my desperation is to me that hardens my heart, and makes me stand up against affliction a great deal better than their faith om God's providence can do. Why, just look at these saints - a driveling set of crying creatures, they never have either peace or joy; they are everlastingly pulling long faces, and talking through their noses, about their sad trials and troubles; they never have an hour of happiness.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon~
(continued with # 3)
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