The True Gospel

"MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME"

2012-01-29T13:46:00.003Z

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me."
(Psalm 22:1)

These words spoken by David in his distress and trouble were prophetic of the suffering and affliction of Christ at the hand of God the Father at the cross - Matthew 27:46.

Christ addresses His Father as a man, enduring that spiritual separation that belongs to sinners.

He was obedient in all things to His Father, and loved of the Father. Yet as the sin bearer of His people, He had to endure the separation due to His people, in order that the justice of God be satisfied, and His people delivered from condemnation.

Christ never ceased being the Son of God. However, as the Substitute, he was now deprived of the blessing of His presence for a time, and for a while destitute of His help and comfort, much like those who will suffer eternally under God's wrath.

His, however, was not due to any sin in him, but the sins of His people imputed to Him.

The extremity of his sorrows during His earthly life, and his excruciating pains and sufferings, both of body and spirit, were all part of his enduring the wrath of the Father, as the Substitute for sinners.

Ultimately, though, the Law required that He lay down His life. "Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins," (Hebrews 9:22) that is, the shedding of blood unto death. He had to bear the complete punishment of God's law in order to satisfy the just demands of God's holy character - Romans 6:23.

In II Corinthians 5:21 we read, "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

He took on Himself the sin of His people, and their curse, Galatians 3:13.

Because God is a just God, Christ had to endure the curse of sinners as if He were the sinner. God cannot punish an innocent man; therefore, though the spotless lamb in His person, yet, as the Sin Bearer He suffered. He so fully bore God's curse that God being just can do nothing but love those He redeemed and treat them as righteous, because that's who they are in Him and by Him.

What a GLORIOUS SAVIOUR HE IS!

JUDAS - DID HE PARTAKE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER?

2011-11-17T20:42:00.004Z

The names of many characters recorded in the Old Testament often try God's saints, who fear lest they should prove apostates, and be found destitute of the Spirit and image of Christ. Abel had to contend with Cain and his false religion, Noah with Ham, Sarah with Hagar, and her son Ishmael, David was beset and pestered with Saul, and Ahithophel, and many others had similar trials to endure. In the New Testament also we find many characters spoken of who seemed to resemble the real saints, and yet bore not the true image of Christ, and had not the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear him.

The foolish virgins were with the wise, and were not detected until the cry was made, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him."

The primitive church, in the midst of prosperity and joy, was suddenly troubled when it was revealed that Ananias and Sapphira his wife, who had so recently joined them, had not the secret of God in their souls, and were struck dead for deception, and lying against the Holy Ghost: "And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things." (Acts 5:11).

All the above-named characters were found amongst the servants and saints of God, who were liable to err in judgment through not being able to search the heart and read the real state of hypocrites or deceivers.

But why the blessed Lord himself who knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, should have had Judas for an apostle is a deep mystery indeed. That Judas was a disciple of Christ is certain, that he was ordained by Christ to preach is also certain, and that he was chosen to be an apostle with the eleven is also certain.

The Lord Jesus bestowed upon Judas, as he did upon the other apostles, gifts for the work of the ministry, and apostleship to which he had ordained him, and so much was he like the others that they did not suspect him, and though Christ had said, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil," yet it does not appear to have aroused the apostles to search out the particular one of whom he spake.

But upon the occasion of Jesus and his disciples keeping the passover for the last time before he suffered, he said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." (John 13:21).

Then arose the searching inquiry, and the favoured disciple, who was leaning on Jesus' breast, by the request of Peter, put the close and solemn question, "Lord, who is it?"

Christ did not answer by giving the name of the betrayer, but replied, "He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon." (John 13:26).

It was not until after Judas had received the sop that Satan entered into him.

"Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly" (John 13:27).

The eleven apostles understood not what Jesus meant by the last sentence; but Judas both knew and felt it: "He then having received the sop went immediately out; and it was night." (John 13:30).

The next we read of Judas is in John 18:3: "Judas, then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons."

The other three evangelists agree with John that Judas partook of the passover, but do not state that he went out before the bread and wine was administered by Jesus to the eleven; but John, who probably wrote his gospel after the rest, makes the matter plain, inasmuch as he speaks of the passover supper only, and omits to mention the bread and wine, which are the emblems of Christ's body and blood.

It was at the eating of the passover that Jesus dipped the sop and gave it to Judas, and when he had received it Satan entered into him: "He then having received the sop went immediately out." By this statement from the pen of John the Holy Ghost has, we consider, made it very clear that Judas was not at the Table of the Lord to partake of the emblems of his broken body and precious blood; for if he went immediately out after having received the sop, and was not seen again by Jesus and his disciples until he came with the band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, he could not have been present at the Lord's Table. Besides, when the Lord's Supper was administered, sop was not dipped in the cup which contained the wine; but was dipped in the dish that contained the supper of the passover.

The cup which contained the wine, the emblem of the blood of the Lord, was not given to the apostles until after the supper of the passover, at which Judas was present, was ended, as shown by Luke: "Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." (Luke 22:20).

We think no one will venture to say that the blood of Jesus was shed for Judas. Jesus had said to the twelve, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" (John 6:70).

He had also told them that one of them should betray him.

Now can we suppose that the Lord of life and glory would say to the betrayer, and the one he called a devil, "This is my body which is given for you; this do in remembrance of me?" and "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you"?

Christ laid down his life for his sheep; he shed his blood for those only that were given to him by the Father, and these were chosen and loved in Christ, and can never fall out of him.

It is true Judas fell, but he was not a sheep.

He fell not out of God's love, for he was not in it.

He lost not the new birth, for he never had it.

He fell not from union to Christ, for he never experienced it; but he fell from the ministry and apostleship to which he had been called and ordained by Christ himself, that he might go to his own place.

It is, we again say, a deep mystery, and one that is calculated to make professors and ministers tremble, lest they should come short of eternal life and union with Christ, the living Head of his body, the church, who has said, "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy Name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the sou of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled" (John 17:12).

We hope the foregoing remarks are sufficiently plain to prove that the Lord did not hand the bread and wine, the emblems of his own body and blood, to Judas; consequently ministers go too far when they assert that Judas partook of the Lord's Supper.

By James Dennett - Gospel Standard - 1886

WHAT HAS THE GOSPEL TAUGHT YOU?

2011-10-09T14:13:00.002+01:00

What hath the gospel preached with the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven into your souls, taught you?

Hath it taught you your sinnership?

Hath it taught you that you must anchor on Christ alone, without works?

Hath it taught you to inquire of God whether you are a sheep or a goat; an elect soul, or a reprobate one; a vessel of wrath, or a vessel of mercy; eternally justified, or eternally condemned?

Whether you are predestinated to be at the left hand for hell, or predestinated to be at the right hand for heaven, at the day of doom?

Has your mind been stunned out of the infernal mazes of universal redemption?

Do you believe there are sheep and goats from your own experience?

Has sin revived in you? (Romans 7:9)

Have you ever been shown the hell in your heart?

Has the lid of your heart ever been taken off by the Spirit of God?

Are you cursed, or blessed?

Damned, or saved?

Judge yourself, if the Spirit enables you, by what Ezekiel says, "Cursed is the pot whose scum is in it." (Ezekiel 24:6)

Is your scum in you?

Or, are you brought to lament, weep, mourn, sigh, and beat on your heart, day by day, very deeply indeed, saying, "O wretched man that I am"? (Romans 7:24)

What is the voice of your conscience, what is the voice of your heart?

Yes, or No, to these questions?

God does not want any one to mock him; he has mockery enough offered to him by the swarms and herds of parsons and professors of all denominations, without you helping them.

Let your honest conscience speak out; what are you,--a self-made Christian, or one made by God?

Are you a crab, or a sprout and twig in the glorious elect apple tree the Lord Jesus Christ?

Do you know what the anointing is which our text speaks of, or are you a tree destitute of sap, whom the Lord hath cursed?

What are you, or where are you?

By John Kay

SALVATION - THE WORK OF GOD ALONE

2011-09-18T16:13:00.003+01:00

“And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he doeth according to, his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou!”
(Daniel 4:35)

These words were spoken by a great and mighty king who certainly had been one of the most proud and ostentatious monarchs that ever governed a kingdom, as his own words testify:

“The king spàke and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?”
(Daniel 4:30)

What a display of the pomp and pride of the human heart!

Nevertheless, this very man was brought down by the power of God, to acknowledge the superlative weakness of a mortal arm, and vindicate the sovereignty of Jehovah. What daring rebels must those persons be, who presume to arraign the eternal God at the bar of their human reason. Thousands, in the present day, are telling God he has a right to give all men a chance of being saved, and that unless he does so, he does not act fairly.

What awful words!

What! is the Most High God to give an account of his dealings towards mankind, to mortal flesh?

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
(Genesis 18:25)

“Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! For be saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.”
(Romans 9:14-15)

The Lord, in his infinite wisdom and love, was pleased to choose a portion of the human race that should be for the praise and glory of his grace. Had he seen fit, he might justly have passed by them and left them eternally to perish with the reprobate; but being determined to display the riches of his grace, in saving them from the rubbish and ruin of the fall, and raising them to eternal glory, he devised means (honorable to himself and all his glorious attributes) to bring about his gracious purposes:

“Not Gabriel asks the reason why;
Nor God the reason given;
Nor dares the favorite angel pry
Between the folded leaves.”

The church of God never merited anything at the hands of God. O, no;

“All title to favour she lost in the fall,
And was brought down to ruin, ‘neath Satan’s great thrall,
Her sins must have damned her, had not Jesus stood nigh,
And in her stead suffer, and bleed, too, and die.”

God gave his righteous commands to man; he had a sovereign right to do so; man broke them, consequently the curse was due to him: “The soul that sinneth shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:20)

What man or angel could revoke this curse?

No one; therefore says God’s word, by the mouth of his servant Isaiah, “And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore, his arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness it sustained him; for he put on righteousness as a breast-plate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head.” (Isaiah 59:16-17)

This arm of the Lord is no other than our glorious Redeemer, Jesus; “his reward is with him, and his work before him” (Isaiah 40:10).

The favoured Isaiah again cries out, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep?” (Isaiah 51:9-10)

The eternal Father’s wrath due to the church - it was laid on the glorious Christ; here it’s awful blaze was totally quenched, and its mighty torrent, dried up, and no where else; but this was all done from the love he bore unto his spouse, as the poet sweetly sings:

“Twas love that brought the Saviour down,
To suffer, bleed, and die.”

Solomon says, “Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it” (Song of Solomon 8:7).

Thus it was with the dear Redeemer: the waters of his heavenly Father’s wrath could not quench the love he had for his bride.

“On him almighty vengeance fell,
Which must have sunk his church to hell:
He bore, it for the chosen race,
And thus became their hiding-place.”

Oh, a precious hiding-place too! — from the wrath of God, the curse of the law, the rage of men and the spleen of devils. The Saviour’s merits are prevailing pleas before God, on behalf of his church; she is viewed complete in him. Jesus stood in the sinner’s place: “He was made sin for us.”

Not a sinner!

O, no; he was and is the spotless Son of God. Nevertheless, all God’s family are brought to acknowledge that they never deserved such a Saviour; that if ever they are saved, it must be by the matchless, unparalleled, and undeserved grace of God.

Where is the sensibly lost and ruined sinner (through the blessed Sprit’s teaching) but would blush at the idea of telling God he ought to have mercy on him?

Reader, if thou art one truly taught by God the Holy Ghost, thou seest thyself to be the vilest sinner on earth, and thy language before God, when approaching his sacred Majesty, is like the poet’s,

“My sole desert is hell and wrath.”

Paul declares, “That every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).

Blessed be the eternal God, be stops his people’s mouths while on earth, and constrains them to plead guilty before him; but the rest of mankind are stopped from boasting in another world, by feeling the pains of hell, which their own consciences tell them they justly deserve, as the demerit of sin.

“By grace are ye saved.”
(Epheians 2:8)

Now, what is grace?

Free and pure mercy to the unworthy.

Then where is the merit of the sinner?

No where; he has none; no, he has not, by nature, so much as one good thought. I am confident, if God had left but one good deed for me to do, to complete my salvation, I must have been everlastingly damned, for all that mere nature could have done for me.

God declares, that “every imagination of the thought of the heart (or purposes and desires) is evil continually;” (Genesis 6:5) that is, while in a state of nature; consequently, if ever I do anything spiritually good, it is through the grace of God given me. Grace is God’s gift, and he will regard his own work, and give grace for grace; but it is bestowed all in and through the person, obedience, and blood of the dear Redeemer.

Salvation, how great the word!

How glorious a work!

In this was displayed the infinite condescension of the eternal, Three-One Jehovah. The Father in choosing, the Son in redeeming, and the Holy Ghost in regenerating the church of God, and making, known unto her her interest in the glorious work of Jesus. The everlasting glory of the everlasting Three-in-Out was consulted, when the plan of salvation was drawn in heaven, and we may rest assured, that Jehovah will not be frustrated in his designs.

What a wretched jargon would it be in the song we find the redeemed sing in heaven, to hear some of the party, every now and then, ascribing a song of praise to themselves, for accepting the offers of Grace, embracing heaven.

But this, blessed be God, shall never, be; for the song shall ever be sung, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5-6).

The good Lord add his blessing to the few thoughts for his name’s sake.

A PENSIONER - Mr Mildenhall - Gospel Standard - 1837

"ALL THAT THE FATHER GIVETH ME"

2011-09-03T20:52:00.001+01:00

"All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."
(John 6:37)

"All," not one, or two, or ten, or a million only, but "all."

And observe wherefore?

They are the Father’s gift to Jesus, and therefore they must come. He said elsewhere, "that I should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Me" (John 17:2).

Hence, therefore, there is a blessed provision, a blessed security, that they shall come; for they are the Father’s gift to Christ, as well as the purchase of Christ’s blood, and the promise is absolute in the charter of grace – "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power" (Psalm 110:3). And, to give every possible encouragement to the poor coming sinner, whom God the Holy Ghost is leading by the hand to the all-precious Jesus, He adds, "And him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."

By Robert Hawker

THE BLESSED DOCTRINE OF IMPUTATION

2011-09-03T17:38:00.002+01:00

"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."
(Galatians 3:13)

Here Christ stands with all the curse of a broken law charged upon Him, as the sinner’s Surety; yea, as the curse itself. And consequently, as in the doing of this, He takes it from His people; they are redeemed from it.

The original debtor, and the Surety who pays for that debtor, cannot both have the debt at the same time charged upon them.

This, therefore, is the blessed doctrine of imputation.

Our sins are imputed to Christ.

His righteousness is imputed to us.

And this by the authority and appointment of JEHOVAH; for without this authority and appointment of JEHOVAH, the transfer could not have taken place. For it would have been totally beyond our power to have made it. But surely not beyond the right and prerogative of God. And if God accepts such a ransom; yea, He Himself appoints it: and if the sinner by Christ’s righteousness be made holy and if the sins of the sinner be all done away by Christ's voluntary sufferings and death; if the law of God be thus honoured, the justice of God thus satisfied, all the divine perfections glorified by an equivalent, yea, more than an equivalent, inasmuch as Christ’s obedience and death infinitely transcend in dignity and value the everlasting obedience of men and angels; surely, here is the fullest assurance of the truth of the doctrine of Christ’s imputed righteousness, and the perfect approbation of JEHOVAH to the blessed plan of redemption.

By Robert Hawker

"IF ONLY I HAD A MIRROR!"

2011-09-03T13:07:00.003+01:00

A missionary doctor was on his rounds in a remote African village, trying to relieve the suffering of many who were undernourished and ill in other ways.

Whilst he was working there, he saw a man in the village with a large wound in his forehead, which was badly infected. He called the man over to him and said that his wound was serious and was in need of immediate treatment. No matter how the doctor argued and even the fellow villagers joined with him, no one could convince this man that the wound was as bad as they were saying!

"If only I had a mirror!" thought the doctor.

That evening, some friends of his came to visit, and he saw that one of them had a hand-mirror in their possession. He asked this lady if he could borrow the mirror on his rounds the next day, to which she gladly agreed. So, armed with this mirror, as soon as it was morning, the doctor hurried through the bush to the village, in order to find his reluctant patient.

As soon as the injured man saw his face in the mirror he was terrified, and pleaded with the doctor to do all he could to heal him.

How true a picture this is of mankind in general!

Whilst almost all will admit that they are not perfect until they have been shown their true state in the light of the mirror of God's Word and holy law, none will seek the only remedy which is in Christ Jesus.

Are you like this foolish man who would not face up to the true report of his state, or do you pray as David did: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

By Gerald D. Buss

"LOVE YOUR ENEMIES"

2011-08-03T14:57:00.003+01:00

The story is told of a minister who treated Christmas Evans most unkindly.

Soon afterwards this minister was charged with a crime and taken to court. On the day of the trial Christmas Evans went aside in secret and pleased with God that his old foe might be upheld, and his name cleared.

With what delight did he hear the news that he had been acquited. He was with a company of ministers at the time, but, with tears in his eyes, he immediately fell on his knees, exclaiming, "Thanks be unto Thee, O Lord Jesus, for delivering one of Thy servants from the mouths of the lions."

By B.A. Ramsbottom

GOD WILL NOT ACQUIT THE WICKED

2011-06-25T11:47:00.002+01:00

“The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.”
(Nahum 1:3)

God will not acquit the wicked. This is a clear statement of the strict and perfect justice of God. God not only has a just and holy hatred for sin, but He also will judge it accordingly. God’s justice is perfect, not tainted and flawed like that of fallen men. Every sin, every transgression, every rebellion will meet the justice of God!

Where does that leave you and I?

We’re guilty of all the above.

Guilty!

And God has already said that He would not at all acquit the wicked. The answer is found in the precious name of Jesus. Representing the family of God while on the Cross, Jesus took our sins upon Himself.

He was not at all acquitted!

The just Judge did not “go easy” on Him. He suffered the due penalty for all of our dark, dirty sin. The blackness of our iniquity became His, and He suffered.

Oh, how He suffered!

Rejoice, believer in Christ. Rejoice, for you can have the assurance that the Just Judge has rightly and properly declared you righteous, free from guilt and sin.

Who can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect when God has justified?

His justice and grace have both been displayed through the Cross.

By Timothy Guess

THE WIND IS BLOWING

2011-04-06T14:54:00.002+01:00

What wind is blowing?

It may be a wind of prosperity; things are looking well, at the moment.

“The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places...”
(Psalm 16:6)

Enjoy it; thank God for it; put the crown on His dear head while it lasts.

But remember – “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.”
(Ecclesiastes 7:14)

And when that day of adversity comes, don’t forget what the day of prosperity brought. Remember, it is the same God who sent the adversity that sent the prosperity, and He has not changed one iota in His faithfulness toward His dear people.

“Though He slay me,” says Job, “yet will I trust in Him.” (Job 13:15)

“He causeth His wind to blow.” (Psalm 147:18) It is His wind; His omnipotent, sovereign hand and arm that is stretched out in the lives of His dear people.

By Gerald D. Buss

THINGS A CHRISTIAN MUST KNOW

2011-04-01T15:58:00.004+01:00

There are some sentiments which I believe essential to the very state and character of a true Christian. And these make him a Christian, not merely by being his acknowledged sentiments, but by a certain peculiar manner in which he possesses them.

There is a certain important change [that] takes place in the heart, by the operation of the Spirit of God, before the soundest and most orthodox sentiments can have their proper influence upon us.

It is sometimes called a new birth, sometimes a new creature or new creation, sometimes the causing light to shine out of darkness, sometimes the opening the eyes of the blind, sometimes the raising the dead to life.

Till a person has experienced this change, he will be at a loss to form a right conception of it; but it means not being proselyted to an opinion, but receiving a principle of divine life and light in the soul.

And till this is received, the things of God, the truths of the gospel, cannot be rightly discerned or understood by the utmost powers of fallen man who, with all his wisdom, reason and talents, is still but what the apostle calls the natural man, till the power of God visits his heart (1 Corinthians 2:14).

This work is sometimes wrought suddenly, as in the case of Lydia (Acts 16:14), at other times very gradually. A person who before was a stranger even to the form of godliness, or at best content with a mere form, finds new thoughts arising in his mind, feels some concern about his sins, some desire to please God, some suspicions that all is not right.

He examines his views of religion, hopes the best of them, and yet cannot rest satisfied in them. Today, perhaps, he thinks himself fixed; tomorrow he will be all uncertainty. He enquires of others, weighs, measures, considers, meets with sentiments which he had not attended to, thinks them plausible, but is presently shocked with objections, or supposed consequences, which he finds himself unable to remove.

As he goes on in his enquiry, his difficulties increase. New doubts arise in his mind; even the Scriptures perplex him, and appear to assert contrary things. He would sound the depths of truth by the plummet of his reason, but he finds his line is too short. Yet even now the man is under a guidance which will at length lead him right. The importance of the subject takes up his thoughts and takes off the relish he once had for the things of the world. He reads, he prays, he strives, he resolves; sometimes inward embarrassments and outward temptations bring him to his wits’ end. He almost wishes to stand where he is, and inquire no more. But he cannot stop. At length he begins to feel the inward depravity which he had before owned as an opinion: a sense of sin and guilt cut him out new work. Here reasoning will stand him in no stead.

This is a painful change of mind, but it prepares the way for a blessing. It silences some objections better than a thousand arguments, it cuts the comb of his own wisdom and attainments, it makes him weary of working for life, and teaches him, in God’s due time, the meaning of that text, “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Then he learns that scriptural faith is a very different thing from a rational assent to the gospel; that it is the immediate gift of God (Ephesians 2:8); the operation of God (Colossians 2:12); that Christ is not only the Object, but the Author and Finisher of faith (Hebrews 12:2); and that faith is not so properly a part of that obedience we owe to God, as an inestimable benefit we receive from Him, for Christ’s sake (Philippians 1:29); which is the medium of our justification (Romans 5:1); and the principle by which we are united to Christ, as the branch to the vine (John 17:21).

By John Newton

DEPENDANCE ON CHRIST ALONE

2011-03-28T13:59:00.002+01:00

A JUDAS may have the sop — the outward privileges of baptism, the Lord's supper, Church-membership, etc.; but like John, to lean on Christ's bosom, is the gospel ordinance posture in which we should hear, pray, and perform all duties.

Nothing but lying on the bosom of Christ will dissolve hardness of heart, and make thee mourn kindly for sin, and humble thee indeed, and make thy soul cordial to Christ, yea, transform the ugliest piece of hell into the image and glory of Christ.

Looking at the natural sun weakens the eye; but the more you look at Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the stronger and clearer will the eye of faith be. Look but on Christ, and you will love him and live on him. See Christ, and you see all.

Keep your eye steadily fixed on his blood and righteousness, and only look at your graces in the second place; else, every blast of temptation will shake you. If you would so see the sinfulness of sin as to loathe it and to mourn for it, do not stand looking upon sin, but first look upon Christ as suffering and satisfying.

He who looks upon Christ through his graces, is like one that sees the sun in water, which wavers and moves as the water doth.

Look upon Christ only as shining in the firmament of the Father's grace and love, and there you will see him in his own genuine glory and unspeakable fulness.

He who sets up his sanctification to look at to comfort him, sets up that which will strengthen his doubts and fears.

Do but look off Christ, and presently, like Peter, you begin to sink into distress, discouragements, and despondency. A Christian seldom wants comfort, but by breaking the order and method of the gospel; i.e. by looking upon his own righteousness, instead of looking off to the perfect righteousness of Christ.

What is this, but choosing rather to live by candle-light than by the light of the sun ?

By Thomas Wilcox

CHRIST - ALL

2011-03-28T10:53:00.002+01:00

"In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory."
(Isaiah 14:24-25)

It is only the dying of that Just One for us who are unjust, that can bring us to God (I Peter 3:18).

He, who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we, who were nothing but sin, might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Christ is the Father's fulness of grace and glory. He must have the pre-eminence. He alone is worthy, who is to build·the spiritual temple of the Lord, and to bear the glory. Every vessel of this temple, from the cups to the flagolls, must all be hung upon Christ. He, by his Father's appointment, is the foundation-stone, corner-stone, top-stone.

Reader! dost thou profess the name of Christ, and partake of his ordinances? (Luke 1:6)

They are glorious privileges to the children of God. But if thou hast not the blood of Christ (I John 1:7; I Corinthians 3:11), at the root of thy profession, it will wither, and prove unprofitable.

Many are tossed to and fro, ready to be carried away with every wind of doctrine, ,by the sleights of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Ephesians 4:14).

There are many foundations to build upon that are false, upon which much labour is spent in vain: some are not speaking the truth in love; neither are they growing up into him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ (Ephesians 4:15).

There cannot be a growing in Christ, without an union with him. Without that union, all that we do is accursed. If thou retain self-righteousness under thy profession, that viper will eat out all the vitals of it. Try and examine with the greatest strictness every day, what foundation thy profession and the hope of thy glory are built upon (I Corinthians 3:2): whether it be laid by the hand of Christ; if not, it will never be able to endure the storm which must come against it. Satan will throw it all down, and great will be the fall thereof (Matthew 8:27).

Consider, the greatest sins may be hid under the greatest duties and the greatest terrors. The wound which sin hath made in thy soul must be perfectly cured by the "blood of Christ"; not skinned over with duties, tears, enlargements, &c.

Apply what thou wilt besides the "blood of Christ," it will poison the sore. Thou wilt find that sin was never mortified truly, if thou hast not seen Christ bleeding for·thee upon the cross. Nothing can kill it, but a sight of Christ's righteousness.

Nature can afford no balsam fit for soul-cure. Healing from duty and not from Christ, is the most desperate disease.

Poor and ragged nature, with all its highest improvements, can never spin a garment fine enough (without spot) to cover the sours nakedness. Nothing can do it but Christ's perfect righteousness.

Whatsoever is of nature's spinning must be all unravelled, before the righteousness of Christ can be put on. Whatsoever is of nature's putting on Satan will come and plunder, and leave the soul naked and open to the wrath of God. All that nature can do, can never make up the least drachm of grace, mortify sin, or look Christ in the face. Thou mayest hear, pray, receive the sacrament, and yet be miserable, unless thou art made to see Christ superior to all other excellency and righteousness in the world, and all these falling before the majesty of his love and gract (Isaiah 2:17).

If thou hast seen Christ truly, thou hast seen pure grace, pure righteousness, in him every way infinite, far exceeding all sin and misery.

If thou hast seen Christ, thou wilt trample upon all the righteousness of men and angels, as to thine acceptance with God.

If ever thou hast seen Christ, thou hast seen Him a rock higher than self-righteousness, Satan, and sin (Psalm 61:2), and this rock doth follow thee (1 Corinthians 10:4), and there will be a continual dropping of honey and grace out of that rock to satisfy thee. (Psalm 81:16.)

Examine if ever thou hast beheld Christ as the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14-17).

Men talk much of believing whilst whole and sound; none do it-Christ is the mystery of the Scripture; grace the mystery of Christ. Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of thine own to it, and thou spoilest it; Christ will not esteem it believing. When thou believest and comest to Christ, thou must be stripped of thine own righteousness, (O, that is hard!) all thy imaginary holiness, sanctification, duties, tears, humblings, &c., and bring nothing but thy sins, thy wants, and miseries; else Christ is not fit for thee, nor thou for Christ.

Christ will be a perfect Redeemer and Mediator, and thou must be an undone sinner, or Christ and thou wilt never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world to take Christ alone for righteousness: that is to acknowledge him Christ. Whatever comes in, when thou goest to God for acceptance, besides Christ, it is anti-Christ.

Make only Christ's righteousness triumphant.

All besides that is Babylon, which must fall if Christ stand, and thou shalt rejoice in the day of the fall thereof. Christ alone did tread the wine-press, and there was none with him (Isaiah 63:3).

If thou join any to Christ, Christ will trample upon it in fury and anger, and stain his raiment with the blood thereof.

Thou thinkest it easy to believe: was thy faith ever tried with an hour of temptation, and thorough sight of sin?

Was it ever put to resist Satan, and to feel the wrath of God lying upon thy conscience?

When thou wert apprehensive of hell and the grave, then did God show thee Christ, a ransom, a righteousness, &c.?

Then couldest thou say, "...Oh! I see grace enough in Christ"?

If so, thou mayest say that which is the greatest word in the world, I believe.

Untried faith is uncertain faith.

To believing there must go a clear conviction of sin and the merits of the blood of Christ. A thing more difficult than to make a world. All the power in nature cannot get so high in a storm of sin and guilt, as really to believe there is any grace, any willingness in Christ to save. When Satan chargeth sin upon the conscience, then for the soul, through the blessed Spirit, to charge it upon Christ, is gospel-like; that is to make him Christ. He serves for that use. When the soul, in all distresses, is enabled to say, "Nothing but Christ; Christ alone for righteousness, justification, sanctification, redemption (I Corinthians 1:30), not humblings, not duties, not graces," &c., then the soul is got above the reach of the billows.

All temptations, Satan's advantages and our complainings, are laid in self-righteousness and self-excellency. God pursueth these by many ways, as Laban pursued after Jacob for his images. These must be torn from thee, be as unwilling as thou wilt. With these Christ will not dwell; and till Christ comes in, guilt will abide. When guilt is raised up, there is no getting it allayed any way but by Christ's blood; all other ways tend to harden the conscience. Christ be thy peace (Ephesians 2:14), not thy duties, thy tears, &c.

Thou mayest oppose Christ by duties as well as by sins. Look at Christ, and do as much as thou canst. Stand with all thy weight upon Christ's righteousness. Take heed of having one foot on thine own righteousness, another on Christ's.

Until Christ come and sit upon the throne of grace in the conscience, there is nothing but guilt, terrors, secret suspicions, the soul hanging between hope and fear.

Whosoever is afraid to see sin's utmost vileness and to confess the desperate wickedness of his own heart, suspects the merits of Christ. However so great a sinner thou art (I John 2:1), if Christ be thine Advocate, thou wilt find him Jesus Christ the righteous. In all doubtings, fears, storms of conscience, Christ only can relieve thee: do not argue it with Satan, he desires no better: bid him go to Christ, and he will answer him. It is his office to be our Advocate (I John 2:1), to answer the law as our Surety (Hebrews 7:22), and justice, as our Mediator. (Galatians 3:20; I Timothy 2:5), He is sworn to that office (Hebrews 7:20-21).

Satan may quote, and corrupt, but he cannot answer Scripture.

It is Christ's word of mighty authority. Christ foiled Satan with it (Matthew 4:10). In all the Scripture there is not one hard word against a poor sinner stript of self righteousness.

Nay, it plainly points him out to be the subject of the grace of the gospel, and none else. To be enabled to believe Christ's willlingness, will make thee willing.

If thou findest that thou canst not believe, remember it is Christ's work to make thee believe. He works to will and to do of his own good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

"By grace thou art saved through faith, and not of thyself; it is the gift of God." Plead with him for that gift. (Ephesians 2:8).

Christ is the author and finisher of faith; and when the blessed Spirit enables thee to feel this, thou wilt mourn for thine unbelief, which would set up guilt in the conscience above Christ, undervalue the merits of Christ, and account his blood an unholy, a common and unsatisfying thing.

Thou complainest much of thyself: doth thy sin make thee look more at Christ, less at thyself?

That is right: otherwise complaining is but hypocrisy.

To be looking at duties, graces, enlargements, when thou shouldst be looking at Christ, is self-righteous and pitiful. Looking at them will make thee proud; looking at Christ's grace will make thee humble. In all thy temptations be not discouraged (James 1:2). Those surges may be, not to drown thee, but to heave thee off from thyself on the rock Christ.

Thou mayest be brought low, even to the brink of destruction, ready to fall. Thou canst not be brought lower than the belly of hell (Jonah 2:2). Many saints have been there.

Yet, there thou mayest cry; from thence thou mayest look again towards the holy temple (Jonah 2:4). Into that temple which was built with hands none might enter but purified ones, and with an offering too (Acts 21:26). But now Christ is our temple, sacrifice, altar, high priest, to whom none must come but sinners, and that without any offering but his own blood once offered (Hebrews 7:27).

Remember all the patterns of grace that are in heaven. Thou thinkest, "...Oh! what a monument of grace should I be!"

There are many thousands as rich monuments as thou canst be. No guilt ever exceeded the merits of Christ's blood; no sin could ever conquer the invincible power of his grace. Do not despair; hope still, even when the clouds are blackest.

Whatsoever Satan or conscience says, do not conclude against thyself. Christ will have the last word. He is Judge of quick and dead, and must pronounce the final sentence. His blood speaks reconciliation (Colossians 1:20), cleansing (I John 1:7), purchase (Acts 20:28), redemption (I Peter 1:18-19), purging (Hebrews 9:13-14), remission (Hebrews 9:22), liberty (Hebrews 10:19), justification (Romans 5;9), nearness to God (Ephesians 2:13).

Stand and hearken what God will say, for he will speak peace to his people, and to his saints (Psalm 85:8). He speaks grace, mercy, and peace (2 Timothy 1:2). That is the language of the Father and of Christ. Wait for Christ's appearing as the morning star (Revelation 22:16). He shall come as certainly as the morning, as refreshing as the rain (Hosea 6:3).

The sun may as well be hindered from rising, as Christ the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2).

Do not legalize the gospel, as if part remained for thee to do and to suffer, and Christ were but a half Mediator; as if thou must bear part of thine own sin, and make some satisfaction. May sin break thy heart, but not thy hope in the gospel.

When we come to God, we must bring nothing but Christ with us. Any ingredients, or any previous qualifications of our own, will mar faith. He that builds upon duties, graces, &c., knows not the merits of Christ. This makes believing so hard, so far above nature: if thou believest, thou must renounce as dung and dross (Philippians 3:7-8) thy privileges, thine obedience, thy baptism, thy sanctification, thy duties, thy graces, thy tears, thy meltings, thy humblings, and nothing but Christ must be held up.

Thy workings, thy self-sufficiency must be destroyed; thou must receive all at God's hand. Christ is the gift of God. (John 4:10, and 3:16.) Faith is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). Pardon is a free gift. (Romans 5:16.) Ah! how nature storms, frets, rages at this, that all is gift, and it can purchase nothing with its words and tears, and duties, that all works are excluded, and of no value in the justification of the soul (Romans 4:6).

If nature had been to contrive the way of salvation, it would rather have put it into the hands of saints and angels to sell it, than into the hands of Christ who gives freely, whom therefore it suspects. Nature would set up a way to purchase by doing; therefore it abominates the merits of Christ, as the most destructive thing to it. Nature would do anything to be saved, rather than go to Christ, or close with Christ, and owe all to him.

Christ will have nothing; but the soul would thrust somewhat of its own upon Christ. Here is the great controversy.

Consider; - didst thou ever yet see the merits of Christ, and the infinite satisfaction made by his death?

Didst thou see this when the burden of sin and the wrath of God lay heavy on thy conscience?

That is grace!

The greatness of Christ's merit is not known, but to a poor soul in deep distress. Slight convictions will have but a slight, low esteem of Christ's blood and merits.

Despairing sinner! thou lookest on thy right hand and on thy left, saying, "Who will show me any good?" thou art tumbling over all thy duties and professions to patch up a righteousness to save thee.

But when the Holy Spirit enables thee to look at Christ, thou wilt say, He is a Saviour, and there is none besides him (Isaiah 14:21).

Look any where else, and thou art undone.

God will look at nothing but Christ; and thou must look at nothing else. Christ is lifted up on high, as the brazen serpent in the wilderness, that sinners at the ends of the earth - the greatest distance - may see him and live (John 3:14-16). The least sight of him will be saving; the least touch healing to thee. And God intends thou shouldst look on him; for he hath set him upon a high throne of glory, in the open view of all poor sinners.

Thou hast infinite reason to look on him; no reason at all to look off him. He is meek and lowly of heart (Matthew 11:29).

He will do that himself which his creature has to do; viz., bear with infirmities (Romans 15:1). No pleasing himself; no standing upon points of law (Romans 15:2). He will restore the spirit of meekness (Galatians 5:1), and bear thy burdens (Galatians 5:2). He will forgive; not only till seven times, but seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22). It put the faith of the apostle to it to believe this (Luke 17:4-6).

Because we are hard to forgive, we think Christ is so. We apprehend sin too great to be pardoned. We think Christ doth so, and measure infinite love with our line, infinite merits with our sins, which is the greatest pride and blasphemy (Psalm 103:11-12; Isaiah 40:16). Hear what he saith: "I have found a ransom." (Job 33:24).

"In him I am well pleased."
(Matthew 3:17)

God will have nothing else. Nothing else will do thee good, or satisfy conscience, but Christ, who satisfied the Father. God doth all upon the account of Christ. Thy deserts are rejection, wrath, hell. Christ's deserts are acceptance, pardon, life. He will not show thee the one, withont giving thee the other. It is Christ's own glory and happiness to pardon.

Consider; whilst Christ was upon the earth, he was more among publicans and sinners than scribes and pharisees, his professed adversaries, for they were righteous ones.

It is not as thou imaginest, that his state in glory makes him neglectful, scornful to poor sinners. No; he hath the same heart now in heaven. He is God and changeth not. He is "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).

He went through all thy temptations, dejections, sorrows, desertions, rejections. (Matthew 4:3-12, Matthew 4:26; Mark 15:34; Luke, 22:44; Matthew 26:38). He hath drunk the bitterest of the cup, and left thee the sweet: the condemnation is out. Christ drank up all the Father's wrath at one draught; and nothing but salvation is left for thee. Thou sayest I cannot believe, I cannot repent. Christ is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins (Acts 5:31).

Hast thou nothing but sin and misery?

Then Christ is just suited to thee. We would be bringing to Christ, and that must not be. Not a penny of nature's highest improvements will pass in heaven. Grace will not stand with works (Titus 3:6; Romans 11:6). That is a terrible point to nature, which cannot think of being stripped of all, not having a rag of duty or righteousness left to look at. Self-righteousness and self-sufficiency are the darlings of nature, which she preserves as her life. That makes Christ seem ugly to nature. Nature cannot desire him. He is just opposite to all nature's glorious interests. Let nature but make a gospel, and it would make it quite contrary to Christ. It would be to the just, tile innocent, the holy, &c. Christ makes the gospel for thee; that is, for neeuy sinners; the ungodly, the unrighteous, the
accursed.

Nature cannot endure to think the gospel is only for sinners: it will rather choose to despair, than to go to Christ upon such terms. When nature is put to it by guilt or wrath, it will go to its old haunts of self-righteousness, self-goodness, &c.

An Infinite Power must cast down those strong-holds.

None but the self-justiciary stands excluded by the gospel. Christ will look at the most abomiuable sinner before him; because to the other Christ cannot be made justification. He does not know or confess his sin (John 9:41). To say, in compliment, "I am a sinner," is easy; but to pray with the publican indeed, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner!" is the hardest prayer in the world.

It is easy to say, "I believe in Christ." But to see Christ full of grace and truth, "of whose fulness thou mayest receive, grace for grace;" that is saving.

It is easy to profess Christ with the mouth. But, to confess him with the heart, as Peter did, to be "the Christ, the Son of the living God," the alone Mediator; that is above flesh and blood.

Many call Christ Saviour; few know him to be so. To see grace and salvation in Christ, is the greatest sight in the world. Sights will cause applications. Men may be ashamed to think, in the midst of so much profession, they have known so little of the blood of Christ, which is the main thing of the gospel.

A Christless, formal profession is the blackest sight, next to hell. Thou mayest have many good things; one thing may be wanting, that may make thee go away sorrowful from Christ. Thou hast never sold all that thou hast, never parted with all thine own righteousness, &c.

Thou mayest be high in duty, and yet a perfect enemy and adversary to Christ in every prayer, in every ordinance. Free will, or moral capacity of believing in, turning unto, and calling upon God in Christ, the Scriptures, the Articles of the Church, and that experience of Christian men, declare the natural man hath not. His refuge is free grace. (John 6; I Corinthians 2; Romans 8:7).

The idea of it will soon be destroyed in his heart who hath had any spiritual dealing with Jesus Christ; as to the application of his merits, and subjection to his righteousness; Christ is every way too magnificent a person for poor nature to apprehend. Christ is so infinitely holy, nature durst not look at him; so infinitely good, nature can never believe him when it lies under full lengths of sin.

Christ is too high and glorious for nature to do so much as to touch.

There must be a divine nature first put into the soul, to make it lay hold on him who lies so infinitely beyond its sight. That Christ which the natural man can apprehend, is but a Christ of his own making; not the Father's Christ, not Jesus the Son of the living God, to whom none can come without the Father's drawing (John 6:44-46).

Judge not Christ's love by providences, but by promises (Psalm 63; Hebrews 12:1; Ecclesiastes 9). Bless God for shaking off false foundations; and for any way whereby he keeps the soul awakened and looking after Christ. Better is sickness and temptation, than security and slightness. It was the saying of a great saint, he was more afraid of his duties than his sins: the one often made him proud, the other always made him humble.

High professor! despise not weak saints. Thou mayest come to wish to be in the condition of the meanest of them.

It is a high privilege to be faithful to others' infirmities while sensible of thy own; to be content with little of the world, then little will serve; to think very little of the earth because unworthy the least; to think much of heaven not little, because Christ is so rich and free; to think every one better than thyself, and ever carry self-loathing about thee, as one fit to be trampled upon by all the saints; to see the vanity of the world, and the consumption that is upon all things, and love nothing but Christ; to mourn to see so little of Christ in the world, so few needing him-trifles pleasing them better; to mourn to think how many under baptism and ordinances, who are not under grace-looking much after duty and obedience, little after Christ, or grace; to prepare for the cross, and welcome it; to bear it triumphantly as Christ's cross, whether scoffs, mockings, jeers, contempt, imprisonments, &c.; to remember thy sins, Christ's pardonings; thy deserts, Christ's merits; thy weakness, Christ's strength; thy pride, Christ's humility; thy many infirmities, Christ's restorings; thy guilt, Christ's new applications of his blood; thy failings, Christ's assistance; thy wants, Christ's fulness; thy temptations, Christ's tenderness; thy vileness, Christ's righteousness.

Blessed soul! whom Christ shall strip of his own righteousness and wash in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).

Woeful, miserable professor! who hast not the power within. Rest not on the judgment of thy fellow-creatures.

Thou mayest be applauded by them, and cast away in Christ's day of trial. Thou mayest come to baptism, and never "come to Jesus and the blood of sprinkling."

But thou who hast found Christ ALL and thyself absolutely NOTHING, who makest Christ all thy life, and art dead to all righteousness besides; thou art the Christian, one highly beloved, who hath found favour with God, a favourite of heaven.

Do Christ this one favour for all his love to thee; love his poor saints and people (the meanest, the weakest notwithstanding any difference in judgment); they are engraven on his heart, as the names of the children of Israel on Aaron's breast-plate, (Exodus 28:21). Let them be so on thine.

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee,"
(Psalm 122:6)

By Thomas Wilcox - Additions added by William Gadsby

LABOURING AFTER HEALING

2011-03-16T11:12:00.003Z

"Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, that walketh in His ways. For thou shall eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee."
(Psalm 128:1-2)

Blessed is every one that walketh in His ways. Not that walketh in our ways, but in His. We cannot by nature comprehend His way, that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and not the righteous.

We think, Now to-day I have watched, and not fallen into sin. Now Christ will surely love me. But this sets us at an infinite distance from Him. It is the utmost abomination to Him.

"No," says He: "if you are already washed, you have no need of Me."

"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands."

Not any fleshly labour; but when we tremble at the judgments of God and at His Word, this will bring on great labour and sorrow, which is the spiritual labour set forth here.

Such will hear the voice: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour."

Therefore let me entreat you not to look only on the sore, but to the promised help of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not ponder on the impossibilities and the evils, but consider Him and His power. For when you are most filled with fear and think your entanglements so strong and that you have been so long in them you will never get out, then is the very time that Christ comes. If there be the incorruptible seed in you in the very least degree, it will lead you to fear and tremble exceedingly when there comes on you a deadness to spiritual things, no sense or feeling, but a stupid frame; and to examine minutely into the causes of this declension, and to bring them before God. If these things are not in you, it is because you have not the Spirit of the Lord and do not walk in His ways, nor labour to be right with Him. For your declension and distance and deadness are marks at the best of God's great displeasure; and you have need to examine your sore, for you may find it infinitely worse than you have any idea of, very terrible indeed, and that you have not the Holy Spirit to help you. For if He does help you, you will surely be led to this scrutiny and spiritual labour.

I have never yet failed of rinding relief in humble confession and prayer. I have always found the Lord a kind Friend in the time of extremity. But He will be inquired of to do these things for us, and when I have been enabled to make Him my Refuge in good earnest, I have never known Him to fail me, or forsake me.

I hope the Lord will make you well to remember when spiritual liberty is lost. If the Spirit of God has discovered to you such death and distance, He will also work in you repentance unto life, and make you very fearful of continuing in such a place.

Be sure you be watchful and very tender of sad discoveries. Do not trifle with them, lest a worse thing come upon you. The light of the body is the eye; but if you shut that eye by sin, you know not whither to go.

I have often found the good of rather dwelling upon what the Lord says He will do for us, than considering what I am to do to attain these things. We are needy beggars, whether we know it or not. We have need to examine well His Word, and what the Lord has promised to do for such.

"But O," say you, "my sore rankles and pinches."

True, and can you mend it by your pity?

What brought on the sore?

Sin.

What makes it rankle?

Sin.

Your looking at it will not mend it, and if you are too proud to look up at the brazen Serpent, then you must perish. God has set up His dear Son for the salvation of sinners that are stung to death. This brazen Serpent becomes the resurrection and the life to those who look upon It. He heals the wound sin has made, and carries us safely through all future troubles, let them be what they may. Thus God is glorified, and the sinner saved and humbled.

A Morning Reading by James Bourne - 1841

COVENANT HELP

2011-03-16T10:11:00.003Z

"Lord, how long wilt Thou look on..."
(Psalm 35:17)

The Lord does look on all the affairs of men. In the judgments around us we see that He does look on. Many of us are hampered and tied in many ways. David prays: "Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink."

Now in our troubles we shuffle about, and do not come to the point; but if we could come at once simply to the point and tell the Lord our case, and how we are oppressed, and say: "Lord, heal me," we should doubtless find He would do it.

"How long?" Just as long as Joseph hid himself from his brethren when they told him their pitiful tale: "Then Joseph could not refrain himself before them...and Joseph said unto his brethren: I am Joseph...Come near unto me" (Genesis 45:1-4).

"For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
(Hebrews 4:15)

But Satan is always trying to throw dust in our eyes, that this character of our Lord may be hidden. Therefore David prays: "Keep not Thou silence, O God."

"Forsake me not, O, Lord: O my God, be not far from me."
(Psalm 38:21)

"Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help."
(Psalm 35:2)

We want this in all our troubles, that the Lord would be our shield and buckler to defend us.

"Thou which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him."
(Psalm 35:10)

Now the stability of the covenant is confirmed in two ways.

First, by the promises laid down in all parts of the Scripture, to Abraham and others, that God will be with His people, and never leave them nor forsake them. This covenant contains not only eternal life, but all helps on the road, all things that we stand in need of in the various circumstances into which we are brought. There is no trouble or difficulty for which a remedy is not provided.

But, secondly, its stability is shown ten thousand times more by the various helps and comforts of the Spirit in our hearts, and His kind hand towards us which we have met, and do meet with. All these are part of the covenant, and every time He appears for us in any difficulty is a fresh confirmation of it.

No one good thing has failed of all the Lord has spoken.

To whom could you go with your complaints and burden?

Do you not go to the Lord, and does He not appear?

And so He will to the end. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

The death of our late friend fills me with awe; not on his account, as if I had any doubt of his happy end, but as to the manner of it. Now a death-bed is not a place for preaching; it is a place of much discomfort, and no help but in the Lord. But I have been praying the Lord that, if consistent with His will, I may leave a humble testimony that I have walked in His fear. This is what it is your privilege to do, to beg of God that He would appear for you not only in spiritual, but also in temporal matters; that you may not be unwise, but understanding what His will is concerning you; and that you may make Him your Friend. If you want a fuller testimony of His mind toward you, let your request be made known to Him.

By James Bourne

THE EXTENT OF CHRIST'S ATONEMENT

2011-03-12T23:03:00.003Z

We do not believe that the Son of God laid down His precious life a sacrifice for the sins of the non-elect, but for His sheep.

We believe His sacrifice was of a substutionary character, that the sins which were laid upon Him by God (Isaiah 3) and which He undertook to bear and for which He suffered the unmitigated penalty of the outraged justice of God in a broken law, were the sins of His elect people of whom He said: "Thine they were and Thou gavest them Me...I pray for them" (John 17).

We believe that His one offering of Himself did eternally expiate all those sins which were thus imputed to Him, and that for His sake God fully and freely forgives the sins of all who are interested in the covenant of which Christ the Son incarnate is the blessed Mediator (II Corinthians 5:30; John 10:11; John 10:26; Hebrews 8:8-12, etc).

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ as exalted at His Father's right hand, having finished the work His Father gave Him to do here on earth, is the propitiation for all who ever do or ever will seek reconciliation with God as feeling their alienation and guilt and repenting of their sins, which we believe none ever can or ever will do but those who are quickened into divine life by God the Holy Spirit, which we believe none are but those who were chosen unto eternal life in Christ Jesus before the world began (John 6:37, John 6:44-45, John 6:64-65; Ephesians 1:4, etc.).

We do not believe that Christ died for Judas but that He did die for Peter, and that the cause of Judas's reprobation and eternal ruin when he went to His own place was his own sin, and that the cause of Peter's repentance and pardon and restoration was the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

God's people are no better than others by nature. Christ died for the ungodly, but not for those who live and die in their sins.

To suggest that Christ exalted is the propitiation for the sins of every single individual of the human race, implies either that God received complete satisfaction for the sins of reprobates, such as Judas, Ahithophel, Saul, Cain, etc., or that His sacrifice was deficient; which to suggest is blasphemy.

Further, we believe that Christ is able to save all those to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them (Hebrews 7). Consequently, subject to the Holy Spirit's sovereign guidance and disposal, the gospel is to be preached or declared (not offered) to all men (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Acts 16:6-7). But we believe that none but those (known only to the Lord Himself) who were predestinated unto salvation, do in fact ever really come thus to the throne of God's heavenly grace to plead for mercy on the ground of Christ's atoning blood; being taught by the Holy Spirit their helplessness and ruin (Romans 8:9, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:29-39, etc.).

We believe that repentance and faith are the gifts of Christ (Acts 5:31), and that these invaluable graces, like all other parts of salvation are bestowed freely on all the election of grace in the Lord's own time; and that everyone who is eternally saved in the Lord Jesus Christ will most heartily acknowledge that his salvation is absolutely attributable to the free grace of God, without any contribution of the sinner's own; that it is of God that His people are in Christ Jesus, who is made unto them wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; that he that glorieth shall glory alone in the Lord (I Corinthians 1:30).

We believe that for substance the language of every regenerated sinner will be that of the psalmist: "Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that Thou bearest unto Thy people: O visit me with Thy salvation ; that I may see the good of Thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation, that I may glory with Thine inheritance."

"And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and upon the Israel of God " (Galatians 6:16).

And whatever the means used of God, whether terrible or more gentle, they are emphatically blessed whom the Lord causeth to approach unto Him, that they may dwell in His courts (Psalm 65:4; Jeremiah 31:3).

By J.H. Gosden

WATER

2011-02-26T12:20:00.002Z

Substance of a Sermon Preached - September 29th, 1811 - By William Huntington.
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“When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.”
(Isaiah 41:17)

DEAR Friends:

Without any introduction, I shall come to my text. A poor man, first is one that is, as we say, over head and ears in debt, and hath not a mite to pay his creditors; therefore is exposed to a prison, there to remain, unless he is forgiven by his creditor, or a surety steps in to release him by paying the debt. So all sinners are debtors to God, owing a debt of perfect obedience to the holy law of God, and have not the wherewithal to pay, and our debts run very high. We are disobedient, miserable offenders, poor debtors; and unless the Surety steps in, the Days-man between the offender and offended Majesty, Justice binds the sinner over to punishment. And when the Holy Ghost, as the light of life, shines into the sinner’s understanding, that he may behold the dread commands which he is unable to answer, and God’s holy law which he has broken, the danger he is exposed to and punishment due to him, he is pricked in his reins; which makes him tremble, and his heart is wounded within him (Acts 2:87; Psa. 109:22; Isa. 66:2-5). But no hardened sinner trembles, though devils believe and tremble, they do not confess their sin to God, nor cry for mercy; but when the arrows of the almighty stick fast in a sinner’s conscience, he quickly feels the poison drink up his spirits; because life is given, and the light shines in to discover his deplorable state of soul-poverty. So, we see life and light are the cause of trembling. Those tremblers, sore broken and wounded in spirit, are the very persons to whom the promises are made in Christ Jesus. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, Thou wilt not despise.” “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” Those promises often encourage the poor to beg for mercy: “Forgive us our debts;” “Forgive all my sins.” The Jews were the fifty-pence debtors, and we poor Gentiles the five hundred. “And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both.”

Secondly. A man that is hungry, and hath not bread to eat, must be a poor man; and the prodigal was one, “I perish with hunger.” But he could not rest or remain there, for he was hunger-bitten, real necessity drove him forth: “I will arise and go to my father.” Although he was a great way off, yet he confessed his unworthiness; and we see that he not only received bread and unexpected bounty at his father’s table, but was also clothed, shod, and ornamented. And that person whom God hath quickened by the gift of eternal life hath an appetite for heavenly food for his soul, and cannot live satisfied without Christ in his heart by faith. This is “the true bread,” of which if a man eat he shall live forever; nor is there any motion of life in a quickened soul without it. We know corporeal bread among us is called the staff of life; and for this the poor must beg; and the blessing is already upon them that hunger and thirst after righteousness: “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” “Behold my servants shall eat.” (Isa. 65:13).

Thirdly. A poor man is one compelled to beg or starve, therefore, obliged to ask, seek, and knock, importuning much. And thus it is with every spiritually-poor soul; it cannot cease begging. It is true, some do relax until necessity pinches them again, and fearing they shall die by the worm, the guilty conscience gnawing them under the influence of the Spirit of life, will keep them begging, until God gives them Christ Jesus, the Bread of heaven, believing they must starve and perish in hell to all eternity without it. But Christ stands forth, saying, “I am the true bread”, and He commands the hungry: “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Fourthly. He is a poor man that hath no clothes to cover himself. And so is every unconverted soul under heaven, through the Fall. His soul is naked before God (Gen 3:7). It is plain the bodies of Adam and Eve were naked before; but there was no sin to make them ashamed. And all men are naked and bare, God knows, and He will make us to know it too; and as our first parents sewed fig leaves together, so we will weave spiders’ webs, but they shall not become garments. Therefore, this useless labor of sewing, patching, and weaving has to be laid aside, while God’s counsel stands; but if not, you will he found naked at last, and your shame appear at the judgment. The righteous, in their own eyes, are disobedient; and remain naked in the sight of God, whether they know it or not. And the wise in their own conceit are ignorant before God, and submit not to Him: “For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.”

Fifthly. We call a man poor, having nothing of his own; not a stick, as we say, hath he belonging to him; or as Job (1:21), he has lost all. And every sinner, convinced of sin by the Spirit of God, will be taught, sooner or later, that he is insolvent. He lost all in Adam; he hath no bed to rest upon, though he is weary; all his supposed goods are become dung, dross and death. Hear Paul speak in faith: “I count all things but dung and dross, that I may win Christ,” the chief good, for that which I thought was unto life, I found unto death. There is much soul-travail, labour, crying, and praying attends it; and being weary and heavy-laden in soul, we want rest, but having lost all the goods, we have no bed of our own to rest upon, so all the poor in spirit run to Christ Jesus, in whom all goods are treasured up. The graces of the Spirit,—these are the best goods I ever saw or had possession of; such as light, life, filial fear; faith, hope, love, gratitude, humility, meekness, patience, knowledge, temperance; brotherly-kindness, peace, rest, joy and praise. And my blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ, is the substance of the whole. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and fullness of grace. He is the resting-place, our bed, our rest. He gives Himself, and we find rest in Him. “Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” “For we which have believed do enter into rest.” Do rest, believing in Christ. And the Lord Himself chooses Zion for His rest: “Arise, 0 Lord, into thy rest; for the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. This is My rest forever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it.” (Psalm 132). Here are provisions and all necessary goods laid up at our gates.

Sixthly. We call him a poor man who hath no house, or home, or dwelling-place; he wanders about, destitute and afflicted. So do we in a spiritually-poor condition: “They wandered in a wilderness, in a so1itary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses. And He led them forth by a right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.” And this is where they shall find a sure dwelling, doing His commandments: “And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him: and hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us”. “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” “The Most High thy habitation, neither shall any plague come near thy dwelling.” Thus we see a little of the habitation or dwelling for the souls of believers; and there is a dwelling place or home for their bodies until the morning of the resurrection. The grave is to be a bed, or resting-place: “For I know that Thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living” (Job 30:23). “Man goeth to his long home” (Ecc. 12:5). “There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest” (Job 3:17). And we have a comfortable hope of the glory of God: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. Christ is the sure house, the dwelling-place: “Now he that hath wrought for us the self-same thing is God, Who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit”.

Thus we have seen a little of the poor, and the riches treasured up in Christ for them, in time and to eternity. But there are many poor, yet they do not feel their need. And this may be seen in the Revelation 3:17: “Thou sayest, I am rich”, etc. Here we see the Laodiceans boasted of their works and goods, although they were destitute of every real good. But he that hath his eyes anointed to see himself, and is quickened to feel his need, acts like a poor honest tradesman who examines his book and finds himself in debt, and he cannot see any prospect of being capable of paying them; therefore he frets, and cannot rest, day or night. So the spiritually-poor and needy soul cannot rest satisfied, day or night. He hath no rest in his bones, because of his sins, or debts, they are as a sore that runneth and ceaseth not. He cries out, “I am poor and needy; forgive all my sins.” Such as those feel their need; and to such the promises are made: “The needy shall not always be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever”. See also Psalm 12:5, 35:10, 72:12-14, 103:7. This encourages the soul to go on praying, “Defend the poor and fatherless; deliver the poor and needy”. “He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill.”We have seen the poor and needy man who seeks water, and there is none, and his tongue faileth for thirst. But what is the cause of this thirst; how does the tongue fail? And-what is the water?
First. We know, literally, that hard labour, much travelling in a dry land, and heat therewith, cause thirst. And so it is spiritually: Hard labour of mind, and sore labour of soul under God’s fiery law, and the heat of our corruptions, set on fire of hell, and God’s wrath revealed in the law,---this drinks up the spirit. God’s word appears against us. This consumes our spirits. “Is not My word like a fire?” Yes, and causes heat, a thirsting or earnest desire for the water of life, “but there is none”. Here we see a little of what causes thirst in some that never did enjoy the water of life, and others that have enjoyed it, yet again they thirst after the same; in fiery trials their tongues cleaving to the roof of their mouth (Lam. 4:4). And for the tongue to fail for thirst is when there is no moisture; so that a person cannot articulate, or speak clearly: “My tongue cleaveth to my jaws.” 0, my blessed Saviour! What is my thirst compared with Thine? Though I am so often troubled that I cannot speak, “my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” Hungry and thirsty, their souls fainted in them.” Samson, even after he slew a thousand men, was afraid he should die with thirst (Judg. 15). And so it is, spiritually, with Gods thirsty seekers, but God satiated Samson, and so he will satiate all thirsty souls that seek water from Him. He hath Smitten the rock, and the water will flow out in His time. “I the Lord will hear them crying and sighing, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” This encourages hope to look out, to watch, and wait. There is an appointed time to favour Zion.

But what is this water? We may take it in six views. For, literally, man cannot live without water; no more can the quickened soul live without this water of life.

1. The Lord is a fountain of living waters. See Jer. 2:1, Joel 3:16, Psalm 36:9, Rev. 22:1. This water is to cool, to satiate, cleanse and revive all such as feel their need.

2. Christ is the well of salvation. All fullness is in Him, and faith is the bucket and rope. “Therefore, with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”

3. Life is in this water, yea, the water of life: “Let him take the water of life freely.” This water runs among the valleys, among the little ones, to satiate their sorrowful souls, replenish the weary, and revive the drooping. This is the Water.

4. Peace we are to find in it: “For thus saith the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river; and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream.” “He hath ordained peace for us.” “Peace be unto you.”

5. By this water we are to understand the consolations of the Spirit, coming to us through Jesus Christ; “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive.” The true church: “I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment. Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day (Isaiah 27:3).” Also see Isa. 58, 35:6, 55:1. Here is water to wash the feet, strengthen the ankles, confirm the feeble knees, strengthen the loins, and at last, to swim over Jordan, to the fullness of God’s pleasure in Jesus Christ reserved for us. Blessed be our God for the waters of the sanctuary here by the way, —the waters of life (Ezek 47).

We have seen a little of the text, how the tongue faileth for thirst, and the waters reserved until the appointed time to be enjoyed, both in time and to all eternity. But while we are in this tabernacle there will be groaning, sighing, thirsting and panting after this same water; but thirst no more after any other, for they have proved bitter. “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so my soul panteth after thee, 0 God.” And when the thirsty soul finds his tongue fail, then his words are swallowed up of much grief, and sometimes he falls down before God in his trouble, and weeps it out, desiring to show before God his trouble by word, but is not able: “I am so troubled I cannot speak.” And if we cannot write it out, nevertheless he that searcheth it out knoweth the mind of the Spirit, and hears the desires of the heart: “Wherfore criest thou unto Me? Bid the children of Israel to go forward”. And we, having a sip of the brook by the way, are strengthened to go forward through all troubles, through Christ’s groanings and pantings for our salvation; and it will be a glorious sight for us when He comes in all His glory. There will be an end of our thirsting when we pass over the river Jordan, and arrive in heaven our home, to rest on our bed in our Father’s house, our dwelling, yea, our house, in an everlasting kingdom. So at last: “the poor heareth not rebuke”.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” We have grace here, and a comfortable hope of glory, and, as it is written, “Then shall I be satisfied, when I awake up in Thy likeness.” “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Hallelujah! Salvation, and glory, and power unto the Lord our God.

"IF GOD BE FOR US, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US"

2011-02-13T14:33:00.003Z

“...If God be For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?”
(Romans 8:31)

This part of the verse in Romans 8:31 crosses my mind more frequently, I suppose, than most other Scriptures. It is a pleasant theme for meditation. From whence this loving kindness commenced, is a surprising and pleasant source of meditation.

In my youth, I, and every one I knew put great emphasis upon John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave” (and we erroneously thought this meant “offered”) “His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in” (and we thought this meant “upon,” or “about”) Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

We did not err in believing that upon faith in Christ, the believer had received a life that would thereafter last forever. We still believe that, and the text so teaches. We did not, for a long time, understand that anything that was “given” of necessity was something “received;” and anything that is “offered” to someone could be either “accepted” or “rejected.”

It takes very little reflection upon John 3:16 to see what a massive difference there is in what it teaches and what we foolishly believed. In fact, it was even years later before the word “world” in the text took on another meaning as to the object of God’s delightful care. But when we found, and reflected upon 1 John 5:19, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness,” and are exhorted to “love not the world, neither the things that are in the world,” and read the Savior’s intercession to His Father in John 17: “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given” (and we used to add in our thought process that the next word was “to,” when it isn’t there!) “Me; for they are Thine, and all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them.”

When these texts came into harmony, John 3:16 smoothly fit with the Biblical doctrine of unconditional election for the first time; and John 3:16 was understood consistently with the finished work of Christ in His atonement, for “My Sheep,” of whom He said, “I lay down my life.” Hence the “world” in John 3:16 was much more narrow than the “whole world” in 1 John 5:19 cited above.

There is, obviously, a difference between things that have a commencement in time and last “for ever,” or “everlasting;” and things that do not have a commencement at all, and yet exists.

We have no problem believing that God is “eternal.” The very first introduction of things “eternal” was in Deuteronomy 33:27, and refers to God. “The eternal God is thy refuge.”

Did God have a beginning?

Of course not. He is “eternal.”

Is God alive?

Of course He is. Even before God is introduced as “eternal,” He is introduced as “the living God.” Deuteronomy 5:26, “For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?”

While John 3:16 played an important part in our growing comprehension of God’s ever lasting love to the world of His elect people, or His body, the church; John 3:15 came first in order and we had, for some unknown reason, overlooked it. It reads, “That whosoever believeth in” (not, “about” or “upon”) “Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Why did we not notice that?

Perhaps because we are creatures of time, and with such creatures of time we automatically expect everything pertaining to us to have commenced in time. Or, maybe, in the kind Providence of God, it was needful for our conceptual development of our salvation. Be that as it may, the text teaches that believers, not only will not perish, but the actual spiritual life they have is eternal – just as their God is eternal. They may justly conclude that since life begets life of like kind, then such that are born of God are given a different type of life than they have by their earthly birth - which is natural life – an eternal life, as their spiritual Sire is eternal. We surely need not urge upon the reader that this life by which they are begotten into the kingdom of God has always existed, hidden in Christ in God from eternity.

“If God be for us, who can be against us,” and hence we find the spring of that everlasting life is in eternity, and is in an eternal living union with Christ. And thus, it puts our spiritual existence IN Christ from the foundation of the world, or ever the world was. If He loved us before our development, before our earthly existence, when we were but in seed-substance in Him, then “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.” - Romans 8:33.

If it is the eternal, living God that justifies us, then “who can be against us?”

It is Christ that died!

How did the apostle argue our case before us?

“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

What a potent argument is that!

It was the eternal, living God that offered (yes, in this case, “offered”) His own Son for us all.

If He would do such a thing as this, then what might we expect further from Him?

We would notice that text says, “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.”

He does not consider one as “us” outside of Christ.

How amazing is that concept “in Christ”!

Equally amazing is that concept “with Him”! And when the two concepts are considered together how overwhelming is this knot doubled tied! Thus, we gained the concept that the eternal choice of God of His own elect was settled in the personal union they had with Christ from before the foundation of the world. Now raises that question afresh: “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

Can one expect anything good from Him except they first be IN Him?

And if that is so, can they receive anything without Him?

Those two most interesting words constantly dangle and tease the understanding of the heart of a child born of God. It is with determination our minds will not settle on any such foolish thought that God chose His people in the fallen corruption of cursed flesh. That had a beginning long after the Scripture settle the commencement of divine election IN Christ – from eternity, no less!

Can we wrap our puny little minds around what all we have IN Him?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places IN Christ:” - Ephesian 1:3.

And the continuing verse gives to us the “timely” so to speak, of this enormous treasure-trove of riches: “According as He hath chosen us IN Him before the foundation of the world” – or from eternity.

Listening to objectors, I wonder if these eternally blessed individuals lay dead, lifeless, in the loins of the eternal Christ; or were they “alive” while hid away in seed-substance IN Him?

I’m now an aged man, but I yet recall my biology lessons at Miller County High School in Colquitt, Georgia under the “Hoosier” teacher, Mr. Davis: Reproductive cells of both male and female must be “living cells” to produce offspring!” As a youngster, life was a mystery, and this lesson was highly entertaining then. I never forgot it. Now, an old man – a believer in eternal vital union of Christ with His body, the Church, the mystery is yet pronounced, but there is some light which language can convey. That “eternal God” is “eternal life;” and the believer’s “life is in His Son.”

“Whosoever hath the Son hath LIFE.” And His life is eternal; hence “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Ah, how I wish I could drive that truth home as profoundly as I see it. The ramifications are staggering!

That eternal life was always the believer’s even while undeveloped IN Christ’s seed in eternity; and that living eternal life is the very source of their birth in the spirit in regenerating grace; - the “incorruptible seed, the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever.”

While only in seed substance, they were then blessed with every spiritual blessing IN Christ. Day by day after that eternal life is conveyed to them bringing them forth into the kingdom of God each page of divine Providence makes manifest those blessings they own for being IN Him. How often I have struggled to know the will of God for me in this, or that, or another; yet my faith rests in the understanding that when my eyes close in sleep at the end of each day, God’s absolute will was done for that assigned or appointed day and every blessing in both nature and grace that was mine was experienced according to His faithful promise. Some blessings I might in nature not see as such; and even murmur under a distressing load; but in its own time, I am made to bless the Lord for even that which at the time was uncomfortable to my flesh. I am fully aware that the greatest trials in my pilgrimage have also been my greatest blessings, and I would not to this day exchange them for the pleasures of Egypt.

I illustrate just one. The sharp sound of my wife’s angry voice rings yet in my mind, as on an occasion when the car she was driving had roared loudly only a half a block from our house in Gordon, Georgia, and I asked her: “Did you turn the engine off?” “Here are the keys,” she snapped. Little did I know that God in His sovereign Providence tore that car down and stopped us from driving it to church that week-end. And that week-end, attempts were made on our lives for preaching divine unconditional election. Had we been in our car that night, the mob would likely have recognized us in the dark. The following morning, there was nothing wrong with the car, and that loud roaring never returned.

When I was told later by Primitive Baptists (heretics who preach "conditional time salvation") that God “does not have anything to do with things in this time world,” there was no way they could ever convince me of that agnosticism.

I knew better by experience, and that burned deeply into my consciousness. In truth, if I was not a believer in absoluteness of predestination the day before, by Monday morning I was a full-blown absoluter! And still unwaveringly so!

While those events were in nature, yet the application and comfort from God’s over-shadowing care I count as one of those “spiritual blessings” giving me IN Christ and appointed for me that early as one of my experiences and blessings in time. Unlike Agnostics, I am fully persuaded that Paul meant exactly what he wrote when he said, “And we know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” I wouldn’t have it otherwise! Many of those “all things” are the “spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” And I imagine each reader of this, however so small in the kingdom of God, can find myriads of such blessings day by day in their own sojourn.

“How shall He not WITH Him freely give us all things?” –WITH Him. Yes, that word, too, is just as profound. When the truth of divine election in Christ removed the idea that God chose His people prospectively in Adam, the golden chain of free grace begin to be unearthed – link by link. Too many scriptures refer to the “elect” of God, the “chosen” in Christ Jesus, “the called” according to His purpose, His “sheep” for whom He laid down His life, etc., to even doubt the truthfulness of this ancient and despised “Gillite” doctrine – as it was then called. And once established in our faith, an interesting concomitant viewpoint arose. If the children of God were IN Christ, either Federally or representatively, as Gill thought, or actually in seed-substance, as Beebe, Dudley, Trott and Johnson taught, or both, then there can be no argument against the elect being with Christ when and wheresoever He ever was. There is no escape to that precious conclusion. Granted, they were not yet developed as existing persons no more than they played games under the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Paradise while mother Eve knocked some fruit to the ground, but in whatsoever sense they can be said to have been chosen IN Christ, in that same sense they have always been with Christ.

We may then ask, are there Scriptures that sustain that conclusion, or at least refer to it?

I think so. The apostle raises a question in Romans 6:1, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?” And here he clinches his argument, saying, “Therefore we are buried WITH Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”

Hence, being IN and WITH Him, we were actually, and/or federally baptized in water – as Jerry Mourer said, “In Jordan!” Paul extends his argument even further noticing, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified WITH Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”

This unity, or oneness of His people in and with Him gives to them a very special and important relationship that none outside of Him can ever have. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs of God, and joint-heirs WITH Christ.” – Romans 8: 16-17.

Obviously if anyone is one with another in so intimate a union, if one is an heir, so is the other. And I know of no other ground for this “old man” of the flesh to be an heir, since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” It is the “new man,” or “new creature” and its union with the “old man” that gives rise to the adoption as heirs in the heavenly family by any member of the Adamic family!

I had thought for years that the scripture above spoke only of baptism in water, never considering it as the baptism by virtue of union with and in Christ. But Paul did not drop the subject never to use his arguments here again. In his own defense against some who questioned his apostleship, he again visits that argument, and writes: “For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.” - II Corinthians 13:4; and in Colossians 2:20 he says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”

There seems to me to be two senses of divine quickening mentioned in the New Testament. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing,” referring to the quickening of one to spiritual life or generation in God’s kingdom. But in order for the Soul of Christ to re-enter his “dead body” in His resurrection, there was a need for that dead body, which saw no corruption, to be “quickened” to life again in order to be raised up from the dead. And, it seems that Ephesians 2:5 might very well be such, and if so, Paul again relates his unity in that profound event, saying, “Even when we were dead in sins, hath (He) quickened us together WITH Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised US together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus;”

“For we are His workmanship created IN Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” - Ephesians 2:10

What shall we say to these things?

Who shall lay a charge against one of God’s elect?

Is it not true they are said to have the circumcision of Christ?

“Ye are complete IN Him, which is the Head of all principalities and power: IN whom also ye are circumcised WITH the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: (which circumcision was on the eighth day after His birth) BURIED WITH HIM in baptism, wherein also ye are RISEN with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He QUICKENED TOGETHER WITH HIM, having forgiven you all trespasses.”

With the apostle, we have come to understand that we are “dead, and our life is hid WITH Christ in God,” so that truly it is a faithful saying, “for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him,” – II Timothy 2:11.

The greatest of all blessings one is blessed with in heavenly places IN Christ, is that eternal unity with the precious Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and have all the riches of His grace bestowed upon one that is IN Him and WITH Him in His Headship of His body, the Church.

By Stanley Phillips

THE LAST DAYS OF THE JOHN M'KENZIE

2011-02-07T19:02:00.009Z

My dear Friend,

I take up my pen to write you some account of the last days of our dear departed friend and brother, John M'Kenzie, believing that to you and many of the readers of the Gospel Standard it will be interesting. As you are fully aware of the nature of his complaint, (bleeding from the lungs,) I shall confine myself to his last attack; and to a few gleanings of the words which fell from his lips.

He left Darley Dale, Derbyshire, on Wednesday, the 25th of July, and arrived at Preston the same evening, having travelled about seventy miles. He stood his journey remarkably well, and conversed freely during the evening, expressing thankfulness that he had safely arrived at Preston, his friends remarking to him how well and hearty he was looking, far beyond their expectations.

He took leave of his friends and retired to bed a little after ten o'clock, he or they little expecting that the next time he came downstairs would be for interment,
O how true it is that "in the midst of life we are in death!"

We know not what a day may bring forth. What a loud and solemn call to us, (if sanctified by the Spirit of God,) "Be ye also ready, for at a time ye think not the Son of Man cometh!"

He had been in bed little more than a quarter of an hour when he began to cough, followed by the spitting of blood, the colour of which gave us every reason to dread that the same or another vessel of the lungs had given way. Medical aid was immediately procured, and the Lord suffered the means made use of to cause the blood to cease flowing for a time.

From this time a sudden and great change in the state of his mind became very visible to all about him; a solemn composure and sweet resignation now rested upon his countenance, and when he was able to speak, his words fully bore testimony to its being a true indication of his soul's feeling.

Not being able to speak with an audible voice he lifted up his eyes and whispered, "I know that all has been done for me that human aid can do; I now fall into the hands of my Lord, to do with me as may be good and right in his sight, so that it may be for his own honour and glory. Nothing short of a miracle can raise me up, though there is nothing too hard for the Lord. I feel as helpless as an infant, both in body and soul, yet in a quiet, peaceable and patient waiting to see what his mind and will is concerning me."

For a few days there now appeared a decided improvement in the state of his health, but he could not bear the least excitement. He requested that no friends should see him, not being able to bear it, as the least excitement had a tendency to bring on the bleeding.

He now appeared much absorbed in thought, and at length said, "What an unutterably glorious place heaven must be! What amazing objects there! The throne of God and the Lamb! that dear Jesus, once crowned with thorns, but now crowned with glory and honour, seated thereon, being the bright and ineffable glory of the place! What glorious mansions must those be that are of the Lord's own providing and preparing! 'A house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,' for his own blood-bought family! We read of music also the most precious. Harps of gold in the hands of all the redeemed, which is to intimate to our finite understanding the richness and incomprehensible sweetness of the sound of the music. All will be fully occupied: there will be none too weak or too lazy to play, shout, and sing the victories of the Lamb."

These were said in broken sentences, he not being able to say many words without being obliged to stop a short time. To us who were present the words came with a solemn power and weight, every sentence bearing a peculiar evidence that it came from a solemn and sanctified heart.

After a pause he continued, "They (meaning the redeemed) shall also have glorified bodies. At the transfiguration Elijah appeared with his body; Moses in some way, whether with his body or without is of little moment to us; but they did appear with the Lord glorious."

Pausing a short time, he then said, "How impossible to know or understand the things of which I have been speaking as they really are, while we remain in this fleshly tabernacle, which is of the earth earthy! To flesh and blood there is a sweetness in life. Hezekiah felt the sweetness of life. Job, though he had much of the bitterness, still felt the sweetness of life."

And having dwelt a little on, the ignorance and darkness of our poor finite understandings, he ceased speaking through apparent exhaustion. The next time he spoke on the things connected with the kingdom of God was on the ministry.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I never saw with half the light or felt with half the power I now do the important work of the ministry. Three things are especially and essentially necessary, solemnity, faithfulness, and affection. On looking at the Lord's ministry, what solemnity marked it in setting forth eternal realities, what faithfulness in warning the sinner, and what affection in all he had to declare to his own dear people!".

Most of the aforesaid expressions dropped from his lips from the time of his attack, on the evening he arrived here, to Thursday the 2nd of August.

He now appeared so far recovered that the physician thought he might venture to sit up a short time in an easy chair, wrapped in blankets. He accordingly was got up, but soon became fatigued, saying he must go to bed again and sit up an hour in the evening.

He did so, observing, "It is with great difficulty I can bear up." On going to bed he said, "I fear the bleeding is coming on;" and before the doctors arrived he had expectorated half a pint. The surgeon administered the remedy considered best, and the blood ceased coming up. They then left the house, expecting there would be no more of it that night.

However, in about a quarter of an hour the cough came on, the bleeding began with double force, and both medical men were immediately present to witness (without being able to render any assistance) one of the most alarming and agonizing sights I ever saw; a hollow sounding cough, and the blood gushing forth from his mouth like a fountain, in the midst of which he said to a friend who was holding his head, "Oh! this is hard work; pray for me;" his own soul being solemnly engaged, which was visible by the lifting up of his eyes and hands, and the words that escaped, such as "God! Dear Jesus! Blessed Spirit!" &c.

All in the room, with the (Doctors, thought that the blood would choak him, as he seemed not to have strength to get it up, and that in a few minutes he would have terminated this mortal life. But his time was not yet come; the Lord heard prayer and answered, for, to our utter astonishment, he turned up his ghastly face, and fixing his eyes upon the physician, exclaimed, with an audible voice, "It is here we want a God! If I had not the Lord to rest upon now, I should be of all men the most miserable. That Jesus whom my soul has at times delighted to preach is now my only help and support. I believe the truths I have preached, for I now experience that nothing short of the blood and righteousness of Christ can support in the trying hour. I thank you, gentlemen; I am satisfied you have done your best; but Christ is my only hope and strength."

More blood now coming up, he made motions for a little water, when on raising his head he saw his wife and friends in tears; he said, "Do not weep; this blood is nothing but corrupt, depraved, sinful blood; but the blood that flowed from Jesus was holy, precious, and pure blood. O how I am privileged above that dear, precious Christ! When his blood gushed forth, they mocked his agonies and sufferings, tind when he asked for drink, they gave him vinegar and gall; but I have relations and friends about me, sympathizing with me, and ready to give me whatever I want."

On taking the water he said, "O, how good! thank the Lord for it."

And every little thing he took he expressed his thankfulness for, viewing it as coming down from the Lord.

He now called all in the room to come near, and said, "I am desirous of giving you an affectionate warning. There is nothing you may possess in this world that will be of any use to you when you come here; therefore live as becometh the gospel you profess. You will have need for all when you come here; for if I am dying you must soon follow. Although I do not feel any thing particular with which I am upbraided, I feel myself a vile, hell-deserving sinner; yet my faith is firm, and my hope is anchored in the love, blood, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ."

During the night he called a friend to him, and said, "The Lord has not given me any intimation whether I must die soon or remain longer, but I feel a patient, quiet, and calm resignation to wait his own time, and see what his will is concerning me."

His friend asked, "Do you feel the joys of salvation in any measure?"

He said, "Not as I could wish; but the Lord is a sovereign; still I feel my faith and hope resting on the Lord. If it were his blessed will I should like to feel more the enjoyment; but not my will, but his be done."

"If it be the Lord's will," he said, "I desire not to die during the bleeding, for the pain and suffocating feeling I felt for half an hour cannot be expressed; but if it be his will, and more for his honour and glory, his will be done."

Friday, August the 10th, he said, "The Lord knoweth our frame; he knows I could not now bear temptation; therefore, during this relapse of my complaint, he has not suffered Satan to come to me with, one single suggestion or temptation. Though I do not feel the sweet joys of his presence, I have a humble and firm confidence that when I die I shall enjoy his presence in heaven, if not before."

In the evening he called his wife, and said, "I have no doubt, after I die, many will wish to know the state of my mind; you may tell them I have not that enjoyment I could wish, but I am neither troubled nor tempted by Satan, for I have not been accused of one sin since I was taken ill this time, and I have a firm confidence that when I die I shall land safe in heaven, and that through the love, blood, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; this is my present experience."

He could not speak much after this, but he was often seen in prayer to the Lord.

He now spit a little scarlet blood, a sure indication of a giving way of the vessel again, which made us begin to fear that another bursting forth was not far distant.

On the Saturday he had a tolerable day and rested better during the night, until about forty minutes past three o'clock.

At about four o'clock the vessel of the lungs again gave way. He had just time to ask for what he wanted when the blood again came up, and continued until his strength was completely exhausted.

All that he was able to say at this time was, "God" which continued long upon his tongue. After a few sighs he quietly breathed his last, and fell into the bosom of everlasting love at forty minutes past four o'clock, Lord's day morning, August 12th, 1849, never more to sigh or desire the enjoyment of the Lord's presence, but where there is fulness of joy and pleasures for ever more.

During the time of this illness he dictated what he wished to be on his gravestone, which, is as follows:

"Having no confidence in tlie flesh, all his hope and all his desire was in the love, blood, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Yours in the truth,
T. Walsh.
Preston, August, 1849.

PS. Our dear brother stated during his illness, that after his death we should find his experience, on reading which, if we thought it would be of any use to the church of God, it might be published; if not, to do with it as we thought well.

He also said of the work he had in hand, "That work has cost me much labour! I think, you will not be able to make it out, on account of the interlining, and confusion that, appear in the latter part of it, although much of the former part is re-written; but this I leave with you to do also as you may deem fit."

SINNER SAVED

2011-02-07T02:25:00.001Z

As I cannot get a DD for the want of cash, neither can I get an MA for the want of learning; therefore I am compelled to fly for refuge to SS, by which I mean Sinner Saved; or, that I am made wise to salvation; or, as Luke expresses it, ‘I have had the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of my sins.

By William Huntington

PROPITIATION

2011-01-30T10:36:00.002Z

Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, 1851 - By Joseph Irons
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"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree."
(1 Peter 2:24)
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I was told, an hour ago, that it was madness for me to attempt to go into my pulpit. "Well, then," I said, "I will be mad; I will go once more, at all events;" and this portion was so sweet, so savoury to my own spirit, that if I can only talk to you a quarter of an hour, about it, I would rather do so than abandon it. You must, therefore, bear with my infirmities.

"Who His own self bare our sins." What! will He not let me help Him? No, nor you neither, nor any Arminian in the world. "His own self." He was all alone. "Of the people there was none with Him." (Isa. 63:3) "His own self bare our sins." Whose? whose? Can you put in your claim to it? Do you really believe it was yours? Do you really believe that the Lord made Him sin for you? I do, blessed be His name. I am satisfied of it as I am that I am a creature. Well, but I want my hearers to look at it in this individual and wordy sense. "Our sins" all, the entire weight and burden. "In His own body." It is no part of mine to help Him. "On the tree," too, the accursed death, a death allotted only to the vilest of criminals and slaves. There hung my precious Christ, the glorious Mediator; there He hung, nailed up, and bearing my sins. "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." Sure I am that we do not half love Him enough. Sure I am that we are all of us sadly unconscious of His great preciousness, value, and importance. I could not help saying to the individual that advised me not to attempt to go into the pulpit, "Ah! if you loved Jesus Christ only as much as I do, and I do not love Him half enough, you could not bear to be silent as long as you could utter a sentence." Well, then, I am going to try and say a little about the Burden-bearer "His own self;" then I will try if I can say a word about the immensity of the burden "all our sins;" and then a word or two about the design God had in view.

Now, beloved, you will perceive that there is enough in this plan, which God gave me upon a bed of anguish, enough only in this plan to last a man two or three hours, if he had strength to follow it out. Think of the Burden-bearer, who He is, what He is! Think of the burden, all the guilt, all the sin, all the weight, of all the election of grace, from Adam's day till now! And then think of the design of God, the eternal salvation of His whole Church!

I. I will now try and talk a little about the Burden-bearer, blessings on His name! Who is He? "His own self?" Why, it was the Holy One of God. That is the very appellation the devil gave Him. The devils speak the truth sometimes. "We know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." (Luke 4:34) I know it; He is just that, "the holy child Jesus" the holy, undefiled, sinless, perfect, glorious Lord of glory. What! He bear my sins! What! the holy Christ of God bear my sins? "His own self." Gabriel could not help Him. "I could call down twelve legions of angels, if I wanted them." He would not have the help of one of them. No; it must be "His own self." Oh! the abominable wickedness of Arminianism, to think of helping Him, to think of doing what He has left undone, to think of putting a stroke to His work. No, beloved, it was "His own self." Bear with my weakness. I want to testify to the last that everything that man puts in is blasphemy. It was "His own self." Oh, that glorious, precious self! But how came He to be capable of bearing my sins? He could not bear them as God; He could not bear them, nor suffer for them as essential Deity only. Oh! wonder, ye heavens, and be astonished, O earth, this precious, glorious, Holy One of God, the second Person in the adorable Trinity, became incarnate; the covenant Head became incarnate, for the express purpose of bearing my sins. I ask you, my hearers, to look at the dearest relative you have upon earth. Would you become a dog, or any brute, for the purpose of rescuing any dear relative from misery? I scarcely think there is one among you who would think of such a thing. And yet my glorious Christ did not become a dog, but stooped lower, for a dog never committed the sins I have and became incarnate, "took upon Him the likeness of sinful flesh." I pray you pause here a moment. He did not take sinful flesh, though some wicked beings have been daring enough to say so. No; it is the likeness of sinful flesh. He knew no sin He did no sin; all sin was laid upon Him, but none was found in Him. I beg of you always to keep up that distinction as long as you live the difference between sin being laid upon Him and sin being found in Him. If sin had been found in Him in the smallest degree, His sacrifice had never been accepted, His offering had not been worth a straw. But while all sin was laid upon Him, that is, all the sin of His Church, there was none to be found in Him. The Father saw none, the Holy Ghost saw none. He knew no sin; and yet this precious, glorious Christ put His shoulder under the yoke to bear all my sins. Beloved, though I cannot say much about it, my very soul seems to melt at the thought that the huge burden of my sins, which would depress me to the very lowest hell for ever, has been carried away by my glorious Burden-bearer.

Well, look a moment longer at His mediatorial responsibility. He did not bear the burden as of absolute necessity, or as forced upon Him, but as a voluntary act "His own self." He stood forth as the Mediator between God and man, as a voluntary act. That can never be too deeply impressed upon your minds. It was a voluntary act. "No man taketh my life from me," says He oh, no! "I lay it down of myself, and I take it again." (John 10:18) A voluntary act. If you forget all I have said to you for thirty years, I pray you never forget this, that if the doing and dying of Christ had not been a voluntary act of His own, it had been worth nothing to any sinner under heaven; but, blessings on His name, while the Father gave Him, while the Father appointed Him, and commissioned Him, He, "His own self," came forth voluntary to take the human nature, to become incarnate, in order that in His humanity He might bear all my sins in His own body on the tree. They could not have fastened Deity to the tree, you know; they could not have scourged the back of Deity, and the ploughers made their furrows upon Him as the Psalmist has it; they could not have fixed a crown of thorns upon the head of Deity; but, in order to bear and suffer all this, "His own self" came down, "His own self" assumed my nature, "His own self" appeared in the character of man, of fallen man, suffered death on the tree.

On the tree. Well, now, I will pause here a moment just to look at the tree. I cannot look at you, I can hardly see a person before me; however, I can look to the tree. There it stood, a transverse timber fixed in the ground, with His holy "own self" upon it; and while hanging there, He is bearing all my sins, all my rebellion, all my fretfulness, all my weaknesses "His own self" bearing them. Beloved, do you feel at all in love with Him? Can you love Him? Is He not altogether lovely? "His own self" on that tree.

Well, there were two other trees, and there were two thieves upon them; the one, went to hell, and the other to heaven. These two trees were one on His right hand, and the other on His left; but I fix my gaze upon the middle tree between the thieves. Oh! the loveliness of that "own self," that precious Christ; to think that He would leave the bosom of the Father, where He had lain from eternity; that He would come into the world, and endure the contradiction of sinners against Him, work and slave for eighteen years as a carpenter, and then bear all the persecutions of the Jews for the three years of His ministry, and afterwards hang upon the tree. Lord Jesus, forgive my want of love. "His own self!" Precious Burden-bearer!

II. Well, then, I will try and say a word about the immensity of the burden, our sins. What do you think of the weight of your sin? Beloved, do you suppose that you have sin enough to press down a world into hell? I do. Do you really feel that it is a burden too heavy to bear? Has the law brought home its demands and accusations? Has its spirituality entered into the vitals? Do you really know that if you had kept it all with the exception of one point, that one point makes you guilty of all? Are you really conscious before God that the curse would lie heavily upon you to all eternity, but for Christ? "Our sins." Oh! look for a moment at the whole number of the election of God, the whole weight of all their iniquities. Let me try a moment's calculation. I look at my own, and think from the moment I was born of these sixty-six years, what has gone on, what there is in me, what I brought into the world with me, and what I am utterly incapable even of atoning for. Well, then, multiply, if you will allow the arithmetic, multiply mine and yours by those of all the election of grace that have ever lived from Adam's day; and then think what a mass, what a mound, what an immensity of guilt, sin, burden, wickedness, rebellion, must have been laid upon Christ. Take into account that beautiful Scripture which we have so often had occasion to quote, "All we, like sheep, have gone astray, and have turned every one unto his own way." (Isa. 53:6) The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all "the iniquity of us all, all of you, all the election of grace, all that believe in Christ. I know very well that modern divines will revile me for this; they will say, "Why don't you say, 'all the world?'" I do not, I cannot. It is not found in my Bible. I tell you it is the sheep that have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of them all. I cannot at all understand how those beings can interpret such a text as that which we read in the chapter this morning respecting the disobedient and rebellious against God, concerning whose character it is immediately added, "Whereunto they were also appointed." (1 Peter 2:8) I cannot at all tell how such beings who reject the doctrine of grace can understand such a text. I believe it as it stands. Further, I come to the other family. "But ye." Who? The "chosen generation," the "royal priesthood," "ye elect souls." (1 Peter 2:9) Now if I had my own will, I would never preach to any but elect souls. I know the Holy Ghost never preaches to any other; but my commission is to preach to every creature. It is God's part to find out His own; and when He finds them out, He puts His grace into their hearts, He brings them to this important point, that the whole of their sins, the whole of their guilt, the whole of their miseries, were laid upon Him, and endured by Him, the precious Christ of God. I think that the chief cause of the unhappiness of many that I could hope and believe are Christians, lies in this, that they will not allow Christ to carry it all. There lies the mischief; they will not allow Him to bear it all; their repentance is to do something, their believing is to do something, their praying is to do something, something is to be done by the creature. My hearer, it is all delusion. "His own self" bare the whole weight; all the guilt and transgression of the entire Church of God is laid upon Christ; He, "His own self," bare it; and woe be to you and me if He did not; everlasting ruin to you and to me would be inevitable, if He did not. Herein I rejoice; and I could not help coming to say these few words this morning, because "His own self" seemed so precious to me. "His own self bare our sins."

Well, if I had all the sins of all the world, all the sins of Adam's race that have ever been committed since Adam fell, laid upon me, I have only just to look at the tree, that is enough. If I have only faith enough to look at the tree, put them all upon the tree, and see, by faith, that not only did the Father lay them upon Him, but that He voluntarily undertook to bear them, I am easy enough; sin shall not touch me, the devil shall not alarm me, death has no annoyance to me; indeed, I long for it, if it may be so called. I have nothing more to do than to fall into the arms of my covenant God, because Jesus Himself, "His own self," has borne my sins in His own body on the tree.

Still, now, I suppose that some of my hearers will upbraid me, I cannot help it, for this strain. I will go on a few minutes longer if I can. Just mark, that while this precious, glorious "own self," the Christ of God, took the whole of the sin of the Church upon His person (and never forget my meaning,) yet that He Himself exercised the voluntary affection of the eternal God, and engaged, as the covenant Head of His Church, responsibly to emancipate, ah! there lies the blessing, to emancipate His entire Church from all sorrow. His love, His eternal, immutable, unchangeable love is such, that the results of Gethsemane's horrors and Calvary's torments, where He bare our sins, continue to the present hour; and He ever lives to intercede for all that come to God by Him. This seems to me the very climax of His work. He did not remain in the grave; He could not be holden of it. The apostle says, or rather the Holy Ghost by the apostle, that it was impossible that He could be holden of it. Why not? Death holds many; it lays its grasp upon many; but it could not hold Him. Why? He tore out the sting; He had been its plague; He had vanquished death, and overcome its power; and, therefore, though He stooped to the grave, in order to pass through the entire ordeal which the Father had appointed, and that He had engaged for in covenant, it was not possible He could be holden of it. He vanquished it; He became the mighty conqueror. Well, but how so? Ah! the poor women were sadly dismayed. They thought He was shut in finally; they knew there was a great stone rolled to the door of the sepulchre, and sealed with a seal, and watchmen, and soldiers, and guards, about it; and as they went to take a last peep at the place where the Lord lay, they said to one another, "Who shall roll away the stone." He wanted neither angels, nor men, nor powers, on earth, nor powers in heaven. "I lay down my life, and I take it up again." (John 10:17) How solemn, how blessed, how beautiful, are these words! "I lay down my life" just as I could lay my head down to sleep "and I take it up again." My hearers, is it not grievous that you and I cannot trust the Saviour better than we do? Is it not grievous that we do not love Him more, that we do not serve Him more? I am positively ashamed of my Christianity; I am not only ashamed of my sins and myself, but I am ashamed of my Christianity, that such a precious Christ should not be loved, and honoured, and adored, to a greater extent.

III. Well, let us say a word or two, if we can about the design. Why should the Father bruise Him, and put Him to grief? Why should He stoop voluntarily to endure this shameful and ignominious death? I will try and tell you why. It was just to complete the entire salvation of His Church; just to complete that. And I throw out this idea, on purpose to war again for a few minutes against those horrible notions that would represent the salvation of God as not being complete. I think the divinity of the present day is very much like what wicked Mammon wrote in that book, called "Mammon," I think. He says, in so many words, that sin frustrated God's design, and destroyed it in type and model. I think I never was so horrified with any sentence in my life, not even with any in Tom Paine's works, as I was with that; that sin should frustrate, should overthrow and destroy God's purpose in type and model. Really the devil would be ashamed to write such a sentence. On the contrary, I maintain that Jehovah's design never can be frustrated; and that the very design and purpose for which Jesus "bare our sins in His own body on the tree" was, that He might cancel the debt, might complete redemption, might accomplish salvation without the possibility of a failure, and work out and bring in everlasting righteousness. Bear me testimony, if I speak no more, that this has been my positive, and firm, and determined avowal of the preciousness of Christ, His complete salvation; justice satisfied, law honoured, the perfections of Deity glorified, His own designs carried out, every elect vessel of mercy fully recovered; and in due time all to be pardoned, justified, accepted, and brought home to everlasting glory. I believe, in my inmost soul, that there will not be an elect vessel of mercy absent, no, not even me, when He shall make up His jewels.

A word more. His official standing where He is seems to gladden my heart beyond anything else. Oh, if He had been left in the grave! If He had been left in Joseph's tomb, my hopes were gone. Where is He? At the right hand of the Majesty on high. Where is He? Ever living to make intercession. What! Was it not enough that He should officially suffer, and officially atone? Must He officially live to intercede? Oh, yes! His office is retained now. Away with all other priests! He is mine, and He is officially living to make intercession for me.

Well, then, mark the majesty which He exercises in absolute sovereignty on behalf of His Church. He not only lives to intercede, but, as King of kings, and Lord of lords, He sends down the Comforter. He says, "I will send down the Comforter." "I will never leave nor forsake you." "I will come myself unto you." What! Is the precious Christ of God to be at the same moment on the throne pleading for me, and in my heart communicating blessings and comforts to me, and in my pulpit bearing me up to say a few words for Him? What a wonderful Christ! My hearers, I beg of you all to forgive me; but I charge again, all of you, and myself, with ingratitude. We do not love Him enough; we do not serve Him enough; we do not praise Him enough. Oh, could we have more believing views of His essential character, of His official character, of His mediatorial character now going on, of His priestly intercession before the throne, surely we should love Him.

Then just one thought more, if I can. Mark the exaltation to which He is not only raised, but to which He determines to raise all His Church. Remember that sweet text, "To Him that overcometh with I give to sit down with me upon my throne; even as I have overcome, and have sat down with my Father upon His throne." (Rev. 3:21) Who would not spend his last breath in honouring such a Christ, in glorifying His great self, and in exalting His name?

I must suddenly break off, only pleading that God will put some power into these few hints, and profit your souls; and then He may take me home as soon as He will.

WHEN GOD TEACHES ELECTION

2011-01-24T15:50:00.002Z

All God’s people, sooner or later, are brought to this point - to see that God has a ‘people,’ a ‘peculiar people,’ a people separate from the world, a people whom He has ‘formed for Himself that they should show forth His praise.’

Election, sooner or later, is rivetted in the hearts of God’s people. And a man that lives and dies in enmity against this blessed doctrine, lives and dies in his sins; and if he dies in enmity, he will be damned in that enmity.

Every child of God is brought, sooner or later, to see that God has a people; and the longing desire of every living soul is to be manifested as one of that people. There are no cavillings against election, after God has broken a man down to nothing. There may be cavillings against it until we are stripped of all; but when a man is stripped of all, made a beggar, a bankrupt, a pauper, a poor needy insolvent with a huge debt and nothing wherewith to pay, then election is made manifest in that man’s conscience, because he feels that unless God has chosen him from eternity, he will never see His face in glory.”

By J. C. Philpot

“IF BY LOVE THEY MEAN…”

2011-01-24T14:28:00.002Z

I do and am constantly maintaining both privately and publicly as far as ever the Lord has enabled me the wonders, the glories, the beauties and the preciousness of love. And yet I must be branded as being a man that is an enemy to love.

But if by love, these people who brand me as an enemy of love mean that I ought to unite with Arians and Socinians who deny the deity of my Lord and Saviour whom I proved again in my very soul that he is the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace.

If by love they mean that I ought to meet and unite occasionally with people that can testify and say without a blush that election is a damnable doctrine and they hate it with their hearts, that imputed righteousness is imputed nonsense and a doctrine that ought to be abhorred and spurned by all which is the very garment and covering that hides all my shame, the very robe that adorns my naked soul and so very many times has been the joy and rejoicing of my heart and which I have found to be so many times the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

If they mean by love that I ought to unite with people that can say and testify that we may be a child of God one day and a child of the devil another, that Christ died and atoned for the sins of Esau, as well as of Jacob, for Cain as well as Abel, for Judas as well as for Peter, and that there are thousands in hell for whom Christ died.

If they mean by love that I ought to unite and call these brethren who profess to believe in the doctrine of grace and call themselves Calvinists, but can declare at times that those blessed doctrines which are so precious and glorious to my soul are nonessential things. That is, if I understand their meaning right, they view them as useless things and that it is of no consequence whatsoever whether we receive or believe these doctrines or not provided we do but unite with all sorts and pray for all and be candid and mild and esteem all as partakers of grace, — I confess from my heart if all this be love I am destitute of it. And instead of being grieved for my want of it, I glory in it.

I do not indeed feel the least ill-will against any of their persons, as the creatures of God, nor do I desire to do them the least injury, but those principles that debase free and sovereign grace, and exalt the creature, I hate and abhor.

For how can two walk together except they be agreed?

My soul has bought truth too dearly to part with it for such empty baubles as the praises and smiles of men; and those professors that love the smiles of men more than the truth of God, they are heartily welcome to them. I do not begrudge them. But notwithstanding all that ever these reporters could report, God stood by me, a poor worm, and gave such testimony to the word of grace, that neither men nor devils could overthrow it. I believe they tried with all their might to do so; but God hath said it, and I know it will stand, for I have proved it again and again: — “My word shall go forth; it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I have sent it; it shall not return unto me void.” (Isaiah 55:11)

John Warburton

THE WHOLE APPARATUS OF RELIGION

2011-01-23T16:14:00.002Z

"I see that you are very religious in every way."
(Acts 17:22)

True religion is what the world does not want--nor does true religion want the world. The two are as separate as Christ and Belial.

But some religion the world must have!

And as it will not have, and cannot have the true--it will and must have the false.

Worldly religion cannot exist without an order of men to teach it and practice its ceremonies. Hence come clergy, forming a recognized priestly caste. And as these must, to avoid confusion, be governed, all large corporate bodies requiring a controlling power, thence come bishops and archbishops, ecclesiastical courts, archdeacons--and the whole apparatus of clerical government.

The ceremonies and ordinances cannot be carried on without buildings set apart for the purpose--thence churches and cathedrals. As prayer is a part of all religious worship, and carnal men cannot, for lack of the Spirit, pray spiritually--they must have forms of devotion made ready to their hand, thence come prayer-books and liturgies. As there must be mutual points of agreement to hold men together, there must be written formulas of doctrine--thence come articles, creeds, and confessions of faith.

And finally, as there are children to be instructed, and this cannot be safely left to oral teaching, for fear of ignorance in some and error in others, the very form of instruction must be drawn up in so many words--thence come catechisms.

People are puzzled sometimes to know why there is this and that thing in an established religion--why we have churches and clergy, tithes and prayer-books, universities and catechisms--and the whole apparatus of religion.

They do not see that all these things have sprung, as it were, out of a moral necessity, and are based upon the very constitution of man--that this great and widespread tree of a human religion has its deep roots in the natural conscience; and that all these branches necessarily and naturally grow out of the broad and lofty stem. The attachment, then, of worldly people to a worldly religion is no great mystery. It is no riddle for a Samson to put forth--or requiring a Solomon to solve.

By Joseph Philpot

THE RELIGION WHICH I WANT

2011-01-23T16:08:00.002Z

I am quite sick of modern religion--it is such a mixture, such a medley, such a compromise. I find much, indeed, of this religion in my own heart, for it suits the flesh well--but I would not have it so, and grieve it should be so. The religion which I want is that of the Holy Spirit.

I know nothing but what He teaches me.

I feel nothing but what He works in me.

I believe nothing but what He shows me.

I only mourn when He smites my rocky heart.

I only rejoice when He reveals the Saviour.

This religion I am seeking after - no other will satisfy or content me.

True religion is a supernatural and mysterious thing.

By Joseph Philpot

AT THE CROSS

2011-01-23T15:57:00.002Z

Standing at the cross of our adorable Lord, we see the law thoroughly fulfilled, its curse fully endured, its penalties wholly removed, sin eternally put away, the justice of God amply satisfied, all His perfections gloriously harmonized, His holy will perfectly obeyed, reconciliation completely effected, redemption graciously accomplished, and the church everlastingly saved!

At the cross we see sin in its blackest colours, and holiness in its fairest beauties.

At the cross we see the love of God in its tenderest form, and the anger of God in its deepest expression.

At the cross we see the blessed Redeemer lifted up, as it were between heaven and earth, to show to angels and to men the spectacle of redeeming love, and to declare at one and the same moment, and by one and the same act of the suffering obedience and bleeding sacrifice of the Son of God--the eternal and unalterable displeasure of the Almighty against sin, and the rigid demands of His inflexible justice, and yet the tender compassion and boundless love of His heart to the elect.

At the cross, and here alone, are obtained pardonand peace.

At the cross, and here alone, penitential grief and godly sorrow flow from heart and eyes.

At the cross, and here alone, is sin subdued and mortified, holiness communicated, death vanquished, Satan put to flight, and happiness and heaven begun in the soul.

O what heavenly blessings, what present grace, as well as what future glory, flow through the cross!

What a holy meeting-place for repenting sinners and a sin-pardoning God!

What a healing-place for guilty, yet repenting and returning backsliders!

What a door of hope in the valley of Achor for the self-condemned and self-abhorred!

What a blessed resting-place for the whole family of God in this valley of grief and sorrow!

By Joseph Philpot

CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US

2011-01-20T13:21:00.002Z

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
(2 Corinthians 5:21)

Christ our Lord had no sin, knew no sin and did no sin. He was perfect before the law of God (I Peter 2:22; Hebrews 4:15).

Our sins were reckoned to him. He was identified and numbered with the transgressors and, though he personally had no sin, yet by imputation he was the world's greatest sinner and was dealt with as such and died under the wrath of God (Galatians 3:13; Hebrews 9:28; Romans 8:32).

All of this was done that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ and, by our identification and oneness with Christ justified. Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin for us that we, who have no righteousness, might be made righteous before God in him (Romans 10:1-4).

With his spotless garments on, we are as holy as his Son (Isaiah 45:24).

Someone said, "The gospel can be summed up in two words – substitution and satisfaction." Christ, as our Substitute, made full and complete satisfaction for us before God's holy law and righteous justice. In him we are wholly sanctified, completely and eternally saved.

By Henry Mahan

CAIN, ESUA, SAUL, AHAB AND JUDAS

2011-01-19T20:52:00.002Z

"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."
(2 Corinthians 7:10)

These two kinds of repentance are to be carefully distinguished from each other; though they are often sadly confounded. Cain, Esau, Saul, Ahab, Judas, all repented. But their repentance was the remorse of natural conscience, not the godly sorrow of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. They trembled before God as an angry Judge, but were not melted into contrition before Him as a forgiving Father.

They neither hated their sins nor forsook them. They neither loved holiness nor sought it.

Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.

Esau plotted Jacob's death.

Saul consulted the witch of Endor.

Ahab put honest Micaiah into prison.

Judas hanged himself.

How different from this forced and false repentance of a reprobate, is the repentance of a child of God; that true repentance for sin, that godly sorrow, that holy mourning which flows from the Spirit's gracious operations!

Godly sorrow does not spring from a sense of the wrath of God in a broken law, but from His mercy in a blessed gospel; from a view by faith of the sufferings of Christ in the garden and on the cross; from a manifestation of pardoning love; and is always attended with self-loathing and self-abhorrence; with deep and unreserved confession of sin and forsaking it; with most hearty, sincere and earnest petitions to be kept from all evil; and a holy longing to live to the praise and glory of God.

By J.C. Philpot

A RELIGIOUS ANIMAL

2011-01-19T20:41:00.002Z

"Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious, for as I was walking along I saw your many altars. And one of them had this inscription on it — TO AN UNKNOWN GOD."
(Acts 17:22-23)

Man has been called, and perhaps with some truth, a religious animal. Religion of some kind, at any rate, seems almost indispensable to his very existence—for from the most civilized nation, to the most barbarous tribe upon the face of the earth—we find some form of religion practiced. Whether this is ingrained into the very constitution of man, or whether it be received by custom or tradition—I will not pretend to decide. But that some kind of religion is almost universally prevalent, is a fact that cannot be denied. We will always find these two kinds of religion...false and true, earthly and heavenly, fleshly and spiritual, natural and supernatural.

Compare this vital, spiritual, heavenly, divine, supernatural religion - this work of grace upon the soul, this teaching of God in the heart, this life of faith within — with its flimsy counterfeit. Compare the actings of real faith, real hope, real love; the teachings, the dealings, the leadings, and the operations of the blessed Spirit in the soul — with rounds of duties, superstitious forms, empty ceremonies, and a notional religion, however puffed up and varnished.

Compare the life of God in the heart of a true Christian, amid all his dejection, despondency, trials, temptations, and exercises; compare that precious treasure, Christ's own grace in the soul — with all mere external religion, superficial religion, notional religion. O, it is no more to be compared than a grain of dust with a diamond! No more to be compared than a criminal in a dungeon to the King on the throne! In fact, there is no comparison between them.

By J.C. Philpot

THE RETURNING PRODIGAL

2011-01-16T17:20:00.002Z

"It was meet that we should make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again, and was lost and is found."
(Luke 15:32)

THIS parable, like all parables, has one particular end, or lesson, to set before us. You will never be able to make parables equal in every point, but you will find, as led by the Spirit, that each parable has one special lesson, an instruction which, when opened and set on the heart with power, discovers some particular part of the gospel, some particular perfection of God, some particular end that God has in view. In this parable, as I understand it, the end, the point, the lesson of it is, the kindness and love of God to His poor, repenting, returning sons.

There have been a good many disputes as to who the elder brother is and represents, and I do not intend to enter into that matter, beyond this general remark; that the elder brother, as set before us in this parable, has, in my judgment, more marks of a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, than anything else. He quarrels with his Father's love, he rebels against the heavenly music, he dares to say to his Father that he has never broken one of His commandments. He is angry and bitter at the kind, paternal reception of the wicked younger son, who went out rich, and came back poor; clean, and came back polluted; well clothed, came back in rags; well-nourished, came back half starved; but came back with one thing in his heart and on his lips - repentance. May God save us from being like the elder brother.

The younger son asked and got that part of his Father's portion which he thought to be due to him; and having obtained it, he, not many days after, gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, where there would be no restraint, conscience easy and dead for the time being; and there wasted his substance in riotous living, where pride and voluptuousness reigned and was soon a beggar. This is our nature; this is our practice; this becomes our condition, and very solemn it is.

There came unto that land a mighty famine. God has means of working, means of pulling His sons back, means of bringing them to their senses; and the means He used in this instance was a famine, a mighty famine. People were dying. And this poor, haggard prodigal, reduced to penury, want, and shame, hires himself out to a citizen of that country, who sends him into his field to feed swine. Their conscience is made alive, active, powerful, honest. If you have a conscience moving, if it speaks to you, listen to God forbid you should be left to browbeat your conscience, and trample upon anything it may say. If it tells you you are wrong, listen to it; if it protests against your conduct, listen to it; if it points out to you your rags, look at them; if it speaks to you of your hunger-bitten strength, listen to it; if it begins to reflect on God's goodness and your wickedness, oh, listen to it. Conscience wrought upon by the Spirit of God is made God's friend in sinners, and made the friend of sinners in whom it is speaking. Conscience will always tell the truth, when moved and instructed by the Holy Ghost. And his memory was made active. It set before him his Father's house, the home he had left, the affluence he had enjoyed; and this moved him greatly. What a contrast! He now with swine, having to feed them, and so hungry himself that he, if he might have done so, would gladly have eaten the husks that were given to him to give to the swine. He who had been in affluence was reduced by sin to this condition.

And now with the picture of his Father's house before him, with his present distress and poverty and shame, and rags and ingratitude and evil, his heart goes back to the house he had left, and the Father he had so maltreated, and he says, "I will arise." Do you feel a rising at any time? "I will arise, and go to my Father"? And he frames to himself an address, a confession, and a petition, which he would present to his injured Father: I have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight" - how true - "and am no more worthy to be called Thy son" - how true! The petition is, "Make me as one of Thy hired servants." This his Father chokes down, will not listen to.

In the first place, I would make a few remarks upon the condition to which we have all reduced ourselves. We were made upright and in the image of God. We were rich, being well favoured, blessed with power to do what was our duty to do to our Creator and Lawgiver. But we soon became discontented, that is to say, we fell; and the consequence of the Fall was just the condition we are in, and a further consequence, if Christ prevent not, the condition we shall be in through eternity. A woeful condition that. Oh it is good to have eyes to see what we are; good to have a heart to feel what we are; good to have an honest conscience to confess what we have done, and good to have grace in our lame and miserable, wretched and forlorn, ragged and shamed condition to come back. This younger son had no excuses. This is a mark. Before God kindly dealt with Adam, Adam had an excuse for his sin. "The woman Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did eat." Oh what a miserable excuse for sin! Who has it now? Who does not excuse himself? Who does not justify himself? "Are we blind also? We never were in bondage." There were always excuses found by us. Excuses are most prolific in a carnal heart at enmity with God. The prodigal had not one, as far as this parable shows us. All he: had to say, all that was in his mouth, was a confession, with one petition added. He comes in this state.

How does he get back? How does a poor sinner come to God? By the Spirit of grace and of supplication. (Zech. 12:10) How do you guide your horse? With bit and bridle, and by that you turn him whithersoever you will. That is how God deals with people who are coming to Him; how else should they find the way? Who knows his way to God untaught, unled? So the Spirit of grace and of supplication being promised is given; and poor sinners thus blessed come, prodigal-like they come. They are not unobserved, "I have observed him." There is an Eye upon them, even when they are afar off; when they may be finding it difficult to come, feeling shame and pain; when they may be wondering whether God will kindly look on them, or whether rather He will not cut them off the moment He sees them. He looks, this good Father looks upon this returning son, and sees him in his condition of woe; and love will not wait for his weary steps to reach the door, it goes out to meet him. That is just what God does. His love never waits for a sinner to walk all the weary way before it takes a step to him. Love will always be first. Love drew him, pulled him; love moved his conscience and guided his steps; it guided him, and now it goes out to meet him. And you who are returning will find it so one day, whether it be for the first time or as a backslider, you will find it so.

The text is part of the Father's answer to the un grateful and ungracious elder son: "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad." - "There is good reason for it, it is suitable, proper to the occasion." What is this meetness? Well, I understand it spiritually thus:

i. It was meet for eternal love, proper for eternal love to go out to an object of it. How meet it is for God to show love! It is a part of Godï¿½s goodness to communicate of itself; and there is no more proper object in the world than a prodigal, no other object so proper, since all men are sinners. It is meet for God's goodness to communicate of itself to a poor, returning, miserable, ragged, shamed prodigal. God will communicate of Himself; there is much in Him that is communicable, and which therefore He communicates. He can and does communicate of His love. "I have loved thee," He says to some, "with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." (Jer. 31:3) And "the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost." It is not more natural for our sun to communicate of its light and heat than it is for God to communicate of His love. It is not more natural for all rivers to run into the sea than it is for the river of God's love to run to His elect people. Oh, God is good. God is love. He cannot, I would say it properly and with reverence, He cannot keep all this to Himself. He will not, because it is for men, poor, yet elected men. Oh, it is meet that God should be glad when one born of Him, bought by Him, quickened by Him, comes in his misery and emptiness and hunger and guilt; it is meet that a God of love, should be glad. If angels, pure creatures, rejoice in heaven over repenting sinners, how much more will a God of love, who has made them repenting sinners, rejoice over them in their repenting condition! This is one great mystery of God, that He receives sinners, and eats with them; does not disdain them. It would be a great test of human love in any father, to have coming back to his home a son who had wasted all that parental love had given to him to have that son come back disgraced, degraded, and ragged, - to receive him kindly. But the love of God glories in this. This He esteems an honour to Himself, even to forgive sin. He does justify the ungodly.

"Sinners are high in His esteem,
And sinners highly value Him."

"Come then, repenting sinner, come;
Approach with humble faith;
Owe what thou wilt, the total sum
Is cancelled by His death."

It is meet that God should rejoice over, and with, a poor son of His who comes in this condition.

And this is a rebuke - may God make it so to us where it is needed - this is a rebuke to the legal pride, and the preparing disposition, the self-cleansing disposition that we all have, a disposition to fit our selves; all have something of that sort. This parable rebukes it; and it says,

"Come needy, come naked, come loathsome, come bare,
You can't come too filthy, come just as you are."

There is never a harder thing for a poor sinner to do than that, and especially if he has wasted a good deal of God's money, - I mean a child of God who has wasted the good things, as we have it in the prophecy of Ezekiel, poured out the wine that God gave him as a libation to some idol, and spent the gold and the silver that God gave him on some vanity, and given the fine linen and the flax and all that God had given to him, to adorn some vanities. Oh, for such a person, for such a person to come boldly, is no easy matter! Some of us have been fools, and spent up all the oil and treasure that was ever in our hearts; then to come boldly is one of the greatest acts of faith that ever God will enable us to perform. "It was meet." Sinner, think of it, if you can. It is meet that God should rejoice with a bad son, and over him; meet that He should rejoice with a bankrupt son; meet that He should rejoice with a poverty-stricken and hunger-bitten son, and meet that He should fall on the neck of a ragged, polluted son, and kiss him; because he is His son, and because He loves His son.

This, as opened, will be an encouragement to us who resemble, to our pain and shame, the prodigal son. Love will bridge over every gulf between God and His coming sons. Love will do everything that a returning son requires to have done for him. Love thinks, if I may so put it, thinks nothing of the disgrace and the rags of this coming creature, but says, "Oh, welcome, My son! Thou hast been dead, but art now alive; hast been far off, now I welcome thee to My house again. Come in, come in." Here is love's feast, here is Wisdom's house, here are "her seven pillars," indicating no possible change in God. "Come into this house of wine, this banqueting house." It is meet for love. Love ought to be exalted, love ought to be extolled and made very high in this chapel, because some of us are amongst the worst of all the prodigals God has ever had to receive, and has received. "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad." Angels making merry, saints, brethren making merry, the Father making merry, the Son making merry, and the Holy Ghost making merry, oh, what a rejoicing company! Joy in heaven, joy in the conscience, joy in the spirit, joy in the church of the living God, all because of a poor creature who has disgraced himself, and now despises himself, and is sorry for every wrong step he took, every wrong thought he thought, every wrong word he uttered, and every wrong act he committed, - sorry and ashamed of all and for all; and now that this creature is come back, there is all this joy; great joy, heavenly merrymaking, as if the Fatherï¿½s heart is so glad, and the Son's heart is so glad, and the Spirit's heart is so glad that this sinner has come back, that there cannot be too much made of him. It is difficult to believe it, but it is true. It will bend your soul in deepest admiration and adoration, and melt you into the sweetest grief, and lay you in the deepest depths of a pleasant humility. It will do all this for you, when you get the reception. Oh may the Lord give us to believe it! We are not good when we come back, as the elder son had always remained, in his own judgment; we are to come back poor and wicked, not now doing wickedly, but having done so. It was meet to make merry on account of God's love.

ii. And further, it was meet on account of the atonement of Christ. The church that was purchased by His blood must be freed from death, and must live. The Lamb of God must be given to a poor hunger-bitten sinner who says, "I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not." Oh, there is a feast for you, you who are prodigals, you who are returning, you who are coming back with shame and fear and pain as you view yourselves; there is a feast, a feast of eternal mercy in the blessed Lamb of God. And Christ gives this evidence of life being really possessed or not: "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." (John 6:53) But when a poor creature, finding himself hungry, and no man to give him even husks to eat, gets a drawing in his conscience and heart and spirit unto the Father's house, though he perhaps dares not think of God as his Father, he will find there is a feast awaiting him. The atonement makes a kindly reception necessary. Shall a blood bought sinner be rejected and repelled and turned back, while by the Holy Spirit's power he is coming in prayer and supplications? Never, never. May God give thee courage, poor sinner. If thou art old, and hast many and many a time been received, thou wilt need encouragement to-day. Every sight and sense of sin done against the goodness and love of God is more weighty, more discouraging than the very first sight; always it will be found to be so. But it is meet, it is proper, that the atonement should take effect in the conscience. It is meet that the purchase of Christ's blood should be in Christ's house. It is meet that one for whom that blood was shed should be cleansed by it; and no arguments against it will ever avail in the court of God, nor eventually in the court of conscience. No reasons you can produce will be strong enough to induce the Lord to repel and rebuke you. No. "This is My son, My beloved son, for whom I shed My blood; and that is the reason why, I will receive him. - Come in, thou blessed of the Lord;. come in, maimed and lame and blind and halt; come in, poor and miserable; come in, fraudulent bankrupt." What a gospel God has discovered! It was meet on the ground of the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if sin were a thousand times blacker and guiltier, than it is, it would still be meet to receive the deepest-dyed sinner who, blessed with repentance by the Holy Ghost, comes to God by prayer and supplications.

iii. It was meet because he was a son. In the parable he is a son. "Oh, but I am not," one may say, "at least I think, I fear, I am not." But every one born again is a son; he is begotten of an incorruptible seed, even "by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Pet. 1:23) What does God see in a son? His own nature: sons being made "partakers of the divine nature." Whatever is communicable in God He sees for substance in the son: "Predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son." (Rom. 8:29) And God sees this.

There are several things, which I would just name to you on this point. First, there is the spirit of repentance. "I will arise, I will go; I am sorry for my sin." Is not this an experience that frequently is made yours? Some of you must say it is.

"Repenting saints the Saviour own."

The Father owned this son; and you will own the Saviour when repentance works in you, that kindly spirit, that soft spirit, that tender spirit. God looks upon it. It is meet to rejoice over this, suitable. Why? Ought not the sinner to repent? Yes, but the law, except for the gospel, would not allow him to repent. Further, when he repents, it is by the gospel; and it is meet for God to own that which He Himself has given; meet to rejoice in that which He Himself has wrought. He has wrought the repentance; it is the Spiritï¿½s doing; it is the direct mission and work of the Holy Spirit in a sinner, to produce "repentance toward God." It is acknowledged in the Scriptures to be the work of God, and this is to be preached: "Repentance toward God." The gospel teaches it, the gospel allows it, and the gospel works it in the Spiritï¿½s hand. Repentance! gloomy, some people think; sweet, say all who experience it. O the relief of repentance! the sweetness of dropping a tear before God! the sweetness of being enabled to say, "I will be sorry for my sin" I And the Lord looks on it. O, come in," as if He should say to this poor sinner, "how welcome you are!" May the Lord say it to those of us who are in a case to need it Look at yourself, and what do you see? "Only sin." Nothing else? "Well, yes," one may say, "I do feel grieved that it is so with me. I wish it were otherwise. Oh, I wish I were at the Lordï¿½s feet." Well, the Holy Ghost sees that, because He has wrought it; He has given that very repentance that you so much desire to have, and which really you have.

There is this also: faith, true faith; "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Now faith has a peculiar perception. It goes where reason cannot go; it goes where a legal mind cannot go; it goes out to the blessed work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and it sees in His blood such infinite value as that it begins to plead it. And mark, you who are blessed with faith will perceive it in your own souls at times; that when faith is drawn out into exercise, it will perceive an infinite value in the death of Christ. Faith will work here. This is her work, to fix in the atonement, to plead it before God, to make mention of it, and of it only, before God. The blood of Christ is a precious blood, a sin-cleansing blood, a sin-subduing blood, a sinner-uniting blood, uniting a sinner to God.

"The blood of Christ, a precious blood,
Cleanses from all sin. Doubt it not."

"All sin" is a big word, but the blood of Christ will bring it into your very heart. You will believe it. There was one word that this young man said, - "Father;" he had been at his Father's house. Now with respect to ourselves, we may stick at that a long time; but if we cannot say, "Father," yet if we can by faith speak of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, we shall speak that which is heaven's sweetest music, which gives the Father infinite pleasure, and which will, when applied, give to our consciences the sweetest peace; "It was meet." Oh, it is meet for God, it is meet for Christ, it is meet for the Holy Ghost, to rejoice; and it is meet for angels in heaven and spirits of just men made perfect in heaven, and saints in the church of the living God on earth, - it is meet for all of them: to unite in this merrymaking, this gladness, because one purchased by the blood of Christ is brought into the house of Christ, the banqueting house.

iv. It is meet, because the blessed invitations and promises of the gospel here begin to be fulfilled, and the Word of God can never be broken. Why, my friends, God says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He means it, He really means it. And it is meet when the dear Saviour sees at His heavenly footstool a mourning sinner. Christ sees more in a repenting sinner at His footstool, of beauty and of glory than He can see in all His works of creation and of providence. I am not going too far when I say that; for "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." (Isa. 53:11) Creation was the effect of His power; this, of His sore, soul travail. "Satisfied with such a wretch?" Oh, yes. It is an honour to Him to receive a sinner; He counts it as an honour to Himself to forgive a sinner, to kiss a sinner, to clothe a sinner, to bless a sinner.

v. And lastly, it is meet because of the great change that has taken place in this prodigal. He was dead: yes, dead to all with whom he had lived; and now he is found alive, a living child. What a change! And what a change takes place in us from time to time! from hardness to melting, from rebellion to submission, from rags to the best robe, from doubt to assurance? and from being very weary and footsore with much travelling, to having on us "the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace!" (Eph. 6:15) It is a new creation God sees. Will God call on His children to rejoice in that which He has done and not rejoice in it Himself? "Rejoice for ever in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy." (Isa. 65:18) And when the worst of sinners is brought again, it is indeed fulfilled. This great change is a divine change, divinely wrought, and is for the glory of Him who has done it. "He that hath wrought us," says Paul, "for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit." (2 Cor. 5:5) It is hard to believe that God can ever take any pleasure in us, as we view ourselves, as we feel our sins, as we look at what we have been, and what we have made ourselves, and with what guilt and shame we have covered ourselves; it is hard, I say, to believe that God can take any pleasure in us; and here I shall be the companion of anyone and everyone who may say the same thing. It is most difficult sometimes to think that the Lord can ever look with the eye of approbation, and pleasure on one who has behaved so basely, so dreadfully, so wickedly. But it is even so. God does look on His people with pleasure, He "taketh in them that fear Him." And He sees His fear when He sees a poor sinner coming; He sees His holy fear in his heart, that clean fear that makes a sinner say, "I have sinned, I have sinned."

The prodigal would call his Father's attention to his condition, when he said to himself, "I will say, Make me as one of Thy hired servants." It was as if he should say to himself, "I will show my rags, and I will prove to a demonstration that I am not fit for the house, that I am not fit for the society of my Father; I will demonstrate it by my rags." But the Father, as I said, chokes down this. "Oh," says He, "he is My son: bring forth the best robe, I will justify him." I like the word that Hart has on the prodigal:

"What treatment since he came?
Love tenderly expressed.
What robe is brought to hide his shame?
The best, the very best."

Heaven's best. Better, wisdom cannot devise. Better, omnipotence and love cannot weave; better, infinite abundance cannot bring forth. "And put a ring on his hand." The hand of faith may be ringless for a long time, but one day it shall have the ring of assurance. "And shoes on his feet" - spoken of in the Scriptures as "the shoes of the preparation of the gospel of peace," shoes prepared by God. The peace of God in the conscience will be shoes to tender feet on a rough road. Any trouble is bearable, all difficulties you can face, if the peace of God is in your conscience. And they are spoken of as "shoes of iron and brass;" (Deut. 33:25) because the way is rough, very rough, and will wear out all ordinary shoes, but not these. "Bring forth the best robe; bring forth the ring; put shoes on his feet; I have received him safe and sound. He has spent My money, but I have more, - plenteous redemption, free justification, and I will give it to him. He sinned basely against My love, but My love is unchangeable and un-removable; let him know it, let him feel it; let us make merry." And they would sit down to the feast. The Father would be there, and the Son and the Spirit would be there, and this shamed son would be at His right hand; and lest shame and fear should prevail, the Father would say, "Eat, O friends, and drink abundantly, O beloved." (Songs 5:1) So God works in His dear children, and brings them to this blessed state. I do hope that this parable may be made useful to us. It is a very suitable one for sinners, and the instruction of it, if it be written upon the fleshy tables of our hearts, we shall find to be very good, profitable, strengthening, and comforting; and though it may not come with a sudden flash into your soul, like a flood; yet should it distil like the dew, and fall like the small rain upon the tender herb, may God give you power to regard it as so coming, and to thank Him for it. Amen.

By James Popham

THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN CONVICTION

2011-01-16T17:14:00.001Z

Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, 1920 - By J.K. Popham
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"And when He is come He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment."
(John 16:8)

The context follows thus: "Of sin because they believe not on Me; of righteousness because I go to My Father and ye see Me no more; of judgment because the prince of this world is judged." It is clear from the Scriptures that God has had ever since the fall of Adam much to do with sin. Men, religious men, prefer to sing cheerfully about love. It is a woeful thing to sing about love before there has been mourning for sin. They talk about liberty and a cheerful religion. Better far to be in bondage and crying to God for His liberty than walk at large ignorant of that thing which God hates.

Before entering upon the text, let me invite your attention to a consideration of the tremendous, awful, just, necessary hatred of God to sin. The holiness of His character makes this necessary. God is holy. Let me name two or three instances of the effect of the revelation of God's holiness on the men to whom it was revealed.

First, of all, Moses at the backside of the desert feeding the flock of his father-in-law. He sees a sight that astonishes him, that attracts him; a bush burning but not consuming, retaining itself, its fullness, yet burning. To have seen a bush burning and consuming might have been an ordinary sight, but here was a bush burning but not consuming, and he turned aside to see the sight so extraordinary, and as he drew near God spoke to him and said: "Moses, Moses, take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." (Exo. 3:4,5) God was there, and Moses had to bow down, did bow down. Joshua, the successor of Moses as leader and commander of Israel, saw one day near Jericho a man standing with a drawn sword in his hand, and Joshua went up to Him ignorant of who He was and demanded whether this man was for them or against them; and the word came: "Loose thy shoe, take it off, the place where thou standest is holy;" (Joshua 5:15) and Joshua fell down, fell down on his face. Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died, saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. He saw above it the seraphims each one having six wings; with twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly; and all cried and sang, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts," (Isa. 6:1-3) and the effect upon Isaiah was precisely the same as the effect upon Moses and Joshua, and he expressed the effect: "Woe is me for I am undone;" and why? "I have seen the Lord of hosts." Comparing this wondrous experience with the flippant religion of our nature, what a great thing it is to believe in and know the holiness of God; so to believe and to know it as to tremble and fear and quake! One day men who are flippant, confident, joyful, without the knowledge of God and Christ will see that great God, that wondrous Christ coming, and will flee to the mountains and to caves and to dens and cry unto the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that cometh and from the wrath of the Lamb. I say these things because it is a very important matter in my own judgment and heart, to have a knowledge of sin, as I said at the beginning. The Scripture shows that God has much to do with sin. He speaks of it, He judges it, He describes it, and mercifully He teaches His people what it is.

In the text we have the work of the Spirit set forth. The context contains a promise of the coming of the Spirit in the event, the expedient event of Christ's going away: "If I go away; that is, if I die and through death go to My Father, if I die and put away sin, it is expedient that then I should take possession of the throne and of heaven in the name of My disciples; and when I go, I will not leave them orphans, comfortless, alone, I will send One to them who shall be with them and come by their side and help them and shall dwell in them. And when He comes He will do a great work; He will make men to whom He comes, in whom He dwells, know what sin is. And so this morning, if the Lord will help me, I shall speak to you about the gloomiest and blackest and the filthiest and the worst thing that exists in earth or in hell, that which depraves men, that which binds devils, that which kindles hellsin; that which is in our hearts whether we know it or notsin. Some may say, "Well but we all know this." I wish we did. And they may say therefore it is unnecessary that it should be dwelt upon. No, if we know it, it is still necessary, for the work of conviction does not end after the first work of grace. It goes on, and on, and on. The word "reproof" means to convince, to convict. By reasonings, by shining in, by proofs of wickedness, we are convinced, we are convicted, we are condemned. And this great work is done by a great God, the Holy Spirit, this blessed Spirit, holy, infinitely holy. He condescends to come and rake into the heart of a sinner and open to him his wickedness; show him the desperate condition of his nature and the condemned condition of himself as a person, a sinful man. He, the Spirit, shall convince of sin.

Sin is missing the mark; that is its first meaning, missing the mark. Missing the mark, that is to say, the end of His creation. Created for God, man soon sought to be for himself, and with his eyes opened Adam turned away from his God, his Creator, his Law-giver. He missed the mark when he became his own object, and sin was at once rooted in him and has ever since been rooted in him. It is in us rooted. But so subtle is it, and so has it blinded our understandings, and so has it warped our wills, and so has it captivated our affections, that we think it not to be what it really is. And this our evil condition is described in the word, "dead in trespasses and sins." (Eph. 2:1,5) As a corpse, void of life, unconscious, incapable of feeling its condition, so is the soul of man, dead to God, unconscious of its condition, without feeling, "past feeling" as Paul has it: "Alienated from the life of God through ignorance and wicked works." (Eph. 4:18) The understanding is darkened and that is why we call evil good and good evil; bitter sweet and sweet bitter; for we have no understanding in things, that is in things that pertain to our best interests, in the things which lock us up in the embrace of death, in the things that fit us for perdition, because they are against God. Sin is the transgression of the law. (1 John 3:4) No law, no sin. "I had not known lust," says Paul, "except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Rom. 7:7) Law is a statute, a limitation. It tells a man what to do and what not to do, and that is a limitation, a statute, within which he is to live, if he breaks through he is a transgressor; if he breaks loose and through the hedges, there will be a serpent to bite him. This is sin, and here is the law that says: "Thou shalt not do this; thou shalt do that." It is bad to be a sinner; it is worse, if possible, to be ignorant of that condition.

Now let us look at this great work of the Spirit: "He shall reprove of sin." He shall open to a sinner his condition; He shall show him in some degree what the character of God isholy, holy, holy, and the sight shall have an immediate reflection upon his heart, and in the light thus conveyed the sinner shall see his sins and this shall be a terrible thing to him. It is a terrible thing to see sin in the light and convicting work of the eternal Spirit, the Spirit of God. All the men, all the Christian men in Jerusalem and in Damascus, if they could have been gathered together and had Saul of Tarsus in their midst and had preached Christ to him and produced evidences and proofs from the Scriptures that He who had been crucified recently was the promised Messiahall of them would but have provoked Saul to yet greater excesses of bitterness and desire to persecute. But O, when the light of Christ shined upon Saul and surrounded him with its brilliance and blinded him with its powerful shining, and Saul in reply to the question "Why persecutest thou Me?" heard the voice of the Lord saying to him, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest," then was a work of conviction! It is nowhere recorded what Paul passed through in those three days during which he was blind and while he fasted, but men in this chapel who have had conviction of sin can understand a little of the anguish of his spirit, the fervent confession of his sin, the cries for mercy, the wonder if mercy would come; for it was a terrible thing that had opened to Saul, he was convinced of his sin.

There is a standard, dear friends, by which we must be judged and that standard is God's character as revealed in the law. That standard says, "Come to this or be lost," and when that standard is brought home to the heart and understanding, then is conviction. A sinner perceives that as a rational creature, God's creature, he ought not to be what he is and ought not to do what he does, and that being what he is against his creation and doing what he does against the law of God, he is a sinner, he is a sinner. He sees it in a light not to be disputed; he feels it in a life he does not understand; he realizes it in a power that presses the conviction in on his conscience and he is convinced. Now this conviction by the Holy Spirit enters into the root of the matter, for you find the law of God thus set forth: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment, and the second is like, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." (Mark 12:30,31) You see in the words there is no open act referred to at all. It is love that is demanded. It is love that God requires. With all that you are and all the strength you have, you are to love God, and it is love to your neighbor that forbids a selfish act. It is love in your heart to your neighbor equal to the love you have for yourself.

Now the Spirit's light comes down into this, and though you may have been, may be, the most moral person on which no man could lay his hand in the law of this world, you would in the light of the Spirit showing you what the nature of unbelief is, confess yourself to be the most immoral person breathing God's air; for of all the immoralities that exist the root of all, the deepest and worst of all immoralities, you will find to be unbelief. And the light of God shines on it and a man sees it in his heart, and he unites then with the words in the confession of Hart. Speaking of unbelief he says, "Of all my sins the chief." It was the chief and the beginning of Adam's sin. He believed the representation of the devil rather than the commandment of God. He believed that which took hold of his mind. Hitherto pure, absolutely pure, it took hold of his mind, "Ye shall be as gods;" and that shining forbidden fruit took hold of him and he took it, and this was unbelief. Now that conviction of unbelief going right to the very root of the thing brings a person in guilty. This law was before God promulgated the law of the ten commandments. We Gentiles have no excuse. The Apostle Paul in the Romans tells us this: "For we which have not the law" in the manner and form in which the Jews had it, says he, "have the law." We are without law in that peculiar form, but we have the law, and we see the work of the law and know it in our hearts. And the work of the law is this, that it touches the conscience and accusations are therefore the consequence: "Their consciences the meanwhile accusing or excusing one another among themselves." Accusation and excuses held, and that showed the work of the law in the consciences of these people. Ah, and when God does this it is as if His light fetches up from the corners and depths of our hearts our sins, our secret sinshatred of men, hatred of God, unbelief of God, wrong desires, pride of life, lust of the eyes, covetousness which is idolatry, bitterness, hatred which is murder in God's account. These things are opened and when they are opened to a man, then he groans, he sighs, he mourns; God is terrible to Him: "Say unto God, how terrible art Thou in Thy doings to the children of men." (Ps. 66:3) And this terrible business, that is to say, the terror that is occasioned by the work of the Spirit in conviction, every child of God knows in some measure. I am not saying how deep it shall be, how great and how lasting as to bondage felt, but I am saying what the work of the Spirit is, and may we not turn from it. I know there is an impatience of it in man. I know there is a wish to escape it in us, but it is a mercy to be not so. That bright shining that comes to an old man and makes him see things which in his earlier days he saw not; that shows him the extensiveness of sin, the depths of sin, the universality of sin in him; that all his members, his faculties, all his perception, all his understanding and all his affections and all the motions of his will are corrupted, and that he is incapable by nature of doing that which is good. "He shall convince," the Spirit shall do it.

The Spirit does it and it is a matter for thankfulness indeed wherever it is, because it brings the subject of so great, so wonderful a work to justify God, to condemn self. This conviction makes a man honest; it makes him confess to God whatever is discovered. It makes a child of God feel now he can see no word that could possibly be an exaggeration of the evil that is in him. It makes him honest; it makes him fearful; he wonders what God will do. It makes him understand the quaking of Moses on Mount Sinai; the falling flat on his face of Abraham when God came to him; it makes him enter into these things. He says, "Woe is me, woe is me!" Like Job, he said, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:5) Job's ditch would be a blessing to some. Job's convictions would be a blessing to some who make a profession of religion. It is not a little mercy. Think who make the promise of the Spirit; think who told those disciples what the work of the Spirit should be, and then can you say it is not a mercy to be convinced? It is a mercy. Do men go to heaven ignorant of the hell they deserve? Do they come to know what it is to be made holy by being ignorant of their pollution? Is a guilty person justified while he is ignorant of his guilt? The Spirit's work is a most necessary work. It takes away self-justification; it makes, as I say, a man honest; it makes him fearful; it produces this sweet work of the Spirit, so bitter in our mouth; it produces strong cries, sincere confessions, and fleeing away from the wrath to come. When you see what sin is, it is dreadful; and when you see against whom you have committed it, it is more dreadful: "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." (Ps. 51:4)

Now Christ said: "Of sin, because they believe not on Me." I have just said, and this word proves it to my own mind, that unbelief is the greatest immorality in the world. For what can be more immoral than to disbelieve the word and the Person of the Son of God? This is sin. This is the chief of all sin: "They believe not on Me." (John 16:9) Now who can describe fully the exercise and trouble that this work of conviction will produce in a sinner. God is in His holy temple; He has reason to judge a sinner, and when God arises to judge a sinner how can that sinner stand? Think of it, you who have undergone this work and are undergoing it, for it is not done at once. You know what I say is true. It brings great concern. It has some peculiar effects which will distinguish all the subjects of it from heady, high-minded professors.

One is this, sooner or later, there is lodged and rooted in the heart and mind a true sense of helplessness. Paul had it: "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." (Rom. 7:18) When I would pray, then I do not. When I would love, enmity is present. When I would believe, unbelief troubles me and prevails. When I would do good, evil is present with me, and how to perform that which is good I find not; that is, do not know how to do it, have no power to do it. And this helplessness wrought in him this cry: "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24) I am helpless, I am helpless, who shall deliver me? Is there a hand to help me? Is there a power to deliver me.

It produces hopelessness, not in God's mercy, but in self. "I thank God," said Paul "through Christ Jesus;" there was the victory. Hopelessness in self will be the sure effect. Perhaps it comes gradually, but it comes surely. It becomes rooted in the heart and conscience that in himself a sinner has no hope. He looks at his wrongs and is sorry, but he dare not after a time say, "I will not commit them again." No, the Spirit's convicting work cures a man in time of promising that he will do better in the future than he has done in the past. It brings him to utter hopelessness in himself. His powers are so corrupted, his understanding is so warped, his will is so perverse, that he now knows he can do nothing good, nothing. These are two effects which every child of God finds sooner or later in himself. He is helpless, he is hopeless; and now if there come not another to him, what can prevent the pit from shutting her mouth upon him? Here is the sinner. Talk of goodness in the creature, he says, "I have none." O but men will have it after all, that sincerity will please God! And the sinner says: "I wish I had even a little of that, but I have none of that." What! Yes, hypocrisy is in us. The best child of God would not dare to lift up his face to the Lord and say, "Lord, my sincerity is universal in me; it is prevalent in everything in me." He could say, "I am sincere in my desire to know God and to escape the wrath to come;" but who could dare to say that when he analyses he is constantly and universally sincere? O he is a poor ruined creature! When sin smote us to the earth, it did not half smite us down. When it touched our faculties, it did not half deaden them. When it polluted our nature, it did not leave some spots untouched. The work was complete, we are ruined.

He shall convince us of our enmity of God, that bitter feeling. Why perhaps some here would even now be disposed to say that whatever they are and whatever they possess naturally, they would gladly part with if they could feel one little feeling of love to the Almighty, but it is not there unless put there by the Spirit. "Jesus gives us pure affections." They do not exist in nature fallen. Conviction goes in several directions. First, backward. It went backward in David: "I was shapen in iniquity." (Ps. 51:5) He saw his beginning was wrong: "In sin did my mother conceive me." It comes on through life. Everything we have done was wrong; we see it to be. Something mars what you have done; some bad motive, some wrong aim, some infamous wish, you find to have marred everything you have done. What may shine amongst men is in your own eyes hateful, because of the inward spring of that which was sinful. It goes forward: "What will become of me? Shall I die in my sins?" It goes upward by the moving of the Holy Spirit: "God be merciful to me a sinner." (Luke 18:13) It debases the creature exceedingly; the creature in his desire is lifted up by the Spirit to Jesus Christ to cry for mercy. He is lifted up in his prayers, and though hopeless in himself and though nearing the grave, perhaps after a long profession he says: "Now I have nothing I can look to in myself, nothing I can depend on that I have done, nothing I have done am I pleased with, seeing myself in the light of God's teaching, butand here is a groundbut I hope in God's mercy in Jesus Christ."

And this blessed moving of his spirit and heart by the Holy Ghost brings him to a hope, a sweet hope, and also a believing venture; yes, "I venture all on One." "Naught have we to look unto, but the blood of Jesus." And here begins the dawn of day. I will say in every individual comes the dawn of a Christian's day, the dawn of Jesus Christ, the uprising of Him as the Son of Righteousness, so that the sinner feels, vile and lost though he is, there is in Christ reason for hope, ground for pleading, arguing, wrestling with God in prayer and supplication. Looking in his mind to hell he says, "There I deserve to be." Lifting his eyes in the power of the Spirit heavenward, he says: "There I long to be." Seeing Jesus the Saviour of the lost he says: "In Him I would be found, to Him would I run, on Him depend, to His blood would I go daily for cleaning and for mercy and for forgiveness."

The Spirit's work in conviction then is a saving work. Man may be cut to the heart by some natural feeling about sin and it will be healed and pass away, but when pricked and moved and touched and taught by the Holy Ghost the effect is an abiding effect. It does not pass away, it grows; so grows that the sinner more and more, the longer he lives, becomes convinced of sin. "Say unto God, how terrible art Thou in Thy doings." How terrible is this work, like the skilful surgeon, the Spirit comes and as it were says to the sinner, "This must be probed." The sinner winces, shrinks back, and would avoid the troublesome and painful operation if he could. But no, he is held to it, he must have these probes, and being honest he is brought to say: "Lord, help me to bear it; help me to look at the sight; help me to wait on Thee in it." It is great to be really held to convictions. "O but I am afraid!" You will be, and the more you are convinced, the more fearful of sin you will be, but the more precious will Christ be as He is made known by His good Spirit.

"He shall convince of sin," but "He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you." (John 16:14) Are you lost? He shows a Saviour. Are you naked? He convinces of a righteousness divine. Are you polluted? He opens a fountain and reveals it to a sinner as open. Are you fearful of coming? He says: "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." (Isa. 55:1) Are you really hopeless in yourself? He says, "From Me is thy help, in Me is all you need." So this work of the Spirit is very merciful, and it will bring you to value the blessed Rock of Ages and cleave to that and embrace it for want of a shelter. "He shall convince of sin." He shall do it. It is His work and there is mercy in it, unspeakable mercy in this work of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord grant we may not lack it. O think it not a dreadful thing, though in itself full of pain and shame, yet wrought by the Spirit, this conviction is sure to issue in the sweetest consolation, because Christ shall be known as the Friend of sinners.

Now my friends, I must leave this matter. It is solemn; but to escape it, to miss it, to miss the work of the Spirit, if I may so say, the initial step in the life of a Christian, the initial step toward heaven by a pilgrim, what is it? It is death. For how can you take the second step, faith in the Lord Jesus, if you never take this first step? How can you be a believer in redemption, if you are not first a believer in your bondage and your sin? And if you never mourn over sin in you, how can you ever come to rejoice in Christ Jesus? May the Lord then grant this merciful work to be in us, that in the end we may thank Him for His correction which has often perhaps been grievous to us and open the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. Amen.

THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN GLORIFYING CHRIST

2011-01-16T17:10:00.001Z

Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, 1920 - By J.K. Popham
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"He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you."
(John 16:14)

When an architect is about to erect a building he makes provision in his plans for the foundation. He makes provision according to the building he is to erect. If it be but a cottage, a footing will do; if it be a large building the foundation must be according to it. And further, he will consider the nature of the soil on which the building is to be erected. If it be sandy and if the sand be deep, then the foundations must go down. The architect is supposed to be wise, he is supposed to be sufficient for his work. When God will build, and He will, wise wonderful Architect that He is, He makes provision for the foundation and has respect to the nature of the building and of the soil, and He digs deep and reaches the rock before He begins to build. When it pleased God to begin with some of us what did He do? Did He make us rejoice in Christ before we mourned over self? Did we feel glad before He made us sorry? No the text is a very beautiful one, but it has a connection, a context. Go back to the eighth verse on which I made some remarks this morning: "He shall convince of sin." He digs, He finds sand, mud, mire; but He digs, He digs down, He convinces of sin; shows the sinner his nature, shows him his wickedness, his deceitfulness, his lust, his corruption. He alarms him by some thunder of the law. He alarms him by some views given to him of God, of the character of God with whom he has to do. He alarms him by giving him some sense of the evil desert of sin, that it deserves punishment; some view of hell; some view of divine justice; some sense of the power of God who after He hath killed the body hath power to cast into hell. And this work, so painful, so alarming, is necessary; it is like digging the foundation. As if the architect has gone to the site and found the nature of the soil and has said: "Well, we must go down very deep." God, looking at a sinner says, "I must dig deep." It may take years in His sovereignty, it may take years to do it. A little here, a little there, an alarm today, and something tomorrow. A sight of sin, and the eye is held to it till the sinner feels as if he can scarcely live under the sight. Then perhaps a relapse into a carelessness till God comes again and sends some alarm of war in his conscience, and then again he cries out: "What shall I do? Eternity is coming, I am hastening to it, what shall I do? I am wrong and fear I never shall be right, God be merciful to me a sinner." That sinner little thinks what God is doing. What digging, preparing, turning away, casting out, God is doing in order that there may be laid well the Foundation Stone, the tried stone, the precious corner stone. And later the sinner says: "How can I bless God enough for taking such pains with me, convincing me by degrees, and by degrees leading me to a sense of my ruined state? How can I thank Him enough, although I don't know the day when I became concerned? Though I don't know the means by which the work was started, yet now I could but believe it was God's beginning. It has been God's work and I, often distraught, often careless, often wounded, and often seeming to get slightly healed, I am brought now to feel there is one blessed Foundation Stone laid in my heart, that is Jesus Christ. Well dear friends, it may be God's great pleasure toward us, I hope it will be, to lead us to value conviction of sin. May we never undervalue trouble of soul, our own soul; may we never undervalue that digging, that painful alarm that God may be pleased to give us to make us aware of our desperate state by sin, by the fall, by our practice, and by the law of God.

Now the context says still further that the Spirit shall convince of sin because of unbelief. Do you think that Israel with all his idolatrous departures from God, setting up the basest of men to be priests and so forth, ever committed one sin in all the years of its history, black history indeed for the most part - ever committed one sin equal to this, the utter rejection and hatred of Jesus Christ? No, I believe that was the sin of that nation. In type this sin was committed by Israel in the wilderness when they loathed the light food which God daily gave to them from heaven; for that manna was a type of the Bread of life that came down from God. And do people commit this sin today? Christ came to His own nation, and His own nation received Him not, but can people commit this sin today? Let me answer the question by a question. Is it a part of the Bible revelation that God sent His only begotten Son into this world? Yes. And can there be this revelation of God and men trample it under foot and say Christ is not what the Bible declares Him to be; that He is not the absolute and only Saviour that the Bible says He is; that He was not born as the Bible says He was; that His sacrifice was not vicarious as the Bible declares it to have been; that He is not in heaven with His own blood, the only Redeemer and Saviour, as the Bible says He is? Can, I say, men do such and such things with respect to Jesus Christ and be guiltless? No, and they will be convinced of it one day. Blessed be God, some are convinced of it savingly! O what mercy to see that our pride, our indifference, our rejection of the blessed Son of God is our sin! What a mercy to confess and forsake it!

And the Spirit convinces of righteousness "because I go to My Father and ye see Me no more." They said He had a devil, that He was mad, that He cast out devils by the prince of devils, that He blasphemed because He said He was the Son of God and God was His Father. They said that He was a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. They said all these things about this glorious Person. But He said: "The Spirit shall show men that it is otherwise. My resurrection, My ascension to My Father shall prove that I was, that I am the Son of God and the sent of God, and that My righteousness, the righteousness I wrought out is the only robe for justification; the only covering that a sinner can have to stand him in good stead, to present him as a just person before the presence of My glory."

"Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." The prince of this world was cast out and conquered when Jesus said, "It is finished," and when He arose and ascended into heaven, then He led captivity captive and receive gifts for men; then the prince of this was cast out. Christ saw Him as lightning fall from heaven. There were other things which Christ had to say to His disciples, but which because they were of a spiritual kind, of a kingdom which as yet they little understood, He would not say them now, but afterwards His Spirit should say them to them: "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things to come." (John 16:12,13)

He will guide you into all truth. He will open your eyes to see and your ears to hear the things which now you are too carnal to bear. He will do it, for He shall not speak of Himself. He shall not come as if on a completely separate mission, separate from Myself and from My Father; He shall not speak of Himself. He shall not speak with the concurrence of My Father and Myself. He shall come in the fulfilment of a common end, with My Father and Myself and He the Spirit, all of Us. One end, one covenant to open, one mercy to give, one life to impart, one justification to bring, one salvation to work, one heaven to give to those who deserve hell. He shall not speak of Himself; He shall not come on a mission of His own without My Father and Myself; but whatsoever He shall speak, and speak He shall in My name, that you shall hear, and He will show you things to come. Mercies, good things to come and sufferings to come and heaven to come. He shall show you all these things.

And then come the words which I have read for a text: "He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you." The Person of the Holy Ghost is as necessary for salvation as is the Person of Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost in sinners is as necessary for salvation as was the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The Person of the Spirit, the Person of the Holy Ghost and His blessed work, are absolute necessities, even as are the Person and the work of Christ. And the end of His work the text declares; what He is to do, what He shall do the text opens. He is to speak not of Himself, but of another; He is to speak of Christ, He is to glorify Him, set Him up, and receive of things which are Christ's and show them to the wondering eyes of sinners.

Let us look as enabled for a short time at this great matter, the glorifying of Christ in sinners' hearts; for this is what is intended: "And show it unto you." Give you, My disciples, who now while I am with you are unable to bear all that is to be brought to you later; He shall do it, He shall glorify Me.

First of all, He shall glorify Christ in His great work of redemption. The name Redeemer is full of meaning. It is full of liberty, it is full of peace, it is full of heaven, and this is to be made known. Men who are slaves to sin and in bondage to the law of God, are to be redeemed, and by Christ they were redeemed, but they know it not. Indeed, by nature they often are ignorant of their bondage and are quite ready to say with the Jews: "Are we in bondage? We never were in bondage." Among the fiercest of all the controversies in religion that have been waged and carried on for generations, this is one of the greatest, namely the liberty of man. Men will have it that they are free. They will have it that there is no bondage about them, and that no one can coerce them, nothing can coerce; that they are free in all they do. Free in their tongues: "Our lips are our own, who is Lord over us?" (Ps. 12:4) This is our claim, but it is a foolish claim, a false claim; we have no ground at all. Because we are free to come into this chapel this evening, or not to do, according to the choice of our minds, it does not follow that we are free to do good, and to choose good, and to choose God, and to choose what is right. We are slaves, my friends; we are slaves to sin, and God loved some of us. O that it might be made known! He has loved us as we hope, so well, so eternally, as to come and to be our Redeemer. And to be our Redeemer meant this, that He must take our place, our precise place, come exactly into our condition, not of inherent sin, but of imputed sin, and also our place in respect of punishment and death and curse.

And the Spirit glorifies this work of Christ. He sets it high as God said to Moses, "Make a serpent of brass and set it on a pole," (Num. 21:8) there in that wilderness, that arid dangerous place, with men bitten, poisoned, dying. Lift it up, that these dying men looking on it may find a cure. So He will have this gracious One, Jesus Christ, lifted up high above all others, above all men, all remedies. All things shall be beneath Him and He shall be just one alone lifted up in the gospel and in the ministry that the eyes of poor sinners, poor dying creatures shall, as drawn toward Him, see Him and see Him to be the remedy. Not one remedy of many, but the only remedy; not one of many Redeemers, but the only Redeemer. Ah, Christ shall have no peer in this business, no co-operator, no partner in this business! And O when a sinner, sensible of his position and condition, has given to him a sight of this Christ, this Redeemer, having accomplished the whole work on the cross, having said, "It is finished," that sinner looks with wonder and sees everything in Christ that he stands in need of. All that liberty he pants for; that redemption he longs to feel; that peace of conscience he has panted after; that justification he has prayed for; he sees all to be in this Person, in this work. As if he should say: "Now the cross, I see it, the cross is all that I need." The Spirit lifts Him up. O that He would help me to do it properly! He lifts Him up. He says by Paul there shall be no glorying; no flesh shall glory in the presence of the Lord. (1 Cor. 1:29) "Let him that glorieth," He says by Jeremiah, "glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercises righteousness and lovingkindness and mercy in the earth; for in these things do I delight, saith the Lord." (Jer. 9:24)

"He shall glorify Me, He shall receive." The Father gave mercy and life to Christ for His children; gave a revelation to Christ as to what He should speak and what He should do, and now having spoken that and done that, He goes to heaven, and before He goes He says to His disciples: "Now My Spirit whom I will send, the Holy Ghost whom My Father will send, He in the covenant, He in His turn shall receive of Mine. I receive these things from My Father as the Surety. Now My Spirit shall receive them from Me and he shall show them to you." O what a Revealer the Holy Ghost is! You might attain to considerable knowledge in the Scripture by careful reading; you might obtain a considerable degree of notion respecting this Redeemer; you might have some natural rational conviction that what you read in the Scripture of Him is true, and you might make a profession of Him; you might be baptized in His name, and be destitute of this revealing that the Spirit here is to give of Jesus Christ, and all your attainment be just nothing as to profit, just nothing. But O if this divine Person, this glorious Holy Ghost, is pleased to bring and set before you, a mourning sinner, a convinced sinner, the Lord's death, you will see it then and feel it in a light and a life that no natural man can enter into!

"He shall glorify Christ" as the Mediator. There is one God, holy, holy, holy; one God, terrible to sinners, dreadful in His justice, awful in His majesty, unapproachable in His holiness. One God inflexible in His justice; one God eternally awful in His threatenings against sinners. One God omnipotent, able to kill the body and cast the soul into hell. There is one God; yes and we here have to do with Him. We must stand before Him. But what if we are alone? What if we have no Mediator? What if God should come in His naked justice to us, and arraign us and read out our indictment, our sins, open the book written of our life and should read out to our ears what we have done, and no Mediator? O, what has the thought been to some here? No Mediator! I, a poor wretch, to stand before that gaze, that wondrous gaze of God; that pure penetrating eye of God. Now when the Holy Spirit comes to such a sinner and shows him a Mediator, "there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus," (1 Tim. 2:5) that brings hope, that attracts the soul, that seems to the eye of faith to cover the case completely. Here is a sinner, unable to bear God's glory; here between that glory of God and the sinner is the Man Christ Jesus, and this sets Him up. O this makes Him wonderful and beautiful to the sinner! This is one of the ways the Spirit glorifies Christ, magnifies Him before the soul, magnifies His great office of Mediator, so that faith sees all the protection, all the advocacy, all the prevailing arguments that a Mediator can use. He sees the Mediator thus and that proves one of the sweetest attractions, one of the most powerful manifestations a sinner can have. At this part of his experience it is like a new life coming into his heart, a new light into his understanding, and a new feeling of attraction to God. Instead of repulsion there is attraction; a drawing invincible it is. Not a harsh compulsion, but a sweet drawing, and this is that that Christ speaks of when He says: "Every man that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto Me." (John 6:45) And how does a man hear and learn of the Father? Why, by the Spirit whom the Father sends in the name of Christ; by the Spirit whom Christ sends. "Whom my friends, no sinner who gets such a sight of Christ shall sink into hell. Christ is between that sinner and the Father; Christ is between that sinner and hell. He may not believe it for a time, but he will really experience it. "He shall glorify Me."

He shall glorify My power. "No man can pluck them, that is My sheep, out of My hand." (John 10:28) A man can pluck you from your notions; he can pluck your Calvinism from your judgment. The devil can pluck your morality from you and he can ruin you in many ways, if permitted. But if you be a weak creature committing yourself by prayer and supplication in the Spirit into the hands, that is the care and protection of Christ, who shall pluck you thence? And the Spirit lifts this poor creature up. You say, it may be very often some of you say to the Lord: "Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe;" (Ps. 119:117) Lord keep me in this hour of danger. Perhaps some man rises up against you, perhaps some violent temptation seizes you, perhaps some trying providence is a danger to you in your sense of the matter, and you are ready to be plucked up, cast down, thrown down, destroyed; and O if the Spirit should let you see, give you to see the Lord God omnipotent reigning; the Man Christ Jesus with all power and authority given to Him in heaven and in earth; to see how He can restrain the wrath of man, how He rules devils, how He sits upon the floods, how He rules the raging of the sea when the waves thereof lift themselves, how He binds the floods from overflowing, how He can control that providence, rule that man, chain that devil, guide you through that difficulty, order that circumstance so that the hell that you now fear shall turn to your good and the glory of God; and that all this power is in Jesus Christ; that will glorify Him. It will set Him up higher than man, higher than devils; set Him up in your affections where God the Father has set Him; "above all principalities and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but in the world to come." (Eph. 1:21) All things are under His control. Then says a sinner, "I will now commit my body, my soul, my family, my circumstances; I will commit my way, and my troubles into His gracious hand. The Spirit glorifies omnipotence, sets it before faith. Who can pluck the sinner from omnipotence, an omnipotent God keeping? "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation" (1 Pet. 1:5)kept. We say sometimes, "Myself I cannot save, myself I cannot keep; but strength in Thee I fain would have, whose eyelids never sleep." Here is the sovereign Protector, the mighty, Almighty Jesus. Here is the One who is sent of the Father to preserve alive His children in the wilderness. What if you have to go to some sort of person? If the God of Joseph is with you as He was with Joseph, all will be well. So when He is seen thus, there is no object intervening as it were between you and this uplifted One, this omnipotent Christ.

He will glorify His fullness. The fullness of Christ means eternal life, everlasting righteousness, free forgiveness, perseverance to the end, grace to keep, grace to comfort, peace to console, strength to preserve you, pure life to keep you from the corruption of your nature, power to keep you from the devil, to keep the devil from you, power to bless you in your troubles, fullness to supply you in all your needs, and give you glory afterwards. The fullness of Christ means all that and infinitely more. May He pardon such a poor word about it. The fullness of Christ is celebrated in one of our hymns:

A fullness resides in Jesus our Head,
And ever abides to answer our need."

And there is a redundance in Him. We read of plenteous redemption. There is plenty of everything; and faith sees it, and it lifts Him up. The wife can never say she is poor while her husband has wealth, and the sinner can never properly say he is poor while Jesus is wealthy, has all this fullness, and this mercy, all this goodness; and the Spirit lifts all this up. "He shall glorify Me," and He shall say to a sinner, "Fear not. O fear not your emptiness, fear not your lacks, here is a fullness to supply you!" You may say, "But I have no religion." Christ has plenty to give. You may say, "I have no grace." Christ has plenty to give: "He giveth more grace." You may say, "I have no consistency, I am afraid my inconsistencies will provoke the Lord one of these days to come out against me." Christ has perfection to impute and to impart. Not to excuse wrong in us. He will give reproofs which will show us that. But He has plenty, plenty of everything. The Spirit glorifies Him in His fullness and this mighty strengthens faith, in those in whom it is created, to go to Him. "Large petitions with thee bring." Why? O, says the hymn: "Thou art coming to a King. Thou art coming to a King, large petitions with thee bring; for His grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much."

"He shall glorify the faithfulness of Christ. "I will never leave thee, I will never forsake thee," (Heb. 13:5) is His word. There is one thing we shall never be able to do as God teaches us, namely this, we shall never be able to say to the Lord we have been faithful to Him as we should have been. We are called "treacherous dealers." "I knew thee," said the Lord, "that thou wouldest deal very treacherously;" (Isa. 48:8; 21:2; 24:16) and cannot, have not some of you, some of us many and many a time, had to go in secret and mourn and confess the treacherous dealings of our hearts to God? O but there is a faithful One who says to a faithless sinner, "I will never leave thee!" Thou hast cast thyself upon Me, I will never cast thee off; thou hast professed that thou hast no hope but in Me, I will never disappoint that hope; thou hast come poor and lost, I will never, never leave thee to ruin." And He is faithful, He is as good as His word, my friends, and better than our expectations, better than all we can think of Him. In this particular as in others, He is better than we can think. He has no disposition to give up His word. It is His character, that He cannot lie. He has no reason in circumstances to give up His word, to forego His promise. We may be quite honest in making a promise and quite sincere in desiring to make it good; but there may be reasons, there may be circumstances over which we can have no control, to prevent our fulfilling that we have said we will do. But there is no reason in our circumstances why God should not fulfil His word to us. O but my sins! Did He not know them? "I knew thee that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, I knew it." "But since in love I took thee in, My promise I'll fulfil. I will never leave thee. I will guide thee with Mine eye, and afterwards receive thee to glory. I will sustain thee, I will hold thee up with the right hand of My righteousness." O what a promising God some of us have, blessed be His name! And now in a world of faithlessness, and a world of faithless people, a poor church that can never boast of consistency, a poor sinner who says, "Lord I have been faithless through all," there is One lifted up high above all, and this is His name: "the Faithful Witness, the Faithful God." This is His promise: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Does it fit, my friends? But these circumstances? He knows them all. They are as much at His bidding as is the storm. Therefore it is one of the Spirit's blessed works in men to glorify the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, and this He is to show and shall show it unto you; let you see it by faith, that it shall not be a matter of speculation with you, but of faith, faith in the bleeding Lamb, faith in Him whose name is Faithful.

And lastly, He shall glorify My glory, He shall set My glory up. It shall be seen how glorious I am, and He shall so show it to His children that they shall enter into what the Apostle Paul says in the Corinthians: "We all with open face beholding as in glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. 3:18) What an amazement it is to a sinner when he gets a view of the glory of Christ, of His Person, of His work, of His love, of His precious atonement, of His divine righteousness! He gets a view of it. He does not think about it simply, he really sees it. It is set before his eyes as that that God has shown to him, he sees it, and it has an effect upon him. It puts His own image upon him. Not that he sees himself having this glory so as to boast and be proud, but it comes upon his soul and God sees it there. God sees in His children often what they see not in themselves. They see this glory. But also they see that which they are to go and inherit one day: "Partner of My throne shall be." Partner of Christ's throne. O, frequently conquered sinner, think of it! Partner of the throne of the Conqueror, the King of kings and Lord of lords! And this is set before the eyes of poor believers who feel themselves such unbelievers as to be oppressed often and distressed. He shall receive of Mine. All these infinite mercies, blessings, favours, which Jesus Christ is full of, His Spirit shall take and open and show to sinners, demonstrate them; set them before a man with clearness so that though he may know but little, He can say: "Now I do just know that. I have seen the Lord; I have seen His redeeming work, it has fitted me as a captive; I have seen the fountain of His merit, it has fitted me as a guilty creature; I have seen his goodness, it has fitted me as one utterly bad and wicked. It is not speculation, it is a knowledge, a blessed knowledge that the Holy Spirit gives of Jesus Christ. May the Lord give it to us for His great name's sake.

Now dear friends in conclusion, let me press this on your notice, that there is no one in heaven or in earth can effectually convince us of sin but the Spirit, it being His work, His appointed work; and there is no one in heaven and in earth who can glorify Jesus Christ in the heart of a sinner, but that Spirit whose appointed work it is to do it. And therefore may we who are convinced of sin, who need a Saviour, be led to cry mightily to this Holy Ghost that He would condescend to lift up Christ that we may view Him. That the poison of sin, the arrows of the Almighty, the workings of indwelling corruption may be seen, all of them, to be under the hand of this Redeemer, this sufficient, this wondrous, the glorious Redeemer. May the Lord bless you, my friends, and grant that whatever you lack you may not lack this. Amen.

THIS MAN RECEIVETH SINNERS

2011-01-15T21:14:00.002Z

Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, 1891 - By J.K. Popham
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"And the Pharisees and scribes murmured saying, This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them."
(Luke 15:2)

That which was Christ's reproach in the eyes of the Pharisees and scribes is His glory in the eyes and hearts of His people, and it is their mercy and salvation. How suitable is the Person of Jesus Christ, and how it pleases the Holy Ghost to make that suitability known to His people! As Paul says: "For such a High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." (Heb. 7:26) And if the Holy Spirit but spake that word into your hearts, you would feel it: "Such a High Priest." No poor sinner ever could, or ever would, be allowed in his person to approach a holy God. Therefore if there were no holy Mediator provided, even Jesus Christ, all poor sinners would remain cut off from God; hence Christ's suitability.

I remember on one occasion when at Gower Street, I quoted that verse from the Hebrews, "Such a high priest became us;" and there was a poor girl in the chapel who was in trouble about her soul, a total stranger to me. When she heard it, she said to herself: "O that he would repeat it!" and continued saying that. As I went on I perceived a very solemn feeling come upon my spirit, and I stopped and said: "Perhaps it might be a comfort to some poor soul present, if I repeat that Scripture," and I repeated it: "Such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners;" (Heb. 7:26) and as I repeated it, the Holy Ghost was pleased to drop it into that poor girl's heart and deliver her soul; and she was soon after taken to Himself.

You who are taught of God know that you cannot get near Him without Jesus Christ. God, in the law, has shut up the way and guards the tree of life; but Jesus opened a new and living way in His own Person, the glorious God-Man Mediator, Jesus Christ. Ah, hell must receive everyone who does not know the way to God by Jesus Christ! But hell cannot receive one sinner who finds his way to God by this only living Way, the Man Christ Jesus; and none can be severed who are joined to God in the Person of Christ. "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." (Matt. 19:6) O what a favour to have eyes to see, and a heart to receive, Jesus Christ! And what a blessing to feelingly need Him! To have "sins immense as is the sea," and to cry with the poet:

"Hide me, O Gethsemane!"
This Man, Christ Jesus, always has appeared to His people. He said, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day, he saw it and was glad." (John 8:56) That is "the day of the Lord" when God appears to His seeking people. The Psalmist says: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." (Ps. 118:24) None can make days but God. "I form the light and create darkness." (Isa. 45:7) The Psalmist says again: "Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth." (Ps. 104:20) That was a night to Abraham, when he had to take Isaac and offer him up. And when the night was darkest and the knife was raised to slay his son, God said: "Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son." (Gen. 22:12,13) If ever you are in bondage, bound under the law, and then lift up your eyes, the eyes of a divinely-wrought faith, and see Jesus in the sinner's place, that will be "the day of the Lord" to you. Christ is suitable to troubled people. He is the "Brother born for adversity." He came right into Abraham's trouble, and Abraham saw the day of Christ, and was glad.

After that, you find that He appeared to Jacob. When he left his father's house and was on his way to Padan-Aram, he was in real trouble. "He lighted upon a certain place and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep." And there the Son of God appeared to him, so that he said: "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." (Gen. 28) Again, when Jacob was returning to his father's home by divine direction, "there wrestled a Man with him." If people are not in trouble they do not want Him. Where people take things up of themselves, after a time they drop them again; but when "this Man" comes and lays hold of a sinner, faith clings to Him. Thus when He said, "Let Me go, for the day breaketh," faith answered: "I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me." And you know that cannot be without trial, because flesh must be weakened. "And He said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And He said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed." (Gen. 32) Thus we see how God appeared unto Jacob and received him, Have you ever felt like Abraham when he said, "Who am but dust and ashes?" (Gen. 18:27) The way to acceptance with God is not by being clean, but by being a poor broken-down creature, a sensible sinner, and finding acceptance by the merits of the Saviour through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Look at Moses. Forty years before the Lord appeared to him, he thought himself somebody. Stephen said that when Moses slew the Egyptian, "he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not." (Acts 7:25) He had to go to the back side of the desert for forty years, and when God wanted him he was not ready. People are never ready when God wants them, until He works the will. Moses said to God: "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt." But God appeared to him in the bush which was not consumed, although it burned with fire, representing the eternal God in our nature, humanity. Now that is the greatest sight God can reveal God in our nature. "Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God;" and he took off his shoes and worshipped. (Exo. 3)

God appeared to Job. Job said: "I know that my Redeemer liveth." (Job 19:25) He could not have known that without a revelation of Him: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." He who had reckoned that his life was wind and his eyes should no more see good; a poor wretched creature full of trouble, yet there he was, blessed with this revelation of God in Christ. This is "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." (Eph. 1:17) The only way in which the people of God can have certain knowledge of the Son of God is by revelation. This revelation gives a certain uncontrollable evidence of the Person of Christ. I call it "uncontrollable," because it cannot be restrained or kept back. On the contrary it controls everything when it comes in. It beats down unbelief, scatters ignorance and darkness, and swallows up death. O what a mercy to know this most suitable, able, willing, gracious God in our nature, who being "God's Fellow," (Zech. 13:7) is able to lay His hand on an offended God and offending men, and so bring these two together! God the Father has made Him to be "the Propitiation for the sins of His people." Poor soul, if you know Him by the Holy Ghost, how soft, how humble, it will make you before God! And when you see Him, O what a sight it is! And see the effect of it. It clean cuts a man off from his sins, as to their power and his living in them. Zacchaeus, when God called him by His grace, stood and said unto the Lord: "Behold Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." (Luke 19:8) O what a change! The possession of Christ and His grace manifested by the effect produced in respect of good works in different cases and circumstances! O what a blessed thing to see the glorious Person of Christ!

Paul saw Him as one born out of due time. And such is and ever must be the case with all the people of God. They must see and know Him, for none else can save their souls and do them good. Further, they see Him as crucified. John, when he saw Jesus Christ as recorded in the Book of the Revelation, saw one Object, which methinks would be brighter than all else. He says: "And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." (Rev. 5:6) There were His marks, His "glorious scars," which Hart speaks of. If ever people get beyond viewing the Man Christ Jesus, they get wrong. The sight of Christ, and the reception of the sinner by Him, melts the heart with love, purges the conscience with blood, strengthens him with the strength of God, makes his face shine with the oil of God, and cheers him with the wine of God.

This glorious Man suits people who are in distress. As David suited all distressed and bankrupt Israelites and became a captain over them, so Christ suits His poor, bankrupt, helpless, and discontented people. The attractions of Christ are beyond all other attractions, and at times the eye of faith is favoured to behold in the Mediator that which no tongue can express. Hart saw Him and sung: "A Man there is, a real Man." Can your heart join with this: "Such a high priest became us?" He was tempted of the devil, but had no sin. Can you say feelingly that you need "such a high priest?" If you can say, Yes, I will tell you what it does for you. It constrains you to make a venture and plead the merits of Christ, and His Person, before God. That is a certain effect you make a venture. And tell me, if you can, whether there is a case in the Scriptures of a venture being dishonoured of God. Tell me, if you can, of any case of a poor wretched man, even an injurious person like Paul, being brought to a venture on the Man, Christ Jesus, and being dishonoured. No, blessed be God!

"A Man there is, a real Man,
With wounds still gaping wide."

"Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers." The merits of Christ, the bleeding gaping wounds of Christ, are the chambers His people are invited into. Nothing short of this: "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) This was the Man who followed the Israelites all through the wilderness; this was the "Rock that followed them," (1 Cor. 10:4) to quench their thirst. To most people He is a mere name. To His people He is Man as well as God, a divine Person; and as the eye of faith sees Him, the soul wants and will own no other. There is but one "greater light to rule the day," (Gen. 1:16) and there is but one Christ. As it is written: "Having yet therefore one Son, His Well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them." (Mark 12:6) And when faith traces this gift of God in our nature, what a sight it is! "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." (Col. 1:19) The Spirit bears His witness to this in the heart, that there is no Saviour, no God, no life, out of Christ. Therefore,

"The one thing needful, dearest Lord,
Is to be one with Thee."

We have no hope but what He gives, no peace but as He is known. And how blessedly sometimes the Spirit will lead a troubled heart by giving a faith's view of Christ!

"He receiveth sinners." It is a great condescension for God to take notice of, and hold communion with, the holy angels, the elect angels; but what a stoop it is for God to lay hold of our nature, to look upon wretched sinners, vile worms, who in their own eyes, as quickened and instructed by the Spirit, are not fit to be near Him! Look at a few cases in the Word of God. Take Manasseh. What an example for sinners! Extreme, it would seem; yet every child of God says that of himself, as does Paul: "Of whom I am chief." But see how the Lord looks at exceedingly bad cases! Manasseh called upon God in his trouble: "And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him; and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom." (2 Chron. 33:12,13) "Lord, in trouble have they visited Thee; they poured out a prayer when Thy chastening was upon them." (Isa. 26:16) O what a foundation of merit and good we need! "Surely He must spurn such a wretch," one says. No, He draws him to His footstool, restores and blesses him, and sets up thereby the glory, and beauty, and exceeding riches of His grace. There is the Lamb, whom the Spirit reveals to every wretch who sighs under his felt guilt. This is the Man, Christ Jesus, whose blood cleanses from all sin, whether of a Manasseh or a Mary. Yes, and some of us have said, "Mine." "This Man receiveth sinners."

Now take another case, namely, Peter. There is a man who must really have thought himself not so bad as others, for he said: "Though all men shall be offended because of Thee; though I should die with Thee, yet I will not deny Thee." But you see he is really quickly plunged lower than the rest; for he not only coldly follows Him at a distance, but wickedly curses and swears, and denies with an oath, saying he knows not the Man. What a case! But is he left to lie here? No, for Jesus showed His pity and compassion and turned and looked on Peter; and that look broke Peter's heart altogether. You find in the last chapter of Mark, where an account of the resurrection is given, it is written: "Go your way, tell His disciples and Peter, that He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." As if He should think: "I know that Peter will not think of himself that he is a disciple in his own eyes." And thus He pities the worst. If He did not thus come to us, what should we do? And how could we venture to come to Him? So He singles out these extreme cases, that He may make it known that He has mercy for sinners. "With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption." (Ps. 130:7) And that will meet all the ruin you have total ruin in heart and affection, and continued ruin. Plenteous redemption to cover all this.

So you find David saying in one place: "Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." (Ps. 32:7) Wherever there was a trouble, God would put a song of deliverance. Look at David, wallowing in his sin, and for a long time too; not less than a year, under the most fearful state of hardness through the deceitfulness of sin. And even when Nathan came to him, see the hardness and blindness of his heart. He did not even suspect that he was intended by the parable. We do need direct convictions of sin, else we are apt to think everyone is wrong but ourselves. But when the prophet said, "Thou art the man," down fell David and confessed; and the forgiveness was spoken. It is written: "They shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. 31:34) You may say of some around you: "O that he were different!" Or, "O that he saw his wrong!" You may look at your friends and wish they had a different spirit and walked more tenderly and more in accordance with godliness. You might go to them with all the light you think you have on their path and with love for them, and in endeavouring to point out their wrongs and reclaim them, make a great mistake. Probably they would maintain their integrity and contend with you.

So David is an example of conviction coming straight home from the Spirit. See what he said: "I have sinned against the Lord." And this is the feeling: "I shall die." What hope is there if you see sin, and there is no mercy manifested? What hope if afflictions and sin meet together, and there is no mercy made known? But see how the Lord spoke by Nathan: "The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die." He did not die. The peace of God, which is said to pass all understanding, keeps their hearts and minds. One said:

"Bring no money, price or aught,
No good deeds, nor pleasing frames;
Mercy never can be bought;
Grace is free, and all's the Lamb's."

We talk about its being free, but the thing is to receive it. Then we know it is free, and under the blessed power of it in our own heart we say: "This I, the worst, receive."

Every case that seems extreme, the Lord seems to have gathered up in the Scripture to meet His people's objections. Paul said he was "an injurious person," going everywhere persecuting, trampling under foot the people of God, "punishing them oft in every synagogue and compelling them to blaspheme." If there was in Jerusalem at the time Stephen was being stoned, one less likely to human appearance than any other to be brought to the feet of Jesus, it was the young man at whose feet were laid the clothes of those who were stoning Stephen Saul of Tarsus. But the Lord had a two-fold purpose in thus permitting Saul to run to such "lengths extreme" saving mercy to Saul himself; and that he might be an example of the superabounding grace He will show. Hence Paul says: "Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." (1 Tim. 1:16) You have never got beyond the description the Scriptures give of sin and sinners, and it is sinners this Man receives. His hand gets hold of them, His life quickens their consciences and turns their backs on their former ways. When one has a taste of peace and mercy sweetly free, one is constrained in heart and spirit to say:

"Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there's room;
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?"

The answer is:

"'Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced me in;
Else I had still refused to taste,
And perished in my sin."

Every man is saved against his will, and yet according to his will - the will of the Lord works in him. It is said, you know, that thieves, and covetous, and drunkards, and adulterers, and fornicators, cannot inherit the kingdom of God; and yet the Apostle says: "And such were some of you." (1 Cor. 6:11) What has made the change? Free grace. God has saved them, "pulling them out of the fire." What a wonder that He should do all this for such as His people feel themselves to be! Out of one He cast a legion. Out of Mary Magdalene He cast seven devils, a perfect state of devilism, seven being a perfect number in Scripture. It is one thing for a devil to go out of a man, and for the house to be swept and garnished, but notwithstanding to be left empty; and another thing for the devil to be cast out. You know the Lord will not come to the house of such a man, where the devil goes out. I believe the Lord will teach His people the difference between remorse and repentance. Remorse makes a man sorry and to wish he had not done the evil for which he is to be punished; but repentance makes him gladly own the Saviour. But this devil that goeth out, "taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and finding the house empty, swept, and garnished" - empty, no love, no repentance, no hope, no godly fear - "they enter in and dwell there." The Lord does not receive such a man; but the man whom He does receive may be torn to pieces while He is working and bringing him to Himself. But He will carry on His work, and as he casts out devils who yet tear the soul, there will be His hand to restore and lift up. One said: "My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil" ("grievously devilled" it is), as if she had not time to swallow down her spittle, for the fullness of evil that was in her.

"This Man receiveth sinners" - diseased people. There was that poor woman who went after Him in the crowd. She had an issue of blood twelve years and had spent all her living upon physicians and could not be healed of any; but directly she got near Him and touched Him, virtue was communicated and there was an end of her long trouble. "And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day, and behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years and was bowed together and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her He called her to Him and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and glorified God."

"This Man receiveth sinner" - poor, dark, benighted people. "The people which sat in darkness saw a great light." What a difference there is between natural illumination of the mind attended by an elation of affections, natural affections, and that gracious enlightening of the Spirit which is always attended with life and light. This light makes a man a greater sinner in his own feelings. Still he wants to

"Creep beside Him as a worm,
And see Him bleed for him."

Look at this. You might coldly look on an afflicted person, as the Levite did on the man who had fallen among thieves. He looked at him, and "passed by on the other side," but did nothing for him. The priest under the old dispensation could only offer what was brought to be offered, and this poor man had nothing to give; so there was nothing the priest could do for him. Look at the difference between this and the good Samaritan who went where the poor man was and poured in oil and wine, bound up his wounds, and conveyed him on his own beast to the inn, and there bore all the expense saying that he would pay all that was required for him to be taken care of. And so the Lord receives His people fully and takes all the charges. "Look after him," said the Samaritan, "and I will repay you all that you spend;" and so He graciously cares for them.

Now in this receiving of the soul, what a smile you sometimes get from His blessed face! What a kiss He gives! You know how Joseph received his brethren. He fell on the neck of each one and kissed them. He may for a time keep the soul at a distance, but as Hart says: "Sudden He stands confessed!" "I am your Lord and your Redeemer." And this is how the soul is received. "I will love them freely." (Hos. 14:4) "I looked for hell; He brought me heaven." That is the astonishment. Instead of his being spurned as he expected, blood is applied in the virtue of it, and the sinner is cleansed and clothed and his iniquity made to pass away from him. Ah, what a reception the reception of His people is! You know, for one to be presented to a Sovereign is considered a great thing, but he must be a fit character. Now look at the Lord of life and glory. He goes just the reverse way. The scribes and Pharisees, who are clean in their own eyes, are passed by; no notice taken of them, except to mark them for their sins and punish them. But poor, sensibly vile things are brought nigh. To them He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28) What a word of the God of heaven to say to sinners! And as He speaks it to the heart, what an effect it has to bring the soul to His dear footstool! If He receives you, you will be all right. Ruth was perfectly satisfied when Boaz received her favourably, but did it not astonish her! "Why have I found favour in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?" (Ruth 2:10) And yet, stranger as she was, she crept to his feet; for less than his favour would not do, less than his kind reception of her person would not do.

And this is what the Lord does - looks favourably on the soul, receives it, listens to its desires, removes its guilt and fear. This dear Man, this God-Man, receives sinners and does not spurn them from His footstool, but receives them into His presence and swallows all up in the sea of His love: "Less than Thyself will not suffice." O what a big desire to fill the heart of a vile wretch! O says the devil, "What a presumptuous thing for you to think of His receiving you!" But for all that it is true, that he who cannot live without Him shall not die for lack of Him. "This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." The Lord command His blessing. Amen.

TO KNOW CHRIST AND HIS RESURRECTION

2011-01-15T21:08:00.002Z

Preached at Galeed Chapel, Brighton, 1922 - By J.K. Popham
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"That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death."
(Philippians 3:10)

There was a mighty hunger in the heart of Paul. There was one bread only to satisfy that hunger, namely Christ, and that hunger gave direction to his thoughts, to his prayers, to his pursuits. No man can really go contrary to his appetite, contrary to the great, the greatest aim of his spirit. If we are in the world, after the world we shall go. If we live in the Spirit we shall seek to walk in the Spirit. If we know our ruin we shall want to be saved from it. If we feel our vileness we shall want to be covered with, and be found in, the Lord Jesus. One thing in this chapter is the aim, the hunger of the apostle. Everything he had naturally, everything he could boast of as being acquired, he found and esteemed and reckoned to be nothing but loss to him compared with the one Object of his heart's desire, with the great hunger of his soul, and that was Christ. Christ, not in a notion. No, a notional Christ won't carry people very far. Not in a form of sound words; that will never empty a man of himself. But Christ as a real Person, a great Saviour, a sufficient Righteousness. If we have the same appetite we shall follow in the same path. The measure will be different, but the principle is the same. It is a great mercy when the Holy Spirit takes pains to empty people of themselves. There is no more room in us for the Lord Jesus than the Spirit has made emptiness in us by convincing us of what we are. In the blessed covenant of grace there is ample provision made for the wants of all the saints, and that provision is summed up in the wonderful word, "I am that bread of life. Moses gave you not the bread. It rained from heaven. That was a type of Me. I am the true Bread," and this we may say was born again hunger. Every nature has its own appetite. Spiritual nature has its appetite. Angel's food won't suit you, sinner, but Christ the Bread of life will suit you.

It is a wonderful mercy then to have your eye and heart set here: "That I may know Him." And this expresses a great deal. It expresses the Saviour, "Him." It expresses the experimental knowledge that is to be had of Him. It sets forth the keen appetite that a sinner blessed with the Spirit of Christ has, and an appetite that can never be satisfied until the bread is given. It is a great mercy that the Lord has said that as an earthly father will not mock his son who comes and asks for bread by giving him a stone, we may be sure that the heavenly Father, of whom the Lord there speaks, will not mock a sinner who goes and asks for the bread of life. To know Christ is to have faith, and Christ to be revealed to that faith. All knowledge comes, and is received as a persuasion in the mind, on sufficient evidence. Now if we have a sight of Christ by precious faith there will be in our hearts knowledge, a persuasion that He is, and that will lead us to want to know Him more. "O could we but with clearer eyes His excellences trace; Could we His Person learn to prize, We more should prize His grace!" To know Christ is to know Him in His various offices, to know Him in His great work of redemption, to know Him as the Lord our Righteousness, to know Him as an Elder Brother, as one who stands at the right hand of the poor to deliver and save him from those that are too strong for him. The apostle did know Christ at this time, but what he knew of Christ led him to want to know more. It is a peculiarity of divine teaching and of the knowledge of Christ, that the more He is known the keener is the appetite for Him. The longing to know Him more always accompanies knowledge of Him. I am sure some of you understand me, that the least measure of knowledge that you possess of Christ has this effect among others, namely a desire to know Him more. "O could I know and love Him more, and all his wondrous grace explore! Ne'er would I covet man's esteem, but part with all and follow Him." God has sent Him to be known, and it is life eternal to know Him: "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." (John 17:3) Do you not feel a longing for Him to come to you? Does not your appetite find expression in the Psalm where you read: "O when wilt Thou come unto me?" Does it not express your hunger? As if you could say, "The one I want, and whose coming will satisfy me, is the Son of God;" and then turning the eye of your heart to Him you say, "O when wilt Thou come to me? When will that blest time arrive when Thou wilt kindly deign, with me to sit, to lodge, to live and never part again?"

To know Christ is to know that you are blessed with divine life, surrounded by divine favour, founded on a divine love, and that there is prepared for you an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. All this is really implicit in that knowledge of Christ which the Apostle Paul here desires. Yet some here may know Him and not feel that they know all that. But it is there in the seed of it, and the more Christ comes the more will those things which accompany salvation come to the front in your own experience, and you will say, "I understand now a little of what was meant when such and such things were said concerning the knowledge of Christ." To know Christ is really to be delivered, to be delivered from bondage and fear which hath torment. The child of God may know Him so as to say, "I wish I were united to Him; I wish I had communion with Him; I wish He would pour out of His fullness into my soul; I wish He would condescend to heal me and to comfort me and walk with me." Well, this wish of yours, ardent wish, will one day find perfect satisfaction. "That I may know Him. I want above all else," as if the apostle should say, "I want above all else to embrace the Son of God as my own, to be led to say, constrained to say of Him, "Who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Gal. 2:20)

Now if we know Him there are two or three things quite certain in our experience. The first is love to Him. "We love Him because He first loved us," (1 John 4:19) none can say but the people who have felt it. What a warmth, glow, moving, urging feeling there is to His Person and His name, and we call that love. Love that wants to live in Him, and to Him, and with Him for ever. Love that makes His name as ointment poured forth, love that makes you feel you would rather die than displease Him, love that makes you want to depend on Him entirely and only, that makes all others as nothing to you, love that makes you say, "O let my soul live at Thy footstool, let me daily repent and daily wash Thy feet with my tears, and daily enjoy the sweet sense of being loved!" That is one thing that will always accompany knowledge of Christ, and the more you know of Him, the more you will feel love to Him; and the reason men despise Christ is their ignorance of Him and their death in trespasses and sins. Ah it is a solemn position to be in, denying and despising of Christ! O what do we owe to the grace that has brought us into another state of mind, and given us affections towards that blessed One!

Another thing that will always accompany knowledge of Christ is humility. People are big when they are away from Him and ignorant of Him, but whoever knows Him knows, while the knowledge of Him is kept alive in the heart, that humility is there. "Why me, O blessed God, why me? Why dost Thou look on me? Why pass myriads by and lay Thy hand of grace on me? Why was I made to hear Thy voice? Why didst Thou call my soul by the invincible call of the Holy Spirit?" And while this knowledge is lively in you, humility will thrive so that your position in providence, very tried it may be, does not provoke rebellion. Rebellion is a natural thing in us when we are not pleased, but humility grows out of a knowledge of Him who is pleased to speak to the Soul.

Another thing is this, you delight in Him: "Delight thyself also in the Lord;" and surely a sinner can do no other when he knows the Lord. If you have a real knowledge of Jesus Christ there will be moments when your whole spirit will be so delighted with His Person and His grace and His mercy that nothing will attract you that is not in Him. O it is easy then to let things go, and so to walk in the way of truth and life; easy to choose what He chooses for you, to sit at His feet, to sit under His shadow with great delight and find His fruit sweet to your taste! Then, then the heart is in sweet conformity to the word of exhortation I have just mentioned: "Delight thyself also in the Lord." There is nothing in Christ but what is beautiful and lovely and of good report. And when He is known that is also apprehended. Everything in Him is beautiful the King in His beauty, in His love, in His glory, in His power, in His resurrection power, in His intercession, in His word, the King entirely is beautiful to those who know Him.

And I would say another word here, if we know Him we shall want to be like Him "As He is in this world, so are we." You may say, "I cannot make myself like Him;" and if anyone tells you you can, you may turn from him as a false teacher. Well, but how is a sinner to be like Him? The Holy Ghost has told us in the Scripture, and this is the word: "We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. 3:18) That will do it. May I refer for a moment as an illustration to photography? What is photography? It is writing by light. The light comes on to the sensitive plate. My friends, if you do view the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that will put the very image of that blessed One upon your spirit, and you will want it as you know Him.

Again I may say, if we know Christ we want to walk in His ways. To profess knowledge of Him and walk contrary to Him are inconsistent. Why, if you know Him you will want to run in the way of His commandments. O the precepts of the gospel then are as dear as the promises! "I esteem Thy precepts and Thy word above thousands of gold and silver. I have taken Thy word unto me as a heritage for ever." And there is nothing in the Scriptures of precept, of admonition or warning, that you would not wish to follow and obey and be conformed to, as you have a real knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you know Him you will cleave to Him with purpose of heart. O what a glory there is in His cross to one who knows Him! What a glory in His death, in His resurrection, in His life in heaven, the "power of an endless life."

And again, how His gifts will be prized by those who know Him, that chief of all gifts including others, namely the gift of the Spirit. This was manifested very soon after His ascension into heaven. When the Day of Pentecost was fully come, the disciples being together in one place with one accord, the Spirit was shed upon them; and Peter tells us that this was done by Christ: "He having received the promise of the Father hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear," (Acts 2:33) the gift of the Holy Ghost. May we receive Him in new manifestations and operations so that we may be living in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit. "That I may know Him."

I would like to add this to what I have said on this point, namely that if we know Christ, there will be at times a desire to be where He is. Absence is pain where love is, and to be on the earth a poor sinner often sin-bound, and bound by unbelief and carried away by many, many things, to be here dwelling in Meshech, having enemies and difficulties, and again and again carried away by some sin, is very painful. So may we be enabled to follow after Christ. "That I may know Him," in His Person, in His work of redemption, in His graces, know Him in His word and in His ordinances, know Him in His blood and love Him there, know Him in His blessed truth and cleave to Him as crucified.

"And the power of His resurrection." This would lead us to notice briefly the death of Christ. What was it that brought Christ to death, to that voluntary, that vicarious death which He died? It was sin; it was the curse of God's holy law. The stroke of justice that came upon Him was the stroke that inflicted the keenest pain and sharpest sorrow that He knew. And in the Romans the Holy Ghost teaches us this: "He died unto sin once." (Rom. 6:10) And the saints are exhorted to reckon themselves to be dead indeed unto sin by the death of Christ. They are dead to the law by the body of Christ, and they are dead to sin by the death of Christ. Death brought Him unto the grave. Now the apostle informs us in the Romans that "Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more." He liveth after the power of an endless life. The same apostle says in another Epistle, and we are told too in the Ephesians, that the power which brought Him from the grave was the exceeding great power of God. The apostle desired that the Ephesians might know "what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe." What was that? By the resurrection of Christ that exceeding greatness of God's power was manifested.

So the apostle says here, "I want to know the power of Christ's resurrection." He was brought out of the grave, and what is intended I apprehend is this, that as Christ came out of the grave by divine power and is to die no more, so my soul would often rise from sin and the world and self and self-wisdom and live unto God. Every act of faith in the soul is by the resurrection power of Christ. Every time you rise in your affections and cleave to Christ, that is by the power of His resurrection. Every time you can say in affliction, "Thy will be done," that is a victory over rebellion, and it is by the power of Christ's resurrection. Every time you feel your affections set on things above, and that you can follow on to know the Lord and long to know Him, that is by the power of Christ's resurrection. It is a very beautiful thing to feel it. It is very sweet to feel it, to feel that the victory is given you over death and hell and sin in your heart, to feel that you rise toward God in Christ and say to Him in sincerity when you are troubled, "Thy will be done," to feel that you rise above the wicked power of unbelief in you and can say with the apostle in affliction, "I believe God;" the waves and the creaking planks and the word of God telling him that the ship must be broken, that "we must suffer shipwreck, but I believe we shall all get safe to land." That was the power of Christ' resurrection in the apostle's soul: "I believe God." The deathly and death-inflicting unbelief of his heart would have said, "O these waves, they will swallow us up!" But faith in his heart said, "No, these waves will break the ship, but we shall get safe to land." So when you rise above the dreadful power of unbelief, and commit your way and your soul and your things to God, and believe that though death should stare you in the face and would have threatened to swallow you up, yet the Lord will bring you forth; that is the exercise in your heart of the power that brought Christ out of the grave. What a wonderful thing it is to feel it! To be one minute as if you were buried, buried beneath carnality and unbelief and carnal reason and temptation, and the next to say to your soul, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him. Though now I am walking in trouble, God will quicken me and bring me up again from the depths I am in. Though now I am tempted He will bruise Satan under my feet." It is power, my friends, the power of God, the kingdom of God in power, and expressed in this beautiful word, "the power of His resurrection." We need it; I need it. We need it not a little, nor seldom. We need it much and often, there are so many griefs to swallow us up; that is, so many sins to ruin us, so many devils seeking our overthrow, so many circumstances to afflict us, that we need this power of Christ's resurrection.

To follow this up for a moment, let us consider where Christ is. He was raised from the dead, not to live on the earth, but as an evidence that He might show Himself alive to His disciples by many infallible proofs. But when that was done, in order that He might carry on His people's cause above. He went to heaven. Now He said, as it is recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." How could your heart be there if it were buried in the grave of sin? But if you know the power of Christ's resurrection, there will be happy moments when your heart, your affections, aims, designs, and feelings will be in heaven. The apostle says in this chapter, "Our conversation is in heaven." What child of God does not know the power of sin to keep him on the earth, to keep him in the affliction, to keep him beneath a load of carnality as if he were buried in it? What child of God does not know what it is to be as in a grave? But that is not all. If we never know a resurrection we indeed are dead. If we do not know it in time this power of Christ's resurrection raising us up, then I say, we are dead. But there will be times when blessing will come down, the blessing of the Spirit, when the resurrection voice and power of Christ will be heard, "Come forth;" and the grave will give you up. Your carnality, and your temptations, and your circumstances, and your indwelling sin will give you up as it were, to arise in the power of that wondrous resurrection of Christ, rise into heaven in your thoughts and desires and affections, and many a sigh will be in your soul then: "O that I could live in heaven in my heart's love and affection and wish! O that I could be near His footstool and not be buried again as I have so often been! O that I could live near His heart and feel his mercy and His goodness! That I may know the power of His resurrection."

Now Christ dieth no more, just think of that for a moment. He was raised from the dead and He dieth no more. Now if we know this power of His resurrection we shall never die again; never, never! But you say, "I do." No you don't. You fall into evil; you fall into this sin and into that. You get broken bones, you get a sore conscience, you get distance from the Lord, you get reproof into your mind, you get some solemn rebuke from the mouth of God. But there is one path that a raised sinner will never experience. He will never fall into death again. Born again, he will never die. He will often be convicted; he will need it. And whenever he is convicted it is by the power of Christ's resurrection. What a mercy to have everlasting life in you! What a mercy to have been raised from the grave of sin, of death and hell, and raised up to heaven in your heart's affections and desires!

"And the fellowship of His sufferings." What is this? Is it temporal trouble? Why, some of the wickedest people upon the earth have plenty of trouble: "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." (Job 5:7) Trouble, you will find it everywhere. Let us look at this question, what was Christ's suffering? The reproach of men, the contradiction of men, of sinners, the accusations of men? He suffered that way certainly. What fetched groans out of His heart? What made Him sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground? What brought Him to say, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Sin, my friends, sin. Sin broke His heart, sin brought Him low, sin was His suffering. What is conformity to, or fellowship with Him in His sufferings? It is the solemn feeling in your soul that you are suffering because you are a sinner. Not suffering penal wrath poured out upon you, but suffering because you have a holy principle in your heart that hates sin, hates the sin that broke the guiltless heart of Christ. This will make you feel at times to hate a foolish thought: "The thought of foolishness is sin." The very life of God in your soul will make sin bitter. Not because there is a hell in which sin is punished, but because the Lord Jesus Christ suffered sin and was pained and grieved and wounded by sin imputed to Him. He had no sin, He did no sin. He did suffer because sin was imputed. God made Him to be sin. As I apprehend it, this is the great secret in the word "fellowship of His sufferings." I do not say that a child of God never will have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings when he has some temporal affliction. That may accompany it. But strictly, as I judge, the truth lies there, that if we have the life of God in our souls, sin will afflict us, wound us, grieve us, pain us, shame us; and as we are favoured with access to God with all this in our souls, as we have liberty to mourn before the Lord and grace to hate ourselves, and as we have power to resist sin and not consent to it but seek to live unto God in the spirit of holiness, there will be in all that the spirit of this petition and desire of the apostle, fellowship with Him in His sufferings. And implicit in this is a desire for more of the love of Christ, and more grace to be poured out into our souls, because the more we have of that love and of that grace, the more we shall suffer from the presence and the working of sin in our members. That I may have this fellowship.

I thought the other morning that this had some attraction to me, and my soul panted for it, that I may have fellowship with Him in His sufferings. Why my brethren, very great is a suffering person! He must suffer in the world. He will be misunderstood there, and in that he will come into some sense of this; for if you have God with you, depend upon it there will be a separation from the world. And for one who has the world in his heart and has lived in the world in his own life, and to be cut off from it and separated, especially separated from some people with whom you had very pleasant society in the world, will be indeed a suffering. And grace is the root and cause of that. Coming to Christ will mean you will suffer the separation that there has to be. I was very much attached to one man when I was a young man; we used to read together and I was very very closely united to him naturally. And of all that I had to give up, this was about the keenest and came the nearest; and I remember feeling one day in particular I could not give him up, and would not give him up, and then this fell upon the spirit with great weight: "Either this friend or Christ, not both together." And you will find it will come sometimes with things and people, either these or Christ, not both; and that will bring you into some fellowship. And let me insist on this, the root of it is Christ's life in the soul that will bring you to fellowship with Him in His suffering in your own spirit, suffering because His precious life is in you uniting you to Him, bringing you to His footstool, and cutting you off from your own inward life and from some things that are external.

"That I may have fellowship with Him in His sufferings, being made conformable to His death." "That as He died unto sin once, so I may die," says Paul. "This is my desire, as He died unto sin, so may my soul desire it. As He was cut off out of the land of the living and had to go through that solemn experience of death, so may I follow Him, be made conformable to His death." O but one says, "This is very dark and gloomy." Yes, but there is an end to this. Remember what Christ said in the Psalms, having said to His Father, "Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, nor suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption; Thou wilt show Me the path of life. At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Ps. 16:10,11) And if you are brought into conformity to the death of Christ in this way, there will be shown to you the path of life and the river of pleasures, the river of God which is full of pleasures at His right hand for evermore. So says the soul, "May I pant for this and may I come into an experience of it." A little of this grace that Paul had so much of will cause us to follow him in measure in this his desires and following after Him. The Lord grant us more grace, that we may more truly and understandingly say, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death."

UNION OF CHRIST

2011-01-13T11:22:00.002Z

Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, 1922 - By J. K. Popham
____________________________________________

"I in them and Thou in Me."
(John 17:23)

The mercy of God in giving to any wretch lost in sin a good hope through grace can never Be sufficiently extolled. That the Holy Ghost should ever have looked upon any of us, conveyed to us divine life, brought us into concern about God. His greatness, majesty, holiness, and glory, justice, and faithfulness; into exercise about ourselves, our sin, our unfitness to stand before so holy and glorious a Being; and then have given to us a view of Christ and raised a hope in our hearts that He conquered for us, and we may come to Him - I say, that ever the Holy Ghost should have done this to any of us calls for endless praises. We can never rise to the height of our eternal obligations to the glorious God for His goodness to us, and shall never be able sufficiently here to express the thankfulness of our hearts for the little we know, it is a little: "We know in part." O but what a mercy to know a little! There is an infinitude beyond all that we know, and God is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." We may ask much and think more, but both asking and thinking are exceeded infinitely by the ability of God, which means by His fullness, and willingness, and kindness to bestow blessings on His people. And you remember that Scripture in the Corinthians: "That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him," (1 Cor. 2:9) that seek His grace and favour.

Beloved friends, we must eternally be in debt, but the debt is such as to beget in all who are in it gratitude. Newton has the feeling beautifully expressed: "Yet would I glory in the thought that I shall owe Thee most;" and doubtless every poor sinner who feels God's goodness feels that He is the chief of sinners and owes most of all to God. It is a great thing to breathe after God, and where destitution really is (and where is it not known in the church of Christ?) it is a great thing to feel it and to confess it. O to be honest in respect of our experience is a very great matter! To have some experience of the excellences of Christ is a great matter. Paul speaks of it. It was so in him as to produce real self-denial: "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." (Phil. 3:8)

Now when we, as is the case with some of us, get a glimpse of the excellency and the goodness and the glory of Christ, has not that sight just the same effect in the measure in which we get it upon our own souls? Tinsel, gaudy toys, an alluring world, a heart bent upon, those things which are death - these go, do they not? One moment's viewing of Christ will produce that effect, and yet when you have done and said all with respect to how far you have come, however far that may be, in the knowledge of Christ there is this to be said - there is an infinitude beyond it; and much of that is expressed in the text in the first word: "I in them." You may feel alone sometimes, feel that the Lord and you are very much estranged; that He has something against you; that you have vexed and grieved His Holy Spirit; that what Scriptures you feel are Scriptures that reprove you, and you know what a poor wretch and backslider you are; tell you again and again of your faults and failings; and that experience is very wholesome, but very painful. He who does not know what he is, does not know what Christ is. But to be reproved for your sins is very painful, and if you take notice in the light and teaching of the Spirit of how Christ speaks to those churches in Asia, some of which were very, very much fallen away from Himself, you will perhaps see a good deal of your own heart and ways there. Well, when this is the case, for God the Holy Ghost to show that there is that to be attained to, will draw the soul out when He shows a word like this: "I in them." You look at yourself and say, "I am empty of Him for the most part. Union with Christ as here set forth I scarcely know," may be your complaint. What then? Why, the Holy Ghost who shows you both your deficiency and Christï¿½s glory in the union He has with His people, will draw you out for the experience of that union: "I in them."

"Know ye not," asks the apostle, "that ye are the temple of God and that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your Own?" Do you not know that God has come? Do you not know what it is for Him to enter His temple, and even though He comes (and He will always do it when it is necessary) with a scourge of small cords to overturn the tables of the money-changers and cast out all that merchandise that so defiles His temple - I say that though He so comes, do not you know what His coming is? If He comes you may not know exactly how, but you will certainly know the effect of His coming, and you will then be able to say, "He has come." You can tell what effect the fire has upon the water when it makes it boil, and when your hearts are affected by the Lord, when you perceive that there is a warming of your affections, a gathering of your thoughts, a fixing of your attention, a drawing out of your faith, a quickening of your love, and a brightening of your hope, and a making of Christ more precious, then you say, "Why, the Lord has come, done me good, once more visited me."

The union that subsists between Christ and His people is very wonderful, and it may be spoken of in several ways. I will, if enabled, mention a few of those ways in which this union is set forth in the Word of God, and is made known in the experience of all the saints. I may not be able to speak very long because of rather a troublesome cold which rather unfits one for being out, but as the Lord may help I will speak a little, and the first is that covenant union that there is between Christ and the church. A covenant union which is set forth in that Psalm which I was reading, the 89th: "I have made a covenant with My chosen, with David, and his seed will I establish for ever." It is a wonderful thing that the Lord has been pleased to set forth the union that is between Christ and His people in that covenant. The federal union is one blessed doctrine that runs through the whole of the Scriptures when Christ and the church are mentioned. They are one in the covenant, so one that you can never separate them, never dissolve the union. God has said, "This covenant is established for ever," and He will not alter the thing that has gone out of His mouth; and when this becomes an experience it is wonderful. Take for instance that which is set forth in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter had let down to him in a vision a great sheet knit at the four corners, wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air; unclean things were in the sheet. Thrice the Lord said to Peter, "Kill and eat", and Peter was for the moment disgusted, stood aghast as it were in his vision, at being told to eat anything that was unclean, and he protested against it. "Lord," he said, "nothing unclean has ever entered my mouth." But God taught him something then: "What God has cleansed, that call not thou common."

Now here, dear friends, is that which I would set before you - the great sheet, representing the covenant containing unclean things. Did you ever hope that you were at least one of the creeping things, but in that sheet, in that covenant? That God not withstanding all your sin and uncleanness had put you into that great and unbreakable covenant of grace which is there represented? Now this is being in the Lord. Men die in the Lord, but they are first in Him, they live in Him. It is in the covenant that God has secured all His children beyond all trouble, all danger, all contingencies, all probabilities. Nothing of the kind enters into the covenant of grace. "I have sworn to David My servant, I have established his throne". And you remember in the Acts it is said, quoting this: "This is the throne," Davidï¿½s Lord is on the throne, Jesus Christ is on the throne of David His father; and when He comes into the heart of a child of God, then there is some opening of the covenant which is ordered in all things and sure. "Come saints and sing with one accord, this covenant made with David's Lord," made on behalf of the church, made sure on their behalf, that they really are united to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Head in that ever-blessed covenant. We fall. 0 yes, some of us know it! We do fall, we fall from grace in the exercise of it, we fall from our steadfastness, we fall from viewing the Lord steadfastly, we fall from the exercise of faith and prayer, we fall into bondage and darkness, confusion often, we are enticed; and that brings the rod that is in the Covenant. But there is one path never, never to be known by one who is bound up in this bundle of life, and that is a fall into eternal death. The second death has no power over the child of God, it never can enter. In the 91st Psalm you read that the plague and pestilence and arrow cannot enter into the habitation of the child of God. What is his habitation? Jesus Christ manifested in the covenant of grace. It cannot be taken literally, nor even of the national covenant; it must have reference to that "secret place of the Most High, that shadow of the Almighty," spoken of in the first verse of that Psalm. This is the dwelling, the habitation, that can have no death enter into it. What a mercy to be there! Did you ever feel secure, ever feel shut in, ever realize that the Lord had shut you in that covenant which He has ordered on your behalf, in all things and sure? Blessed be God, this is one of those ways in which there is Christ in the sinner, and the sinner in Christ: "I in them."

And the second way I would speak of as to this union is, that it is union of life, a lifelong union because it is a union of life. "I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish." (John 10:28) "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son." (1 John 5:11) If then you have this eternal life you have union with Christ. It is not another life different from the one He has, it is Himself. "I am the life," is His own word. "I am the life of this people." He is in them in His life, spiritual life, spiritual union, oneness with Christ. O to have this is a blessing! This is the beginning of real likeness to Christ. The completeness of that likeness will be in eternity, but the beginning of it is here when the Holy Spirit conveys to an elect person this eternal life which is in Jesus Christ. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." (2 Cor. 5:17) This is the hidden man of the heart, a new creature. And if a man is in Christ, it is because Christ is in him, not otherwise. "I in them," means that He puts His divine life into their souls. "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly," and this puts all the beauty on the church that God admires and loves and praises. If you turn at your leisure to the 21st chapter of Revelation, you will see there how God is in the church and in every individual member of it. Said the apostle, "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, having the glory of God." Poor sinner, you may see none of this glory in yourself. You may mourn your deformity and wickedness and pollution. You may feel that all you can say is you bear the image of the earthy, which is death, deformity; but God sees this beauty. He takes a view of the entire church and shows John this church coming out of heaven having the glory of God, which is what God communicates. Jesus gives it: "The glory Thou gavest Me I have given them." And in that chapter this glory seems to be expressed and described in the form and the building and the materials of the holy city, new Jerusalem. Her foundations, her walls, her streets, her gates, her purity, her safety, these are set forth in that wonderful chapter. Jerusalem, the holy city, coming out of heaven from God, which shows the origin of true religion, the beauty of divine grace, and the safety of all who are bound up in the bundle of life. This is being in Christ and Christ in a sinner, a living union. Abiding in Him comes from His coming into the soul, having God's glory. The new life, the divine life that is imparted in regeneration, has that beauty in it that God prizes; nothing defiling, is here. We are defiled, but defilement does not touch this life. And to speak again of the way the Scripture puts it, you have the river, the mighty water that came issuing from beneath the threshold of the gate that looked eastward; and so far from its gathering defilement, it removed it, it takes it away; it healed whatsoever it touched and made to live whatsoever it touched; and is not this that which the people of God find in their own souls? This life when it flows to you and touches you, it heals you, heals you of all the sickness of your soul, takes away the defilement of your conscience, brings you to be as before the Lord exercised toward Him. The soulï¿½s exercise is Godward, the face is Godward, the feelings arc Godward. "I in them," in that blessed, that divine life which the Lord gives: "I give unto My sheep eternal life." This is the secret of all the separation that takes place between the church and the world. You come out as sweetly compelled by the possession, and the exercise in you, of this life. By the motion of it you are carried Godward and away from the world. Nothing puts the world out like this. Nothing makes the world appear in its own colours so much as this. Nothing shows you that the world lieth in wickedness so much as this - the blessed life of Christ in the soul: "I in them." And from this there is no separation: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Nothing can. "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or nakedness, or sword?" "No", says the apostle, "in all these things we are more than conquerors, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." (Rom. 8:35-39) What a union this is!

Now there is another thing I would name as an important point. It is this, that Christ is in His children by the efficacy of His atonement that reconciles them to God, takes all bars and hindrances between God and their souls away, sets before them an open door which no man can shut, gives them liberty to enter into the holiest of all; that removes pollution from their affections and guilt from their consciences; and if you have this, Christ is in you in the efficacy of His divine work of atonement. The Man Christ Jesus put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and in that way, whenever that blood is brought near, there is Jesus Christ. In the Hebrews the Apostle Paul brings this out. He says, to extol the precious blood of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ: "If the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!" (Heb. 9:13,14) O the efficacy of the blood of Christ! And where this is, is God far away? Is Christ absent from a sinner whose conscience is purged from dead works? No. "I in them." In them in this My reconciling atonement, in the efficacy of My one offering of Myself to God without spot. God there the Judge of all, God claiming satisfaction, His Son rendering that satisfaction being the Priest, offering unto God Himself, giving Himself a sacrifice for His people; and this the sinner's conscience is to realize. Conscience is God's blessed work as it is quickened, and it stands on His side so to speak, takes care of His interests. In the sinnerï¿½s heart there is this feeling - God is holy, God is right, and your conscience enlightened and quickened will never consent to anything that does not honour God.

Now my friends, when this conscience, so tender for God, so honest to you, protests against your sinfulness and protests that God must be satisfied or you must sink to hell, this conscience, I say, receives perfect satisfaction. And you will remember how in the Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle sets forth the insufficiency of all the perpetually repeated sacrifices to remove sin or to pacify the conscience, If those sacrifices, said the apostle, could have removed sin, then there would have been no more conscience of sins. The people's consciences would have been so purged that they would have said, "Now no other sacrifice is necessary; what ever fresh defilements come, this sacrifice is enough". Then said the apostle: "If this sacrifice could purify, according to Godï¿½s ordinance, the flesh so as to remove the disability of a Jew who had defiled himself from entering into the temple, how much more, how infinitely above this rises the atonement! How marvellous is its effect in them, it satisfies God. How wonderful is its effect in the law, it pleases the law. Now that efficacy, which in the first instance terminated in God, comes to terminate in the conscience. "How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." And in this way Christ is in His people in the divine efficacy of His work in the real removal of sin, because God by that work is infinitely satisfied and pleased. O my friends, what a blessing this is! If your consciences are not eased, being enlightened by the Holy Ghost, here is that which will purge them from their guilt, and therefore ease them of their unrest, take that away. Here is that which will be a bed for your soul, even as it is a sweet savour of rest unto God Himself. For that is what the atonement is to God, a sweet savour of rest; and when Christ offered Himself to God, everything that was against the church in the heart of God and the law of God was taken away.

One more word - "I in them" in My visits. His visits He does adjourn, though that does not involve a separation between Him and His people. His visits are very much to be valued; might we have more of them. Can we join with Hart and say: "More frequent let Thy visits be, or let them longer last?" It is a great thing to be visited by Christ. A poor sinner brought to the obedience of faith and so keeping the word of Christ, pleading the atonement of Christ, and following hard after Him for a realization of an interest shall be visited by Christ, as He says: "If a man love Me, he will keep My word, and My father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him." Sometimes I have longed to enter into that: "We will make Our abode with him."

Now poor lover of Christ, you may think you do not keep His words; but if you are enabled to follow Him, to look to Him, to abide by His cross, to seek the visits of His face, the day will come when He will make that word good: "My Father will love him." That is, show He loves him, "and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him." You say, "Should I know if He came to me?" Should you know? There is an instinct in the child of God, if I may use that word instinct here, of a spiritual nature, that in a remarkable way feels His approach. "The voice of my Beloved, behold He cometh." He is not yet come. No, He "cometh leaping upon the hills." What a wonderful thing! Leaping over the mountains, skipping over the hills to reach His poor people. That instinct in you will tell you that the Lord is approaching, but when He comes, shall you know it? He speaks, and we hear; He touches and we realize, we feel; He smiles and we melt; He sustains and He sets Himself before the eye of faith, and we admire and sit down and find His fruit sweet to our taste. Then dear friends, Christ and the soul are with each other. The influence of His love, the power of His grace, the presence of His divine Person in the glory of His love and goodness, the soul really enjoys, and to believe it is here, where one finds himself in union with the Apostle Paul's desire as expressed in the Philippians: "I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, I forget the things which are behind, I reach forth unto those things which are before, that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:13,12) That I begin to hope Christ has a great end to answer in apprehending me, calling me by His grace; not simply to give me a sense of safety and security from hell. There is that. Not simply to give me a good hope through grace, there is that. But to give me to enter somewhat into the mystery of divine wisdom and love in Christ, for which reason Christ has laid hold of me, that I, unworthy though I am, should be for the praise of His glory throughout eternity; that I should be part of His body, a member of His body in part. There is this great end, and Paul says, "I seek that I may apprehend it." "I in them" in the visits of His face, in coming so to speak in His glorious Person to the eye of faith. He is apprehended, and faith brings Him in. Then it is as Paul speaks in the Colossians: "Christ in you the hope of glory," (Col. 1:27) Yes, He is there. The soul feels Him. You say some of you, "We do not understand this." Well press on, beg and wait till the day comes when you will find the truth of Toplady's word: "One moments intercourse with Him, my grief will overpay."

What liberty there is here, what sweet liberty, freed from sin's condemnation, as Paul teaches in the Romans: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature;" and again He says: "There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8:1) The union is then mutual. "Ye are the branches, I am the vine, Ye are in Me, and I am in you. I am your Head, you are My members. I am your Lord, ye are all My servants, My people, and I delight in you." It is a sweetness even to long for this with a hope that one day it will come, but the experience of it is very remarkable. I wish it were known among us. It seems that we are in a dark day, and this is scarcely known. Though some know it, blessed, be God!

"I in them," and this is to be for ever. "I have established My covenant with My chosen," says the Lord, "for ever." His throne shall be established for ever, and His blessed covenant in the heart shall be for ever. The kingdom of God is within you. And you will never have the kingdom of God in you and always be destitute of the presence of the King. "Let my Beloved come into His garden, let Him come into the soul," for the garden there is the church, and the church is composed of poor sinners with whom the Lord is pleased to converse, and with whom He is pleased to condescend to walk.

I have named these few particulars. There are many, many more things that might be said about this vital and blessed subject, and if my hints should be the means of leading any of you to seek God's face and seek His mercy in this particular that He would open to you the mystery of His presence and give you to experience it, and then ask that I might have the same, it will not have been in vain. May the Lord be with us.

UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST

2011-01-13T11:17:00.002Z

Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, 1922 - By J. K. Popham
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"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."
(Ephesians 3:8)

What a mercy it is to be really exercised about Christ; whether or not we have an interest in Him; whether He loved us and gave Himself for us; whether His substance is more to us than the whole world! What a mercy it is not to be satisfied with anything short of that which is promised in the gospel, namely the revelation of Him by the Holy Ghost. He is promised, the Spirit is promised; He is sent by the Father; He was given to Christ, and Christ therefore in His mediatorial character promised to pour the Spirit on the church, and to pour Him on the church for this purpose, namely to glorify Christ. "He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall show it unto you." (John 16:14) Now that being a gospel promise, if we are in the spirit of the gospel at any time, it certainly will be an object of our desire and prayer that the Holy Spirit may do in us what the Lord Jesus promised He should do in the saints. Are you after that? Or is your religion made up perhaps of desire and you do hardly at times examine the nature of your desire; a religion that makes you feel sometimes that things are not quite right between you and God, but a religion that soon gets satisfied without this promise being fulfilled in you? It is a bad thing, a sore and sorry thing, to be satisfied without this promised revelation of Jesus Christ. The apostle was anointed a minister, and he gives the reason of this anointing in him, that he should preach, and that he should preach among the Gentiles; that he should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. This I think gives us at once an instruction in the nature of the ministry, in the kind of preaching that an anointed minister really is led into. That his chief business, his main concern in his ministry is, or should be, the preaching of the Lord Jesus as possessing unsearchable riches; riches doubtless suitable to poverty, the poverty that the saints feel; riches which though drawn upon since the Fall of Adam and the manifestation of the promise of Christ in Eden; and yet they are today what they were in eternity when God gave Christ grace to save the church. What an amazing Christ we have if we but know Him, and if we do know Him one thing is certain as a result of that knowledge, namely that we want to know Him more. A little of Christ creates an appetite, or increases a given appetite, for more of Him. If you know Him you certainly are after Him, you want to know Him better.

I do not purpose entering upon the call of any man to preach this evening. I have much exercise about my own case, but I think I may venture to make two remarks in this point, namely that every called and sent minister will have two evidences sooner or later cleared up to his own satisfaction from time to time. First, the inward call, resisted but irresistible. Resisted by a sense of the greatness of God, of the greatness of the subject of the ministry, and of the unfitness of the poor minister called. Yet there it is, the call came unsought, came and brought with it a trembling, an awe, a fear. Although in my own case there was the trembling and the fear, yet I think in these days about it, and compare the little knowledge I now hope I have of the ministry and what it is or should be, with what I then felt. I think that if in those days I had felt as I feel nowadays, I should not have started. The second evidence is in the church. If a man is called to preach he will be made useful in some place and in some measure, and I am not without hope that I have these two evidences.

Now what I would wish to do this evening is, as enabled, to open a little before you the unsearchable riches of Christ; and as I do, going along, try to speak of the exceeding suitableness of those riches to the particular cases that are found in the church of God. And where shall a poor sinful man begin? What shall one say? In the first place about riches so wonderful as to be unsearchable, not only unworthy is the mouth of man, man in particular, to speak of these things, but how incapable, unless anointed to speak of that which the Lord God possesses. But I would first of all venture to say this, that the riches, the unsearchable riches of Christ, are to be looked for in the first place in his very Person. Not something that He possesses that can be separated from Himself, as the wealth of a man may be separated from him, may fly away from him and he become poor and yet be the same man; but the riches of Christ are not to be separated, cannot be separated from His very Person; and I will try to show this. First of all look at His eternal Deity, the wealth of Deity, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity as sufficient. Everything proper to God is in Jesus Christ, everything. There is no perfection of Deity that the Lord Jesus lacks; the whole essence of Deity and everything that that word means, the word the fullness of which, the extent of which we cannot understand. Everything that it means the Lord Jesus Christ has, for in Him, in the sacred Man Jesus Christ, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and what relation has this to us? Are you weak, too weak to stand before God, too weak to maintain your profession, too weak to carry a cross, too weak to resist the devil, too weak to pray, to believe, to hope, to love? Yes, every child of God will say only, "Yes indeed, too weak for any good thing." O behold omnipotence! You can never search that fully; that is sufficient. Omnipotence in your own nature; how able is He to sustain us! God is able to make the weak believer stand: "He shall stand, for God is able to make him stand." "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think." (Eph. 3:20) All power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth. Christ in two senses has omnipotence. In the first sense He cannot communicate it. That is to say, He is the eternal God and there is that in God not communicable. But He has omnipotence as a gift; in His mediatorial character omnipotence is given to Him. He was crucified through weakness, He emptied Himself. He gave but little evidence, except here and there by miracles and so on, of being the Mighty God. He made Himself of no reputation. But after His word on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, then said He, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth;" and this power is for the use and the good and the security and the safe landing in glory, of all His dear children. Can you search out this? You soon find your weakness out when you are tried, don't you? You soon find you are but worms, soon find that you have no power to take up a cross, even when you feel a will; soon find that you cannot pray without the power of God. So when it pleases the Spirit to enable a poor minister to preach the unsearchable power of the Lord Jesus, that is for the edification of the body of Christ.

If you have faith, if I have not darkened counsel by words without knowledge, you may see the intimate relationship there is between our weakness and Christ's power. How suitable this power is to a feeble worm blessed by Mighty God! His name is the Mighty God. The Mighty God to work faith, to give power and strength, to strengthen with all might by His Spirit in the inner man, unto all patience and longsuffering. Remember that He who upholds all things by the work of His power is He who is to uphold you, who alone can uphold you; and thus it is that "the weakest saint shall win the day, though death and hell obstruct the way;" must get there, because of this omnipotent One. O we worship a living, mighty, almighty God when we worship Christ crucified! When we look to Him who was crucified through weakness, we look to the Mighty God; and I have thought today that perhaps one of the greatest evidences and proofs that ever can be given of the omnipotence of Christ, was in His crucifixion when He was crucified through weakness. Think of what He had to do to remove the sin of a land in that day, to remove the curse from the election of grace in that day, to remove every disability from His children, all their unfitness through sin for the presence of God. He had to remove all that, and He did remove it all in that day. Then what can He not do for you, O weak believer! What can He not do? Is He not able to strengthen you, to hearten you, to encourage you, to say to you, "Fear not." It is not much for a man to say to another, "Now you need not be afraid;" but then the word may have no effect whatever, cannot have. The poor person addressed may say, "Well, but I have no end of reason for fear," and your saying to him, "Fear not" may only irritate him. But when this mighty God-Man says "Fear not, I will help thee, I will strengthen thee, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness," then the weak believer stands and says, "In the Lord have I strength, in the Lord is my power, in the Lord and by Him alone I shall get through. I can bear the cross, I can submit to the will of God, I can look to Christ, I can hope in His Name, I can maintain my confidence and not cast it away, believing that it has a recompense of reward awaiting it." The unsearchable riches of Christ. Paul's preaching demolished idols and broke idolatrous hearts; then he preached a Mighty God whom the people were brought to worship. Do you follow this one point? It is a great thing to know whom you have believed, as Paul says of himself, and to be persuaded as he was: "And am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." (2 Tim. 1:12) Hang on His power, my friends; lean on His arm; look to Him to be supported, sustained, and brought out of trouble, and delivered out of snares, and snatched out of the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, and out of all affliction, and at last out of the grave to be with Him for ever! This is power; you will never get to the end of it. As you cannot imagine it all, so neither can you experience it all. As you cannot compass it in your thoughts, so neither can you hold it in your hearts. But a little of it, what a wonderful thing it is to know! The mighty power! "Jesus is a mighty Saviour, helpless souls have here a Friend," a Brother born for their adversities, One that will keep His love from first to last.

Look at His grace, for grace was given to Christ in all its fullness. Can you search it all out? Ye know the grace of Christ a little, ye know that this was given to Him before the world. "Who has saved us," says Paul speaking of God the Father, "and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." (2 Tim. 1:9) What is this but the eternal love of Christ? He loved the church and gave Himself for it. All that the love of God means; all the kindness it has devised; all the goodness it has laid up in store for its objects; all the happiness it will eventually fill them with, Jesus Christ has. Some of us have tried it. Yes, some of us have tried it for many years, put it to severe tests. No creature could have borne with us in our waywardness and stiff-necked manners and unbelief and rebellion; but how mercifully has Christ borne with us and not taken away His love, though we have deserved that He should! Here you have unsearchable riches. The infinite love or grace of Christ, all that God devised, all that the Trinity could do in love, Jesus Christ possesses, and possesses in order to bestow upon His own. Hart says: "Christ has blessings to impart," and this is true of His eternal love. My friends, it is a great thing to know this. What is it to know the love of Christ but to have it shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost? What is the effect of that? You love Him in return; you are little in your own eyes; you are willing to be nothing; your will is subjected to His will; your thoughts are brought into captivity to Him when this blessed, precious, all-bearing, exhaustless love is made known in any measure. "On such love my soul still ponder," you may often be saying, having had it shed abroad in your hearts. Never-ending love, bleeding love, suffering love, the love of a Substitute putting Himself in your place; the love of One who, to save you, must die; of One who, to save you, intercedes and is able in His intercession to save you; the love Of One who says, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." (Heb. 13:5) Now when this love is made known, it is only known in a small measure. "We know in part," says Paul; "Now we know in part." It is a part indeed, it is quite true. If you get a bucket full of water out of the sea, you have got all water, but you have not got all the water. It is true, if you get a little of the love of Christ you have got the whole love of Christ as to love, but you have not got all the love that He possesses; it is unsearchable. What will He let you suffer? What will He allow an enemy to do for you? Will He let you come to death? No, you may get near to death in your feelings, destruction may seem inevitable to you at times, truly may look unkind and seem unkindly sent to you; but the day will come when you will say, "He loved me, and I found He loved me too well to let me destroy myself; He loved me too well to let me starve, too well to let me stray too far, too well to let the enemy oppress me too much. He loved me notwithstanding all my departures, all my follies, all my unbelief, all my misjudgings of Him; He loved me through them all, chastened me for them, but did not give me over unto death." Love is unsearchable. Love in your heart to a creature will always be seeking the good of that creature; you will be devising things for the happiness of the object of your love. Now if that is true in you naturally, what will you say, what can you think or imagine, of this eternal love of the Lord Jesus? Why, He designed good when He designed trouble; He meant it in love when He laid on some severe stripes; love when He put your feet into stocks; love when He spoke severely to you; and you will prove it, every saint shall prove this. Losses, crosses, staffs, or rods, these all shall prove the love of Christ, and shall make it manifest that love is unsearchable, wealth unbounded, it knows no limit. The objects of it shall find it to be beyond all their capacity, richer than all their thoughts of it, sweeter than all their conceptions of it, deeper than all their thoughts about it, wider than all their wanderings and broader than all their strayings from Him. They shall prove it to be eternal love without beginning and without end.

Take wisdom which is proper to God, "God only wise," does not this belong to the Lord Jesus? Yes, for He says: "I am that I am. I Wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions." (Prov. 8:12) Do you limit Him? Do you say sometimes when you are tried, "This is not wise, there is nothing but evil here?" Are you disposed to limit the Holy One of Israel? Do you feel as if you must say of some trouble, "This is unmitigated evil?" O but we do speak foolishly when we so speak, and think wrongly of Him when we so think of Him! My brethren, He is wise, only wise; we are foolish, we are foolishness itself. Now does not He show His wisdom sometimes to us? Does not He guide us? Has not He sometimes made a very straight path for our feet by some crooked providence? Has not He called us to His heavenly throne by something that we have thought to be altogether calculated to turn us away from Him; a trouble that has irritated you, that has brought the worst out of your nature, to your own view; a trouble the nature of which you have thought must be your confusion? Has not the Lord by that made a straight way for you to the throne of grace? For who comes so straight to the throne of grace as he who is helpless and forlorn and ignorant? Who has no arm of flesh to lean upon; who has no wisdom of his own, cannot dispose of his matters as he thought once he was able to do? And you will go right when you go that way, and you will say one day, "Well, that was a wonderful thing to me that I got so helpless and so nonplussed, and so burdened, and so utterly without reserves in myself, or in anyone else; that I had nothing before me but going straight to the throne of grace." And you may take a short cut sometimes of necessity: "Lord, help me; Lord help me. Make haste, O God, make haste; make no tarrying, O my God!" And this is not to be searched out. No, no providences exceed the wisdom of Christ. This way of need is mighty and wise direction. "The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." (Prov. 16:33) He cures us of saying, "We will go and dwell in this city a year, and do this or that;" He cures us of it. The spirit is in us, but He wisely keeps us from time to time so that we are brought to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and we will do this or we will do that." And is not this encouraging? What does Christ take such pains with us? Is He so particular in His care for us as to hedge our way up when He knows that if it were not so we should run away and find strange crooked paths for ourselves? The unsearchable riches of Christ! I would say to you who are foolish in your own sense, here is a wise One. If you are but led by the Holy Spirit to Him you will find He has knowledge of witty inventions; find what Peter says to be true: "The Lord knoweth how to deliver them that are godly." He not only has power to do it, but He knows how to apply that power, how to use His omnipotence in your behalf, and for your good. All that God has, that He has put into Christ, is for His people's good, and it is unsearchable.

But I would not dwell on that part any longer because I wish to speak of another part; I mean of the sacred manhood, the human nature of the Lord Jesus, and I would say that here are unsearchable riches. Unsearchable riches, and riches that are useful, that are to be applied to the church of the living God, to every poor, feeble, troubled believer. Why my dear friends, everything that the Man Christ Jesus has is for the election of grace. How do you view yourselves? You believe this don't you, that God will never be pleased with anything that is not perfect? That is written, is it not, in your hearts; right across your whole souls that is written in legible characters? God is pleased with nothing that is not perfect. Yes, and then look at home. What have you? Everything that is imperfect, everything; and the Lord Jesus Christ will meet all that imperfection, give His perfection to His imperfect people.

Take just for a moment or two that great faculty of ours, a stubborn perverse will. I call it a great faculty, for it, so to speak, spreads its influence all over us. Now what will the Lord do with a stubborn creature? "O but sometimes," you say, "my will is brought into subjection apparently, and soon the subjection flies away, and again I am troubled with a stubborn will; again I feel my heart is disposed to turn away; indeed I have turned away, I am always turning away!" O but the unsearchable riches of this, that the Lord Jesus Christ did, as the Man Christ Jesus, absolutely submit to the will of God and say in Gethsemane's garden, "Not My will, but Thine be done;" and that act of His is put down to the account of the church, put down to her credit and she shall stand before the Lord. Every human being whom Christ will save and take to heaven is viewed now, if I may so speak, as being there, in the Man Christ Jesus, in the perfection of human nature. The whole perfection of the entire Man Jesus Christ is put down to the church's account, and that grace of submission to His Father's will that is in Him, He will communicate to His people. Is not that the secret of their being enabled to say in respect of some affliction, "Not my will, but Thine be done?" He who said to His Father, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God," (Ps. 40:8) He who in Gethsemane's garden said, "Thy will be done," communicates that grace to every child of His in some measure. What a fullness of submission is here for us! What a grace is here, my brethren! There is nothing that you can want in respect of being conformed to the will of God, that is not in Jesus Christ for you. You must receive it from Him, never can you work it in yourself. Paul says that God works in the saints "both to will and to do of His good pleasure." We shall say of self that only stubbornness is ours. We shall say of our gracious experience, submission came only from Him. None else gave it, none else could give it. He gave it and we have the blessed benefit of His grace in this one particular.

Take another grace that was in Christ. Take love; I mean love as it is in the hearts of the saints. What did He do? He said, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God." "Great peace have they that love Thy law and nothing shall offend them." (Ps. 119:165) Nothing offended Christ. The love of God was in His heart. I speak of Him in respect of His suffering case and character when He was sojourning here a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and when His human nature was put to those solemn and severe tests and strains, when the devil tempted Him, when sin burdened Him, when men contradicted Him, when in every way He was seen to be a poor, broken-hearted, weak man depending on His Father with a perfect faith and loving His Father with a perfect love. Now that same love that the Man Christ Jesus possessed in all its fullness, He gives to His people, and with it they love Him and please God. So is the very Person of the Lord Jesus full of unsearchable riches.

I would like to make Him very high before you, that there should be none to occupy your eye, to fill your heart or thoughts, save Himself. There is none like Him. When the church tried to extol Him it seems as if she must have thought: "Well, I have failed after all, my description of Him does not answer, it is not a perfect counterpart of Him, it is not a full image such as I would draw of Him, and so she says: "He is altogether lovely; His mouth is most sweet. Thus if you can see Him, this is my Friend, this is my Beloved." (Songs 5:16) I am worse than the church; she extolled Him wonderfully. My words are very poor but I would say, if you can see the Man and the God in one Person of whom I have spoken so feebly, I would say: Now this is the Christ, the Christ of God, the mighty God, the holy pure Man Jesus Christ, and His Person is absolutely necessary for us in all the wealth of it, in all the suitability of it, in all the grace of it, in all the beauty and glory of it, in all its acceptableness with the Father. How necessary is this very Person! You cannot pray but through Him; you will never get near to God the Father but through Him; you will never see the grace of the Father, nor feel it, but through Him; never hear a word of forgiveness, never get a smile to humble you, never have a warm feeling in your heart without Jesus Christ. The whole that you must experience, you will find you receive from Him. Every good thing. "Every grace and every favour come to us through Jesus' blood."

In the next place let me hint just in a few words at the unsearchable riches of His work. His work consists of two parts, namely, first in His absolute obedience to His Father in the law; and secondly, His vicarious death. These two parts make up the work of Christ in redemption.

Take the first. O how straight is God's rule, how strict are His statutes! How just and holy and good is His law! And no man will ever be in heaven who is not just, put just quite straight with that law; and Christ is the end of it. He loved the law, He had the law in His heart, He came to fulfil it. I came to fulfil, I came to honour it. It was of My giving; Almighty God I am. I gave the law, now I subject Myself to its demands and commandments. I recognize them as just. I, the Man Christ Jesus, am under this law, God sent Me, He made Me under it. I willingly came under it and now I obey it." That is just what we ought to have done; we ought always by nature to have done that; we ought to have delighted in it, to have put ourselves in absolute conformity to it; not to have rebelled against a single sentence of it; but we did not, we cannot now, O then what wealth of love and mercy and goodness and suffering patience Jesus Christ had and manifested when He said: "Thy law is within My heart, I delight to do Thy will, O My God. I came to do it. Thou didst sent Me to do it, and here I am." Obeyed it. O friends, it is great to see the law, and great to see a Substitute under it, and greater still in our experience if we see that that Substitute was there for us! A Substitute for us, to fulfil for us the law, to make it honourable for us. To give the law all it asked, to be the end of the law for us; so the end of it that it can never turn to one for whom Christ is the end of it and say, "Now I want this at your hand;" never say, "Did the law so realize all its demands, all its perfection and its great end in Christ" that it can never say to a redeemed man, "You owe me something?" In respect of its commandments it realized its end in Christ.

But there is another part of the law, a part most solemn and terrible, a part that was awakened so to speak, and brought into awful activity by our sin; I mean its sanction, its curse. "Cursed is the man that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." (Gal. 3:10) That means hell. Hell is to be taken in two senses. First, as it is a state of punishment; second, as it is a place of punishment. What did Christ do? He endured its curse as if the Lord His Father banished Him for a moment, so to speak, when He hid His face from Him; as if God only now was punishing His Son when He said: "Awake O sword, against My Shepherd, against the Man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts! Smite the Shepherd, smite My Son incarnate, wound Him, bruise Him, chastise Him, lay stripes on Him;" (Zech. 13:7) and our Lord endured it all. Life, eternal life is here, justification is here, sanctification is here, everything to fit a sinner for God is here. Everything to give a welcome to a sinner into heaven is here. Every soul born again seeks life here and forgiveness and mercy and help and sanctification and wisdom and guidance. The Holy Spirit's work is to turn the eyes of a wounded, empty sinner to this Lord Jesus and to this death of His. You will never be comfortable, you will never be cleared, you will never be justified in your conscience, until this Lord Jesus is revealed in you and formed in you, the hope of glory. Hundreds of helps you may get, sweet tokens you may receive for good, touches of the Lord's favour, sweet intimations of His goodness; but the thing that will clear your character, that will put you out of the pale of a cursing law, that will bring you into an innocent state before God and a standing with Him, the thing that will do this and purge your conscience from dead works, is the application to you of this precious Christ whose perfect work is everlasting riches, durable riches and righteousness. (Prov. 8:18) Solomon calls them "durable riches." That can never be said of any other riches; but this has the character of durability--durability not for a lifetime here below, but for eternity in the presence of a blessed God.

What more shall one say? Come to His intercession, His prevailing intercession. Guilty people are properly dumb people, dumb with respect to excuses. The natural work of the law is two-fold; it is either to excuse or accuse. The spiritual application of the law stops that first part excuse, and brings out the second. Only accusing is the work of the law in a quickened conscience. O that power is very wonderful, and now when your conscience only accuses you, when you go back by the Lord's teaching and various things come up; when you say, "Now one day I was angry with somebody and hated him, therefore I was a murderer; another time I looked on something that somebody had and coveted it, and so I became a thief;" and you might run through your sins and do run through them--I do through mine often, in these my latter days I live much in the past, in painful, shameful, grievous meditations on the past. And now, what will satisfy? What can help you? What can do you good? Only the blood of Christ, and it does good in two ways. First, it keeps you from despair; it helps you to plead, teaches you to open your mouth, to open it wide, to come with large petitions; it tells you that even circumstances that seem to have a curse in them can have that curse taken out by the blood of Christ; it points out the way to the throne of God's heavenly grace; it affords a plea, it fills your mouth with arguments, it tells you that God was well pleased with Christ and that if you can only win His ear through faith and the power of the Holy Ghost, then He will be pleased with you; it will prove that He has been pleased with you through eternity.

And the other way that I would mention is, that that blood that affords a plea sends the answer, gives satisfaction; says to the sinner, "Your sins are covered; they are blotted out as a thick cloud." And can you get to the end of this? Will you ever be able to search fully these riches and count the wealth of Christ's atonement; ever be able to say "I have reckoned it up and it is so much?" Can you reckon up your own sins; can you count the sins of a day? What then? O what must that blood be that can wash out every stain and remove every sin from a sinner's conscience! Unsearchable riches of intercession that brings this precious blood, this sweet answer; intercession that makes a sinner acceptable, so to speak; that gives him access to his God. Intercession that has ability in it to save the sinner: "Able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by Him." (Heb. 7:25) What an amazing wealth this is! As long as you live you will need the Intercessor to open His mouth for you when you are dumb.

And dear friends, is there any end to His light, any end to His life? No. What is His life, I mean as He is a Saviour? It is eternal: "This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." (1 John 5:11) Therefore though we have fainted often, He has revived us. What is light? It is that light "that lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" that blessed light that shines in the soul and discovers God, after it has discovered sin; or rather it discovers God, and that discovery brings sin to light. But I must not continue. If these hints lead you to pray that these unsearchable riches may be more and more opened to you, they will not have been made in vain. The Lord bless you and bless each one of us with His precious mercy. Amen.

ANTINOMIANISM DEMOLISHED

2011-01-12T18:45:00.002Z

Antinomianism Demolished and the Gospel of Christ delivered from its False Charges - By John Rusk
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"Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck."
(1 Tim. 1:19)

The precious Gospel of Christ, and the happy recipients of it, have ever been slandered by the ungodly world, whether the openly profane or the self-righteous Pharisee. They tell us that the Gospel leads to licentiousness; that if people believe in God's eternal election, and that salvation is all free, they then may live as they list; for if people are elected they are sure to be saved, and if not (as no good works are meritorious) they will be damned, do what they may. And this is the way the carnal heart argues. But the real truth is, they hold up to contempt what they cannot understand, for God has hid their hearts from understanding, (Job 17:4). It is not possible for any natural man living, let him have what gifts or abilities he may, natural or acquired, let him learn Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and be well acquainted with the original text, let him have been brought up at Cambridge, Oxford, or what college or academy he may, to comprehend what the Gospel really leads to; for, "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned," (1 Cor. 2:14). And again, on the contrary, a man shall be a mere fool, little better than an idiot; he shall not know one letter from another, and yet well understand what the pure Gospel of Christ leads to. Such an one, having a rich experience of the power of it by the Holy Ghost, knows well that the Gospel of Christ leads to a holy life, walk, and conversation; and in this our dear Lord once rejoiced saying, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight," (Luke 10:21). Hence it is that, "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err," in this path, (Isa. 35:8). "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are," that, "he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord," (1 Cor. 1: 27-31).

In this chapter from whence our text is taken, the apostle Paul is putting his son Timothy in mind of the charge which he gave him at his going to Macedonia, and also the right use of the law and the end of it. "Now, the end of the commandment (or moral law) is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned," (verse 5). He then tells him of his own call to be an apostle, and speaks honestly what he was by nature, and what also by grace: "Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy...And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of who I am chief," (verses 13-15). "This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightiest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck," (verses 18,19).

Having come to our text, I will treat,

Very briefly about faith, issues
Of a good conscience, which concerns this faith,
The dreadful consequences of putting away conscience,
What all such faith will terminate in, namely, shipwreck,
1. Now, in order to make clear work of it, I observe that there is a faith that hypocrites have as well as saints. Hypocrites pride themselves greatly on it, but God's family do not, and yet they are never without this faith. I do not know whether my reader will understand me, but it is as follows: God's people believe that all are sinners, and so do many hypocrites, for the Scriptures declare it. God's people believe that not works performed by man will save sinners, and so do many hypocrites. God's people believe that Christ is the only Saviour, and so do hypocrites. God's people believe in a Trinity of Persons in God, and so do hypocrites. God's people believe that Christ is God, the Father is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and so do hypocrites. God's people believe that Christ assumed human nature, and destroyed the devil and all his works, that there must be a new nature, or a change of heart, as a meetness for heaven, and so do hypocrites. God's people believe in the resurrection of the just and unjust, and so do hypocrites. Lastly, God's people believe in eternal happiness to the one, and eternal misery to the other, and so do hypocrites. Now I have hinted at a few of the many things that hypocrites believe to be truths as well as saints, and it is this that often puzzles you and me, for we can see no difference, whereas there is a great difference. Take it as follows. Suppose a man to have a great knowledge, which he has acquired by reading historical accounts of different parts of the world, and another who has been in all those parts and yet never read any such accounts; have they both not faith? Truly they have; yet it must be allowed on all hands that his faith is best that does not tell you of those parts of the earth from mere history, but from experimental knowledge. And just so it is with saints and hypocrites. The saint believes that all are sinners, with the same faith as a false professor does, in his judgment; for were you to ask him the question at all times, he would never deny it; but when he feels that, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, he is full of wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores, here the saint exceeds the hypocrite, for the latter never can come here. The saint believes that no works of men are sufficient to save, and this same faith a hypocrite has, yea, and some will contend for free grace, as well as real saints; but the saint's confidence goes farther, for he feels that he is to every good work (in his old nature) reprobate.

Now it would be superfluous for me to go over all those things again respecting the people of God and hypocrites. Suffice it to say, that there are many things that God's people believe that hypocrites believe also, and yet theirs is not the faith of God's elect. A hypocrite may have his head full of these things, so as to be able to carry the point in a masterly way, or he may not be so capable; and these same things there may be in real saints. A real saint may have much understanding of this kind, and have his head full of these things, yet, although this is faith, it is not saving faith to either party; and therefore the child of God goes much further, for his faith stands in the power of God; but the hypocrite has it only in the head, and therefore his faith at best stands only in the wisdom of men. Of this sort were the foolish virgins, the man without the wedding garment, and those also that believed for a while; and we have no call to wonder at this, for it is obvious enough. I have known and do know such characters, who well understand the truth, neither will they hear any but those that have much light of knowledge in the Scriptures and large experience; and yet they are destitute of real saving faith. Yea, farther; there are preachers now, and ever have been, who preach the truth so clearly that you cannot find them out, and yet they have not real saving faith; and the cause is this: The Spirit of God may, and does, enlighten many men in their understanding, and endow them with gifts and abilities, from which arises a confidence in the truth they assert. They believe it to be truth, and such by their preaching have many converts, who believe as they do; and were you to talk to them, they would agree with all you say, because both they and you agree in this faith which is only lodged in the understanding. Hence we are told that the prince gives a gift to his servant; and Paul tells the Corinthians, for it is implied in what he says, that some receive the Gospel in vain; "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain," (1 Cor. 15: 1,2). You see, there is believing of such truths which to some characters is altogether in vain, while to others it is effectual to their soul's salvation. Now the elect of God differ, for they not only have this persuasion in the head, but the Holy Ghost works faith in their hearts also; so that they feel all these glorious truths; and where there is such a faith in the heart, there will be also a good conscience; but where it goes no further than the understanding, there will not; so that such will put conscience away and make a separation.

2. Now this brings me to the next general head, which is this: a good conscience, which concerns this faith. I will abide close by the Scriptures, and prove that faith and conscience go hand-in-hand together; and, "what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," (Mk. 10:9). I know we live in an awful day; and although there is much talk about faith, yet conscience is put away: and if you enforce there things, it is called legality, and they will say you are in bondage; but I know that such are Antinomians in reality. Their faith goes no farther than their heads:

In vain men talk of living faith,
When all their works exhibit death

But now, what is a good conscience? Adam, when he came out of his Maker's hands, was pronounced good, consequently he had a good conscience; but when he fell every faculty of his soul was evil, and, therefore he had a bad conscience; and from him, our federal head, we all come into this world, both elect and reprobate, with a bad conscience. Hence we are told that, "God hath concluded them all in unbelief," (Rom. 11:32); and, if so, there is a bad conscience, for to the unbelieving there is nothing clean! (Tit. 1:15). Mind and conscience are both defiled.

Now, let me treat a little about this evil conscience, before I show what a good one is. In order to illustrate the subject, and that we may see a little of the depth of man's fall, and the real necessity of the good work which God the eternal Spirit does in all the chosen family, I shall not confine myself to the word conscience, but shall take heart as well, for in Scripture the word heart very often means conscience; as, for instance, the apostle John says, "if our heart condemn us," (1 John 3:20), that is, if our conscience condemns us. Before I begin I may say that, black as what I shall relate may appear, it will be only a faint resemblance of every individual man, woman, or child, that ever came or comes into this world from Adam to the end of time, and those that deny it are blinded by the devil himself. I say only a faint resemblance, for to draw thy portrait, reader, and mine, and that of all others, as it really is, is out of my power. Hence it is called, "the mystery of iniquity," (2 Thess. 2:17). I will not assert that this corrupt fountain, the human heart, sends forth its evil streams alike in all. No; God restrains those corruptions in some, and not in others, for wise ends; and it is wholly owing to his restraints that men go on so outwardly circumspectly as they do. Were we to take those restraints off where there is no grace, then out would pour forth, like an overflowing stream, all those vile abominations which now lie hidden and out of sight, at least many of them; but, as it is needful for me to keep within some bounds, I will confine myself to these ten things, in which you will see something of a bad conscience or heart.

1. The deceit of the heart of all men by the fall; "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," (Jer. 17:9); by which I understand, that all the hypocrisy and deceit that goes on in the world, whether in a profession of religion or not, flows out of the corrupt heart. The heart, or evil conscience, is a fountain of deceit that supplies the ungodly from day to day, and yet it is ever full. The heart is deceitful above all things, because all things are supplied from it, evil desires, thoughts, and actions. We all know that deceit is carrying two faces, speaking things that appear very fair, when it is only flattery. Hence you read, "With their tongues they have used deceit, (Rom. 3:13), "deceiving and being deceived," (2 Tim. 3:13); that is, the heart is such a complete mass for deception that it deceives the man that has it, and he deceives others.

2. The pride of the heart. See Pharaoh: "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go," (Ex. 5:2). Here was pride, ignorance, and self-will altogether. See Nebuchadnezzar also. We read that he was driven from men, and his dwelling was with the beasts of the field, and he ate grass like an ox; his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hair was grown like eagle's feathers, and his nails like bird's claws. Now, all this was for all the pride of his heart, as Daniel told his son: "But when (thy father's)heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne," (Dan. 5:20).

3. Covetousness. The very nature of man is to grasp at all he can. He does not care who sinks, so he swims; and, although to our view some men are very different to others upon this head, yet this is only owing to God's restraining power, as before observed. Selfishness and covetousness are rooted in all. There is not a man upon the face of the whole earth that, in his fallen state, is not a covetous man. Say you, I never coveted after money in my life? True, you might not, and yet the love of money is in you as it respects the root; and, were the devil let loose upon you, he would soon drive you on to the greatest pitch of coveting after money. But covetousness is very extensive. Some covet idol gods; some their neighbour's wife, ox, ass, etc. None are exempt.

4. Christ gives us a full description of what is in the heart of man. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man," (Matt. 15:19,20). From all which you see what a deplorable state man is in. But I shall not enlarge.

5. Rebellion. If you read Jeremiah's prophecy carefully you will find plenty of this rebellion, and God's judgments that overtook the people of Israel for it; their perverseness, impiety, and contempt of God. "But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone," (Jer. 5:23). Again, in chapter 42 we read, that they sent Jeremiah to pray to the Lord for them, and that whatever the Lord said they would abide by, whether good or bad; but when he brought the answer, they found it against their will and wish, then they told him that the Lord had not said so, and that they would go to Egypt, which was expressly against his command. Thus they assembled in their hearts, "rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High," (Ps. 107:11).

6. The heart is full of evil. Evil, you know, is opposed to good. God is good; the devil is evil, and our hearts are filled with evil. Hence we read that, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually," (Gen. 6:5). You see how expressive it is. The heart is not only full of evil, but there is no abatement; it is going on continually. Christ said the same when upon the earth. A corrupt fountain can send forth nothing but evil streams, and therefore the wicked being only corrupt, "are like the troubled sea...whose waters cast up mire and dirt," (Isa. 57:20). Hence you read of evil desires and evil deeds, for their, "feet run to evil," (Isa. 59:7). Solomon says that, "the heart...is full of evil," (Eccl. 9:3), and that, "the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil," (Eccl. 8:11). So you see that the corrupt fountain is the heart, or a bad conscience, which produces evil actions.

7. The impenitence of the heart. After all man does, he still continues stubborn, hard impenitent. Hence God says, "They have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return," (Jer. 5:3). No, reader, there is nothing in you or me, by nature, that ever can or will turn to God. We are stout-hearted and far from righteousness, (Isa. 46:12).

8. The idolatry of the heart. God requires the heart to be set upon him, but, instead of that, our hearts by nature are wholly set upon idols, in opposition to him; and whatever a man loves most, that is his god, and that he worships. Thus there are women-gods, men-gods, money gods, pleasure-gods, etc. Whatever we love most, that is our god. This is called by Ezekiel the stumbling block of our iniquity, set up in the heart; and he says there is a multitude of these idols, (Ezek. 14:4). And God declares that he will not hear any prophet in behalf of such, but will answer them himself: "That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols," (Ezek. 14:5).

9. The malice and wrath of the heart against the true God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God," (Rom. 8:7), and we are, "hateful, and hating one another," (Tit. 3:3). Now all this arises up in us, and is the sad effect of a bad conscience. Hence you read of the rage and fury of Nebuchadnezzar, on hearing that the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego would not fall down and worship the golden image, (Dan. 3:13).

10. The unbelief of the heart. We read of, "an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God," (Heb. 3:12) and again, "They do always err in their heart; and have not known my ways," and "could not enter in(that is, Israel of old), because of unbelief," (Heb. 3:10,19). This always erring is a one continued unbelief, which, as John says, is making God a liar, (1 John 5:10). Moses calls them, "children in whom is no faith," (Deut. 32:20). But you may be ready to say, "You have given a description of the hearts and consciences of very vile and wicked men in former days, but that does not prove that all are alike." To this I answer, that, "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man, (Prov. 27:19). "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, (Rom. 3:23). "God hath concluded them all in unbelief," (Rom. 11:32); and if that be God's conclusion, it is a true and faithful account, which fully proves a bad conscience in all, for to the unbelieving there is nothing clean, mind and conscience both being defiled. Now, if we consider seriously the deceit of the heart, the pride of the heart, the covetousness, the description our Lord gives also, with the rebellion of it, that it is full of evil, impenitent, and full of idols, malice, wrath, rage, fury, and unbelief, with innumerable other things, may we not say that every man's conscience, from which all these evils flow, is completely bad? Truly we may; and yet none know these things from experience but God's elect; when the Holy Ghost enlightens them to see, and quickens them to feel it, and applies the law, bringing it home to the conscience, for, although natural conscience will censure and condemn a man for many things, yet it is not honest after all, for it will acquit him in things unspeakably vile, abominable, and blasphemous, just as Paul was acquitted by his conscience while unconverted, when he murdered the saints. He thought he did right, and thoughts and conscience go together, as Mr. Huntington used to say. But we read of some that are not plagued at all with conscience. Such are said to be past feeling, and they, I believe, are intended in our text. But of this I shall treat hereafter.

Now let us see what it is that will make a good conscience, and we will abide by the Scriptures of truth, proving what we advance as we go on; and may the Lord enable you and me, reader, to come to the light, and closely examine ourselves whether we have a good conscience or not.

First, then, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost makes a good conscience, and this is promised to the elect, and to them only; I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, saith the Lord God, (Ezek. 37:14). I might mention many things that the Spirit does: as for instance, he puts fear in their hearts; and, as the fear of the Lord is to depart from evil, and is the beginning of wisdom, the man sees and feels that he is a sinner, and feels the real need and necessity of a good conscience. It is the good Spirit that thus teaches him, and shows him that he is in possession of an evil conscience; and that all these ten things which I have mentioned belong to him, and a vast deal more. Now, although the conscience is not yet thoroughly purged from sin and guilt, yet it is good; for when the Holy Ghost comes into a conscience, his indwelling constitutes that heart or conscience good. For, black as hell as the man appears in his own eyes, he entirely agrees with the testimony of God's Word respecting the fall of man. What a good God says he is brought to feel, and shall set his seal that God is true in all things that respect him in his Word. To go no further, the man has four things: 1. The Holy Ghost, by David, says, "Thy Spirit is good," (Ps. 143:10); 2. The moral law, which is holy, just, and good; 3. God's Word, as it respects the fall of man; 4. The grace of life, which is a good treasure put in the heart. "But," say you, "the man feels himself a very devil!" Yes! and it is these good things that make him feel it. If he were dead in sin and a self-righteous Pharisee, he would, as Agur says, "be pure in (his) own eyes," (Ps. 30:12); whereas he is unspeakably vile in his own eyes. Now, this is the seed sown in an honest and good heart; for such will speak as they feel, and rather under than over the mark. Hence we read that they are, "children that will not lie," (Isa. 63:8). They feel a tender conscience. Not only has such a man four things, but he has everything he ever will have, as a treasure in his heart; for at regeneration the whole treasure of grace is implanted, called the, "new man." And this regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost makes a good conscience; but the, "old man," is not altered; he is left to make war against such a one ever after.

Secondly, in order to have a good conscience, the atonement of Christ must be brought in, for it is his blood which cleanses from all sin. "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:14). Those dead works which thousands pride themselves in must be purged away before there can be a good conscience. All works performed before the soul is quickened are dead works, whether in the Pharisee or the elect of God. The way, then, we are brought to feel a good conscience is this: our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience, and therefore before the sinner is manifestly pardoned, he feels conscience against him, and his sins stare him in the face as the publican's did, who, you read, smote upon his breast, showing that he felt guilt, (Lk. 18:13). But was he regenerated at that time? Truly he was, and that made him feel what he did. Yes, the publican was washed at the very time when he smote upon his breast. Oh, yes; and what was he washed from? From his false notions of a god all mercy, and from all his false hopes and refuge of lies. He once said as we read some did, we shall have peace though we walk in the imaginations of our evil hearts, (Jer. 23:17). He was washed from all these things, and therefore believed he was a sinner, a vile sinner, a guilty sinner, which no man living really believes until the Holy Ghost takes possession of his heart. A man may have natural convictions, but this man went further. His wound was deep, and, as a proof that he had the good Spirit, he cried for mercy unto God. But Judas, Pharaoh, Cain, Balaam, and others never cried to God at all, and the cause was, the Spirit never helped their infirmities, nor ever interceded in them or for them. From all which we learn that all the time we are wretchedly miserable, under a sight and feeling sense of sin and guilt, the good work is going on, although we feel as if we were vessels of wrath, being fitted for destruction. Then press on, fellow traveller, for glorious days are before you. Now this atonement is received by faith. Hence you read that God purifies the heart by faith, (Acts 15:19). The Holy Ghost testifies to our hearts of Jesus Christ, that he shed his blood for sinners; and he leads us in faith to Christ with a, "peradventure," or, "who can tell?" and although we appear viler than any, yet necessity drives us to try. The invitations and promises made in the Gospel the Holy Spirit brings at times to our minds, and thus we go up and down like a pair of scales, sometimes concluding that we shall succeed, and again sinking in despair. However, after much, very much soul-travail, we come to Christ, labouring and heavy-laden; and we find rest, rest from an intolerable burden of sin, rest from all our guilt, and rest from legal labour to please God and conscience. Now, reader, do you know anything experimentally about a good conscience?

Thirdly, the Spirit of God bears his witness with our spirit (or our conscience)that we are children of God. I have heard Mr. Huntington say that none ever had a worse conscience than Paul, and I believe he spoke truth, for Paul compelled the saints to curse Christ. Hence Paul says, "(I) compelled them to blaspheme," (Acts 26:11); but, says he, "no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: etc." (1 Cor. 12:3). All this shows what Paul had been at; nevertheless, being a chosen vessel, he is changed. Old things pass away, and all things become new; and therefore he says, "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony (or witness)of our conscience," (2 Cor. 1:12); for, says he, "My conscience also (bears)me witness in the Holy Ghost," (Rom. 9:1).

Now, what is all religion (falsely so called)without these things that I am writing about? Why, nothing at all; this is the groundwork. Here it is that God begins with the elect sinner, and no other. 1. He gives him his Spirit: "I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live," (Ezek. 37:14), and this blessed Spirit regenerates him, forming a new man, and from all this he learns the deplorable condition he is in. 2. He testifies of Christ, and draws forth faith, which purifies conscience; so that he feels access to God, being made nigh by his blood. There is now no gnawing guilty conscience, for the conscience is purged; so that there is now a witness felt, silencing Satan, law, and conscience, with every other accuser. We now find such a change as before we were utter strangers to; and it does not come, no, nor is it kept up, by working to please conscience, but by believing in what Christ has done for us, that the work is completely finished, according to the Saviour's last words, "It is finished," (John 19:30).

Now, in order to have a real good conscience, it is needful for us to have the sentence of justification, and this is brought into conscience by the Holy Ghost assuring us that the perfect righteousness of the Son of God becomes ours by faith. Hence Paul says, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness," (Rom. 10:10). This you may clearly see in Joshua, the high priest. We are told that he was clothed with filthy garments, and Satan stood at his right hand to resist him, that is, as an accuser; but when the order came, "Take away the filthy garments from him.......and I will clothe thee with a change of raiment," (Zech. 3:4), then Satan is rebuked. "It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" (Rom. 8:33,34). And this is freely from all things, by faith in the Surety's obedience. By faith Abel obtained witness that he was righteous, (Heb. 11:4).

Now, wherever this good work is done, there will be a judgment set up in the believer; and we may call it the court of conscience. Yes, and close work it is too. Such do not live as they list; go on cheating and taking all advantages, and say, "The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these," (Jer. 7:4). and that they are delivered to do every abomination. No, God forbid! Neither will this good conscience be maintained but by exercise. Hence Paul says, "I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men," (Acts 24:16). Now the cause of all this exercise arises from the old man which we still carry about with us, and which the devil, by permission, often works upon in connection with all his allies. Oh, what sore conflicts are they that we have through this old man of sin continually working, in one way or another, which, if indulged, is sure to defile conscience! It would be impossible to relate the many thousand ways and workings of this old man, which is corrupt according to his deceitful lusts. Oh, the many painful days and months I have had on account of my secretly indulging things which at the very time I knew were wrong, through force of temptation and the love of sin which is rooted in this old man! Ah! the Pharisees may boast of his good conscience, but the poor tried Christian cannot, for he feels himself so weak and easily drawn aside that he is in continual jeopardy. He trembles lest the Lord should give him up to his own heart, "to work all uncleanness with greediness," (Eph. 4:19), lest he should say to him, "(He) is joined to idols: let him alone," (Hos. 4:17). He is continually beset, more or less, with all those things that I told you were the effect of an evil conscience. His having a good conscience does not set him out of the reach of temptation, so that he totters and trembles, knowing how many have gone back from God, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures and many that he reads of in good books; the great lengths in light, knowledge and understanding, gifts and abilities to write, pray, and preach, all of which have come to nothing. So that when he hears of the downfall of men, he is astonished that he in any measure stands, and wonders at the longsuffering mercy of God that has not cut him down as a cumberer of the ground; and really fears, and sometimes expects, that he himself will be the next that will bring a disgrace upon the cause of God, and open the mouths of God's enemies to blaspheme his holy name. But, blessed be God, we are not to despair, although there are such sore exercise, conflicts, and hard fightings; for, "there is hope in Israel concerning this thing," (Ezra 10:2). Hence the promise, "Come now, and let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool," (Isa. 1:18). And, again, "Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified," (Isa. 43:26). "Put me in remembrance," of my promises. "Take with you words and turn to the LORD," (Hos. 14:2). "Let us plead together." That is, "I will tell you and make you feel what charges I have against you, and do you plead the only remedy, even the merits of my dear Son, for it is only in him that I will accept you. And when I bless you with a confidence again in him, then you will have a good conscience; then your scarlet sins and crimson sins will be as snow and wool. Not that you will then think lightly of sin. Oh, no; for then you will loathe yourselves in your own eyes for your iniquities, and yet believe that I am pacified towards you." Again: "Declare thou, that thou mayest be justified;" that is, "Declare thy sin, only acknowledge thy transgression, that thou hast walked contrary to me, which has caused me to walk contrary unto thee." David went this way: "I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin," (Ps. 38:18). The apostle Paul tells us that, "if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world," (1 Cor. 11:31,32). Now I know that you and I cannot make straight paths for our feet unless we go this way to work. It is not our having ever so large an experience of the love and mercy of God that manifestly will make us bomb-proof against Satan, law, sin, the world, the old man, and conscience, for you may enjoy this to the full, and slip into sin quickly upon the back of it. Frames that are comfortable are very desirable; and oh for more of those happy frames and sweet feelings! But still it will not do to trust in them, as if it were impossible that we should backslide and wound conscience, after being so highly favoured. I know well what I am writing, for I have trusted in them, and have shortly afterwards been drawn aside into a light and trifling spirit, foolish talking, idols, etc. Satan is upon the look-out when you and I are very happy in our God; for it is a hell to him, and therefore he will try everything he can, at such times in particular, to draw us aside. David's heart was right with God, and he had a good conscience, and yet how Satan worked upon the old man in that dreadful fall, so that conscience was wounded or his bones broken! (Ps. 51:8). Solomon, so particularly noted for the love of Christ, as is manifestly clear in his Song, how he is drawn aside by these outlandish women! It is said Solomon loved many strange wives, which turned his heart from the Lord, (1 Kings 11:1-4). Now, if such eminent saints as these fell, what are you and I? "The LORD is exalted; for he dwelleth on high: he hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness," (Isa. 33:5); and here every believer has the advantage of all other characters, whether professors or profane, for there is no judgment in their goings. Thy judgments are far above out of their sight, (Ps. 10:5). But you will not value this way, no, nor properly attend to it, although a believer, until after many slips and falls; I do not mean openly, but secretly. When the devil and the old man have tripped up your heels again and again, then you will be often judging, trying, and examining yourself by God's Word. Indeed, the chief part of your life will be taken up in this way. You will not rest in attainments, but will press on. Having deeper and deeper discoveries of your own heart, you will be always suspicious, and walk in much fear at times, saying, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting," (Ps. 139:23,24). You will find plenty of work in weeding your own garden without attending to another's, if you would judge yourselves. When conscious of anything wrong you will not pass it by as a trivial thing, but go secretly to the Lord, and say, "Lord, I certainly did wrong. I took advantage of such a one; I indulged a secret lust; I spake unadvisedly with my lips; I made too free with worldly men; my covetous heart has gone after money, etc." Now, whatever it may be, this is the way: First, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith," (2 Cor. 13:5); examine your heart and then examine the Scriptures; for, "wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word," (Ps. 119:9); and it is better to consult God's Word than to consult men. Secondly, after examination, then honest confession of what is amiss, for it is he that confesseth and forsaketh his sin that is to find mercy, (Prov. 28:13); which mercy, Paul tells us, is washing and renewing, (Tit. 3:5), washing away all fresh contracted guilt and filth, and then renewing us in the spirit of our mind. This is anointing us with oil. Thirdly, pleading the unconditional promises, such as these: "Hast thou not promised that from all filthiness, idols, and uncleanness thou wouldst save us, that a new heart thou wouldst give us, and that thou wouldst keep us from evil that it might not grieve us, that sin shall not have dominion, but thou wouldst put thy fear in our hearts?" (Ezek. 36:25,26; 1 Chron. 4:10; Rom. 6:14; Jer. 32:40); and so, picking out of Scripture what is most suitable to our present condition, asking those favours only in the name and for the alone sake of Jesus Christ the one Mediator, and following it up with importunity, for, "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force," (Matt. 11:12). Now all this is sowing to the Spirit, and in this way we shall find that he will help us against our infirmities; and as you go in in the divine life you will find your need more and more, in order to a good conscience, of taking very minute things to the Lord, daily and hourly. Hence Paul says, "Pray without ceasing," (1 Thess. 5:17); which teaches us that our wants will crowd in upon us, that we may be kept needy, praying with the heart and not with the lip only. Fourthly, a constant acknowledging the Lord's favours, both in providence and grace. "I will deliver thee from the guilt and filth of sin, from various difficulties in providence, from the devil's temptations, from all your outward enemies, etc., but thou shalt glorify me;" and who is worthy of the glory but him that has all power? Yea, I know it will be the desire of our souls at times to give him the glory, and we shall rejoice in giving it to him, and in speaking good of his name, saying, "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul," (Ps. 66:16).

Now if you attend to these things you will do well; but if you cast them away as a thing too low and of no account, then you are like those in our text, that is, you put away conscience, which certainly concerns faith; for what is all our faith but an empty show, if there is no regard to conscience? Hence Paul says, "Holding the mystery of faith is a pure conscience," (1 Tim. 3:9). "Ah," says you, "it is all very well for the weakling, but I am more established, consequently I am not so particular." Yes, you may be established in head notions, but your heart is not established with grace, for grace is of a holy, purifying nature, as I shall hereafter show; and let me tell you that, living allowedly in the way you do, you will make shipwreck. It is a very awful thing to put away conscience. Soar as high as ever you may, your fall will be irrecoverable. But is this judgment finally neglected by any of God's elect? No! for God will take them in hand, and bring them to look, so that it shall not go on; only it comes heavier in general when they neglect it, and get hardened through the deceitfullness of sin. I say it comes heavier. We have no account of David judging himself, and therefore God sent His servant, the prophet Nathan; and although David had at that time a bad conscience, yet the parable of the ewe lamb took no hold of him. But when Nathan said, "Thou art the man," (2 Sam. 12:7), then God took it in hand, and set it home on his conscience; and although God put away his sin, yet the sword never departed from his house, (2 Sam. 12:10,13). Thus God forgave him, but took vengeance of his inventions. And I believe the incestuous person was another that did not judge himself; and therefore God took it in hand, and Paul puts him out of the church, and delivers him over to Satan; not for eternal destruction, but for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, (1 Cor. 5:5).

Neither is all this judgment confined to individuals; but really it belongs to us as a church and people. I believe, in this day in which we live, we are defiled, and have gone after our lovers. Read carefully Ezekiel chapters 16 and 23, and compare them with us as a church in the awful day in which we live.

Having therefore treated, 1. Briefly about faith, and 2. Of a good conscience, I am now, in order to make clear work of it, to show the close connection there is between faith and conscience, so that we must not put conscience away: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," (Mk. 10:9).

First, then, has God chosen them in Christ Jesus, and do they believe this? Is this the faith of God's elect? Truly it is, and if this is your happy lot as a believer, he has also chosen you out of this world. Hence he says, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, etc." (2 Cor. 6:17). Faith and a good conscience going together proves our election and adoption.

Secondly. Have we faith? How do we prove it? I answer, by a good conscience, for they go together. "In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence," (Prov. 14:26), and this fear is put in the heart that we may not depart from God, (Jer. 32:40). It is also, "the beginning of wisdom," (Ps. 111:10), and is, "to hate evil," (Prov. 8:13), all of which has to do with a good conscience.

Thirdly. Where this faith is, such are blessed of God; for as many as are of faith, are blessed with faithful Abraham, (Gal. 3:9). And this must go also along with a good conscience, for the Lord declares as follows: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful," (Ps. 1:1). Again, says Peter, "Unto you first (that is, first to the Jews the Gospel was preached) God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you." What! with faith only in the notion of it? Oh no, but to bless you, "in turning away every one of you from his iniquities," (Acts 3:26).

Fourthly. Have you faith? "Yes," say you. How do you prove it? "Why, I understand the truth, and agree with all the sound doctrines of the everlasting Gospel." Very good; but can you go no further? "No," say you, "neither do I see it needful, except to attend the ordinances of God's house, family prayer, reading and so on." Well, these things are all right, but at best this is only outside work; for all those things may be attended to, and yet such an one not have a good conscience. Peter says: God purifies the heart or conscience, by faith, (Acts 15:9). So you and I may talk ever so much about our faith; but if it never purifies the heart I was going to say we are just where we were, but we are not, for we are in a worse plight. Hence you read that the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, but especially against those that hold the truth in unrighteousness, (Rom. 1:18), which is a parallel text with ours, Holding faith, and putting away a good conscience, (1 Tim. 1:19).

Fifthly. Suppose you have ever so strong faith in your judgment, this abstractedly will never endure the fire. You man boast of it all the time your are kept clear of trials; but real faith is connected with a good hope, and a good hope is in the heart. It is an anchor of the soul that holds it fast in a storm. It is sure and steadfast, and enters into that within the veil, (Heb. 6:19); that is, it holds fast the Godhead of Christ. There is where the believer anchors; and such, like Abraham, the father of the faithful, under sore trials, are called against hope in nature to believe in hope through grace, (Rom. 4:18), and trust wholly to God's promise. This is the hope of the Gospel of Christ, and is of a purifying nature, (1 John 3:2,3).

Sixthly. Does your faith take hold of God's love to you? John tells us, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us," (1 John 4:16). Now, if your faith and mine be the same, it will work at times in loving God, his truth, his family, and his ways, and in hating evil. This love, being shed abroad in the heart, is holiness itself. Hence you read that God, "hath chosen us in (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love," (Eph. 1:4). Thus, you see, believing that God loves us is connected with a good conscience, hating evil, loving the brethren in deed and in truth, and is said to be a principle of holiness.

Seventhly. Real faith brings pardon into the conscience; for he that believeth shall receive the forgiveness of sins, (Acts 10:43). Jesus Christ came to save his people, not in their sins, but from their sins. Hence John says, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin," (1 John 1:7), and when sin is gone, there is a good conscience.

Eighthly. Real faith, that believes in the imputed righteousness of Christ for justification, is attended also with holiness of heart, for with the heart it is that we believe unto righteousness, (Rom. 10:10), so that condemnation is removed. Real faith is something more than head notions.

Ninthly. Every believer is a partaker of the Holy Ghost, for we receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, (Gal. 3:14). "Yes," say you, "and so was Balaam, Saul, and others." True, they did have many of his gifts, but he never took possession of their hearts. I will mention four things that he does in the heart of all God's elect, that no mere professor, with all his boasted faith, ever had. 1. It is the Spirit that quickeneth. Every soul born into this world is spiritually dead, elect and reprobate, and none ever will have spiritual life given them but God's elect; and where this life is, sin is at all times sorely felt, so that we groan under its burden. We have deeper and deeper discoveries of our own hearts, and are greatly concerned about our eternal state, and also of the end we shall make. Hence Solomon says, "The living (that is, those that are quickened by the Holy Ghost) will lay it to his heart," (Eccl. 7:2); and all this you may clearly see in Bible saints. The publican smote upon his breast, David, Asaph, Paul, etc., all came into this path, but no hypocrite ever did. They have natural convictions, and may confess what is obvious to all. Their convictions are partial, but the others are full; they plentifully declare the thing as it is. Hypocrites confess to men, but God's elect to God in secret. 2. The Holy Ghost will help the infirmities of God's elect, and set them crying to God for mercy in the face of all opposition; not presumptuously, but in an entreating way. This you may see in Hezekiah; notwithstanding the predictions of the prophet, he cried unto the Lord. See Jacob also and the woman of Canaan. They shall come after him in chains, (Isa. 45:14), but hypocrites cry not when God binds them, (Job 36:13). Likewise also the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, and this he does with groanings, sighings, longings, thirstings, etc, etc. (Rom. 8:26), which are the best prayers, and which are sure to be heard and answered in God's own time. 3. He will testify of Christ to such as an able, willing, and all-sufficient Saviour, just exactly suitable to his case; and at times there is such a keen appetite for him as it is impossible to describe. Hence one breaks out, With all my soul have I desired thee in the night, and with my spirit within me I will seek thee early, (Ps. 63:1,6); "my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God," (Ps. 84:2). Job also, "Oh that I knew where I might find him! etc.," (Job:23:3). 4. He not only testifies of Christ to us as to his suitability,, and gives us these holy longings, etc., but he reveals him, and makes him known to us as our Saviour; hence he is called the Spirit of revelation and understanding in the knowledge of Christ, (Eph. 1:17). As to all speculative knowledge of him, that is nothing; it never warms the heart or cheers the soul, but this does, for he applies the atonement, and reveals to us his righteousness as a free gift from God the Father to us; and therefore Paul says, "But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit etc.," (1 Cor. 2:10). He sheds the Father's love abroad in our hearts, and enables us to claim him as our Father, witnessing the truth of our relationship, which before we could not claim. I know it is very easy for an insensible sinner to go to church, and say, "Our Father," but for a sensible sinner, quickened by the Holy Ghost, to feel his true state under a consciousness of all his original and actual accumulated sin and guilt, like the prodigal in a far country, (Lk. 15), far from God by wicked works, I say, for such to lay this claim requires an Almighty power, as I myself can witness, and it is done by the Holy Ghost revealing Christ, and then bearing his witness with our spirit to our adoption in him. It is love casting out all slavish fear, and nothing short of it, that will enable us so to do. Love is shed abroad into every faculty of the soul by the Holy Ghost given to us. You and I must take notice and remember that there may be love, and yet that love not be as yet shed abroad in the heart; hence we read of some that love little, and of others that love much. Bless God for ever so little, and pray that we may love much, or have it shed abroad, and this love is in Christ Jesus, (Rom. 8:39). Thus the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Jesus and shows them to us, (John 16:14).

Now, is there any Antinomianism in all this? No, God forbid! Paul tells us that God hath called us to holiness, and not unto uncleanness; and it is clear from the Holy Scriptures that holiness is joined with fear, with faith, and with love, all of which is the work of the Holy Ghost in every chosen vessel, (see 2Cor. 7:1; Isa. 11:2; Jude 20,21 etc.).

I come, therefore, to the tenth thing, and that is the very profession which we make, for this is called the profession of faith: "Hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering etc." (Heb. 10:23). Thus here is faith and a profession of it; but every one that nameth the name of Christ is exhorted to depart from iniquity; so that it must go along with a good conscience.

Eleventh. Prayer. Whatsoever ye ask, ask in faith, (Matt. 21:22). There is mental prayer and social prayer. We are told to unite with all such, "as call on the Lord out of a pure heart," (2 Tim. 2:22); Antinomian, with all his faith never had that faith which purifies the heart. Thus a good conscience goes with faith.

Twelfth. "The tongue of the just is as choice as silver," (Prov. 10:20), says Solomon. Their very conversation has to do with a good conscience, for a good tree bringeth forth good fruit. "A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good," (Luke 6:45). Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good also, Matt. 12:33). A just man is a believer and lives by his faith, and the good treasure is grace in his heart, which he tells to all he is with who fear God. Peter calls it holy conversation, (1 Pet. 1:15). "He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend," (Prov. 22:11), that is, King Jesus, who is set on the holy hill of Zion, or the hearts and affections of his people, a true, "friend that sticketh closer than a brother," (Prov. 18:24). And as they still have an old man that is ever labouring in union with Satan and this world to draw them aside, the furnace is always ready to purge, cleanse, and purify them. All vain and foolish conversation, with every other evil, is prohibited. (See Eph. 5:4). Thus, you see, a good conscience produces good conversation, and the furnace is intended to keep conscience good.

Thirteenth. Faith is a grace of the Holy Spirit; but this grace, although full and free, without money and without price, and which is sovereign, neither can a believer that has it once ever lose it or finally sin himself out of the covenant of grace, for it ever shall reign in spite of Satan, sin, and death, yet it does not lead to a loose life, but has to do with a good conscience. See how Samuel, Job, and Paul could stand upon this ground before men. Samuel says to the Israelites, "Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? etc.," (1 Sam. 12:3). Job also When the eye saw it blessed me. I caused the widow's heart to leap for joy. I delivered the poor man when he cried, and plucked the spoil out of the teeth of the oppressor, (Job 29:11-17). And Paul, "I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, etc.," (Acts 20:33). Thus grace influences the heart, and is attended with a good conscience. Peter says, "Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak against you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ," (1 Pet. 3:16). And although a believer in Christ has an old man in him that is opposite to all this, and which is daily calling for gratification in one way or another, yet this is not his element, but the grief of his soul; and could you follow him narrowly, you would find him struggling hard after a holy life, walk and conversation. He cannot be content with believing that Christ has done all and so sit down contented. Oh, no. He is ever upon the move, and wishes, yea, labours to glorify God in this world, to speak good of his name; and therefore, when an opportunity offers, you will sometimes find him enforcing the truth to worldly men, such as will give him an ear, for he does not know but that some of God's elect will be amongst them, not as yet brought out of the ruins of the fall, and he hopes that God will bless him as an instrument in his hand to the awakening of some of them; and all this arises from a good conscience. Again, when he leaves his work, you will not find him keeping company with the world any further than he can help, but he feels like a bird let out of a cage to get to his God. He is led to examine himself how he has gone on in the day, and as far as he sees he has done wrong, he tries to confess to the Lord, and debases himself before him; for he is sure upon examination to find plenty wrong. After confession he pleads the atonement of Christ, and that the holy Spirit would lead him forth in faith to the fountain of Christ's blood, opened for sin and all uncleanness, (Zech. 13:1), and to Christ Jesus, who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth, (Rom. 10:4); and he is led to watch what change there is in his feelings; if sin burdened, whether the weight is removed; if in bondage, whether liberty comes; if cast down, whether raised up; if cold to spiritual things, whether his heart gets warm with a live coal from the altar; if barren, whether he is made more fruitful; and if unbelief and enmity work, he confesses it, falls in heartily with God's testimony of the fall of man, and prays the Lord to fulfill in him the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power, and to circumcise his heart to love him, and to teach him to love his family; and if he does not succeed at this work, he will follow it up, knowing that the Lord loves importunity. And all this is the good Spirit working in him, who will not let him rest, go where he will, but opens up and discovers his need to him continually; so that if he do not succeed, he will read the Bible and other good books, hear the Word, and unite with real experienced saints, still hoping to find him whom his soul loveth. Look at Job. He went forward, backward, on the right hand and on the left, but could not see him, (Job 23:8,9); and the church in the Song of Solomon sought him on her bed; she went about the city, in the streets and in the broadways, and yet she did not find him. Then she asked the watchman, and shortly after, when she had passed from them, that is, was brought off from trusting to or idolizing them, she finds him whom her soul loveth, holds him fast, and will not let him go, (Song 3:1-4). Now, I am not saying that a believer never deviates from thus following after the Lord. No; he knows he does, to his sorrow; but this I will insist on, that there is no making straight paths for our feet to the neglect of this and much more that might be asserted; and the more this method is followed up the better, for it is the way to follow the Lord fully, like Joshua and Caleb; but when this is neglected, you may cry, "My leanness, my leanness," (Isa. 24:16), long enough. God's elect work harder than any Arminians, but it is from a principle of life in their souls. It is from a good conscience, which is kept good in all these ways that I have mentioned and many more; but the Arminian works to get life, and thus they widely differ.

Lastly upon this head. It is very common for people to say, this is a good man, and the other is a good man, and the other is a good man; but do you know that God alone is the fountain of all goodness? In the days of our Lord's flesh, there came to him a young man saying, "Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God," (Matt. 19:16,17). Now this man only believed Christ to be a man. He had no faith in him as the living and true God; and as he had no faith but natural, which was corrupt, our Lord says, "Why callest thou me good? for there is none good but God, and you only view me as a mere man." Now, God is, as before observed, the fountain of all goodness, and therefore every believer has a Trinity of Persons in his heart, and it is this that makes conscience good and makes the man a good man, for short of God there is nothing good; and from God in Three Persons taking possession of the heart arises all that I have told you about a good conscience by the fall, as I have shown, is evil. Now, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost condescend to come into the heart: 1. The Father dwells with the broken and contrite heart, and revives the spirit of the humble, (Isa. 57:15); 2. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, for he says, "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me," (Rev. 3:20); and 3. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" (1 Cor. 6:19). As God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk in them," (2 Cor. 6:16). So that those who deny a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, the devil has as good a conscience as they.

Having treated a little about faith; and a good conscience, and also that conscience concerns faith, I now proceed to:

3. The dreadful consequences of putting away conscience. This never can, strictly speaking, be the case with any of God's elect, and for this reason: you never find that ever any one of them made shipwreck. But, say you, they often backslide. I grant it, for I feel daily; but to put away conscience wholly they never do. We all secretly backslide. Solomon says, "there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not," (Eccl. 7:20); but he also says, "a just man falleth seven times, and riseth again," (Prov. 24:16). Some have backslidden openly, as Solomon, David, Peter, and others, and for a time got hardened through the deceitfullness of sin; yes, and for a time put away conscience, but not for good and all. Lust is such a powerful thing that, if God leave a man for a time, he is sure to be captivated by it, even at the expense of a good conscience; but to real believers it is attended with dreadful consequences, for, although God will forgive them, yet he will take vengeance of their inventions, (Ps. 99:8), and they shall sorely smart for what they do. What did Solomon suffer for his idolatry? Why, the loss of ten tribes, besides being filled with cruel jealousy, one of the hottest ingredients in the furnace of affliction, and that by Jeroboam his servant. Hence he says, "Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame," (Song 8:6). Therefore, he sought to kill Jeroboam; and speaking his own bitter experience, he says again, "Jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance....neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts," (Prov. 6: 34,35). Solomon came at all this through putting away conscience. God made good his Word, where he says, "They have moved me to jealousy by that which is not God...and I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a people," (Deut. 32:21). God is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to any, nor his praise to graven images, (Isa. 42:8). You see it is an evil and bitter thing to sin against God. David his father also, after that dreadful fall which opened the mouths of God's enemies, what did he suffer in his soul? We may see it in Psalm 51, "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God," (verse 14); and again, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me," (verses 10,11). And again, the Lord says, Because thou hast done this, and occasioned the enemies of God to blaspheme, the sword shall never depart from thy house, (2 Sam. 12:14,10). Peter also. Oh what did he feel when he went out and wept bitterly? (Lk. 22:62). And also when Christ asked him three times whether he loved him, it is said that, "Peter was grieved," (John 21:17), grieved that the Lord should suspect his love or appear to do so. Thus you see the dreadful consequences some of God's elect have found by putting away conscience; but all these were reclaimed, so that they did not finally put it away. But a question naturally arises. If those that make shipwreck never had a good conscience, how can they put it away? To this I answer, that although they had not a good conscience, yet they professed that they had, for the unclean spirit went out of them for a time, and they united with the godly. According to all appearance such go on very consistently, and, seeing God only can search the heart, you and I cannot tell by their outward conduct but that they have a good conscience; for, as they appear heartily to believe the same truths, how is it possible to find them out? But at last the trial comes which before never had come.

I will now show you from God's Word who put away conscience altogether; the first I shall mention is Cain. Cain made a profession of the truth as well as Abel, and each brought an offering to the Lord. Cain brought of the fruits of the earth, for he was a tiller of the ground, and Abel, "brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.....and Cain talked with Abel his brother," (Gen. 4: 4,5,8). Now, all this time he had hard work within. However, he was determined to put away conscience, and therefore he rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. Well, after this you find the dreadful consequences of it; for God says, "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth," (Gen. 4: 11,12). But that was not all, for John tells us that he belonged to the devil, and did his works: "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous," (1 John 3:12). Evil works always arise from an evil conscience. John tells us, "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil," (1 John 3:10). Jude brings this in also, and pronounces the woe of God's wrath against him and all that tread in his steps, (Jude 11). Thus you see that it is no trifling matter to put away conscience.

Another that I shall take notice of is Balaam. Balaam was a man of great light, knowledge, and understanding, and appears to have been a man greatly looked up to. Now, Israel pitched in the plains of Moab, and Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many. Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of the Moabites at that time; he sent for Balaam to curse Israel, and made him very great promises, that he would promote him to honour. Now, here was the trial. Sacrifice conscience and be a great man, or abide by conscience and come to beggary; for reason can make nothing more of it. Balaam therefore put conscience away, which concerns faith, and laboured hard, vainly trying to tempt God to curse a people that he had already blessed; but he found out that God was not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent, (Num. 23:19). Now, nothing of this was done in ignorance, for we are told that the Spirit of God came upon him, that his eyes were opened, that he heard the words of God, and saw the vision of the Almighty. It was wholly for want of power in Balaam, and no want of will that he did not curse Israel: "I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, etc." (Num. 22:18). The first time we read of his putting away conscience was when he went to ask God, at the very time that he knew God's mind and will respecting Israel; for God did tell him, "Thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed," (Num. 22:12); and when Balak made him such a great offer, he puts conscience away, and says to the princes, "Tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the LORD will say unto me more," (Num. 22:19). You see what a dreadful thing it is to break through bounds. God answered him, and told him to go with the men; Balaam went, and God's anger was kindled against him for it. For the Angel of the Lord appeared to him with drawn sword in his hand, to show him that his way was perverse before God. Still, in the face of all, he puts conscience away, and builds more altars; but after all, finding that he could not turn God to curse so many thousands of people to enrich Balaam, he then advises Balak to lay a stumbling-block in their way. "And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.......And the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods," Num. 25: 1,2). John tells us that all this was through Balaam still putting away conscience. Hence, he says, that Balaam taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication, (Rev. 2:14). There was the wisdom of the serpent, intending to stir up God's wrath to curse the people for their abominations. And God sent a plague upon Israel, and there died twenty four thousand. After this, Balaam joins Midian to fight against Israel, and then comes his end. "And (Israel) slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword," (Num. 31:8). "Woe unto them! for they ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward," (Jude 11), "Which have forsaken the right way (or put away conscience), and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness," (2 Pet. 2:15). "These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever," (2 Pet. 2:17).

We have an account of another sort which put away conscience, and that is, Korah and his company: "And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown," (Num. 16:2). There is an encouragement for every poor tried soul. All characters I have been treating of, that have put away conscience, are great men. They are not poor, broken-hearted, weak, and helpless; no; and Mr. Huntington used to say, "They are all great men that the devil sends. He seldom sends understrappers." And thus it was here; "famous, and men of renown;" "And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them," (Num. 16:3). And when Moses, heard it, he fell upon his face, and spake to the sons of Korah, Seemeth it but a small thing that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation to do the service of the tabernacle, etc., and seek ye the priesthood also? (Num. 16: 4-10). But is spite of all, they were determined to put away conscience, till at last, in answer to Moses prayer, the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them. And then came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense, (Num. 16). From all which, reader, may you and I learn to take the lowest room, to encourage a tender conscience, and never be aiming at high things.

I will treat a little about King Saul. The first account that we have of his putting away conscience was when he forced himself, and offered a burnt-offering through the fear of man, because Samuel delayed his coming, (1 Sam. 13:12). Saul knew in his conscience that he ought to have waited for Samuel, but he was determined to put that away, and therefore forced himself. "And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee......But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart," (1 Sam. 13:13,14). And if you look narrowly after Saul, you will find that he continually went on putting away conscience. God expressly told him to go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they had; but Saul, contrary to God and conscience, spared Agag and the best of the sheep, etc., under the pretence of sacrificing them to the Lord; but the prophet Samuel told him that to obey was better than sacrifice, and that rebellion was as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness as iniquity and idolatry, (1 Sam. 15:23). Yet even after this he kept on, as you may read, and, against God and conscience, pursued after David and sought his life, although he knew well that David acted uprightly to him, till at last he destroyed himself and went to hell, for no self-murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

In our Lord's days, we may see conscience put away by the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees, the very worst enemies our Lord had. Now what made these peoples' sins so very great was, they did it in enmity, with open eyes. You and I know that, amongst men, a crime is lessened or aggravated this way. If you are a friend to me, and I offend you, but not intentionally, it is nothing to what it would be if I did it knowingly and designedly. This we all know is criminal to the last degree; and this was their case. God was a friend to them in giving them the things of this world, for this he does to all men. Hence you read that he loveth the stranger by giving him food and raiment, health and strength, etc., (Deut. 10:18); but for all this they hated that God in whose hand their breath was, and not ignorantly, no: "now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father," (John 15:24). They knew in their own consciences that Christ was the Messiah. His miracles carried clear evidence to all that he was the Sent of God, and they had all the prophecies of the Holy Word; so that they did it with open eyes. Hence Christ told them, "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin," (John 15:24), that is, they would not have had the sin unto death, "but now they have no cloak for their sin," (John 15:22). Thus they sinned willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, etc., (Heb. 10:26). But did they really know it when they did it? If so, why does Paul say that, "none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory," (1 Cor. 2:8)? You do not understand Paul's meaning. Take the whole two verses in connection: "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory; which (hidden wisdom) none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it (this hidden wisdom experimentally) they would not have crucified the Lord of glory," (1 Cor. 2:7,8). This is the real unstrained sense of the text; but as to their knowing that he was the Messiah this is beyond all doubt. Hence they said, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours," (Mk. 12:7); and Nicodemus, as a mouth for the rest, said, "We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him," (John 3:2). Thus they put away a good conscience which concerns faith. Moreover, at his first being apprehended, when Judas came with the rest, they all felt his power, and fell backward, (John 18:6). This violent shock confirmed his almighty power, and this they well knew. Also at his crucifixion, when all the powers of nature were shaken, (Matt. 27:50-53). Was not all this enough to prove that he was the Sent of God? Yes, but they wanted no proof, for they were determined to resist all light and the clearest convictions of conscience. Well, after this, the next day, "the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulcher be made sure, etc." (Matt. 27:62-64). Here was a little of the wisdom of the serpent. But, "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week....there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it....and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men," (Matt. 28:1-4). After this, some of the watch showed unto the chief priests all the things that were done, (Matt. 28:11), about the earthquake, about the angel rolling away the stone and sitting on it, about their shaking, and also what the angel said to the women, "He is risen, as he said," (Matt. 28:6). Well, and do not they fall under all this, and agree with conscience? No; they are fully determined to put it away. Why, what can they do now? Why they make lies their refuge, and under falsehood they try to hide themselves, (see Matt. 28:12-15); and they kept on putting away conscience, for they resisted the testimony of the Holy Ghost continually, after the Lord's ascension, till they brought down the vindictive wrath of God, for wrath came upon them to the uttermost, (1 Thess. 2:16). But I shall not enlarge, for all this you may read in the Word. You see the awful consequences of putting way conscience which concerns faith.

We have another instance of two people that put away conscience which concerns faith, through the love of money, or covetousness. It was universally agreed upon by the church of God in those primitive days to have all things in common, seeing that for the cause of Christ they were dreadfully persecuted, and could not go on with business as before, being rejected of men for Christ's sake; so that now the whole church was like one family. Yet even in these days there were two hypocrites whom the devil sowed amongst the wheat, Ananias and Sapphira, who must have gone a good way in appearance to deceive the church of God, which was blessed at that time with an abundance of the Spirit. Well, it is said that they sold a possession, and they agreed together to put conscience away, for if this is attended to, they will fare no better than the rest; but if conscience is put away, which is easily done by keeping back part of the price, then, instead of losing by selling the possession they will gain by it, for they would have their share with the church out of the common stock, besides what they keep back, which will always be useful for various things. Now we do not find them putting faith away, and saying, If believing these things must come to this, selling one's possession, I will have no more of your faith, but keep what I have; no; but it appears that it was more to their advantage to put away conscience. No doubt all these things had been canvassed over by them. (see Acts 5:1-11).

We might take notice of others. Peter speaks of some in his Second Epistle, and Jude also, which you may read at our leisure.

From what has been said, then, beware of taking liberties with conscience, for it is not to be played with. Satan will tell you that being so particular with conscience is legality. Be it so. Then let us be legal, if it be legality. I have already told you that the apostle Paul exercised himself to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men, (Acts 24:16). Joseph, who was tempted by his mistress, says, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:9). Nehemiah tells us that he would not oppress the people as the former governors did, because of the fear of the Lord, (Neh. 5:15). It is also said in praise of that good king Josiah, that his heart was tender, etc. (2 Kings 22:19). Again, beware of slighting any ordinance that you know God has enjoined upon you. To reject it is being wise in your own conceit, (Rom. 12:16), and being wise above what is written. Deviate from any one thing which you see that God has commanded in his Word, and it is at the expense of conscience. I know all these things will not go down with many in the present day. We have a corrupt nature, that is against a good conscience; but self is to be denied and the cross taken up, if we wish to hold a good conscience, and not put it away.

Now, Christian reader, you will not find all this easy work; no; but opposition on all hands. A sound creed in the head, while men walk in the imagination of their evil heart, oppressing, grinding the face of the poor, cheating, taking all advantages, etc., this loose way of living may be easy enough, until God upsets such altogether, which will most assuredly take place; for although judgment is slow, yet it is sure, and such shall not escape.

But this brings me to:

4. What putting away a good conscience is, and what all such faith will terminate in, namely, shipwreck. You read of the hope of unjust men, that perisheth. This is a bad anchor which never can keep the vessel from going into perdition. Hence you read of the perdition of ungodly men, and of some who are drowned in destruction and perdition. Now, the non-elect, you see, have an anchor, but it is of no use in a storm. The elect of God have an anchor also. Hence Paul says, "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil," (Heb. 6:19). All God's elect are self-emptied, and brought clearly out from all confidence in the flesh. They then feel their souls sinking, having all their former hopes and refuges of lies demolished; but the Holy Spirit sets Jesus Christ before them, as the one and only way, and they are enabled to embrace him, the Rock, for want of a shelter. There it is they cast anchor, for he is now the object of their hope, so that they never can be drowned in destruction and perdition. This hope, the anchor, centers in the Godhead of Christ, which is within the veil, the vail being his humanity. Here and here only a soul is safe in every storm; as you read, "A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, etc." (Isa. 32:2). Again, "Thou hast been a strength to the poor, (that is, the self-emptied soul), a strength to the needy in his distress, (that is, one that feels he needs all that Christ has to bestow), a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones, (devils, men, and corruptions) is as a storm against the wall," (Isa. 25:4). Now, a good hope in Christ is the anchor which holds the vessel of mercy, so that she will ride every storm, though not without numberless fears. But where do the non-elect anchor? I answer that all open profane characters take anchor in a god all mercy, which the devil has set up in their imaginations; and if they at any time of their life have performed any dead works, all the better for them they think. But some think of nothing at all, having their consciences seared as with a hot iron. Again, there are others of the non-elect that anchor wholly in their own performances, and appear to go on well for a long time; but they cannot end well, because such an anchor will give way. It is a bad anchor, and they will find out that trusting in their works will be as a spider's web; "Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be as a spider's web," (Job 8:14). The prophet Isaiah also speaks of these. Hence he calls it a bed too short and a covering too narrow, (Isa. 28:20), and says, "Woe to the rebellious children......that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin," (Isa.. 30:1). But there is another sort which far exceed these; and to such Paul I believe particularly alludes to our text, namely, hypocrites in Zion, who for a time flourish. Isaiah calls such gallant ships, (Isa. 33:21). These are sinners in Zion, hypocrites. They are in Zion, or in the Church of God, professedly; in Christ also by profession; and such have a faith in the letter of sound truth, as I showed you at first; yes, and they have a counterfeit experience, which deceives the children of God for a while; and thus they go on full sail, having gifts and abilities, and a false experience, some of them ignorantly, and some knowingly and willfully; but sooner or later they will make shipwreck. Hymeneus and Alexander were of this stamp, according to Paul's account; and what a length must they have gone in a pretension to truth to deceive Paul? But you will say, what is it to make shipwreck? I believe that shipwreck is when a ship is so broken that it is useless. The word, "shipwreck," I only find twice mentioned in Scripture. The one is in our text, and the other is where Paul says, "Thrice I suffered shipwreck," (2 Cor. 11:25). We have an account of Paul's perilous voyage in the Acts, from which, if you read it carefully, you will understand what he means by shipwreck: "And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves," (Acts 27:41). As you read in the Psalms, "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind," (Ps. 48:7). It is said of Jonah's voyage, "the ship was like to be broken," (Jon. 1:4). From all which it is evident, that shipwreck is when forcible winds, or striking upon rocks, etc., break a ship to pieces. But let us a little consider spiritually how such are shipwrecked who put conscience away, which concerns faith. God brings such into heavy troubles and calamities, which before they were strangers to, and then they find out their deception. Everything they once pretended to now gives way when most needed. Had they an imputed righteousness, that would stand fast,, for that is the hope of righteousness which is by faith, (Gal. 5:5), but instead of that they find that they only talked about it, as the man no doubt did that we read of in the Gospel, who had not the wedding-garment, (Matt. 22:11,12). Faith that there is such a robe to put on, and having the robe on oneself, are different things. This righteousness ever will be a breastplate, and guard the heart of a vessel of mercy. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness," (Rom. 10:10). There is a false peace, a feigned faith, feigned words for self ends, false hope, a light that is darkness, attended with secret enmity to the real saints of God. Such are hard-hearted, double-minded, or carrying two faces. They waver. Sometimes they are for truth, and then again for error; and James says, "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed," (James 1:6). Now here such are. All their religion lies in their heads; and not being in union with Christ, they are sure, let their attainments be whatever they may, to make shipwreck.

The love of God is a root: "Being rooted and grounded in love," (Eph. 3:17). But these have no root in themselves, and although they endure for a while, yet, when the sun of persecution waxes hot, or, to speak agreeably to our text, when the flood of ungodly men make such gallant ships afraid, as they did King Saul, then they are scorched; and because they have no root they wither away, or make shipwreck. All their profession comes to naught, tumbling about their ears. I tremble while I write, knowing so well what such must feel; but although I have often expected myself that I should make shipwreck, yet God, in mercy to my soul, has hitherto kept me.

Although such for a time may have been what is called morally honest, yet now a trying providence coming more and more on, they cast away conscience, and do not act uprightly at all. They call all those that do so legal, and say, "Ah! poor soul, thou art not in the liberty of the Gospel." Here Mr. Hart was for a time, "lost all regard of right and wrong;" and thought the more he could sin without remorse the greater hero he was in faith. Oh, what lengths Satan would drive us all to, if he could! But God was pleased to preserve this vessel of mercy, and give him true repentance. Yet, for all that, these are the leading steps to apostasy, or to making shipwreck.

Finally, such characters are conscious more or less that they are not what they have professed to be, and they are looking out for the wrath of God. "The expectation of the wicked is wrath," (Prov. 11:23). What has made the vessel sail so well and so long has been the common gifts of the Spirit, which are given to servants as well as to sons, as you may see by the prophet Ezekiel, (46:17). These, without grace will puff a man up. Now, under all these attainments the conscience remains the same, unpurged; and very often, when these gifts wither, having nothing within (no good treasure in the heart and no union to Christ)to keep them alive, then such either go back into this world, as Demas did, or else into error, as Balaam did, casting off conscience altogether. Reader, see well to the groundwork in all thy profession. Examine thyself. Remember that the mystery of faith must be in a pure conscience, (1 Tim 3:9). See that thou hast these four things: 1. The fear of God. Have nothing to do with such as would tell thee that perfect love casts out filial fear, but as an adopted son, "be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long," (Prov. 23:17). 2. Encourage a tender conscience, lest thou gettest hardened through the deceitfullness of sin, (Heb. 3:13). 3. Cleave close to Christ Jesus. Moses told Israel, "Ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day," (Deut. 4:4). 4. Let thy delight be as David's was, with the saints and with those that excel in virtue, (Ps. 16:3); for, "he that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness.....and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes," (1 John 2:10,11).

Thus have I got through the subject in much weakness, often wishing I never had begun it, feeling myself so foolish, so unfit; often tempted to give it all up. May the Lord bless this feeble attempt, and enable us all constantly to press on after those things that will make us useful and fruitful in our day, that will stand by us in a dying hour, and which we shall take with us to eternal glory, I mean the foretaste and firstfruits of the glorious harvest.