The Great Separation # 3
Before Christ comes, I do not expect to see a perfect Church. There cannot be such a thing. The wheat and the chaff, in the present state of things - will always be found together. I pity those who leave one church and join another, because of a few faults and unsound members. I pity them because they are fostering ideals which never can be realized. I pity them, because they are seeking that which cannot be found. I see chaff everywhere. I see imperfections and infirmities of some kind in every church on earth. I believe there are few tables of the Lord, if any, where all the communicants are converted. I often see loud-talking professors, exalted as saints. I often see holy and contrite believers, set down as having no grace at all. I think that if men are too scrupulous, they may go fluttering about, like Noah's dove, all their days, and never find rest.
Do you desire a perfect Church? You must wait for the day of Christ's appearing. Then, and not until then - you will see a glorious Church, having neither spot nor wrinkle, or any such thing. Then, and not until then - the floor will be purged.
Before Christ comes, I do not look for the conversion of the world. How can it be, if He is to find both wheat and chaff side by side in the day of His second coming? I believe some Christians expect that missions will fill the earth with the knowledge of Christ, and that little by little, sin will disappear, and a state of perfect holiness gradually glide in. I cannot see with their eyes! I think they are mistaking God's purposes, and sowing bitter disappointment for themselves. I expect nothing of the kind. I see nothing in the Bible, or in the world around me, to make me expect it. I have never heard of a single church entirely converted to God, anywhere. And why am AI to look for a different result from the preaching of the Gospel in other lands? I only expect to see a few raised up as witnesses to Christ in every nation - some in one place, and some in another. Then I expect the Lord Jesus will come in glory, with His winnowing fork in His hand. And when He has purged His floor, and not until then - His kingdom will begin.
No separation and no perfection until Christ comes! This is my creed. I am not moved when the infidel asks me why all the world is not converted - if Christianity is really true? It was never promised that it would be so in the present order of things. The Bible tells me that believers will always be few - that corruptions, and divisions, and heresies, will always abound - and that when my Lord returns to earth, He will find plenty of chaff.
But Christ will come again. Sooner or later there shall be a separation of the visible Church into two companies - and fearful shall that separation be! The wheat will make up one company. The chaff shall make up another. The one company will be all godly. The other company will be all ungodly. Each shall be by themselves, and a great gulf between, that none can pass. Blessed indeed shall the righteous be in that day! They shall shine like stars - no longer obscured with clouds.
Wretched indeed will the ungodly be! How corrupt will corruption be - when left without one grain of salt to season it! How dark will darkness be - when left without one spark of light! Ah, it is not enough to respect and admire the Lord's people; you must belong to them - or you will one day be parted from them forever. There will be no chaff in Heaven! Many are the families, where one will be taken and another left.
Who is there now among the readers of these pages who loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity? If I know anything of the heart of a Christian, your greatest trials are in the company of worldly people - your greatest joys in the company of the saints. Yes - there are many weary days, when your spirit feels broken and crushed by the earthly tone of all around you - days when you could cry with David, "Woe is me, that I dwell in Mesech, and have my habitation in the tents of Kedar." And yet there are hours when your soul is so refreshed and revived by meeting some of God's dear children, that it seems like Heaven on earth. Do I not speak to your heart? Are not these things true? See then, how you should long for the time when Christ shall come again. See how you should pray daily that the Lord would hasten His kingdom, and say to Him, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"
"This is certain - when the elect are all converted, then Christ will come to judgment. As he who rows a boat, stays until all the passengers are taken into his boat, and then he rows away; so Christ stays until all the elect are gathered in, and then He will hasten away to judgment!" (Thomas Watson).
Who is there among the readers of these pages, who knows that his heart is not right in the sight of God? See how you should fear and tremble at the thought of Christ's appearing. Alas, indeed, for the man who lives and dies with nothing better than a cloak of religion! In the day when Christ shall purge His floor, you will be shown and exposed in your true colors! You may deceive ministers, and friends, and neighbors - but you cannot deceive Christ! The paint and varnish of a heartless Christianity will never stand the fire of that day. The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. You will find that His eye has read your secrets, and searched out you hidden things!
Oh, tremble at the thought of the day of sifting and separation! Surely hypocrisy is a most losing game! Surely it never is good, to try to deceive God. Surely it never answers, like Ananias and Sapphira, to pretend to give God something, and yet to keep back your heart. It all fails at last! Your joy is but for a moment. Your hopes are no better than a dream! Oh, tremble and repent!
3. Let me show you, in the third place, the portion which Christ's people shall receive, when He comes to purge His threshing floor. The text at the beginning of this paper tells us this in good and comfortable words. It tells us that Christ shall "gather His wheat into His barn."
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 4)
Saturday, August 25, 2018
The Great Separation # 2
The Great Separation # 2
I know well the world dislikes this way of dividing professing Christians. The world tries hard to fancy there are three sorts of people, and not two. To be very godly and very strict does not suit the world - they cannot, will not be holy. To have no religion at all does not suit the world - as that would not be respectable. "Thank God," they will say, "we are not so bad as that!" But to have religion enough to be respectable - and yet not go into extremes, to be sufficiently good - and yet not be peculiar - to have a quiet, easy-going, moderate kind of Christianity, and go comfortably to Heaven after all - this is the world's favorite idea! There is a third class, a safe middle class - the world imagines; and in this middle class - the majority of men persuade themselves they will be found.
I denounce this notion of a middle class as an immense and soul-ruining delusion! I warn you strongly not to be carried away by it. It is as vain an invention as the Pope's purgatory. It is a refuge of lies, a castle in the air, a Russian ice-palace, avast unreality, an empty dream! This middle class is a class of Christians no where spoken of in the Bible!
There were two classes in the day of Noah's flood; those who were inside the ark - and those who were outside! There were two classes in the parable of the Gospel net; those who are called the good fish - and those who are called the bad. There were two classes in the parable of the ten virgins; those who are described as wise - and those who are described as foolish. There were two classes in the account of the judgment day; the sheep - and the goats. There were two sides of the throne; the right hand - and the left. There were two abodes when the last sentence has been passed; Heaven - and hell.
And just so, there are only two classes in the world: those who are in the state of nature - and those who are in the state of grace; those who are in the narrow way - and those who are in the broad; those who have faith - and those who have no faith; those who have been converted - and those who have not been converted; those who are with Christ - and those who are against Him; those who gather with Him - and those who scatter abroad; those who are wheat - and those who are chaff. Into these two classes, the whole world may be divided. Beside these two classes, there is none.
Dear reader, see now what cause there is for self-inquiry! Are you among the wheat - or among the chaff? Neutrality is impossible. Either you are in one class - or in the other. Which is it of the two?
You attend church perhaps. You go to the Lord's table. You like good people. You can distinguish between good preaching and bad. You think Popery false, and oppose it firmly. You subscribe to religious societies. You attend religious meetings. You sometimes read religious books. It is well - it is all very well. It is good. It is more than can be said of many. But still, this is not a straightforward answer to my question: Are you wheat - or are you chaff?
Have you been born again? Are you a new creature? Have you put off the old man, and put on the new? Have you ever felt your sins, and repented of them? Are you looking only to Christ for pardon and eternal life? Do you love Christ? Do you serve Christ? Do you loathe heart-sins, and fight against them? Do you long for perfect holiness, and follow hard after it? Have you come out from the world? Do you delight in the Bible? Do you wrestle in prayer? Do you love Christ's people? Do you try to do good to the world? Are you vile in your own eyes, and willing to take the lowest place? Are you a Christian in business, and on week days, and by your own fireside? Oh, think, think on these things - and then perhaps you will be better able to tell the state if your own soul!
I beseech you not to turn away from my question, however unpleasant it may be. Answer it, though it may prick your conscience, and cut you to the heart. Answer it, though it may prove you in the wrong, and expose your danger. Rest not until you know how it is between you and God! Better a thousand times to find out and repent, than be lost in eternity! Begin to meditate on it this very day. Are you wheat - or chaff?
2. Let me show you, in the second place, the TIME when the two great classes of mankind shall be separated. The text at the beginning of this paper foretells a separation. It says that Christ shall one day do to His professing Church, what the farmer does to his corn. He shall winnow and sift it. "He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor." And then the wheat and the chaff shall be divided.
There is no separation yet. Good and bad are now all mingled together in the visible Church. Believers and unbelievers - converted and unconverted - holy and unholy - all are to be found now among those who call themselves Christians. But it shall not always be so! Christ shall come the second time with His winnowing fork in His hand. He shall thoroughly purge His Church, even as He purified the temple. And then the wheat and the chaff shall be separated - and each will go to his own place!
Before Christ comes, separation is impossible. It is not in man's power to effect it. There lives not the minister on earth, who can read the hearts of everyone in his congregation. About some he may speak decidedly - he cannot about all. Who have oil in their lamps - and who have not; who have grace as well as profession - and who have profession only, and no grace; who are children of God - and who of the devil. The winnowing fork is not put into our hands!
Grace is sometimes so weak and feeble - that it looks like nature. Nature is sometimes so plausible and well-dressed - that it looks like grace. I believe many of us would have said that Judas was as good as any of the apostles - and yet he proved a traitor! I believe that we would have said that Peter was a reprobate when he denied his Lord - and yet he repented immediately, and rose again. We are but fallible men. We know in part. We scarcely understand our own hearts. It is no great wonder if we cannot read the hearts of others.
But it will not always be so. There is One coming who never errs in judgment, and is perfect in knowledge. Jesus shall purge His floor. Jesus shall sift the chaff from the wheat. I wait for this. Until then, I will lean to the side of charity in my judgments. I would rather tolerate much chaff in the Church - than cast out one grain of wheat!
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 3)
I know well the world dislikes this way of dividing professing Christians. The world tries hard to fancy there are three sorts of people, and not two. To be very godly and very strict does not suit the world - they cannot, will not be holy. To have no religion at all does not suit the world - as that would not be respectable. "Thank God," they will say, "we are not so bad as that!" But to have religion enough to be respectable - and yet not go into extremes, to be sufficiently good - and yet not be peculiar - to have a quiet, easy-going, moderate kind of Christianity, and go comfortably to Heaven after all - this is the world's favorite idea! There is a third class, a safe middle class - the world imagines; and in this middle class - the majority of men persuade themselves they will be found.
I denounce this notion of a middle class as an immense and soul-ruining delusion! I warn you strongly not to be carried away by it. It is as vain an invention as the Pope's purgatory. It is a refuge of lies, a castle in the air, a Russian ice-palace, avast unreality, an empty dream! This middle class is a class of Christians no where spoken of in the Bible!
There were two classes in the day of Noah's flood; those who were inside the ark - and those who were outside! There were two classes in the parable of the Gospel net; those who are called the good fish - and those who are called the bad. There were two classes in the parable of the ten virgins; those who are described as wise - and those who are described as foolish. There were two classes in the account of the judgment day; the sheep - and the goats. There were two sides of the throne; the right hand - and the left. There were two abodes when the last sentence has been passed; Heaven - and hell.
And just so, there are only two classes in the world: those who are in the state of nature - and those who are in the state of grace; those who are in the narrow way - and those who are in the broad; those who have faith - and those who have no faith; those who have been converted - and those who have not been converted; those who are with Christ - and those who are against Him; those who gather with Him - and those who scatter abroad; those who are wheat - and those who are chaff. Into these two classes, the whole world may be divided. Beside these two classes, there is none.
Dear reader, see now what cause there is for self-inquiry! Are you among the wheat - or among the chaff? Neutrality is impossible. Either you are in one class - or in the other. Which is it of the two?
You attend church perhaps. You go to the Lord's table. You like good people. You can distinguish between good preaching and bad. You think Popery false, and oppose it firmly. You subscribe to religious societies. You attend religious meetings. You sometimes read religious books. It is well - it is all very well. It is good. It is more than can be said of many. But still, this is not a straightforward answer to my question: Are you wheat - or are you chaff?
Have you been born again? Are you a new creature? Have you put off the old man, and put on the new? Have you ever felt your sins, and repented of them? Are you looking only to Christ for pardon and eternal life? Do you love Christ? Do you serve Christ? Do you loathe heart-sins, and fight against them? Do you long for perfect holiness, and follow hard after it? Have you come out from the world? Do you delight in the Bible? Do you wrestle in prayer? Do you love Christ's people? Do you try to do good to the world? Are you vile in your own eyes, and willing to take the lowest place? Are you a Christian in business, and on week days, and by your own fireside? Oh, think, think on these things - and then perhaps you will be better able to tell the state if your own soul!
I beseech you not to turn away from my question, however unpleasant it may be. Answer it, though it may prick your conscience, and cut you to the heart. Answer it, though it may prove you in the wrong, and expose your danger. Rest not until you know how it is between you and God! Better a thousand times to find out and repent, than be lost in eternity! Begin to meditate on it this very day. Are you wheat - or chaff?
2. Let me show you, in the second place, the TIME when the two great classes of mankind shall be separated. The text at the beginning of this paper foretells a separation. It says that Christ shall one day do to His professing Church, what the farmer does to his corn. He shall winnow and sift it. "He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor." And then the wheat and the chaff shall be divided.
There is no separation yet. Good and bad are now all mingled together in the visible Church. Believers and unbelievers - converted and unconverted - holy and unholy - all are to be found now among those who call themselves Christians. But it shall not always be so! Christ shall come the second time with His winnowing fork in His hand. He shall thoroughly purge His Church, even as He purified the temple. And then the wheat and the chaff shall be separated - and each will go to his own place!
Before Christ comes, separation is impossible. It is not in man's power to effect it. There lives not the minister on earth, who can read the hearts of everyone in his congregation. About some he may speak decidedly - he cannot about all. Who have oil in their lamps - and who have not; who have grace as well as profession - and who have profession only, and no grace; who are children of God - and who of the devil. The winnowing fork is not put into our hands!
Grace is sometimes so weak and feeble - that it looks like nature. Nature is sometimes so plausible and well-dressed - that it looks like grace. I believe many of us would have said that Judas was as good as any of the apostles - and yet he proved a traitor! I believe that we would have said that Peter was a reprobate when he denied his Lord - and yet he repented immediately, and rose again. We are but fallible men. We know in part. We scarcely understand our own hearts. It is no great wonder if we cannot read the hearts of others.
But it will not always be so. There is One coming who never errs in judgment, and is perfect in knowledge. Jesus shall purge His floor. Jesus shall sift the chaff from the wheat. I wait for this. Until then, I will lean to the side of charity in my judgments. I would rather tolerate much chaff in the Church - than cast out one grain of wheat!
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 3)
The Great Separation # 1
The Great Separation # 1
"His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor. He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12).
Wheat or chaff? You see my question - for whom do you think it is meant? It is meant for every man, woman, and child in the world. And among others, it is meant for you.
The question is drawn from the verse of Scripture which is now before your eyes. The words of that verse were spoken by John the Baptist. They are a prophecy about our Lord Jesus Christ, and a prophecy which has not yet been fulfilled. They are a prophecy which we shall all see fulfilled one day, and God alone knows how soon.
I invite you this day to consider the great truths which this verse contains. I invite you to listen, while I unfold them and set them before you in order. Who knows but this text may prove a word in season to your soul! Who knows but my question may help to make this day the happiest day in your life! Listen to one who loves your soul, and would sincerely help to save it, or draw it nearer to Christ.
1. Let me show you in the first place, the two great classes into which the world may be divided. There are only two classes of people in the world, in the sight of God - and both are mentioned in the text which begins this paper. There are those who are called the wheat - and there are those who are called the chaff.
Viewed with the eye of man, the earth contains many different sorts of inhabitants. Viewed with the eye of God, it only contains two. Man's eye looks at the outward appearance - this is the only part of which He takes any account. And tried by the state of their hearts, there are but two classes into which people can be divided - either they are wheat or they are chaff.
Who are the WHEAT in the world? The wheat means all men and women who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ - all who are led by the Holy Spirit - all who have felt themselves sinners, and fled for refuge to the salvation offered in the Gospel - all who love the Lord Jesus, and live to the Lord Jesus, and serve the Lord Jesus - all who have taken Christ for their only confidence, and the Bible and the Holy Spirit, for their only guide, and regard sin as their deadliest enemy, and look to Heaven as their only home. All such, of every church, name, nation, people, and tongue - of every rank, station, condition, and degree - all such are God's wheat!
Show me men of this kind of people anywhere, and I know what they are. I know that they and I may not agree in all particulars - but I see in them the handiwork of the King of kings, and I ask no more. I know not whence they came, and where they found their religion - but I know where they are going, and that is enough for me. They are the children of my Father in Heaven. They are part of His wheat.
All such, though sinful, and vile, and unworthy in their own eyes - are the precious part of mankind. They are the sons and daughters of God the Father. They are the delight of God the Son. They are the habitation of God the Spirit. The Father beholds no iniquity in them - they are the members of His dear Son's body - in Him He sees them - and is well pleased. The Lord Jesus discerns in them, the fruit of His own travail and work upon the Cross - and is well satisfied. The Holy Spirit regards them as spiritual temples which He Himself has raised - and rejoices over them. In a word, they are the wheat of the earth - God's wheat!
Who are the CHAFF in the world? The chaff means all men and women who have no saving faith in Christ, and no sanctification of the Spirit - whoever they may be. Some of them perhaps are infidels - and some are formal Christians. Some are sneering Sadducees - and some are self-righteous Pharisees. Some of them make a point of keeping up a kind of "Sunday religion" - and others are utterly careless of everything except their own pleasure and the world. But all alike, who have the two great marks already mentioned - no faith and no sanctification - all such are chaff. From the atheists Paine and Voltaire - to the formal churchmen who can think of nothing but outward ceremonies - to the unconverted admirer of sermons in the present day - all, all are standing in one rank before God all, all are chaff!
They bring no glory to God the Father. They honor not the Son, and so do not honor the Father who sent Him. They neglect that mighty salvation, which countless millions of angels admire. They disobey that Word which was graciously written for their learning. They listen not to the voice of Him who condescended to leave Heaven and die for their sins. They pay no tribute of service and affection to Him who gave them life, and breath, and all things. And therefore God takes no pleasure in them. He pities them - but He reckons them no better than chaff.
Yes - you may have rare intellectual gifts, and high mental attainments - you may sway kingdoms by our counsel, move millions by your pen, or keep crowds in breathless attention by your tongue - but if you have never submitted yourself to the yoke of Christ, and never honored His Gospel by heartfelt reception of it - then you are nothing but chaff in His sight. Natural gifts without saving grace, are like a row of ciphers without an unit before them; they look big - but they are of no value. The vilest insect that crawls in the filth - is a nobler being than you are! It fills its place in creation, and glorifies its Maker with all its power - and you do not. You do not honor God with heart, and will, and intellect, and members, which are all His. You invert His order and arrangement, and live as if time was of more importance than eternity, and body better than soul. You dare to neglect God's greatest gift - His own incarnate Son. You are cold about that subject which fills all Heaven with hallelujahs. And so long as this is the case, you belong to the worthless part of mankind. You are the chaff of the earth.
Let this thought be deeply engraved in your mind, whatever else you forget, there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are wheat - and there are chaff!
There are many and various minds in every congregation that meets for religious worship. There are some who attend for a mere form - and some who really desire to meet Christ; some who come there to please others - and some who come to please God; some who bring their hearts with them, and are not soon tired - and some who leave their hearts behind them, and reckon the whole service as weary work. But the eye of Jesus only sees two divisions in the congregation - the wheat and the chaff.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 2)
"His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor. He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12).
Wheat or chaff? You see my question - for whom do you think it is meant? It is meant for every man, woman, and child in the world. And among others, it is meant for you.
The question is drawn from the verse of Scripture which is now before your eyes. The words of that verse were spoken by John the Baptist. They are a prophecy about our Lord Jesus Christ, and a prophecy which has not yet been fulfilled. They are a prophecy which we shall all see fulfilled one day, and God alone knows how soon.
I invite you this day to consider the great truths which this verse contains. I invite you to listen, while I unfold them and set them before you in order. Who knows but this text may prove a word in season to your soul! Who knows but my question may help to make this day the happiest day in your life! Listen to one who loves your soul, and would sincerely help to save it, or draw it nearer to Christ.
1. Let me show you in the first place, the two great classes into which the world may be divided. There are only two classes of people in the world, in the sight of God - and both are mentioned in the text which begins this paper. There are those who are called the wheat - and there are those who are called the chaff.
Viewed with the eye of man, the earth contains many different sorts of inhabitants. Viewed with the eye of God, it only contains two. Man's eye looks at the outward appearance - this is the only part of which He takes any account. And tried by the state of their hearts, there are but two classes into which people can be divided - either they are wheat or they are chaff.
Who are the WHEAT in the world? The wheat means all men and women who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ - all who are led by the Holy Spirit - all who have felt themselves sinners, and fled for refuge to the salvation offered in the Gospel - all who love the Lord Jesus, and live to the Lord Jesus, and serve the Lord Jesus - all who have taken Christ for their only confidence, and the Bible and the Holy Spirit, for their only guide, and regard sin as their deadliest enemy, and look to Heaven as their only home. All such, of every church, name, nation, people, and tongue - of every rank, station, condition, and degree - all such are God's wheat!
Show me men of this kind of people anywhere, and I know what they are. I know that they and I may not agree in all particulars - but I see in them the handiwork of the King of kings, and I ask no more. I know not whence they came, and where they found their religion - but I know where they are going, and that is enough for me. They are the children of my Father in Heaven. They are part of His wheat.
All such, though sinful, and vile, and unworthy in their own eyes - are the precious part of mankind. They are the sons and daughters of God the Father. They are the delight of God the Son. They are the habitation of God the Spirit. The Father beholds no iniquity in them - they are the members of His dear Son's body - in Him He sees them - and is well pleased. The Lord Jesus discerns in them, the fruit of His own travail and work upon the Cross - and is well satisfied. The Holy Spirit regards them as spiritual temples which He Himself has raised - and rejoices over them. In a word, they are the wheat of the earth - God's wheat!
Who are the CHAFF in the world? The chaff means all men and women who have no saving faith in Christ, and no sanctification of the Spirit - whoever they may be. Some of them perhaps are infidels - and some are formal Christians. Some are sneering Sadducees - and some are self-righteous Pharisees. Some of them make a point of keeping up a kind of "Sunday religion" - and others are utterly careless of everything except their own pleasure and the world. But all alike, who have the two great marks already mentioned - no faith and no sanctification - all such are chaff. From the atheists Paine and Voltaire - to the formal churchmen who can think of nothing but outward ceremonies - to the unconverted admirer of sermons in the present day - all, all are standing in one rank before God all, all are chaff!
They bring no glory to God the Father. They honor not the Son, and so do not honor the Father who sent Him. They neglect that mighty salvation, which countless millions of angels admire. They disobey that Word which was graciously written for their learning. They listen not to the voice of Him who condescended to leave Heaven and die for their sins. They pay no tribute of service and affection to Him who gave them life, and breath, and all things. And therefore God takes no pleasure in them. He pities them - but He reckons them no better than chaff.
Yes - you may have rare intellectual gifts, and high mental attainments - you may sway kingdoms by our counsel, move millions by your pen, or keep crowds in breathless attention by your tongue - but if you have never submitted yourself to the yoke of Christ, and never honored His Gospel by heartfelt reception of it - then you are nothing but chaff in His sight. Natural gifts without saving grace, are like a row of ciphers without an unit before them; they look big - but they are of no value. The vilest insect that crawls in the filth - is a nobler being than you are! It fills its place in creation, and glorifies its Maker with all its power - and you do not. You do not honor God with heart, and will, and intellect, and members, which are all His. You invert His order and arrangement, and live as if time was of more importance than eternity, and body better than soul. You dare to neglect God's greatest gift - His own incarnate Son. You are cold about that subject which fills all Heaven with hallelujahs. And so long as this is the case, you belong to the worthless part of mankind. You are the chaff of the earth.
Let this thought be deeply engraved in your mind, whatever else you forget, there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are wheat - and there are chaff!
There are many and various minds in every congregation that meets for religious worship. There are some who attend for a mere form - and some who really desire to meet Christ; some who come there to please others - and some who come to please God; some who bring their hearts with them, and are not soon tired - and some who leave their hearts behind them, and reckon the whole service as weary work. But the eye of Jesus only sees two divisions in the congregation - the wheat and the chaff.
~J. C. Ryle~
(continued with # 2)
Saturday, August 18, 2018
The Church's Greatest Need!
The Church's Greatest Need!
The greatest thing the church needs in this time, is God's Holy Spirit.
You all get up plans and say, "Now, if the church were altered a little bit, it would go on better."
You think if there were different ministers, or different church order, or something else, then all would be well.
No, dear friends, the mistake does not lie there, it is that we need more of the Holy Spirit - His power and influence.
But now people are saying, "This must be altered, and that must be altered." But it would go no better unless God the Spirit should come to bless us.
You may have the same ministers, and they shall be a thousand times more useful for God, if God is pleased to bless them.
You shall have the same deacons, they shall be a thousand times more influential than they are now, when the Spirit is poured down upon them from on high.
That is the church's great lack, and until that lack be supplied, we may reform, and reform, and still be just the same.
We need the Holy Spirit, and then whatever faults there may be in our churches, they can never materially impede the progress of Christianity, when once the Spirit of the Lord God is in our midst!
All we need is the Spirit of God.
~ Charles Spurgeon~
__________________________
I cannot think little of sin, when . . .
(J.C. Ryle)
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46
Would I know how exceedingly sinful and abominable sin is in the sight of God? Where shall I see sin most fully brought out?
Shall I turn to the history of the flood, and read how sin drowned the world?
Shall I go to the shore of the Dead Sea, and mark what sin brought on Sodom and Gomorrah?
No! I can find a clearer proof still! I look at the cross of Christ!
There I see that sin is so filthy and damnable, that nothing but the blood of God's own Son can wash it away!
There I see that sin has so separated me from my holy Maker, that all the angels in Heaven could never have made peace between us. Nothing could reconcile us, short of the death of Christ.
If I listened to the wretched talk of proud people, I might sometimes imagine that sin was not so very sinful! But I cannot think little of sin, when I look at the cross of Christ!
"A bleeding Savior I have viewed--and now I hate my sin!" John Newton
____________________________
This alone is the vexed soul's refuge!
(Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889)
"In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge!" Colossians 2:3
The one true resting-place where doubt and weariness, the stings of a pricking conscience, and the longings of an unsatisfied soul would all be quieted--is Christ Himself!
Not the church, but Christ.
Not doctrine, but Christ.
Not religious forms and ceremonies, but Christ.
Christ the God-man . . .
giving His life for ours,
sealing the everlasting covenant, and
making peace for us through the blood of His cross!
Christ the divine storehouse of all light and truth, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge!
Christ the infinite vessel--the enlightener, the teacher, the quickener, the comforter--so that out of His fullness we may receive grace upon grace.
This, this alone is the vexed soul's refuge, its rock to build on, its home to abide in--until the great tempter is bound and every conflict ended in victory.
The greatest thing the church needs in this time, is God's Holy Spirit.
You all get up plans and say, "Now, if the church were altered a little bit, it would go on better."
You think if there were different ministers, or different church order, or something else, then all would be well.
No, dear friends, the mistake does not lie there, it is that we need more of the Holy Spirit - His power and influence.
But now people are saying, "This must be altered, and that must be altered." But it would go no better unless God the Spirit should come to bless us.
You may have the same ministers, and they shall be a thousand times more useful for God, if God is pleased to bless them.
You shall have the same deacons, they shall be a thousand times more influential than they are now, when the Spirit is poured down upon them from on high.
That is the church's great lack, and until that lack be supplied, we may reform, and reform, and still be just the same.
We need the Holy Spirit, and then whatever faults there may be in our churches, they can never materially impede the progress of Christianity, when once the Spirit of the Lord God is in our midst!
All we need is the Spirit of God.
~ Charles Spurgeon~
__________________________
I cannot think little of sin, when . . .
(J.C. Ryle)
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46
Would I know how exceedingly sinful and abominable sin is in the sight of God? Where shall I see sin most fully brought out?
Shall I turn to the history of the flood, and read how sin drowned the world?
Shall I go to the shore of the Dead Sea, and mark what sin brought on Sodom and Gomorrah?
No! I can find a clearer proof still! I look at the cross of Christ!
There I see that sin is so filthy and damnable, that nothing but the blood of God's own Son can wash it away!
There I see that sin has so separated me from my holy Maker, that all the angels in Heaven could never have made peace between us. Nothing could reconcile us, short of the death of Christ.
If I listened to the wretched talk of proud people, I might sometimes imagine that sin was not so very sinful! But I cannot think little of sin, when I look at the cross of Christ!
"A bleeding Savior I have viewed--and now I hate my sin!" John Newton
____________________________
This alone is the vexed soul's refuge!
(Horatius Bonar, 1808-1889)
"In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge!" Colossians 2:3
The one true resting-place where doubt and weariness, the stings of a pricking conscience, and the longings of an unsatisfied soul would all be quieted--is Christ Himself!
Not the church, but Christ.
Not doctrine, but Christ.
Not religious forms and ceremonies, but Christ.
Christ the God-man . . .
giving His life for ours,
sealing the everlasting covenant, and
making peace for us through the blood of His cross!
Christ the divine storehouse of all light and truth, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge!
Christ the infinite vessel--the enlightener, the teacher, the quickener, the comforter--so that out of His fullness we may receive grace upon grace.
This, this alone is the vexed soul's refuge, its rock to build on, its home to abide in--until the great tempter is bound and every conflict ended in victory.
A. W. Tozer Quotes
"Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them."
_____________________
“Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think?”
___________________________
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. --2 Timothy 4:7-8 For years I have made a practice of writing many of my earnest prayers to God in a little book--a book now well worn. I still turn often to the petitions I recorded in that book. I remind God often of what my prayers have been. One prayer in the book--and God knows it well by this time, for I pray it often--goes like this: Oh God, Let me die rather than to go on day by day living wrong. I do not want to become a careless, fleshly old man. I want to be right so that I can die right. Lord, I do not want my life to be extended if it would mean that I should cease to live right and fail in my mission to glorify You all of my days!... As you will recall from Second Kings 20, the Lord gave Hezekiah a 15-year extension of life. Restored to health and vigor, Hezekiah disgraced himself and dishonored God before he died and was buried. I would not want an extra 15 years in which to backslide and dishonor my Lord. I would rather go home right now than to live on--if living on was to be a waste of God's time and my own! Jesus Is Victor! pp. 141-142 "Please, Father, help me to finish well. Amen."
________________________________
The mystery of man's free will is far too great for us! God said to Adam and Eve: "Thou shalt not eat from this tree." Here was a divine requirement calling for obedience on the part of those who had the power of choice and will. When they disobeyed they usurped the right that was not theirs! The poet Tennyson must have thought about this for he wrote in his In Memoriam: "our wills are ours, we know not how; our wills are ours to make them Thine!" "We know not how;" then Tennyson girds himself and continues, "Yes, our wills are ours to make them Thine." As created beings, that is our only right-to make our wills the will of God, to make the will of God our will! God is sovereign, and we are the creatures. He is the Creator and therefore His is the right to command us with the obligation that we should obey. It is a happy obligation, I might say, for "His yoke is easy and His burden is light!" It is important to agree that true salvation restores the right of a Creator-creature relationship, acknowledging God's right to our fellowship and communion!
___________________________
What is God trying to do with His believing people?-the Bible calls us a remnant according to grace, believers taken out of the great, teeming swarm of so-called religious people in today's world. I am inclined to join others in wondering if the Lord is postponing His coming because He is trying to get His Bride ready? For years it has been the popular idea in evangelical Christianity that the whole body of believers in Christ would rise like a flock of frightened birds when the Lord comes. But A.B. Simpson and William MacArthur and others in the past generation said, "Oh no! The Lord will take with Him those who are prepared and ready for His coming!" I do not presume to give an answer satisfying to everyone in our churches. But I know that many Christians are too smug about this, saying in effect: "I am converted to Christ through grace, so I can live as I please!" Of some things we cannot be dogmatic; but we know this for sure-God has no halfway house between heaven and hell where He takes us to fumigate us!
________________________
What is the worst enemy the church faces today? This is where a lot of unreality and unconscious hyprocrisy enters. Many are ready to say, "The liberals are our worst enemy." But the simple fact is that the average evangelical church does not have too much trouble with liberalism. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that the first five books of Moses are just myths. Nobody says that the story of creation is simply religious mythology. Nobody denies that Christ walked on the water or that He rose from the grave. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God or that He isn't coming back again. Nobody denies the validity of the Scriptures. We just cannot hide behind liberalism and say that it is our worst enemy. We believe that evangelical Christians are trying to hold on to the truth given to us, the faith of our fathers, so the liberals are not our worst enemy. Neither do we have a problem with the government. People in our country can do just about whatever they please and the government pays no attention. We can hold prayer meetings all night if we want, and the government would never bother us or question us. There is no secret police breathing down our backs watching our every move. We live in a free land, and we ought to thank God every day for that privilege. The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord" in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut. The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.
_____________________
“Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself, and cease to care what men think?”
___________________________
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. --2 Timothy 4:7-8 For years I have made a practice of writing many of my earnest prayers to God in a little book--a book now well worn. I still turn often to the petitions I recorded in that book. I remind God often of what my prayers have been. One prayer in the book--and God knows it well by this time, for I pray it often--goes like this: Oh God, Let me die rather than to go on day by day living wrong. I do not want to become a careless, fleshly old man. I want to be right so that I can die right. Lord, I do not want my life to be extended if it would mean that I should cease to live right and fail in my mission to glorify You all of my days!... As you will recall from Second Kings 20, the Lord gave Hezekiah a 15-year extension of life. Restored to health and vigor, Hezekiah disgraced himself and dishonored God before he died and was buried. I would not want an extra 15 years in which to backslide and dishonor my Lord. I would rather go home right now than to live on--if living on was to be a waste of God's time and my own! Jesus Is Victor! pp. 141-142 "Please, Father, help me to finish well. Amen."
________________________________
The mystery of man's free will is far too great for us! God said to Adam and Eve: "Thou shalt not eat from this tree." Here was a divine requirement calling for obedience on the part of those who had the power of choice and will. When they disobeyed they usurped the right that was not theirs! The poet Tennyson must have thought about this for he wrote in his In Memoriam: "our wills are ours, we know not how; our wills are ours to make them Thine!" "We know not how;" then Tennyson girds himself and continues, "Yes, our wills are ours to make them Thine." As created beings, that is our only right-to make our wills the will of God, to make the will of God our will! God is sovereign, and we are the creatures. He is the Creator and therefore His is the right to command us with the obligation that we should obey. It is a happy obligation, I might say, for "His yoke is easy and His burden is light!" It is important to agree that true salvation restores the right of a Creator-creature relationship, acknowledging God's right to our fellowship and communion!
___________________________
What is God trying to do with His believing people?-the Bible calls us a remnant according to grace, believers taken out of the great, teeming swarm of so-called religious people in today's world. I am inclined to join others in wondering if the Lord is postponing His coming because He is trying to get His Bride ready? For years it has been the popular idea in evangelical Christianity that the whole body of believers in Christ would rise like a flock of frightened birds when the Lord comes. But A.B. Simpson and William MacArthur and others in the past generation said, "Oh no! The Lord will take with Him those who are prepared and ready for His coming!" I do not presume to give an answer satisfying to everyone in our churches. But I know that many Christians are too smug about this, saying in effect: "I am converted to Christ through grace, so I can live as I please!" Of some things we cannot be dogmatic; but we know this for sure-God has no halfway house between heaven and hell where He takes us to fumigate us!
________________________
What is the worst enemy the church faces today? This is where a lot of unreality and unconscious hyprocrisy enters. Many are ready to say, "The liberals are our worst enemy." But the simple fact is that the average evangelical church does not have too much trouble with liberalism. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that the first five books of Moses are just myths. Nobody says that the story of creation is simply religious mythology. Nobody denies that Christ walked on the water or that He rose from the grave. Nobody gets up in our churches and claims that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God or that He isn't coming back again. Nobody denies the validity of the Scriptures. We just cannot hide behind liberalism and say that it is our worst enemy. We believe that evangelical Christians are trying to hold on to the truth given to us, the faith of our fathers, so the liberals are not our worst enemy. Neither do we have a problem with the government. People in our country can do just about whatever they please and the government pays no attention. We can hold prayer meetings all night if we want, and the government would never bother us or question us. There is no secret police breathing down our backs watching our every move. We live in a free land, and we ought to thank God every day for that privilege. The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord" in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut. The routine dictates, and we can tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Philpot's Letter of Resignation From the Church of England # 2
Philpot's Letter of Resignation From the Church of England # 2
In short, I am mixed up with a society of men whose life and conduct, however amiable, moral, and honorable, are not those of 'the poor and afflicted family of God. No other way, then, have I to escape these evils to 'keep myself pure, and not to be a partaker of other men's sins,' than by fleeing out of Babylon.
If perhaps on a dying bed any doubts and convictions should arise that all is not right for eternity, the Church of England sends her ministers to visit them, and 'to absolve them from all their sins.' And having thus lulled their fears, and deluded them to die in peace, she quiets the rising doubts of their friends at the mouth of the grave, by assuring those who 'this our brother is delivered out of the miseries of this sinful world', and is 'committed to the dust in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.'
Oh! could the dreadful veil that hides eternity be for a moment lifted up! we would see that thousands, whom the Church of England is blessing, God is cursing; and that tens of thousands whom she is asserting to be 'in joy and felicity', are at that moment 'lifting up their eyes in hell, being in torment.' At the same time, she shuts up and seals the mouth of all her ministers, and ties them down to say what she says, and to deny what she denies, by compelling them to 'give their sincere assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Common Prayer Book, and to promise that they will 'conform to the Liturgy as by law established.' And if any of them are taught of God the things of Christ in their own souls, and having grace and faithfulness to preach what they have tasted, felt, and handled; contradict in the pulpit what they assert, they are frowned on by Bishops, despised by the clergy around them, and hated by all the worldly part of their parish, until at length the powerful convictions of an enlightened conscience force them to deliver their souls by fleeing out of Babylon.
And need we wonder if, as is the priest, so is the people? The congregation of the High church, or Orthodox clergy, as they proudly call themselves, consists, with possibly a few exceptions, of none but open sinners, self-righteous pharisees, and dead formalists. In this congregation of the dead the blind lead the blind, and all their weekly confessions, absolutions, prayers, praises, services, and sacraments are, as they will one day find, but one continual mockery of the blessed God, who requires of His worshipers that they 'should worship Him in spirit and truth.'
Notions in the head, however correct, doctrines, however high, a presumptuous confidence of salvation, however loud and lofty, may allow a man thus to trifle with the living JEHOVAH. But a tender conscience, a godly fear, and a trembling sense of God's holiness and majesty, such as the blessed Spirit works in the soul, must sooner or later bring a man out of this dreadful mockery.
From this worldly and unholy system I now SECEDE; and blessed be the name of God Most High, who has poured light on my eyes to see these abominations, and given me, I trust, a small portion of that faith of Moses whereby 'he was willing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season'. For sooner far would I die in a workhouse, under the sweet shinings in of the eternal Comforter, and His testimony to my conscience that I am born of God, than live and die in ease and independence, without following Jesus in that path of trial and suffering which alone leads to eternal life.
But my long relationship with yourself, as Head of Worcester College, and with my brother Fellows, will not allow me thus to dissolve my connection with you without faithfully WARNING both you and them of your present state before God. What marks, then, are there in you, or them, of that new birth, without which none can enter the kingdom of heaven? What signs have you, or they, of a broken and contrite spirit? What marks of the faith of God's elect? What inward discoveries have you, or they, had of the blood and righteousness of Christ? What testimony of the blessed Spirit to the pardon of your sins, and to your adoption into the family of God? "If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His", though a sound classic, an acute mathematician, or a learned divine. And to have been professed ministers of Jesus Christ will only add to your condemnation, if you and they live and die in your present state of unbelief and unregeneracy.
I am weak and ignorant, full of sin and compassed with infirmity, but I bless God that He has in some measure shown me the power of eternal things, and by free and sovereign grace stopped me in that career of vanity and sin in which, to all outward appearance, I was fast hurrying down to the chambers of death.
With all due respect to you as Provost of Worcester College,
Yours faithfully,
~J. C. Philpot~
(The End)
In short, I am mixed up with a society of men whose life and conduct, however amiable, moral, and honorable, are not those of 'the poor and afflicted family of God. No other way, then, have I to escape these evils to 'keep myself pure, and not to be a partaker of other men's sins,' than by fleeing out of Babylon.
If perhaps on a dying bed any doubts and convictions should arise that all is not right for eternity, the Church of England sends her ministers to visit them, and 'to absolve them from all their sins.' And having thus lulled their fears, and deluded them to die in peace, she quiets the rising doubts of their friends at the mouth of the grave, by assuring those who 'this our brother is delivered out of the miseries of this sinful world', and is 'committed to the dust in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.'
Oh! could the dreadful veil that hides eternity be for a moment lifted up! we would see that thousands, whom the Church of England is blessing, God is cursing; and that tens of thousands whom she is asserting to be 'in joy and felicity', are at that moment 'lifting up their eyes in hell, being in torment.' At the same time, she shuts up and seals the mouth of all her ministers, and ties them down to say what she says, and to deny what she denies, by compelling them to 'give their sincere assent and consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Common Prayer Book, and to promise that they will 'conform to the Liturgy as by law established.' And if any of them are taught of God the things of Christ in their own souls, and having grace and faithfulness to preach what they have tasted, felt, and handled; contradict in the pulpit what they assert, they are frowned on by Bishops, despised by the clergy around them, and hated by all the worldly part of their parish, until at length the powerful convictions of an enlightened conscience force them to deliver their souls by fleeing out of Babylon.
And need we wonder if, as is the priest, so is the people? The congregation of the High church, or Orthodox clergy, as they proudly call themselves, consists, with possibly a few exceptions, of none but open sinners, self-righteous pharisees, and dead formalists. In this congregation of the dead the blind lead the blind, and all their weekly confessions, absolutions, prayers, praises, services, and sacraments are, as they will one day find, but one continual mockery of the blessed God, who requires of His worshipers that they 'should worship Him in spirit and truth.'
Notions in the head, however correct, doctrines, however high, a presumptuous confidence of salvation, however loud and lofty, may allow a man thus to trifle with the living JEHOVAH. But a tender conscience, a godly fear, and a trembling sense of God's holiness and majesty, such as the blessed Spirit works in the soul, must sooner or later bring a man out of this dreadful mockery.
From this worldly and unholy system I now SECEDE; and blessed be the name of God Most High, who has poured light on my eyes to see these abominations, and given me, I trust, a small portion of that faith of Moses whereby 'he was willing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season'. For sooner far would I die in a workhouse, under the sweet shinings in of the eternal Comforter, and His testimony to my conscience that I am born of God, than live and die in ease and independence, without following Jesus in that path of trial and suffering which alone leads to eternal life.
But my long relationship with yourself, as Head of Worcester College, and with my brother Fellows, will not allow me thus to dissolve my connection with you without faithfully WARNING both you and them of your present state before God. What marks, then, are there in you, or them, of that new birth, without which none can enter the kingdom of heaven? What signs have you, or they, of a broken and contrite spirit? What marks of the faith of God's elect? What inward discoveries have you, or they, had of the blood and righteousness of Christ? What testimony of the blessed Spirit to the pardon of your sins, and to your adoption into the family of God? "If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His", though a sound classic, an acute mathematician, or a learned divine. And to have been professed ministers of Jesus Christ will only add to your condemnation, if you and they live and die in your present state of unbelief and unregeneracy.
I am weak and ignorant, full of sin and compassed with infirmity, but I bless God that He has in some measure shown me the power of eternal things, and by free and sovereign grace stopped me in that career of vanity and sin in which, to all outward appearance, I was fast hurrying down to the chambers of death.
With all due respect to you as Provost of Worcester College,
Yours faithfully,
~J. C. Philpot~
(The End)
Personal Ambition Hinders Christian Life and Ministry # 2
Personal Ambition Hinders Christian Life and Ministry # 2
The whole history and character of Christ are in direct antagonism to personal ambition.
If Paul is to serve as an example for preachers, it is at the point of freedom from all forms of personal ambition, that his example is the most emphatic. He puts the whole inventory of ecclesiastical and earthly goods in one catalog - and renounces them all in this strong language: "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ!" (Phil. 3:7-8). And as though this were not enough, he takes us to the Cross, where every earthly thing perished in pain, shame, and utter bankruptcy, and declares; "I am crucified with Christ!"
Many things often are often allowed to come into our faith and our ministry to defame them, but nothing is more deadly to us than personal ambition. It has in its bad embrace - the seeds of all evil. It has insincerity and hypocrisy. It is a tyrant! Of all the evils that grieve God's Spirit and quench His flame - ambition may be reckoned among the chief, if not the very chief. The fact that ecclesiastical pride and church worldliness will allow ambition to be christened at church altars and have the stamp of innocence and of virtue - ought to be alarming!
Is the desire for ecclesiastical advancement, ambition? If not, what is it? We may say it is a laudable ambition! Can a qualifying word change the evil nature of this dark and fallen angel? Does an angelic garb make satan into a holy angel? We may say we want a more honorable place - to do more honorable and larger service for Christ. Is not this satan clothing himself as an angel of light? The honor of service for God, depends only on the spirit in which it is done, and that spirit is one in which self, pride, and ambition are crucified! Self in us, looks to the future to personal greatness and honor - Christ in us, looks to the present to fidelity and zeal for the work at hand, and has no eye for self and future!
Can the preacher preach without faith? If he preaches with personal ambition, he is preaching without faith, for in Christ's service faith and ambition cannot co-exist.
Can the preacher preach without love? If he preaches with personal ambition, he is preaching without love, for ambition and love have neither union nor concord.
Can a preacher preach without humility? If he preaches with personal ambition, he is preaching without humility, for ambition is the very essence of pride!
Can a preacher preach without consecration? If he preaches with personal ambition he must, for ambition is a thing to be crucified and not consecrated. Ambition must be daily crucified - because it never can be consecrated.
Personal ambition changes the whole nature of ministry, and floods it with worldliness. Instead of the ministry being an institution where the highest Christian graces are to be produced and the loftiest virtues exhibited - personal ambition transforms it into a ministry where SELF is the mainspring, and every grace is blighted!
With personal ambition in the preacher - the church is no longer an institution to save men; but it is charged into an institution to confer honor on the preacher. And all its holy places are then polluted by the grasping, selfish hand of ambition, or they are trodden by its unhallowed feet!
~E. M. Bounds~
(The End)
The whole history and character of Christ are in direct antagonism to personal ambition.
If Paul is to serve as an example for preachers, it is at the point of freedom from all forms of personal ambition, that his example is the most emphatic. He puts the whole inventory of ecclesiastical and earthly goods in one catalog - and renounces them all in this strong language: "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ!" (Phil. 3:7-8). And as though this were not enough, he takes us to the Cross, where every earthly thing perished in pain, shame, and utter bankruptcy, and declares; "I am crucified with Christ!"
Many things often are often allowed to come into our faith and our ministry to defame them, but nothing is more deadly to us than personal ambition. It has in its bad embrace - the seeds of all evil. It has insincerity and hypocrisy. It is a tyrant! Of all the evils that grieve God's Spirit and quench His flame - ambition may be reckoned among the chief, if not the very chief. The fact that ecclesiastical pride and church worldliness will allow ambition to be christened at church altars and have the stamp of innocence and of virtue - ought to be alarming!
Is the desire for ecclesiastical advancement, ambition? If not, what is it? We may say it is a laudable ambition! Can a qualifying word change the evil nature of this dark and fallen angel? Does an angelic garb make satan into a holy angel? We may say we want a more honorable place - to do more honorable and larger service for Christ. Is not this satan clothing himself as an angel of light? The honor of service for God, depends only on the spirit in which it is done, and that spirit is one in which self, pride, and ambition are crucified! Self in us, looks to the future to personal greatness and honor - Christ in us, looks to the present to fidelity and zeal for the work at hand, and has no eye for self and future!
Can the preacher preach without faith? If he preaches with personal ambition, he is preaching without faith, for in Christ's service faith and ambition cannot co-exist.
Can the preacher preach without love? If he preaches with personal ambition, he is preaching without love, for ambition and love have neither union nor concord.
Can a preacher preach without humility? If he preaches with personal ambition, he is preaching without humility, for ambition is the very essence of pride!
Can a preacher preach without consecration? If he preaches with personal ambition he must, for ambition is a thing to be crucified and not consecrated. Ambition must be daily crucified - because it never can be consecrated.
Personal ambition changes the whole nature of ministry, and floods it with worldliness. Instead of the ministry being an institution where the highest Christian graces are to be produced and the loftiest virtues exhibited - personal ambition transforms it into a ministry where SELF is the mainspring, and every grace is blighted!
With personal ambition in the preacher - the church is no longer an institution to save men; but it is charged into an institution to confer honor on the preacher. And all its holy places are then polluted by the grasping, selfish hand of ambition, or they are trodden by its unhallowed feet!
~E. M. Bounds~
(The End)
Personal Ambition Hinders Christian Life and Ministry # 1
Personal Ambition Hinders Christian Life and Ministry # 1
"For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake!" (2 Cor. 4:5).
"Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of Him. 'What is it you want?' He asked. She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at Your right and the other at your left in Your kingdom." Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you! Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your stave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:20-21, 25:28).
Personal ambition is one of the greatest hindrances to the Christian life and especially to preaching - because it is born of SELF and nurtured by PRIDE. It manifests itself in various ways: the desire to be a great preacher, to have the first place, to be a leader, or to secure places of honor or profit - veils itself under many disguises. It is christened with surname "laudable", and comes into the church, then works its selfish, worldly schemes. A person may be a Christian by name and a church member, but if he is driven by personal ambition, he is an infidel at heart and worldly! The days of the prevalence of ambition in the church - have been days of supreme church worldliness and extreme apostasy!
There is much in a name, and the true and wise Christian will not allow this corrupter of the faith to enter, though clothed in a garb of innocent names. Christian faith has kindled and consecrated the flame of holy zeal, stimulating and giving ardor to effort. True zeal is a heavenly fire, the purity of which disdains all earthly adulterations. Zeal crucifies SELF - it fixes its eyes on both God and His glory. As Christ died for sin once, so the Christian by crucifixion dies to self and says, "Perish every fond ambition." In every moment of his life, in every vision of his eye, in every impulse of his heart, and in every effort of his hand - the Christian is to be true to the fact of this self-renouncing commitment.
Personal ambition is the one thing that affected the power, peace, and piety of the apostles of the Lord. We see its effects noted in their envies and strife. A few instances are recorded, but how much unrecorded jealousy and alienation was produced, we can only conjecture. We have the record of its existence and Christ's rebuke in the early part of their career, and its violence breaks out under the shadow of the Cross. The bitter thoughts of His death, are mixed with the strife of His disciples for place and His solemn charge against the religious phase of worldly ambition. The washing of the disciples' feet was the last act of personal training that Christ used as the remedy for ambition in His disciples.
Personal ambition destroys the foundation of Christian character, by making faith impossible. Faith roots itself in the soil where selfish and worldly growths have been destroyed. "How can you believe," says Christ, "who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only?" (John 5:44). In this statement is shown the impossibility of blending faith with the desire to receive honor from men.
The entrance of this alluring element of human honor, draws the heart from the honor that comes from God and sweeps away the foundations of faith. When the eye seeks things other than God, when the heart desires things other than God - this is personal ambition. No man can serve these two masters; no man can combine the ends of SELF - and of God. He may think he can; he may seem to do so; but no one can perform this spiritual impossibility.
Personal ambition enthrones pride, and that is the throne of which satan sits! Humility is destroyed by personal ambition. The history of the church attests to the fact that humility has no place in the man who is ambitious. Humility is not a virtue of those who have sought to be put in the calendar of earthly saints. No ambition is so proud as a religious ambition, and none less scrupulous! No church can be more thoroughly apostate, than the church whose leaders have come into their places through the way of ambition. No ambition is so destructive, as that which comes in under the guise of religion! Personal ambition is worldly, though it may be disguised under the name of Christianity. It easily deludes its possessor, under the plea of a wider influence and usefulness.
If personal ambition can be religious and can preach, then it must do so without love, for love and ambition can no more unite than can light and darkness; they are as essentially at war, as Christ and Belial. "Love seeks not her own," while ambition is ever seeking its own, and not infrequently it seeks with all its heart, that which is another's. Love in honor prefers one another, but ambition never does.
If Jesus Christ is to be our model preacher, if our attachment to Him rises to anything above a selfish sentiment - than the mind that was in Him must be in us. He was without taint of ambition. We have this attitude of Christ to ambition set before us: "Have this mind among yourselves, which was Christ Jesus, who, though He a was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a Cross" (Phil. 2:5-8).
~E. M. Bounds~
(continued with # 2)
"For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake!" (2 Cor. 4:5).
"Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of Him. 'What is it you want?' He asked. She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at Your right and the other at your left in Your kingdom." Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you! Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your stave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:20-21, 25:28).
Personal ambition is one of the greatest hindrances to the Christian life and especially to preaching - because it is born of SELF and nurtured by PRIDE. It manifests itself in various ways: the desire to be a great preacher, to have the first place, to be a leader, or to secure places of honor or profit - veils itself under many disguises. It is christened with surname "laudable", and comes into the church, then works its selfish, worldly schemes. A person may be a Christian by name and a church member, but if he is driven by personal ambition, he is an infidel at heart and worldly! The days of the prevalence of ambition in the church - have been days of supreme church worldliness and extreme apostasy!
There is much in a name, and the true and wise Christian will not allow this corrupter of the faith to enter, though clothed in a garb of innocent names. Christian faith has kindled and consecrated the flame of holy zeal, stimulating and giving ardor to effort. True zeal is a heavenly fire, the purity of which disdains all earthly adulterations. Zeal crucifies SELF - it fixes its eyes on both God and His glory. As Christ died for sin once, so the Christian by crucifixion dies to self and says, "Perish every fond ambition." In every moment of his life, in every vision of his eye, in every impulse of his heart, and in every effort of his hand - the Christian is to be true to the fact of this self-renouncing commitment.
Personal ambition is the one thing that affected the power, peace, and piety of the apostles of the Lord. We see its effects noted in their envies and strife. A few instances are recorded, but how much unrecorded jealousy and alienation was produced, we can only conjecture. We have the record of its existence and Christ's rebuke in the early part of their career, and its violence breaks out under the shadow of the Cross. The bitter thoughts of His death, are mixed with the strife of His disciples for place and His solemn charge against the religious phase of worldly ambition. The washing of the disciples' feet was the last act of personal training that Christ used as the remedy for ambition in His disciples.
Personal ambition destroys the foundation of Christian character, by making faith impossible. Faith roots itself in the soil where selfish and worldly growths have been destroyed. "How can you believe," says Christ, "who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only?" (John 5:44). In this statement is shown the impossibility of blending faith with the desire to receive honor from men.
The entrance of this alluring element of human honor, draws the heart from the honor that comes from God and sweeps away the foundations of faith. When the eye seeks things other than God, when the heart desires things other than God - this is personal ambition. No man can serve these two masters; no man can combine the ends of SELF - and of God. He may think he can; he may seem to do so; but no one can perform this spiritual impossibility.
Personal ambition enthrones pride, and that is the throne of which satan sits! Humility is destroyed by personal ambition. The history of the church attests to the fact that humility has no place in the man who is ambitious. Humility is not a virtue of those who have sought to be put in the calendar of earthly saints. No ambition is so proud as a religious ambition, and none less scrupulous! No church can be more thoroughly apostate, than the church whose leaders have come into their places through the way of ambition. No ambition is so destructive, as that which comes in under the guise of religion! Personal ambition is worldly, though it may be disguised under the name of Christianity. It easily deludes its possessor, under the plea of a wider influence and usefulness.
If personal ambition can be religious and can preach, then it must do so without love, for love and ambition can no more unite than can light and darkness; they are as essentially at war, as Christ and Belial. "Love seeks not her own," while ambition is ever seeking its own, and not infrequently it seeks with all its heart, that which is another's. Love in honor prefers one another, but ambition never does.
If Jesus Christ is to be our model preacher, if our attachment to Him rises to anything above a selfish sentiment - than the mind that was in Him must be in us. He was without taint of ambition. We have this attitude of Christ to ambition set before us: "Have this mind among yourselves, which was Christ Jesus, who, though He a was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a Cross" (Phil. 2:5-8).
~E. M. Bounds~
(continued with # 2)
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Spiritual Joy # 4
Spiritual Joy # 4
Joy will assist you in the wayfare of the Christian life, and cause you, like the traveler who sings on his journey through the forest and the plain - to overcome the tediousness of your way, by the songs of the Lord. "The joy of the lord is your strength," said Ezra, the scribe, when he checked the sorrows of the Jews, and laid down a principle as applicable to the Christian as to any other enterprise - and what great or good thing under the sun was ever achieved without joy? In the working out of our salvation, there must be not only "fear and trembling," but hope and joy. Spiritual joy is the oil to the wheels of obedience. It is this which braces up the soul for action, and carries it forward through difficult and self-denying duties.
How can be best vanquish the world, that ever present, and every where present foe, which comes in so many forms, and with such golden pleas? How, but by a heart already well pleased with its own happiness in Christ. Spiritual joy is the world's vanquisher! And how easy, how perfect in its triumph! The heart by holy joy rises above the world, sees it below, covered with smoke and dust, and finds itself in a brighter, purer, happier region, with the cloudless sun above, and all around filled with his glory. What has the world to offer comparable to that which a rejoicing faith has found in Christ? What has 'worldly ambition' to offer that can vie with this? He may spurn the favor of the crowned prince, and put his crown aside as a bauble, who is rejoicing in hope of an incorruptible crown of life and glory!
And then think of the importance of this spiritual joy in the dark season of affliction. Many of you have no other earthly joy - will you not covet this spiritual joy? If piety does not shed its light upon your spirit, you are in total darkness. And this can illuminate the darkest scene of human woe - it has irradiated the dark abode of poverty, the gloomy chamber or affliction, the desolate abode of the widow, the dreary dungeon of the captive, and made the martyr sing on the scaffold, or at the stake. Habakkuk's exulting strain has been uttered by multitudes and amidst blighted harvests, and empty stalls, they have joyed in God, and rejoiced in the God of their salvation. Mourners, dry your tears, and hush your sobs - and dissipate your fears at the Cross, and before the eternal throne! With nothing else to rejoice in, you have God, Christ, and salvation! And is this nothing?
You are called, in this extraordinary age, to the great enterprise of the world's conversion; and in order to achieve it, you must make sacrifices of time, money, and ease. And hos is this to be done? A happy church will be a working church. Nothing great was ever yet achieved under the sun, but by a heart glad and free. It is the joyous mind that aims at great things, expects great things, and accomplishes great things. The apostles and first disciples, though persecuted men, were joyous men. They counted it all joy even to fall into divers temptations. They astonished the world with the spectacle of moral heroes, who could smile at chains, imprisonment, and death, and who could go singing to meet the lictor's rod and axe, and to encounter the lions of the amphitheater. Religion appeared in all its power and glory as a superhuman principle, a something heavenly and divine, in such a scene, and many were converted to the faith by the martyr's joy as well as by his testimony.
Christians, imitate these examples. Do not tell the world you are happy, but appear so. Verify the assertion by your own experience, so often made, and so often expressed by Christians themselves, that the church of Christ is the seat of blessedness. Be in spirit a refutation of the world's slander upon religion, in the assertion that it is a sour, unhappy, gloomy spirit; a specter coming from the place of tombs, and cruel superstition to haunt and infest the abodes of the living. A happy church would, almost by its very appearance, without its labor, convert the nations. The church, radiant with peace as it reflected the beams of the Sun of righteousness, and verdant with holiness, would attract the eye, and guide the feet of the weeping, wandering tribes of the earth to itself, as to the place of repose. The first beams of the millennial morning will be seen in this heavenly effulgence resting upon the church.
Therefore be happy Christians as well as holy ones. Exemplify in this, as in every other respect, the spirit of the gospel. Be like your Divine Master, in the purity, simplicity, and joyfulness, with which you devote yourselves to the service of mankind. Anticipate the felicities of heaven here below. You stand in the porch of the celestial temple - appear like men who not only hear the songs within, but expect soon to see the everlasting gates thrown open to admit you to God's presence, where there is fullness of joy, and to His right hand, where there are pleasures forevermore!
~John Angell James~
(The End)
Joy will assist you in the wayfare of the Christian life, and cause you, like the traveler who sings on his journey through the forest and the plain - to overcome the tediousness of your way, by the songs of the Lord. "The joy of the lord is your strength," said Ezra, the scribe, when he checked the sorrows of the Jews, and laid down a principle as applicable to the Christian as to any other enterprise - and what great or good thing under the sun was ever achieved without joy? In the working out of our salvation, there must be not only "fear and trembling," but hope and joy. Spiritual joy is the oil to the wheels of obedience. It is this which braces up the soul for action, and carries it forward through difficult and self-denying duties.
How can be best vanquish the world, that ever present, and every where present foe, which comes in so many forms, and with such golden pleas? How, but by a heart already well pleased with its own happiness in Christ. Spiritual joy is the world's vanquisher! And how easy, how perfect in its triumph! The heart by holy joy rises above the world, sees it below, covered with smoke and dust, and finds itself in a brighter, purer, happier region, with the cloudless sun above, and all around filled with his glory. What has the world to offer comparable to that which a rejoicing faith has found in Christ? What has 'worldly ambition' to offer that can vie with this? He may spurn the favor of the crowned prince, and put his crown aside as a bauble, who is rejoicing in hope of an incorruptible crown of life and glory!
And then think of the importance of this spiritual joy in the dark season of affliction. Many of you have no other earthly joy - will you not covet this spiritual joy? If piety does not shed its light upon your spirit, you are in total darkness. And this can illuminate the darkest scene of human woe - it has irradiated the dark abode of poverty, the gloomy chamber or affliction, the desolate abode of the widow, the dreary dungeon of the captive, and made the martyr sing on the scaffold, or at the stake. Habakkuk's exulting strain has been uttered by multitudes and amidst blighted harvests, and empty stalls, they have joyed in God, and rejoiced in the God of their salvation. Mourners, dry your tears, and hush your sobs - and dissipate your fears at the Cross, and before the eternal throne! With nothing else to rejoice in, you have God, Christ, and salvation! And is this nothing?
You are called, in this extraordinary age, to the great enterprise of the world's conversion; and in order to achieve it, you must make sacrifices of time, money, and ease. And hos is this to be done? A happy church will be a working church. Nothing great was ever yet achieved under the sun, but by a heart glad and free. It is the joyous mind that aims at great things, expects great things, and accomplishes great things. The apostles and first disciples, though persecuted men, were joyous men. They counted it all joy even to fall into divers temptations. They astonished the world with the spectacle of moral heroes, who could smile at chains, imprisonment, and death, and who could go singing to meet the lictor's rod and axe, and to encounter the lions of the amphitheater. Religion appeared in all its power and glory as a superhuman principle, a something heavenly and divine, in such a scene, and many were converted to the faith by the martyr's joy as well as by his testimony.
Christians, imitate these examples. Do not tell the world you are happy, but appear so. Verify the assertion by your own experience, so often made, and so often expressed by Christians themselves, that the church of Christ is the seat of blessedness. Be in spirit a refutation of the world's slander upon religion, in the assertion that it is a sour, unhappy, gloomy spirit; a specter coming from the place of tombs, and cruel superstition to haunt and infest the abodes of the living. A happy church would, almost by its very appearance, without its labor, convert the nations. The church, radiant with peace as it reflected the beams of the Sun of righteousness, and verdant with holiness, would attract the eye, and guide the feet of the weeping, wandering tribes of the earth to itself, as to the place of repose. The first beams of the millennial morning will be seen in this heavenly effulgence resting upon the church.
Therefore be happy Christians as well as holy ones. Exemplify in this, as in every other respect, the spirit of the gospel. Be like your Divine Master, in the purity, simplicity, and joyfulness, with which you devote yourselves to the service of mankind. Anticipate the felicities of heaven here below. You stand in the porch of the celestial temple - appear like men who not only hear the songs within, but expect soon to see the everlasting gates thrown open to admit you to God's presence, where there is fullness of joy, and to His right hand, where there are pleasures forevermore!
~John Angell James~
(The End)
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