A Fast Day’s Sermon by Rev John Willison (Continued from the last issue (Page 144))

Consideration 1. Your soul’s grievances can never be removed while God keeps at a distance from you; but they will still be growing greater; as for instance, while he is a stranger, you cannot have light for your darkness, but darkness will be increasing; you cannot have life for your deadness, but you will still be growing dead in spiritual things; you cannot have appetite for our food, but you will always be turning the more indifferent about it; you cannot have protection from your enemies, but you will still be brought the more under their power. Things will still be growing worse, the longer God is a stranger to thy soul.

1. Ordinances can neither be pleasant nor profitable to thee, while God is a stranger to thy soul; you cannot see any beauty in them, while God is absent; for without the Lord’s presence, ordinances are dead, and a dead thing can have no beauty. It is his presence that puts a lustre on ordinances, and makes them shine, so as to confirm the friends of the gospel, and make enemies ashamed of their opposition. It is his presence that puts life in communions, and life in communicants, and causes them to prefer a day in “God’s courts to a thousand elsewhere.” It is his presence that makes ordinances fruitful, and his people’s souls to thrive under them. O! why have you such lean souls and barren hearts under ordinances? It is because the Lord is a stranger to them. Would you have your food blest, gospel-seasons fruitful, and your souls under the influence thereof, like watered gardens? Then seek the Lord’s presence, 1 Cor. 3: 7, “It is not he that planteth, nor he that watereth, but God that gives the increase.”

Quest. Seeing God is setting a solemn appointment to meet with us at this occasion, and it highly concerneth us to make ready to meet with him: How shall we be exercised on this fast-day, so as to get distance removed, and breaches made up, that God may not be a stranger to us on the feast-day?

Ans. I shall give you some advices, and draw to a close.

1. Make no harsh construction of God’s dealings with your souls, whatever they be, but justify him; leave your complaints upon yourselves, and blame your sins, that separate betwixt you and your God, Isa. 59: 2. We have a challenge from God that may soon silence all our murmuring, Jer. 2: 17, “Hast thou not procured this to thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God?”

2. Be still restless, dissatisfied, and uneasy in our minds, till the distance and estrangement be removed: and be expressing your uneasiness by frequent sighs, complaints, and lamentations after God; sit as a widow in his absence, and let none have your love but him alone; refuse all other comforters, till he himself return; imitate the church’s practice, Lam. 1: 16, “For these things I weep, mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul, is far from me.”

3. Search diligently for the cause of the Lord’s estrangement from you, as the psalmist did, Psal. 75: 6, “I communed with mine own heart, my spirit made diligent search.” Oh! where is the idol? What is the sin that hath been the Achan in the camp, and provoked God to turn his back? And as soon as you find it out, see that you cast out the accursed thing. Let not thine eye pity, neither do you spare it; for it has taken thy Lord away from thee. If thou canst not find it, then go humbly to God, and cry with Job, “Show me wherefore thou contendest with me,” Job 10: 2. Lord, what is the evil, the sin, or lust which thou rebukest, and for which thou pleadest the controversy? Have I quenched thy Spirit? Have I neglected duty? Was I formal in communicating, or unthankful for former intimations of thy love? “Lord, what I see not, teach thou me; make me to know my transgressions, and my sin.”

4. Seek to be deeply humbled for every evil and sin that you are convinced of; and particularly, for the heinous aggravations of them; say, O Lord! I am guilty in thy sight; I have sinned against more light, more mercies, more vows, and more proofs of thy loving-kindness, than others: I have gratified Satan, hardened the wicked, reproached religion, and dishonoured God more by my sins, than others do; so that thou mayest justly frown on me, and make the solemn day, which will be a day of feasting, rejoicing, and gladness to thy children, a day of darkness, gloominess, and distress to me.

5. Plead by faith the Redeemer’s blood, for removing the estrangement, and bringing thy soul nigh to God; for nothing else can do it, according to Eph. 2: 13. Say, Lord, though I deserve not to taste of thy supper, but to meet with a frown instead of a smile, a breach instead of a blessing, a cup of wrath instead of the cup of the New Testament; yet behold the blood of my Surety, and be merciful to me. Lord! I have broken all thy commands; but has not my surety fulfilled them all? I have indeed affronted thy justice; but has not my Surety satisfied it? I have deserved thy wrath; but he has endured it. Remember not what I have done against thee, but what he hath done and suffered for me; and let me be accepted in him who is thy beloved Son.

6. While God carries as a stranger to thee, be not thou a stranger to the throne of grace, but continue instant in prayer for the return of his gracious presence; plead the great need you have of it, and the helpless case you are in without it. Beg, however he deal with you now, that he may not be a stranger to you on the feast-day. Say, “Lord, if thy presence go not with me, carry me not hence.” What will a communion feast avail me without communion with thyself in it? I go not there for bread and wine, but I go to see Jesus: and what wilt though give me, if I go from thy table Christless? O let Christ appear and be made known to me in the breaking of bread. Let me enjoy thy lightsome and reviving company in this state of pilgrimage and trouble. Descend into my heart by the influences of thy grace, and quickenings of thy Spirit, and let me ascend unto thee, by the breathings of faith, love, and desire. Lord, grant the request of an importunate petitioner, and come over the mountains of my guilt. Lord, stand not at a distance behind the wall, but show thyself through the lattice of thy ordinance, and let me see the goings of my God and my King in the sanctuary. Oh! let me not go away empty from an inexhaustible treasure, cold from the sun, dry from the fountain, hungry, sad, and comfortless from the feast of love. But Oh! let me meet with my Saviour there, see his face, and hear his voice; and let me come from his table with my pardon sealed, my corruptions subdued, my graces quickened, my heart enlarged, and my soul refreshed and encouraged to run in the ways of thy commandments, and so inseparably united to thee, that no temptation may be ever able to dissolve the union.”

Object. Oh! saith some poor soul, I fear all my endeavours will be in vain; for I have communicated unworthily before; I have shed the blood of Christ, and sinned against light; so that I doubt and fear that my day of grace is past, and I am cast out of God’s sight.

Ans. However dark your case be, yet surely it is no darker than Jonah’s was in the whale’s belly; who, though he never read or heard of any in such distress: yet when he is concluding, I am cast out of God’s sight, he aims at a believing look to God in Christ, “Yet will I look again toward the holy temple,” Jonah 2: 4. Mind also Abraham’s case, though he was a hundred years old, and his body as good as dead, yet he believed in God that raised the dead; yea, he believed and hoped against hope. Lord, help us to imitate him. Amen.