TEXT:-- “Who is on the Lord's side?” (Ex 32:26)
Last Friday evening, you
will remember, that in discussing this passage, I mentioned three groups of
professing Christians; 1) those who truly love God and man, 2) those who are
motivated solely by selfishness or at most by self-love in their religious
duties, and 3) those who are motivated only by a regard for public
opinion. I also mentioned several
characteristics that identify the first group.
This evening I intend to mention several characteristics of the second
group, those professing Christians who are motivated by self-love or by
selfishness.
I will show how their
leading or their main purpose in religion manifests itself in their
conduct. The conduct, or behavior, of
people eventually reveals what is their true and main purpose or goal in
life. A person's character reflects his
supreme purpose in life. And if you can
learn from his conduct what his main purpose is, then you can know with
certainty what his character is. And I
believe we can know this if we will honestly and thoroughly observe their
behavior.
These three groups of
professing Christians agree in many things, and it would be impossible to
discriminate between them by observing only these things. But there are certain areas where they differ,
and by closely watching them, you will notice the difference between the two in
their conduct. From this, we can
determine the difference in their character.
And those points that they differ on belong to the very fundamentals of
religion.
Let me mention some of
the characteristics of this second group; those who are motivated in religion
by self-love, or by selfishness, in whom hope and fear are the foundation of
all they do in religion. The things
that I will mention are such, that when you see them, it will become clear to
you that the individual is motivated by a supreme regard for his own good, and
that the fear of evil, or the hope of gaining some kind of advantage for
himself; is the foundation of everything he says and does.
1. These professing
Cheristians make religion a subordinate concern.
They show by their
conduct that they do not regard religion as their principal business of life,
but their religion is subordinate to other things. They consider religion as something that should come in and find
its place among other things, as a sort of Sunday business, or something to be
confined to the prayer closet, family prayer time, and the Sabbath, and not as
their primary purpose of life. They
make a distinction between religious duty and business, and consider those two
things as completely separate concerns.
However, if they had right views of the matter, they would consider
religion as the only business of life, and nothing else is either right or worth
pursuing any further than it promotes or serves religion. If they had the right feeling, religion
would characterize everything they do, and we would see that everything they do
is an act of obedience to God.
2. Their religious duties
are performed as a task, and are not the result of the constraining love of God
that burns within them.
They do not delight in
exercising religious affections, like fellowshipping with God. They are not intimate with God. Prayer is a task. It is a chore or a duty.
They take on religious duties like sick people take medicine; not
because they love it, but because they hope to benefit from it.
Let me ask you tonight,
do you enjoy religious activities, or do you perform your religious activities
because you hope to benefit from them?
Be honest, now, answer this question truthfully, and see where you
stand.
3. These professing
Christians manifest a legal spirit, and not a gospel spirit.
Everything they do in
religion is because they feel that they have to do those things, rather
than because they love to do them. They
have an eye focused the commands of God, and yield obedience to His
requirements in performing religious duties, but they do not engage in those things
because they love them. They are always
ready to ask what they should do, not so much so they can do good, but so they
can be saved. This subtle difference in
behavior is enough to separate the convinced sinner from a true convert. The convinced sinner asks, “What must I do
to be saved?” The true convert asks,
“Lord, what will you have me do?” So
this group of professing Christians are constantly asking, “What must I do to
get to heaven?” and not “What can I do to get other people into the
Kingdom?” The principal object of such
a professing Christian is not to save the world, but to save himself.
4. It is fear, rather
than hope, that motivates these professing Christians.
They perform their
religious duties mainly because they are afraid not to. They go to the communion table, not because
they love to meet Christ, or because they love to commune with their brethren,
but because they are afraid to stay away.
They fear the strong disapproval and the harsh criticism of the church,
or they are afraid they shall be damned if they neglect to go. They perform their closet duties not because
they enjoy communion with God, but because they are afraid to neglect
them. They have the spirit of slaves,
and they go about serving God, as slaves go about serving their master, feeling
that if they don’t do a certain amount of work, they will be beaten with many
stripes. Therefore, these professing
Christians feel as if they must have a certain amount of religion, and perform
a certain amount of religious duties, or be lashed by their conscience and lose
their hope of heaven. Therefore, they
go through life, painfully and laboriously, performing a certain amount of
religious duties each year, and they call that their religion!
5. Their religion is not
only produced by the fear of disgrace or the fear of hell, but their religion
is mostly negative.
These professing
Christians usually satisfy themselves by doing nothing that is very bad. Having no spiritual views, they regard the
law of God chiefly as a system of do’s and don’ts designed to guard men from
certain sins, and not a benevolent system fulfilled by love. And so, if they are moral in their conduct,
and tolerably serious and decent in their general activities; and if they
perform what they feel are the required amount of religious exercises, they are
satisfied. Their conscience harasses
them, not so much about sins of omission as sins of commission. They make a distinction between neglecting
to do what God positively requires, and doing what He positively forbids. The most you can say about these people is
that they are not very bad. They seem
to think little or nothing about being useful to the cause of Christ, as long
as they can’t be convicted of any positive transgression.
6. These people are more
or less strict in religious duties, according to the light they have and the
sharpness with which their conscience pursues them.
Where they have
enlightened minds and tender consciences, you often find that they are the
strictest of all professing Christians.
They tithe regularly and faithfully. They are stiff, even gloomy. They are perfect Pharisees, and carry
everything to the greatest extremes, as far as outward strictness is concerned.
7. These professing
Christians are more or less miserable in proportion to the tenderness of their
conscience.
With all their
strictness, they cannot but sense that they are great sinners after all; and
having no just sense of gospel justification, this leaves them very
unhappy. And the more enlightened and
tender their conscience is, the unhappier they are. Notwithstanding their strictness, they feel that they fall short
of their duty, and since they don’t have any gospel faith, or any of that holy
anointing of the Holy Spirit that brings peace to the soul, they are
unsatisfied, uneasy, and miserable.
Perhaps many of you have
seen such people. Perhaps some of you
are just like this, and you have never known what it is like to feel justified
before God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and you do not know what it feels
like to have Jesus Christ accept and own you as His. You have never experienced what this passage is talking about:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who
do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Rom 8:1)
Does this passage stir up any warm and practical ideas in you? Is this passage a reality because you
experience it in your soul? Or do you,
after all, still feel condemned and guilty, and have no sense of pardoned sin
and no experiential peace with God or confidence in Jesus Christ?
9. These people are
encouraged and cheered by reading the accounts of ancient saints who fell into
great sins.
They feel wonderfully
instructed and edified when they hear about the sins of God's people set forth
in a strong light. It is because they
are comforted and their hopes are wonderfully strengthened. Instead of feeling humbled and distressed,
instead of feeling that such conduct is so contrary to all religion that they
can hardly believe they were saints if it wasn’t in the Bible, instead of
wondering how people who do such things under the light of the Christian
dispensation could be saints, they feel gratified and strengthened and their
hopes are confirmed by all these things.
I once knew a man, an elder too, who was brought before the church for
the crime of adultery, and he actually excused himself using this plea. He did not know, he said, why he should be
expected to be better than David, the man after God's own heart.
10. The lower the
standard of piety going out from the pulpit, the happier these professing
Christians are.
If the minister adopts a
low standard, and assumes that practically everybody he preaches to is a
Christian, they are pleased, and they compliment him for the way he preaches
“in love”, and they praise him as an excellent man, saying things like “he’s so
charitable”. It is easy to see why
these professing Christians are pleased with such a demonstration of
Christianity. It supports their
purpose. It helps them maintain what
they call a “comfortable hope” in spite of the fact that they do so little for
God. Right over against this, you will
see, is the conduct of the person whose main purpose is to rid the world of
sin. That person wants everyone to be
holy, and therefore he wants to have the true standard of holiness held
up. He wants everybody saved, but he
knows they cannot be saved unless they are truly holy. And he would just as easily think of Satan
going to heaven as of getting someone there by frittering away the Bible
standard of holiness by preaching “in love”.
11. These Christians, who
are motivated by selfishness in their religious duties, are fond of having
comfortable doctrines preached.
Such people usually enjoy
having the doctrine of the saints' perseverance and the doctrine of election
preached often. Often, they only want
to hear about the doctrines of grace.
And if they can be preached to in such an abstract way that it gives
them comfort without bothering their consciences too much, then they are fed.
12. These professing
Christians love to have their minister preach sermons to feed Christians.
Their main goal is not to
save sinners, but to be saved themselves, and therefore they always choose a
minister, not for his ability to preach to convert sinners, but for his talents
in feeding the church with mere abstract teachings.
13. These people place a
lot of importance on having a comfortable hope.
You will hear them
talking very seriously about the importance of having a comfortable hope. If they can only enjoy their minds, they
don’t really care if anybody else around them is saved or not. If they can only have their fears silenced
and their hopes cherished, they have enough religion to satisfy them.
Right over against this,
you will find the true friends of God and man mainly thinking of something
else. They are trying to pull sinners
out of the fire, and they don’t waste their energy in sustaining a comfortable
hope for themselves.
In their prayers, you
will find that the people I am talking about mainly pray that the evidences of
their salvation may be increased, that they may feel assured that they are
going to heaven, and that they may know that God accepts them. Their goal in life is to secure their hopes,
and so they pray that their evidences may be increased, instead of praying that
their faith may be strengthened, and that their souls be filled with the Holy
Ghost to pull sinners out of the fire.
14. These “so called”
Christians live very much in their own frame of mind.
They place a lot of
importance on the particular emotions that they have from time to time. If at any time they have some highly worked
up feelings of a religious nature, they dwell on them, and they make this
evidence last a long time. One such
season of excitement will prop up their hopes as long as they can remember the
experience later. It doesn’t matter if
they are not doing anything now, and they know that they are not doing anything
out of love for God right now, but they remember the time when they had that
particular feeling, and they use that experience to keep their hopes
alive. If there has been a revival, and
they mingled in its atmosphere until their imagination had been worked up to
the point that they could weep, pray, and exhort with deep feelings during the
revival, and these feelings lasted a long time, then they will have a
comfortable hope for years on the strength of it. Although, the revival is long gone, they do nothing to promote
religion, and their hearts are as hard as cement. Yet, all the time, they have a very comfortable hope, patiently
waiting for a revival to come and give them another round of excitement.
Are any of you here
today, propping yourselves up by your past frame of mind and feelings, leaning on
evidences, not from what you are now doing but something that you experienced
last year, or years ago? Let me tell
you, that if you are living on past experiences, you will find that your past
experiences will fail when you come to need them.
15. These professing
Christians pray almost exclusively for themselves.
If you could listen at
the door of their prayer closets, you would hear eight-tenths of all their
petitions going up for themselves. This
shows how much they value their own salvation in comparison with the salvation
of others. It is eight to two in favor
of self. And if they pray in meetings,
very often it will be for the same thing.
You would not conclude, from their prayers, that they knew of one sinner
here on earth traveling the road to hell.
They pray for themselves just as they do in their prayer closet, only
they include the rest of the church with them by saying “we”, instead of “I”.
16. Such professing
Christians pray to be prepared for death much more than they pray to be prepared
to live a useful life.
They are more anxious to
be prepared to die, than to be prepared to save sinners around them. If they ask for the Spirit of God, they want
the Holy Spirit to prepare them for death.
But this isn’t how the Psalmist prayed.
“Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be
converted to You.” How many of you are
like this Psalmist? Is this how you
pray? An individual who makes it his
great absorbing goal to do good and save sinners, would be likely to focus on how
he could do the most good while he is alive rather than thinking about when,
where, or how he will die. As far as
his death is concerned, he leaves all of that to God; and he is not afraid to
leave it all with Him. He has long ago
given his soul up to Him, and now the great question with Him is not, “when, or
how, shall I die?” but “how shall I live so I can honor God?”
17. These ‘so called’
Christians are more afraid of punishment than they are of sin.
Now, the true friends of
God and man are more afraid of sin than of punishment. They don’t ask, “if I do this, will I be
punished?” or “if I do this, will God forgive me?” But they ask the same question that Joseph asked, “How can I do
this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
That’s the spirit of a child of God; afraid of sin more than of
punishment. Joseph was afraid of sin so
much that he didn’t even think about punishment.
These professing
Christians often indulge in sin if they can persuade themselves that God will
forgive them, or when they think that they can repent of it afterwards. They often reason this way: “my minister
does this”, or “I know elders and other professing Christians are doing that,
so why can’t I do the same thing?”
There was a church member that used to attend a Sunday school class; but
because others did not attend the class, the individual reasoned, “Why should I
do it any more than they?” Therefore,
he stopped attending. That is a good
description of the spirit of these professing Christians. “Others get along without doing that, and
why should I trouble myself to be better than they?” It is not sin that they fear, but punishment. They sin.
They know they sin. But they
hope to escape the punishment. Who
cannot see that this is contrary to the spirit of the true friends of God,
whose absorbing goal it is to remove sin, and all sin, out of the world? Such people are not half as afraid of hell
as they are of committing sin.
18. These selfish
churchgoers feel and manifest greater anxiety about being saved themselves,
than if the entire world was going to hell.
Such a professing
Christian, if his hope begins to fail, wants everybody in the church pray for
him, and he makes a big fuss, but he never thinks of doing anything for the
sinners around him, who are certainly on the road to hell. He shows that his mind is absorbed in
himself, and that his main purpose is not to see how much good he can do.
19. These people would
rather receive good than do good.
Such people do not have
the spirit of the gospel. They have
never entered into the spirit of Jesus Christ, when He said, “It is more
blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts
20:35) Those people, who are motivated
by true love to God and their neighbors, enjoy everything they do to benefit
others far more than those who receive good from Him do. They love unselfishly, and it satisfies them
to show kindness because their heart is set on it, and when they can do it, a
holy joy flows over their mind, and they enjoy it exquisitely.
The other group is more
eager to receive than to give. They
want to receive instruction more than to impart it. They want to receive comfort, but are never ready to deny
themselves to give the comforts of the gospel to others. It is easy to see how this is contrary to
the diffusive spirit of the gospel. The
Spirit of the gospel finds its supreme happiness in communicating happiness to
others. But these people want everyone
to contribute happiness to them, instead of pouring themselves out to bless
others.
Who does not know these
two types of professing Christians? One
is always seeking out people to do good to, the other is always trying to gain
good for themselves. One is anxious to
communicate, the other is anxious to receive.
One wants to do good, the other wants to receive good. These two groups of professing Christians
are just as opposite as light and darkness.
20. If these people are
led to pray for the conversion and salvation of others, you will observe that they
are motivated by the same kind of considerations as they are when they pray for
themselves.
They are seriously afraid
of hell, and when they are strongly convicted, they are afraid others will go
there too. They are seeking happiness
for themselves, and when self is not in the way, they seek happiness for
others. They pray for sinners, not
because they have a strong sense of the evil of the sin that sinners are
committing, but because they have a sense of the terrors of hell to which
sinners are going. It is not because
sinners dishonor God that they want them converted, but because they are in
danger of going to hell. Their great
goal in praying is to secure the safety of those they pray for, because it is
their great goal in religion to secure their own safety. Because they pity themselves, they pity
others. If there were no danger of
hell, they would have no motive to pray either for themselves or others.
The true friends of God
and man feel compassion for sinners too, but they feel much more for the honor
of God. They are more distressed to see
God abused and dishonored than to see sinners go to hell. And if God must be forever dishonored or men
go to hell, just as certainly as they love God supremely, they will decide that
sinners should sink to endless torments rather than God never receiving His due
honor. And these friends of God
demonstrate their true feelings in their prayers. You hear them praying for sinners as rebels against God, as
guilty criminals deserving eternal wrath, as the enemies of God and the
universe. While they are full of
compassion for sinners, they also feel the heat of holy indignation against
those sinners for their conduct towards the blessed God.
21. These professing
Christians tend to be distressed with doubts.
They tend to talk a great
deal about their doubts. Discussing
their doubts takes up a large portion of their lives. An important thing for them is to enjoy a comfortable hope. As soon as they begin to doubt, their hope
fades, and so they fuss a lot about their doubts, and then they are not
prepared to do anything for religion because they have these doubts. The true friends of God and man, because
they are engaged in doing good, if the devil at anytime suggests that they are
going to hell, the first answer they think of is, “What if I should? Only let me pull sinners out of the fire
while I can.” True Christians may have
doubts. But they are less likely to
have them, by how much more they are fully bent on saving sinners. It would be very hard for Satan to gain
control of a church that is too engaged in the work to be troubled with
doubts. Their attention is not on
doubts, but on doing good and, because of this, Satan cannot get the advantage
over them.
22. These people become
very uneasy at increasing calls for self-denial to do good.
Said an individual, “What
will this Temperance Reformation come to?
At first, they only went against hard liquor, and I gave that up, and I
did very well without it. Then they
called on us to give up wine, and now, they want us to give up our tea, coffee,
and tobacco. Where will it end?” These people are in constant distress at
being called on to give up so much. The
good that results from this self-sacrifice does not enter into their thoughts,
because they spend their time dwelling on what they have to give up.
You can easily see why
these aggressive movements on the kingdom of darkness distress those
people. Their goal was never to search
out and banish from this world everything that is dishonorable to God or
harmful to the human race. They never
became religious with the idea that they should help wipe out every harmful
thing from the face of the earth, as far as they had the power, and as fast as
they were convinced that it was harmful to their souls or bodies, or the souls
or bodies of others. Therefore, the
movements of those who are truly engaged to search out and clear away every
evil distresses them.
These people are annoyed
by the constant pleas to give to missions, to help buy Bibles, tracts, and things
like that. The time was, when if a rich
man gave a week’s wages a year to such things, he was thought to be doing
pretty well. (Note: written in 1836) Now, there are so many calls for
subscriptions and contributions that they are in torment all the time. “I don't like these contributions, I am
opposed to having contributions taken up in the congregation. I think they hurt.” They are especially angry with those agents
who take up those collections. “I don't
know about these beggars that are going about asking for money.” These “so-called” Christians feel like they
must give all the time in order to maintain their character, or to have any
hope, but they are highly distressed about it, and don't know what the world is
coming to, everything is in such a mess.
As you raise the general
standard of living in the church, these people have to raise their standards or
else their hopes will be shaken. And
the common standard of professing Christians has already been raised so much;
that I have no doubt it now costs these professing Christians four times as
much of what they call religion, to keep up a hope, as it did twenty years
ago. And what will become of them, if
there are even more new movements and measures, and so much that needs to be
done to save the world? Lord help them,
for they are in great distress!
23. When they are called
on to exercise self-denial for the sake of doing good, instead of being a
pleasant thing, it gives them unmingled pain.
These people, who claim
they are Christians, don’t know anything about enjoying self-denial. They cannot understand how self-denial is
pleasant, or how anybody can enjoy it, or how anyone can have joyful heart
while denying himself for the sake of doing good to others. He sees it as a
religious height that he has never reached.
Yet the true friend of God and man, whose heart is fully determined to
do good, never enjoys any money he spends as much as the money that he gives to
promote Christ's kingdom. If he is
truly pious, he knows that is the best way he can spend his money. In fact, he is sad when he has to use his
money for something else, when there are so many opportunities to do good with
it.
I want you who are here
today to look at this. It is easy to
see that if an individual has his heart really set on something, every penny he
can save for that object makes him happy.
The more he can save for promoting his hearts desire by reducing his
spending on other objects, the happier he becomes. If an individual finds it hard for him to give money for
religious objects, it is easy to see that his heart is not in it. If it were, he would give his money with
joy. What would you think of a man who
should oppose giving money to advance Christianity, and oppose all the
excitement over the Church’s missionary cause, and oppose so many collections
taken up for missionaries, when he had never even given five dollars? It would prove that his heart was not truly
set on the cause of Christ. If it were,
he would give money for it, as free as water.
And the more he could spare for it, the happier he would be.
24. These people are not
forward in promoting revivals.
This is not their great
goal. They always have to be dragged
into the work. When a revival has
begun, and goes on, and the excitement is great, then they come in and appear
to be engaged in it. But you never see
them taking the lead, or striking out ahead of the rest, and saying to the rest
of the brethren, “Come on, let us do something for the Lord”.
25. As a matter of fact,
they do not convert sinners to God.
They may be instrumental
in doing good in many ways. Satan can
be an instrument of good. But,
generally, they do not pull sinners out of the fire. And the reason is, that this is not their hearts desire. How is it with you? Are you successful in converting
sinners? Is there any one who will look
to you as the instrument of his conversion?
If you were truly desire the salvation of sinners, you could not rest
satisfied without doing it. You would
go about it earnestly, and with agonizing prayer.
26. These people aren’t
even distressed when they see sin.
They do not rebuke
it. They love to mingle in places where
sin is committed. They love to be where
they can hear vain conversations, and even join in on them. They love worldly company and worldly
books. Their spirit is worldly. Instead of hating even the garment spotted with
the flesh, they love to hang around the confines of sin, as if they had
satisfaction in it.
27. They take very little
interest in published accounts of things like revivals and missions.
If any of the missions are suffering, they don’t know or care about it. If missions prosper, they never know
it. They take no interest in it. Very likely, they do not receive or buy any
religious paper whatever. Or if they
do, when they sit down to read it, if they come to an article about a revival,
they pass it over to read the secular news, or something controversial, or
something else. The true friends of God
and man, however, love to learn about the progress of revivals. They love to read a religious paper, and
when they take it up, the first thing they do is to run their eye over it to
find where there are revivals, and there they feast their souls and give glory
to God. The same is true with
missions. Their heart goes forth with
the missionaries, and when they hear that the Lord has poured forth His Spirit
on the mission field, they feel the thrill of holy joy flow through them.
28. These professing
Christians do not aim at anything higher than a legal, painful, negative
religion.
The love of Christ does
not constrain them to a constant warfare against sin, and a constant watch to
do all the good that is in their power.
But what they do is done only because they think they have to do
it. And they maintain a kind of piety
that is formal, heartless, and worthless.
29. They come reluctantly
into all the special movements that the church sponsors to do good.
If an extended meeting is
proposed, you will generally find these people holding back, raising
objections, and making things difficult as long as they can. If any other special effort is proposed,
they come reluctantly. They prefer the
good old way. They feel sore at being
obliged to add so much every year to their religion in order to maintain their
hope.
30. These professing
Christians do not enjoy secret prayer.
They do not pray in their
closets because they love to pray, but because they think it is their duty and
they are afraid to neglect it.
31. They do not enjoy the
Bible
They do not read the
Bible because it is sweet to their souls, sweeter than honey or the
honeycomb. They do not enjoy reading
the Bible as a person enjoys the most exquisite delights. They read it because it is their duty to read
it, and it would not do to claim to be a Christian and not read the Bible, but
in fact they find it dry and boring.
32. They do not enjoy
prayer meetings.
The slightest excuses
keep them away. They never go unless
they find it necessary to keep up their appearance, or to maintain their
hope. And when they do go, instead of
having their souls melted and fired with love, they are cold, listless, dull,
and glad when it is over.
33. They do not
understand what it means to serve God because they love Him, and not for the
sake of some reward.
34. Their thoughts are
not anxiously fixed on the question, “When shall the world be converted to
God?”
Their hearts are not
agonized with such thoughts as this, “Oh, how long shall wickedness
prevail? Oh, when shall this wretched
world be rid of sin and death? Oh, when
shall men cease to sin against God?”
They are more interested in the question, “When shall I die and go to
heaven, and get rid of all my trials and cares?”
Well, I must wait until
next Friday evening when, Lord willing, I will examine the third group of
Professing Christians.
REMARKS.
1. I believe you will not
think that I am out of line when I say that the religion I have described
appears to be the religion of a great many people in the church.
To say the least, I am
afraid that the majority of professing Christians fit this description. To say this is neither uncharitable nor
censorious.
2. This religion is
radically defective.
There is nothing of true
Christianity in it. It differs as much
from Christianity as the Pharisees differed from Christ, and as much as legal
religion differs from gospel religion.
Now, let me ask you, to
which of these groups of professing Christians do you belong? Or are you in neither? It may be that because you are aware you
don’t belong to the second group, you may think you belong to the first, when
in fact you will find, when I come to describe the third group of professing
Christians, that the third group describes your true character.
It is very important that
you know what your true character is really like. Whether you are motivated in religion by true love for God and
man, or whether you are religious only out of a regard for yourself. Oh, what a solemn thought, if this church,
of which I have been the pastor, has never come to an intelligent decision on
this question, whether they are the true friends of God and man or not. Do settle this question, beloved. Now is the time. Settle this question right now, and then go to work for God.