No Desire

By nature, there is no one from among the children of men who delights in the knowledge of God’s ways. There was such a desire in the state of rectitude. Then man delighted in the law of God. In our deep Fall in Adam, we have not lost much, but we have lost everything. We have deprived ourselves of those gifts willfully and voluntarily wherewith God had endowed and blessed us.

In regeneration God’s children again receive that which initially had been imparted to them in Paradise because the Lord has declared, “My desire is toward her.” It has been His will and good pleasure, with retention and glorification of all His virtues in Christ Jesus, to glorify Himself in the salvation of sinners in their restoration into His blessed fellowship.

With His active and passive obedience, Christ has acquired that which we have lost. He has received gifts for men. He is not only the Obtainer but also the Applier of salvation. It is upon the basis of the righteousness of Christ that His children again receive a desire to fear the Lord and to walk in His ways through the ministration of the Holy Spirit. It is all God’s own work. It flows forth from God, and it returns to God. Listen to the poet of Psalm 35, “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour My righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.”

Alas, this life is not always so active that God’s people are able to sing like this all the time. At times the harps hang so high, and we often lie so deep in the pool of listlessness that even a complaint cannot come over our lips. At times we may be so low and so downcast.

At a gathering more than fifty-two years ago, I heard an aged child of God, who has already rejoiced before the throne for many years, say in his prayer, “Lord Jesus, make Thyself amiable once more.” At that time, it sounded rather strange to me, but oh, it has been experienced in my own life. Ecclesiastes 12:1 is not written in vain nor without reason, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.” The evil days are the listless days. It is a great mercy when initially and continually it may be within our soul, “I sat down under His shadow with great delight” (Song of Solomon 2:3b). It is a blessing when, regarding our state, a solution is found, and concerning the condition of our life, we may be filled with anxiety. Once more it is all the fruit and result of that which Christ has declared, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God” (Psalm 40:8a).

Then there is a desire to obey God’s commandments, a desire to walk in His ways, a desire to practice God’s statutes, a desire to walk in God’s ordinances, a desire to glorify God, a desire to live a well-pleasing life unto God, a desire to hate sin and to live justly, a desire to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goes, a desire to walk in His footsteps and to be conformed to His image.

Alas, how our time is mostly characterized by the word which I wrote above this discourse—no desire. What a deadly calm there is everywhere. All the earth sits still and is still. The wise virgins have fallen asleep with the foolish (Matthew 25). Verily, the worst conflict is more profitable to God’s people than the least carelessness. Listless times are unprofitable times—times when we condemn ourselves because we cannot condemn ourselves properly; fearful, because true fearfulness is lacking—no desire to seek God, no desire to know Christ, no desire to search the truth, no desire to go into the inner chamber, no desire to fight against sin. Oh, where shall I end? Is all this in a regenerated heart, all this with a person who has initially received grace? It cannot be described how far listlessness may extend itself, how far the inward life may sink away. We have instances of it in God’s Word.

People who are strangers to that life condemn them and place them outside of it, and blot them from the book of converted people; they cast stones at them and condemn them. Oh, if those Pharisees could only look deep, deep into the heart of those people for whom they shrug their shoulders, they would soon cease with their wicked judgment. For, however far that true life is hidden, at the bottom of one’s heart there is a grief and condemnation which is not known to self-righteous Pharisees. There is a sighing, calling, and crying to be delivered out of such a state.

No, they do not agree with their state; they walk on condemning themselves. They do not agree with this condition. All this is proof there is something different. Death feels nothing, and hypocrites are satisfied with themselves. Oh, they are so pleased with themselves; they only boast with themselves. They always have much and never lack anything. They know no want, no strife, and no condemnation. They have no knowledge of that which David sang in Psalter 389:4,

My failing spirit see,

O Lord, to me make haste;

Hide not Thy face from me,

Lest bitter death I taste.

O let the morn return,

Let mercy light my day;

For Thee in faith I yearn,

O guide me in the way.

A hypocrite can help himself, but God’s people have to be helped. They become ever more dependent upon the influences of that dear Spirit. Warburton wrote to his son. “My name has been on the beggars’ list for more than fifty years, and now in my old age I have to go down on my knees more often than ever before.”

Yea, it becomes manifest, and it is confirmed that the Lord has left an afflicted and poor people who shall trust in His name (Zephaniah 3:12). In that confidence, that childlike humble confidence, those people are not disappointed. The Lord shall finish that which He has begun unto the day of Jesus Christ. In His own time, He revives those whom He has quickened. What a pleasant sensation that is when their soul is animated again, when the service of the Lord becomes an act of love again, when they may once again delight themselves in the Lord and their heart may go out because of His presence. This is when the Lord renews the face of the earth.

Finally, we are convinced, and we know that we have nothing of ourselves. When, in Ezekiel 1, the large wheel began to turn, then all the others turned with it. How that characterizes itself in our day by great listlessness. Our heart should be filled with fear when we observe, in general, that everywhere there is no desire to search the truth. Alas, we need not put our head outside of our own door. How sad are conditions in our families. Let us commence with our own heart and home, and then we shall not be surprised that conditions in the visible church are so sad. It is a rare thing if a child has a desire to search God’s Word; it is seldom that we find our boys and girls with a book to instruct them in the truth and that they are still interested in the history of God’s church. How much is known, even outwardly and judgmentally of the fundamental principles of the truth? This is also one of the reasons why the preaching in church and instructions in catechism classes receive so little acceptance and so little interest.

Our generation hardly concerns itself anymore with the things that are necessary to know unto salvation. May we become the guilty one under all this. Also, in respect to this, judgment begins at the house of God. Oh, may the Lord grant us a change for the better. Lord, do arise once more and work with Thy Spirit so that we shall not sink away and return unto paganism.

God alone can work a change.

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