Matthew Mead
Shall I ask you one question? Have you secured this God to be your all in the next world, in a way of grace and love? Please answer it. I tell you, and I am sure you will say so too, it is a thing of the greatest importance under the heavens of God to secure an interest in God as our all in a way of grace. Let me tell you:
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God will be our all in that world, whether you have secured Him or not. Christ gives up the kingdom, and God takes the management of all; all the administration is then in the hand of God. Whether you have secured Him or not, God will be your all in that world – if not in a way of mercy, then He will be so in a way of wrath.
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If anything short of God be your all now, He will bring that all to nothing. God engages against what a man loves only because the man loves something besides God, for then he makes that to be his god and degrades God. What does a man love most? Either it is God or something set in the place of God, and that is his idol. God has said that He will destroy our idols; He will not bear that we make anything an idol, for He is a jealous God and will not give His glory to idols.
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There is a day coming when you will need God; do you not believe this? Now you think you do not need Him; you have the created things: the pleasures and pastimes and comforts and enjoyments and trades and relations to please your heart with. And you think you can do without God – as God knows many do; they place other objects in God’s stead. But a time is coming when all the channels of creature enjoyments shall be dried up; created things shall be no more; then how dreadful will it be to have our affections left in their height and heat and have nothing to place them upon! It is one of the miseries of hell. If you have no portion in God, you are undone for ever.
What a man makes God to be to him here, God will be that to him for ever. Is God your portion? Have you chosen God? Have you taken Him for your chief good? I tell you, then He will be so for ever, for every man is eternally happy or miserable by his own choice. Every man shall have that in the next world which he chooses in this – either happiness or misery. If we have chosen God, He will be our God for ever; but if God is nothing to you in this world in a way of faith and love and duty and service and obedience and holiness, He will be nothing to you in the next world in a way of grace, but all in a way of wrath and torment. How much therefore it concerns you and me to have secured God to be our all in the next world. And you may know this if you consider:
(1.) Have you taken Christ for your all? Have you in a sense of your lost estate by nature, and of your undone condition by the Fall, sought after Christ and closed with Him as your all here? Do you see all in Him? Do you fetch all from Him? Is He all to you in point of righteousness, all in regard of interest and reliance? If thus you have made Christ your all here, then you have secured God to be your God for ever.
(2.) Have you made God your chiefest good, your highest Lord and your last end? If so, you have secured Him to be your God for ever. This one thing will infallibly determine the case of your soul, for if God be your chief good, you love Him above all; if He is your highest Lord, you will serve Him before all; and if He is your last end, you will make Him the centre of all your duties and make every duty to observe this end. But what will be the case of sinners that have set light by Christ here, that have neglected God, broken His commands, slighted His call, refused His counsel and turned their backs upon all the offers of grace? What shall become of them? God will be all in all to them in the next world – not in a way of mercy and grace, but in a way of wrath and vengeance; for He is the living God, whom you have slighted. And know “that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”.
The conclusion, as edited, of one of a series of sermons by this Puritan preacher on Hebrews 10.31: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”.