by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
June, 1940
A MUTUAL COMPLAINT.
My brethren, are we all clear in this respect? Do not many of God's people need to bemoan their worldliness? Once Christ was all with you, brethren; is it so, now? Once you despised the world, and condemned alike its pleasures and its frowns; but now are not the chains of worldly custom upon you? Are not many of you enslaved by fashion, and eaten up with frivolity? Do not some of you run as greedily as worldlings after the questionable enjoyments of this present life? Ought these things to be so? Can they remain so and your souls enjoy the Lord's smile? “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You cannot be Christ's disciple, and be in fellowship with the ungodly. Come ye out from among them: be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing: then shall ye know right joyfully that the Lord is a Father to you, and that ye are His sons and daughters. But brethren, have ye gone unto Jesus without the camp, and do ye abide there with Him? Is the line of your separation visible—aye, is it existing? Is there any separation at all? Is it not often the case that the professed people of God are mixed up with the sons of men so that you cannot discern the one from the other? If it be so with any of us, let him humble himself and let him cry in bitterness “Oh that I were as in months past.”
Brothers and sisters, feel ye the breath of the winnowing fan again? How is it with you in private prayer? Are there not believers, and we hope true believers too, who are lax in devotion? The morning prayer is brief but alas! it is not fervent; the evening prayer is too often sleepy; ejaculations are few and far between; communion with Heaven is distant, suspended, almost nonexistent in many cases. Look ye to this, my brethren, let each man commune with his own heart, and be still. Think not of others just now, but let each one consider his ways. How is it with your love to the souls of sinners? Does the tear tremble in your eye as it once did for lost souls, perishing without Christ? Alas, upon how many has a hardening influence operated. Ah, and this is true even of us ministers. We have grown professional in our service, and now we preach like automatons, wound up for a season, to run down when the discourse is over, and we have little more care for the souls of men than if they were so much dirt.
Fifth, these regrets by themselves are useless. It is unprofitable to read these words of Job and say, “Just so, that is how I feel,” and then continue in the same way. If a man has neglected his business and so has lost his trade, it may mark a turn in his affairs when he says, “I wish I had been more industrious”; but if he abides in the same sloth as before, of what use is his regret? If he shall fold his arms and say, “O that I had dug that plot of land; O that I had sown that field,” no harvest will come because of his lamentations. Up, man, up and labour, or you will have the sluggard's reward—rags and poverty will be your portion. If a man be in declining health, if drunkenness and riot have broken down his constitution, it may mark a salutary reform in his history if he confesses his former folly; but if his regrets end in mere expressions, will these heal him? I think not. So neither will a man, affected by spiritual decline, be restored by the mere fact of his knowing himself to be so. Let him go to the beloved Physician, drink of the waters of life again, and receive the leaves of the tree which are for the healing of the nations.
I have known some, I fear, who even satisfied themselves with expressions of regret. “Ah,” say they, “I am a deep experienced man, I can go where Job went; I can mourn and lament as Job did.” Remember, many have been on Job's dunghill, who knew nothing of Job's God; many have imitated David in his sins, who never followed him in his repentance. They have gone from their sin into Hell by the way of presumption, whereas David went from it to Heaven by the road of contrition and forgiveness. Never let us, merely because we feel some uneasiness within, conclude that this suffices. If in the dead of the night you should hear thieves in your house, you would not congratulate yourself because you were awake to hear them. You would waive all such comfortable reflections till the rogues were driven out and your property was safe; and so, when you know things are amiss with you, do not say, “I am satisfied, because I know it is so.” Up, man, and with all the strength that God's Holy Spirit gives you, strive to drive out these traitors from your bosom, for they are robbing your soul of his best treasures.
Sixth, these regrets when they are necessary are very humbling. Meditate now for a minute. Think, dear brother, what was thy position in thy happiest times, in those days that are now past. Had you any love to spare then? You were zealous; were you too zealous? You were gracious; were you too gracious? Nay, in our best estate, we were very far short of what we ought to be, and yet we have gone back from even that. It was a poor attainment at the best, have we fallen even from that? During the time we have been going back, we ought to have gone forward. What enjoyments we have lost by our wanderings; what progress we have missed! As John Bunyan well puts it, when Christian fell asleep and lost his roll, he had to go back for it, and he found it very hard going back, and, moreover, he had to go on again, so that he had to traverse three times the road he need only have traversed once; and then he came in late at the gates of the palace Beautiful, and was afraid of the lions, of which he would have had no fear had not the darkness set in. We know not what we lose, when we lose growth in grace.
Alas, how much the Church has lost through us, for if the Christian becomes poor in grace, he lessens the church's wealth of grace. We have a common exchequer as a church, and everyone who takes away his proportion from it, robs the whole. Dear brethren, how accountable are many of us for the low tone of religion in the world, especially those of us who occupy the foremost ranks. If grace be at a low ebb with us, others say, “Well, look at so and so; I am as good as he.” So much in the church do we take the cue from one another, that each one of us is in a measure responsible for the low state of the whole. Some of us are very quick to see the faults of others; may it not be that those faults are our own children? Those who have little love to others generally discover that there is little love in the church, and I notice that those who complain of the inconsistencies of others, are usually the most inconsistent persons themselves. Shall I be a robber of my fellow Christian? Shall I be an injury to the cause of Christ? Shall I be a comfort unto sinners in their sin? Shall I rob Christ of His glory? I, who was saved from such depths of sin; I, who have been favoured with such enjoyments of His presence; I, that have been on Tabor's top with Him and seen Him transfigured; I, that have been in His banqueting house and have drunk out of the flagons of His love—shall I be so devoid of grace, that I shall even injure His children and make His enemies to blaspheme? Wretch that I am, to do this.
Seventh, yet these regrets may be made very profitable in many other ways. First, they show us what human nature is. Have we gone back so far? O, brethren, we might have gone back to perdition: we should have done so, if it had not been for the grace of God. What a marvel it is that God has borne with our ill manners, when He might justly have laid the reins on our necks, and suffered us to rush on in the road which we so often hankered after. So you see, dear brethren, what a body of death we carry with us, and what a terrible power it possesses. When you see the mischief that corruption has already done, never trust yourself, but seek for new grace every day.
Again—learn to prize what spiritual blessings yet remain. If you have such better regrets for what you have lost, hold fast what is still yours. Slip back no further, for if those slips have cost you so much, take heed that they do not ruin you. To continue presumptuous may be a proof that our profession is rotten throughout: only a holy jealousy can remove the suspicion of insincerity. Let your previous failings teach you to walk cautiously for the future. Be jealous, for you serve a jealous God. Since gray hairs may come upon you, here and there, and you may not know it, search, try yourself day by day, lest you relapse yet more.
This should teach us to live by faith, since our best attainments fail us. We rejoice today, but we may mourn tomorrow. What a mercy it is that our salvation does not depend on what we are or what we feel. Christ has finished our salvation; no man can destroy what He hath completed. Our life is hid with Christ in God, and is safe there; none can pluck us out of Jehovah's hands. Since we so frequently run aground, it is clear that we should be wrecked altogether if we went to sea in a legal vessel with self for our pilot. Let us keep to the good ship of free grace, steered by immutable faithfulness, for none other bring us to the desired haven. But oh, let that free grace fill us with ardent gratitude. Since Christ has kept us, though we could not keep ourselves, let us bless His name, and overwhelmed with obligations, let us rise with a solemn determination that we will serve Him better than we have ever done before; and may His blessed Spirit help us to make the determination a fact.
Eighth, these regrets ought not to be continual: they ought to be removed, decidedly removed, by an earnest effort, made in God's strength to get back to the position which we occupied before, and to attain something better still. Dear brothers and sisters, if any of you desire now to come into the higher life, and to feel anew your first love, what shall I say to you? Go back to where you started. Do not stay discussing whether you are a Christian or not. Go to Christ as a poor guilty sinner. When the door to Heaven seems shut to me as a saint, I will get through it as a sinner, trusting in the precious blood of Jesus. Come and stand again, as though all your sins were on you still, at the foot of the cross, where still may be seen the dripping blood of the infinitely precious atonement. Saviour, I trust Thee again: guilty, more guilty than I was before, a sinful child of God, I trust Thee: “wash me thoroughly from mine iniquities, and purge me from my sin.” You will never have your graces revived, unless you go to the Cross. Begin life again. The best air for a man to breathe when he is sickly is said to be that of his birthplace: it was at Calvary we were born; it is only at Calvary we can be restored when we are declining. Do the first works; as a sinner, repair to the Saviour and ask to be restored.
Then, as a further means of health, search out the cause of your declension. Probably it was a neglect of private prayer. Where the disease began, there must the remedy be applied. Pray more earnestly, more frequently, more importunately. Or, was it a neglect of hearing the Word? Were you enticed by novelty or cleverness away from a really searching and instructive ministry? Go back, and feed on wholesome food again: perhaps that may cure the disease. Or, have you been too grasping after the world? Brother, you loved God when you had but one shop, you have two now, and are giving all your time and thoughts to business, and your soul is getting lean. Man alive, strike off some of that business, for it is a bad business that makes your soul poor. I would not check industry or enterprise for a single moment; let a man do all he can, but not at the expense of his soul. Push on, but do not push down your soul. You may buy gold too dear, and may attain a high position in this world at a cost which you may have to rue all your days. Where the mischief began there apply the remedy. And I urge upon you, and most of all upon myself, do not make excuses for yourselves; do not palliate your faults; do not say it must be so; do not compare yourselves among yourselves or you will be unwise; but to the perfect image of Christ let your hearts aspire, to the ardour of your Divine Redeemer, who loved not Himself, but loved you.
There are some here who will say, “I do not comprehend this sermon: I have no cause to look back with regret. I have always been much the same as I am. I know nothing of religion.” The day shall come when you will envy the least and most trembling believer. To you careless, Christless sinners, the day shall come when you will cry to the rocks for mercy, and beg them to conceal you from the eyes of Him whom now you dare despise. I beseech you be not high minded, lift up your horn on high, speak not so exceeding proud—bow before the Christ of God and ask Him to give you the new life. For even if that new life has declined and become sickly, it is better than the death in which you dwell. Go and seek grace of Him who alone can give it, and He will grant it you for His infinite mercy's sake. Amen.—C. H. Spurgeon, 1871.
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