By REV. J. R. ANDERSON.
(25th October, 1855—Fast Day.)
(Continued from Vol. lviii., page 366.)
My friends, where are you? Are you at home? Do you understand these things? Have you in your own experience a key to them? They will be parables to you if you have not some experience. Had you any fellowship with God this morning? Drawing nigh to Him and He drawing nigh to you? Had you any fellowship with Him in secret? in the family? This is a day set apart for preparation for a solemn service to Him. Do you think you will draw nigh to Him at the Lord’s Table if you do not draw nigh to Him on the fast day? It is a delusion. But there seems to be special reference had to a certain operation that is to be contemplated in drawing nigh to Him. “Cleanse your hands ye sinners; purify your hearts ye double-minded.” At first sight some would think this savours of legality. Look, however, at the connection in which it occurs. Where are you to cleanse your hands? In drawing nigh to Him. Where are you to purify your hearts? In drawing nigh to Him. This was of old typified in the vessels prepared in connection with the Tabernacle in which the priests washed on occasion of their drawing nigh to the God of Israel; and in the molten sea which Solomon prepared and put into the temple for a similar purpose.
There is reference had to this in the words of the Psalmist, “I will wash my hands in innocence.” The substance of these types is to be found in Christ. So says the Apostle after enumerating these things “which are a shadow of good things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Colossians ii. 17). By His obedience unto death a foundation is opened for sin and uncleanness. Wheresoever there is a drawing nigh to God such as we have spoken of, it will stand inseparably connected with an experience of the virtue of this fountain. “Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” Believe in God to whom you are to draw nigh: and with His Son Jesus Christ, through whom you are to draw nigh, and through whom He draws nigh to them. “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” If you will attempt to approach the Holy One whilst there is in your souls through darkness or insensibility, or carelessness or presumption a retaining of your iniquity, you will never draw nigh to Him, nor will He draw nigh to you. He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall fools stand in His sight.” He hates all workers of iniquity. And on the other hand, if in the way that has been pointed out, you draw nigh to Him, the necessary consequence will be your cleansing your hands as sinners; referring to actual transgressions: and your purifying your hearts as double-minded; referring to the frame of mind or the inward disposition. Now try both. Would that all communicants were the length of trying to draw nigh to God, I would propose to the session that we should receive them all. But I am afraid very few are that length, I half-wish that I could do what a godly man once did. He visited a family without letting them know who he was, and in the evening insisted that the head of the family should conduct worship; He said, “Oh, sir, I cannot pray.” It may be that that man would appear at the Lord’s Table and yet he could not pray. I half-wish that it were allowable and practicable to put you to the test in this way. How many prayerless heads of families might be found even amongst us! Where are your consciences? Is there no light from all the sermons that have been preached to you? Answer the question this day to Him before whom you will have to stand to give account. Answer the question, do you know what it is even to try to draw nigh to God? Put it upon the experience of the worship in which you engaged before you came here; put it upon the experience of the worship in which you are engaged in this place, what are you about at this moment? Where is your soul? I suppose there are some that have no more soul in them than these wooden boards. Alas, alas! there is no relief for His poor people but in the prospect of that table at which they will be allowed to sit in His Kingdom for ever, and from which all such characters will be shut out.
Try to draw nigh to God, you will find that you must purify your hearts as double-minded, you will realise through the power of the Holy Ghost pressing it home upon your consciences that you are both sinners and double-minded. When the fire of the Holy Ghost comes down upon a man’s soul, and the Law does its work in the heat of the fire, then he finds that his character is faithfully delineated in the Word: that he is indeed a sinner, and needs to cleanse his hands; that he is indeed double-minded and needs to purify his heart.
And if you succeed in drawing nigh to God and He draws nigh to you, we know that you will tremble to have your hands defiled again, you will walk like Hezekiah after a wholesome discipline exercise in his case, you will walk softly before Him all your days.
Verse 9th: “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.”
These are exercises in which the work of purification is to be carried forward. It is not a cold formal pharisaical purification that is inculcated. No, it is a deep spiritual, broken-hearted purification that is here inculcated, such purification as will be found up and down the whole Scripture of truth, and a purification such as alone suits the taste of a truly gracious soul. How do you like it? Are you like swine wallowing in the mire? It would not be nearly so hateful a sight to see so many swine coming to a Communion Table, as to see dead, blind, carnal creatures taking their seat at it, that don’t seem to have a soul in them. They don’t seem to think that God is, they have no sense of the glory of the heaven of happiness, or of the horror of the hell of misery. “Woe is me that I dwell in Mesec, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar. My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace, but when I speak they are for war” (Psalm cxx. 5-7). So sighed out the sweet singer of Israel when he was mixed up with characters of this description; and so does the Church of God sigh so long as she remains here; and ever and anon has to sit and weep by the Rivers of Babylon till she gets beside the river of the water of life, and where she will eat of the leaves of the tree of life (Revelation xxii. 1-2). You troublers of Israel will bear your burden, whoever you are. You cold, proud, iron-sinewed, brazen-faced professors, be afflicted. Much cause have you to be afflicted for the evils that are in you, and the evils done by you, for the good you have kept from yourselves, and the good you have kept from others: for the mischief you have done to your own souls, and the souls of others. And let your affliction express itself in mourning. Be sad for your sins, but don’t be like hypocrites, hanging your heads like bulrushes. Be afflicted and mourn in your souls, speak in mournful language. It would be like music in our ears after all the noise and tumult we have had, to hear a people mourning over their sins. A lovely spectacle it would be to see little groups of Church members and family circles, afflicted and mourning on their knees, expressing their sorrow at what each man is in the sight of God, at what each man has done, as well as being afflicted and mourning over one another’s sins.
“And weep.” Let the expression of the mourning reach its highest point, so that the sluices of the tears shall be opened, and they shall gush forth. “Let your laughter be turned to mourning.” The laughter of proud contempt and rebellion, the laughter of haughty independence and self-sufficiency, the laughter of vain and careless joy; let that laughter be turned into mourning. Not only let it be laid aside, but let it undergo a sort of transformation, so that it may be turned into prayer for the supply of your need; and you who were so light, and frothy and joyous and noisy and independent, and vainglorious, shall be like to be crushed with a heavy heart, a heavy spirit. Oh, is this not an exercise well suited to us in this day of humiliation and prayer? Is it not an exercise that each man should try and get into for himself, and plead with Him with whom is the residue of the spirit that others may get into it too? Where is the man or woman that should claim exemption from this exercise? Is it you? You should be the first to engage in it. Is it you? You should be the next to seek after it. Let it go the round, old and young, male and female, who is he that can plead upon good grounds that he is entitled to be exempted from this bitter exercise of being afflicted, mourning and weeping, your laughter being turned into heaviness?
Verse 10th: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.”
It is a good thing to draw nigh to Him that you may be afflicted, and being afflicted to humble yourselves under His mighty hand that He may lift you up. “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last.” He is so in Himself, He is so in all the counsels of His holy will and in all the ways of His providence. He is the first and the last in all gracious exercises of soul. He ought to be the first and last with you and with your exercises. Sometimes people are tempted to try and begin soul exercises without Him, intending to end with Him, but they miscarry, and it is just that they should miscarry. He will not be the Omega of any exercise unless He be the Alpha. The connection of this verse proves that we are to begin with submitting ourselves to Him, and looking upon Him whom we have pierced through the spirit of grace and supplications poured bountifully out. Be afflicted and mourn and weep, and humble ourselves under His mighty hand that He may lift us up. It is against Him that we have lifted ourselves up. Moses told the perverse and rebellious people he had to deal with that it was so in their case. “Your murmurings are not against us, but against Him.” You are not called therefore primarily to humble yourselves in the sight of man; we are called primarily to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord. People in their pride shrink from humbling themselves before men. They beat about for reasons excusing themselves from this exercise. “What will become of us?” We shall be contemptible, we shall lose our character? All such pleas are out of place. What we are called to do is to humble ourselves in the sight of God. That is an honourable position, a very becoming exercise, and we may say, it is only what is due. If we have lifted ourselves against Him in our sin, ought we not to humble ourselves in His sight in our repentance? He requires it at our hand, because He knows that it is against Him sin has been committed. In our sin we lifted ourselves up above Him; in our repenting we must lift Him above us. In our sin we, so to say, humbled the Lord in our sight, in our repenting we must humble ourselves in His sight. And mark the gracious promise attached to this injunction. “He shall lift you up.” When men lift themselves up the Lord requires to cast them down; when they cast themselves down He lifts them up. The lifting of ourselves up that stands in contrast with the humbling of ourselves, implies a casting Him down. He is not on the throne of the heart receiving the homage that is His due. The thoughts and the imaginations of the heart are not brought into captivity to Him. He is therefore cast down. Now no casting of ourselves down will do, but what has in it a lifting of Him up. You may be cast down in distress, cast down to the lowest hell. You have no part in this promise, the import of it brings out this idea that you must be cast down in such a way as to lift Him up. If you humble yourselves in His sight, so that He shall be lifted up, you will be lifted up in due time.
Verse 11th: “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.”
There is a close connection between the exercises of the soul towards God, and the affections it manifest towards fellow-men. If you find men not manifesting a right and charitable spirit towards one another, you are entitled to draw the inference that these peoples’ hearts are not right with God. On the other hand, when you find one who if it be possible as much as lieth in him lives peaceably with all men. Look not every man on his own things, but every man upon the things of others, so far there is evidence that such a man is walking with God. If there be a great deal of evil speaking, and if evil speaking that begins in a drop grows into a flood this is a sore evil in itself but it is an indication of a sorer evil. Men are so occupied in backbiting and quarrelling with one another that they have not time to keep their souls in order with the blessed God. When you see men’s countenances covered evermore with clouds, you need no one to tell you that that man has not been where Moses was when his face shone, so that the Israelites could not look upon him. When a man is kept near to Him who is Light, admitted to much and intimate fellowship with Him, he is sick of the practices to which people are addicted. He cannot bear the squabbling and confusion that abound. Now getting into the exercises of soul that are here required and recommended, you will fall in readily and cheerfully with the direction here given, “Speak not evil one of another.” But vain is your attempt, and vain is our attempt to check the sin of evil speaking of one another when these exercises of soul are overlooked. The reason given for this injunction is that he that speaketh evil of another, speaketh evil of the law. Why? The law says you are not to speak evil one of another. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” If you speak evil one of another, you and the law are at variance; you may say, “Oh, but I don’t judge the law; I allow that the law is right.” And will you continue in the wrong? That will not do. Don’t you speak a word; let your conduct speak for you. I am not going to say that the law is right or wrong. Judge me by my spirit, and daily walk. Try and gather from that how I regard the law. The Apostle points out the evil of the presumptuous judging of the law, “If thou judge the law thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.” Such a height of presumption to walk into a seat too high for you! The place that belongs to you is to receive the law at His mouth, submit yourselves to Him who gives the law, and set yourselves through grace to do what it commands. The place of a judge was never intended for you, and for it you are totally unfit.
Verse 12th: “There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy; who art thou that judgest another?”
Don’t take His place, it belongs exclusively to Him. There is but one judge. Neither need you take the law into your own hand; He is able to save or destroy. Learn therefore not to judge one another, but this rather, that no one be a stumbling-block in His brother’s way.
APPLICATION.
1. See where all true religion begins.
It begins in submission. All solid happiness begins in submission. What, my friends, has been the fertile source of all the miseries that have come upon this fallen world? Insubordination. Where lies the secret of any measure of peace and order and comfort that have been enjoyed? It lies in submission to God. Is that the secret of your religion? Do you run a race with one another who shall manifest the greatest submission? Study to be quiet and mind your own business. Don’t take it upon you to do what properly belongs to others. Let every man seek his own place, and find it and take it, and keep it in all humility, and take care especially that you are not with regard to your fellow men in the Church and in the world what Moses’s rod was to the Egyptians; it swallowed them up.
2. See the nature of the exercises in which true religion goes forward.
Drawing nigh to God, and that in such a way as He will draw nigh to you. Gracious persons are very solicitous to know whether they draw nigh to Him. The evidence is: His drawing nigh to you. The evidence of this of old was fire coming down from heaven and consuming the sacrifice. Manoah and his wife were afraid they would die because they had seen God, but they were comforted under their apprehensions. “If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a burnt offering at our hand” (Judges xiii. 23). He will not kill you if He draws nigh graciously to you. But oh! a poor look out you have for eternity, a tremendous meeting will take place between Him and you if you have spent all your days like the Pharisee in going into the temple to pray, and twice a year going up to the Mount of Ordinances, whilst the Lord has never drawn nigh to you. Mind, if yours be true religion, it will go forward in the way of drawing nigh to God, and drawing nigh to Him in such a way as that He shall draw nigh to you.
3. Observe the spirit in which this exercise is to be conducted, given to purification, being afflicted, mourning and weeping, humbling yourselves under His Mighty hand.
These are the exercises, this is the spirit in which persons should draw nigh to God; and this is the spirit that will be infallibly fostered by His drawing nigh to you.
May the Lord bless His Word and to His name be the Glory!—AMEN.