The Sons of God 2
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But the text, you see, furnishes us with a higher witness than this. God who cannot lie, in the person of the Holy Spirit, graciously condescends to say "Amen" to the testimony of our conscience. And whereas our experience sometimes leads our spirit to conclude that we are born of God, there are happy times when the eternal Spirit from off the throne, descends and fills our heart, and then we have the two witnesses bearing witness with each other, that we are children of God. Perhaps you ask me, how is this. I was reading a passage by Dr. Chalmers the other day, in which he says, that his own experience did not lead him to believe that the Holy Spirit ever gave any witness of our being the children of God, apart from the written Word of God, and his ordinary workings in our hearts. Now, I am not sure that the doctor is perfectly right. As far as his own experience went I dare say he was right, but there may be some far inferior to the doctor in genius, who nevertheless were superior in nearness of fellowship with God, and who could therefore go a little farther than the eloquent divine.
Now, I do believe with him this morning, that the chief witness of God the Holy Spirit lies in this — the Holy Spirit has written this book which contains an account of what a Christian should be, and of the feelings which believers in Christ must have. I have certain experiences and feelings; turning to the Word, I find similar experiences and feelings recorded; and so I prove that I am right, and the Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am born of God. Suppose you have been enabled to believe in Jesus Christ for your salvation; that faith has produced love to Christ; that love to Christ has led you to work for Christ; you come to the Bible, and you find that this was just the very thing which was felt by early believers; and then you say, "Good Lord, I am your son, because what I feel is what you has said by the lips of your servant must be felt by those who are your children." So the Spirit confirms the witness of my spirit that I am born of God. But again, everything that is good in a Christian you know to be the work of God the Holy Spirit. When at any time then the Holy Spirit comforts you — sheds a sweet calm over your disturbed spirit; when at any period he instructs you, opens to you a mystery you did not understand before; when at some special period he inspires you with a remarkable affection, an unusual faith in Christ; when you experience a hatred of sin, a faith in Jesus, a death to the world, and a life to God, these are the works of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Never Did Work Effectually in Any but the Children of God; and inasmuch as the Spirit works in you, he does by that very working give his own infallible testimony to the fact that you are a child of God.
If you had not been a child he would have left you where you were in your natural state; but inasmuch as he has wrought in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure, he that put his stamp on you as being one of the family of the Most High. But I think must go a little further than this. I do believe that there is a supernatural way in which, apart from means, the Spirit of God communicates with the spirit of man. My own little experience leads me to believe that apart from the Word of God, there are immediate dealings with the conscience and soul of man by the Holy Spirit, without any instrumentality, without even the agency of the truth. I believe that the Spirit of God sometimes comes into a mysterious and marvelous contact with the spirit of man, and that at times the Spirit speaks in the heart of man by a voice not audible to the ear, but perfectly audible to the spirit which is the subject of it. He assures and consoles directly, by coming into immediate contact with the heart. It becomes our business then to take the Spirit’s witness through his Word, and through his works, but I would seek to have Immediate, Actual, Undivided Fellowship with the Holy Spirit, who by his divine Spirit, should work in my spirit and convince me that I am a child of God.
Now let me ask my congregation, do any of you know that you are God’s children? Say not, "In my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, and a child of God." There are not many in England, I think, who believe those words. There may be a few who do, but it has never been my misfortune to meet with them. Every one knows that it is a disgrace to a matchless prayer-book, that such words should be permitted to stand there- words so infamously untrue that by their gross untruthfulness they cease to have the destructive effect which more cunning language might have produced, because the conscience of man revolts against the idea that the sprinkling of drops of water upon the infants’s brow can ever make it a member of Christ, and a child of God. But I ask you, does your spirit say today "I am God’s child." Do you feel the longings, the loves, theconfidences of a child?
If not, tremble, for there are but two vast families in this world. They are the family of God, and the family of Satan — their characters how different — their ends, how strangely divided! But let me say again to you, have you ever felt that the Holy Spirit has borne witness with your spirit in his word, and in his work, in you; and in that secret whisper has he ever said to you, "You are my son, this day have I begotten you." I implore you, give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, until by this divine mysterious agency, you are new made, new born, and new begotten, and so admitted not only nominally but really into the living family of the living God.
III. I shall now pass on to my third point. If it be settled in our mind by the true witness — the spirit within us, and the Spirit of God, — that we are God’s children, what a NOBLE PRIVILEGE now appears to our view. "HEIRS OF GOD, and joint heirs with Christ." It does not always follow in human reasoning "if children, then heirs," because in our families but one is the heir. There is but one that can claim the heir’s rights, and the heir’s title. It is not so in the family of God. A man may give to one heir more than the rest of the family — may give him all the inheritance, while his other children, equally true born, may go without. But it is not so in the family of God. All God’s children are heirs, and however numerous the family, and he that shall be born of God last, shall be as much his heir as he who was born first. Abel, the proto-martyr, entering alone into heaven, shall not have a more secure title to the inheritance than he who, last of woman born, shall trust in Christ, and then ascend into his glory.
In heaven’s logic it is true, "if children, then heirs." See what it is that we are heirs of- The apostle opens with the grandest part of the inheritance first — heirs of God — heirs not of God’s gifts, and God’s works, but heirs of God himself. It was said of king Cyrus, that he was a prince of so amiable a disposition, that when at any time he sat down to eat, if there were anything that pleased his appetite, he would order it to be taken away and given to his friends with this message, "King Cyrus found that this food pleased his palate, and he thought his friend should feed upon that which he enjoyed himself." This was thought to be a singular instance of his affability, and his kindness to his courtiers. But our God does more than this, he does not send merely bread from his table, as in the day when man did eat angel’s food; he does not give us merely to drink the wines on the lees well refined — the rich wines of heaven — but he gives himself to us. And the believer is to be the heir, I say, not merely of God’s works, not simply of God’s gifts, but of God himself.
Talk of his omnipotence? — his Almightiness is ours. Speak we of his omniscience? — all his wisdom is engaged in our behalf. Do we say that he is love? — that love belongs to us. Can we glory that he is full of immutability, and changes not? — that eternal unchangeableness is engaged for the defense of the people of God. All the Attributes of Divinity Are the Property of God’s Children — their inheritance entailed upon them. Nay, he himself is ours. Oh what riches! If we could say this morning, that all the stars belong to us; if we could turn the telescope to the most remote of the fixed stars, and then could say with the pride of possession, so natural to man, "That star, a thousand times bigger than the sun, is mine. I am the king of that inheritance, and without me does not a dog move his tongue." If we could then sweep the telescope along the milky way, and see the millions upon millions of stars that lie clustered together there, and could cry, "All these are mine," yet these possessions were but a speck compared with that which is in the text. Heir of God! He to whom all these things are but as nothing, gives himself up to the inheritance of his people!
Note yet a little further concerning the special privilege of heirship, — we are joint heirs with Christ. That is, whatever Christ possesses, as heir of all things, belongs to us! Splendid must be the inheritance of Jesus Christ. Is he not very God of very God, Jehovah’s only begotten Son, Most High and glorious, though he bowed himself to the grave and became the Servant of servants, yet God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.
Oh! what angelic tongue shall hymn his glory? What fiery lips shall ever speak of his possessions, of his riches, — the unsearchable riches of God in Christ Jesus. But, Beloved, All That Belongs to Christ Belongs to Christ’s People! It is as when a man does marry. His possessions shall be shared by his spouse; and when Christ took his Church unto himself he endowed her with all his goods, both temporal and eternal. He gives to us his clothing, and thus we stand arrayed. His Righteousness Becomes Our Beauty! He gave to us his person, it has become our food and our drink; we eat his flesh and drink his blood. He gave to us his inmost heart; he loved us even to the death. He gave to us his crown; he gave to us his throne; for "to him that overcomes will I give to sit upon my throne, even as I have overcome, and have sat down with my Father upon his throne." He gave to us hisheaven, for "where I am, there shall my people be." He gave to us the fullness of his joy, for "my joy shall be in you, that your joy may be full." I repeat it, there is nothing in the highest heaven which Christ has reserved unto himself, "for all things are yours, and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s."
I cannot stay longer on that point, except just to notice, that we must never quarrel with this divine arrangement. "Oh," say you, "we never shall." Stay, stay, brother; I have known you do so already, for when all that is Christ’s belongs to you, do you forget that Christ once had a cross, and that belongs to you? Christ once wore a thorny crown, and if you are to have all that he has, you must bear the thorny crown also. Have you forgotten that he had shame and spitting, the reproach, the rebuke of men, and that he conceived all those to be greater riches than all the treasures of this world?
Come, I know as you look down the inventory, you are apt to look a little askance on that cross, and you think, "Well, the crown is glorious, but I love not the spittle, I care not to be despised and rejected of men." Oh! You Are Quarreling with this Divine Arrangement, you are beginning to differ with this blessed policy of God. Why, one would have thought you would rejoice to take your Master for better or for worse, and to be partaker with him, not only in his glories but in his sufferings. So it must be, "If so be that we suffer with him that we also may be glorified together." Is there a place into which your Master went that you would be ashamed to enter? If so, methinks your heart is not in a right state. Would you refuse to go with him to the garden of his agony? Believer, would you be ashamed to stand and be accused as he was, and have false witness born against you? And would you blush to sit side-by-side with him, and be made nothing of as he was? Oh, when you run away at a little jest, let your conscience prick you, and say, "Am I not a joint heir with Christ, and am I about to quarrel with the legacy? Did he not say, In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world?"
And oh, would you be ashamed to die for Christ? Methinks, if you are what you should be, you will glory in tribulations also, and Count it Sweet to Suffer for Christ. I know the world turns this into ridicule and says, "That the hypocrite loves persecution;" no, not the hypocrite, but the true believer; he feels that though the suffering must ever be painful, yet for Christ’s sake, it becomes so glorious that the pain is all forgotten.
Come, believer, will you be partaker with Christ today in the battle, and then divide this spoil with him? Come, will you wade with him through the deep waters, and then at last climb up the topless hills with him? Are you prepared now to be despised and rejected of men that you may at last ascend up on high, leading captivity captive? The inheritance cannot be divided; if you will have the glory, you must have the shame. He that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. Come, men, put your face against all weathers; be ready to come up hill, with the snow blowing in your face, be ready to march on when the tempest howls, and the lightnings flash over head, and the snow becomes knee-deep; nay, be ready to go into the crevasse with him, and perish, if need be. Who quarrels with this sacred regulation? Certainly no true child of God; he would not have it altered, even if he might.
IV. And now I come to my last point, upon which briefly but I hope interestingly. The SPECIAL CONDUCT naturally expected from those who are partakers of the peculiar privileges of being the children of God. In the golden age of Rome, if a man were tempted to dishonesty, he would stand upright, look the tempter in the face, and say to him, "I am a Roman." He thought that a sufficient reason why he should neither lie nor cheat.
It ought to be ten times more than sufficient answer to every temptation, for a man to be able to say, "I am a son of God; shall such a man as I yield to sin?" I have been astonished in looking though old Roman history at the wonderful prodigies of integrity and valor which were produced by idolatry, or rather, which were produced by patriotism, and that principle which ruled the Romans, namely, love of fame. And I say it this morning, it is a shameful thing that ever idolatry should be able to breed better men than some who profess Christianity. And I think I may stand firmly while I argue here, that if a Roman, a worshiper of Jupiter or Saturn, became great or glorious, a Son of God ought to be nobler far. Look, sirs, at Brutus;
he has established a republic, he has put down tyranny, he sits upon the judgment seat; his two sons are brought before him, they have been traitors to the commonwealth. What will the father do? He is a man of a loving heart and loves his sons, but there they stand. Will he execute justice as a judge, or will he prefer his family to his country?
He covers his face for a moment with his hands, and then looking down at his sons, and finding that the testimony is complete against them, he says, "Lictors, do your work." They bare their backs, the rod scourges them. "Complete the sentence, lictors;" and their heads are smitten off in the father’s presence.
Stern justice swayed his spirit, and no other feeling could for a single moment make him turn aside. Christian men, do you feel this with regard to your sins. When you have been sitting on the judgment bench; there has been Some Favorite Sin brought up, and you have, oh, let me blush to say it, you have wished to spare it, it was so near your heart, you have wished to let it live, whereas should you not as the son of God have said, "If my eye offend me, I will pluck it out and cast it from me, if my right hand offend me, I will cut it off, rather than I should in anything offend my God."Brutus slays his sons; but some Christians would spare their sins.
Look again at that noble youth, Mutius Scoevola. He goes into the tent of King Pyrrhus with the intention to put him to death, because he is the enemy of his country; he slays the wrong man. Pyrrhus then captured him.
A pan of hot coals is blazing in the tent; Scoevola puts out his right hand and holds it; it crackles in the flame; the young man flinches not, though his fingers drop away. "There are 400 youths," says he, "in Rome as brave as I am, and that will bear fire as well; and tyrant," he says, "you will surely die."
Yet here are Christian men, who, if they are a little sneered at, or snubbed, or get the cold shoulder for Christ’s sake, are half ashamed of their profession, and would go and hide it. And if they are not like Peter — tempted to curse and swear to escape the blessed imputation — they would turn the conversation, that they might not suffer for Christ. Oh! for 400 Scoevolas, 400 men who for Christ’s sake would burn, not their right hands, but their bodies, if indeed Christ’s name night be glorified, and sin might be stabbed to the heart.
You read that old legend of Curtius, the Roman knight. A great gulf had opened in the Forum, perhaps caused by an earthquake, and the auspices had said that the chasm could never be filled up, except the most precious thing in Rome could be cast into it. Curtius puts on his helmet, and his armor, mounts his horse and leaps into the cleft, which is said to have filled at once, because courage, valor, and patriotism, were the best things in Rome. I wonder how many Christians there are who would leap like that into the cleft.
Why, I see you, sirs, if there is a new and perilous work to be done for Christ, you like to be in the rear rank this time; if there were somethinghonorable, so that you might ride on with your well caparisoned steeds in the midst of the dainty ranks you would do it; but not to leap into certain annihilation for Christ’s sake. Oh! heroism, where has it fled — whither has it gone. Church of God, surely it must survive in you; for to whom should it more belong to die and sacrifice all, than to those who are the sons of God.
Look again at Camillus. Camillus had been banished from Rome by false accusations. He was ill-treated, abused, and slandered, and went away to retirement. Suddenly the Goths, the old enemies of Rome, fell upon the city. They surrounded it; they were about to sack it, and Camillus was the only man who could deliver it. Some would have said within themselves "Let the ungrateful nation be cut off. The city has turned me out; let it rue the day that it ever drove me away." But no, Camillus gathers together his body of followers, falls upon the Goths, routs them and enters in triumph into Rome though he was an exile. Oh Christian, this should ever be your spirit, only in a higher degree. When the Church rejects you, casts you out, annoys, despises you, still be ready to defend her, and when you have an ill name even in the lips of God’s people, still stand up for the common cause of Zion, the city of our solemnities.
Look at Cincinnatus. He is chosen Dictator, but as soon as ever his dictatorship is over he retires to his little farm of three acres, and goes to his plough, and when he is needed to be absolute monarch of Rome he is found at his plough upon his three acres of land and his little cottage. He served his country, not for himself, but for his country’s sake. And can it be that you will not be poor, yet honest for Christ’s sake! Will you descend to the tricks of trade to win money. Ah, then, the Roman eclipses the Christian. Will you not be satisfied to serve God though you lose by it; to stand up and be thought an arrant fool, because you will not learn the wisdom of this world; to be esteemed a mad fanatic, because you cannot swim with the current. Can you not do it? Can you not do it? Then again I say to you, "Tell it not in Gath and publish it not in Askelon, then has a heathen eclipsed a Christian." May the sons of God be greater than the sons of Romulus.
One other instance let me give you. You have heard of Regulus the Roman general; he was taken prisoner by Carthaginians, who anxiously wished for peace. They told him to go home to Rome, and see if he could not make peace. But his reply was, "No, I trust they will always be at war with you, for Carthage must be destroyed if Rome is to prosper." They compelled him, however, to go, exacting from him this promise, that if the Romans did not make peace he would come back, and if he came back they would put him to death in the most horrid manner that ever cruelty could invent. Regulus returns to Rome; he stands up in the senate and implores them never to make peace in Carthage, and tells them that he is going back to Carthage. Of course they tell him that he need not keep his promise with an enemy. I imagine that he said, "I promised to go back, and though it is to pangs indescribable, I will return." His wife clings to his shoulder, his children seek to persuade him; they attend him to the waters’ edge; he sails for Carthage; his death was too horrible to be described. Never martyr suffered more for Christ than that man suffered for his word’s sake. And shall a Christian man break his promise? shall a son of God be less true than a Roman or a heathen? Shall it be, I say, that integrity shall be found in heathen lands and not be found here?
No. May you be holy, harmless, sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. I used this argument; I thought it might be a new one; I am sure it is a forcible one. You cannot imagine, surely, that God is to allow heathens to eclipse his children. Oh! never let it be so.
So live, so act, you sons of God, that the world may say of you, "Yes, these men bring forth the fruits of God; they are like their Father; they honor his name; they are indeed filled with his grace, for their every word is as true as his oath; their every act is sincere and upright; their heart is kind, their spirit is gentle; they are firm but yet they are generous; they are strict in their integrity, but they are loving in their souls; they are men who, like God, are full of love; but like him are severely just. They are sternly holy; they are, like him, ready to forgive, but they can by no means tolerate iniquity, nor hear that sin should live in their presence."
God bless you, you sons of God, and may those of you who are strangers to him, be convinced and converted by this sermon, and seek that grace by which alone you can have your prayer fulfilled —"With them numbered may we be, Now and through eternity."
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