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Formality Not Christianity (2)

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Formality Not Christianity (2)

8 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

“"For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Romans 2:28-29).

2. External observances can never stand in the stead of sanctification to the believer.

If it be a common thing for awakened minds to seek for peace in their external observances, to make a Christ of them and rest in them as their means of acceptance with God, it is also a common thing for those who have been brought into Christ and enjoy the peace of believing, to place mere external observances in the stead of growth in holiness. Every believer among you knows how fain the old heart within you would substitute the hearing of sermons and the repeating of prayers in the place of that faith which worketh by love and which overcometh the world. Now the great reason why the believer is often tempted to do this is that he loves the ordinances.

Unconverted souls seldom take delight in the ordinances of Christ. They see no beauty in Jesus, they see no form nor comeliness in Him, they hide their faces from Him. Why should you wonder, then, that they take no delight in praying to Him continually, in praising Him daily, in calling Him blessed? Why should you wonder that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them, that His tabernacles are not amiable in their eyes, that they forsake the assembling of themselves together? They never knew the Savior, they never loved Him; how, then, should they love the memorials which He has left behind Him?

When you are weeping by the chiseled monument of a departed friend, you do not wonder that the careless crowd passes by without a tear. They did not know the virtues of your departed friend, they do not know the fragrance of his memory. Just so the world cares not for the house of prayer, the sprinkled water, the broken bread, the poured-out wine; for they never knew the excellency of Jesus.

But with Jesus it is far otherwise. You have been divinely taught your need of Jesus, and therefore you delight to hear Christ preached. You have seen the beauty of Christ crucified; and therefore you love the place where He is evidently set forth. You love the very name of Jesus; it is as ointment poured forth, and therefore you could join forever in the melody of His praises. The Sabbath day of which you once said, “What a weariness it is!” and “When will it be over, that we may set forth corn?” is now a delight and honorable, the sweetest day of all the seven. The ordinances, which were once a dull and sickening routine, are now green pastures and waters of stillness to your soul; and surely this is a blessed change.

But still you are in the body; heaven is not yet gained. Satan is hovering near; and since he cannot destroy the work of God in your soul, therefore he tries all the more to spoil it. He cannot stem the current; therefore he tries to turn it aside. He cannot drive back God's arrow; and therefore he tries to make it turn awry and spend its strength in vain. When he finds that you love the ordinances, and that it is in vain to tempt you to forsake them, he lets you love them; ay, he helps you to love them more and more. He becomes an angel of light; he helps in the decoration of the house of God, he throws around its services a fascinating beauty, hurries you on from one house of God to another, from prayer meetings to sermon-hearings, from sermons to sacraments.

And why does he do all this? He does all this just that he may make this the whole of your sanctification— that outward ordinances may be the all in all of your religion, that in your anxiety to preserve the shell, you may let fall the kernel.

If there be one of you, then, in whose heart God hath wrought the amazing change of turning you from loathing to loving His ordinances, let me beseech you to be jealous over your heart with godly jealousy. Pause this hour, and see if, in your haste and anxious pursuit of the ordinances, you have not left the pursuit of that holiness without which the ordinances are sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. I have a message from God unto thee. It is written: “He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” He is not a Christian which is one outwardly, neither is that baptism which is merely the outward washing of the body; but he is a Christian which is one inwardly, and true baptism is that of the heart—when the heart is washed from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Remember, I beseech you, that the ordinances are means to an end; they are stepping-stones, by which you may arrive at a landing-place. Is your soul sitting down in the ordinances, and saying, “It is enough”? Are you so satisfied that you can enjoy the ordinances of Christ that you desire no higher attainments? Remember the word that is written: “This is not your rest.” Would you not say he was a foolish traveler who should take every inn he came to for his home, who should take up his settled rest, and instead of preparing himself for a hard journeying on the morrow, should begin to take the ease and enjoyment of the house as his all? Take heed that you be not this foolish traveler. The ordinances are intended by God to be but the inns and refectories where the traveler Zion-ward, weary in well-doing and faint in faith, may betake himself to tarry for a night, that, being refreshed with bread and wine, he may, with new alacrity, press forward on his journey home as upon eagles' wings.

Take then this one rule of life along with you, founded on these blessed words, “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly”: that if your outward religion is helping on your inward religion; if your hearing of Christ on the Sabbath day makes you grow more like Christ through all the week; if the words of grace and joy which you drink in at the house of God lead your heart to love more, and your hand to do more; then, and then only, are you using the ordinances of God aright.

There is not a more miserably deceived soul in the world than that soul among you who, like Herod, lives in sin. You love the Sabbath day, you love the house of God. You love to hear Christ preached in all His freeness and in all His fullness; yes, you think you could listen forever if only Christ be the theme. You love to sit down at sacraments, and to commemorate the death of your Lord. And is this all your holiness? Does your religion end here? Is this all that believing in Jesus has done for you?

Remember, I beseech you, that the ordinances of Christ are not means of enjoyment, but means of grace; and though it is said that the travelers in the valley of Baca dig up wells, which are filled with the rain from on high, yet it is also said: “They go from strength to strength.” Away, then, my friends, and let it no more be said of us that our religion is confined to the house of God and to the Sabbath day. Let us draw water with joy from these wells, just in order that we may travel the wilderness with joy and strength, and love and hope—blessed in ourselves, and a blessing to all about us.

And if we speak thus to those of you whose religion seems to go no farther than the ordinances, what shall we say to those of you who contradict the very use and end of the ordinances in your lives? Is it possible you can delight in worldliness, vanity, covetousness, pride, and luxury? Is it possible that the very lips which are so ready to sing praises or to join in prayers are also ready to speak the words of guile, of malice, of envy, of bitterness? Awake, we beseech you; we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. To you he hath made himself an angel of light.

Remember it is written: “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Amen.

— Rev. R. M. McCheyne (1836)

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 juni 2003

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's

Formality Not Christianity (2)

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 juni 2003

The Banner of Truth | 28 Pagina's