(by Wm. Gurnall, A.M.)
Doctrine.
That it is the saints’ duty, and should be their care, not only to believe God Almighty, but also strongly to believe that this almighty power of God is theirs (that is, engaged for their defence and help); so as to make use of it in all straits and temptations.
Section I.—First.
I shall prove that the almighty power of God is engaged for the Christian’s defence; with the grounds of it.
II. Secondly.
Why the Christian should strongly act his faith on this.
I. First.
The almighty power of God is engaged for the saints’ defence. God brought Israel out of Egypt with a high hand; but did He set them down on the other side of the Red Sea to find and force their way to Canaan by their own policy or power? When He had opened the iron gate of their house of bondage, and brought them into the open fields, did He vanish as the angel from Peter when out of prison? No, as a man carries his son, so the Lord bare them in all the way they went, Deut. i:31. This lively sets forth the saints’ march to Heaven. God brings a soul out of spiritual Egypt by His converting grace; that is, in the day of His power, wherein He makes the soul willing to come out of Satan’s clutches. Now when the saint is upon his march, all the country riseth upon him. How shall this poor creature pass the pikes, and get safely by all his enemies’ borders? God Himself infolds him in the arm of His everlasting strength. We are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Pet. i:5). The power of God is that shoulder on which Christ carries His sheep home, rejoicing all the way He goes, Lu. 15:5. These everlasting arms of His strength are those eagle’s wings upon which the saints are both tenderly and securely conveyed to glory, Ex. xix:4. There is a five-fold tie or engagement that lies upon God’s power, to be the saint’s life-guard.
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The near relation He hath to His saints; they are His own dear children: every one takes care of his own. The silly hen, how doth she bustle and bestir herself to gather her brood under her wing when the kite appears! No care like that which nature teacheth. How much more will God, who is the Father of such dispositions in His creatures, stir up His whole strength to defend His children! He said, “Surely they are My people, children that will not lie — they are My people; so He was their Saviour” (Is. 63:8). As if God had said, “Shall I sit still and with My hand in My bosom, while My own people are thus misused before My face? I cannot bear it.” The mother as she sits in her house hears one child shriek, and knowing the voice, cries out, “Oh it is my child!” Away she throws all, and runs to him. Thus God takes the alarm of His children’s cry: “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself” saith the Lord. The cry pierced His ear, and His ear affected His bowels, and His bowels called up His power to His child’s rescue.
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The love He beareth to His saints engaged His power. He that hath God’s heart, cannot want His arm. Love in the creature commands all the other affection, sets all the power of the whole man on work: thus in God, love sets all His other attributes on work. When God once set His thoughts on doing good to lost man, then wisdom fell on projecting the way, and almighty power undertook to raise the fabric according to wisdom’s model. All are ready to effect what God saith He likes. Now the believing soul is an object of God’s choicest love, even the same with which He loves His Son, Jn. 17:26.
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The covenant engageth God’s almighty power: Gen. 17:1, “I am the Almighty God; walk before Me.” There is a league offensive and defensive between God and His saints: He gives it under His hand, that He will put forth the whole power of His Godhead for them: 1 Ch. 17:24, “The Lord of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel.” God doth not parcel Himself out by retail, but gives His saints leave to challenge whatever He hath as theirs; and let him, whoever he is, sit in God’s throne and take away His crown, that can fasten an untruth on the Holy One. As His Name is, so is His nature, a God keeping covenant for ever. The promises stand as the mountains about Jerusalem, never to be removed; the weak as well as the strong Christian is within this line of communication. Were saints to fight it out in open field by the strength of their own grace, then the strong were most likely to stand, and the weak to fall in battle; but both castled in the covenant are alike safe.
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The saints’ dependence on God, and expectation from God in all their straits, oblige this power for their succour. Whither does a gracious soul fly in any want or danger from sin, Satan, or his instruments, but to his God, as naturally as the coney to her burrow? Ps. 56:3, “At what time I am afraid,” saith David, “I will trust in Thee.” He tells God he will make bold with His house to step into, when taken in any storm; and doth not question his welcome. Thus when Saul hunted him, he left a city of gates and bars to trust God in the open field. Indeed, all the saints are taught the same lesson — to renounce their own strength, and rely on the power of God; their own policy, and cast themselves on the wisdom of God; their own righteousness, and expect all from the pure mercy of God in Christ; which act of faith is so pleasing to God that such a soul shall never be ashamed: Ps. 9:18, “The expectation of the poor shall not perish.” A heathen could say, when a bird (pursued by a hawk) flew into his bosom, “I will not betray thee unto thy enemy, seeing thou comest for sanctuary unto me.” How much less will God yield up a soul unto its enemy, when it takes sanctuary in His name, saying, “Lord, I am hunted with such a temptation, dogged with such a lust; either Thou must pardon it, or I am damned! Mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it. Take me into the bosom of Thy love for Christ’s sake; enclose me in the arms of Thy everlasting strength: it is in Thy power to save me from, or give me up into the hands of my enemy. I have no confidence in myself or any other: into Thy hands I commit my cause, and rely on Thee.”
This dependence of a soul undoubtedly will awaken the almighty power of God for such a one’s defence. He hath sworn the greatest oath that can come out of His blessed lips, even by Himself, that such as fly for refuge to hope in Him, shall have strong consolation, Heb. 6:17. This indeed may give the saint the greater boldness of faith to expect kind entertainment when he repairs to God for refuge; because he cannot come before he is looked for. God, having set up His name and promises as a strong tower, both calls His people into these chambers, and expects they should betake themselves thither.
- Christ’s presence and employment in Heaven lays a strong engagement on God to bring His whole force and power into the field upon all occasions for His saints’ defence. One special end of His journey to Heaven, and abode there, is that He might (as the saints’ solicitor) be ever interceding for such supplies and succours of His Father as their exigencies call for; and the more to assure us of the same before He went, He did (as it were) tell us what heads He meant to go upon in His intercession, when He should come there: one of which was this, that His Father should keep His children, while they were to stay in the world, from the evil thereof, John 17:15. Neither doth Christ take upon Him this work of His own head, but hath the same appointment of His Father for what He now prays in Heaven, as He had for what He suffered on earth: He that ordained Him a Priest to die for sinners, did not then strip Him of His priestly garments (as Aaron); but appoints Him to ascend in them to Heaven, where He sits a Priest for ever by God’s oath. And this office of intercession was erected purely in mercy to believers, that they might have full content given them for the performance of all that God hath promised; so that Jesus Christ is at court as our Ambassador, to see all carried fairly between God and us, according to agreement. And if Christ follows His business close, and is faithful in His place to believers, all is well: and doth it not behove Him to be so who intercedes for such dear relations? Suppose a king’s son should get out of a besieged city, where he had left his wife and children, whom he loves as his own soul, and these all ready to die by sword or famine, if supply come not soon; could this prince, when arrived at his father’s house, please himself with the delights of the court, and forget the distress of his family? Or rather, would he not come post to his father (having their cries or groans always in his ears), and before he eat or drink, do his errand to his father, and entreat him, if ever he loved him, that he would send all the force of his kingdom to raise the siege, rather than any of his dear relations should perish? Surely, sirs, though Christ be in the top of His preferment, and out of the storm in regard of His own Person, yet His children left behind, in the midst of sins, Satan, and the world’s batteries, are in His heart, and shall not be forgotten a moment by Him. The care He takes in our business appeared in the speedy dispatch He made of His Spirit to His apostles’ supply when He ascended, which, as soon almost as He was warm in His seat, at His Father’s right hand, He sent, to the unspeakable comfort of His apostles, and of us that do or shall believe on Him.
Section II.
The second branch of the point follows: that saints should eye this power of God as engaged for them, and press it home upon their souls till they silence all doubts and fears about the matter; which is the import of this exhortation: “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” Fortify and entrench your souls within the breastwork of this attribute of God’s mighty power made over to you by God Himself.
First.
It is the end of all promises to be steadfast to our faith; so of those in particular where His almighty power is expressly engaged, that we may count this attribute our portion, and reap the comfort it yields as freely as one may the crop of his own field. “Walk before Me,” saith God to Abraham, “I am God Almighty.” Set on this as thy portion, and live upon it. The Apostle, Heb. 13:6, teacheth us what use to make of promises: verse 5, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” — there is the promise; and the inference which he teacheth us to draw by faith from this follows, verse 6, “So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper.” We, that is, every believer, may boldly conclude God will help; not timorously, perhaps He will; but boldly assert it in the face of men and devils, because He that is almighty hath said it. Now for a Christian not to strengthen his faith on this incomparably sweet attribute, but to sit down with a few weak, unsettled hopes, when he ought to be strong in the faith of such promises; what is it but to undervalue the blessing of such promises? As if one should promise another house and land, and bid him make them sure to himself as the law can bind them, and he should take no care to effect this, would it not be interpreted as a slighting of his friend’s kindness? Is it a small matter that God bindeth over His almighty power by promise to us, and bids us make it as sure to ourselves as we can by faith, and we neglect this, leaving the writings of the promises unsealed on our hearts?