The Danger of Lukewarmness in Religion 2
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Therefore awake, arise! Exert yourselves before your doom is unchangeably fixed! If you have any fire within you—here let it burn; if you have any active powers—here let them be exerted; here or nowhere, and on no other occasion. Be active, be in earnest where you should be; or debase or sink yourselves into stocks and stones—and escape the curse of being reasonable and active creatures.
Let the criminal, condemned to die tomorrow, be indifferent about a reprieve or a pardon; let a drowning man be careless about catching at the only plank that can save him; but oh do not you be careless and indifferent about eternity, and such amazing realities as heaven and hell.
If you disbelieve these things—you are infidels. If you believe these things, and yet are unaffected with them—you are worse than infidels! Not even hell itself can find a precedent of such a conduct. The devils believe—and tremble! You believe—and trifle with things whose very name strikes solemnity and awe through heaven and hell. But,
4. Let us see how this lukewarm temper agrees with the duties of religion. And as I cannot particularize them all, I shall only mention an instance or two.
"The LORD detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases Him." Proverbs 15:8. View a lukewarm professor in PRAYER; he pays to an omniscient God, the compliment of a bended knee, as though he could deceive Him with such an empty pretence. When he is addressing the Supreme Majesty of heaven and earth, he hardly ever recollects in Whose presence he is, or Whom he is speaking to—but seems as if he were worshipping without an object, or pouring out empty words into the air. Perhaps through the whole prayer, he had not so much as one solemn, heart-affecting thought of that God, whose name he so often invoked.
Here is a condemned criminal petitioning for pardon so carelessly, that he scarcely knows what he is doing! Here is a needy, famishing beggar pleading for such immense blessings as everlasting salvation, and all the joys of heaven—so lukewarmly and thoughtlessly, as if he no concern whether his requests were granted or not! Here is an obnoxious sinner confessing his sins with a heart untouched with sorrow; worshipping the living God—with a dead heart; making great requests—but he forgets them as soon as he rises from his knees; and is not at all inquisitive what becomes of them, and whether God accepts them or not.
Can there be a more shocking, impious, and daring conduct than this! To trifle in the presence of an earthly king—would not be such an audacious affront! For a condemned criminal to catch flies, or play with a feather, when pleading with his judge for his pardon—would be but a faint shadow of such religious trifling! What are such prayers, but solemn mockeries and disguised insults to the omnipotent God!
And yet, is not this the usual method in which many of you address the great God? The words proceed no further than from your tongue: you do not pour them out from the bottom of your hearts; they have no life or spirit in them, and you hardly ever reflect upon their meaning. And when you have babbled away to God in this manner—you will have it to pass for 'a prayer'. But surely such prayers must bring down a curse upon you—instead of a blessing! Such 'sacrifices' must be an abomination to the Lord! And it is astonishing that He has not mingled your blood with your 'sacrifices', and sent you from your knees to hell! It is a wonder that He has not sent you from your thoughtless, unmeaning prayer—to eternal blasphemy and torture!
The next instance I shall mention, is with regard to the WORD OF GOD. You own it to be divine; you profess it to be the standard of your religion, and the most excellent book in the world. Now, if this is the case—it is God who speaks to you in His Scriptures. It is God who sends you an epistle, when you are reading or hearing His Word. How impious and provoking then must it be to neglect it; to let it lie by you as an antiquated, useless book; or to read it in a careless, superficial manner; and hear it with an inattentive, wandering mind!
How would you take it, if, when you spoke to your servant about his own interest—that he should turn away from you, and not regard you at all? Or if you should write a letter to your son, and he should not so much as carefully read it, or try to understand it? And do not some of you treat the sacred oracles in this manner? You make but little use of your Bible—but to tell your children to read it. Or if you read or hear its contents yourselves, are you not unaffected with them? One would think you would be all attention and reverence to every word! You would drink it in, and thirst for it as new-born babes for their mother's milk! You would feel its force, and acquire the character of that happy man to whom the God of heaven delights to look! You would tremble at His Word. It reveals the only method of your salvation; it contains the only charter of all your blessings. In short, you have the nearest personal interest in it—and can you be unconcerned hearers of it? I am sure your reason and conscience must condemn such stupidity and indifference as incongruous, and outrageously wicked!
And now let me remind you of the observation I made when entering upon this subject, that if I should not offer sufficient matter of conviction—then you might go on in your lukewarmness; but if your own reason should be fully convinced that such a temper is most wicked and unreasonable—then you might trifle at your peril. What do you say now is the outcome? You modern Laodiceans, are you not yet struck with horror at the thought of that insipid, formal, spiritless religion you have hitherto been contented with? And do you not see the necessity of following the advice of Christ to the Laodicean church: be zealous, be fervent for the future, and repent, bitterly repent of what is past! To urge this the more, I have two considerations in reserve, of no small weight:
1. Consider the difficulties and dangers in your way! Oh, sirs, if you know the difficulty of the work of your salvation, and the great danger of miscarrying in it, you could not be so indifferent about it, nor could you flatter yourselves such languid endeavours will ever succeed. It is a labour , a striving, a race, a warfare—so it is called in the sacred writings. But would there be any propriety in these expressions, if it were a course of sloth and inactivity?
Consider your difficulties: you have strong lusts to be subdued; a hard heart to be broken; many temptations to be encountered and resisted; a variety of graces, which you are entirely destitute of—to be implanted and nourished, and that in an unnatural soil, where they will not grow without careful cultivation. In short, you must be made new men, quite other creatures than you now are. And oh! can this work be successfully performed while you make such faint and feeble efforts? Indeed God is the Agent, and all your best endeavours can never effect the blessed revolution without him. But his assistance is not to be expected in theneglect, or careless use of means. Nor is his assistance intended to encourage idleness—but activity and labour: and when he comes to work, he will soon inflame your hearts, and put an end to your lukewarmness.
Consider your dangers: they are also great and numerous! You are in danger from presumption and from despondency; from coldness, from lukewarmness, and from false fires and enthusiastic heats! You are in danger from self-righteousness, and from open wickedness; from your own corrupt hearts, from this ensnaring world, and from the temptations of the devil! You are in great danger of sleeping on in security, without ever being thoroughly awakened; or, if you should be awakened, you are in danger ofresting short of vital religion; and in either of these cases you are undone forever.
In a word, dangers thickly crowd around you on every hand, from every quarter; dangers into which thousands, millions of your fellow-men have fallen—and never recovered. Indeed, all things considered, it is very doubtful whether you will ever be saved—who are now, lukewarm and secure. I do not mean that your success is uncertain if you are brought to use means with proper earnestness; but alas! it is awfully uncertain whether ever you will be brought to use them in this manner. And, O sirs! can you continue secure and inactive—when you have such difficulties to encounter with in a work of absolute necessity, and when you are surrounded with so many and so great dangers? Alas! are you capable of such destructive madness? Oh that you knew the true state of your case! Such a knowledge would soon fire you with the greatest ardour, and make you all life and vigour in this important work!
2. Consider how earnest and active men are in worldly pursuits. Should we form a judgement of the faculties of human nature, by the conduct of the generality of people in religion—we would be apt to conclude that men are mere snails, and that they have no active powers belonging to them. But view them about other affairs, and you find they are all life, fire, and hurry! What labour and toil! what schemes and contrivances! what solicitude about success! what fears of disappointment! Hands, heads, hearts—all busy. And all this to procure those enjoyments which at best they cannot long retain, and which the next hour may be torn from them!
To acquire a name or a diadem, to obtain riches or honours —what hardships are undergone! what dangers dared! what rivers of blood shed! how many millions of lives have been lost! and how many more endangered!
In short, the world is all alive, all in motion with business. On sea and land, at home and abroad, you will find men eagerly pursuing some temporal good. They grow grey-headed, and die in the attempt, without reaching their end! But this disappointment does not discourage the survivors and successors; still they will continue the fruitless endeavor. Now here, men act like themselves; and they show they are alive, and endowed with powers of great activity.
And shall they be thus zealous and laborious in the pursuit of earthly vanities—and quite indifferent and sluggish in the infinitely more important concerns of eternity? What! solicitous about a mortal body—but careless about an immortal soul! Eager in pursuit of temporal and fleeting worldly joys—but careless and remiss in seeking an immortality of perfect heavenly happiness! Anxious to avoid poverty, shame, sickness, pain, and all the evils, real or imaginary, of the present life; but indifferent about a whole eternity of the most intolerable misery! Oh, the destructive folly, the daring wickedness of such a conduct!
True religion the only thing which demands the utmost exertion of all your powers! But alas! It is the only thing in which you are dull and inactive! Is everlasting happiness the only thing about which you will be remiss? Is eternal punishment the only miserywhich you are indifferent whether you escape or not? Is God the only good which you pursue with faint and lazy desires? How preposterous! How absurd is this!
You can love the world, you can love a father, a child, or a friend; nay, you can love that abominable, hateful thing—sin! These you can love with ardour, serve with pleasure, pursue with eagerness, and with all your might! But the ever-blessed God, and the Lord Jesus, your best friend—you put off with a lukewarm heart and spiritless services. Oh, how inexpressibly monstrous!
Lord, what is this that has befallen your own creation, that they are so disaffected towards you? Blessed Jesus, what have you done—that you should be treated thus? Oh sinners! what will be the consequence of such a conduct? Will that God whom you treat so lightly—take you into the bosom of his love? Will that Jesus save you by his blood, whom you make so light of? No! You may go and seek a heaven where you can find it; for God will give you none of His heaven! Go, shift for yourselves, or look out for a Saviour where you will; Jesus will have nothing to do with you—except to take care to inflict proper punishment upon you if you retain this lukewarm temper towards him.
Hence, by way of practical application:
1. Learn the vanity and wickedness of a lukewarm religion. Though you should profess the best religion that ever came from heaven, it will not save you; nay, it will condemn you with peculiar aggravations, if you are lukewarm in it. This spirit of indifference diffused through true religion—turns it all into deadly poison. Your religious duties are all abominable to God, while the vigour of your heart is not exerted in them. Your prayers are insults to him—and he will answer them as such, by terrible things in righteousness. And do any of you hope to be saved by such a religion? I tell you from the God of truth—it will be so far from saving you, that it will certainly ruin you forever! Continue as you are to the last—and you will be as certainly damned to all eternity—as Judas, or Beelzebub, or any demon in hell.
2. But alas! How common, how fashionable is this lukewarm religion! This is the prevailing, epidemic sin of our age and country. And it is well if it has not the same fatal effect upon us— as it had upon Laodicea; Laodicea lost its liberty, its religion, and its all. Therefore let us hear and fear—and no longer act so wickedly. We have thousands of 'professors', such as they are; but alas! they are generally of the Laodicean stamp; they are neither cold nor hot.
But it is our first concern to know how it is with ourselves; therefore let this inquiry go round this congregation: are you not such lukewarm professors? Is there any fire and life in your devotions? Or are not all your active powers engrossed by other worldly pursuits? Impartially make the inquiry, for infinitely more depends upon it—than upon your temporal life.
3. If you have hitherto been possessed with this Laodicean spirit, I beseech you indulge it no longer! You have seen that it mars all your religion, and will end in your eternal ruin! I hope you are not so hardened as to be armoured against the force of this consideration. Why do you halt so long between two opinions? I wish that you were either cold or hot. Either make thorough work of religion—or do not pretend to it. Why should you profess a religion, to which you are insipidly indifferent to? Such a religion is good for nothing!
Therefore awake, arise, exert yourselves! Strive to enter in at the strait gate; strive earnestly—or you are shut out forever. Infuseheart and spirit into your religion. Whatever your hand finds to do in this all important matter—do it with your might. Now, this moment, while my voice sounds in your ears, now begin the vigorous enterprise. Now collect all the vigour of your souls and breathe it out in such a prayer as this, "Lord, fire this heart with your love!" Prayer is a proper introduction: for let me remind you of what you should never forget, that God is the only Author of this sacred fire; it is only he who can quicken you! Therefore, you poor careless creatures—fly to him in an agony of importunate prayer—and never desist, never grow weary—until you prevail.
4. And lastly, let us lament our lukewarmness, and earnestly seek more fervour of spirit. Some of you have a little life; you enjoy some warm and vigorous moments; and oh! they are divinely sweet. But reflect how soon your spirits flag, your devotion cools, and your zeal languishes. Think of this—and be humble. Think of this—and apply for more life. You know where to apply. Christ is your life: therefore cry to him for the communication of it. "Lord Jesus! a little more life, a little more vital heat for my languishing soul." Take this method, and "you shall run and not be weary; you shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31.
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