The One Thing Needful 2
Back to SERMONS Samuel Davies
And now, my hearers, do you believe this—or do you not?
If you do believe this—will you, dare you still go on in the same course?
If you do not believe it—let me reason the matter with you a little. You will not believe that all the labour and pains you have taken all your life have been quite lost: no, you now enjoy the fruits of them. But show me now, if you can, what you have gotten by all that stir you have made—which will follow one step beyond the grave, or that you can call your own tomorrow! Where is that sure immortal acquisition that you can carry with you into the eternal world?
Were you to die this hour—would it afford you any pleasure to reflect that you have lived a merry life, and had your fill of sensual pleasures; or that you have laboured for riches and honours, and perhaps acquired them? Will this reflection afford you pleasure—or pain? Will this abate the agony of the eternal pain of hell—or make up for the loss of heaven, which you wilfully incurred by an over-eager pursuit of these perishing vanities?
Do you not see the extravagant folly, the crazed frenzy of such a conduct? Alas! while you are neglecting the one thing needful, what are you doing but spending your time and labour . . .
in laborious idleness,
honourably debasing yourselves,
delightfully tormenting yourselves,
wisely be-fooling yourselves, and
frugally impoverishing and ruining yourselves forever?
A child or an idiot playing with a feather—are not so foolish as you in your conduct—while you are so seriously pursuing the affairs of time, and neglecting those of eternity! But,
3. This is not all: all your labour and pains have not only been lost while you have neglected this one thing—but you have taken pains to ruin yourselves, and labored hard all your lives for your own destruction! To this you will immediately answer, "God forbid that we should do anything to hurt ourselves! We were far from having any such design!" But the question is not, what was your design? But, what is the unavoidable consequence of your conduct, according to the nature of things, and the unchangeable constitution of heaven?
Whatever your design in going on in sin is—the wages of sin is death, eternal death! You may indulge the carnal mind, and walk after the flesh—and yet hope no bad consequence will follow. But God has told you that to be carnally minded is death, and that if you live after the flesh—you shall die. The robber on the highway has no design to be hanged; but this does not render him a jot safer. Therefore, design what you will—it is certain you are positively destroying yourselves, while your labours about other things, hinder you from pursuing the one thing needful.
And does not this thought shock you, that you should be acting the part of enemies against yourselves, the most pernicious and deadly enemies to yourselves in the whole universe!! No enemy in the whole universe could do you that injury—which you are doing to yourselves!! To tempt you to sin is all the devil can do; but the temptation alone can do you no injury; it is consenting to it that ruins you; and this consent is your own voluntary act. All the devils in hell could not force you to sin, without your consent; and therefore all the devils in hell cannot injure you—as you do yourselves! God has not given them so much power over you—as he has given you over yourselves; and this power you abuse to your own destruction! Oh! in what a crazed state is the world of the ungodly! If any other man is their enemy—how do they resent it! But they are their own worst enemies—and yet they pamper themselves!
If another occasions them a disappointment in their pursuits, defrauds them of an expected good, or lay schemes to make them miserable—what sullen grudges, what keen revenge, what flaming resentments immediately rise in their hearts against him! And yet they are all their lives disinheriting themselves of the heavenly inheritance, laying a bomb—to blow up all their own hopes, and heaping a mountain of guilt upon themselves—to sink them into the bottomless pit! And all this while they think they are the best friends to themselves, and consulting their own interest! As for the devil, the common enemy of mankind, they abhor him; but they are worse to themselves than devils—and yet never fall out with themselves for it.
This, sinners, may seem a harsh representation of your conduct, but, alas! it is true. And if it is so shocking to you to hear it, what must it be to be guilty of it! And oh! think what must be the consequences of such a conduct, such monstrous suicide!
4. If you have hitherto neglected the one thing needful, you have unmanned yourselves, acted beneath and contrary to your own reason, and in plain terms behaved as if you had been out of your senses! If you have the use of your reason—it must certainly tell you for what it was given to you. And I beseech you to tell me what God gave you your reason for—but . . .
to serve the God who made you,
to secure his favour,
to prepare for your eternal state, and
to enjoy the supreme good as your portion?
Can you once think that God gave you your reason—for such low purposes as the contrivances, labour, and pursuits of this vain life, and to make you a more ingenious sort of brutes? He was master of an unusual share of reason who said, "There is very little difference between having reason and having none—IF we had nothing to do with it but to lay up for our food, and make provision for this corruptible flesh, and had not another life to mind."
Therefore I may safely affirm that you have cast away your reason, and acted as if you were out of your wits—if you have not employed your rational powers in the pursuit of the one thing needful. Where was your reason—when your dying flesh was preferred to your immortal spirit? Was reason your guide when you chose the trash of this perishing world—and sought it more than the favour of God and all the joys of heaven? Can you pretend to common sense, when you might have had the pardon of sin, sanctifying grace, and a title to heaven, secured to you before now? But you have neglected all, and instead of having a sure title to heaven, or being prepared for it—you are fitted for destruction, and nothing else! And you are only awaiting for a fever or an accident, or some other executioner of divine vengeance—to cut the thread of life, and let you sink to hell by your own weight! There you gravitate under the load of sin—as naturally as a stone to the centre; and you need no other weight to sink you down!
What have you done all your life—to make a wise man think you truly reasonable? Is that your reason: to be wise to do evil—while to do good you have no knowledge; or to be ingenious and active about the trifles of time—while you neglect that great work for which you were created and redeemed? Can you be wise—and yet not consider your eternal end? Nay, can you pretend to so much as common sense—while you sell your eternal salvation for the sordid pleasures of a few flying years? Have you common sense—when you will not keep yourselves out of everlasting fire? What can a madman do worse, than wilfully destroy himself? And this, YOU are doing every day!!
And yet these very people are proud of their madness, and are apt to fling the charge of folly upon others, especially if they observe some poor weak creatures, while they are groaning under a sense of sin, and anxious about their eternal state. Then what a clamour they raise against religion and preciseness, as the ready way to make people run mad! Then they even dare to publish their resolution that they will not read and think so much upon these things, lest it should drive them out of their senses.
O miserable mortals! is it possible that they should be more dangerously mad than they are already? Do you lay out your reason, your strength, and time—in pursuing vain shadows, and in feeding a mortal body for the grave, while the important realities of the eternal world, and the salvation of your immortal souls are forgotten or neglected! Do you sell your Saviour with Judas for a little money, and exchange your part in God and heaven—for the sordid pleasures of sin, which are but for a season! And are you afraid of seriously reflecting upon this course, that you may reform it, for fear such thoughts should make you mad? What greater madness than this, can you fear? Will you run from God, from Christ, from mercy, from the saints, from heaven itself—for fear of being mad? Alas! you are mad in the worst sense already! Will you run into hell—to prove yourselves in your senses?
He was a wise and good man who said, "Though the loss of a man's understanding is a grievous affliction, and such as I hope God will never lay upon me—yet I had a thousand times rather go distracted to Bedlam with the excessive care about my salvation, than to be one of you that cast away the care of your salvation for fear of being distracted; and will go among the infernal Bedlams into hell—for fear of being mad." Distraction in itself is not a moral evil—but a physical, like those disorders of the body from which it often proceeds, and therefore is no object for punishment; and had you no capacity of understanding, you would have a cloak for your sin; but your madness is your crime, because it is voluntary, and therefore you must give an account for it to the Supreme Judge!
It would be easy to offer many more considerations to expose the absurdity and danger of your conduct in neglecting the one thing necessary; but these must suffice for the present hour.
And I only desire you to consider farther, if this be a just view of the conduct of such as are guilty of this neglect—then in what a miserable, pitiable condition is the world in general! I have so often tried the utmost energy of my words upon you—with so little success as to many, that I am quite grown weary of them. Allow me therefore for once to borrow the more striking and pungent words of one now in heaven; of one who had more success than almost any of his contemporaries or successors in the important work of "converting sinners from the error of their way and saving souls from death." I mean that incomparable preacher, Richard Baxter, who sowed an immortal seed in his parish of Kidderminster, which grows and brings forth fruit to this day. His words have, through the divine blessing, been irresistible to thousands; and oh that such of you, my dear hearers, whose hearts may have been armoured against my words, may not be so against his also!
"Were it possible for a man to see the affections and motions of all the world at once, as God sees them—what a pitiful sight it would be! What a stir do they make, alas, poor souls! for they know not what! while they forget, or slight, or hate the one thing needful. What a heap of gadding ants would we see, that do nothing but gather sticks and straws! Look among people of every rank, in city and country, and look into families around you, and see what trade it is they are most busily driving on, whether it be for heaven or earth! And whether you can discern by their care and labours, that they understand what is the one thing necessary!
They are as busy as bees; but not for honey—but in spinning such a spider's web as the broom of death will presently sweep down! Job 8:14. They labour hard—but for what? For the food that perishes—but not for that which endures to everlasting life. John 6:27. They are diligent seekers; but for what? Not first for God, his kingdom and righteousness—but for that which they might have had as an addition to their blessedness. Matthew 6:33. They are still doing—but what are they doing? Even undoing themselves by running away from God—to hunt after the perishing pleasures of the world. Instead of providing for the life to come—they are making provision to fulfil the lusts of their flesh! Romans 13:14. Some of them hear the word of God—but presently choke it by the deceitfulness of riches, and the cares of this life. Luke 8:14.
They are careful and troubled about many things; but the one thing that should be all to them—is cast away as if it were nothing. Providing for the flesh and minding the world—is all the employment of their lives. They labour with a doggish appetite for their trash; but for holiness, they have no appetite, and are worse than indifferent to the things that are indeed worthy. They have no covetousness for the things which they are commanded earnestly to covet. 1 Corinthians 12:31. They have so little hunger and thirst after righteousness, that a very little or none will satisfy them. In religion, they are pleading always for moderation, and against too much, and too earnest, and too long; and all is too much with them—that is above stark nothing, or dead hypocrisy!
And all is too earnest and too long with them—that would make religion seem important, or engage them to seem serious in their own profession, or put them past jest in the worship of God and the matters of their salvation! Let but their children or servants neglect their worldly business, (which I confess they should not do,) and they shall hear of it with both their ears; but if they sin against God, or neglect his Word or worship, they shall meet with more patience than Eli's son did—a cold reproof is usually the most! And it is well—if they are not encouraged in their sin; it is well if a child or servant that begins to be serious for salvation, that he is not rebuked, derided, and hindered by them! If on their days of labor they oversleep themselves, they shall be sure to be called up to work, (and good reason;) but when do they call them up to prayer? when do they urge them to consider or converse upon the things that concern their everlasting life?
The Lord's own day, which is appointed to be set apart for spiritual matters—is wasted in idleness or worldly talk. Come at any time into their company, and you may talk enough, and too much of the news, or other men's matters, of their worldly business, sports, and pleasures—but about God and their salvation—they have so little to say, and that so heartlessly—as if they were things that belonged not to their care and duty, and no whit concerned them! Talk with them about the renovation of the soul, the nature of holiness, and the life to come—and you will find them almost as dumb as a fish. The most do not understand matters of this nature, nor much desire or care to understand them. If one would teach them personally, they are too old to learn, though not too old to be ignorant of the matters they were made for, and preserved for, in the world. They are too wise—to learn to be wise, and too good—to be taught how to be godly; though not too wise to follow the seducements of the devil and the world; nor too good to be the slaves of Satan and the despisers and enemies of godliness!"
"If they do anything which they call serving God, it is some cold and heartless use of words to make themselves believe that even though they love their sins—they shall be saved. But God will call that a serving their sins and abominations—which they will call a serving of God. Some of them will confess that holiness is good—but they hope God will be merciful to them without it. And others so hate holiness, that it is a displeasing irksome thing to them to hear any serious discourse of holiness; and they detest and deride those as intolerant, fanatical, and troublesome, who that diligently seek the one thing necessary! So that, if the beliefof the most may be judged by their practices, we may confidently say, that they do not practically believe that they will ever be brought to judgement, or that there is any heaven or hell to be expected! And that their confession of the truth of the Scriptures and the articles of the Christian faith—are no proofs that they heartily take them to be true.
"Who can be such a stranger to the world—as not to see that this is the case of the greatest part of men? And, which is worst of all, they go on in this course—against all that can be said to them, and will give no impartial, considerate hearing to the truth, which would recover them to their wits—but they live as if it would be a felicity to them in hell—to think that they came there by willful resolution, and in despite of the remedy!"
This, sinners, is a true representation of your case, drawn by one who well knew it, and lamented it. And what do you now think of it yourselves? What do you think will be the consequence of such a course? Is it safe to persist in it? Will you still go on, troubling yourselves with many worldly things? or will you resolve for the future to mind the one thing needful above all?
I beseech you to come to some thought and resolution. Time is on the wing, and does not allow you to hesitate in so plain and important an affair.
Do you need any farther excitements? Then I shall try the force of one consideration more which is contained in my text—and that is NECESSITY. Remember necessity, the most pressing, absolute necessity, enforces this care upon you. One thing is needful,absolutely needful, and needful above all other things. This, one would think, is such an argument as cannot but prevail.
What exploits has necessity performed in the world! What arts has it discovered as the mother of invention! What labours, what energies, what sufferings has it undergone! What dangers has it encountered! What difficulties has it overcome! Necessity is a plea which you think will warrant you to do anything and excuse anything. Reasoning against necessity, is but reasoning against a hurricane; it bears all away before it! To obtain the necessities of life, as they are called—how much will men do and suffer! Nay, with what hardships and perils will they not endure for things that they imagine necessary, not to their life—but to their ease, their honour , or their pleasure!
But what is this necessity, when compared to that which I am now urging upon you! In comparison of this, the most necessary of those worldly things are but superfluities; for if your ease, or honour, or pleasure, or even your life in this world is not absolutely necessary, as they cannot be to the heirs of immortality; then certainly those things which you imagine necessary to your ease, your honour, your pleasure, or mortal life—are still less necessary.
But oh! to escape everlasting misery, and to secure everlasting salvation—this is the grand necessity! This will appear necessary in every point of your immortal duration; necessary when you are done with this world for ever, and must leave all its cares, enjoyments, and pursuits behind you!
And shall not this grand necessity prevail upon you to work out your salvation, and make that your great business; when a far less necessity, a necessity that will last but a few years at most, sets you and the world around you upon such hard labours and eager pursuits for perishing vanities? All the necessity in the world—is nothing in comparison of that which lies upon you to work out your salvation; and shall this have no weight with you?
If you do not labour or contrive for the bread that perishes—you must beg or starve. But if you will not labour for the bread that endures unto everlasting life—you must burn in hell forever!
You must lie in prison—if your debts with men be not paid. But, oh! what is it to the prison of hell, where you must be confined forever—if your debts to the justice of God are not remitted, and you do not obtain a saving interest in the righteousness of Christ, which alone can make satisfaction for them!
You must suffer hunger and nakedness—unless you take care to provide food and clothing. But you must suffer eternal banishment from God and all the joys of his presence—if you do not labor to secure the one thing needful. Without the riches of this world—you may be rich in faith, and heirs of the heavenly inheritance. Without earthly pleasures—you may have joy unspeakable and full of glory, in the love of God, and the expectation of the kingdom reserved in heaven for you! Without health of body—you may have happiness of spirit; and even without this mortal life—you may enjoy eternal life. Without the things of the world—you may live in poverty for a little while—but then you will soon be rich above the greatest princes, when in heaven. But without this one thing needful—you are undone, absolutely undone. Though you were as rich as Croesus—yet you "are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked!"
Your very being becomes a curse to you. It is your curse—that you are a man, a reasonable creature. It had been infinitely better for you—if you had been a toad or a snake—and so incapable of sin and of immortality, and consequently of eternal punishment!
Oh then let this grand necessity prevail with you! I know you have other needs, which you should moderately labour to provide for—but oh how small they are—and of how short continuance! If your life and your all should be lost—you may find more than all in heaven! But if you miss at this one thing—then all the world cannot make up the loss!
Therefore to conclude with the awakening and resist less words of Richard Baxter, "Awake, you sluggish, careless souls! The house over your head is in a flame! The hand of God is lifted up in wrath against you! If you love yourselves, prevent the stroke! Vengeance is at your backs; the wrath of God pursues your sin; and woe to you if he finds it upon you when he overtakes you! Away with it speedily! Up and begone; return to God! Make Christ and mercy your friends in time, if you love your lives!
The Judge is coming! Many have heard of it so long—yet still do not believe it! You shall shortly see the majesty of his appearance and the dreadful glory of his face; and yet do you not make ready for such a day! Yes, though now the partition that stands between you and the world to come may keep unbelievers strangers to the things that most concern them—yet death will quickly find a portal to let you in; and then, sinners, you will find such doings there as you little thought of, or did not sensibly regard upon earth.
Before your friends will have time enough to wrap up your pale corpse in your winding-sheet, you will see and feel that which will tell you—that one thing was necessary! If you die without this one thing necessary, before your friends have finished your funeral—your souls will have taken up their places among devils in endless torments and despair! And all the wealth, and honour, and pleasure that the world afforded you—will then not ease you at all. This is sad—but it is true, sirs; for God has spoken it.
Up, therefore, and bestir yourself for the life of your souls. Necessity will awake even the sluggard. Necessity, we say, will break through stone walls! The proudest will stoop to necessity; the most slothful will bestir themselves in necessity; the most carelesswill be industrious in necessity! Necessity will make men do anything that is possible, which must be done. And is not necessity, the highest necessity, your own necessity, able to make you cast away your sins, and take up a holy and heavenly life? O poor souls! is there a greater necessity for your sin—than of your salvation; and of pleasing your flesh for a little time—than of pleasing the Lord and escaping everlasting misery? Oh that you would consider what I say! May the Lord give you understanding in all things. Amen."
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