The Saint's Path to Eternal Glory

Next Part The Saint's Path to Eternal Glory 2

"But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you." – 1 Peter 5:10.

Philosophers tell us that every ray of light which comes from the sun is divisible into seven distinct colors. And this they show by a very simple experiment. They cause a single ray to pass through a glass instrument of a particular shape, called a prism, and then throwing it upon a white surface, the seven colors are at once distinctly perceptible. I think we may carry this illustration into divine things. Truth as it issues from the Sun of righteousness is pure and simple, but as it passes into the mind of man, and again issues out of it, it takes the various hues and colors of each man's mind. Thus, we see that different ministers, taught we believe of God, have different lines of preaching. Some are clear and powerful in doctrine; others, deep in experience; others, led to insist on a practical walk and conversation; yet all are taught "by the same Spirit," and led into a knowledge of the same grand truths.

Nor is this less evident even in the writers of the New Testament. Though all were taught of God, and though all they wrote was by divine inspiration, yet we can clearly see a difference in them. Thus, we see PAUL, an ardent, uncompromising champion of distinguishing grace, never forgetting the dreadful lengths of sin to which he was allowed to go when he persecuted the church of God; and, therefore, standing up with zeal and ardor to contend for the free and sovereign grace of God. We see again JOHN, who leaned upon his Master's bosom, and drank in large draughts of that love which dwelt without measure in the Son of God, breathing love in every line. His grand text is, "God is love"; and his whole soul seems to be imbued with the love of Christ which passes knowledge. We find JAMES plain and practical, speaking strongly against the empty professors of his day, and contending that faith must have its accompanying works, in order to prove that it is the "faith of God's elect."

We see JUDE searching, keen, and discriminating--drawing his sword boldly against the Antinomians that infested the church, those "spots in their feasts of charity;" yet contending "for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints," and that the elect were "sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." We find PETER carrying clear and decisive marks of having been in the furnace. We see the fiery ardor which once prompted him to draw his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus, tamed and subdued; we see him breathing a spirit of love, his soul having been baptized in suffering; and he writes as one who in the furnace of affliction had been purged of the tin and dross which appeared once so conspicuously in him. And yet with all these differences, one and the same Spirit taught each and all, and one and the same gospel was preached in the power and love of it by each and all.

Peter, then, as one who had been in the furnace, closes his first epistle with this affectionate prayer: "But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you." And as there may be some, perhaps many present, who may hear my voice tonight for the last time during this visit, I do not know that I can leave a better text for their consideration, if the Lord is pleased to bring it home to the heart, than the words I have just read.

I will then, with God's blessing, endeavor to take up the words in the order they lie before me.

I. THE FOUNTAIN

The first word which demands our attention is, "the God of all grace." The apostle by this expression leads the mind up to the Source of all mercy. He does not, as a finishing stroke to the truths he had been setting forth, as a practical guard lest the doctrines of grace should be abused, exhort, by way of application, those to whom he was writing to use unceasing diligence, to cultivate active piety, and employ every exertion to maintain their Christian standing. He leaves nothing to the assiduity of the creature, but leads them up to "the God of all grace," as the only Source and Fountain of all spiritual strength. Nor is he contented with saying "the God of grace," but "the God of all grace." Everything, then, spiritually felt in the conscience; everything experimentally tasted, handled, and enjoyed; everything whereby we are separated from the world dead in sin: everything that saves the soul from the wrath to come, and brings it into the eternal enjoyment of a Three-One God. is comprehended in the expression, "the God of all grace."

As the Lord leads his people into a knowledge of themselves, as he removes the veil of deceit from their heart, as he discovers to them more plainly the deep corruption that lurks and works in their bosom, he shows them more and more not only their need of grace, but opens up more and more to them what grace is. When the Lord first begins his work on the conscience, and brings us to know a measure of the truth, we are but learners in the school of grace. It is only after we have traveled some years in the way, and have had repeated discoveries of our baseness, and of God's super-abounding mercy, that we begin to enter a little into what grace really is. We learn the words first, and the meaning of them afterwards. We usually receive the doctrine of grace as it stands in the letter of truth first; and then, as the Lord leads us, we get into the experience of grace in the power of it. Thus we gradually learn what grace is by feeling its complete suitability to our pressing needs.

When, for instance, we feel what numerous and aggravated sins we are daily and hourly committing, we need grace, and not merely grace, but "all grace," to pardon and blot them out. When we painfully feel how we daily backslide from God, and are perpetually roving after idols; how our hearts get entangled in the world, and how little our affections are fixed where Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, we need "all grace" to heal these backslidings, and to bring the soul into the enjoyment of the mercy and love of God. And when we see what base returns we make to the Lord for all his kindness towards us; when our rebelliousness, fretfulness, impatience, and ingratitude are charged home upon the conscience, and we feel what wretches we are, how we have requited the Lord for all his goodness towards us, we experience our need of "all grace" to forgive such base ingratitude. When we can scarcely bear ourselves, as if none were so vile, none so filthy, none so black as we, we are brought to see and feel it must be "all grace" that can bear with us. So that we not only see the sweetness and suitability of grace, but a far greater sweetness and suitability in "all grace."

For we find that unless it were "all grace" we must perish after all--unless it were "all grace," after all we have tasted and known, felt, experienced, or realized, we must lie down in sorrow, because we are so continually sinning against grace that we must needs wear it out. As, suppose by way of illustration, a father might put into the hands of a friend, or a banker, a certain sum for his son--a certain, fixed, definite amount--so God had stored up in Christ a certain amount of mercy and grace for his children. I have no hesitation in saying, that had such been the case, such prodigal wretches are we, that long ago we would have drawn out and spent the whole stock, whatever might have been the amount; yes, had millions of grace, so to speak, been laid up in Christ, such improvident, reckless, and sinful wretches are we, that we would long ago have spent every farthing of it.

Therefore, he leads us not to look at grace only, however sweet and suitable; nor even to "all grace," though sweeter and more suitable still; but leads us up through and beyond grace to "the GOD of all grace." As though he might say, "Grace might be exhausted, and even 'all grace' might sooner or later be drained dry; but the 'God of all grace,' the same yesterday, today, and forever, is an everflowing fountain." A tank may be exhausted, but a fountain is inexhaustible. So "the God of all grace" is "the fountain of living waters," ever flowing forth in streams of mercy, love, and compassion to his people in Christ.

Nothing, then, less than "the God of all grace," could suit such vile wretches as they feel themselves to be. None but "the God of all grace," could bear with them. None but he whose grace can never be exhausted, whose patience can never be worn out, whose loving-kindness can never be provoked beyond endurance--but who pardons all, loves through all, and is determined, in spite of all, to bring the objects of his love to the eternal enjoyment of himself--none but such a God as he who has revealed himself in the face, person, blood, and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, could ever save such guilty and filthy wretches, as some of us see and feel ourselves to be.

We have taken a glimpse at the Fountain, and we will now look at the streams. The first stream that flows out in the text, and prominently catches our eye, is–

II. EFFECTUAL CALLING--"The God of all grace, who has CALLED us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus." Calling is the first step in the divine life, the first stream of ever-flowing and overflowing grace that visits the heart--it is therefore put by the apostle at the head of all blessings. But what is calling? It implies a word spoken, in a similar though not in the same way as the Lord called Samuel, when he had laid himself down to sleep in the temple, and said, "Samuel, Samuel!" So the Lord calls his people. I do not mean to say that he addresses them with an audible voice--but he speaks his own word into their conscience with the same authority and power that called Samuel when he was lying asleep before the ark. The call aroused Samuel from sleep, as the spiritual call arouses the soul from the sleep of sin; the word is felt with power in the heart--the truth comes with authority into the conscience--spiritual life is communicated--and certain fruits and effects at once follow.

But what are these FRUITS AND EFFECTS? The first effect is, to call us out of the world; for in the world we are until God is pleased to call us out of it. He calls us, then, out of the company of the world, out of its amusements, out of its sinful practices, and out of its sinful and sensual spirit. By communicating a new nature, and imparting light and life to the soul, he shows us what an evil world it is; as the apostle says, "Who gave himself for us, that he might deliver us from this present evil world." In the world there is nothing to be seen and heard but "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life;" and God, touching our conscience with his finger, and raising up his fear in our hearts, calls us so effectually out of these lusts, that we can never again intermingle with any peace of conscience with it. Until this step is taken in living faith and godly fear, there is no manifested interest in the promise, "Come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty" (2 Cor. vi. 17, 18).

But God, in calling his people, does not merely call them out of the world dead in wickedness, but he calls them, sooner or later, out of the religious world, the world dead in profession. Not that, for the most part, we are immediately called out of this world within a world; for the Lord does not usually open our eyes at first to see the miserable deceit and hypocrisy of the great bulk of professors. In our ignorance, we think at first that every one who talks about conversion and regeneration is a child of God--and even our heart perhaps has flowed out with love and affection to some whom at the time we thought Christians, but whom we afterwards found to have neither part nor lot in the matter.

But after a time, as the Lord leads the soul into a deeper knowledge of itself, and into a spiritual acquaintance with the law and gospel; as his word of truth is felt with more power in our hearts, and he brings the soul into a more experimental knowledge of his kingdom of grace, we find no more communion with the great bulk of the religious world than with the profane world. We want the power, while they are satisfied with the form; we want realities, while they are contented with shadows; we want life, and a feeling experience of the love and goodness of God in the soul; they are satisfied with mere doctrines, as they stand in the mere letter of truth.

Again--We are often sad, and feel that none but the Lord can speak comfort; we are often cast down by sin, tried in our minds, and exercised in our souls; we feel at times heavy burdens, and suffer under painful and oozing wounds; but they are dead to all life and feeling, either of spiritual sorrow or joy; they are cheerful, easy, and light-hearted, and satisfied with a name to live. Sooner or later, therefore, we come out of the professing world, with as clear a call and as good a conscience as we came at first out of the world dead in trespasses and sins; and set our faces against hypocrisy and a lifeless profession, as much as against vice and open profanity.

But in calling us, first out of the PROFANE, and then out of the PROFESSING world, God calls us to the experimental knowledge of certain blessed truths, which can only be spiritually known by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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