A Sermon by Peter Hope
Luke 12:32. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
The Church of Christ in general, and individual Christians in particular, are often in a state of anxiety in this life. The Church here is the Church militant, and the Christian life is called in Scripture a warfare. Assuredly men are not allured to become Christians by any prospects held out to them in the Bible of worldly comforts and advantages to be thus obtained. There is indeed a happiness in store for them even here, which they largely enjoy but which the unbeliever never tastes. Real Christians are, in truth, the happiest of men, but theirs is a happiness not produced by the world, or depending on it, or one that depends on the things of the world. There is indeed a peace and joy in believing, but it is peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost – blessings which the world can neither give or take away.
To multiply converts, other creeds have held out the allurements of temporal advantage and worldly enjoyments; the gospel of Christ holds out no such bribe. It speaks of the cross and tribulation and persecution. It points to an arduous conflict with the devil, the world and the flesh. It deals openly and honestly with men. It does not indeed tell them that misery awaits them on embracing it, even in the present life. That would be far from the truth; it would be the very reverse of the truth. But it does clearly and distinctly announce that “if any man will come after” Christ, he must “deny himself, and take up his cross and follow” Him. It clearly and distinctly announces that “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” – persecution in one form or other, modified by circumstances, by the state of society, and the spirit of the age; but it is still persecution, stirred up by the great enemy of their salvation. It gives a full and fair representation of what is to be encountered, of all that is to be given up, and of all that is to be gained by embracing it. It admonishes all men to count the cost.
And when the natural man counts the cost, it does not appear trifling. He is to give up the cherished pleasures of sin, to abandon his beloved lusts – “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life”; he is to deny himself: to follow Christ through good report and through bad report; to endure reproach, discomfort and suffering – and, if need be, death itself – for His name’s sake. Now, to the natural man, this is a considerable sacrifice, and the gospel never represents it as easy. And what, he may ask, is
1The first section of a sermon, as edited, from The Free Church Pulpit, vol 3. Hope (1815-78) was minister of the Johnstone and Wamphray Free Church in Dumfries-shire in 1844.
to be gained by this step? The answer is, eternal life. Eternal life is to be gained, and eternal destruction escaped. This is the gospel inducement, and will any say that it is not sufficient? Would a never-ending eternity of happiness not amply repay a short lifetime of misery?
But even this small price does not have to be paid. The Christian does not have to pass through a lifetime of misery. There may be a life of trial – of poverty it may be, or sickness, or persecution, or all these combined – but still, in spite of them all, it is no life of misery. Misery has its seat in the mind, and in the mind alone. And the state of the mind of the true Christian, even if he is a beggar, might well be envied by the unbelieving monarch on his throne. Believers have, it is true, their trials and afflictions, and no affliction seems for the present to be joyous, but grievous; but then, besides other consolations, there is ever gleaming before the eye of faith the bright crown of glory, the great recompense of reward. In their seasons of perplexity and distress, tumults and opposition without and fears within, they hear a voice speaking to them, in tones of love and encouragement: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Let us consider: (1.) Who are the “little flock” who are here addressed? (2.) The admonition, “Fear not”. (3.) The special grounds for taking courage set before the flock of Christ.
1. Who are the “little flock” who are here addressed? The individuals to whom the Saviour spoke these words were the little flock of His disciples, who, amid all the scorn and hostility of scribes and Pharisees, clung to Jesus of Nazareth as the long-promised Messiah. But the expression before us must not be limited to that company, or to that age. Ever since, Christ has had a little flock in the world and, while the sun and moon endure, He shall have a seed to serve Him in the earth. He has such a little flock now, to whom He still addresses the same words, and the question is: Who are they?
There can be no difficulty or hesitation about the answer to this question. They are believers. They, and they only, belong to His fold. They are the sheep; unbelievers are the goats. All who hear of a Saviour, and have the salvation of the gospel offered to them, may be ranked – must be ranked – in one or other of these two classes. They either embrace the offer of salvation, or they do not embrace it. If they do, they are believers and belong to Christ’s fold; if they do not, they are unbelievers and do not belong to it. There is no middle course. This is the vital distinction which, to the eye of God, exists among men now; this is the great distinction which will be made hereafter. In that day “when the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him . . . before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep
from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left.”
In other words, these are just the righteous and the wicked. “The wicked”, we are told, “shall be cast into hell”, and they are those on the left hand. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous” – those on the right hand – “into life eternal”. And we repeat once more that these are precisely the two classes of believers and unbelievers, according to the declaration: “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”.
I have dwelt upon this point the more earnestly, in order that you may clearly perceive that, however diversified the terms of Scripture may be, there are not in reality two classes of gospel hearers that enter into heaven: the righteous, or those who gain that inheritance by leading good and virtuous lives; and believers – those who enter there through faith in Christ. No, there is but one class. The righteous are the believers, and the believers are the righteous. And so with the wicked and unbelievers.
It is all the more necessary to have a clear and practical persuasion of the truth of all this because we, in this professedly-Christian land, are too ready to look upon ourselves as Christians almost as a matter of course. We were devoted to Christ by Baptism in our infancy; we were called by His name, and are disposed, without much inquiry or concern, to take it for granted that we belong to His flock. Now there cannot be a greater delusion. Unless we are His, not in name only, but in deed and in truth, all our gospel privileges will only increase our condemnation. It is not being born in a Christian land that will take us to heaven. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Neither will a mere profession in Baptism, or in later life, secure our salvation. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
But let us notice the expression little flock. Christ’s true disciples were a very little flock when these words were uttered. Are they a little flock still? There can be no doubt that the faithful followers of Christ who are now in the world – if we look at them without reference to the whole family of mankind, and if we compare them with the number of His followers during Christ’s sojourn upon earth – will in this view appear to be indeed a great multitude. And, blessed be His name, when we look around us upon the Church and the world, and consider the efforts which have recently been put forth to spread abroad the knowledge of Christ, we may confidently say that never since the day when He tabernacled among men has His gospel been so widely proclaimed as at the present moment. And perhaps we may venture
to hope that the actual number of true Christians throughout the world is as great now as it ever was.
But looking at the subject in another view, we are constrained to say that the genuine disciples of Jesus are, even in this day of gospel light, but a little flock in comparison with the rest of mankind. It is still true, as it was of old, that “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat”; while “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”.
Were we to inquire, without presuming to judge the heart, what proportion of the human race can be said to belong to the true flock of Christ, or appear to belong to it, we should be met at the very threshold of the inquiry by the overwhelming fact that not a third part of mankind are even nominal Christians, dwelling where Christianity in any of its forms is professed, the great proportion of this world’s inhabitants being yet in pagan and Muslim darkness. And of those who are called Christians, one half are under the blinding sway of Popish superstition, and half of the remainder are steeped in the ignorance and errors of the Greek Church.
And when we turn to Protestantism, comprising so small a proportion of the nominal Christianity of the world; and when we contemplate the religious condition of the various countries in which it is professed, and even when we come to our own highly-favoured land with all its gospel light, and all its purity of doctrine, and its high name for religion and morality, what conclusion are we to draw as to the number of the faithful even here? Alas, how much open ungodliness there is, how much unblushing disrespect to religion and neglect of its ordinances! These can leave no doubt in the mind of anyone that those who exhibit this character assuredly do not belong to the little flock of Christ.
But let us narrow the circle still more. Let us leave out of view the multitudes who do not even make an outward profession of Christianity, and whom no one would ever describe as humble followers of Jesus. Let us take our church-going population and, adopting the Bible as our standard of judgement, what are we to conclude about them? Without judging the heart, are we to conclude that all these are true believers? It is indeed painful to say, but the truth must be spoken: even here we must make deductions, often large deductions, before the true disciples of Christ stand alone. What the proportion now is, after excluding the careless and the formalist, and all but sincere believers, we refrain from conjecturing. The eye of God alone clearly discerns them. The Lord alone knoweth them that are His. Can we shut our eyes to the fact that the true disciples of Christ are only a “little flock”?
But what is our object in this rapid review? Is it to distress you and cast
a gloom over your spirits by presenting you with so dark a picture? This is not our aim, but to stir us all up to more serious consideration and greater care in seeing that we individually are among Christ’s people, and that we may be more diligent in making our calling and election sure, no longer resting satisfied with merely being like others, who perhaps are treading the wide path that leads to destruction, and if we accompany them in it we must share their doom.
But if we do belong to the fold of Christ, let us see what awaits us. Let us listen to the Shepherd’s voice, who tends His “little flock” with as much care as if their number was ten thousand times greater than it is. He says, “Fear not, little flock”.