There is also cause for fear, my brethren, if you look around at the world in which we live. This vile world has not changed its character; it is no more a friend to grace than it was in the days of the early Christians. It was a difficult thing to be a Christian in the days of Diocletian and the other persecuting Roman emperors, but I sometimes think that it is an even more difficult thing to be a Christian now. To be a soldier under Hannibal and to fight bravely when crossing the Alps must have been a difficult task, but it was far more trying for the soldiers when they reached sunny Italy, and their holiday amusements destroyed the discipline of the army. The Christian camp at the present time seems to be pitched in a sunny plain where all the surrounding influences bend to relax the sinews of the warriors, and to take away from them their strength. It is hard to keep to the narrow way when the broad road runs so near to it that sometimes they seem to be one. The time was when the broad road was so distinct from the narrow one that we could easily discern who was travelling to heaven and who was going to hell; but now the devil has engineered the broad road so very close up to the side of the narrow way that there are many people who manage to walk on both of them; they never were so pleased as when they can first take a little turn on the narrow road, and then afterwards take another turn on the broad one. Let us never imitate Mr. Facing-both-ways; but let us walk only in the narrow way that leadeth unto life, whatever it may cost us to do so. You must be in a very singular position if you never have any temptations; indeed, I should not be surprised to learn, if you live where you have no temptations, that you are undergoing a worse trial than temptation itself would be. In such a place as that you are very likely to get indigant. The very pleasantness of the situation may put you off your guard and you will not live so near to God as you would have done if your surroundings had seemed to be more opposed to your growth in grace. There is cause for fear then, when all around us there is an enemy behind every bush, a temptation lurking in every joy, and a devil hiding himself under every table,—when, as old Francis Quarles used to say—
“The close pursuer’s busy hands do plant
Snares in thy substance; snares attend thy want;
Snares in thy credit, snares in thy disgrace;
Snares in high estate, snares in thy base
Snares tuck thy bed; and snares surround thy board;
Snares watch thy thoughts; and snares attach thy word;
Snares in thy quiet, snares in thy commotion;
Snares in thy diet; snares in thy devotion
Snares lurk in thy resolves, snares in thy doubt
Snares lie within thy heart, and snares without,
Snares are above thy head, and snares beneath
Snares in thy sickness, snares are in thy death.”
Besides that, dear friends—in addition to having a store of dry tinder within our heart and showers of sparks falling near us— besides having a great heap of gunpowder within our nature, and being constantly exposed to the fires that burn all around us, we must remember that there is such a thing as self-deception in the world. This is a great and a common danger. Do you not yourselves know some who have been self-deceived? I have had a wide experience in watching over the souls of others, and many persons have come under my notice who have thought themselves Christians, and I have often wondered how they could think so. I have seen that in their lives which has let me to feel sure—as sure as one man can feel concerning another—that the grace of God could not be in them; yet they have not had any doubt or suspicion concerning their Christianity. Now brethren and sisters, do not you know some people like that? Well then, is it not possible that the judgment which you have formed concerning them is the very same that others have formed concerning you? And perhaps that judgment is true. There have been great preachers who have been very eloquent men, and God has even condescended to use them in his service; yet afterwards it has been discovered that they were living in gross sin all the while that they were preaching holiness to others. If that has been the case with only one preacher, might it not also be the case with me? Have you never heard of church members who have come regularly to the communion table, and been very prominent in the work of the church, and apparently leading the way in all good things; yet after all they were rotten at the core? They had made a mistake altogether—unless they had wilfully deceived others instead of themselves,—in professing to be Christ’s people at all. Well then, if some have acted like that, may not you do the same? I do not wish to say anything unpleasant merely for the sake of making you feel uncomfortable; but I want you to remember that my text says, “Happy is the man that feareth alway.” Sometimes to examine the foundation on which we are building for eternity, to look into the profession which we have made, to see whether it will stand the wear and tear of daily life, and to judge whether it will be likely to endure the best of our dying day, and the still sterner test of the day of judgment—is a wise occupation for every one of us. The man who dares not have his ship examined is the man who knows that some of the timbers are rotten; and if you do not like being examined you are the very men who ought to put yourself through that process without a moment’s delay, obeying the injunctions of the apostle, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
