What is True Conversion?

Posted on June 15, 2018 by The Editor

Acts 3:19

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): What is conversion? True and saving conversion, we mean.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): True conversion is emphatically called, “coming to the knowledge of the truth,” 1 Timothy 2:4.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Now the Bible uses that word know to express two different things; one which we call mere intellectual perception; or to put it into plainer words, mere head knowledge such as a man may have about any subject of study; and the other, a deep and living experience.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): There is a more effective, experimental knowledge.

A. W. PINK: It is far, far more than a believing that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, and that He made an atonement for our sins. Thousands ‘believe’ that who are yet dead in trespasses and sins!

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Alas! how many are there in the present hour, that possess an head knowledge of the glorious truths of the gospel, but who remain forever strangers to the heartfelt influence of them. Simon the Sorcerer is said to have believed, that is, in head knowledge, and no further―he was convinced of the truth as it is in Jesus, Acts 8:13.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: Simon’s belief was purely an affair of the understanding―there was in it no penitence, no self-abandonment, no fruit in holy desires; or in other words, there was no heart. It was credence, but not trust.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Knowledge, my friends, is indispensable. True religion is repentance towards God; but can you repent if you do not know the character of the God whom you have offended, the law you have broken, and the sin you have committed? True religion is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; but can you really believe, if you do not know whom and what you are to believe? True religion is the love of God; but can you love a being whom you do not know?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): That is quite true. You are to have a creed and I urge you to take heed to what you believe. Go to the Law and to the Testimony and believe nothing but what is in the Word of God. But I pray you to also remember that a man may receive the most sound creed in Christendom—and yet be damned! He may believe, as a matter of head knowledge, all that should be believed. And yet, for all that, he may not believe anything with his heart, and so may perish. I believe that the devil is orthodox―he knows what the Truth is, yet, though in that sense he “believes,” and even goes as far as trembling (James 2:19), the devil is not changed in heart, nor will he be saved by what he believes! It is not receiving a creed which saves you—it is receiving a Person into your heart’s love.

JOSEPH ALLEINE (1634-1668): Conversion turns the bent of the affections.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Heart knowledge―a knowledge of God, joined with love and affection to Him―high esteem, and approbation of Him; and including communion with Him, and an open profession and acknowledgment of Him: and it is an appropriating knowledge also; a knowing Him for themselves, and as their own; and such a knowledge, or heart to know the Lord, is a pure gift of His, and without which none can have it.

A. W. PINK: Conversion consists not in believing certain facts or truths made known in Holy Writ, but lies in the complete surrender of the heart and life to a divine Person. It consists in a throwing down of the weapons of our rebellion against Him. It is the total disowning of allegiance to the old master—Satan, sin, self, and a declaring “we will have this Man to reign over us.” It is owning the claims of Christ and bowing to His rights of absolute dominion over us. It is taking His yoke upon us, submitting unto His scepter, yielding to His blessed will. In a word, it is “receiving Christ Jesus, the Lord,” Colossians 2:6; giving Him the throne of our hearts, turning over to Him the control and regulation of our lives.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: The very substance of true conversion is a change from supreme selfishness―to this Divine affection. Every unconverted sinner is supremely selfish; that is, he loves himself, and all that pertains to himself, instead of God.

C. H. SPURGEON: The child of God, acknowledges God, submits to His authority and gives Him the throne of his heart. He does not give the Lord a secondary place and permit self to be first, for that would be to deify self and insult the Lord! He makes God to be God, that is first and sole in authority and power! This is a sure index of true conversion—when God is God in your soul—then is the soul converted, indeed!

JOSEPH ALLEINE: Conversion turns the bias of the will―The intentions of the will are altered. Now the man has new ends and designs. He now intends God above all, and desires and designs nothing in all the world, so much that Christ may be magnified in him.  He counts himself more happy in this than in all that the earth could yield, that he may be serviceable to Christ―this is the mark he aims at, that the name of Jesus may be great in the world.

A. W. PINK: The desire and determination of those truly converted is that they “should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again,” 2 Corinthians 5:15…That which distinguishes Christians from non-Christians is their surrender to the authority of Christ. He is their Lord by voluntary submission. True conversion is the heart turning from Satan’s control to God’s control; from sin to holiness; from the world to Christ―this is what true conversion is; it is a tearing down of every idol, a renouncing of the empty vanities of a cheating world, and taking God for our portion, our ruler, our all in all.

C. H. SPURGEON: Obedience is the test of discipleship. Mere head knowledge is all in vain, and all in vain our fears, unless we render a practical obedience to the commandments of Christ. We shall not only savingly know Him, but we shall “ know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments,” 1 John 2:3.

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): Faith is the mother of obedience. Obedience is counterfeit when it is not uniform―partial obedience is an argument of insincerity.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Love is the root, obedience is the fruit.

A. W. PINK: There is no such thing as a saving faith in Christ where there is no real love for Him, and by “real love” we mean a love which is evidenced by obedience. Christ acknowledges none to be His friends save those who do whatsoever He commands them, John 15:14. As unbelief is a species of rebellion, so saving faith is a complete subjection to God: hence we read of “the obedience of faith,” Romans 16:26.―And, dear reader, nothing short of this is a Scriptural conversion: anything else is make-believe; a lying substitute, and a fatal deception.

 

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Self-Deception & Counterfeit Conversions

Posted on June 8, 2018 by The Editor

Deuteronomy 11:16

Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We must remember that there is such a thing as self-deception in the world.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): God has warned us plainly in His Word that, “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness,” Proverbs 20:12. He has set before us those who say “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” and who know not that they are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” Revelation 3:17; and let it be duly noted that those were in church association.

JOSEPH ALLEINE (1634-1668): Conversion is not the taking upon us the profession of Christianity. Conversion is not putting on the badge of Christ in baptism.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES (1785-1869): Profession is very common—and so is self-delusion. Perhaps as many are lost by self-deception, as by any other means. It is one of the cunning artifices, the deep devices, the artful machinations of Satan—to lead men into self-deception, when he can no longer hold them in careless indifference; to ruin their souls in the church, when he cannot effect it in the world; to lull them asleep by the privileges of church fellowship, when he cannot continue their slumber amidst the pleasures of sin.

A. W. PINK: If my sins have not been pardoned, then the more firmly convinced I am that they have been, the worse for me; and very ready is Satan to second me in my self-deception!

JOSEPH ALLEINE: The devil has made many counterfeits of conversion, and cheats one with this, and another with that. Conversion is not the mere chaining up of corruption by education, human laws or the force of affliction. It is too common to mistake education for grace. Conversion does not lie in moral righteousness.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): There are many things which may hide our condition from us. We may easily mistake our gifts for graces; and may ascribe to the special operation of the Spirit of God what is the result only of natural principles.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Feelings are supposed to be ‘faith.’ Convictions are supposed to be ‘grace.’

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: It may be worth while to set before you how far people may go, and not be really converted. They may have many and deep religious impressions, many and strong convictions; they may have much knowledge of their sinful state, and a heavy and burdensome sense of their guilt; they may look back upon their past lives and conduct with much remorse; they may be sorry for their sins; and may desire to be saved from the consequences of them, being much alarmed at the prospect of the torments of hell.

JOSEPH ALLEINE: Many, because they are troubled in conscience for their sins, think well of their case, miserably mistaking conviction for conversion.

MATTHEW MEAD (1629-1699): This is that wherein most men miscarry: they rest in their convictions, and take them for conversion, as if sin seen were therefore forgiven, as if a sight of the want of grace were the truth of a work of grace.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Nor is a detestation of sin always a true sign of conversion. Hazael, before he was king of Syria, detested the crimes which he afterwards perpetrated in the fullness of his pride and power, 2 Kings 8:12,13.

JOSEPH ALLEINE: Conversion does not consist in illumination, or conviction, or in a superficial change or partial reformation. An apostate may be an enlightened man, Hebrews 4:4; and a Felix trembled under conviction, Acts 24:25; and a Herod do many things, Mark 4:20.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: And as conviction of sin may exist without conversion, so may religious joy. The stony ground hearers “heard the word, and with joy received it,” and yet they had “no root in themselves, and endured only for a while.” Mark 4:16,17. The Galatians had great blessedness at one time, which the apostle was afraid had come to nothing. Multitudes rejoiced in Christ when He made His entrance into Jerusalem, who afterwards became His enemies. A person may admire the people of God, and covet to be of their number, as Balaam did, and yet not really belong to them…There may be considerable zeal for the outward concerns of religion, as we see in Jehu, without any right state of mind towards God.

J. C. RYLE: Often—far too often—people are built up in self-deception, and encouraged to think they are converted when in reality they are not converted at all.

CHARLES SIMEON: The man who has felt some conviction of sin, and some hope in Christ, and has been hailed by others as a sound convert to the Christian faith, is ready to conclude that all is well: his successive emotions of hope and fear, of joy and sorrow, are to him a sufficient evidence, that his conversion is unquestionable. If he have some ability to talk about the Gospel, and some gift in prayer, he is still further confirmed in his persuasion, that there exists in him no ground for doubt or fear. More especially, if he have views of the Covenant of grace, as “ordered in all things and sure,” and have adopted a crude system of religion that favours a blind confidence, he concludes at once that he is, and must be, a child of God. But who more open to self-deception?

JOHN ANGELL JAMES: Many have had great confidence of the reality of their conversion; they have had dreams, impressions, and an inward witness, as they suppose―and yet too plainly proved, by their after-conduct, that they were under an awful delusion. It would be almost endless to point out the various ways in which men deceive themselves, as to their state.

SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (1600-1661):  Remember, many go far on, and reform many things, and can find tears, as Esau did; and suffer hunger for the truth, as Judas did; and wish and desire the end of the righteous, as Balaam did; and profess fair, and fight for the Lord, as king Saul did; and desire the saints of God to pray for them, as Pharaoh and Simon Magus did; and prophesy and speak of Christ, as Caiaphas did; walk softly, and mourn for fear of judgment, as Ahab did; and put away gross sins and idolatry, as Jehu did; and hear the Word of God gladly, and reform their life in many things according to the Word, as Herod did; and say to Christ, “Master I will follow thee, whithersoever thou goest,” as the man who offered to be Christ’s servant in Matthew 8; and may taste of the virtues of the life to come, and be partakers of the wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit, and taste of the good Word of God, as the apostates who sin against the Holy Ghost, Hebrews 6: and yet all these are but like gold in clink and colour, and were really brass, and base metal.

CHARLES SIMEON: Beware of self-deception—“The heart is deceitful above all things:” and we have a subtle adversary, who will not fail to help forward the most fatal delusions.

 

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An Eminent Religious Writer: Thomas Manton (1620-1677)

Posted on June 2, 2018 by The Editor

Judges 5:14

And out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let me clear the way by considering an objection which is frequently brought against Manton. That objection is that he was “a Puritan.”

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Nothing is so obnoxious to these creatures as that which has the smell of Puritanism upon it. Every little man’s nose goes up celestially at the very sound of the word “Puritan.”

J. C. RYLE: But what of it, if he was a Puritan? It does not prove that he was not a valuable theologian, an admirable writer, and an excellent man.

C. H. SPURGEON: Manton needs no praise from us―Manton’s work is most commendable.

J. C. RYLE: What are Manton’s special merits? What claims has a man of the seventeenth century on our attention? What good thing is there about him that we should buy him and read him?

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Manton was the best collector of sense of the Puritan age.

JOHN COLLINGES (1623-1690): In all his writings one finds a quick and fertile invention, governed with a solid judgment; and the issue of both expressed in a grave and decent style. He had a heart full of love and zeal for God and His glory; and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth continually spake.

J. C. RYLE: As a writer, I consider that Manton holds a somewhat peculiar place among the Puritan divines. He has pre-eminently a style of his own, and a style very unlike that of most of his school. I will try to explain what I mean. I do not regard him as a writer of such genial imagination, and such talent for illustration and similitude, as several divines of his day. In this respect he is not to be compared with Brooks, and Watson, and Swinnock, and Adams. Talent of this sort was certainly not in Manton’s line. I do not regard him as a writer of striking power and brilliancy―he never carries you by storm, and excites enthusiasm by passages of profound thought expressed in majestic language, such as you will find frequently in Charnock. He never rouses your inmost feelings, thrills your conscience, or stirs your heart of hearts, like Baxter. Such rhetoric as this was not Manton’s gift, and the reader who expects to find it in his writings will be disappointed.

C. H. SPURGEON: Whatever he does is done in a style worthy of a chief among theologians.

J. C. RYLE: As a theologian, I regard Manton as a divine of singularly well-balanced, well-proportioned, and scriptural views. He lived in a day when vague, indistinct, and indefinite statements of doctrine were not tolerated. The Christian Church was not regarded by any school as a kind of Pantheon, in which a man might believe and teach anything, everything, or nothing, so long as he was a clever and earnest man. Such views were reserved for our modern times. In the seventeenth century they were scorned and repudiated by every Church and sect in Christendom―earnestness alone was not thought sufficient to make a creed. Did the famous Westminster Assembly want a commendatory preface written to their Confession and Catechisms of world-wide reputation? They committed the execution of it to the pen of Thomas Manton.

THOMAS JACOMB (1622-1687): Manton did not so much concern himself in what is polemical and controversial; but chose rather, in a plain way, as best suiting with sermon-work, to assert and prove the truth by scripture testimony and argument.

J. C. RYLE: As an expositor of Scripture, I regard Manton with unmingled admiration. Manton’s chief excellence as a writer, in my judgment, consists in the ease, perspicuousness, and clearness of his style. He sees his subject clearly, expresses himself clearly, and seldom fails in making you see clearly what he means. He has a happy faculty of simplifying the point he handles. He never worries you with acres of long, ponderous, involved sentences, like Goodwin or Owen. His books, if not striking, are generally easy and pleasant reading, and destitute of anything harsh, cramped, obscure, and requiring a second glance to be understood. For my own part, I find it easier to read fifty pages of Manton’s than ten of some of his brethren’s; and after reading, I feel that I carry more away. Let no one, moreover, suppose that because Manton’s style is easy, his writings show any lack of matter and thought. Nothing of the kind. The fertility of his mind seems to have been truly astonishing. Every page in his books contains many ideas, and gives you plenty to think about. No one, perhaps, but himself could have written such an immense book as he wrote on the 119th Psalm, and yet repeated himself so little, and preserved a freshness of tone to the end.

C. H. SPURGEON: One hundred and ninety sermons on the 119th Psalm. The work is long, but that results only from the abundance of matter.

VINCENT ALSOP (1630-1703): The matter of them is spiritual, and speaks the author one intimately acquainted with the secrets of wisdom. He writes like one who knew the psalmist’s heart, and felt in his own soul the sanctifying power of what he wrote. Their design is practical, beginning with the understanding, dealing with the affections, but still driving on the design of practical holiness.

WILLIAM BATES (1625-1699): I cannot but admire the fertility and variety of his thoughts; though the same things occur in the verses of this Psalm, yet, by a judicious observing the different arguments and motives whereby the psalmist enforces the same request, or some other circumstance, every sermon contains new conceptions, and proper to the text.

J. C. RYLE: This witness is true. If Manton never soars so high as some writers, he is, at any rate, never trifling, never shallow, never wearisome, and never dull…Manton’s writings, with few exceptions, were originally published under very great disadvantages. Most of them never saw the light till after his death, and were printed without receiving the author’s last touches and corrections.

WILLIAM HARRIS (1675-1740): Whosoever shall consider the constant frequency of his preaching, and the affairs of business in which he was often engaged, will easily be able to make a judgment of his great abilities and vast application, and to make the requisite allowances for posthumous works; especially when Manton tells us that he was  “humbled with the constant burden of four times a week preaching.”

JOHN COLLINGES: So frequent, and yet so learned and solid preaching by the same person was little less than miraculous.

J. C. RYLE: I am sure that Manton was one of the best authors of his day―one who was eminently a “good man and full of the Holy Ghost.”

 

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God’s Experiential Sympathy School

Posted on May 25, 2018 by The Editor

Hebrews 2:18

In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.

THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): Afflictions ripen the saints’ graces.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Affliction, doubtless, is “not joyous, but grievous.” But it qualifies us for services for which we should be otherwise unfit.

A W. PINK (1886-1952): If we have never trod the vale of sorrow and affliction we are really unable to “weep with those that weep.” There are some surgeons who would be more tender if they had suffered from broken bones themselves. If we have never known much trouble, we can be but poor comforters to others. Even of our Saviour it is written, “For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.” How clearly is all this brought out in 2 Corinthians 1:4 “Who comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Christ had temptations offered to Him by the devil in his wilderness retirement, that, from an experimental knowledge, he might be able more “compassionately to succour us.”

CHARLES SIMEON: Our blessed Lord was tempted in all things like unto us, sin only excepted, on purpose that He might be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and be qualified―so to speak―“to succour them that are tempted,” and from that very consideration we are encouraged to come to Him for relief under our troubles.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The power to sympathize can only come by personal suffering.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): But these feelings would be very faint, if we did not in our experience know what sorrows and temptations mean.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): One Christian who has been tempted is worth a thousand who haven’t.

C. H. SPURGEON: There is nothing that makes a man have a big heart like a great trial. I always find that little, miserable people, whose hearts are about the size of a grain of mustard seed, never have had much to try them. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows—who never weep for the sorrows of others—very seldom have had any woes of their own. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles.

CHARLES SIMEON: The man who has no sympathy with persons under such circumstances, shows, that he knows but little either of temptations or deliverances; since these deep experiences are vouchsafed to some for the express purpose, that they may thereby be both qualified and disposed to administer to others the consolations with which they themselves “are comforted of God.”

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Those that have themselves been in distress, and have found mercy with God, should sympathize most feelingly with those that are in the like distress and be ready to show kindness to them.

C. H. SPURGEON: By experience some men have learned far more than others and hence they are useful helpers.

CHARLES SIMEON: Many are brought into deep waters, where, like David, they are apprehensive of being swallowed up, and utterly destroyed, Psalm 69:2. They “pass through fire and through water,” Isaiah 43:2; and if they were not succoured from on high by more than ordinary communications of grace, they would sink and perish. Now, these persons can enter into the feelings of others who are cast down by reason of their afflictions; and can suggest to them many suitable reflections, such as perhaps the angels suggested to our Lord, when tempted in the wilderness, Matthew 4:11, and when agonizing in the garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:43.

JEREMY BURROUGHS (1599-1647): As we read in Psalm 107, “those who go down into the sea see the wonders of the Lord,” much more do those who come into the seas of troubles and afflictions.  How do they see the wonders of the Lord?  They can tell their friends much of the wonders of the Lord towards them.

C. H. SPURGEON: He knows the water best who has waded through it. There is nothing like personal experience.

THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Knowledge learnt by experience is the most efficacious. Therefore Christ Himself, Who knew all things already, yet ‘learned,’ in the school of experience, ‘by what He suffered.’

WILLIAM BRIDGE (1600-1670): Suffering times are teaching times.

C. H. SPURGEON: Suffering enlarges the heart by creating the power to sympathize. If we pray eagerly for ourselves, we shall not long be able to forget our fellow-sufferers. None pity the poor like those who have been, or are still poor; none have such tenderness for the sick as those who have been long in ill health themselves. We ought to be grateful for occasional griefs if they preserve us from chronic hard-heartedness; for of all afflictions, an unkind heart is the worst, it is a plague to its possessor, and a torment to those around him.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Thus men become softened by their own afflictions, so that they do not despise others who are in misery; and, in this way, common sufferings generate sympathy. Wherefore it is not wonderful that God should exercise us with various sorrows; since nothing is more becoming than humanity towards our brethren, who, being weighed down with trials, lie under contempt. This humanity, however, must be learned by experience.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): There are no lessons so useful as those learned in the school of affliction.

CHARLES SIMEON: Shall we not, then, be content to learn, in the school of adversity, the lessons which He designs us to convey to others?

C. H. SPURGEON: What better wealth can a man have than to be rich in experience? Experience teaches. This is the real High School for God’s children. It is a great gift to have learned by experience how to sympathize.

 

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A Roman Catholic Doctrine of Devils

Posted on May 18, 2018 by The Editor

Psalm Genesis 2:18,22; Matthew 8:14,15; 1 Timothy 4:1-3

The LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him…And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

When Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): The popish doctrine “forbidding to marry” is by the apostle Paul determined to be a doctrine of devils.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Let us not fail to observe here, that Peter, one of our Lord’s principal apostles, had a wife. Yet he was called to be a disciple, and afterwards chosen to be an apostle. More than this, we find Paul speaking of him as a married man, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, many years after this.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Paul specifically asked, “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?” I Corinthians 9:5. That means James, Jude, and Cephas―Simon Peter―were married men.

J. C. RYLE: How this fact can be reconciled with the compulsory celibacy of the clergy, which the Church of Rome enforces and requires, it is for the friends and advocates of the Roman Catholic Church to explain. To a plain reader, it seems a plain proof that it is not wrong for ministers to be married men. And when we add to this striking fact, that Paul, when writing to Timothy, says, that “a bishop should be the husband of one wife,” 1 Timothy 3:2, it is clear that the whole Romish doctrine of clerical celibacy is utterly opposed to Holy Scripture.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The prophets do not appear to have been called to a life of celibacy. Isaiah was a married man, Isaiah 8:3, and so was Hosea, Isaiah 1:2―and that the sons of the prophets had wives, we learn from 2 Kings 4:1. And from this, as well as from the case of the apostles, we learn that the matrimonial state was never considered, either by Moses or the prophets, Christ or His apostles, as disqualifying men from officiating in the most holy offices; as we find Moses, Aaron, Isaiah, Zechariah, and Peter, all married men, and yet the most eminent of their order.

H. A. IRONSIDE: The idea that those who preach the gospel should live the celibate life was unknown in apostolic days, as already noted; that was a superstitious fiction of later years when men came to believe that the unmarried monk and the childless nun were holier than the Christian father or mother.

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): I am told that I began in the spirit under the papacy, but am ending up in the flesh because I got married. As though single life were a spiritual life, and married life a carnal life. They are silly. All the duties of a Christian husband―to love his wife, to bring up his children, to govern his family, etc.―are the very fruits of the Spirit.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Now, if any one inquire about the vows of Papists, it will be easy to show that they derive no support from the Word of God.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Not a syllable is uttered concerning celibacy or monasticism! Not a breath about vows of perpetual chastity and poverty!

JOHN CALVIN: If those things which they highly applaud and reckon to be lawful, such as the vows of monks, are unlawful and wicked, what opinion must we form of the rest?

C. H. SPURGEON: Peter had a wife, you see. Romanists say that he was the first pope, therefore the first pope had a wife; and, mark you, if other popes had had wives, there would not have been any declaration of papal infallibility, for there is no man who will believe himself to be infallible if he has someone near enough to remind him that he is not. But one evil usually goes with another.

GEORGE OFFOR (1787-1864): “Marriage is honourable in all,” Hebrews 13:4―Vows of celibacy are from beneath, from the father of lies―contrary to the order of nature, and the expressed will of God, “It is not good to be alone.”

JOHN CALVIN: They vow perpetual celibacy, as if it were indiscriminately permitted to all; but we know that the gift of continence is not an ordinary gift, and is not promised to every one, not even to those who in other respects are endued with extraordinary graces. Abraham was eminent for faith, steadfastness, meekness, and holiness―yet he did not possess this gift. Christ Himself, when the apostles loudly commended this state of celibacy, testified that it is not given to all, Matthew 9:11. Paul states the same thing, 1 Corinthians 7:7.

But what is done in the Papacy? Monks, and nuns, and priests, bind themselves to perpetual celibacy, and do not consider that continency is a special gift; and thus whilst none of them has regard to the measure of his ability, they wretchedly abandon themselves to ruin, or envelop themselves in deadly snares.

H. A. IRONSIDE: To attempt such a life is to place yourself in a position of great temptation, and therefore to do so is not only unwise, but also thoroughly opposed to the divine institution of marriage.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): The Papists, who forbid marriage to their priests under a pretence of purity and holiness, at the same time allow them to live in all manner of debauchery and uncleanness―the most shocking iniquities are committed by the members of the Church of Rome―“they please themselves in the children of strangers,” Isaiah 2:6; the priests vowing celibacy and virginity, and contenting themselves with the children of others: or they love “strange flesh,” delighting in sodomitical practices, and unnatural lusts with boys and men.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Marriage is designed as a preventive of immorality: “To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband,” 1 Corinthians 7:2.

J. C. RYLE: “Forbidding to marry” is a doctrine of Antichrist, not of Christ.

ADAM CLARKE: This is God’s judgment. Councils, and fathers, and doctors, and synods, have given a different judgment; but on such a subject they are worthy of no attention. Nunneries and monasteries have ever, from their invention, contributed more to vice than virtue; and are positively point blank against the law of God.

A. W. PINK: Any teaching that leads men and women to think of the marriage bond as the sign of bondage, and the sacrifice of all independence, to construe wifehood and motherhood as drudgery and interference with woman’s higher destiny―or to substitute anything else for marriage and home, not only invades God’s ordinance, but opens the door to nameless crimes and threatens the very foundations of society.

 

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God Uses Little Things to Accomplish Great Things

Posted on May 11, 2018 by The Editor

2 Kings 5:1-4

Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the LORD had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.

And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714):  This maid was, by birth, an Israelite, providentially carried captive into Syria, and there preferred into Naaman’s family, where she published Elisha’s fame to the honour of Israel and Israel’s God.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): A little maid who, it appears, had pious parents, who brought her up in the knowledge of the true God―“And she waited on Naaman’s wife.” Her decent orderly behavior, the consequence of her sober and pious education, entitled her to this place of distinction; in which her servitude was at least easy, and her person safe.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Was there not an overruling providence in the captivity of this Israelitish damsel? Reader! look at the subject as it really is. The Lord had a mercy in store for Naaman. He causes, therefore, this daughter of His people to be taken into captivity. She tells of Israel’s prophet, and the wonders he had wrought. And at length, for the better accomplishment of God’s purpose, she is taken into Naaman’s family.

J. R. MILLER (1840-1912): The smallest links in a chain are often quite as important as the greatest links. We are apt to overlook the minor actors in Scripture stories in our absorbed interest in the prominent ones. Yet often these lesser people are just as important in their own place, and their service is just as essential to the final success of the whole as the greater ones. The little girl in the story of Naaman the leper is scarcely seen among the splendours of the Syrian court; but without her part, we would never have had the story at all. The young lad with the basket is hardly ever thought of when we read the account of the miracle, John 6:9; but they were his loaves with which the Master fed all those hungry thousands that day on the green grass.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): God loves to do things by weak instruments, that the power may be of God and not of man.

ROBERT HAWKER: How often doth the Lord do this in spreading the savour of His grace, and making His salvation known!

ADAM CLARKE: God delights to manifest Himself in the little as well as in the great.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): The captivity of this poor Hebrew girl is a means to make Naaman, the greatest lord of Syria, a subject to God.

ROBERT HAWKER: The early knowledge this little maid had of Elisha and his miracles, may serve to give parents a profitable lesson by the way, how very speedily they ought to bring them acquainted with Jesus and His great salvation. Parents know not how soon their children may be sent out into life, or they themselves taken from them.

JOHN TRAPP: It is good to acquaint our children with the works of God, with the praises of His prophets. Little do we know how they may improve the knowledge, and whither they may carry it; perhaps the remotest nations may light their candle at their coal. Nicephorus tells of a Christian maid carried captive into Spain, that by her piety and prayers she gained many there to Christ.

MARY WINSLOW (1774-1854): How necessary it is to bring up children in the nurture and fear of the Lord!

J. W. ALEXANDER (1804-1859): No man knows what God has made him for. Some men, for all we know, may be sent into the world chiefly to form other men. The grand act of a servant of Christ, for which God has been preparing him for many years, may be to give an impulse to some other man, and this may be accomplished in a moment, and when neither of the two suspects it. No man knows when the great act of his life takes place. No man knows when he is doing the greatest good. The old monk who directed young Martin Luther, possible did nothing so important in his life. Sometimes it is a child―How do we know but the chief purpose for which God has spared our lives is, that we may form an instrument for His work in our family?

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): How much does even the religious public owe to the mothers from whom the churches have derived such able ministers. To Hannah we owe a Samuel, 1 Samuel 27,28, and to Lois and Eunice, his mother and grandmother, we owe a Timothy, 2 Timothy 1:5.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): I learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians of England.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): There may come under your training hand, my sister, a future father in Israel.

MATTHEW HENRY: Timothy from a child had known the holy Scriptures, 2 Timothy 3:15; and who should teach him but his mother and grandmother?

C. H. SPURGEON: I remember well, in my early days, seeing upon my grandmother’s mantel-shelf an apple contained in a phial. This was a great wonder to me, and I tried to investigate it. My question was, “How came the apple to get inside so small a bottle?” The apple was as big around as the phial; by what means was it placed within it? Though it was treason to touch the treasures on the mantel-piece, I took down the bottle, and convinced my youthful mind that the apple never passed through its neck; and by an attempt to unscrew the bottom, I became equally certain that the apple did not enter from below. I held to the notion that by some occult means the bottle had been made in two pieces, and afterwards united in so careful a manner that no trace of the joint remained. I was hardly satisfied with the theory―but I let the matter rest. One day, the next summer, I chanced to see upon an apple tree bough, another phial within which was growing a little apple which had been passed through the neck of the bottle while it was extremely small. This discovery of my juvenile days shall serve for an illustration at the present moment. Let us get the apples into the bottle while they are little.

J. R. MILLER: And perhaps our lowly part may some day prove to have been as essential as the great deeds which all men praise. We may at least help some others in doing the great things that they are set to do in this world.

 

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The Importance of Jesus Christ’s Ascension Into Heaven

Posted on May 4, 2018 by The Editor

John 20:17

Jesus saith unto her…I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): Why did Christ ascend?

ISAAC AMBROSE (1604-1664): The types prefigured it…The types of this were Enoch’s translation, Elijah’s ascension, Samson’s transportation of the gates of Gaza into a high mountain, and the high priest’s going into the holy of holies.  The prophets foresaw it. “I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom,” Daniel 7:13-14―He ascended that all those prophecies that were foretold of Christ might be accomplished: “Thou hast ascended on high,” Psalm 68:18) 

JOHN FLAVEL: “The scripture cannot be broken,” John 10:35. If Christ had not ascended, how had all the types and prophecies that prefigured and foretold it been fulfilled?

ISAAC AMBROSE: All these prophecies, types, and figures must needs be accomplished. Therefore, it was necessary that Christ must ascend and go into heaven.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Our Lord’s triumphant ascension secures the consummation of His whole work.

JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not ascended, how could we have been satisfied that His payment on the cross made full satisfaction to God? How is it that the Spirit convinceth the world of righteousness, John 16:8-10, but from Christ’s going to the Father and returning hither no more, which gives evidence of God’s full content and satisfaction, both with His person and work.

ISAAC AMBROSE: His ascension to heaven proclaims openly that He hath completely finished the work He had to do for us here.

C. H. SPURGEON: Because He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” John 17:4, and then ascended to the Father, I feel safe in asserting that all that was required of the Lord Christ for the overthrow of the powers of darkness is performed.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Every enemy that has ever enslaved man and kept him in bondage has been routed and defeated.

ISAAC AMBROSE: In His resurrection, He conquered; but in His ascension, He triumphed. Now it was that He led sin, death, and the devil in triumph at His chariot wheels! And this is the meaning of the psalmist and of the apostle: “When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive,” Ephesians 4:8. He vanquished and triumphed over all our enemies, He overcame the world, He bound the devil, He spoiled hell, He weakened sin, He destroyed death, and now He makes a public triumphal show of them in His own Person―as the manner of the Roman triumphs was, when the conqueror went up to the capital. It is to the same purpose that the apostle speaks elsewhere: “Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,” Colossians 2:15. It is a manifest allusion to the manner of triumphs after victories amongst the Romans.

C. H. SPURGEON: Remember that His ascent to the Father is representative.

ISAAC AMBROSE: “Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened…It is for the prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the LORD,” Ezekiel 44:2-3. As the gate of the holy of holies was shut against every man but the high priest, so was that gate of heaven shut against all, so that none could enter in by their own virtue and efficacy, but only our Prince and great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ; indeed, He hath opened it for us, and entered it in our place and stead. “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec,” Hebrews 6:42.

JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not ascended, you could not have entered heaven when you die. For He went “to prepare a place for you,” John 14:2. He was the first that entered heaven directly, and in His own name; and had He not done so, we would not have entered when we die, in His name. The Forerunner made way for all that are coming on, in their several generations, after Him. Nor could your bodies have ascended after their resurrection but in the virtue of Christ’s ascension. For He ascended, as was said before, in the capacity of our head and representative, to His Father and our Father.

C. H. SPURGEON: Where He is, His people must be. We are in the highest glory in Jesus as our representative; and by faith, we are raised up together and made to sit together in the heavenlies, even in Him.

ISAAC AMBROSE: He is taken up into glory that He may act gloriously the second part of our righteousness; I mean that He might apply it and send down His Spirit.

JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not gone away, the Comforter had not come, John 16:7. He begins where Christ had finished. For He takes of His and shows it to us, John 16:14. And therefore, it is said, “The Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified,” John 7:39. He was then given as a sanctifying spirit, but not given in that measure, as afterwards He was, to furnish and qualify men with gifts for service. And indeed, by Christ’s ascension, both sanctifying and ministering gifts were shed forth more commonly and more abundantly.

ISAAC AMBROSE: The ascension of Christ contains in it a great part of the salvation of our souls.

JOHN FLAVEL: If Christ had not ascended, He could not have interceded, as now He does in heaven for us. Take away Christ’s intercession, and you starve the hope of the saints. For what have we to succour ourselves when under the daily surprises of sin, but this: “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,” 1 John 2:1.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): The ascended Christ is not wrapped up in His own enthronement but is still occupied with the wellbeing of His people, maintaining their interests, seeking their good. If left entirely to themselves believers would perish. Temptations and tribulations from without and corruptions from within would prove too strong for them, and therefore does Christ make intercession on their behalf, that God would grant them such supplies of grace and pardoning mercy that they will be preserved from total apostasy.

JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life, ” Romans 5:10. “Wherefore,” as it saith, “we shall be saved,” respecting saving in the second sense, or the utmost completing of salvation―“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them,” Hebrews 7:25. Now the saving intended in the text is saving in this second sense―that is, a saving of us by preserving us, by delivering of us from all those hazards that we run between our justification and our glorification. Yea, such a saving of us, as we that are justified need to bring us into glory.

 

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The Gardening Work of Old Age: Cultivating Grace

Posted on April 27, 2018 by The Editor

Psalm 92:13-15

Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; to shew that the LORD is upright.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Those who are full of years should be full of grace and goodness, the inner man renewing more and more as the outer decays.

RICHARD STEELE (1629-1692): The first grace most proper for old age is knowledge. They have, or might have, a great measure of all kinds of knowledge―there is no truth, duty, case, sin, or temptation, but they have either heard, or read something concerning it―but there is a nobler object of their knowledge, which is God Himself, His Word and His Ways: herein the aged person hath been versed for a long time.

WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Experience is very different from theory; and when we are taught of God, we have other views of those very things of which we have read and heard before.

RICHARD STEELE: And therefore older people must be supposed to have a more clear and distinct knowledge in all these things, than younger people. Young people think that they know much, but old people cannot but sigh and smile at their ignorance. They find that the more knowledge they have, the more ignorance they discover in themselves.

JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): An humble frame of mind is the strength and ornament of every other grace, and the proper soil wherein they grow.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Oh, how little we know when we know most―the man who knows everything is the man who knows nothing. The man who cannot learn any more is the man who has never learned anything aright. The best instructed of our elder brethren are those who most earnestly cry, “What I know not, teach me,” and “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law,” Psalm 119:18―The oldest saint still goes to school to the Lord Jesus.

RICHARD STEELE: The second grace most proper for old age is faith, whereby the soul doth embrace Jesus Christ as Mediator, and also rely upon the promises of God for all good things needful. Now, although this grace be needful for every Christian, insomuch as he is said “to live by faith,” yet it is, or should be, the particular jewel of old age―they themselves have been in outward straits and dangers, and then wonderfully preserved and provided for, and doth not this strengthen their faith?

JOHN FLAVEL (1630-1691): There is as much difference betwixt believing before, and after experience, as there is betwixt swimming with bladders, and our first venture into the deep waters without them.

RICHARD STEELE: In the case of spiritual wants and troubles, when their Spirit is overwhelmed, old men can say with Asaph, Psalm 77:5, “I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times,” and so prop up their Spirits in their greatest dejections. If you that are old want faith, it is an arrant shame for you. For you have been so often told and assured of the veracity, the power, and the goodness of God; and then you have so often seen these properties of His exemplified in so many wonders of providence done in your remembrance, that ye yourselves must be the greatest wonder, if you do not believe and trust Him.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Truly this is the property of faith, to take encouragement for the future from the experience of past favour.

RICHARD STEELE: The third grace most proper for old age is wisdom―the crown of youth is their strength, but the glory of old age is their wisdom. “And wisdom is better than strength,” Ecclesiastes 9:16―and this is the crown of old age: every aged person is, or should be truly wise; “multitude of years should teach wisdom,” Job 32:7.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Those old men who have not gotten wisdom by long experience are not worthy of their years―What more ridiculous than a child of fourscore or a hundred years old?  An ‘A-B-C’ old man is a shameful sight.

RICHARD STEELE: Certainly an ignorant old person is the shame of Christianity, yea, of humanity itself.

C. H. SPURGEON: As men grow in years, they ought to think more deeply, to understand more clearly, and to speak with greater confidence.

RICHARD STEELE: The fourth grace that old age doth, or should excel in, is patience; which is a quiet and cheerful undergoing whatever difficulties, or troubles, are incident to us in this world―herein old age doth, or should excel. They have met with many troubles in their pilgrimage; and the scripture tells us that “tribulation worketh patience,” Romans 5:3…Time and trials have taught the old man to digest hard words, and hard things―David could better bear Shimei’s curse when he was grown into years, than Nabal’s uncharitableness when he was younger: then, it was nothing but kill and slay at least every male in Nabal’s house; but afterwards, “so let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David,” 2 Samuel 16:10…Such is the effect of years and experience by the blessing of God. And you that are in years must be inexcusable, if you be defective in this grace, because you have been for a long time scholars under a patient Master, who hath left us an example, that we “should follow His steps; who when He was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, He threatened not,” 1 Peter 2:21, 23―that patience which is directed by the example of Christ, and strengthened by the grace and Spirit of Christ, keepeth the soul from secret repining, or open murmuring.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Often there is more grumbling and complaining among the aged pilgrims than the younger ones.

RICHARD STEELE: No, they should be patterns of patience to others.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “The beauty of old men is the gray head,” Proverbs 20:29―an index of wisdom and prudence.

RICHARD STEELE: The fifth excellency that doth, or should adorn old age, is steadfastness…In respect of God and the things of religion, a person in years is, or should be, like a rock―unmoveable, and not like the ship that is tossed to and fro. The sixth grace wherein old age doth, or should excel is temperance and sobriety. That’s the injunction of the Apostle, Titus 2:2, “that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate.” By this temperance, I understand that fruit of the Spirit which bridleth our inordinate affections in all outward mercies; or more strictly, which observes a right mean in desiring, and using the pleasures of the senses.

JOHN TRAPP: Gray hairs should be a strong argument to move men to live blamelessly, because old age “is a crown of glory, when found in the way of righteousness,” Proverbs 16:31―of Abraham, it is reported that he went to his grave in a good old age, or, as the Hebrew hath it, with “a good gray head.” Pluck out the gray hairs of virtue, and the gray head cannot shine with any great glory.

RICHARD STEELE: The seventh grace proper for old age is charity, or love―that grace which disposeth the heart to think the best, the tongue to speak the best, and the whole man to promote the welfare of others―they are ready to esteem every one better than themselves; and so they are far from that uncharitable censoriousness, which tears mens’ names in pieces. This was the eminent grace of the evangelist John in his old age, for he lived longer than any of the apostles; and his swan-like song still was love, as is evident in all his epistles.

 

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Lesson 5 from the Life of Lot: The Danger of Zoar

Posted on April 20, 2018 by The Editor

Genesis 19:23

The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Lot, when commanded to retake himself to the mountain, chose rather to dwell in Zoar.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Lot seems to be a type of that class of Christians who aim to make the best of both worlds, who are really occupied more with the things of earth than the things of heaven.

H. C. ANSTEY (1843-1922): Neutrality is the Zoar, the little city, to which many a righteous Lot has fled for refuge. It is not Sodom, it is far removed from that wicked city, but it is not the “mountain,” God’s place of safety. It is a place reached without much difficulty, for it is in the plain, and no toilsome mountain ascent lies before those who would reach it. It is a principle getting widely spread in our day, which unmasked speaks but plainly when it says, “Let us make the best of both worlds.”

THOMAS MANTON (1620-1677): It is a hard matter to enjoy the world without being entangled with the cares and pleasures of it.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): This is the peculiar danger of Christian people―Indeed, this is perhaps the most urgent word that is needed by Christian people at this very moment.  The world is so subtle, worldliness is such a pervasive thing, that we are all guilty of it, and often without realizing it.

A. W. PINK: “Worldly” is a term that means very different things in the minds and mouths of different people. Some Christians complain that their minds are “worldly” when they simply mean that, for the time being their thoughts are entirely occupied with temporal matters. We do not propose to enter into a close defining of the term, but would point out that the performing of those duties which God has assigned us in the world, or the availing ourselves of its conveniences, or even enjoying the comforts which it provides, are certainly not “worldly” in any evil sense. That which is injurious to the spiritual life is, time wasted in worldly pleasures, the heart absorbed in worldly pursuits, the mind oppressed by worldly cares.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Worldliness is all-pervasive, and is not confined to certain things. No, worldliness is an attitude towards life. It is a general outlook.

A. W. PINK: It is the love of the world and its things which is forbidden, and very close watch needs to be kept on the heart, otherwise it will glide insensibly into this snare.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Worldly things are a great snare to the heart.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Man can possess things, but when he is possessed by the things, then that is sheer slavery. When a man’s heart is taken up with these things, then that is utterly debasing…It’s a lust, of course, and nothing but a lust, and once you get involved with this, you’ll never be satisfied. That is the meaning of lust, it’s an inordinate affection. An affection is all right, but once it becomes inordinate, it’s all wrong. A desire is alright, but a lust is terrible; it means that you are governed and controlled by it, and you’ll never have enough.

THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): All the danger is when the world gets into the heart. The water is useful for the sailing of the ship; all the danger is when the water gets into the ship; so the fear is when the world gets into the heart.

A. W. PINK: The case of Lot supplies a most solemn warning against this evil.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): What did Lot gain in the way of happiness and contentment? What a commentary is Lot’s history upon that brief but comprehensive admonition, “love not the world, neither the things that are in the world,” 1 John 2:15.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The whole world is preaching materialism. The modern world is full of this―high society, and low society, are living in Sodom and Gomorrah today, the life of the cities of the plain―materialism―Lot chose it, you see, thinking he was clever, leaving his uncle Abraham to have the mountaintops for his sheep; the life of the cities, society, civilization! God said what He thought about it, and He carried out what He said…Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth. Don’t live for that! Don’t set your heart on things like that!

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699):  A man may be very mortified and yet be very subject to dote upon the world.

A. W. PINK: One form of worldliness which has spoiled the life and testimony of many a Christian is politics. We will not now discuss the question whether or not the saint ought to take any interest in politics, but simply point out what should be evident to all with spiritual discernment, namely, that to take an eager and deep concern in politics must remove the edge from any spiritual appetite. Clearly, politics are concerned only with the affairs of this world, and therefore to become deeply absorbed in them and have the heart engaged in the pursuit thereof, will inevitably turn attention away from eternal things. Any worldly matter, no matter how lawful in itself, which engages our attention inordinately, becomes a snare and saps our spiritual vitality.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Now that doesn’t say that we shouldn’t have politics, you’ve got to govern your country. But oh, that we had politics which was concerned about truth, and about principles, about morality and living, and not merely pandering to the lusts and desires of men and women.

J. C. PHILPOT (1802-1869): Separation from the world is the grand distinguishing mark of vital godliness.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: You don’t get it by being a hermit on top of a mountain, or by living on a lonely island all on your own.

J. C. PHILPOT: There may indeed be separation of body where there is no separation of heart. But what I mean is, separation of heart, separation of principle, separation of affection, separation of spirit.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): To be divided from the world—its possessions, its maxims, its motives—is the mark of a disciple of Christ.

JOHN OWEN (1616-1683): This is difficult unto our nature, because of its weakness. It is apt to say, “Let me be spared in this or that thing”—to make an intercession for a Zoar. “What shall become of me when all is lost and gone? What shall I do for rest, for ease, for liberty, for society, yea for food and raiment?”

C. H. MACKINTOSH: This world’s Sodoms and its Zoars are all alike. There is no security, no peace, no rest, no solid satisfaction for the heart therein. The judgment of God hangs over the whole scene; and He only holds back the sword, in long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

A. W. PINK: Lot is a concrete warning, a danger signal, for all Christians who feel a tendency to be carried away by the things of the world.

 

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A Question of Individual Conscience: War & Military Service

Posted on April 13, 2018 by The Editor

Matthew 26:51,52

And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): By these words, Christ confirms the precept of the Law, which forbids private individuals to use the sword―But here a question arises. Is it never lawful to use violence in repelling unjust violence?

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): There are those who say that fighting is always wrong―the “taking of life,” they say, is “always wrong.” They therefore argue that no state should ever go to war, that war is always wrong, for every state, and every country.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Long have I held that war is an enormous crime. Long have I regarded all battles as but murder on a large scale…The question of the rightness of war is a moot point even among moral men. Among those who read their Bibles, the allowance of defensive war may, perhaps, still be a question.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): “I say unto you, that ye resist not evil,” Matthew 5:39. How do such words agree with going to war? Our Lord Jesus Christ has left us an example that we should follow His steps. Can we trace His footsteps into a field of battle? We are called to walk even as He walked. Is it walking like Him to go to war?

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): I have always deprecated war as one of the greatest calamities, but it does not follow from hence that it is in all cases unlawful.

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL  (1635-1711): A war is lawful when enemies conspire to attack a nation that has not offended them, but which dwells quietly and peacefully—If the government of such a country then arms itself against such enemies, resists violence with violence, punishes them, and renders them incapable of returning violence, this is a righteous undertaking.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): As the sword must never be taken in hand without cause, so not without cause shown―the merits of the cause must be set forth. Even to the proclamation of war must be subjoined a tender of peace, if they would accept it upon reasonable terms.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: The saints, of course, throughout the centuries, have always acted on this principle. You have had some very saintly men in the armies and navies of some countries, outstanding Christians, some of them. And you’ve had outstanding Christians, such as Oliver Cromwell and others who clearly give an answer to that statement that ‘killing is always wrong.’―The typical pacifist, of course, would say that, as it is wrong for the state to ever go to war, it is clearly equally wrong, if not more so, that any individual should ever partake in it.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: No doubt, there are many of the Lord’s beloved people in the army, but the question is not, “Can I be saved and be in the army?” Thousands have gone to heaven who have lived and died in that profession. But the real question for every loyal heart is―“Is it abiding with God or walking in the footsteps of Christ to go to war?” If it be, let Christians do so; if not, what then? You have only one question to ask yourself, namely, “Is the profession of arms one which a disciple of Christ can properly follow?”

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: There is no word from Him in any way that prohibits a man that becomes a Christian from being a soldier. But then someone says, “Haven’t we got certain specific statements by the Lord which really make this question of fighting and of killing quite impossible?” And the one, of course, that they immediately produce is from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel about “turning the other cheek,” and about not only loving your neighbour, but about loving your enemies…It always seems to be assumed that if a man is fighting in the army of the state to which he belongs against the army of an opposing state that he of necessity is hating his enemy. But surely that is a very false assumption. It is wrong to assume that every man who fought in the Second World War hated every individual German in the German army―it’s just not true. There is a difference between hating what your enemy at the moment stands for, and hating the man himself. It is possible for a man fighting for a principle, even to be sorry for the people against whom he is fighting, for their blindness, or for their ignorance, or for their sinfulness.

WILHELMUS à BRAKEL: John the Baptist baptized soldiers, and rather than commanding them to forsake warfare, he exhorted them to be satisfied with their wages and not to be a burden to anyone, Luke 3:14. The centurion of Matthew 8 is praised for his faith and was not dismissed from his service. Cornelius the centurion, a godly man, was visited by Peter, and while Peter was preaching he received the Holy Spirit, Acts 10. There is no word of rebuke, however, nor of being dismissed from his service.

C. H. MACKINTOSH: Much use is sought to be made of the fact that the centurion in Acts 10 was not told to resign his commission. It is not the way of the Spirit of God to put people under a yoke. He does not say to the newly converted soul “you must give up this or that.” The grace of God meets a man where he is, with a full salvation, and then teaches him how to walk by presenting the words and ways of Christ.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Here is a country going to war. What does the Christian do? He, now, is in duty bound to examine what his country is saying, and what his country is doing. If he is satisfied that it is an entirely wrong cause, he is perfectly justified in refusing to have anything to do with it, because the cause is wrong, it’s unjust―But what he’s satisfied that it is a just cause?

C. H. MACKINTOSH: We can only answer the question by a reference to Christ. How did He act? What did He teach? Did He ever take the sword? Did He come to destroy men’s lives? Did He not say, “He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword?”

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: A man can be a conscientious pacifist―and I am talking about a Christian of course, and alright, I respect him. If he still feels that he cannot take part in war―then I wouldn’t hesitate to say that he is entitled to refuse to do so. He’ll have to bear the consequences of this, he may have punishment, he may be put in jail―if he prefers that, it is for him to decide. Ultimately, a man is left with his own conscience, and this is something the state must respect; that was why in the two World Wars, the position of the conscientious objector was always recognized. But he must never say that all Christians must be in his position―and the Christian who does fight in a war must not despise the pacifist.

 

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