But to go on with the verses: “And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”
Now, here remark two things; first, that it was Abraham’s obedience in giving up all to God, which called forth from God this confirmation of God’s promises to him; and next, that God here promised him nothing new; God did not say to him, ‘Because thou hast obeyed me in this great matter, I will give thee some great reward over and above what I promised thee.’ No; God merely promises him over again, but more solemnly than ever, what He had promised him many years before.
And so it will be with us, my friends, we must not expect to buy God’s favour by obeying Him,—we must not expect that the more we do for God, the more God will be bound to do for us, as the Papists do. No; God has done for us all that He will do. He has promised us all that He will promise. He has provided us, as He provided Abraham, a lamb for the burnt-offering, the Lamb without blemish and without spot, which taketh away the sins of the world. We are His redeemed people—we have a share in His promises—He bids us believe that, and shew that we believe it by living as redeemed men, not our own, but bought with a price, and created anew in Christ Jesus to do good works; not that we may buy forgiveness by them, but that we may shew by them that we believe that God has forgiven us already, and that when we have done all that is commanded us, we are still unprofitable servants; for though we should give up at God’s bidding our children, our wives, and our own limbs and lives, and shew as utter faith in God, and complete obedience to God, as Abraham did, we should only have done just what it was already our duty to do.
SERMON XIV.
OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN.
1 John, ii. 13.
“I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.”
I preached some time ago a sermon on the whole of these most deep and blessed verses of St. John.
I now wish to speak to those who are of age to be confirmed three separate sermons on three separate parts of these verses. First to those whom St. John calls little children; next, to those whom He calls grown men. To the first I will speak to-day; to the latter, by God’s help, next Sunday. And may the Blessed One bring home my weak words to all your hearts!
Now for the meaning of “little children.” There are those who will tell you that those words mean merely “weak believers,” “babes in grace,” and so on. They mean that, no doubt; but they mean much more. They mean, first of all, be sure, what they say. St. John would not have said “little children,” if he had not meant little children. Surely God’s apostle did not throw about his words at random, so as to leave them open to mistakes, and want some one to step in and tell us that they do not mean their plain, common-sense meaning, but something else. Holy Scripture is too wisely written, and too awful a matter, to be trifled with in that way, and cut and squared to suit our own fancies, and explained away, till its blessed promises are made to mean anything or nothing.
No! By little children, St. John means here children in age,—of course Christian children and young people, for he was writing only to Christians. He speaks to those who have been christened, and brought up, more or less, as christened children should be. But, no doubt, when he says little children, he means also all Christian people, whether they be young or old, whose souls are still young, and weak, and unlearned. All, however old they may be, who have not been confirmed—I do not merely mean confirmed by the bishop, but confirmed by God’s grace,—all those who have not yet come to a full knowledge of their own sins,—all who have not yet been converted, and turned to God with their whole hearts and wills, who have not yet made their full choice between God and sin,—all who have not yet fought for themselves the battle which no man or angel can fight for them—I mean the battle between their selfishness and their duty—the battle between their love of pleasure and their fear of sin—the battle, in short, between the devil and his temptations to darkness and shame, and God and His promises of light, and strength, and glory,—all who have not been converted to God, to them St. John speaks as little children—people who are not yet strong enough to stand alone, and do their duty on God’s side against sin, the world, and the devil. And all of you here who have not yet made up your minds, who have not yet been confirmed in soul,—whether you were confirmed by the bishop or not,—to you I speak this day.
Now, first of all, consider this,—that though St. John calls you “little children,” because you are still weak, and your souls have not grown to manhood, yet he does not speak to you as if you were heathens and knew nothing about God; he says, “I have written unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.” Consider that; that was his reason for all that he had written to them before; that they had known the Father, the God who made heaven and earth—the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—the Father of little children—my Father and your Father, my friends, little as we may behave like what we are, sons of the Almighty God. That was St. John’s reason for speaking to little children, because they had already known the Father. So he does not speak to them as if they were heathens; and I dare not speak to you, young people, as if you were heathens, however foolish and sinful some of you may be; I dare not do it, whatever many preachers may do nowadays; not because I should be unfair and hard upon you merely, but because I should lie, and deny the great grace and mercy which God has shewn you, and count the blood of the covenant, with which you were sprinkled at baptism, an unholy thing; and do despite to the spirit of grace which has been struggling in your hearts, trying to lead you out of sin into good, out of light into darkness, ever since you were born. Therefore, as St. John said, I say, I preach this day to you, young people, because you have known your Father in heaven!