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Dimensions of Eternal Love (2)

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Dimensions of Eternal Love (2)

10 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

Taken from an application of a farewell sermon

William Huntington (1745-1813)

Let me show you one great reason why you are kept in j perpetual suspense and tossed about with unbelief, doubts, and slavish fears. Deal faithfully with your own consciences, and try yourselves by what I am going to advance. Your troubles spring from wrong conceptions of God, the fountain of all happiness. Don’t you view God as arrayed in terrible majesty with indignation against you, a sinner? Don’t you conceive Him to be an inexorable Judge, comparable to a devouring flame or consuming fire? Are you not afraid, day after day, that He will cut you down as a cumberer of the ground, bring you to judgment, and, at the last day, expose you before angels and saints as a polluted sinner with all your secret, unclean sins disclosed to the host of heaven? If you say, “Yes, these are my thoughts and my conceptions, indeed; you have described my case; pray how did you discover this?” Do you leave that to God and view God speaking to you by me?

You say that what I have said are your conceptions; therefore, you are filled with a slavish fear of God, and this fear is attended with tormenting cogitations. The workings of your mind are what Job calls tossings, “...I am full of tossings to and fro...” (Job 7:4). If I have mentioned your conceptions aright, let me tell you that you view God in His fiery law; He is that Judge, that terrible Sovereign, that consuming fire as considered in His violated law and out of Christ. While you conceive thus of God you will be tormented as it is written, “Fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

If what I have mentioned be agreeable to your experiences, you err in your conceptions. I say, as an awakened and quickened sinner, you err in your conceptions; that holds you captive to slavish fear and unbelief. Let us look a little at the back parts of God, seeing we cannot see His face and live (Exodus 33:20). I say let us view His back parts as Moses did. We will suppose ourselves in the Rock, Christ, as Moses was in the cleft of the rock at Horeb when God showed him His back parts—a rock which certainly was a type of Christ. We will endeavor for a while to understand what God says in His Word as it is written, “In that day the Lord with His sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” Now we will suppose that this prophecy means destroying the works of the devil in the elect by Christ Jesus, which it certainly does. “In that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day. Fury is not in Me....” Mark that. “Fury is not in Me” (Isaiah 27:1-4).

Still proceed to view the back parts of God while we are in the cleft of the Rock, Christ, and let us hear what God says to us in this situation. “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty...” (Exodus 34:6-7). Without a Surety, who is Christ, the end of the law for righteousness? Now what do you think of the back parts of God? “Why,” say you, “blessed be His holy Name, He is better to follow than to meet.” Why then, “be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children” (Ephesians 5:1), and you shall not see Peniel, the face of God, till the corrupted veil of mortality shall be swallowed up, and then you will not want to shun that transporting sight. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Again, brethren, if you view God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing your trespasses unto you but sending His Son to bless you by turning every one of you from your evil ways, and that the flame of God’s wrath is quenched in the Savior’s blood; if you view His sword of justice sheathed in the body and soul of a dear Redeemer, the law disarmed of its dreadful curse, death disarmed of its sting, the devil himself dethroned and cast down, death plagued, the grave destroyed, the gates of hell barred against every believer, and the doors of heaven displayed to all who ask, seek, and knock; surely these things are sufficient to support a hoping soul. They are sufficient especially if we consider that our reconciled God is now our most propitious Father, yea, the Father of all mercies, the God of all comfort, our Husband and our Friend, a present help, our strong hold, our unchangeable lover, our God, Guide, and Guard, yea, our rich Provider, the strength of our heart, our Justifier, our Saviour, the shield of our help, and our portion for ever.

Well, what do you now think of that ever-blessed God? “Blessed be His name,” say you, “He seems altogether sweet and lovely as those Scriptures represent Him which you have quoted.” The Word of God bears me out in all that I have said, and He is that blessed One to you if you view Him reconciled in the Mediator and come to Him by Christ. View Him as I have represented Him from His own Word, and you will find Him the perfection of beauty and the best of friends; and this will disarm your souls of that slavish fear and torment and sweetly soften, dissolve, and attract your affections to love Him as the greatest of names and the fountain of infinite happiness.

Some may say, “What is the purpose of all this long harangue and strict scrutiny about love?” The apostle says, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity,” or love, (1 Corinthians 13:13); this charity, or love, never fails. Besides, if all of your religion springs entirely from the fear of hell without any hatred to sin, thirst for holiness, love to God, or desire after His favor, all your religion is eye service; it is with you according to the Kentish proverb, “No longer pipe, no longer dance.” I mean you move on in your religion no longer than while conscience spurs you, vengeance drives you, or carnal gain or human applause allure you. You are an eye servant; you cannot work but while the whip is upon your back. The very moment that your master Moses lays by the lash of scorpions, you are gone to the alehouse, card table, ballroom, rout, playhouse, or some idle amusement or other. As soon as Moses comes in, then you set off for the sanctuary again, to offer to God a silly dove without a heart (Hosea 7:11) or else to mock Him with a dry form of prayer. Every time you perform that task you offer thirty lies to God, and then you wipe your mouth like the whore in the Proverbs and say, “...This day have I payed my vows” (Proverbs 7:14). If you live and die in that state, God will requite you with the greater damnation.

Let me now appeal to your conscience in the sight of God. If you hear a preacher who enforces the Spirits work on the soul, that preaches down human merit, will, and power, and insists on the application of truth or a walk in the truth, who treats much of the life of faith, the joy of hope, the liberty of the Spirit, the enjoyment of love, a heart-felt union with Christ, peace of conscience, and a tender regard for the honor of God, don’t you despise and rail against such preachers and preachings? If conscience is to umpire or arbitrate, will she not say, yes? As the Lord God of hosts lives, before whom I stand, if you live and die a stranger to all that I have said upon these points, you cannot escape the damnation of hell (Matthew 23:33).

Yet again, I will come with another appeal to conscience. Are you not fond of a thundering law preacher who deals chiefly in the vengeance of heaven and fetches all his artillery from the fiery law of God? Don’t you find that a discourse that savors most of death, judgment, destruction, damnation, and the very flames of hell is most descriptive of your legal feelings? “Yes,” you say, “While this storm is going over my head, I am all religion; while it is preaching, I think in my own mind, Oh, how I will watch, work, pray, and perform my task when I get home again,” Ay, but before you get your feet over the threshold of your own door, the sound of thunder is gone out of your ears, and all the blind zeal that was awakened and the working frame that was communicated to your spirit are gone. You are immediately taken captive by the devil and led into some besetting sin, and by that secret sin you are held a prisoner all the year round. This you know is truth; let conscience do her office. “I cannot deny,” say you, “but this is the case, and how you find it out I know not.” No, nor are you likely to know, but this I tell you; in the Church of God there are both servants and sons. “And the servant (says the Saviour) abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:35-36). If you are a servant, you will stick to the rod of Moses till your conscience and your spirit will be hardened like a blacksmith’s anvil.

If, however, you are a son of God by faith in Jesus Christ, the undeserved love of the Father and the dying love of the Redeemer when preached, applied, and enjoyed, will cause you to become susceptible to every divine impression, and your tender conscience will feel the least sin heavy indeed; every just reproof will be then an excellent oil; yea, one reproof from the lips of the gracious One will enter deeper into your heart as a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool (Proverbs 17:10).

God own and bless the few hints that I have dropped among you to His honor and to your eternal comfort.

Dear Reader: Please accept our apology for the errors in the March issue in which we listed John Warburton as the author rather than William Huntington and made a mistake in the title of this article (Editor).

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Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 maart 2008

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Dimensions of Eternal Love (2)

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zaterdag 1 maart 2008

The Banner of Truth | 24 Pagina's