Holding Fast Our Profession
(No. 1897)
DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Let us holdfast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He
is faithful who promised)." Hebrews 10:23.
THE Apostle is drawing certain inferences from the Covenant of Grace
upon which he has been enlarging. He shows that God has made a Covenant
with His people by which they are effectually preserved. "This is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I
will put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." He shows that
by this Covenant the fear of returning to our old sin is removed and
the guilt of our sin is forever put away. He bids us, therefore, be
bold in our approaches to God. As pardoned men, upon whom there is no
sin, he bids us exercise the freedom of near access to God, who has
accepted us in Christ. Then he tells us that since we are put in such a
blessed position–a position which is altogether unique–it becomes us
to hold fast to what we have received. Since the glorious Gospel has
done so much for us, let us never quit it. Since it has brought us into
a condition which angels might envy, let us never think of leaving it.
Let us not dream of giving up that Divine principle which has worked us
such blessedness, but, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith
without wavering."
I pray God the Holy Spirit to bless these words as we shall think them
over. May He make this evening's meditation a means of establishment to
us that, while we hold fast the profession of our faith, the blessed
Truths of that faith may also hold us fast as an anchor holds a ship!
Never was there a time in which this was more necessary. That
exhortation, "Let us hold fast," might well be written on the cover of
every Christian's Bible. We live in such a changing age that we need
all to be exhorted to be rooted and grounded, confirmed and established
in the Truth of God. I shall call your attention, first, to this
point–what we have. We have faith and, according to the second
rendering, which is adopted by the revisers, we have hope. Then,
secondly, what we have done. We have made a profession of that faith–a
confession of that hope. Then, thirdly, what we are now to do–to hold
fast that profession of faith and hope. And if you ask me, in the
fourth place, why we are to do if!
I shall, in closing, give you this reason–because "He is faithful who
promised." If God is faithful, let us be faithful, too. Since until now
He has proven Himself most true, let us pray that we may also be true.
I. First, then, dear Brothers and Sisters, let us think of WHAT WE
ALREADY HAVE by the Grace of God.
If we read the text according to our present authorized translation, we
have faith. We have made a public avowal of our faith. We can lay our
hands upon our hearts and say, "Lord, You know all things. You know
that we have faith in Jesus Christ Your Son." Yes, we have obtained
what the Apostle calls "like precious faith"–it is a rare jewel and he
is rich that possesses it.
If we have not this faith in possession, let us pause, here, and ask
for it and let us confess to God the great sin of unbelief in not
believing in such a one as the Son of God who cannot lie–whose life is
so transparently true that to doubt Him is a superfluity of
naughtiness–an awful insult to the majesty of His faithfulness. Yet it
would not be true for us to say–some of us–that we do not believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ, for we do. We have no other confidence. Where
could we find any other! He is the rock of our salvation! We could not
invent another trust, however hard we were put to it, or however much
we wished to do so. If Jesus were to say, "Will you, also, go away?" we
would be compelled to answer, "Lord, to whom should we go? You have the
words of eternal life." If the question is whether we have perfect
holiness, we must answer it in the negative, to our great sorrow. If
the question is whether we are highly advanced in Divine Grace, we
would not dare say that we are. It would be immodest if we put forth
such a pretension! But if the enquiry is, "Do you believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ?" then without hesitation we reply, "Lord, we trust You
with undivided faith."
Trembling though it is, our faith is true. And though it does not
always work in us all the fruit we would desire, yet it does operate in
a very blessed way upon our walk and conversation. We believe that
Jesus is the Christ and our trust for eternal life is in Him alone!
It is not a matter of question with you, dear Friend, is it, as to
whether you know Jesus to be the Son of God, very God of very God? It
is past all question with you that Jesus bore your sins in His own body
on the tree. You have no doubt about His wondrous death and His
marvelous Resurrection from among the dead. You believe that He has
offered a Sacrifice, once, which once offered has ended the sin of His
people and that He has gone into His Glory and is now sitting at the
right hand of God, expecting till His foes are made His footstool. You
have no more doubt about that than you have about your own existence!
You also believe that He will shortly come to be our Judge–that He
will gather the nations before Him and that He will reign King of Kings
and Lord of Lords. Your faith, then, in the Lord Jesus Christ is not a
matter of "if," and, "but"–you stake your salvation on it! I can truly
say that if what I preach is not true, I am a lost man. I have invested
all that I have in Christ. If this boat sinks, I drown, for I cannot
swim and I know no other lifeboat. Christ is All in All to me–without
Him I can do nothing, I have nothing, I am nothing! Jesus, in the
matter of salvation, is everything from beginning to end for me! And
you can say the same, I know.
You have faith, nor does your faith confine itself to the belief in the
Person and work of Christ and to a simple trusting of yourself to Him,
but you believe all that is revealed in relation to Jesus. All the
stars which make up the southern cross shine with clear brilliance for
you. Every Truth of God which is revealed in Holy Scripture is embraced
by your faith and held tenaciously. To you I know, Beloved, it is only
sufficient to prove that it is so written in the Bible and you believe
it. A Truth may sometimes amaze you because of its greatness, but that
does not stagger your faith, for your faith deals with mysteries and is
familiar with sublimities which it never dreams of comprehending! Yes,
we openly acknowledge that we believe in God the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, the Triune God! And we believe in the election of Grace. We
believe in the eternal purposes of God and in the working out of all
those purposes to the praise of the Glory of His Grace. If God tells us
anything, we accept it as sure, unquestionable, infallible Truth. If He
veils anything, we desire to leave it veiled, for the limit of
Revelation is the limit of our faith.
We may imagine this or imagine that, but we think nothing of our
imaginations! Our faith deals with what God says, not with what learned
men think. What the Spirit of God has written in this inspired Book is
the Truth of God to us and we allow no human teaching to rank side by
side with it. Well, then, we have faith–faith that believes, faith
that learns, faith that reclines, faith that trusts herself entirely in
the love of God–faith that can say, "Father into Your hands I commit
my spirit." We have it, and we know that we have it! If any of you here
do not know it, do not rest until you do know it. Unbelief calls God a
liar–do not live a moment in such a horrible God-provoking sin! Not to
trust Christ is to abide under the wrath of God. "He that believes not
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." May we
never remain in such a state as that, but come to a knowledge of the
Truth and to a sound faith in that Truth–for this is the faith of
God's elect.
But another reading–and a very good reading, too–runs thus, "The
confession of our hope." Oh yes, Beloved, if we have faith we have
hope. We will take both renderings, for they are both correct in fact,
if not in the letter. We have a blessed hope, a hope most "sure and
steadfast, which enters into that which is within the veil." If I begin
to describe our hope, I must begin with what, I think, is always the
topmost stone of it–the hope of the Second Advent of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ–for we believe that when He shall appear, we shall
also appear with Him in Glory. We know that He has gone up into Heaven.
His Apostles saw Him as He ascended from Olivet–and we believe the
words which the angels declared soon after His departure to remind us
of His coming again–"This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as
you have seen Him go into Heaven." We expect Him to descend in Person
and we hope, ourselves, to behold Him in that day. We expect Him to
stand in the latter day upon the earth and, in our own flesh risen from
the dead, we expect to behold our Savior and our God! This is the
glorious hope of the Church! This is how she expects to be victorious
over the world–the Lord shall come and end her conflict in complete
triumph! As His First Coming has laid the foundations of His empire, so
His Second Coming shall bring forth the cornerstone thereof with shouts
of, "Grace, Grace, unto it."
Wrapped up in that hope, we have personal hopes of our own, which hopes
are, first, that our spirits, when we depart the body, shall be with
Christ. We have been with Him, here, and we believe we shall be with
Him there. Though in some sense while we are present in the body, we
are absent from the Lord, yet in another sense He is with us even now.
We
expect, before long, to be absent from the body and, in a fuller sense,
present with the Lord. Such is our joyful hope and expectation–Glory,
millennium, Heaven, eternity–all lie within the circle of our hope.
Ours is not the larger, but the largest hope.
We expect that after a while the trumpet shall sound and our bodies
shall be raised from beds of dust and silent clay–and that thus we
shall be perfected in our manhood as spirit, soul and body. The day of
our Lord's appearing will be the day of the redemption of the body from
the dust with which it mingles. We expect, then, as perfect in Christ
Jesus, made in the image of Him who is the Firstborn among many
brethren, to live forever and ever in eternal blessedness, enjoying the
life of God at His right hand where there are pleasures forevermore. We
have a joyful, glorious, blessed hope which purifies, comforts,
strengthens and sustains us–and this hope is in us now!
As the pastor of this Church, I can joyfully say of the most of those
who are here present, that you have a good hope through Grace. That
hope gilds the darkness of the present–it is your candle through the
long and weary night. You are not always to be sickly, poor and
suffering. This hope sheds its light upon the future and reveals
glories brighter than imagination could invent! At times when you
realize that hope, you almost feel the crown of life settling down upon
your brow and removing your throbbing pain once and for all. In the
power of that hope you put on the sandals of the Light of God and the
garments of immortality–and take your place among the celestial
throng! Many a time, by faith, you walk along those streets which are
paved with pure gold, like transparent glass, and as you tread the
shining way you converse with the shining ones who dwell in the New
Jerusalem! Hope already hears with her quick ears the songs of the
redeemed and her eye beholds the Lord whom you love enthroned in the
highest! Oh, how near does hope bring our Well-Beloved, whom, having
not seen, we love! In whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing we
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of Glory!
We have faith and we have hope–and we know that we have them. Are we
not enriched with the Grace of God? Where faith and hope are found,
love cannot be far off, for the three Divine sisters are seldom
separated. Let us love the Lord who has given us the first two.
II. Secondly, we have gone a step further than the silent possession of
faith and hope. We have made A PROFESSION OF OUR FAITH AND A CONFESSION
OF OUR HOPE. I am not going to say much about this, but to remind
you of certain joyously solemn facts.
You remember the time, dear Brothers and Sisters, when you first made a
profession of your faith. It may do many of us good to go back to those
early days. We are getting on in years, some of us, but we do not wish
to feel old–at least we want to keep as much of the freshness and joy
of youth as we well can! Cheerfulness is most becoming in
Christians–we have a life within us of later birth than that which our
mothers gave us–we will, therefore, measure our age from our second
rather than our first birth. I like to see the old man grow young when
he talks of Christ! Let him on that point become enthusiastic, even as
in his boyhood. When he speaks of the loving kindness of the Lord to
him, he should show the mellowness of years and the energy of youth in
happy combination. Perhaps some of you remember the place, the spot of
ground, where Jesus met with you. If you do not, at least you remember
when you first whispered to your own heart with trembling hope, "I
think I know the Lord." You were almost startled at the echo of your
own words! You were afraid that you had been presumptuous! There was
great tenderness of conscience upon you, then, and you would not have
professed what was not true for all the world. You said within
yourself, "I half said that I was a Believer, but I do not think I dare
say it again."
Yet, within a short time, it oozed out again, when you were in company
and felt forced to defend your Savior. It was true of you in a blessed
sense, "Your speech betrays you. You, also, were with Jesus of
Nazareth." At last it grew so warm round about you that you thought you
might as well come out for Jesus and derive help from the confession.
The adversaries were ferreting you out and you thought you had better
come out and say, boldly, once and for all, "It is even so!" The true
Pilgrim never wishes to enter the House Beautiful if he has not a right
to be there. He is afraid that he may be guilty of intrusion and he,
therefore, hopes the porter at the gate will only admit him when he
feels quite sure that he is a Pilgrim such as the Lord of the Way would
permit to enter His House.
It was a day of great trembling, but of great joy, when first we avowed
our faith in Jesus! What we said we meant. We salted our words with our
tears, but oh, we felt it such an honor to be numbered with the people
of God! If we had
been promised a seat on the floor, or had been allowed only to hear the
Gospel in the coldest corner of the building, we should then have been
fully content! We sang and meant it–
"Might I enjoy the meanest place
Within Your House, O God of Grace,
Not tents of ease, nor thrones of power,
Should tempt my feet to lea ve Your door." We need soft cushions now.
We cannot stand to hear a sermon now, nor yet travel very far,
especially in damp weather. It is very strange that we should have
become so delicate, but it is so. How many miles we could walk when
first we knew the Lord! The miles have grown much longer lately, or
else our love has grown much shorter! Those were blessed days–
changeful, showery, with little more that the dusk of dawn about
them–but still there was a morning freshness about them upon which we
look back with supreme delight and somewhat of regret. Then was it a
time of love, a season of buds and flowers and songbirds and
overflowing life and hope!
Thus early in my discourse I would most earnestly say to you–Hold fast
the profession of your faith. By the memories of the day when you made
that profession, be firm in it to the end. If you were not false, then;
if you were not deceivers then; hold fast the confession of your hope
without wavering, for, "He is faithful who promised." To me it is a
solemn memory that I professed my faith openly in Baptism. Vividly do I
recall the scene. It was the third of May and the weather was cold
because of a keen wind. I see the broad river, the crowds which lined
the banks and the company upon the ferryboat. The Word of the Lord was
preached by a man of God who is now gone Home. And when he had so done,
he went down into the water and we followed him and he baptized us. I
remember how, after being the slave of timidity, I rose from the liquid
grave quickened into holy courage by that one act of decision,
consecrated therefore forth to bear a lifelong testimony!
It was by burial with Christ in Baptism that I confessed my faith in
His death, burial and Resurrection. By an avowed death to the world, I
professed my desire from that day on to live with Jesus, for Jesus and
like Jesus. Oh that I had been more faithful to that profession! But
there it was and I am not ashamed of it, nor wishful to run back from
it. Ah no, I bear in my body that watermark, that fulfillment of the
Holy Scriptures, which says, "Having your hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and your bodies washed with pure water."–
"High Heaven that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily
hear, Till in life's latest time I bow, And bless, in death, a bond so
dear."
Let us remember, also, the many times in which we have repeated that
profession of faith, that confession of hope, for instead of retracting
it, we have gone on to repeat it. We have been marked anew with the
King's name. If you ask how you have renewed your vows, I reply–"You
have done it many a time at the table of communion. You have sat there
and feasted with your Lord and you have not been ashamed of being
there, I am sure. No, you have often feared that it was too good to be
true that such a one as you should be eating bread with the children
when not long ago you begged for the crumbs which fell from their
table! You have sat at the banquet of bread and wine and, in so doing,
you have borne witness to the death of Christ until He comes. Thus you
have in frequent feasts of love confessed your joyful hope!"
And beside that, in many a Prayer Meeting you have been present and, by
your very presence, have expressed your belief that it is not a vain
thing to wait upon God. You have also joined in the prayer and this is
no mean profession of faith. In many a service, when Christ has been
preached, you have been there, not merely to assist by your presence,
but because you have agreed with it all. Your heart has, at times, so
burned within you, that you have thought it proper to say, "Amen!" You
longed to cry, "Hallelujah!" And it was almost a pity you did not do
so, for the outburst would have done no hurt to anybody. Perhaps,
sometimes, you have done it and you have startled yourself and many
others! By such an exclamation you have renewed your profession of your
faith.
You have repeated your profession in the shop, in the market, in the
place of business, among your friends, in your family and to the
partner of your life. Those around you know you to be professedly an
heir of Heaven, a child of God! It is well that they should. Why should
not the children of Light be as well known as the children of darkness?
Why should you conceal yourselves?
As for me and such of us as stand prominently out to preach the Word of
God, how many times have we made a profession? I hope our preaching has
not been done "professionally," but certainly we can neither preach,
nor lead the devotions of a congregation without professing our faith
and declaring our hope!
I again break in upon the latter part of my discourse by saying–after
all these times in which we have worn our Master's livery, shall we
desert Him? After those many occasions in which we have borne His mark
upon our foreheads, can we think of becoming apostates? Christ has been
confessed by us in the most solemn forms over and over again–shall we
be doubly forsworn? Shall we become sevenfold traitors? No, by His rich
and Sovereign Grace, I would say to you, believing that the Holy Spirit
will help you to keep the command, "Hold fast the profession of your
faith without wavering; for He is faithful who promised."
We have considered how we began this profession and we have also seen
how often we have made it since. Let us think for a minute what it has
cost us. Has it been worthwhile to be on the Lord's side? Religion has
cost many of its disciples somewhat dear but it has cost nothing
compared with its worth! What bashfulness it cost you to make the first
confession of your faith! What a struggle it then appeared! You were
weeks, some of you, before you dared to come and see such an awful
person as the minister, to speak of your conversion to him. It had
taken you weeks even to tell it to your wife or your husband! The dear
soul, for once, seemed to grow into a very dragon when you needed to
tell him that you had found the Lord. I have known parents terribly
afraid to let their children know of their conversion. They were never
half so afraid of sinning as they became afraid of being charged with
repenting! You surmounted that difficulty, did you not? You cried to
God about it and you obtained courage–and now you wonder how you could
have been so foolishly timid. Do not, in the future, fall back into the
same fears.
But perhaps some of you lost the friendship of many by becoming
disciples of the Lord Jesus. I know one who became a member of this
Church–she had moved in high and fashionable circles, but she said to
me, "they have left me–every one of them." I said, "I am very
thankful, for it will save you the trouble of quitting them. They will
do you no good if they profess to be your friends. And they will do you
less harm by giving you the cold shoulder." It is about the best thing
that happens to a Christian when worldlings cut his acquaintance. "Come
you out from among them," is to many a severe command. But all
difficulty is removed when the world turns out from us and casts out
our name as evil! Still, it has cost many a tear, and many a sigh for
the first Believer in certain families to take up his cross and come
right out and follow Christ. "Canting hypocrite!" "Sniveling
pretender!" Such titles and worse are quickly thrown at us! It is but
natural that the world we leave should give us a parting kick.
We, of course, are everything that is bad as soon as we forsake the
ways of the world to follow Christ. It is the old fashion–after this
manner they dealt with our fathers. I do not suppose that any two men,
after a while, counts it at all a hardship, or mourns as though some
strange thing had happened to him! Did they not swim through seas of
blood in the old times? Did they not fight with beasts at Ephesus and
reach to Heaven by the way of the stake? We suffer so little compared
with the persecutions of our forerunners that it is hardly worth a
thought! But yet, to some very tender hearts, it is a costly business
to make a profession of faith. And I say to them–Have you suffered
these many things in vain? Will you now go back? Will you turn, again,
to the beggarly elements of the world, after having confronted
persecution and borne the enmity of men? No, by the Grace of God you
will "hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering!"
"But what good does our profession do?" asks one. I do not know that we
need ask that question, or answer it, either. If a course of action is
commanded of God, it is ours to obey whether we can see any use in it
or not. It is put continually in the Word of God, "He that with his
heart believes, and with his mouth makes confession of Him, shall be
saved," or in other words, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved." Faith in the Truth of God and an open profession of that faith
are constantly put together in the Scriptures! There must be the
confession of Christ outwardly, as well as the believing in Christ
inwardly. The Lord Jesus, Himself, has said, "Except a man shall take
up his cross and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple." It is not the
Lord's will that we should go in the dark to Heaven along some private
road of our own! We are to come out and follow Him in this evil
generation, or else He will be ashamed of us when He comes in the Glory
of His Father.
If the question is asked again, "What is the good of an open
profession?" I would say, Much every way. It is, in itself, a grand
thing for his manliness for a man to boldly say, "I am a Christian." It
is good for a soldier of the Cross to draw the sword and throw away the
scabbard by being openly known to be a Christian. The world then ceases
to urge its
coarser temptations. The enemies know where you are and do not raise
that question again. Your profession becomes a confirmation of your
purpose to lead a better life. You say, "I have lifted up my hand unto
the Lord and how can I go back? How can I do this great wickedness and
sin against God? The vows of the Lord are upon me!" All this is a
protection to you in the hour of trial. To show your colors may not
appear to be a great thing, but to many it is half the battle.
Besides, the open confession of our faith has a good influence upon
others. How could there be a Christian Church at all if every Christian
concealed his faith in his own bosom? Without the Christian Church as
an organization, how would all the good work that has to be done in the
reclaiming of sinners be attended to? Where would be our public
proclamation of the Gospel? Where our missions and ministers? If you
love your Lord and have faith and hope in Him, do not delay to come
forward and acknowledge His name and cause. Say boldly, "Where are His
people? I will join with them! Do they meet with any reproach for
obedience to Him? I will share that reproach! Have they any work for
Christ on hand? I will take my share of that work! Yours am I, Son of
David, and all that I have, and I give myself to You to be Yours
forever and ever."
It will be to your lasting honor and enduring joy to be found wearing
the livery of the Prince of Peace, marching in the ranks of the saints,
contending earnestly for the Truth of God and advancing the Kingdom of
your God! Thus have I spoken upon the profession of our faith and hope.
III. The third point is, WHAT ARE WE NOW TO DO? I have entrenched upon
it, already, and I have done so intentionally. The answer is–we are
called upon to holdfast the profession of our faith.
Of course this includes the holding fast of your faith. The things
which you have believed, continue to believe. There may be an
advance–there ought to be an advance–in politics because the basis to
begin with was wrong. And, as you advance, you only approximate a
little more nearly to that which is perfectly just, honest and
righteous. It is a far cry from feudalism to a righteous commonwealth!
But there can be no advance in true religion! If it is true at first,
the same things are still true and must be true forever and ever. We
feel that there can be no progress in the foundational Truths of
Christianity when we remember such a text as this, "Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, today, forever." Revelation comes from the mind of God,
like Minerva is fabled to have sprung from the brain of Jove, full
grown, full armed. Nothing may be taken from it! Nothing may be added
to it!
I, for one, am perfectly satisfied with an Apostolic faith. It anyone
can go beyond the Apostles, let him go–I shall not attempt to do so. I
am satisfied to believe what Paul believed. Oh that I were worthy to
unloose the laces of his shoes! Though Paul is not my Lord and Master,
yet I reverence the Holy Spirit as He speaks through Paul's Epistles. I
am perfectly satisfied with what Jesus revealed by His own teaching and
the teaching of His Apostles–and going beyond that seems to me to
imply that the Revelation is imperfect. But imperfect it is not! It is
plain, clear and finished, and they that add to it, or take from it,
will incur the plagues with which the Book is closed and guarded. God
shall take away from such their names out of the Book of Life and out
of the Holy City. Hold fast to the old Truth of God!
The ships in yonder port are swinging with the tide just now. Please
God they will swing back to the same place when the tide turns. They
have done so before. There came a day when our dissenting Churches
almost all went round to Socinianism and then their chapels were empty
and their day of power was gone. Earnest men rose up and preached the
old Gospel, again, and there was a grand revival! Now they are going
off again, turning every man to his own error, except that the Lord has
a faithful company that hold fast the faith and will not let it go–and
these will yet live to see a great revulsion of feeling! If they do
not, that is a small matter to them–to be faithful to their God is
their first and their last business!
Hold, next to your hope. Hope in Christ and in His coming and in the
victory of the Truth of God. If the storms lower, believe that there is
fair weather ahead. And if the night darkens into a seven-fold
blackness, believe that the morning comes despite the darkening glooms!
Have faith and trust in Him that lives, and was dead, and is alive
forever-more! Let your hope begin to hear the hallelujahs which
proclaim the reign of the Lord God Omnipotent, for reign He must, and
the victory shall be unto Him and to His Truth. Hold fast your faith.
Hold fast your hope.
But that is not the text. It is holdfast your profession of faith, your
confession of hope–that is to say, stand to what you have done by way
of open declaration of these things. Constantly keep up your
confession. You made it once. Renew it. Often and often say–
"I'm not ashamed to acknowledge my Lord,
Nor to defend His cause; Maintain the honor of His Word, The Glory of
His Cross."
You are Christians, not for a time, but for eternity1 Your new birth is
not into a dying existence, but into life everlasting! You are born
again of a living and incorruptible seed that lives and abides forever!
Therefore, quit yourselves like men and be strong. Stand fast, "Be
steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord."
Continue your confession and never conceal it.
There are times when you will be inclined to put your flag away into
the canvas case and hide your coat of arms in the cellar. Then you may
fitly judge that the devil is getting an advantage over you and that it
is time that you ceased to be beguiled by his sorceries. Tear up the
wrappings, throw the bag away and nail your flag aloft where every eye
can see it! Whenever you feel inclined to be ashamed of Christ, do not
deliberate, but say, "This is wrong. There is coming over me something
that I must not endure. If I were in a right state of mind I should
never feel like this." Never yield to shameful cowardice–scorn such
detestable meanness! Away with it, man! Away with it! If you might have
gone on peaceably and said nothing about your religion, yet whenever
you feel at all afraid to do it, then say, "I must do it. I cannot
allow my principles to remain in question. I will, in some way, make a
demonstration of the faith that is in me, lest I prove a coward and a
castaway after all."
Perhaps you may have to go into a certain company where you do not want
to have it known that you are a Christian. It is imperative that you
break through that snare and put the case beyond debate. If I were you,
I would make my profession known in that very company because the idea
that you must not be known to be a Christian will be very dangerous to
you. I cannot exactly tell in what way it may endanger you, but it will
surely do so and, therefore, whenever the thought of concealment crops
up, down with it and come out clear and straight for Jesus! Only when
you are out-and-out for Jesus can you be in a right condition. Anything
short of this is full of evil! Since Satan tempts you to hide your
faith, feel that he seeks your harm and, therefore, come out all the
more decidedly.
Beloved Friends, may God help us never to do anything contrary to the
confession of our faith. I have heard of such a thing as a Christian
man making a confession of his faith by paying sixpence in the pound in
the Bankruptcy Court. They say that he is making a good thing out of
his failure. He is making his own damnation sure if he is robbing his
creditors and yet professing to be a Christian! Here is a man making a
confession of his faith. He is a very good Christian man in his own
esteem, but he also knows a good glass of wine and is most fluent when
he is getting far into the bottle. Have drunks any hope of eternal
life? Look at yonder professor–he is going across to the public house
to stand at the counter and drink with those who blaspheme! That is his
way of confessing his faith, I suppose. It is not mine!
Have I not seen Christian women become noisily angry and say harsh
things to their servants? That is showing your Christianity, is it? I
do not want to be sarcastic, but I don't want you to tempt me to be so.
If you love the Lord, live as if you loved Him! Let us all try to do so
and let us watch that we never undo with our hands what we say with our
tongues. I heard in Lancashire of some people who preached with their
feet. It is the best way of preaching in the world. By your walk and
conversation you will preach twice as well as by your talk! Your tongue
is too soft a thing to influence dull minds, you must influence such by
your lives.
When we come to die we will gather up our feet in the bed and bear
another and more solemn testimony to the Lord our God. We will set up
one Ebenezer more on Jordan's brink and bear one more witness for Him
who loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood. I recollect what
Whitefield said of himself. Someone said, "Dear Mr. Whitefield, I
should like to be present with you when you come to die. What a
testimony you will bear in your parting moments." "No," said that
eminent servant of God, "I do not think I shall bear any testimony in
death because I have borne so many testimonies in my life that my Lord
will not want any from me when I die." So it came to pass. He stood at
the top of the stairs the night before he died and preached his last
sermon and then turned in and went to Heaven! Perhaps that is how some
of us will write the finis to our lifework. At any rate, let us bear
our testimonies while we can. Let us speak up for our Master while we
may and, by-and-by, we shall see Him whom our soul loves and rejoice in
Him forever!
IV. I may not detain you many more moments and, therefore, let me
answer the question WHY ARE WE TO DO THIS? We are to hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering, because He is faithful who
has promised.
Have you found Him faithful? Has the Lord failed you? Has the Lord been
untrue in His promises to you? If He has, then do not hold fast your
profession! If, after all, it has been a mistake and a delusion, then
give it up! But if He is faithful who has promised–if He has kept His
word to you, helped you in your trouble, sustained your heart under
burdens, comforted you in the dark hour of trial–if till this moment
you have proven the power of prayer, the wisdom of Providence and the
truth of the Sacred Word–then deal with my Lord as He has dealt with
you! Be not faithless to the Crucified. Oh, be not Judas to Him who is
Jesus to you! He gave His heart for you and even after death it poured
out blood and water for you–give your whole heart to Him! If it is so
that these Truths of God are firmly established and that God keeps His
Covenant, then let us come at once to the feet of the blessed Lord and
say, "Lord, we do not regret that we entered Your service. On the
contrary, we are ready to begin again." If we had our lives to live,
over again, we that began to be Christians as lads would begin earlier!
We that have served the Lord desire no better Master and no better
service, but we would wish Him to find, in each one of us, a better
servant. Lord, we have been happy with You. When we have been unhappy,
it has been our own fault, not Yours. We would return to You and say,
"Permit us to serve You still. We would be Your servants forever."
I have heard of a husband and wife who felt their love for each other
to be so strong that they almost wished to go through the wedding
ceremony again, to show how content they were to bear the easy yoke of
married love. Many of us could say the same. We would also be joined
anew to our Lord! Let us take afresh His yoke upon us. Let us put our
shoulder down to the Cross, again, and commence again to serve the Lord
Jesus with the love of our espousals and the freshness of our earliest
days. May the Lord bless us to that end!
While we are doing this, hope that others who never did love Him before
will now say, "We will come with you and begin a new life from this
good hour." It will be a happy, happy circumstance if this should be
the case. God grant it may be so with many, for Jesus' sake! Amen.