Sermones Históricos · Sermón · 1900
A Bad Heart
Subtítulo editorial de Verbo: Sobre el engaño y la maldad del corazón humano, y el único remedio para ello, a partir de Jeremías 17
" The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked : who can know it ? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." — JEREMIAH xvii. 9, 10.
THE first of these two verses contains a very strong saying, and one which the world in general is not at all disposed to believe. " The heart is deceitful above all things," says our text. " I deny it," says the unconverted man. " To be sure, my heart is very careless and very thoughtless, but it is an honest heart after all." " The heart is desperately wicked," says the text. " Nothing of the sort," replies the sinner. " I know that I neglect the means of grace very much, and perhaps I do not live as I ought to do, but I am sure I have a good heart at the bottom." " Who can know it ? " asks the text. " Know it ! " we arc told : " why, we do not pretend to be such saints as you want men to be, but at any rate we do know our own hearts, we do know what our faults are."
And so, beloved, it appears there are two statements, and one of them must be false. The everlasting Bible is on one side, and flesh and blood on the other ; God says one thing, and man says another. Now, I shall endeavour to persuade you this morning that the Scripture account of the heart is strictly and literally true and correct ; it is a faithful likeness, a
lively picture, and it must not be softened down and called figurative and extravagant, because it sounds rough and plain, and leaves you no room for boasting. O that the Holy Ghost may bring many of you to a right understanding of your own hearts ! It is almost impossible to say how immensely important it is to have a clear view of their natural state : " with the heart man believeth unto righteousness," " out of the heart are the issues of life " ; " man looketh on the out ward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart " ; in short, unless you really know the character of your own heart, you will never value the Gospel as you ought, you will never love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, you will never see how absolutely necessary it was that He should suffer death upon the cross, in order to deliver our souls from hell and bring us unto God. I wish therefore, firstly, to prove to you the truth of the words " the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked " ; secondly, I shall say a few words to remind you that God knows what is within you,—" I the Lord search the heart " ; and, thirdly, I shall point out shortly the only remedy that can do you any good, if you would be saved. It is my earnest desire and prayer that you may all come unto Christ and be delivered from the wrath to come ; but this will never be until you are convinced of sin, and you will never be thoroughly convinced until you know that the root and source and fountain of it all is within you, even in your own hearts.
I. Now, as to the natural deceit and wickedness of every man, woman, and child that is born into the world, first and foremost what says the Scripture? How is it written? What do we read? Hear the book of Genesis: "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually " ; "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." The first book of Kings : " There is no man that sinneth not." The book of Psalms : " The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy : there is none that doeth good, no, not one." "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, they have done abominable iniquity, there is none that doeth good." The book of Job : " How can he be clean that is born of a woman ? " " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not one." The book of Proverbs : " Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin ? " The book of Ecclesiastes : " There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." " The heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." " The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live. The book of Isaiah: "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way " We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteous nesses are as filthy rags." The words of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew : " Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications thefts, false witness, blasphemies : these are the things which defile a man." The same words more fully in St. Mark : " From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness : all these evil things come from within, and defile a man." O this pure heart, this good heart which people speak of! — these are not texts which describe the character of the
wicked only ; they arc written generally of all mankind, of you and me and the whole world, and they ought to be sufficient proof of that which Solomon declares, " He that trusteth his own heart is a fool."
But perhaps you would like to know what Bible history teaches us upon this point : it is possible you may flatter yourselves these are all single texts, and probably do not mean something quite so strong as I have made them appear. Be not deceived ; you will find nothing to encourage you to think well of yourself; man's natural character is everywhere de scribed in the same colours, — it is all black, very black. Perhaps you sometimes try to think that the Bible is a book which contains the history of many good men, and an account of God's lovingkindness to us, and a great store of good advice. No doubt it does contain all this, but it contains something more too : it contains the true description of man's heart, it strips off the flimsy coverings which pride and self-conceit throw over our natural dispositions, and it shows us man as he really is ; it furnishes continual proof from first to last of the inbred wickedness of our hearts, it supplies us with countless examples of our inclination towards sin, unless we are restrained and bent back by the grace of God.
O beloved, that you would only search the Scripture for yourselves on this matter ! I am not preaching my own doctrine ; I am telling you that plain, humbling truth which the Holy Ghost endeavours in every pos sible \vay to drive into our hearts, in that blessed volume which was written for our warning.
You can hardly turn to a single part of Bible history in which this doctrine does not come uppermost. Look at the men before the flood ! who would have thought, with Paradise as a witness before their eyes (for until
the flood Paradise was on earth), who would have thought they could have turned their backs on God, and given themselves up to all manner of lusts and sin ? And yet they did so, in spite of every warning, and God was obliged to drown the whole world, ex cepting eight persons. Look at men after the flood ! Doubtless you would expect that every one would flee from sin as if it were a, serpent, remembering God's wrath against iniquity ; and yet, behold, the first thing that we meet with is the calling of Abraham and his family to preserve the remembrance of God upon the earth ; the whole world had become so sinful and idolatrous, that the Lord Jehovah was obliged to inter fere, as it were, in a special manner, and choose out one man's home, that he might not be entirely forgotten. And lest you should imagine things were not so very bad, and this calling of Abraham not so very necessary, the next event we meet with is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, because of their abominable wickedness. Look at the history of Israel, the chosen family itself. They went down into Egypt and dwelt there, and two hundred years after they had gone back so far in spiritual things that they had forgotten the name of the God of their fathers. They were brought out by miracles with a mighty hand, and yet they had hardly got into the wilderness when they murmured and desired to return to Egypt. They were taken into the land of Canaan, and had the purest and the best of laws given to them, and yet Joshua was scarcely buried when they fell away after idols. Time after time you read of their being in hard captivity for their sins, time after time you read of God delivering them ; and yet a few short years and it seems to have been all forgotten. The Lord gave them judges and kings, and priests and prophets and ministers, and preachings
and warnings ; and yet their history, with a few excep tions, is a history of unbelief; and backsliding and transgression and crime down to the very day when they crucified the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. What can you say to these things? If ever there was a nation free from outward temptation and inducement to sin, it was the Jews ; they were hedged in and fenced in on every side by the1 strictest rules, which prevented them mixing with other nations, and never theless you see what they were. You can only account for it by taking the Bible reason : they had the root of all the evil within them, they were men like our selves, and as such they had hearts deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ; and like too many among ourselves they would not believe it, and so they fell.
But I shall not leave the Bible here. I say further that you can hardly turn to a single family, even of the best of God's servants, in which the natural cor ruption of our hearts does not appear more or less in some one of the branches. The firstborn in Adam's house was Cain, a murderer. The family of Noah, that just man, contained Ham, the wicked father of Canaan, the accursed race. Abraham was the father of Midian, an idolatrous people who deceived Israel in the wilderness, as well as of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Esau, that " profane person," as well as of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Reuben, who defiled his father's bed, as well as of Joseph. Eli, the priest of the Lord, was the father of Hophni and Phinehas, who made people abhor the offering of God. David was the father of Absalom and Amnon as well as of Solomon. Hezekiah, that good man, was the father of Manasseh, the most wicked of the kings of Judah. Why am I telling you these things ? I tell you them to show you that good education and good example cannot alone make the
children of the saints good, without the grace of God, to show you how deeply rooted is the corruption of our natural dispositions.
But I shall go even further. I say that you can hardly turn to a single character, among the holy men described in the Bible, who did not, to his own horror and dismay, fall at one time or another. Noah planted a vineyard, and was one day found drunken. David committed adultery with the wife of Uriah. Peter denied his Lord thrice. What does this prove ? It proves beyond a question that the most excellent of the earth have found that the root of all their sinfulness is within them ; they never boasted of the purity or goodness of their hearts, they have all placed upon record the truth that, although Satan does much and the world does much, still after all the great enemy is always within us ; it is a heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Pause, beloved, for an instant, and think of that : the men who were the friends of God, who lived most closely to Him, were those whom we find grieving and mourning over their sinful hearts most bitterly. Surely the heart must be more treacherous than you supposed.
Well, perhaps you will say, all this may be very true ; the men we read of in the Bible certainly sinned very much ; but things are altered now we live under the light of the Gospel. Things may be altered certainly in some respects ; but the heart is just the same. I cannot see the smallest proof of any change there. So long as every .newspaper contains accounts of crime in one shape or another of all descriptions ; so long as gaols and prisons are full and new ones are continually building; so long as hundreds and thousands are every year tried and punished, and yet next year there are as many more committed ; so long as men
make a god and an idol of money, and swear and pray God to damn their souls, and break the Sabbath day in every possible manner, and show an utter want of affection and kindness to their own relations, and are angry and passionate on the slightest occasion, and think very lightly about fornication, and think it clever and fair to deceive their neighbours, and do not hesitate to say what is not true if it serves their interest, and covet each other's money and house and land and property from morning till night, and get drunk, as if they gloried in ruining soul and body at once, — so long, I say, as such things go on in England, which professes to be a Christian country, — and you know they do go on,— so long as such things go on in the face of God who sees it all, and the Bible which condemns it all, and the Church which witnesses against it all ; so long shall I declare that the only possible reason which can be given for it is the plain account of my text : " The natural heart of every man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." There must be some hidden cause and fountain within us, or men would never be guilty of such enormous folly.
But I will not detain you with proofs of this nature, which you must all know. 1 would rather lay before you a few questions which perhaps many of you have not considered.
What, then, is the reason that men are so active and industrious in their business and so careless about their souls ? They give up their whole heart and soul and mind to their labouring and planting and building and gardening ; they rise early and go to bed late ; they bestir themselves ; they are in earnest ; they think t wrong not to be diligent and hardworking ; but as for serving God, they seem to think it their duty to sit still and do nothing.
What is the reason jthat men have always so many excuses to make in the service of God? — the most ridiculous, the most trifling seem to satisfy them, and yet they know that if they gave such excuses to an earthly master, they would be dismissed at once from his employment.
What is the reason that men pay such respect to those above them upon earth? — their landlord, their master, the rich and the noble, are always treated with a proper reverence and deference ; and yet the Lord God Almighty, the Maker and the Judge of all things, is honoured when it is convenient, as if it was rather a favour to attend His house and hear His ministers.
What is the reason that men can give smooth names and soften down practices which God detests, and talk of an adulterer as a gay man, and a drunkard as a merry, cheerful man, and a riotous reveller as a wild man ; while one who is striving to lay hold on Christ is called mad, and one who has a tender conscience is called narrow-minded, and one who thirsts after holiness righteous overmuch?
What is the reason that many can talk much and show much knowledge about this world's matters, but are grave and silent and ignorant about their souls — can remember everything bad which they meet with, but forget the good— can hear of others dying, and never look at their own state — can see death coming near their own doors, and yet neglect to make preparations to receive him?
Beloved, these things are wonderful, but are they not true? Man, so wise, so prudent, so thoughtful as he is about the life that now is, seems a fool in the matter of the world to come. And why ? " He has within him a heart deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." And what is the reason that men who profess and
call themselves Christians do often find fault with the doctrines they hear preached, and say they must be wrong, they cannot be the truth of God, they are too humbling, too strict: and yet they will not take the trouble of looking at their Bibles, to see whether these things be really so.
What is the reason that so many go on saying they know all these things, and yet they never do them? They are almost ready to take offence if we doubt their acquaintance with the Gospel ; but there they stop, their knowledge does not seem to make the slightest difference in their lives.
What is the reason that so many use the outward forms of religion but never pray in secret, — I know that certain of you did not pray last night nor yet this morning, — that so many hear the Gospel preached week after week and never apply it to themselves, and go away from church as cold and unmoved as if they had gone to be witnesses of instruction given to their neighbours, but not meant for themselves?
What is the reason that so many encourage them selves with the idea it will be all right at the last, and yet they cannot say why ; and so many make a great profession, and try to deceive ministers, as if God did not sec it all ; and so many desire to have the name of spiritual Christians on earth, who clearly are not bearing the Cross nor showing the mind that was in Christ Jesus ?
Verily, beloved, there is but one reason to be given, and I hat is the Bible reason. Conduct such as I have described,— and you know I have mentioned matters of everyday occurrence,— such conduct is so utterly unlike the way in which men act about the care of their bodies and the things of this world, that there must be some hidden reason, some secret fountain of evil
within us. I say it is impossible to observe how differently men generally live from the plain precepts of the Bible ; it is impossible to consider the number and the variety of the ways in which God's law is continually broken, and not to see the most decided proof that man's natural heart is indeed deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Truly indeed were the words added, "Who can know it? " Who can ever understand how men can shut their eyes against such light, and live after such a fashion as too many do? Job thought he knew his heart, but affliction came and he found he did not. David thought he knew his heart, but he learned by bitter experience how wofully he was mistaken. Peter thought he knew his heart, and in a short time he was repenting in tears. Oh, pray, beloved, if you love your souls, for some insight into your own corruption ; the veriest saints of God do never quite discover the exceeding sinfulness of that old man which is in them.
II. I promised to say a few words about the second part of my text, but I shall not detain you long over it. We read, " I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." There are two things written here : one is that, although you do not know your own hearts, the Lord God Almighty does, and keeps a close watch over them ; the other is that He will one day call you to account, and judge you accordingly. And do you not observe here what the mind of the Spirit points to? Some men might say, God will not be extreme to mark what is amiss, I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of mine heart ; but the prophet sweeps away these refuges of lies by warning us of searching and of judgment immediately after he has declared to
us the dcceitfulncss of man's heart. Remember, now, O unconverted man, that God has set your secret sins in the light of His countenance ; the vilest imaginations of your wicked heart, the deeds you have so carefully concealed from the sight of men, the abominable thoughts which you would not have your dearest friends suspect,— all have been seen through and through by that Pure and Holy One who will one day be your Judge. Remember that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; that the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people, too, who forget God, and neglect so great salvation ; that hell is everlasting woe : ten thousand times ten thousand years shall pass away, and the worm and the fire shall be just the same, and this is the place to which you are going. You do not like to believe the ] account we have given of your natural heart ; but look back over your life and tell us of one single day in which you have done all that God required and left nothing undone : you cannot find it ; and what will you do when each of the three hundred and sixty-five days in each of the twenty, forty, sixty years you may have lived shall come to light, when thousands of little things you now forget shall all appear, and God shall ask you, " What hast thou got to say, why these things should not condemn thee ? " Oh, be not deceived, but bear in mind that St. James has said one single offence will make you guilty, that Jesus teaches that in God's account a thought or a feeling is as bad as an outward act, that one wanton look is adultery, and that hatred is murder. Better be humble now and confess you did not know your own vileness, than flatter your vanity and self-conceit, and perish everlastingly.
III. Beloved, you are feeling disposed to say, "At this rate, who can be saved?" and I shall endeavour to give you very shortly the Bible answer ; I shall try to point out the way. Truly on any earthly plan salvation would be impossible, but with God all things are possible, and God has laid before us a path by which the vilest may get to heaven. You are thinking that I have gone too far, that I have spoken too strongly ; but you cannot say that I have gone beyond the Bible, nor yet beyond the Prayer-book, which you have used to-day and called yourselves miserable sinners.
I say, then, O ye miserable sinners, although your hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, although there is no health in you, I say that God loves you exceedingly. He has given His only- begotten Son to suffer for your sins ; and now whoso ever believeth in Him shall not perish, shall not be condemned, shall have everlasting life. " Who can be saved ? " All, I answer, who give up their iniquities, and grieve over them, and put their whole trust in Jesus Christ. But these deceitful hearts ? Repent and believe, and God shall wash them in the blood of the cross, shall make them as it were new, shall create them again in righteousness and true holiness ; shall fill them with the Holy Ghost, shall put love where there was hatred or indifference, shall put peace where there was doubt and anxiety, shall put strength where there was wickedness. Verily your sin does indeed abound, but you shall find, if you will only try it, that grace does abound far more. O ye miserable sinners, who are just now thinking well of your own state, and not alarmed about your souls, and rather offended at the picture I have drawn of your hearts — I ought to say our hearts, for my heart is naturally just as
abominable as your own— O ye miserable sinners, I do beseech you to pray God that you may see clearly the corruption of your nature ! I tell the young among you; your hearts are desperately wicked, and , so long as you put off repentance and calling upon God you are like an infant trifling with a razor — you are like a fool playing with a tiger. I tell those among you who are getting on in life, your hearts are desperately wicked, and so long as you hold back and talk of a more convenient season for coming unto Christ, you are adding stone to stone and brick to brick to that great wall which you have built up between yourselves and the Kingdom of Heaven.
Your hearts are deceitful above all things, and except they be changed, the Bible says you will most surely perish. But in the name of my most loving Master I offer to you a complete remedy ; I proclaim to you the freest salvation. I entreat you not to reject it. Come unto Jesus : He came not to save the wise in their own eyes, but to seek that which was lost. Come unto the Lamb of God : He taketh away the sins of the world ; and though your hearts be full of iniquity they shall be changed, " though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall become as wool." But mark my words : God hath witnessed that except ye choose this way, the way of repentance and of faith, ye shall have no salvation, and the more free and gracious are the offers which ye reject, so much the more heavily shall ye be judged in the last day. "O seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near : Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy- upon him ; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
"Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." — JOHN iii. 3.
IF the Bible be false, as some proud men have dared to say, there is no occasion for keeping one day in the week holy, there is no use in honouring church and making a profession of religion ; we are no better than the beasts that perish, and the best thing a man can do is to eat and drink and live as he pleases. If the Bible be only half true, as some unhappy people strive to make out, there is no certainty about our everlasting souls : Christianity is all doubt and dimness and guesswork, we can never know what we are to believe as necessary to salvation, we can never be sure that we have got hold of the words of eternal life. Give up your Bible, and you have not a square inch of certainty and confidence to stand on : you may think and you may fancy and you may have your own opinion, but you cannot show me any satisfactory proof or authority that you are right ; you are building merely on your own judgment ; you have put out your own eyes, as it were, and, like one in the dark, you do not really know where you are going.
But if, beloved, the Bible be indeed the Word of God Himself and altogether true, and that it is so can be proved by witnesses without number ; if the Bible be indeed true and our only guide to heaven, and this I
trust you arc all ready to allow, it surely must be the duty of every wise and thinking man to lay to heart each doctrine which it contains, and while he adds nothing to it, to be careful that he takes nothing from it.
Now, I say that on the face of the Bible, when fairly read, there stands out this grand doctrine, that we must each of us between the cradle and grave go through a spiritual change, a change of heart, or in other words be born again ; and in the text you have heard read the Lord Jesus declares positively, without it no man shall see the kingdom of God.
Sinner, man or woman, mark that ! no salvation with out this new birth ! Christ hath done everything for thee ; He paid the price of our redemption, lived for us, died for us, rose again for us ; but all shall avail us nothing, if there be not this work in us : we must be
Now, beloved, I desire to speak to you freely and plainly about this new birth, in two or three sermons, as a thing absolutely necessary to salvation ; and to-day, at least, I shall try to show you from my text two things : first, the reason why we must all be born again, and secondly, what the expression to be born again means ; and the Lord grant that the subject to which I am going to call your attention for two or three Sunday mornings may not be listened to and soon forgotten, as a light and indifferent matter — but carried home and thought over, and blessed to the conversion of many souls !
I. Why, then, is this change of heart so necessary? The answer is short and simple. Because of the natural sinfulness of every man's disposition. We are not born into the world with spotless, innocent minds, but corrupt and wicked, and with a will to the thing which is evil
as soon as we have the power ; and the Scriptural account is true to the letter — we are all conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. I need not stop now to tell you how all this came to pass ; I need only remind you that in the beginning it was not so. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were created holy, harmless, undefiled, without spot or stain or blemish about them ; and when God rested from His labour on the seventh day, He pronounced them, like all His other works, to be ,very good. But, alas for us ! Adam, by trans gression, fell, and lost his first estate ; he forfeited the likeness of God in which he had been made ; and hence all we, who are his children, come into being with a defiled and sinful nature. We are fallen, and we must needs be raised ; we have about us the marks of the old Adam — Adam the first, earthly and carnal — and we must needs be marked with the marks of the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus, which are heavenly and spiritual. Do any of you feel a doubt of this ? Consider only what we are by nature.
By nature we do not see Christ's spiritual kingdom upon earth ; it is all hid from our eyes. Men may be sharp and knowing in worldly matters, they may be wise in the things of time ; but when they come to religion, their understandings seem blind, there is a thick veil over their hearts, and they see nothing as they ought to see.
So long as they are in this natural state it is in vain they are told of God's holiness and God's unchange able justice, His spiritual law and His judgment to come, their own enormous deficiencies, their own peril of destruction— it matters not ; it all falls flat and dull upon their ears ; they neither feel it nor care for it nor consider it, and in a few hours they are as though they had never heard it. It is to no purpose, while
in this condition, that Christ crucified and His precious atonement are set before us ; we can see no form nor beauty nor comeliness about Him ; we cannot value what He has done, and, as far as we are concerned, the wisdom and the excellence of the Cross, which Apostles gloried in, seems all thrown away. And why is this ? Our hearts want changing. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." This is the true account of all that weariness and lifelessness and carelessness which we so often see in the worshippers of God's house ; this is the secret of that awful indiffer ence about spiritual things which prevails so widely both among rich and poor, and makes the Gospel appear a sealed book. It comes from the heart. Some always fancy they want learning, some they have no time, some they have very peculiar difficulties which no one else in the world has ; but the truth lies far deeper. They all want new hearts. Once give them new natures, and you would hear no more about learning, or time, or difficulty. Every mountain would be levelled and every valley filled up, that the way of God might be prepared.
But again. By nature we do not love the laws of Christ's spiritual kingdom. We do not openly refuse to obey them, we should be angry with any one who said we had thrown them aside, but we have no love to them and delight in them ; it is not our meat and drink to do our Father's will. Oh no ! by nature we love our own way and our own inclina tions, and that is our only law. We bring forth fruit unto ourselves, but not unto God. Our own pleasure and our own profit take up all our attention, and as for Him who made us and redeemed us, too many
do not give Him the very leavings of their time. By nature we do not measure ourselves by God's standard : who ever takes the Sermon on the Mount as his rule of character ? who ever admires the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungerers and thirsters after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the men who are persecuted for righteousness' sake ? These are all people whom the world despises, they are as nothing by the side of the jovial and light-hearted, the men who love strong drink and are held to sing good songs ; and yet these are the persons whom Jesus calls blessed. What natural man judges of sin as Jesus teaches us to judge? how few look on drunkenness and fornication as damnable sins ! — yet the Bible says they are. How few consider anger without cause as bad as murder, and wanton looks as bad as adultery! — yet Jesus says they are. Where are the men who strive to love their enemies, who bless those that hate them, and pray for those who despitefully use them ? — yet this is the rule that Jesus has laid down. And why is all this? You see there must be something radically wrong. By nature we do not lay ourselves out to glorify God with our bodies and spirits, we take no pleasure in speaking to each other about Him, the concerns of this world have a hundred times more of our thoughts ; and few indeed are the parties where the mention of Christ and heaven would not stop many mouths, and make nearly all look as if the subject was very uncomfort able. And why is all this? Some talk of bad example having done them harm, and some say they have had a bad education, but the evil is far more deeply seated ; that which is born of the flesh is flesh, it comes from the carnal unrenewed mind, and the remedy wanted is change of nature. A corrupt
tree can only bring forth corrupt fruit ; the root of the mischief is the natural heart.
Once more. By nature we are altogether unfit for Christ's kingdom in glory. The lives which we are in the habit of leading, and the practices we are fond of indulging, and the tastes we are always seeking to please, and the opinions we hold, are all such as prove we have no natural meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. They do not follow after holiness in all their walk and conversation. Then what place can they occupy in that blessed abode where there shall enter in nothing that defileth, nor whatsoever worketh abomination ?— how shall they stand in His presence, who chargeth even His angels with folly, and in whose sight the very heavens are not pure ! They do not take pleasure in the exercise of prayer and praise on earth ; and how could they enjoy the employments of that glorious habitation, where they rest not day nor night worshipping and crying " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." They do not count it a privilege to draw nigh to God through Jesus Christ, to walk with Him, to seek close acquaintance with Him ; and where would be the comfort to them of dwelling for ever in the presence of the Lord God and the Lamb ? They do not strive to walk in the steps of holy men of old, they do not take example from the faith and patience of the saints ; and with what face then would they join the society of just men made perfect ? — with what salutation, after a life spent in pleasing the devil and the world, would they greet Abraham and David and the Apostles and all that blessed company who have fought the good fight ? Alas ! beloved, a natural man in heaven would be a miserable creature, — there would be something in the air he could not breathe,
the joys, the affections, the employments would be all wearisome to him, he would find himself unfitted for the company of the saints, as a beast is unfitted on earth for the company of man ; he would be carnally minded, they would be spiritually minded, there would be no thing- in common. I know there are vain dreamers who fancy death will work an alteration, that they may die sinners and rise again saints ; but it is all a delusion, there is no work nor device nor knowledge in the grave ; if we die spiritual we shall rise spiritual, if we die carnal we shall rise carnal, and if we are to be made fit for heaven our natural hearts must be changed now on earth.
In short, beloved, the plain truth is, that by nature men are all dead in trespasses and sins, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, prisoners in the hand of Satan, in a state of miserable condemnation, spiritually dark, blind, and sleeping ; and, worst of all, they neither know nor feel it. The cold corpse in the grave does not feel the worms that crawl over it ; the sleeping wretch who has unawares drunk poison does not know that he shall wake no more ; and so also the unhappy man who is still unconverted cannot understand that he is in need of anything. But still, every natural man in the sight of God is dead while he liveth ; his body, soul, and mind are all turned aside from their proper use, which is to glorify God, and so he is looked upon as dead. And this either is the state of every single soul among us at this minute, or else it used to be. There is no middle state ; we cannot be half-way, neither dead nor alive ; we were dead and have been brought to life, or we are now dead, and the work is yet to be done. Nor yet is this doctrine for publicans and
harlots only : it is for all without exception ; it touches high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, old and young, gentle and simple ; all arc by nature sinful and corrupt, and because they are so Jesus tells us solemnly not one shall enter into the heavenly rest without being born again.
Beloved, this sounds strong ; it seems a hard saying, perhaps. That is not my affair ; I am set to preach Christ's Gospel and not my own. Search the Scriptures, and you will see it is true.
II. The second thing for your consideration is the exact signification and force of that peculiar expression " to be born again." It is a change by which we once more recover something of the divine nature, and are renewed after the image of God. It is a complete transforming and altering of all the inner man ; and nothing can more fully show its completeness and importance than the strong figure under which Jesus describes it : He calls it a NEW BIRTH. We have all been born once as men, but we must see to it we are born again as true Christians. We have been born once of the seed of Adam ; woe to us if we are not born the second time of the seed of God ! We have been born of the flesh, we must also be born of the Spirit. We are born earthly, we must also be born heavenly ; we are born corruptible, we must also be born incorruptible, for our natural birth is not a whit more necessary to the life of the body than is our spiritual birth necessary to the life of the soul.
To be born again is as it were to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind and a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings and new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God and ourselves and the
world and the life to come and the means whereby that life is attained. And it is indeed a true saying that he who has gone through it is a new man, a new creature, for old things are passed away, — behold, he can say, all things are become new! It is not so much that our natural powers and faculties are taken away and destroyed ; I would rather say that they receive an utterly new bias and direction. It is not that the old metal is cast aside, but it is melted down and refined and remoulded, and has a new stamp impressed upon it, and thus, so to speak, becomes a new coin.
This is no outward change, like that of Herod, who did many things and then stopped, or of Ahab, who humbled himself and went in sackcloth and walked softly ; nor is it a change which can neither be seen nor felt. It is not merely a new name and a new notion, but the implanting of a new principle which will surely bear good fruit. It is opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of the deaf; it is loosing the tongue of the dumb, and giving hands and feet to the maimed and lame, — for he that is born again no longer allows his members to be instruments and servants of unrighteousness, but he gives them unto God, and then only are they properly employed.
To be born again is to become a member of a new family by adoption, even the family of God ; it is to feel that God is indeed our Father, and that we are made the very sons and daughters of the Almighty ; it is to become the citizen of a new state, to cast aside the bondage of Satan and live as free men in the glorious liberty of Christ's kingdom, giving our King the tribute of our best affection, and believing that He will keep us from all evil. To be born again is a spiritual resurrection, a faint likeness indeed of the great change at last, but still a likeness ; for
the new birth of a man is a passage from death to life ; it is a passage from ignorance of God to a full knowledge of Him, from slavish fear to childlike love, from sleepy carelessness about Him to fervent desire to please Him, from lazy indifference about salvation to burning, earnest zeal ; it is a passage from strange ness towards God to heartfelt confidence, from a state of enmity to a state of peace, from worldliness to holiness, from an earthly, sensual, man-pleasing state of mind to the single-eyed mind that is in Christ Jesus. And this it is to be born of the Spirit.
Beloved, time will not allow me to go further with this subject to-day. I have endeavoured to show you generally why we must all be born again, and what the new birth means ; and on Sunday next, if the Lord will, I purpose to show you the manner and means by which this new birth usually comes.
It only remains for me now to commend this matter most solemnly to your consciences. Were it a doctrine of only second-rate importance, — were it a point a man might leave uncertain and yet be saved, like Church government or election, — I would not press it on you so strongly ; but it is one of the two great pillars of the gospel. On the one hand stands salvation by free grace for Christ's sake ; but on the other stands renewal of the carnal heart by the Spirit. We must be changed as well as forgiven ; we must be renewed as well as redeemed.
And I commend this to you all the more because of the times you live in. Men swallow down sermons about Christ's willingness and Christ's power to save, and yet continue in their sins : they seem to forget there must be the Spirit's work within us, as well as Christ's work for us— there must be something written on the table of our hearts. The strong man, Satan,
must be cast out of our house, and Jesus must take possession ; and we must begin to know the saints' character experimentally on earth, or we shall never be numbered with them in heaven. Christ is indeed a full and sufficient title to heaven ; but we must have about us some meetness and fitness for that blessed abode.
I will not shrink from telling you that this doctrine cuts every congregation in two ; it is the line of separation between the good fish and the bad, the wheat and the tares. There is a natural part in every congregation, and there is a spiritual part ; and few indeed are the churches where we should not be constrained to cry, Lord, here are many called, but very few chosen. The kingdom of God is no mere matter of lips and knees and outward service — it must be within a man, seated in the best place of heart ; and I will not hesitate to tell you I fear there are many living members of churches who are exceedingly dead Christians.
Examine yourselves, then, I pray you, whether you are born again. Have you good solid reasons for thinking that ye have put off the old man which is corrupt, and put on the new man which is created after God in holiness ? Are ye renewed in the spirit of your minds? Are ye bringing forth the fruits of the flesh or the fruits of the Spirit? Are ye carnally minded or heavenly minded ? Are your affections with the world or with God? Are ye natural men or are ye spiritual men ? Oh ! but it were no charity in me to keep back this weighty truth ; and it will be no wisdom in you to put off and delay considering it.
Are ye born again ? Without it no salvation ! It is not written that you may not, or yet that you will have some difficulty, but it is written that you cannot
without it see the kingdom of God. Consider with yourselves how fearful it will be to be shut out ; to see God's kingdom afar off, like the rich man in the parable, and a great gulf between ; how terrible to go down to the pit from under the very pulpit, well satisfied with your own condition, but still not born again. There are truly many roads to perdition, but none so melancholy as that which is travelled on by professing Christians — by men and women who have light and knowledge and warning and means and opportunity and yet go smiling on as if sermons and religion were not meant for them, or as if hell was a bed of roses, or as if God was a liar and would not keep His word.
Are ye born again ? I do not want to fill your heads, but to move your hearts ; it is not a matter of course that all who go to church shall be saved ; churches and ministers are meant to rouse you to self-inquiry, to awaken you to a sense of your condition ; and next to that grand question, " Have you taken Christ for your Saviour ? " there comes the second point, " Are you born again ? "
Beloved, if you love life, search and see what is your condition. What though you find no tokens for good : better a thousand times to know it now and live, than to know it too late and die eternally,!
Praised be God, it is a doctrine bound round with gracious promises : no heart so hard but the Holy Ghost can move it ; many a one could set his seal to that, and tell you that he was darkness, darkness that could be felt, but is now light in the Lord. Many of the Corinthians were bad as the worst among you, but they were washed, they were sanctified, they were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Many of the Ephesians were as completely dead in sins as any of you, but God
quickened them, and raised them up, and created them anew unto good works. Examine yourselves and draw nigh to God with prayer, and He shall draw nigh to you ; but if ye ask not, ye shall not have.
As for me, I make my supplication unto God, who can make all things new, that His Spirit may touch your hearts with a deep sense of this truth, for withont it my preaching is vain ; that there may be a mighty shaking and revival among the dry bones; that you may never rest until you are indeed new men and can say, Verily we were dead but we are now alive, we were lost but we are now found.