Objections Answered

This may perhaps fall into the hands of some older Christian, who says, “Well, I see that the ground I have been upon has no warrant in Scripture; but I am not capable of putting the thing right.” Probably not; but your responsibility is to put yourself right. “If a man therefore purge himself from these” (vessels to dishonor), he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:19- 22). To Jeremiah of old, who stood valiantly for God amidst a sinful and rebellious people, it was said, “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them” (Jer. 15:19). “But,” reasons another, “ought I not to stay in the place and among the people where my soul was converted?” Well, I think you will see at once that such a principle could not possibly apply to every Christian. Some are converted amid the gross darkness of Roman-ism: would you have them stay there?-Saul of Tarsus on the roadside amongst the haters of Christ? One is saved on the battle field; and only tonight I heard of a young man brought to God while tempesttossed and well-nigh driven to despair in the Bay of Biscay. In all such cases God is sovereign (“the wind bloweth where it listeth”); He can convert a soul anywhere, and by any means. But from the moment he is converted he is no longer his own, nor has he a right to choose his own path, or do his own will; he must henceforth consult the wishes of another-even his own precious Lord and Master, and seek His all-sufficient grace and power to carry those wishes out.’ A man may enlist for a soldier in the common dramshop, in the public market, or wherever the recruiting sergeant can prevail upon him to join the colours, but, as you are aware, from that day he is no longer his own master but must prepare himself to obey the wishes of His Majesty. Now what would you think of a recruit who insisted upon staying where he was enlisted, or even with the recruiting staff? Such a course might possibly suit him, but he must now yield to other and higher authority. There may be another who says, “Nearly all my Christian friends are in such a sect; and, besides, is it not right to go where you can get the most good?” Well, I have no doubt that Jonathan might have reasoned thus when, in David’s days, he chose rather to think of his own good with his own relations in Saul’s court than of following one who so dearly loved him in a pathway of suffering, loneliness and rejection. But had poor, lamented Jonathan consulted David’s interests instead of his own, had he devotedly cleaved to him, hated and hunted though David was, he would probably never have fallen, as he did, on the mountains of Gilboa. Ah, dear fellow-believer, depend upon it, neither the opinion of your friends, nor your own judgment of what is most for your good, can guide you in these matters! The truth of God alone can direct you in a Christhonouring path, and the God of truth alone can sustain you in it. The Scripture which makes you wise unto salvation furnishes you unto all good works; i. e. with all needful instruction for your path (2 Tim. 3:15-17). And since this is so, you ought to be as sure of one as of the other. There can surely be no shadow of uncertainty to faith when God has spoken His mind; but how sad that so many, even of His own professed people, should glibly speak of “essentials” and “non-essentials” in the things of God, which usually means that whatever concerns their own safety and blessing is essential, and all the rest, no matter how closely connected with the glory of the blessed Son of God, is to be treated with comparative indifference as non-essential! Oh, what miserable selfishness does this manifest! What a different state of things characterized the dear apostle! The earnest desire of his heart was that Christ should be “magnified in his body, whether by life or by death”; his one motto was-”To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:20, 21). But there is yet another objection which is sometimes raised against leaving a human for a divine ground of association and fellowship; viz., the failures and inconsistencies of those who professedly occupy this ground. Most sorrowfully, though frankly, do I own that those who, through grace, have clearly seen the place to be of God, and sought to occupy it, have very painfully and disgracefully failed; while some, no doubt, who professedly took the ground never saw what they were doing, nor had any depth of godly exercise about it; so that when their faithfulness to the principles which professedly separated them were put to the test, they either in practice denied those very principles or else forsook them altogether. This, however, no more proves the position wrong than the failure of His Majesty’s Ministers in the House of Commons proves that it is not the true House of Parliament, or Uzziah’s failure in the temple, or, still worse, that of king Ahaz, proves that it was not God’s center of gathering for all the thousands of Israel (2Chr.26.16-2Chr.26.20" class="scriptRef">2 Chron 26:16-20; 2 lungs 16:10-17); while, on the other hand, the most spotless morality in those assembled by Jeroboam at Dan or Bethel, the most ardent zeal, the most unexampled self-denial, coupled with the greatest popularity and the voice of the majority (ten tribes against two), could not possibly make those altars the right centers, or justify Jereboam in setting them up.