DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Then shall I not be ashamed, when I ha ve respect unto all Your
commandments." Psalm 119:6.
ANY attempt to keep the Law of God with the view of being saved thereby
is sure to end in failure. So contrary is it to the express warnings of
the Divine Lawgiver and so much does it run counter to the whole
Gospel, that he who ventures to seek justification by his own merits
ought to be ashamed of his presumption. When God tells us that
salvation is not by the works of the Law, are you not ashamed of trying
to procure it by your obedience to its precepts? When He declares that
by the works of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight,
are you not ashamed to go and seek after justification where He tells
you it never can be found? When He, over and over again, declares that
salvation is by faith and that it is a matter of Grace to be received,
do you not blush for yourself that you should give the lie to God and
propound a righteousness of your own conceit in which you have vainly
tried to keep up a respectable appearance, screening the palpable
delinquencies of your life under a thin veil of piety toward God and
charity toward men?
Eternal life is not to be earned by any trade you can carry on in works
of the flesh because, however estimable in the opinion of men, they are
simply vile in the sight of God! If a man seeks to keep the
Commandments of God in order that he may attain eternal life, he will
be ashamed and confounded. He had better at once renounce the folly of
attempting so insane, so futile, so impossible a task as that of
defending his own cause and justifying his own soul! But when a man is
converted; when he has believed in Christ Jesus to the salvation of his
soul; when he is justified by faith and his sin is blotted out–when he
has obtained mercy, found Grace in the eyes of the Lord and entered
into the rest of faith because he knows that he is a saved man–then in
keeping the precepts of the Law he will gratify a strong inclination.
In fact, it henceforth becomes his highest ambition to be obedient–and
the great delight of his soul is to run in the ways of God's
Commandments out of gratitude for the great benefits he has received.
And let it never be imagined that because Christ has redeemed us from
the curse of the Law, there is, therefore, a complete removal of all
moral constraints and restraints from Christian men! We are not under
the Law, but under Grace, yet are we not lawless and libertine since we
have become servants of God and followers of Christ. No, but we are
under another Law–a Law of another sort which works upon us after
another fashion. What if a man says, "I am free from the police, the
magistrate, the judge and the executioner"? Does it, therefore, follow
that he is free from the rules of his father's house? Assuredly not!
The child may be quite clear of the police court, but there is a rod at
home. There is a father's smile; there is a father's frown. And though
Christians shall never be so punished for their sins that they can come
under condemnation, seeing they are delivered from that evil calamity
by Christ, yet being children of God they come under another
discipline–the discipline of His house and home–a discipline of
chastisements not at all of a legal caste, for, however bitter the
suffering it often entails, though He cause grief, He will have
compassion.
The rebukes are sharp, but the retribution is not vindictive and the
Lord is known to smile with approbation, to speak with commendation and
to bestow His compensations with liberal hands on those who seek His
face, listen to His voice and do His bidding. When He has committed to
us some service which He only could qualify us to discharge, He has
often caused us to partake of the fruits in abundant joy. Now, I shall
endeavor to bring out this principle while I am speaking upon our text.
Those who are children of God should seek after universal obedience to
the Divine Commands. They should have respect unto all the Lord's
Commandments. If they do so, they will have a full requital and this is
the reward. "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all
Your commandments." Two things, then, claim our attention–the
universality of believing obedience and the excellence of its result.
I. THE UNIVERSALITY OF BELIEVING OBEDIENCE is here highly commended.
The esteem in which we hold and the tribute we pay to all God's
Commandments is spoken of. Not some of His Commandments, but all of
them. Not picking and choosing–paying attention to this because it
pleases me and omitting that because it is not equally
pleasurable–but the careful, earnest respecting of all the statutes of
God and the anxious endeavor to keep them all! This it is which
challenges attention and therein is great blessedness. Turn to the
Psalm, itself, which is far preferable to any reflections we could
offer, inasmuch as the Word of God must ever excel the word of man.
There David says, " Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in
the Law of the Lord."
Comes this blessedness simply on those who are in the way, irrespective
of their walk and conversation? No, but let them take heed lest they
step aside and put their foot into the puddle and stain their garments.
The persons who are truly blessed are the undefiled who so watch their
walk that they endeavor, in everything, to adorn the doctrine of God,
their Savior, and in nothing to grieve the Spirit of God! There lies
the blessedness, not in partial obedience, but in perfect obedience as
far as it can be attained! Not now and then, but ever and always! Not
in some things, but in all things, as far as we are taught of the
living God. The only way to avoid defilement is to have respect and pay
deference to all the Commandments of the Lord.
Whether we observe it or not, there is never an omission of duty or a
commission of fault that does not cast a stain upon the purity of
conscience and the integrity of character. Would you wish to be spotted
from head to foot, Believer? I know you would not! If you would be
blest, you must be undefiled–and if you would be undefiled, there must
be a universality about your obedience–walking in all the Commandments
of the Lord. To enjoy this beatitude, a holy walking must become
habitual. This sacred exercise is very different from sluggish piety.
"Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the Law of the Lord."
A man may sit down in the road without soiling his skin or fouling his
apparel, but that is not enough. There must be progress–practical
action in the Christian life! And in order to blessedness we must be
doing something for the Master!
Slothfulness is not the way to blessedness! Nor can we serve the Lord
in this active work unless we labor in all things to mind His will and
walk according to His way. God is to be sought diligently by sincere
souls. "Blessed are they that keep His testimonies and that seek Him
with the whole heart." Now, you cannot keep the testimonies and know
the doctrine unless you have the will in full force and vigorous
energy. It seems to be almost as inevitable as a Law of Nature that a
man who is not sound in his life cannot be sound in his judgment.
Wisdom will not long hold a seat in the head of that man who has
yielded up his heart to folly. A pure theology and a loose morality
will never blend. We have known men who thought themselves mightily
orthodox, indulge in many unseemly and profligate habits. In fact, they
have made light of their own sins–and that boasted orthodoxy of theirs
presently develops into some pernicious fallacy!
Be assured of it, you cannot claim the promises unless you are willing
to keep the precepts. Vaunt as you may your knowledge of the letter of
the Scriptures, you shall fail to be owned of God as His witnesses
unless there is the witness of the life as well as the witness of the
lips! And how can the witness of the life be sincere unless we strive
in all things to keep the statutes of the Lord? How can we be said to
serve Him with our whole heart if part of our heart goes after
vanity–if we hug some favorite sin or if we leave some known duty in
abeyance, saying–"When we have a more convenient season we will attend
to that." No, the blessedness is to the undefiled! The blessedness is
to the walkers in the way! The blessedness is to the keepers of the
Divine Laws. The blessedness is to those that seek the Lord with their
whole heart.
So, you see, you must take care to have respect unto all the
Commandments if you are to get the blessedness of the Christian life.
If you will carefully notice the fourth verse of this Psalm, you will
see that this keeping of all the Commandments is, itself, a positive
command of God–"You have commanded us to keep Your precepts
diligently." That is enough guarantee for a Christian–"You have
commanded." Now, the command of God to His people is not, "You shall
keep some of My commands and walk in a measure according to My mind and
after My will." What father is there who will say to his children, "You
must sometimes obey me. The rule of my house is that you may use your
own discretion and follow your own inclination as to which of my
injunctions you obey and which you neglect. You can have your own way
at times if you will but occasionally yield to me in a few things"?
Such a father would be quite unworthy to be at the head of any
household! Certainly our heavenly Father is not thus lax in His
discipline. He has spoken to His children in tones of love. The Law of
His mouth has been given as a light to illuminate our path and as a
lamp to guide our feet. So palpable, then, is the Divine Benevolence,
that the more imperious His voice, the more interested we must be in
heeding it. Does He say–"You shall keep My statutes and observe My
ordinances"?–doubt not for an instant that there is much profit in
following the instructions closely and great peril in disregarding
them! And inasmuch as the authority of God goes with each command–with
one precept as
well as another–therefore should it be the objective of the Christian
that he should keep all the commands! He should make no choice, or
selection, as to the words of the Lord, but take them all and pray the
Lord to bring him into conformity with every one of them.
That this is a meet and proper subject of prayer becomes very obvious,
for in the next verse the Psalmist exclaims, "Oh that my ways were
directed to keep Your statutes!" Now, no man, I think, ever prayed God
to grant him partial obedience. Did he ever pray–dare he ever pray, "O
Lord, help me to overcome some of my sins, but not all! This day
preserve me from some temptations, but allow me to indulge some of my
propensities"? Did you ever pray, "O Lord, keep me, I pray You, from
great and open sins, but permit me, in Your infinite mercy, to enjoy
certain private sins that I am exceedingly fond of? Such a prayer were
worthier of a worshipper of Satan than of a worshipper of God! No, our
heart renewed by Grace craves to be perfectly set free from sin! We
have not obtained it–we are pressing on towards it–but this, even
now, is our desire and our prayer. Hence you cannot wonder that in the
text the believing man is spoken of as having respect unto all God's
Commandments, since, if it is a matter of prayer, it cannot be in
respect to some of God's Commandments, but he must pray that he may
have respect to every one of them.
Now, I want to come a little closer to details. What do we mean by
having respect to all God's Commandments? I reply that whatever there
is that the Lord has spoken in any part of His Word, we desire to hold
in devout esteem and to have respect to every utterance of His will.
The Law, as He gave it to Moses, is no longer, to us, the way of
obtaining life, but it is still, in the hands of Christ, a most blessed
rule of living. It is divided into two tablets and our prayer is that
we should keep them both and reverently observe them, that towards God
our life should always be obedient, truthful, adoring. We pray that we
should have respect unto Him in all our ways; that we should lean upon
Him; that we should depend upon Him; that we should serve Him and
devote ourselves wholly to Him. To seek His Glory, first and foremost,
is the chief end of our being. We must not forget this.
But then there follow six Commandments upon the other stone which
relate to men–and we must mind them–for it were a poor thing to say,
"I am devout towards God, but I care not to be just towards men." A
devout thief would be a strange anomaly! An adoring murderer were a
singular incongruity! A disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ indulging in
covetousness is a self-evident contradiction! No, he that loves God
must love his neighbor as himself and I trust our desire is that we may
not fail in obedience to either of these tablets, but may, by the work
of the Holy Spirit in us, be worked into an uprightness of conversation
and character, both towards God and towards men. Some commands of God
are highly spiritual, while others may be described rather as moral.
Surely, to trust God is one of the grand commands. "Believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" is a precept which we would never
wittingly neglect.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own
understanding." "Cast your care on Him." "Draw near unto Him." All such
spiritual exhortations as these relate to the life of the quickened
Believer. God has forbidden us to disregard, to despise, or to
disparage any of them. Oh that we may abound in all the Graces of the
Spirit and be diligent in all the acts of our spiritual life! But we
must not, therefore, forget or be negligent concerning morals, which
some have accounted to be minor obligations! They pretend to abound in
prayer, but are positively slothful in business. They are content to
wait, but not to work. They say that they are serving at the altar, but
we see that they are indolent enough in the shop. Christian men who
stand up for the Truth of God should take care not to be lax in their
conduct when they are so wonderfully strict in their creed.
Do not trifle with truth in speaking to your fellow man while you
insist on respecting the Truth of God. Can anything be more despicable
than the priests who prate much about the faithfulness of God's
promises but are not very particular about keeping their own promises?
They say that they will let you have an article home on Friday night
and you do not get it till the following Wednesday–that is telling a
falsehood. If you saw yourselves as others see you, though you might
account yourselves spiritually true, you would know for certain that
you were morally false! Little duties are almost too insignificant for
such high-flying spiritual professors. They are such that can pray at a
Prayer Meeting, therefore they need not do an honest day's work for an
honest day's wage!
On the other hand, they can oppress the laborer in his wages because
they mean to give a donation to the hospital! It will not do! In vain
you pretend to be spiritual and attend to spiritual duties, while you
ignore the commonplace morals! Depend upon it–if you are not moral,
you are not a disciple of Christ! It is all nonsense about your
experience. If you occasionally get drunk, or if you now and then let
out an oath, or if, in your business you would make twice two into five
or three, according as your profit happens to run–why, man, do not
talk about being a Christian! Christ has nothing to do with you–at
least no more to do with you than He had to do with Judas Iscariot! You
are very much in the same position. "Without holiness no man shall see
the Lord." If without holiness, then much more without morality can no
man expect to see the face of God with acceptance!
But, as true Believers in our Lord, we hope that He will enable us to
have respect unto all God's Commandments. Some Commandments specially
concern the Church. Every Christian should endeavor to discharge his
duties towards his fellow Christians. There are also duties connected
with the family and every Christian should see that he does not let one
of these kill the other. I once knew a man–I cannot tell you whether
he is alive at this present moment–I knew him well. He used to go out
into the villages with all the local preachers. He was a constant
attendant at Prayer Meetings– in fact, you never went to a public
service connected with the Church without seeing him–and he was out at
tract society and missionary anniversaries and every gathering of the
sort. The only place where you never found him was at home with his
boys.
I had the misery to teach one of his boys. That boy died in drunkenness
before he had reached the age of manhood. Others of his sons were the
pests of the town in which he lived. That man was eminently good in
certain respects–doing a great deal for other people's families–but
nothing for his own. Now, that will not do, Brothers and Sisters. That
will never do! We must never bring to God, as a sacrifice, a duty
smeared with the blood of another duty! That were an abomination! There
is a balance and a proportion to be observed. "Then shall I not be
ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your commandments." The works of
the Christian life may be divided, if you like, into public and
private. How zealous some individuals are in the discharge of public
work! Anything that will be seen of men shall have their closest
attention!
But how about private work? We attend the Prayer Meeting, but do we
forsake the closet? We hear sermons, but do we read our Bibles alone?
We attend public meetings, but do we have private communion with God? O
Beloved, there are two sets of duties–the outward and the inward.
What, though to outward observation we walk uprightly before God and
there is nothing about us that the human eye can detect as wrong, yet
if the heart is not pure–if though the outside of the platter is
washed, the inside is full of filthiness, how far we are from
perfection! These reflections ought to cause a world of
self-examination while I press home the crucial words–"Then shall I
not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your commandments"–those
Divine injunctions which concern the secret inward life as well as
those which have to do with our more outward and public carriage. We
sometimes divide Christian duties into greater and smaller. Of course
they are all great–none are small except in their bearing upon others
even though some things appear to have less relative magnitude.
Now, some people are remiss and careless about what they call petty,
trivial matters, but the genuine lover of the Lord will show his love
to his Master in bestowing much care upon little things. I know it is
in a family the little things that bring discomfort and the little
things that give pleasure. And I believe in the family of God those who
give diligent heed to the little things of the Word usually bring much
comfort to their fellow Christians and great glory to God. At the same
time, there were Pharisees of old who strained out gnats from their
drink, but swallowed camels by their immoralities. There were those who
tithed mint and anise and cumin and yet neglected the weightier matters
of the Law. This must never occur with us. We must endeavor to have
such a careful walk that we would not go an inch astray–and yet it is
idle to talk about going an inch astray when we give ourselves license
for a mile or two of wandering every now and then! God grant we may
have Grace to avoid small faults, while we strive to keep clear of
great transgressions!
One other word I would like to say here. In the full sweep of our text
there must be taken in duties unknown as well as known. "Then shall I
not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your commandments." There
may be some of God's commands that you do not know. Study the Word of
God in order that you may know them. "Well," says one, "but I am
excused if I do not know them." Do you really think so? Because, if so,
the more ignorant a man is, the safer he is from coming into
condemnation, for, knowing little, he is under little obligation,
according to such an estimation. But our understanding and knowledge
are not the measure of our duty. The command of God is our sole
standard! Conscience, itself, is not a trustworthy rule. If a man's
conscience is unenlightened, he may be sinning and reaping the ill
consequences of his sin–not less surely because he is not conscious
that his misfortunes are due to his folly rather than his fate! His
conscience cannot be the standard. The standard is the Law of God.
Brothers and Sisters, I would not have you live in daily neglect of a
Divine command which I am persuaded you would obey if you knew it. Hide
not yourself behind a pillar, but come into the light and take the Word
of God and read it and always ask that God would be pleased to open
your eyes to anything there you have not seen before. You know you can
wink very hard, sometimes, when you are reading the Bible. I should say
that our friends in the Southern states of America, when they kept
slaves, must have winked dreadfully hard when they were reading such a
passage as this–"As you would that men should do to you, do you also
unto them likewise." And I could mention some other matters that
concern English people that would require a frequent putting of the
finger in the eye for fear too much light should come in. But be you
not such! Seek to let the Word photograph itself upon your
understanding and then, straightway, when you know the Divine will,
labor to carry it out in all particulars.
Thus have I tried to show the range of this text. But now notice that
what is aimed at here is that the soul should pay respect unto all
God's Commandments–pay respect to them–love them, study them, value
them and thus pay respect to them all. I do not know whether you catch
my thought, for I am afraid that I am putting it rather awkwardly. The
commands of God are proportionate to one another. When an architect is
about to erect a large edifice, say a cathedral, he has to make the
height of the various proportions relative to each other. He grasps an
idea of what the general effect is to be, so he does not throw out all
his strength upon the nave, or the transept, or the chancel, or the
spire, but he tries to make each part of the magnificent pile assist
and contribute to the general harmony of the entire structure.
Now, it ought to be so, also, with the Christian life. "Then shall I
not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your commandments"–to the
foundation commandments, striving to dig deep. To the high soaring
commandments– seeking to rise into the utmost fellowship with God. To
those commandments that need stern labor, like the rugged walls upon
which much toil must be spent and upon those which are a delight and a
beauty, like the golden light windows that require fine taste and
delicate skill. One would wish to do it all, to realize it all, to aim
after a completeness of character so that we may be like the Lord Jesus
Christ! Oh that we were enamored of this perfection and were seeking
after it! It becomes us, dear Friends, who are believers in Christ, to
set before us as our standard a perfect character and we should aim to
reach it, looking to have the mind and will of God for that model.
That I may in all things do what God requires of me and abstain from
everything which He forbids me should be the great objective of my
life. Be it my firm resolve and my daily and hourly desire, that, by
the power of His Spirit, I may attain this conformity to the Divine
purpose. I should endeavor with constant maintained persistency to get
nearer and nearer to this obedience to every Divine Commandment. Every
failure should cost me sorrow. Every mistake should lead me to chasten
myself with penitence. Every time I err I should go back to the blood
and ask to be washed, that no defilement may remain upon me.
II. Having thus spoken upon this universal obedience, only a few
minutes can be afforded for the reward, to wit– THE EXCELLENCY OF ITS
RESULT, "Then shall I not be ashamed." I suppose that means, first,
that as sin is removed, shame is removed. Sin and shame came into this
world together. Our first parents were naked and were not ashamed, but
when, in another sense, they became naked, then they were ashamed. They
had no sooner sinned against God than they were told that they were
naked and they hid themselves from the Presence of the Most High.
Unless sin gets to a high head, which it will not do in the Believer,
shame is always sure to go with sin. Excessive sin or habitual
transgression at last kills shame and gives a harlot's forehead so that
the hardened culprit knows not how to blush.
It is an awful thing when a man is no longer conscious of shame, but a
still more awful thing when he comes to glory in his shame–for then
his damnation is not far off! But as sin is cast out of the Believer,
shame is cast out of him in proportion and it, therefore, comes to pass
that courage rises with a consciousness of rectitude. The man that has
respect unto God's commands is no longer ashamed of men. He is not
abashed by their scorn, or disconcerted by their ridicule. Let them
say, "Oh, you are too precise," we would be very foolish to take that
as a reproach. I remember a man once contemptuously calling me John
Bunyan as I went down the street. I took off my hat to him and felt
rather flattered. I only wished I had been more like he! If anybody
says to you, "Oh, you are a Methodist," take the imputation kindly. It
is a most respectable name. Some of the grandest men that ever lived
were Methodists.
"Ah," but they will say, "you are one of the Presbyterians." Do not
frown at the charge, but bow courteously, for some grand witnesses for
Christ have belonged to that good fellowship. "Ah," says the world,
"you are one of those Puritans–you are one of those religious people."
Yes, but you are not ashamed of that! They might as well have said,
"You are a man worth £50,000 a year." Would you blush to admit it? I
dare say you would like it to be true! When anybody says, "Ah, there is
one of the saints," ask him to prove his words! Tell him you only hope
you will try to prove them yourself. There is nothing to be ashamed of
in keeping God's commands! Then, again, before men we shall not be
ashamed of our profession. Well may some Christians be inclined to put
their Christianity into the shade when they remember how little credit
they do to it–but when a man has respect unto all God's commands, he
is not ashamed to say, "I am a Christian. Look me up and down and
examine my conduct. I do not boast of it, but I know that I have sought
honestly and sincerely to walk before God in righteousness."
Or, when a false accusation is brought against you, meet it in the same
spirit. Perhaps somebody will libel you. I will defy you to avoid it!
If you were to live the life of the most irreproachable man of God you
would not be safe from calumny! Was not God Himself slandered, even in
Paradise, by the serpent? But you need not be ashamed when you can
appeal to God and feel that in all things you have endeavored to keep
His commands. Thrice is he armed that has his conscience clear. No
armor of steel or mail can so well protect a man as to know that before
God he has walked in guileless, blameless uprightness and sought to do
before the Lord that which is well-pleasing in His sight. "Then shall I
not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your commandments."
This may likewise refer to that inward shame we sometimes feel when we
examine ourselves and pass our own conduct in review. Don't you ever,
when reading a promise, look upon it as a very sweet promise made to
God's children, though you hardly dare appropriate it to yourself? You
feel ashamed. In fact, there are many gracious promises you never have
been able to accept as your own. You have been afraid to take them.
They were too rich, too ripe, too luscious fruit for you to adventure
upon tasting! You thought they were intended for the favored children,
not for poor strangers like you. Now call to remembrance my text–"Then
shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your
commandments." There are some delightful privileges of the Christian
that you have never yet ventured to seek–some high doctrines that you
have scarcely been able to believe. Dear Friend, have respect unto ALL
His commandments, for, perhaps, your fear, your doubt, your hesitancy,
your need of assurance may have arisen from your lack of a careful walk
before God and when the Holy Spirit has enabled you to be holy, He will
enable you, by full assurance, to grasp the rich things of the
Covenant.
Now, may I not be speaking to some who have been ashamed of attempting
their obvious duty? It is your duty to tell your experience, sometimes,
to others, but have you not blushed at the very thought? I know why. It
was because you thought of some inconsistency which, if they knew,
would disparage your testimony and make you appear very faulty in their
eyes. Ah, "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all
Your commandments." You have not dared to address even the smallest
congregation though you can speak very well upon secular topics. Why is
that? Is it because your walk is not as close with God as it should be?
"Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your
commandments."
Perhaps, my Brother, you may be a minister and yet you may almost
falter in stating some grand doctrinal Truth of God. Why is that,
Brother? Is there something at the back that I cannot guess–that I
would not mention if I could– which weakens your testimony? Yet you
will not be ashamed when you have respect unto all God's commandments!
How can we stand to admonish the unrighteous if we are not living
righteous lives? How can we be able, like Nathan, to say, "You are the
man," if we are conscious that the person rebuked could turn round and
point at our lives and say, "See what you do!" No, Brothers, the
servants of God that are to have courage in doing duty for their Master
must pray to be the undefiled in the way. They must walk in the Law of
the Lord and though, at the very best, should they reach the highest
point, they will still lie low before God and be humble in His
Presence–yet they will not be ashamed when they can feel that they
have, in all integrity, walked before the Lord and can say, like the
Prophet of old, "Whose ox have I taken? Or whose ass have I taken? Or
whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or of whose hand have I
received any bribe to blind my eyes? And I will restore it to you.
Witness against me before the Lord and before His anointed."
But if they could not impugn him, it gives the man Grace not to be
ashamed. So will it be in the time of trial, too. I admire Job,
notwithstanding the testiness he seemed to have, and I wonder who would
not be testy when he was covered with boils from head to foot–yet it
was a grand thing to be able to say, "O God, You know I am not
wicked"–and he could appeal to the Eternal as his Vindicator because
the charges brought against him were not true. He had not sinned
against his God in the way in which they said. Though he was not
perfect in his nature, yet he was pure in heart. He was
sincere in his disposition and blameless in his outward carriage so
that he could defy them to prove any of the insinuations that they
hurled at his integrity. This helped him to triumph! It was the very
backbone of his patience.
And what satisfaction will it supply when our course is reaching its
close and we face the hour of our departure if no dark clouds hang over
our retrospect of life! Let God's Grace enable you and me to live godly
lives–we shall find, then, our evidences clear! Though we shall not
always rely upon any works of righteousness that we have achieved, or
any character of holiness that we have acquired, but shall ever rest as
much in Christ as we did when at first we cast our sinful souls on Him
for mercy, yet it will be sweet to look back upon a life that has been
spent in the service of God and to exchange this service below for the
nobler service of His courts above!
And when our course is finished and we are gathered to our fathers, do
you not think it will be well to leave an unclouded reputation behind?
Did you ever notice the painful contrast between the record concerning
one and another of the good kings of Judah? Take, for example, Amaziah
and Hezekiah. Of Amaziah it is said, "He did that which was right in
the sight of the Lord, yet not like David, his father. Howbeit the high
places were not taken away: as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt
incense on the high places." There was no such qualification to the
tribute offered to Hezekiah's memory. "He did that which was right in
the sight of the Lord, according to all that David, his father, did. He
removed the high places and broke the images, and cut down the groves,
and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made: for unto
those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called
it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him
was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were
before him." So, Brothers and Sisters, I pray it may be with each and
all of us, though we may not hold any such exalted position as the
kings of Judah! Yet let it be our desire and our aim to be "sincere and
without offense till the day of Christ."
Once more, and I have done. "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have
respect unto all Your commandments." "Then I shall not be ashamed
before God." There is such a thing as a child of God being very much
ashamed in the presence of his father. He does not doubt that he is a
child, but he feels ashamed. Is it not so with your own children? They
know that they are your children and they know that you love them, but,
still, they are ashamed because they have been doing something which
grieves you and so they do not seek your company. They get away from
father. Father has looked very angrily at them. And yet you never say,
"Oh, you are not your father's child because you have done wrong and
your father will turn you out of the family."
They are never apprehensive of your casting them off. Oh no! They are
Calvinistic enough to know that they are not threatened with such a
punishment! But at the same time they are fully aware–and it is enough
to distress them–that their father is vexed and that he frowns, so
they keep out of his way. Now, remember, if we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and, "the blood of
Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." But we must walk in the
light, or else we shall not have fellowship with God. Sin will mar and
break up that fellowship. Sin will make you leave off communing, or
else communing will make you leave off sinning! The two things are not
consistent with each other. I, of course, do not mean, by sinning,
those sins of infirmity which we commit unconsciously, but I mean a
general habit of sinning to which our willfulness or our negligence
contribute.
No rebellion or remissness can be tolerated in those who are living
with God. Have you ever noticed two boys that want some indulgence and
one of them says, "Ask Father for such-and-such. Ask Father to let us
have a holiday." The other says, "John, you ask him." "No," says John,
"I cannot ask him. You ask him." "Why should the younger one ask?"
"Well," John says, "you know I have offended Father and though, of
course, he loves me, yet I do not think it is quite the time for me to
go and ask him for any great favor. You go and ask for us both." Have
you not felt, sometimes, like that when engaged in prayer when you have
not been walking with God as you should? You could pray for
forgiveness; you could pray for common mercies; but as for any great
favor or special mercy you have felt ashamed, at such times, to ask,
and you have been glad for some Brother to open his mouth a little
wider than you dared and ask for the Church and you some great
blessing.
O Lord, Your servant knows what it is to draw near to Your Mercy Seat,
but he feels as if he were not on such terms with You as usual and that
he cannot offer prayers and intercessions with that sense of liberty he
has often enjoyed. There are other times when God meets us with the
kisses of His love and says, "Ask what you will, and it shall be given
to you." It is grand praying with us then! "Then shall I not be
ashamed, when I have respect unto all Your commandments." I shall not
plead my obedience before You. No, verily, but I shall plead the blood
and righteousness of Christ–and this I
shall do with all the greater boldness because my heart is sprinkled
from an evil conscience–and that same Spirit which has worked
obedience in me will work in me the spirit of adoption! And He that
taught me to listen to Your voice will teach me so to speak that You
will listen to my voice and an answer of peace shall come to me!
May God bless you, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good
word and work for Jesus' sake. Amen.