A Christian believer belongs to heaven and should live in the awareness of heavenly realities, with one eye fixed on Jesus there and one foot always in the mansion prepared there for them. The scent of heaven should perfume everything the believer does here on earth. When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he called them to follow him (Philippians 3:17) because our citizenship “is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). James Durham, preaching on this text, discussed how we have many interactions with heaven and lots of business to do in heaven constantly. Towards the end of his sermon, Durham becomes very pointed in inquiring of his hearers whether they are actually endeavouring to do as Paul says and follow him in this heavenly way of life. The following updated extract finds Durham asking whether we are really thriving in the Christian walk.

Paul calls us to follow him (Phil. 3:17) because our citizenship “is in heaven” (Phil 3:20). We may use this doctrine to find out who is a real Christian, and a thriving Christian. It serves to expose and to convict, and indeed it may very easily and quickly expose the unsoundness of many, and the shortcoming of all. Need I elaborate on this? It is a truth obvious to all, that Christians are called and obliged to be heavenly in their manner of life. For that matter, is not yet much more requisite in a Christian, a divineness beyond what we can express?

If you are (as really you should be) convinced that this is a truth, then let me ask you if this describes your own walk. Put your own conscience to it. Enquire of your conscience whether your trade is to heaven, whether your peace and joy, your delight and satisfaction are there? Would God you would attempt this, and could on good ground say that it is so! But is there any who can say it without some hesitation? Is not the best of Christians exceedingly defective? Of those who say that it is so, I must ask many of you, What then is the meaning of your carnalness, the power of your lusts, your moods and passions which unfit you for spiritual things? What can explain why you plead so much for self-interest, and turn the world almost upside down for your own wishes? How does it come about that some of you are profane, and spend so much of your precious time in tippling, and trifle away so much of it unprofitably in many other ways? Dare you say that you who walk like this are really followers of the Apostle Paul? But if you dare not say that you follow him in his heavenly walk, can you think or expect to dwell with him in heaven?

O! be not deceived, for God will not be mocked. When you reflect seriously on yourselves and on your way, will you not find just ground for being ashamed and confounded before God? Is there any of us all, who lacks a reason to go to the throne of grace, to confess and crave pardon for our sinful shortcoming in this?

We’re not thriving if we always have a good opinion of ourselves

I shall only speak a word or two on this point to those who are stout-hearted and “know no changes” (Psa. 55:19), who always have a good opinion and a good word to say of themselves. You are ready to say that you mean well, and ready to think and say that you have loved God all your days. At best, you content yourselves with a form of religion, and sit down on that form. You have never made the effort to die to the world, never made it your business in good earnest to mortify your lusts and to be holy in the inward frame of your souls. Is this, do you think, what it means to have your citizenship “in heaven”?

How can you tell if you have ever studied Christianity seriously? Test it by whether you have been heavenly in your manner of life. For, however you judge of yourselves, God will most certainly judge you according to this, the rule and qualification of a Christian. It is both sad and strange to think how it comes to pass that many of you bolster up yourselves with a hope of heaven, and say you have no doubt but you will get there, and yet you lack and are void of this characteristic of heavenliness.

I know some will be ready to object, “Who has ever actually achieved such heavenliness?!” To which I shall only answer that, just as I would be very loath to quench any smoking flax, or to break any bruised reed (who our Lord and master treats very tenderly) or to throw the water of discouragement on the least spark of sincerity, so equally I cannot, I dare not, but ask the others these three questions.

Examining our views of our need to be heavenly

First, have you walked under the conviction of this as a duty incumbent on you? Have you seriously proposed it to yourselves as your great business in the world, to be sincerely aiming at, and endeavouring after this heavenliness? Have you not rather had peace (such as it was) when you said your prayers morning and evening, even though you did not so much as aim at any heavenliness throughout the day? Can you with any shadow of reason think that you have attained it or can attain it, when you have never seriously proposed it as a rule to yourselves to walk by, nor ever had a conscience-disquieting challenge for such neglect and manifest shortcoming?

Second, what effort do you put in, how painstaking are you, in pursuing such a goal and such a blessed project as this? It’s one thing to say your prayers, to go about the external duties of religion, and to be a Christian in the letter; it’s quite another thing to be doing these duties in a heavenly manner, and to be a real Christian , a Christian inwardly and in the spirit, one whose praise “is not of men but of God.” Is it really your honest aim, design and endeavour (whatever your attainment might be) to be heavenly in your walk rather than simply to observe the formalities and be respectable, or to attend the outward ordinances? I fear many of you cannot say it is.

Third, what weight lies on your spirit because of your shortcoming in this? Likely you will say, “We all come short!” This is a sad truth, for indeed so we do. But are you really weighted down and grieved for your shortcoming in this? Have you ever taken any time to deal purposely with the Lord to remove your earthly mind, and to help you to be heavenly minded?

Has your conscience challenged you, and have you had any measure of serious heart-exercise, because of your lack of a heavenly mind? and not only sometimes, at the hearing of a sermon, or in time of sickness, or when under some other trouble, but in your more constant and habitual walk? Is it one of the great things for which you blame yourself and find fault with yourself before God?

And even if your outside and visible walk is blameless, yet when you look at the carnalness and earthliness of your mind, and at your lack of this divine and heavenly frame of soul, it makes you hang your head and mars your boldness because, do what you can, your heart will not abide in heaven. If it’s like that with you, it’s a token for good, and some ground of peace, but O! how rare this is! Probably many of you have often prayed, “Forgive us our sins,” yet never got to grips with this sin, nor prayed for it to be pardoned, but instead have lain down at night and risen up in the morning, with your hearts plunged and puddled in the world, without once thinking of heaven in earnest, and yet have never been challenged by your own conscience for it. What a sad state!

Why aren’t we thriving?

I must expostulate with you for this unworthy behaviour, of having either nothing at all or only very little of our business in heaven. We just take it for granted that many of us are far from heavenliness, and that all of us are little in heaven. Only very few even of the best are daily and constantly interacting with heaven. Alas! it’s only now and then, with many sad interruptions!

Let me propose a few queries.

• Don’t you know that the neglect of this is a sin, and the breach of the command, “Be ye followers of me”?
• Is it not an excellent duty, and royal privilege, to be included as someone whose citizenship is in heaven? The neglect of it must therefore not only be a sin, but a great sin, even a form of trampling on the grace of God and slighting heaven and a most noble privilege and dignity.
• Don’t you think heaven is of great worth? If so, must not a lifestyle “in heaven” be of much worth? Will you never so much as once go to see the house in which you say you are going to dwell? O! how unsuitable a thing it is, that those who are but daysmen here should sit down and settle on the earth without minding heaven, and be so confined within time, as not to think seriously of eternity!
• How can you come before God with confidence and boldness, if you do not endeavour to walk with him in this way? Can you say with holy boldness, “Our Father which art in heaven,” when your manner of life is not heavenly? Can you pray for holiness, and say these words, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven,” when you have never studied to be heavenly in any duty that you put your hand to?
• And above all, I would ask you, can you hope to die comfortably — can you hope to die in safety — when you do not know heaven, or what is there, or the way to it? It gives you confidence and comfort at death when you have had business in heaven in your lifetime; someone like this has little left to do when they come to die. They know the way and they are not afraid. They know the company, and long to be with them. They know the privileges and long for the full enjoyment of them. They have only a little here; their treasure is above, in heaven, and their heart, faith, love, and hope are there. Their anchor is cast within the veil, and they are longing to get ashore.

Surely this is both the believer’s duty and their privilege. Do not think that it is only called for from a few super-Christians, and those who have nothing else to do. It’s not like that at all. It is most certainly a duty to which we are all called, if we have a mind to land fairly in heaven when we come off the troublesome tossing and tempestuous sea of this world.

We can’t thrive without being heavenly

Now therefore, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I exhort, beseech and obtest all of you who lay any claim to the hope of heaven, that you would, and more than ever, make the effort to “have your conversation in heaven.” Be followers of Paul and his fellow-apostles in this thing.

Need I adduce any motives to press this on you? Is the duty not clear? And is it not a most excellent duty, a most desirable characteristic of a Christian walk? Is not heaven transcendently excellent? And is it not excellent to be heavenly minded, and conversant in heaven?

Can I expect to prevail with you in anything if not in bringing you to heaven? What is the thing that will sweeten the pursuit of holiness to you? Is it not that, by having your citizenship in heaven, you arrive there? Those who are now in heaven think this a great motive, and if it is not a motive to you, you will one day curse yourselves that you neglected it. Therefore, pursue it in due time.

This is the way to be free of the encumbrances of an evil world. There is no risk of your estate in heaven being forfeited or sequestered; there are no plunderings nor quarterings there; no poverty nor pain nor any sad evil. O! what a desirable life it is to be above all those things! And indeed, to the extent that your manner of life is heavenly, to that extent you are above them.

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From the Bible we know that whatever events occur in our experience, good or bad, routine or startling, they are all reminders from God to come closer to Him and turn our backs more comprehensively on sin. This principle holds good not only for individuals but also larger communities including nations. Our nation has had a summer of bad weather, with drought in some places meaning a poor harvest, while many domestic and international problems persist whatever efforts are made to tackle them. Our helplessness to do anything about the weather should make us depend more heavily on God, and our inability to solve our own problems should make us apply to Him for wisdom. However, when God sends difficulties and our attempts to improve our situation keep being frustrated, although it should prompt us to repent and turn to God all over again, we often respond in the opposite way. We instead persist in our sinful ways and ignore God’s interest and involvement in our situation. This is not because it is difficult to discern what God wants — just repentance — but because we prefer our sinning to His holiness. As George Hutcheson points out in the following updated extract, until grace intervenes, we commit ourselves to a vicious cycle of a thrawn, obstinate response leading to more trouble and misery, leading to more obstinacy. For ourselves and others, both as individuals and as members of society, we can only appeal to the God of grace to change our hearts so that, on experiencing yet another problem, we take it as an invitation to return to Him to restore us and bless us.

God’s challenge

By the prophet Amos the Lord makes three accusations as against His people. Firstly, they are committing cruel and covetous oppression (Amos 4:1); secondly, they are idolatrous (v.4–5); and here, thirdly, they show incorrigibleness and impenitency (vv.6–11).

For their idolatry and other sins, God had inflicted many judgements to reclaim them, yet they did not return to Him, but persisted obstinately in their wicked courses.

The judgments and corrections which they had thus abused are listed in Amos 4:6–11. And yet to all these, and every one of them, is subjoined the fact that they made no right use of any one of them.

What can we learn from this whole challenge in general?

Persistence in sin is itself sin

When God begins to reckon with a church, He finds her guilty not of one, or a few, but many gross faults. In this process, beside the faults He has already accused her of, He also finds her guilty of being incorrigible.

Believers cannot thrive in sin

A pathway of sin will not turn out to be a way for anyone to thrive in, but this is especially true of the church. The Lord will make His church either a theatre of mercy or a field of blood, and He has many rods to achieve this.

The Lord wants His people to come back

The Lord strikes His church sorest, and with most rods, either together or one after another. Yet in doing so He only calls her to repentance, and drives her to His mercy. His accusation is that, when they were under all these judgements, yet they did not set about turning to Him — the very thing He was aiming at.

Self-affirmed penitence isn’t enough

It must not be people’s own conceits, or their biased self-love, which pass the verdict on the truth and reality of their repentance, but God Himself. Whatever they might claim to offer Him under afflictions, yet He Himself takes charge of discerning its validity.

It isn’t easy to return by way of judgments

Whatever exercise judgements may put sinners to, yet it is not easy to attain to true repentance under them. This is the constant challenge, “Yet ye have not returned to me.” This is not to limit the Lord; of course He both can and does drive people to Him by rods inflicted for sin; yet it is no small difficulty (as sad experience proves) in too many. How so?

Even sad strokes are not soon felt by everyone, or felt in such a way as to stir them up to any spiritual exercise.

When strokes are felt, people quickly and easily feel bitterness, resentment, discouragement, etc. But repentance is a more difficult task, and is often impeded by these distempered reactions.

God’s hand in rods is not soon or easily seen to invite us to repentance as the only remedy, or we see only a little of it because we are too busy looking at instruments and second causes.

When we do in general acknowledge that God is in some way involved in our calamities, yet we may deceive ourselves with a deluded conceit of being delivered in some other way, or by some means other than by turning to Him.

Even when we are convicted of the necessity of repentance, yet it is not easy to attain sincerity and steadfastness in it.

Even when we desire most sincerely to repent under calamities, yet we cannot succeed till first we look back, and mourn for our slighting of the Word which drew down the rod.

In short, no providence can produce repentance, without the grace of God. Instead, troubles of themselves will drive people further from repentance.

Our incorrigibleness

It indicates very sad wrath on God’s part, and much impenitence on our part, when not only the same judgements continue, but new judgements are inflicted, one after another. The variety of rods declared that Israel had not yet returned to God, and that He was still pursuing them. None of the rods formerly inflicted had any effect, but God was still angry, and they were still walking contrary to God. This provokes Him to walk contrary to us, and punish us yet more.

Those who do not repent after one rod are liable to misuse (and harden themselves under) many. Judgements are in themselves stupefying, and only harden sinners, unless grace prevents it. Misuse of one rod draws on more hardness, and makes a sinner fit for misusing more rods.

Famine

Famine is a rod which could have brought them back to God’s ways — “I have given you cleanness of teeth (famine, no food to foul their teeth) and lack of bread” (v.6). Sinners may think little of their daily bread, but famine is a sad stroke.

When people will not be led even by the principles of reason to acknowledge God, or accept their duty, or to take notice of any evidences of God’s displeasure against them, it shows they have become like the brute creatures. Then it is only just that God treats them like animals, pinching them in their belly, as a stroke which they would feel.

Sin is for the most part so deeply rooted in people’s hearts, and they take so little notice of God in calamities, that it is no wonder to see people starved out of the world before they will famish their idols, and relinquish sin.

It is righteous with God to let people smart from want when they have abused prosperity. These people abused their plenty to serve their lusts and make themselves drunk (v. 1). They left God’s temple and priests without sacrifices and maintenance, instead spending what they had on their idols, and on maintaining unlawful priests (vv. 4–5).

It adds to the affliction, that it was “in all your cities,” and “in all your places” (v.6). It is a sad lot, and indicates much displeasure from the Lord, when He makes strokes universal, so that no one can help anyone else.

Drought

The longer sinners are warned of judgements before they are inflicted, the more it heightens their impenitence before the Lord. It adds to the people’s sin that they had three months’ drought before the harvest came (the time when rain was most needed) to warn them of the ensuing famine, and yet it had no effect. “Ye have not returned to me” (vv.7–8).

As God’s providence is supreme in ordering all natural causes and effects, even in dispensing rain, so it aggravates the impenitence of sinners when God’s hand is eminently seen, and yet they do not seek Him.

The Lord, when He pleases, can make as small a matter as a drink of water prove a great trial to a people. “Two or three cities wandered to one city (likely where it had rained) to drink water” (v.8). It cannot but add to a people’s sin, when they are made to feel a stroke, and it gives them toil, and yet they don’t use it to recognise God’s point of view, or turn to Him.

Notwithstanding their wandering from city to city, “they were not satisfied” (v.8). Whatever sinners do to get rid of troubles, yet when they neglect repentance, it is fitting and just that they will be disappointed in their efforts.

It is our great sin that when we are disappointed in all our expectations, and thwarted in all our efforts to get rid of troubles, yet we will not, among our other attempts, try to turn to God. “Yet have ye not returned to me, saith the Lord” (v.8).

Blight and locusts

God can arm all His creatures to cut off provision, one after another. Beside the drought, He sends blight and mildew to cut off their corn, and the palmerworm (locust) to spoil their gardens, vineyards and other fruit-trees (v.9).

Under affliction, people look mainly at the present particular means of their trouble; yet even if that is removed, it will not avail them so long as God is angry. Rather, whatever change there may be in providence, the impenitent may expect to meet with trouble. The blight came by withering winds, but when that was removed, and they got rain, it was no use to them — cold rain followed by the heat of the sun bred mildew.

It is a great aggravation of impenitency, when the Lord makes all kinds of creatures prove enemies, and yet people will not be driven to make God their friend. “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” (v.9)

Plague and violence

When famine did not prevail, God had pestilence and the sword to use against them. It is very sad and humbling that the Lord, who previously appeared gloriously for His people by plaguing their enemies, is now provoked to make His own people feel the same plagues. “I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt” (v.10a). And it is even sadder when this does not drive them to God.

Where God has a controversy, the endeavours of a nation against their enemies will have little effect, and will only contribute to heaping miseries on themselves. They ought to see God’s hand in this. “Your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stink of your camp to come up into your nostrils” (v.10b).

Yet they would not be induced to turn to God! He not only made the endeavours of enemies successful, but smote them with pestilence. Their low condition, with a broken military force, and their camp stinking, was a warning to them, “yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” (v.10).

Overthrow

The visible church may transgress so far as to deserve to be afflicted as severely as the worst of people, and God may in justice inflict what she deserves. “I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (v.11).

Nevertheless, the Lord is still gracious to His church and people. He preserves a remnant of them in the midst of utter desolation, and notwithstanding great provocations. He may still see it fit that those who are preserved will bear the marks of these calamities, so that they will be stirred up to make good use of what they have experienced. He says to the remnant preserved, “Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning” (v.11), pointing out both His goodness in plucking them out, and the prints of the fire that were left on them.

It is an undeniable proof of a people’s incorrigibleness, when neither the extremity of judgements, nor the extremity of God’s displeasure, nor His immediate hand in them; nor the fact that in wrath He has remembered mercy, will prevail with them to make them turn to God. “Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord” (v.11).

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Trying too hard, especially without self-awareness, is something which many people want to avoid because of the vicarious embarrassment it creates in others. The fear of being seen as cringe holds people back from embracing and wholeheartedly pursing their own interests. Young people in particular can feel pressurised to conform to mainstream tastes in order to avoid becoming a target of mockery, especially online, where scrutiny can be intense and judgment harsh. Meanwhile the counter-reaction, which proclaims that “cringe culture is dead,” does not present a genuinely satisfactory alternative. Although this counter-movement proposes that people should uninhibitedly pursue their own passions regardless of other people’s opinions, it mostly simply embraces the same things as cringe culture mocked, irrespective of their merit. Real freedom from the fear of other people’s judgment does not come through the bravado of denying that we care what anyone else thinks of us. Our sights should be set on something higher than the fun of finding our own niche and the joy of self-fulfilment. It’s more about having a passion for something that is truly excellent in itself and realising that, regardless of whether it brings us lots of likes or tons of negative feedback, it’s too valuable not to pursue. That something, in the view of Andrew Gray, is salvation. Andrew Gray noticed that the advice of the Proverbs is to be diligent, especially in making our peace with God, being reconciled to Christ, and preparing for heaven. In the following updated and condensed excerpt, Andrew Gray challenges us to be diligent about the righteousness and holiness which God requires.

Diligence makes us rich

Solomon says, “The hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Proverbs 10:4). Diligence makes a Christian rich in experience, rich in love, rich in humility, and, for that matter, rich in all the spiritual things in heaven. If you were diligent, who knows what you wouldn’t achieve!

We don’t have much time

But, Christians, “the night is coming, wherein none will see to work” (John 9:4). Our time to remain in this valley of misery is only short. For all you know, this may be the eleventh hour of the day for you, and you may only have one hour left, but your everlasting destiny depends on the use you make of the time you’ve got. Therefore, be diligent.

If you mis-spend your time, it is impossible to recover the loss. “Therefore, while it is called ‘today,’ harden not your hearts, but hearken to his voice” (Hebrews 4:7). Some of you who are hearing me now will end up standing on the brink between time and eternity and remember what that man said, and will be forced to cry out, “Call time back again! Call time back!” But it will be a fruitless request. Therefore, be diligent.

The task is important

Christians, you have a great work. Therefore be diligent! Isn’t putting sin to death a great work? Isn’t self-denial a great work? Isn’t patiently bearing the cross a great work? Don’t you have a long journey to go? Therefore, be diligent!

Other people put this much effort into much more worthless things

To encourage you to exercise the excellent grace of diligence, consider the great diligence and effort that worldly people put towards pursuing their idols. Christians, doesn’t it put you to shame to see one of them compassing sea and land to gain some trivial inheritance? Won’t you put in as much effort to attain an everlasting crown? Are the people of the world not only wiser but also more diligent than the children of light (Luke 16:8)? Let the competition begin! They get up before daybreak to purchase a vanity, but you leave it till after dawn to obtain a crown!

Diligence leads to certain success

The diligent Christian is the overcomer. What will help you to overcome your sins and idols? Just this, Be diligent. “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule” (Proverbs 12:24). Why are you overruled? Just because you are not diligent but slothful. I can answer almost all the excuses you can make with these three words, be diligent, be diligent, and be diligent. How is it that the devil never so much as attacks you but he gets the victory over you? The answer is, you’re not diligent!

Apathy brings its own disadvantages

Think of the exceedingly great disadvantages that attend the slothful.

The five things it kills

Slothfulness kills five things.

Convictions. We sometimes go home from precious sermons convicted, but what do we do with the convictions? They die without any kind of fruit, for slothfulness kills them all.

Resolutions. Slothfulness kills many precious resolutions, vows and covenants. Christians go away from the service with some good purposes and holy resolutions, but we sleep them off, and slothfulness slays them all.

Desires. Slothfulness kills many precious desires for God and for the excellent things of heaven.

Good impulses. Slothfulness kills many excellent motions of the spirit. When Christ comes and knocks, why do we slight Him? “I have put off my coat, how can I put it on again? And I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?” (Song 5:3), and so Christ goes away.

Opportunities to enjoy God. Slothfulness kills many excellent enjoyments of God. When a Christian has managed to get close to God, do you want to know what it is that spreads a veil over the face of lovely Christ? It is slothfulness. We fall asleep on the bed and let Christ depart without us noticing.

The three things it breeds

Then, slothfulness breeds three things: complacency; conceit and presumption; and spiritual decay.

Its three consequences

Slothfulness clothes you with rags. “For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags” (Proverbs 23:21). What makes that change of clothes? What rips the party-coloured dress? What makes you unsuitable to king’s children? Just slothfulness.

Slothfulness makes all duties unpleasant. What makes you lose heart in prayers, preaching, communions? Slothfulness. “The way of a slothful man is as an hedge of thorns” (Proverbs 15:19), and that is a most unpleasant gate. Praying, preaching, taking the Lord’s supper, will never be sweet to you till you are diligent.

And slothfulness interrupts many precious manifestations of Christ. Do you want to know the reason why Christians have so many complaints about Christ being absent? It’s because of their slothfulness.

It takes diligence to get to heaven

I beseech you to be diligent, because many have come short of heaven for lack of it. “Strive to enter in at the strait gate,” why? “Because many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24). Do you not know that dreadful greeting, “Depart from me, thou slothful person, and wicked servant”? (Matt. 25:26).

Diligence is what God expects

I beg you to be diligent, because Christ has commanded it. I’d advise you to obey the king’s commandment, especially because it comes with the oath of God.

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Those who flee to Christ for justification will also flee from sin in sanctification. But what does it feel like when you are being sanctified? In one of his sermons, Hugh Binning explores the blessings of both justification and sanctification. Justification doesn’t mean that we are changed on the inside — that’s what happens in sanctification. Yet as the inner graces are strengthened, this does not translate into any feeling of self-satisfaction. Instead, as Hugh Binning discusses in the following updated excerpt, what has prominence in sanctification is an awareness of our ongoing inner sinfulness, which makes us increasingly conscious of our own inadequacies alongside an increasing realisation of our absolute need of Jesus Christ, who is “made unto us [both] righteousness and sanctification …” Sanctification is not a flattering process but a humbling one which gives the glory to the Lord Jesus.

It is difficult to decide which is the greatest privilege of a Christian — that he is delivered from condemnation, or that he is made to walk according to the Spirit, and is made a new creature — whether we owe more to Christ for our justification or sanctification (for He is made both to us).

However, it is more necessary to conjoin them together than to compare them with each other. One is not more necessary than the other — to be delivered from wrath or to walk according to the Spirit. I think it could be argued that a soul escaped from condemnation should have the great stream and current of its affections and endeavours toward sanctification, not so that they would be accepted by God, but because they are accepted by God.

The escape from condemnation

It is not said that there is nothing condemnable in those who are in Christ, but that there is “no condemnation” to them. There is, in fact, a “body of death” and “law of sin” within them, a nature defiled with original sin, and many streams flowing from it, which the sprinkling of the blood of Christ in justification does not take away. If any man say there is no sin in him, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But here is the grace and mercy of God in Jesus Christ — it removes the curse where the sin is, and takes away the condemnation where all is worthy of condemnation.

In this way, the soul’s justification is parallel to Christ’s condemnation. There was in Him nothing condemnable, no sin, no guile in His mouth. Yet there was condemnation to Him because He was in the stead and place of sinners. Our iniquities were laid “on him,” not “in him;” He who knew no sin was made a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So then, the soul that flees to Jesus Christ’s righteousness, though it has in it all that deserves condemnation, yet there is “no condemnation to it,” because His righteousness is laid on it, and Christ has taken away the curse. The innocent Son of God was condemned, therefore guilty sinners are absolved. The curse was applied to Him who had no sin, but only “was made sin,” or had sin “laid on him,” and therefore the sentence of absolution from the cures is applied to those who have no righteousness, but are made the righteousness of God by free and gracious imputation.

I say all this because of many unsavoury and unsound expressions that are currently in use, along the lines that there is no sin in the justified, that justification removes sin as if it had never existed at all. I say, as the condemnation of Jesus Christ did not blot out His innocence and holiness (but only justice considered Him on that account a transgressor, when He was yet in Himself the spotless Lamb of God), so likewise, the justification of a sinner before God does not remove or blot out the corruption and defilement of our natures, but only scrubs our names out of the list of debtors, and considers us as righteous before God on Christ’s account.

The endeavour towards sanctification

I’m saying this for you to put it to use, so that you may loathe and abhor yourselves, as much if you have been washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ as if you had not been. Indeed, you ought to remember all the more your sins which He does not remember as debt any more, and be ashamed and confounded because they are pardoned. I find it is ordinary for souls to look on themselves with more complacency when they see that God looks favourably on them. I don’t think that any soul can duly consider the gracious face of God in Jesus Christ to them without all the more loathing themselves. But I do think that slight and inconsiderate thoughts of pardon breed bright and breezy self-conceits in the heart.

Even God’s children sin in this way. Something is abated of our self-abhorrence when God speaks peace and pardon to us. But I beseech all who believe there is no condemnation for them to consider that in you there is everything that deserves condemnation, and in fact, nothing but what deserves it. Therefore, let this aspect of God produce self-loathing and self-detestation in you. The more you grasp that He is pleased with you, the more displeased you should be with yourself, because it is not yourself He is pleased with, but His own well-beloved Son. The day of redemption is coming, when there will be not only nothing condemnation to you but nothing condemnable either. That’s how it will be in heaven. Bu while you are here, this is a most important duty, to loathe yourselves, because of all your abominations, and because He is pacified towards you (Ezek. 16:63; see also Ezek. 36:31 and Ezek. 20:43–44).

A strange new thing is suggested by many, namely, that the highest advancement in religion is not in feeling or knowing or confessing sin, but in being dead to the sense and conviction of sin. Alas! This is putting godliness to death, crucifying repentance and holiness and the new man, but enlivening the old man in its lusts, and living to sin. It is that kind of “new gospel” which, even supposing an angel brought it from heaven, we ought not to believe. Lord, give the Spirit so that we would understand the things which have already been revealed! And save us from these new discoveries and new lights!

Sometimes it seems as though everyone claims a right to the privilege of Christians, to be pardoned and absolved from condemnation, and don’t even question it even though in the meantime their iniquities testify against them, and their transgressions say in the heart of the godly, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” This is why the apostle describes the one who is in Christ Jesus as someone who walks, “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” In this way he not only guards against the presumptuous imaginings of those who live in their sins and claim to hope for heaven, but also stirs up everyone who is justified to pursue a new manner of life, since they are in Christ Jesus.

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The one true God is a speaking God. He communicates with the creatures He has made, in a way that is both accurate and clear. These days, His message is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, but in earlier times, He would sometimes actually speak from heaven, in an audible voice speaking understandable words. On one occasion, when Jesus was praying in the hearing of a crowd of people, God the Father replied to His prayer directly. Jesus said, “Father, glorify thy name,” and the Father replied, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” It was unmistakeable. But plenty of the bystanders misheard and mistook. “The people therefore that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered; others said, An angel spoke to him” (John 12:28–29). What could possibly explain the confusion? The words were audible, the message was clear, yet somehow they couldn’t figure out what they’d even heard. Samuel Rutherford used this incident to make the point that we hear what we want to hear. When our wills are antagonistic to God, even our senses are biased away from perceiving God’s message to us. The opinions we form, which we like to think are rational and evidence-based, are shaped in advance by our wishful inclinations, and these, unless grace changes us, are wishes to be left to carry on without anything to do with God at all. In the following updated extract, Rutherford shows how the human tendency to dismiss the gospel as incomprehensible and irrelevant is not because of any defect in the gospel or God’s communication of it, but because of our sinful desire not to be bothered by it.

The people had various opinions about the Father’s answer from heaven. Some said it was thunder. Doesn’t any ignoramus and the most simple idiot know thunder when he hears it?! This shows us how ignorant we are of God, and of the gospel way. Consider what was this voice of God from heaven to Christ. It was the gospel, and it was a clear expression of the communion between Christ and his Father. But what God means is unknown to us. Some say that the gospel is a thunder, and a work of nature, a mere imagination and a dream. Yet these are all false, and they do not agree one with another.

The gospel is the will of God from heaven, yet it is a riddle, a parable not understood (Matt. 13:14; 1 Cor. 14:21; Isa. 29:11–12). “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:18).

Without grace, they don’t understand the gospel

The understanding is a dark lantern, which has some light inside it, but sends out none at all to apprehend things any distance away [a dark lantern was a hand-held lantern which had a shutter to stop its light shining out]. As the will is iron-hard against heaven, so it is soft as wax to receive the impressions of the flesh, if Christ does not draw aside the curtain of the flesh to let you see the glory of the gospel. Otherwise, God speaks, and Samuel says, “Eli, here I am; you called me.” To the woman of Samaria, Jacob was greater than Christ, and Jacob’s well was as good as the water of life.

Just like the communion between Christ the Son and the Father, the communion between Christ and the soul is a roll of thunder, a work of nature, or anything at all to the natural man. God speaking to the heart is a mystery to him. The Jews say among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52). With great difficulty, according to their imagination of a bodily eating. Esteeming Christ more highly than other beloveds is a mystery even to the saints, to the extent that they are natural. It’s a strange question for professors of the gospel to ask, “What more is in Christ than in other well-beloveds?” yet that is what they say in Canticles 5:9.

The natural understanding is the most whorish thing in the world. There is a wide variety of imaginary gods. “According to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah” (Jer. 2:29). “They have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding” (Hos. 13:2). Even in the search for truth, the understanding is a rash, precipitate, and unquiet thing. Like a silkworm, it first makes a work of many threads, and then lies fettered and entangled in what came out of its own bowels. The mind spins and weaves lies out of itself, and fancies and dreams, and then expends itself on these, and so creates its own chains and fetters.

But in the matters of God, the mind runs mad, here, there and anywhere. In gospel knowledge it turns frantic, and when it comes to move and act within the sphere of supernatural truths, it only laughs and messes around till it comes out again. If Christ preached is foolishness, then Christ Himself must be a fool, even to the Greeks, the most excellent intellects in the world (1 Cor. 1:22–23). The gospel can only come within the brain of a natural man as a notional fancy, a chimera (1 Cor. 2:14). Indeed, when the greatest intellects came to natural theology, the borders of divine truth, to look on the outside of divinity and contemplate and behold God in His works, they didn’t know what to make of Him (Rom. 1:23). Some thought God to be a dainty bird of paradise. No, said other great thinkers, He is a four-footed beast. No, said others, He is a creeping thing. The most eminent of them, even head of learning among them, said He was a corruptible man.

They turned futile, foggy, reasonless, and stark nothing in their finer discourses and reasonings, in weighing and balancing things. The frame of the heart of man is only evil (Gen. 6:5). I know their imaginations, says the Lord, like the imaginings of the potter designing his earthen pots, that be in the heart, mind, and head of men. Many vain patterns are in our heads, just as there is a variety of pots, bottles, and earthen vessels in the potter’s house, but they are evil, wicked, and only evil from the womb. But especially, how many devices and new patterns of religions and gods are in the heart of men? How many sundry opinions of Christ are in people’s brains? Some said he was John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremiah (Matt. 16:14).

Without grace, they don’t like the gospel

The love and affections are most whorish, light, and wanton. No one god is the natural man’s God. It may be maintained that an unrenewed man does not have one predominant sin, but, indefinitely, sin is his king; and however many sins he has, that’s how many kings (Rom. 5:14; Rom. 6.7–12).

It’s true, pride, covetousness, or some particular sins may come to the throne by turns, as either complexion, strength of corrupt nature, or times bear sway. As Satan is not divided against Satan, so no natural man will be a martyr for a false god, or a predominant lust, in opposition to another known false god, though all may oppose the gospel. The Lord complains of the heart “that playeth the harlot with many lovers” (Jer. 3:1). Heaven and saving grace are indivisible. No one is half in heaven, half in hell. Almost a Christian is no Christian. When Adam fell from the one God, he fell into many inventions, not just one (Eccles. 7:29).

Without grace, they always choose the wrong interpretation

People think that the supernatural ways of God are just a rumble of thunder in the air, which is a most natural work, merely the ebbing and flowing of the spirit in either natural joy or melancholy, naturally following the complexion of the body. It is grace that puts a right sense on the works of God, as on the Word of God. We are no less heterodox in mis-interpreting the works of God than in putting false and unsound senses on the Word of God. When emerods plague the Philistines, they wonder whether it was chance, or the God of Israel. Moses works miracles, the magicians work miracles, and the Egyptians doubt whether their false god, or the living God that made the heaven and the earth, has wrought the miracles.

When God and nature both work, the natural man, or even saints, to the extent that they are still natural, betake themselves to the nearest god. Sickness comes, and the natural man says, “Neglect of the body, health, the moon, humours, the air, cold weather did it.” He doesn’t look to God. And the believer, guilty of a breach of the sixth commandment in neglecting second causes and in needless hurting the body, doesn’t look at this at all, but foists it all on God working only in a spiritual dispensation. He considers only the dispensation in God, not sin in himself.

Or, mercies grow invisibly, and we don’t see them. We are ready to sleep when mercies are offered. When Christ knocks in love, we are in bed (Cant. 5). Judgements speak in the dark, but we don’t hear. To hear the Lord’s rods, and who hath appointed it, is what the man of wisdom does (Mic. 6:9). There is an orthodox wisdom and will, just as there is an orthodox faith. The will, as well as the mind, can frame syllogisms; every unrenewed man has a faith of his own in the bottom of his will. Some are willingly ignorant (2 Pet. 3); some through deceit refuse to know the Lord (Jer. 9); whereas lusts put out reason, and take the chair. Lust hath powerful logic against Christ; a fleshly mind, vainly puffed up, is a badge of bastard intelligence, which out-reasons all the gospel. O but grace is quick-eyed, sharp, and a clever thing, to see God veiled under the curtain of flesh; to see Christ and heaven through words, and the gospel pregnant with so great a salvation.

The truth about Christ is a blessing

Little wonder that there are divisions about Christ. Some regard the Lord speaking from heaven as thunder; others, as an angel. Christ is the most disputed thing in the world. There are five religions (Matt. 16:13–14), and a range of opinions about Christ. The scribes and Pharisees had many different opinions, and only one in ten of them is the right way. Many said Christ is a prophet (John 7:40); others said this is the Christ (v.41); others no because Christ wouldn’t come out of Galilee (v.41), and there was a division among them (v.43). Christ is for a sign that shall be spoken against (Luke 2:34). Amongst Christs sufferings was that He sustained the contradiction of sinners (Heb. 12:3.) There is only one heaven, and one way to heaven; and there is only one hell, but there are thousands of ways to hell. From one point to another, you can draw only one straight line; but you may draw ten thousand crooked and circular lines. The truth is one, and very narrow; the lie is broad, and very fertile.

It’s a blessed thing to find the wisdom to hit on Christ, and adhere to Him. There are some gamblers and cheats who lie in wait to deceive the simple (Eph. 4:14). They roll the dice for heaven, and they can roll you anything on the dice, whether one, or seven. Resign yourselves therefore, in this plethora of false religions, to Christ, to be led to heaven.

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While the ultimate terror for sinners is the day of judgment itself, there are terrifying things which we can unleash on ourselves during our lives on this earth because of our sin. Sometimes these are the obvious consequences of sinful folly, like having to go short of essentials because we have blown the budget on trivialities. But sometimes indulging in a particular sin leads on to committing worse sin of the same kind, in a way which is its own punishment. For example, wilful ignorance of the truth can lead to someone eagerly embracing pernicious delusion, remaining impervious to any attempts to help them see sense. In an epistle to the Thessalonians Paul refers to this outcome as God’s punishment for that sin (2 Thess. 2:11; another example is in Rom. 1:23–24). We might recognise this as a kind of “poetic justice,” or proverbially, “what goes around comes around.” But the special terribleness of it comes from the fact that it is God’s righteous judgment meted out to individuals personally and for which they remain themselves entirely responsible. Thomas Manton discusses God’s part in the judgment in the following updated extract from his sermon on 2 Thessalonians 2:11. The only way to avoid this terrible, self-inflicted judgment is to heed the gospel call to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (2 Thess. 2:13–14).

By God’s just judgment, those who follow and promote a distortion of the gospel become infatuated in such a way that they swallow the grossest errors, to their own destruction. “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:11).

But here a difficulty arises, for God is not, and cannot be, the author of sin. He who is essentially good cannot be the cause of evil. He who is the avenger of sin cannot be the author of sin. If He were to cause someone to sin, how would His punishment of it be just?

The answer to this difficulty is that, as it is a sin, God has no hand in it; but as it is a punishment of sin, God does have something to do in it.

God judges us

He who is the supreme lord and governor of His creatures is also their judge, for legislation and judgment belong to the same authority. This is why God is sometimes called our king, and sometimes our judge (Gen. 18:25; Rom. 3:5–6).

God’s judgments are either external or internal

In this life, God’s way of judging is either external or internal.

Take, for instance, the two acts of judicature — reward and punishment.

Rewards

In rewarding, God’s external government is seen in dispensing outward blessings to His people, as the fruit of their obedience. ‘Do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?’ (Mic. 2:7). His promises yield protection, and maintenance, and such a measure of outward prosperity as supports and maintains them during their service.

Likewise, as to His internal government, He rewards His people’s obedience in giving them peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14:17). ‘Wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace’ (Prov. 3:17).

God also often rewards grace with grace. For example, ‘If thou call the sabbath a delight … then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord’ (Isa. 58:13–4) Similarly, ‘Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart’ (Psa. 31:24). Proficiency in a grace is a reward for the exercise of that same grace.

Punishments

It is the same in punishing. Sometimes God uses the way of external government, by the terrible judgments He brings down on people for the breach of His law (Rom. 1:18). Sometimes this is in the way of internal government, by terrors of conscience. Or by punishing sin committed with sin permitted.

For both the godly and the wicked

Both inward and external are seen in punishing both the godly and the wicked.

For instance, in the godly, in the way of external government, ‘when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world’ (1 Cor. 11:32). In the way of internal government, the lesser withdrawings of the Spirit, which God’s people find in themselves after some sins and neglects of grace, are grievous.

But the judgments on the souls of the ungodly are most dreadful. The sinner is either terrified or stupefied — terrified by horrors of conscience (1 Cor. 15:56), or stupefied by being given up to their own hearts’ counsels (Psa. 81:12), left dull and senseless and past feeling (Eph. 4:18).

By horrors of conscience, they are made to feel God’s displeasure at the courses they walk in; but when that is long despised, and they sin on still, then the other and more terrible judgment comes — for, giving a sinner up to his own lusts, and for the sinner to lose all remorse, is the last and sorest judgment on this side of hell.

Internal judgments refer to mind and heart

As to God’s internal judgments, the Scripture chiefly identifies two parts — blindness of mind and hardness of heart. They usually go together.

Blindness of mind is spoken of in John 12:39–40: ‘… He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.’ All the routes by which the Word might enter and work conversion are obstructed, and it was God who laid this punishment of blindness on them.

Hardness of heart is referred to in that famous instance, Exodus 4:21, ‘I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.’

God does not make those who see, blind, nor does He make those who are soft, hard. Rather, He leaves them to their own prejudices, obstinacy, and unpersuadableness, and even then, He does so when highly provoked.

How God is not involved in the judgment

To understand God’s concurrence as a judge in “sending a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie,” we must not say too much of it, or too little.

We must not say too much of it, lest we leave a stain and blemish on God’s glory. God infuses no sin, no blindness or hardness, into people’s hearts. All influences from heaven are good. He neither conveys deceit into people’s minds directly, nor does He command or persuade people to oppose the truth. Nor does He impel or incite their inward propensities so to do. All this belongs, not to God, but either to man or Satan.

Nor must we say too little. For instance, Scripture does not say that God blinds or hardens by bare prescience or foresight. God foresees other things, and yet they are not ascribed to God. For example, He foresees that people will kill, or steal, or do wrong, and yet God is not said to kill or steal, in the same way as He is said to blind and harden.

Nor does Scripture say that God blinds or hardens only by way of manifestation, as if it was only that in the course of His providence God manifests or declares how blind and hard they have turned out to be. When the saints pray, ‘Lord, harden not our hearts from thy fear’ (Isa. 63:17), they don’t mean, ‘Don’t show the world how hard and blind I am,’ but rather, ‘Cure my hardness of heart; keep back this judgment from me.’

Again, we must not say that all that God does is a bare, naked, and idle permission, as if it happened besides His will and intention, and He had no more to do in it than a man who stands on the shore and sees a ship ready to sink; he could have helped it, but he permitted it. No. There is not a bare permission only, but a permissive intention, and a judicial sentence, which is seconded by an active providence.

Many things concur to the blinding of the mind and hardening of the heart, all which God wills, but justly. The wicked take opportunities of their own accord to blind and harden themselves. Satan tempts out of his own malice. But all this could not be done with effect and success without the will of God. There is a supreme power over-ruling and ordering all that is done in the world.

How God is involved in the judgment

God’s concurrence may be stated by these things.

Taking away the light of the Spirit

God withdraws or takes away the light and direction of His Holy Spirit (Deut. 29:4). When God lets the ungodly loose to their own hearts’ counsels, then they fall into damnable errors. Like a greyhound sighting a hare, as soon as his collar is taken away, the restraint is gone, and his inbred disposition carries him. So those who are greedy for worldly things are powerfully drawn into the errors of the world, when God takes off the restraint of His grace, and gives them up to their own lusts.

In this, God is not to be blamed, for He is debtor to none, and the grace of His Spirit is forfeited by not receiving the love of the truth. Wilful blindness brings the penalty of blindness; and because people will not see, they shall not see. When they shut their eyes tight against the light of the gospel, it is just of God in this manner to smite them with blindness. Since they had no love to the truth, they are given up to errors and deceits. Because they despise the Holy Scriptures, and dote on vain fables, He permits them to weary themselves with various superstitions.

Giving them up to the power of Satan

God not only deserts them but hands them over. He delivers them up to the power of Satan (2 Cor. 4:4). Satan, as the executioner of God’s curse, works on people’s corrupt nature, and deceives them.

It says in 1 Chronicles 21:1, ‘Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel;’ but it says in 2 Samuel 24:1, ‘The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.’ How do we reconcile these two places? God gave David over to be tempted by Satan — by God as a judge, by Satan as an executioner. There is a similar incident in 1 Kings 22. Temptations to sin come immediately from the devil, but they are governed by God for holy and righteous ends. When they grieve His Spirit, God withdraws and leaves them to the evil spirit, who works by their fleshly and worldly lusts, and those who prefer worldly things before heavenly are easily seduced.

Providing instruments and objects

There is an active providence which raises the instruments and proposes the objects which, when they meet with a wicked heart, blind it.

The instruments. ‘The deceived and the deceiver are his’ (Job 12:16). Whether in worldly or religious matters, when someone deceives, or is deceived, it is of God. Both are His, not only as His creatures, but as they are subject to the government and disposal of providence as to how and whom they deceive, and how far. For people’s ingratitude, God raises up false prophets to seduce those who delight in lies rather than in the truths of God (Ezek. 14:9).

The objects. Wicked instruments varnish and dress a thing up with all the skill they can to make it a powerful deceit, and then it is befriended and countenanced by the powers of the world, and so it easily prevails with those who are motivated by worldly hopes or fears, and have debauched their conscience by worldly respects.

God says, ‘I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people’ (Jer. 6:21). If we will find the sin, God will find the occasion. If Judas has a mind to sell his Master, he shall not lack peddlers to bargain with him. The priests were consulting to destroy Christ at the same time as the devil put it into Judas’ heart (Matt. 26:3). Birds and fish are easily deceived with just the kind of baits that they greedily catch at. So God by His just vengeance orders such occurrences and occasions that meet with a ready response from a wicked and worldly heart.

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The shape of people’s lives tells you what’s important to them. They must believe that certain things matter, based on where they focus their attention and where they spend their energies. From the little interest they pay to other things, even if they notionally concede their importance, it becomes clear from the absence of any practical impact or consequences in their lives that they don’t really believe in them at all. Over a couple of generations, we have as a society successfully insulated ourselves from meaningful concerns about God and our eternal destiny. In his preaching, the young Covenanting preacher James Renwick points out five things the majority of people simply don’t believe in, as far as anyone can tell from their lives. Yet their failure to reckon with these realities is a terrible mistake. In the following updated extract, Renwick goes on to outline five practical responses that we should be encouraged to make on the basis of really accepting the existence of the one living and true God and the availability of salvation.

Five realities we disregard

Beloved, there are five things that are little believed by the most part of this generation.

God

The first thing that is little believed by the world is the being of a God. This is apparent by the little fear of God that is in the land. O, if you knew and believed the being of a God, you would certainly fear Him more!

Heaven

The second thing that is little believed by the most part of this generation is that there is a heaven, a place of rest for the souls of the godly. If they did, there would be more labour and diligence to get it for their dwelling place, and there would be more holiness in you, and hungering after it, so that you would enjoy the pleasant inheritance that is above, where the service of God cannot be interrupted and marred by spiritual or temporal enemies, as it is often here below.

Hell

The third thing that is little believed by the most part of the world is that there is a hell, a place of torment, where the souls of the wicked go to after death, even a place of endless torment where there is no mitigation of the pain for evermore.

O friends! If this were believed, people would make much more effort to avoid this place. You would not carry on entertaining idols in your hearts as you do. You would not comply with the sinful courses of the time as you do. There would not be such a compliance with these slaves of the enemy, neither would there be such a running in to them, if you believed that there was such a place as hell, where all impenitent sinners must receive what their sins justly deserve through all eternity.

Death

The fourth thing that is not seriously believed by this generation is the certainty of death. Of course we all say that we believe we will die! but it is only with a natural or rational faith. But if serious thoughts of this possessed our hearts, we would be more in believing it, and more preparing for it.

O friends! Live well, and labour to die well, for after death there is no repentance; there is no turning to God in the grave, for as the tree falls, so it must lie to eternity. O friends! strive to get a right sight of this.

Judgment

The fifth thing that is little believed by the most part of this generation is the certainty of judgment. O friends! believe that you must appear before the tribunal of God, who is, and will be, a just and terrible judge. Consider that when you come there, you will be either justified or condemned there, and no excuses will admitted, neither will there be any oversight in the matters handled there, but all will be done justly.

Oh, labour then to be ready to meet with God in mercy, and with joy in that day of accounts! There are some, I believe, to whom it will be a day of joy, and a merciful meeting. But there are others, even the wicked and reprobate, to whom this will be a terrible day. Oh! Oh! it will be a sad and dreadful day to all of them, but, oh! it will be a pleasant day to all true believers, and those who are in Christ Jesus.

Five responses we should have

In reality, it is those who are in covenant with Christ who have nothing to fear on the day of judgment. How can we respond to this truth?

Reckon with reality

O friends, take instruction! Labour to attain to faith in this, that all the promises in the Bible, and all the privileges of heaven, shall be fulfilled to you at the day of judgment, if you are a believer. In that day, when the book shall be opened, and all things shall appear as they are, naked and bare before Him, and when the judge shall sit, and give out sentence, then the experience of believers will be that they reap the advantages of all these privileges, to their everlasting comfort for evermore.

Accept the invitation to come to Jesus

Come and enter into covenant with Christ. You will find that all I’ve been telling you about is true! If you have already come to Christ, be encouraged to think that the day of judgment will be a joy to you. If you have not yet come, be entreated to come and embrace Jesus Christ, on His own terms, as He is offered to you in the gospel, and all shall be well! I earnestly beg you, by all the joys in heaven, and all the torments in hell, to come and embrace Him. Come and take Him to be your God, and offer yourselves away to Him to become His people.

Be realistic

It’s at the last day that all shadows will vanish away. Take note though, and be firmly persuaded, that never till then will they be gone. Till then, the flesh will war against the spirit, and an unrenewed part will remain in you till then. So you must learn to submit to His will in this, that you will continue to have clouds and shadows, as well as sunshine and good weather.

Be encouraged

All the godly may be encouraged in this. For, at that day, all shadows shall be gone, all your sufferings and sorrows, and even your sinning, shall have an end. In that day, faith shall dissolve into fruition, and hope into possession, and love, that ambitious grace, shall be the believer’s companion for ever, even to all the ages of eternity.

Take comfort

All God’s people who are in trouble and difficulties for Him and His cause can take comfort. Comfort yourselves with the fact that this day is coming, and fast approaching, when all these shadows shall flee away, and you shall be made more than conquerors in Christ, through Him who has loved you.

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Our moment in history is not marked for its optimism or positivity. Commentators on a range of cultural phenomena and from across the social spectrum discuss how things are only getting worse. Wherever we look, public services, consumer affairs, the creative industries, there is a sense that standards are in decline and have been for decades. Even upheavals in the political domain are less a sign of insightful new plans for workable improvement in people’s lives than a risk-taking turn to extremes born of a sense that there is nothing much really left to lose. Embittering the disappointment is the failure of our society’s myth that things are on an upward trajectory and can only get better. Even as Christians, we are often tempted to resentment and ask angrily why we have to put up with this when things were never this bad in the past. Without necessarily doubting that things have got worse over time, Alexander Nisbet reflects on why Ecclesiastes teaches us not to start asking, “What is the cause that the former days were better than these?” (Ecclesiastes 7:10) Misery comes from sin, and difficulties are an opportunity to depend more fully on the Lord. Redemption in Christ Jesus provides us with a hope for the world to come that lasts through and beyond the miseries and disappointments of this world. In the following updated extract, Nisbet urges us to avoid the response of frustration with our circumstances in providence and to take God’s way of contentment through self-abasement and heavenly wisdom.

The main aim of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 7 is to reveal more about the way to true happiness and contentment, and to point out some remedies to the vexations which are incident to this life.

The question not to ask

In verses 9–10, the Preacher dissuades us from two things which are far contrary to the grace of patience. “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.”

The Preacher warns us against the very first sudden motions of anger or revenge against oppressors and the instruments of trouble (v.9). To have anger “resting” or being cherished in the heart is the habitual and allowed frame of those who are void of the saving knowledge of Christ. They are the ones who cherish angry feelings, and think over in detail all the ways they have been wronged, and feed on the contemplations of possible ways of revenge. They have no reluctance or grief about such a vengeful spirit, whereas, although a child of God may be assaulted with the impulse to revenge, yet he gives these impulses no permission to rest peaceably in his heart.

The Preacher warns us also against sinful quarrelling against the Lord for apparently making times more troublesome, and burdens heavier, than they used to be. This only indicates ignorance of the true state of times, foolish presumption in finding fault with His wisdom, and unbelief of his sovereignty. “Say not thou, ‘What is the cause that the former days were better than these?’ for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.”

The present may well be worse than the past

This is not to be understood as if the present times were not often worse than the former, in many respects. That is in fact foretold (Matt. 24:12; 2 Tim. 3:1).

Nor does it mean that the Lord’s people are not permitted to search into what sins may have been the procuring causes of the change for the worse, or to bewail the defections or miseries of these changes, seeing both these are duties (e.g., Lam. 3:40).

Instead, it means that we should not quarrel with God’s providence for casting our lot in more troublesome times, and under more grievous oppressions, than there have been formerly, as if there were no cause why people should submit to a change of times from better to worse.

The Spirit of the Lord does not here give particular reasons for such changes, because there are many reasons in Scripture, sufficiently obvious to satisfy us on this point. Only He prohibits and rebukes the boldness of the question, and gives, as a general reason to dissuade us, the fact that these inquiries flow from people’s ignorance of the sovereignty and wisdom of the Lord, who works all things for His own glory, and the good of His people.

Providence is not something we can quarrel with

The Lord’s people have a duty to search out the sinful causes which provoke the Lord to change times to the worse, and the wise reasons He has for so doing, and to bewail that our later times have far degenerated from the purity and holiness of former days. Yet it is a great sin to quarrel with providence, or to inquire concerning this matter with a spirit that is fretting and malcontent, as if it were not well ordered by divine providence that we should not have as much peace and prosperity, and as great freedom from outward trouble, as those who were before us.

Fretting against our times is not a sign of wisdom

To the extent that we fret and repine about how the present times are worse than the former, to that extent we are lacking the heavenly wisdom which teaches those who have it to adore the righteousness of God in all the arrangements He makes, even though they do not see the particular reasons of them. “Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee …” (Jer. 12:1

This heavenly wisdom often leads them to satisfying reasons, clearly held forth in Scripture. For example, God in His wisdom takes steps sometimes to discover people’s perversity, which at other times He sees fit to restrain. Sometimes He uses grievous trials to promote the faith, patience, and other graces of His people, graces which at other times He promotes without such trials.

So that this quarrelling with the Lord indicates great presumption, flowing from ignorance of the true state of both the present and former times. This leads them not to consider the good of the present times, which often as far exceeds the good of the former as the evils and troubles of the present times exceed those of the former. “Thou dost not inquire wisely (or, as it is in the original, “by wisdom”) concerning this matter.”

The way to contentment

Holiness

He commends having high esteem with God, and good report from others, founded on grace and true holiness. This is better than the most precious things in the world, in which most people place their happiness. “A good name is better than precious ointment” (v.1).

Soft-heartedness

He praises the soft and tender frame of heart which the sanctified consideration of death begets in the soul, beyond the worldly mirth and joy which is ordinarily expressed by laughter (vv.1–4).

Sensitivity

He commends humble submission to the serious and wise rebukes of those who (whether in a public or private capacity) have a call from God to point out the evil, danger and remedy of sin. This is better than glorying in your own sins, or in the flattery of others in their sins (v.5), because whatever joy or pleasure you may have in following sinful ways, or flattering yourselves or being applauded by others in your sinful ways, it is not long-lived (v.6).

Patience

He commends the grace of patience under the most grievous pressures and injuries the saints may meet with, in and from the world, as a great furtherance toward true happiness (vv.7–10).

Wisdom

He praises saving wisdom because of its excellent effects or advantages (vv.11–12).

He directs us to the right way to make use of the Lord’s dispensations (vv.12–21).

1. Consider that God brings things about contrary to our will and designs of obtaining happiness, and we cannot by our wit and power alter or twist His workings to serve our imaginary goal of finding true happiness in created things (v.13).
2. In prosperity we should rejoice with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, in adversity, we should consider seriously what has procured it, God’s purpose in it, and our duty under it (v.14).
3. We should not arrogantly think that we have such a superlative righteousness and wisdom that we can criticise the works of God for not being wise or fair, as if we could manage them better (v.16); neither should we give or sell ourselves to impiety in a time of prosperity (v.17).
4. Those whose guiding principle is the true fear of God shall have a sure and sweet deliverance from all their sufferings and temptations (even though, as to their outward circumstances, they fall before the wicked) (v.18).

This leads the Preacher again to commend spiritual wisdom, partly because of its blessed effect (in that it satisfies the person against the trials and temptations mentioned, beyond any human help or strength, v.19), and partly because people are so ready to go wrong without this saving wisdom, even when they are both imputatively and inherently “just”, v.20).

The Preacher recommends that people would not be very inquisitive to hear or know, much less revengefully resent what evil others rashly speak of them (v.21). Such inquisitive inquiries and revengeful resentments may not only readily meet with undesired and unexpected railings and revilings from those of their own household (v.21), but people may also be conscious to themselves that they themselves have spoken rashly and heatedly against others (v.22).

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