What does all this mean in plain language? Sinners! repent, cry for mercy, pray for grace, aim at godliness. Lovers of the world! unloose your affections from what is worthless and perishable; fix them upon what is above value and everlasting; let go what you have, cast it behind you, and seek what you have not. Loiterers! move on. Crawlers! rise upon your feet and run. There is no time for delay, for tardy pace. The Lord waits to crown you, but He will not wait long. Racers! race on, faster, more intent. Let your desires outstrip your feet. Quicken your feet, to come up to your desires. But a little, and the trial of your speed will be over, and the conquerors will be crowned, and all others be rejected.
Brethren, one and all, consider the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Enlist heartily in its pursuit; shake off everything that hinders; shut your eyes against all that allures; seek guidance, strength, and perseverance, in prayer, study of God’s Word, and other holy ordinances. Use those graces in daily instant increasing efforts; animate yourselves more and more by anticipations of what is held out, by nearer and more constant beholding of it. Stay not, and pause not till the arms of acceptance enfold you, the Voice of approval greets you, “Well done,” and grateful, realised joy enables you to exclaim, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”
SERMON X.
SPIRITUAL THINGS NOT REVEALED TO THE NATURAL MAN.
1 Corinthians, ii., 14.
“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
All of you, my brethren, to some extent profess, and to some extent desire, to be religious. All of you assent to the truth, that religion is the “one thing needful,” and yet many of you, if you knew your hearts, and examined your ways, would be constrained to admit that religion is not the ruling power of your life. You are indeed religious according to the standard of the age, i.e., you come to church on Sunday, perhaps occasionally to holy communion, you say your prayers morning and evening, you read the Bible now and then, you do not grossly offend against any one of the ten commandments, you sigh over your frailties and infirmities, you give something to the poor. All this entitles you, in the estimation of others, to be classed among what are called religious people; and suggests to yourselves the comfortable thought, that, at least, you are not worse than other men; that, in fact, you are much better than many. Still, if you are careful readers of your Bible, if you are observant of the world within and around you, if you are given to self-searching, you must often feel that your religion is but a sorry counterfeit of what God has taught and saints have reflected; that you are scarcely half in earnest about it; that you experience very little advantage from it; that you render very empty homage to it. For instance, you read the Sermon on the Mount, or the reiteration of many parts of it here and there, in the epistles; you put together the several characteristics of true religion there displayed; and then, turning an eye upon yourselves, looking back upon the path you have trodden, surveying the ground upon which you now stand, testing your practice, scanning your motives, asking yourselves, “By what am I mainly influenced? whither tend my chief desires? what are my feelings?” “Alas!” you exclaim, “where, in all these, are the influences and operations of the religion taught by Christ and His apostles?”
Or, again, you read of Joseph, stoutly refusing the safe indulgence of a forbidden pleasure, under a heartfelt conviction of required sanctity, and present accountability, which found its vent in those memorable words, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” And then you find him, after shining thus brilliantly as a saint, patiently, religiously bearing the treatment of a sinner. Or you read of Abraham, giving up at a word’s bidding the comforts of home, the ties of kindred, and the means of support; wandering henceforth throughout his life in a strange land, apparently coming no nearer to the promised rest and blessedness, yet cheerfully, hopefully, thankfully, admitting and feeling that all was, and would be right and well for him. Or you read of Moses, refusing the honours, the pleasures, the riches of a court life, and choosing to be a wanderer, to endure all kinds of hardships and reproaches, that he might avoid sin and serve God. Or you read of Job, subjected to concentrated miseries and undeserved chastisements and rebukes, and blessing the Hand which had imposed them, or at least had not interfered to ward them off. Or you read of David, weeping over a forgiven sin, setting it always before him, making frequent mention of it in his prayers, accepting often reverses as the due chastisement of it, and thanking God for them. Or you read of Stephen, cruelly maligned, savagely beaten to death, and yet spending his dying breath, not in protesting, not in invoking vengeance, but in praying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Or, once more, you read of Paul, testifying that to die is gain, and, in the least adverse circumstances of his converted life, coveting to depart.
You read, I say, of these things; you consider under what feelings and hopes they were borne and encountered, and you sadly exclaim, “Where, in me, in deed or feeling, in aim or restraint, in perseverance or patience, is the religion of Joseph, of Abraham, of Moses, of Job, of David, of Stephen, of Paul? Do I thus resist temptations to unlawful pleasures? Do I set loose my natural affections, give up my worldly goods, go forth into unknown and unguessed-at circumstances at Divine bidding? Do I refuse proffered honours, riches, pleasures, not because they are in themselves sinful, but because they may possibly lead me into sin? Do I patiently and thankfully endure even merited chastisements? Do I struggle with myself and with God to prevent past sins from escaping out of my remembrance? Do I seek to bless those who revile or injure me? Do I feel that to die is gain; and do I covet to depart?”
If not, why not? It is so that God willed men to do; it is so they have in many cases done; and it is so that many still do. Yes, there are still such saints; men and women who steadfastly resist wrong pleasures, under the heart-conviction of required sanctity, and of accountability to a present God; who give up, even while they hold them, all worldly possessions, and go forth, in feeling, in desire, in deed if need be, without distrust, with happy, thankful, confidence, when and whithersoever God bids them; who forego proffered advantages, and content themselves with a low seat when they might, perhaps, have the highest, because it is safer for them as servants of God; who weep and abhor themselves, and desire to be chastened for their sins; who love to do good to their enemies; who holily yearn to die. There are men and women who do make religion the one thing needful; who hold themselves in check by its restraints; who urge themselves on by its promises; who bask in its sunshine, and reflect its glorious image in their lives. There are men and women whose business is religion; who kneel long and often in prayer; who meditate day and night on the Bible; whose hearts ever leap to God; who grieve to forego an opportunity of holy communion; who never stop away from church because there are only prayers, or because their favourite preacher will not be in the pulpit, or because it is hot or cold. Good citizens they are, attentive to their callings, provident parents, dutiful children, affectionate husbands and wives, cheerful companions, most useful in their generation, and yet truly religious, bent upon religion; regarding this life as an apprenticeship to it, and striving so to use their apprenticeship as to be perfect in their calling, ere they are summoned to exercise it (their ardent expectation) as partners with angels, and patriarchs, and apostles, and perfected saints, under the rule of the Lord of Glory, in the city of the New Jerusalem.
My brethren, if God has prescribed such religion as this; if saints of old, ay, and men and women of our own times too, have been thus religious; it must be important, and, I would fain hope, acceptable, for you who profess and desire to be religious, but are not, to learn wherein you differ, why you fail. The text tells you: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” “The things of the Spirit of God” (the matters, that is, of revelation) are foolishness to the natural man, and he cannot know or appreciate them. My brethren, are the things of the Spirit of God ever regarded by you as foolishness? Start not, nor be offended at the question. You would, doubtless, deem it very blasphemy to say, “it is folly,” of anything God has revealed. You would rush from the bare thought. Still, you may practically allow what you thus shudder at when exhibited in its plainness. Let us see. Do you ever deliberately do what religion forbids? Do you ever deliberately omit what religion requires? Do you never weigh the things of the world against the things of the Spirit, and then choose the former? Do you never prefer pleasure to duty? staying away from church, or curtailing your religious worship, to take your leisure, to enjoy a friend’s company, to go for a pleasant walk, to read an interesting book, to see some unusual sight, to frequent some place of secular entertainment, to forward some worldly end? Do you not, at least, excuse yourselves from acts of religion, by pleas that you would not admit in these other cases? Do you not find time for earthly things, that you do not find for spiritual? Do you not make exertions for worldly ends, that you do not make for heavenly? Do you not curb, and restrain, and deny yourselves, in the one case, and use no such discipline in the other? Well, of course you do this through some appreciation of the thing sought; because it interests you, is pleasant, or expedient, or profitable. You do not deliberately choose “folly,” you pursue it as the wise course, i.e., you treat the opposite as though it were unwise, not realising it to be wisdom, you put it aside as foolishness. Then, again, of restraints, and sanctions, and hopes. Would you not forbear to do in the presence of a fellow-being what you unhesitatingly do under the eye of God? Do you not fear a parent, a husband, a wife, a master, a friend, a customer, more than God? Does the thought of eternal punishment concern you as much as the prospect of chastisement at the hand of man? of failure in business? of serious illness? of bodily disfigurement? Do you act chiefly with regard to the praise of God, or the admiration of your fellow-beings? Do you feast on the expectation of heaven, or on that of some worldly joy or honour? Do you like, above all things, the thought of dwelling for ever where there will be no money-getting, no earthly indulgences, no flattery, no vain glory, no frivolity, no unseemliness, no rest from the praising of God, and the company of saints? If a message came to you now, that within an hour you should be removed to paradise, would you not shrink from the announcement? would you not cling to earth? would you not wish your removal to be deferred? Then do you not appreciate something more than the things of the Spirit of God? Do not your desires, and hopes, and fears, deal with them as though they were comparatively foolishness?
Remember, brethren, I am not now inveighing against sin; I am not attempting to make a catalogue of your offences, that I may reproach you on account of its length. My object is simply to lead you to ascertain how you regard the things of the Spirit of God; and so to help you to answer for yourselves the important questions, why you are not more truly religious, why religion is not with you the one thing needful. Murmur not, then, at home-thrusts. Plead not excuses for what is felt to be amiss. Simply answer to yourselves whether or no your life approves the things of the Spirit as wisdom; and, if not, be anxious to learn (that you may profit by the knowledge) why it treats them as foolishness.