The Warning
Affliction is full of warnings. It many voices, and these of the most various kinds. It speaks counsel, it speaks rebuke, it speaks affection. But it speaks warning’ too. Let us hear some of its words of warning. /“” 1. It says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him.”* There is no enforcement of this warning so solemn as that which affliction gives. It exposes the world’s hollowness, and says, “love not.” It shows us what a withering gourd its beauty is, and says, “love not.” It points out to us its hastening doom, and says, “love not.” It declares the utter impossibility of loving both the world and the Father, “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God,” There can be no companionship between God and the world. They cannot dwell together under the same roof or in
the same heart.
* 1 John ii. 15.
2. It says, “take heed and beware of covetousness.”* Riches cannot help, neither earthly comfort avail us in the hour of grief. They cannot dry up tears, nor reunite broken bonds. They cannot heal the living, nor bring back the dead. They profit not in the day of darkness. Their vanity and emptiness cannot then be hidden. “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall .be required of thee, then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided.” It is then we find that we need a “treasure in the heaven that faileth not.” “I counsel thee to buy of ME gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich.”
3. It says, “abstain from all appearance of evil.”t “Hate even the garments spotted by the flesh.” It is not the flesh merely that we are to hate, but even its garments. Nor is it the garments dyed and defiled with the flesh, but even “spotted” with it. It is not merely abstain from evil, but from all appearance of evil. Suffering teaches us to shrink from sin, — even from the remotest and most indirect connection with it. It says, “Oh. do not that abominable thing which I hate.”
4. It says, “grudge not one against the
* Luke xii. 15. f * Thes8- v- 22-
THE WARNING. 1 tl
other.”* Let there be no half-hearted affection in the family of God. Let there be no envy, no jealousy, no misunderstandings among the brethren. Why should we be less than friends who are both fellow-sufferers and fellow-soldiers here? Why should we, who are sharers in a common danger and a common exile, bear to each other ought but the sympathies of an intense affection? Why should we not love one another with a pure heart fervently? Yet oftentimes it needs affliction to teach us this, to remove our jealousies, and to draw us together as brethren in sympathy and love.
5. It says, “Keep yourselves from idols.”t J If there be one remaining idol, break it in pieces, and spare it not. Nothing is so fruitful a cause of suffering as idolatry. Nothing so forcibly displays the vanity of our idols as suffering. It is with this whip of chords that Christ scourges out of us the buyers and sellers, — suffering no earthly traffic to proceed in his Father’s house.
I give these warnings merely as specimens; a few out of many which might be adduced. There is no room for citing more, though more might easily be found. The two great points,
* James v. 9. 1 1 Jobu v. 21.
against which the warnings of chastisement are directed, seem to be, selfishness and worldliness. To scourge these thoroughly out of ua is God’s design.
1. Selfishness. “All seek their own, not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.” This was Paul’s complaint, not of the ungodly, but of the churches of Christ. It was the selfishness he saw in the saints that gave occasion to these sorrowful words.
This selfishness is of various kinds, and shows itself in various ways. It is selfishness in reference to the things of Christ; or in reference to the Church of Christ; or in reference to the work given us to do; or in reference to the sacrifices we are called upon to undergo, and the toils we are called upon to endure. It would be easy to show how God’s chastisements are pointed against all these forms of selfishness, aiming deadly blows at each one of them from the outermost to the innermost circle. But this is too large a field. We shall merely take up the first, and even it we can only touch upon. It is the most important of them all, and stands so connected with the rest, that whatever uproots it, destroys the others also.
Selfishness, in reference to the things of
Christ, obviously springs from coldness towards Christ himself. A preference of self to Christ is its root and source Anything, therefore, that tends to obscure or keep out of view the person of Christ must lead to selfishness. It may be the love of the world; it may be the love of the creature; it may be the love of man’s applause. There are the dark bodies that eclipse the glory of a living Saviour and nourish self. But these are not all. Satan has deeper devices still. He brings in religion between us and the Saviour! Religious acts, ordinances, duties, are all turned by him into so many instruments for exalting self and lowering the Saviour. But even this is not all. He has a subtler device still for these last days. He is trying to make the work of Christ a substitute for his person; to fix attention so much upon the one as to exclude the other. The result of this is a thoroughly selfish and sectarian religion. I know this is delicate ground, but the evil is an augmenting one and ought to be made known.
There are not a few who are so occupied with truth that they forget “the True One:’” so occupied with faith that they lose sight of its personal object: so given to dwelling upon the work of Christ, that they overlook his person. They seem to regard the latter subject as a matter if not beyond them, at least one about which it will be time enough to concern themselves when they see him face to face. What He is seems a question of small importance, provided they know that he has accomplished a work by which they may secure eternal life. “We are forgiven,” they say, “we have peace, — all is well.” They take but little interest in the person of him who has purchased these blessings. The redemption is all, and the Redeemer is nothing, or, at least, very little! The sufficiency of his work is all, the glory and excellence of his person, nothing! What is this but selfishness? We get all the benefit we can out of the work of Christ, and then leave himself alone! And this selfishness introduces itself everywhere into the actings and thinkings of this class. We can trace it in the mould of their doctrines. Their views of the atonement are selfish; being framed not upon the principle of how God is to get his purpose fulfilled, and his glory displayed; but simply of how a sinner is to be saved. Their views of Jehovah’s sovereignty and electing grace are selfish; being just so many devices for taking the sinner out of God’s hands, and placing him in his own. Their views of the Spirit’s work are selfish; being just an attempt to make His aid appear less absolutely indispensable, and man’s own skill and strength of very considerable avail in the matter of salvation. But even where those selfish views of doctrine have not been adopted, there is a latent tendency towards selfishness among many; which can only be ascribed to their neglect of the person of Christ.
But what has chastisement to do with this? Much every way. Chiefly in this, that it throws us more entirely for consolation and strength upon the person of the Saviour. Never do we feel more brought into contact with a living personal Saviour than in our days of sorrow. It is Jesus, — Jesus alone, — Jesus himself, — that we feel to be absolutely necessary. The truth is precious; his work is precious; but it is himself that we then prize so much; it is with himself that we have chiefly to do; it is to himself that we pour out our sorrows.
Thus by creating a necessity for our leaning on the person of Jesus (blessed necessity!) affliction strikes at that which was the root of selfishness. By bringing before us another and far more glorious self, it absorbs our own miserable self; till in the person of Jesus, we lose sight of our own selves altogether. There is nothing that so makes us acquainted with Christ himself as sorrow; and hence, there is nothing so efficacious in eradicating self. It is God’s cure for selfishness. It is his way of making us seek not our own, but the things that are Jesus Christ’s. It is his way of carrying us beyond truth, even to “Him that is true.” Truth is precious, but in itself it is cold. But the glory of the gospel is this, that it carries us up beyond truth, to its living fountain-head. Nay, it brings us into the very bosom of him who came out of the Father’s bosom, and has now returned to it carrying with him all those whom the Father hath given him, there, with him to abide in happy fellowship, world without end.
This, however, is a large subject, and these are but a few hints. We cannot, however, pursue them farther here. We pass on to notice the other evil against which the rebukes of God are directed.
2. Worldliness. We have seen that God’s cure for selfishness is the setting before us another self, to absorb our own, in the person of Jesus. We have now to see that his cure for worldliness is the bringing before us another world, more glorious than that which he calls on us to forsake. There is no thorough cure for it but this. It is want of faith that makes us worldlings; and when the believing eye gets fixed on the world to come, then we learn to set our affections on things above. So long, however, as all here is bright, we are content with them; we allow ourselves to sink down, and settle quietly among the things of earth. But when God unroofs our dwelling, or tears up its foundation by an earthquake, then we are forced to look upwards and seek a better and more enduring portion. Many such shocks, however, are often needed, before our souls are broken off from their cleaving to the dust.
The opposite of worldliness is heavenly-mindedness or spiritual-mindedness. This, the new relish which the Holy Spirit imparts at conversion, in some measure produces.
But it is feeble. It easily gives way. It ia not keen enough to withstand much temptation. God’s wish is to impart a keener relish for the things of God, and to destroy the relish for the things of time. This he effects by blighting all the objects in which there was earthly sweetness, so that by being deprived of objects to “mind” on earth, it may of necessity be led to “mind” the things above. He dries up all the “nether springs” of earthly joy, that we may betake ourselves to the “upper springs” which can never fail.
There is much worldliness among the saints. There is worldliness in their motives and actings; worldliness in their domestic life and in their intercourse with society; there is worldliness in the arrangements of their households and in the education of their families; there is worldliness in their expenditure, so much being laid out for self, so little for God; there is worldliness in their religious schemes, and movements, and societies; there is worldliness in their reading, and in their conversation; there is, in short, too much of the spirit of earnest worldliness about their whole deportment, and little of calm, happy superiority to the things of earth. They are fretted, distirbed, bustled just like the world. They grudge labor, or fatigue, or expense, or annoyance, in the cause of Christ, or in serving their fellow-men. They have much of earth, little of heaven about them. They are not large-hearted, open-handed, — willing to spend and be spent, unmoved and unruffled, as those whose eye is ever set on the incorruptible inheritance on which they so soon shall enter. They are low and unaspiring in the things of God.
Perhaps there are few things against which we require to be more warned than against this spirit of worldliness. The church is very prone to forget her pilgrim character in this present evil world, and to live as a citizen of earth. Her dignity as the eternally chosen of the Father, is lost sight of; her hope as the inheritor of the glory and the kingdom of the Son is obscured. And oh, how much of sorrow she is preparing for herself, by thus losing sight of her calling! What desolation may be even now hovering over the tabernacle of many a saint, because they will not come out and be separate, because they refuse to be “strangers on the earth as all their fathers were.” Sad it is, indeed, that we should need affliction to teach us this!
Why should we whose home, whose treasure are above, ever again seek our home 01 v»ur treasure here 1 Why should we stoop from our heavenly elevation to mingle again with the company which we have forsaken? Have we repented of our choice? Are we ashamed of our pilgrim-staff, and our pilgrim- weeds? Surely not. Oh, if to be a stranger on earth be to be divided from sin and sinful appetites, — from the seducing vanities and worthless mockeries of the world, — from the fascinating beauty and perilous splendor of this decaying scene: if to be a stranger on earth be to be a friend of God, a member of the heavenly household, an expectant of the kingdom, an heir apparent of the crown of glory, — who would not be a stranger here?
What higher honor would we seek than to share the homelessness of Jesus, the homelessness of the church from the beginning? Why should we seek to enter into nearer fellowship, and dearer relationship, with such a world as this? If we knew of no fairer heritage, we might not be wondered at for lusting after our forsaken pleasures. But we have the pleasures that are at God’s right hand forever, and what are earth’s allurements to us? What to us are the sights and sounds of earth, who “shall see the King in his beauty,” aid hear his voice, into whose lips grace is poured? What to us is the green fertility of earth, who shall enter into the possession of the new earth, when “the winter is past, the rain over and gone?” What to us is the gay glory of a city’s wealth and pomp, who shall be made citizens of the New Jerusalam, where dwells the glory of God and of the Lamb, whose foundations are of precious stones, whose walls of jasper, whose gates of pearl, whose streets and pavements of transparent gold?
Let us. then, “pass the time of our sojourning here in fear.” Let our loins be girt about, and our lamps burning, and let us be as men ready to go forth to meet our returning Lord. If we watch not, if we reject the warning, our chastisement will be sharp and sore.
The present seems a time of peculiar warning to the saints. Many are lying under the rebukes of the Lord. Judgment has begun at the house of God. God is dealing very closely and very solemnly with his own. On many a saint, at this moment, is his rod lying healO/i THE WARNING.
vily. For he would fain warn and arouse them ere the evil day arrive. He is dealing with them as he dealt with Lot on the night before the desolation of Sodom. Let the saints, then, be warned. Let them be zealous and repent, and do their first, works. Come out, be separate, touch not the unclean thing! Put off the works of ‘darkness; put on the armor of light. He is calling on them to get up to a higher level in the spiritual life; to have done with wavering, indecision, and compromise. He is calling on them to consider the Apostle and High Priest of their profession, and walk in his steps. He is calling on them to look at the cloud of witnesses, and lay aside every weight, especially that sin (of unbelief) which doth so easily beset them, and to run with patience the race set before them, — “looking unto Jesus.”
Church of the living God! Be warned. Please not thyself, even as Jesus pleased not himself. Live for him, not for thyself; for him, not for the world. Walk worthy of thy name and calling; worthy of him who bought thee as his bride; worthy of thine everlasting inheritance.
Up, too, and warn the world! The chastisements that are falling so thickly on thee are forerunners of the fiery shower that is pre- “^) paring for the earth. Up, then, and warn them — urge and entreat them to flee from gathering wrath. They have no tirrie to lose; neither hast thou. The last storm is on the wing. Its dark skirts are already visible in the heavens. Judgment has begun at the house of God, and if so, then, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God!