So as per my last article I've been spending a good deal of thought on false believers and the seeming incompetence of the church to engage these folks.
The following Jonathan Edwards excerpt impacted me today as I was reading it. This was a very potent gut check for me.
In this excerpt Edwards is preaching on 1 Corinthians 13. Please read this chapter prior to the below text.
Excerpt taken from ‘All the Graces of Christianity Connected’ (the following are the last 5 paragraphs)
2. Hence, also, they that hope they have grace in their hearts may try one grace by another; for all graces go together. — If persons think they have faith, and therefore think they have come to Christ, they should inquire whether their faith was accompanied with repentance; whether they came to Christ in a broken-hearted manner, sensible of their own utter unworthiness and vileness by sin; or whether they did not come in a presumptuous, Pharisaical spirit, taking encouragement from their own supposed goodness. They should try their faith, by inquiring whether it was accompanied with humility; whether or no they trusted in Christ in a lowly and humble manner, delighting to renounce themselves, and to give all the glory of their salvation to him. So they should try their faith by their love; and if their faith has in it only light, but no warmth, it has not the true light; neither is it genuine faith, if it does not work by love.
And so persons should examine their love by their faith. If they seem to have an affectionate love toward God and Christ, they should inquire whether or no this be accompanied with a real conviction of soul of the reality of Christ, and of the truth of the gospel that reveals him, and with the full conviction that he is the Son of God — the only, and glorious, and all-sufficient Savior. Herein is one great difference between false affections and true ones, that the former are not accompanied with this conviction, and they do not withal see the truth and reality of divine things. And therefore such affections are very little to be depended on. They are very much like the affection which we may have towards a person we are reading of in a romance, and whom we at the same time suppose to be no other than a feigned person. Such affections as are not accompanied with conviction will never carry men very far in duty, or influence them to any great extent, either in doing or suffering.
So, again, persons should examine themselves as to that in them which seems to be the grace of hope. They should inquire whether their hope is accompanied. with faith, and arises from faith in Jesus Christ, and from a trust in his worthiness, and in his only. Is their hope built on this rock, or is it rather founded on a high opinion of something they think good in themselves? And so they should examine in what way their hope works, and what influence it has upon them, and whether or no it be accompanied. with humility. A true hope leads its possessor to see his own unworthiness, and, in view of his sins, to reflect on himself with shame and brokenness of heart. It lies in the dust before God, and the comfort that arises from it is a lowly, humble, joy and peace. On the contrary, a false hope is wont to lift its possessor up with a high conceit of himself and of his own experience and doings. We should also inquire whether our hope be accompanied with a spirit of obedience, and self-denial, and weanedness from the world. A true hope is accompanied with these other graces, linked. to, and dependent upon it, whereas a false hope is without them. It does not engage the heart in obedience, but flatters and hardens it in disobedience. It does not mortify carnal appetites, and wean from the world, but indulges the appetites and passions that are sinful, and chooses them, and makes men easy while living in them.
So, again, persons should examine their weanedness from the world, by inquiring whether it be accompanied with such a principle of love as draws their hearts off from the things of the world to those spiritual and heavenly objects which a true divine love carries the soul out to, more than to the things of the world. They should not only ask if they have something that appears like a true love, but they should hear Christ asking of them, as he did of Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” Herein a true weanedness from the world differs from a false weanedness. The latter is not from love to God and heavenly things, but commonly either from fear and distress of conscience, or perhaps from some outward affliction, whereby persons have their minds drawn off for a time from the world to something that they are constrained. to feel is better, though it is not really sweeter to them; and they are only drawn, or beaten, or torn off from the world, while their hearts would still cleave to it just as much as ever, if they could but enjoy it free from these terrors and afflictions. But they, on the other hand, that have a true weanedness from the world, are not wedded to worldly things even in their best and most inviting forms, because their hearts are drawn off by the love of something better. They are so in love with God, and with spiritual things, that their affections cannot fasten on the things of the world.
In the same way, persons should try their love to God by their love to the people of God; and also their love to their fellow-Christians by their love to God. False grace is like a defective or monstrous picture or image, wherein some essential part is wanting. There is, it may be, an appearance of some good disposition toward God, while at the same time there is a destitution of Christian dispositions toward men. Or if there appears to be a kind, just, generous, good-hearted disposition toward man, there is a want of right feeling toward God. On this account, we find God complains of Ephraim, that “he is a cake not turned” (Hos. 7:8); that is, that his goodness is partial and not consistent; that he is good in one thing and bad in another, like a cake not turned, which is generally burnt on one side and raw on the other, and good for nothing on either. Such a character we should studiously avoid, and endeavor that each grace that we have may testify to the genuineness of all our other graces, so that we may be proportioned Christians, growing in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto perfect men, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
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