The Saint's Path to Eternal Glory 2
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1. He calls us, first, to REPENT of our sins. "Repent, and believe the gospel," was the first proclamation that issued from the lips of incarnate Truth--and that same word is still spoken as the first call to the heart of all the subjects of God's kingdom. This call, not merely reaches their ears outwardly, for "many," in that sense, "are called." but its power reaches their heart, and they are brought to genuine repentance for sin. How many people there are who begin with religion, and leap over repentance! who adopt into their creed certain doctrines which they hear from the mouths of ministers or gather from books, and leap out of the world into the highest assurance, without ever passing through the "strait gate" and "narrow way!" But Christ has placed repentance as the first step into his kingdom--so that he who never knew what repentance unto life was, is not a partaker of the life of God in his soul. But wherever there is repentance as a fruit of the Spirit, there will be a sense and sight of sin, a knowledge of its dreadful evil, a feeling of guilt before a holy God, a mourning and grieving on account of it, and a deep sense of inward vileness before the eyes of Infinite Purity.
2. But God calls his people not merely to repentance, but to CONFESSION also. When the Spirit works repentance in the heart, it does not lie there dead and torpid; but it issues forth from the lips in genuine and honest confession. The spiritual penitent tells the Lord, with tears rolling down his cheeks, with sobs heaving from his bosom, with repeated expressions of condemnation, what a wretch he has been, how vilely he has behaved toward him, and what a base, horrible, and filthy creature he has been in his pure eyes. And this, not once or twice in his life, not once or twice a year, but continually as the Lord works a feeling of repentance in the heart, and brings it forth in godly confession, does he honestly tell him, (though he knows it all,) the sad tale of self-condemnation.
3. But the Lord calls his people not merely to confess, but also to FORSAKE those sins of which they repent. "He who covers his sins shall not prosper; but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy" (Prov. xxviii. 13). There is a forsaking of evil, a turning away from idols, a leaving of broken cisterns, and a fleeing out of those sins which are laid upon the conscience. And this takes place, in a greater or less degree, when God chastises his people with inward rebukes for sin, and his frown is felt in the soul. There are many that act, as Bunyan speaks of the mother that calls her child a little wretch and all sorts of names, and then the next moment falls to hugging and kissing it. Many who stand high in a profession speak of themselves as sinners, and profess to hate sin, yet the next moment plunge without a pang of conscience, into the very iniquities of which they profess to have repented. But God's people, under the powerful teachings of the Spirit, not merely repent of and confess, but forsake too those sins that are laid upon their conscience, and cry unto the Lord to keep them from the power of evil.
4. The Lord, in calling his people, calls them also to BELIEVE on the Lord Jesus Christ. "Repent, and believe the gospel," he says to them with power. "Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." He opens their eyes to see a crucified Jesus, and draws their hearts to come unto him, as "mighty to save." He reveals to their understanding the Mediator between God and man, the great High Priest over the house of God, "Immanuel, God with us!" He brings into their souls a taste of his dying love, and a sight by faith of his atoning blood. Thus he enables them to believe in the Son of God, and to receive him into their hearts as all their salvation and all their desire.
5. He calls them too, to eye his only-begotten Son as a suffering Jesus; to look upon him whom they have pierced, and to mourn for him; to behold the evil of sin in the bleeding, agonizing Savior; and thus to be melted down into godly sorrow, that their sins should have caused the bloody-sweat to issue from his sacred body, and the groans of agony to burst from his dying lips.
6. He calls them also to walk as becomes the gospel, to live consistently and uprightly, and to "adorn the doctrine of God their Savior in all things;" to exercise themselves to have a conscience void of offence toward God and man; and thus manifest that they are "living epistles, written not with ink," in the mere letter of truth, "but with the Spirit of the living God." He calls them also to walk in "his ordinances blameless," and not, under the pretext of greater spirituality, to despise any of them.
7. But, above all, he calls them "unto his eternal glory," that when this short life has passed away, when "time shall be no longer" to them, they may see Jesus as he is in the realms of endless, day, may eternally partake of that bliss which is laid up for them at God's right hand, and behold and be partakers of Christ's glory.
III. But the next step in the kingdom of grace laid down in the text, the next stream that issues out of the everflowing fountain of grace, is SUFFERING--"After you have suffered a while."
In calling his people, God calls them all to suffer. "Unto you," says the apostle, "it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake" (Phil. i. 29). "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" (Rom. viii. 17).
Thus, after the Lord, by his special work on the conscience, has called us to repentance and confession of sin, as well as to faith in Jesus--after he has called us to godly sorrow; to live according to the precepts of the gospel--and to walk in the ordinances of his church; he then calls us to suffer for and with Christ. But we cannot "suffer according to the will of God," that is, in a gospel sense and from gospel motives, until the Lord enables us in some measure to look to him. The same Spirit, who calls the believer to walk in a path of suffering, strengthens and enables him to do so.
To suffer then aright, we must walk in the steps of the great Captain of our salvation, who "though a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." The Father in this sense spared not his only-begotten Son, but led him into the path of tribulation. If the Lord of the house, then, had to travel in this dark and gloomy path of suffering, can his disciples escape? If the Captain of our salvation was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" must not the common soldiers, who occupy the ranks of the spiritual army, be baptized into the same sufferings, and taste in their measure of that cup which he drank to the very dregs? Thus, every child of God is called, sooner or later, to "suffer with Christ;" and he that suffers not with Christ, will not reign with him (2 Tim. ii. 12). But the Lord, who sees what we are, as well as what we need, apportions out suffering to our several states and necessities. All certainly do not suffer in the same way, nor to the same extent, though all travel, in their measure, in that path. Paths of different length, and different depth and height, branch out, so to speak, of the great highway of tribulation, and in one or other of these paths all the redeemed must walk.
Thus, some of the Lord's people suffer more than others from the depths of their own dreadful nature being opened up to them with greater clearness and power; they are more distressed by painful convictions, are more exercised with distressing doubts and fears, and spend most of their days in a gloomy desponding state.
Others, again, of God's people suffer more from Satan's fierce temptations; he is permitted to hurl his fiery darts with greater violence into their souls; and, as a roaring lion, he seeks to rend their very hearts. Others of the family of faith suffer more from the hidings of God's countenance; they have to mourn His absence whose presence they have felt and tasted to be their heaven. Others, more sensibly feel his chastening hand in their conscience. Others, again, suffer more from open persecution; the world is allowed to vent its spleen and malice more upon them; their friends or relations are more bitter against them; and thus their tribulation is more in the way of outward persecution than in those inward trials into which God leads others of his people. Again, others are more harassed by the workings of inward sin; more snares seem spread for their feet; they are more violently assailed by secret lusts, and feel the power of sin more sensibly raging for dominion in their carnal mind.
But however the suffering may differ, all have to suffer, all have to pass through the furnace--for the Lord brings "the third part through the fire." All have to walk in the footsteps of a self-denying and crucified Jesus; all have painfully to feel what it is to be at times under the rod, and experience those chastisements of God, whereby they are proved to be sons, and not bastards.
IV. But this suffering is FOR A WHILE, "after that you have suffered a while." It is only for a time that God's people suffer; though they suffer at different times of their pilgrimage, there are occasional remissions. There is a certain needful time for suffering to last, as there is a certain "needs-be" for the suffering itself. And when they have suffered the time needful to purge away their tin and dross, God takes them out of the furnace.
V. And this leads us to the FRUITS and CONSEQUENCES of this suffering, "After you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you."
There is no Christian perfection, no divine establishment, no spiritual strength, no solid settlement, except by suffering. But after the soul has suffered, after it has felt God's chastising hand, the effect is to perfect, to establish, to strengthen, and to settle it. Let us look at these several points in their order.
1. "Make you perfect." What perfection does the Holy Spirit speak of here? Certainly not perfection in the flesh--that is but a wild dream of free-will and Arminianism. But perfection here and elsewhere means a being well-established and grounded in the faith, as we find the apostle speaking (Heb. v. 14), "Strong meat belongs to those who are of full age (literally, as we read in the margin, "perfect"), even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Christian perfection does not then consist in perfection in the flesh, but in having arrived at maturity in the divine life, in being what I may call a Christian adult, or what the apostle terms, "a man in Christ."
When Paul, therefore, says, "Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect," he means being "no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine," but favored with a measure of Christian wisdom and strength. It is this Christian maturity, which is called in scripture, "perfection," and it is only obtained by suffering.
It is only in the furnace that the tin and dross of pharisaic righteousness is purged away; and the soul comes out of the furnace "a vessel unto honor, sanctified and fit for the Master's use." The Lord of life and glory was made "perfect through sufferings;" and there is no other way whereby his followers are made spiritually perfect. Until a man is led into suffering, he does not know the truth in its sweetness. We are full of free-will, pride, presumption, and self-righteousness. But when the soul is baptized into suffering, it is in a measure established in the truth, strengthened in the things of God, and conformed to the image of Christ.
2. The next fruit and effect of suffering is, establishment. The soul by sufferings and deliverances becomes established in a sense of its own saving interest in divine things--it becomes more delivered from doubts and fears. Suffering makes a man established in the truth, by causing him to feel and realize more of its power, sweetness, and unction in his heart. But until a man goes into the furnace, to have his fleshly wisdom, strength, and righteousness burnt off from him, there is no divine establishment of soul. He scarcely knows what he believes, and scarcely discerns the difference between what God has taught him, and what he has learned from man--he is not brought to feel clearly and accurately the difference between form and power, substance and shadow, letter and spirit. But when afflictions and troubles come upon him, he becomes not merely established in his judgment in a knowledge of the letter of truth, but established in his soul by an experience of it.
3. The third fruit and effect of suffering mentioned in the text is, strength. Until a man goes into the furnace of affliction and suffering, to have his own fleshly strength burnt out, he is never divinely strengthened in his soul. Having, therefore, as yet a measure of creature strength, he does not need the strength of Christ to be "made perfect in weakness." But when he has been in the furnace, and suffered awhile, and found his own strength like tow before the flame, and feels utterly unable to resist sin and Satan unless God is pleased to strengthen him with strength in his "inner man," he comes to the Lord as a poor needy supplicant for a measure of divine strength. He is no more looking to the flesh, no more going down to Egypt and Assyria, and leaning on a reed that runs into the hand, and pierces it; but is brought, in a measure of believing simplicity, to look to the Lord to perfect strength in his weakness.
4. The fourth and last fruit of suffering mentioned in the text is, divine settlement. This intimates a freedom from wandering here and there, and wavering to and fro, from being "driven with the wind and tossed," as James speaks (i. 6), "like a wave of the sea." By suffering a man becomes settled into a solemn conviction of the character of Jehovah as revealed in the scripture, and in a measure made experimentally manifest in his conscience. He is settled in the belief of an "everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure," in the persuasion that "all things work together for good to those who love God, and are the called according to his purpose;" in the firm conviction that everything comes to pass according to God's eternal purpose--and are all tending to the good of the church, and to God's eternal glory.
His soul, too, is settled down into a deep persuasion of the misery, wretchedness, and emptiness of the creature; into the conviction that the world is but a shadow, and that the things of time and sense are but bubbles that burst the moment they are grasped; that of all things sin is most to be dreaded, and the favor of God above all things most to be coveted; that nothing is really worth knowing except Jesus Christ and him crucified; that all things are passing away, and that he himself is rapidly hurrying down the stream of life, and into the boundless ocean of eternity. Thus he becomes settled in a knowledge of the truth, and his soul remains at anchor, looking to the Lord to preserve him here, and bring him in peace and safety to his eternal home.
These are the fruits of suffering. They are not to be learned by reading them in the word of God, or by hearing ministers preach about them; nor are they to be obtained from books, or from any source, but the teaching of the Spirit of God in the soul. Where God then teaches, he "teaches to profit;" he writes his truth with "the point of a diamond" on the heart, and engraves them as "with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever."
But if you took at the form in which the text is couched, you will perceive that the apostle, in using these words, utters them not so much as an exhortation, as a prayer offered up to God in their behalf; for he knew well that the God of all grace could alone do all these things for them. He speaks as an "elder;" and while writing to the people of God, his whole soul and affections seem warmed towards them--he therefore lifts up his heart unto the Lord, and beseeches "the God of all grace" to do this blessed work on their conscience, and to make them "perfect, to establish, strengthen, and settle them."
We see then here, my friends, the path in which God leads his people. All we have and are, everything we know and feel, comes from "the God of all grace." We have nothing spiritually good in ourselves; all therefore that we have is the free gift of his hand, and comes from the everflowing Fountain of mercy and truth. It will be our mercy then, as the Lord may enable us, to be ever looking to him, not looking to books, not looking to ministers; these are only instruments, and in themselves but poor instruments. The soul must look through all and above all to "the God of all grace."
Since I have been in town this visit, hundreds perhaps may have heard my voice, but you must not look to me, or any man to teach and bless your soul. The Lord enable you to look to him alone as "the God of all grace," to seek him in secret, to pour out your hearts before him, and to call on his blessed name, that he would lead your souls into a knowledge of "the truth as it is in Jesus." The Lord enable you to examine every truth as it is brought before you by the light of God's Spirit in your heart, to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good."
And however deeply some here may feel the vileness of their hearts, remember this, my friends, there is "the God of all grace" to go to. If you feel yourselves the vilest of sinners, he suits you the more as "the God of all grace.' If you feel dark, stupid, and barren, it is the greater reason that you should call on "the God of all grace" to revive your drooping soul. If any here have lost past spiritual enjoyments, and are now "walking in darkness" that may be felt, it is the more reason they should seek "the God of all grace," that he may supply their needs out of Christ's fullness, as the covenant head. Yes, whatever trials, perplexities, and temptations may harass your soul, it is only to open the way for "the God of all grace" to appear. In whatever affliction you may be, it will be your wisdom, as it will be your mercy, to be looking up unto him, that he may comfort your soul; and, turning from man, as Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, commit your case to him.
Remember this then, if "the God of all grace" has indeed "called you unto his eternal glory" – if he has indeed touched your heart with his blessed finger – remember you will have to walk, from beginning to end, in a path of suffering--for the whole path, more or less, is a path of tribulation. And, while walking in this path, and suffering from sin, Satan, the world, and the evil of your own heart, it is only to lead you up more unto "the God of all grace;" it is only that God may, in his own time, "make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you." And when your soul has passed through these trials, you will see God's hand in all praise him for all, and will perceive how good it was for you to have been afflicted, and to have walked in this painful path--that having suffered with Christ Jesus, you might sit down with him in his eternal glory!
May "the God of all grace," then who has called some of you to "his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you." And into his blessed hands, with sincere desires for your spiritual welfare, do I desire now and ever to commit both you and myself.
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