It is according to the object of this institution of the breaking of bread that we not only call Christ to remembrance, but that we realise the causes of joy we possess in that remembrance. It is probable, and even certain, that we do not rejoice enough in the truth that we have been permitted to believe. There are many reasons for this. We are weak, and the impressions of the moment have naturally more power than those that come through the discernment of wisdom. And the impressions of the moment are all the reverse of joy-inspiring. Then there are many causes of dissatisfactions in ourselves and others even in the favoured circle of enlightenment. In the world, we walk through a great and terrible wilderness where chafe and fatigue and pain are natural. We love Christ, and we think of Christ, but we cannot see him yet. And the great world of unbelief around us says, “Where is this Christ of yours?” Many and powerful indeed are the causes of that inward pain which, in a certain sense, is the normal experience of godliness in the present evil world.

All the more reason for pressing home upon our jaded minds the reasons we have for pure gladness in God. We are commanded to remember these.

Let us spend a few moments together in the contemplation of these causes of joy. First of all, look back at our baptism; what did it do for us? It brought us the remission of our sins. Whatever our lives were before we knew Christ, we stood purged and clean on the day that, with the docility of little children, we took upon ourselves “the only name given among men” for that purpose. Oh yes, we know that, say some; and they say it in a manner that seems to say they see no particular reason for gladness in it. It is questionable if the privilege belong to such. The privilege is for those only to whom sin is a burden and a grief; who “are broken and contrite in heart,” to use God’s own words; and repent and turn to God with full and earnest purpose. This class feel the misery of alienation. Others may have very little sensibility in the matter. There is such a thing spoken of as “a conscience seared as with a hot iron.” It is better to be too much distressed than to be in this state of imperviousness to the dreadfulness of sin against God. I have known some too much distressed. They have looked back upon their past lives almost with a feeling of despair. They have said, “There is scarcely a sin that I have not committed. I can scarcely feel that mercy is for me.” The answer is, it is not a question of feeling: it is a question of what God offers. His offer is an offer of pardon to all without distinction who conform to His requirements:

Jesus said,

“I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The prodigal son is never to be forgotten in this connection. The father ran and met him half-way, and made a feast on his return. Christ’s declaration is that-

“There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.”

As we sit here this morning, then, let nothing of our past life-the life we lived before our sins were washed away in baptism-let nothing we remember in connection with that life distress us. It is blotted out as clean as the chalk marks from a schoolboy’s slate before a wetted sponge. We are “justified by faith and have peace with God.”

Our very distress at the sin that marred and clouded our pre-baptismal life will be the very measure of the joy of forgiveness that is ours in Christ-washed from our sins in his own blood. Is not this a cause of great joy?

“Ah, yes,” say our distressed ones again: “we are aware of that. We are glad at that: but it is not that that troubles us. It is the time since baptism that distresses us: our failures, our shortcomings, our aberrations from the right way: our sins. It is this that fills us with sadness and misgiving.” Well, it is right that we should be troubled on this head. It would be a poor sign if we were insensible to our imperfections. It would be a symptom of that state which Peter describes as “having a conscience seared as with a hot iron.” When a hot iron is passed over any portion, it loses sensibility: it cannot feel; it is seared. This is a bad state for the conscience to be in. It is far better to be in a hypersensitive state than this. It is far better to be distressed at our feelings than to be unconcerned about them. It is more pleasing to God: it is more pleasing to man. If you have a servant that is plagued about his shortcomings, he is more valuable and pleasing to you than one who is jaunty and self-satisfied with those same shortcomings. God expressly tells us that it is to this class of man that he looks with satisfaction:

We read in the Psalms,

David and Paul are both examples of this state of mind. In the case of Paul, the distress amounted to the degree of agony expressed in the words,

“O wretched man that I am.”

Your distress, then, at the imperfections of your attainments as children of God is no cause of despair. In its own proper place it is a ground of hope. It is a proof of the right kind of sensibility-and the token of a due sense of human insufficiency, and the loftiness of the Divine standard. It is, indeed, part of the righteousness that commends a man to God: for all is righteousness that He is pleased with, and He is pleased with modesty and a sense of inferiority on the part of children of the dust. There is forgiveness for His fainting, erring children, who are not such in presumption, pride, or habit.

This is a doctrine both of the prophets and apostles. It is the teaching of the Spirit of God in all the Scriptures. What we understand as the Old Testament part may be taken as represented in the statement of the Psalms:

The apostolic teaching, though standing related to a different form of things, is identical in spirit on this point:

Are we marred, then, with many blemishes? It is right that we should be distressed on their account: but let not the distress go to the point of despair. I have known some to do this. The past has been so unsatisfactory to them that they have lost heart and given up trying. This is a mistake. It is best to accept no failure except at Christ’s own hands at the judgment. It is better to die trying than to make condemnation sure by falling out of the ranks altogether. It is better to renew our ways again and again than to settle in the bog of self-condemnation. The words of Christ are gracious and encouraging:

“Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.”

“Repent: do the first works.”

“I stand at the door and knock. If any man will open the door, I will come in.”

There is forgiveness after baptism. If there were not, there would be no hope for a living soul.

This is the second cause for gladness that we have as we come together from first day to first day to refresh our failing memories and our weary souls. Some fail to lay full hold of this cause of joy from the doctrine inculcated by others that there must be no sin after baptism, and that if there is, it is fatal. Some have even gone so far as to profess themselves sinless. It is a beautiful and a pleasing conceit certainly; but by the words of John, and by the teaching of experience, it stamps them as false teachers. John says,

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).

Experience proves the truth of the Bible statement, that-

“There liveth not a man that sinneth not.”

But, then, say our fearful friends, “What does John mean when he says,

Well, remember this is the same John who says,

He does not contradict himself. He asserts two things that are in harmony, though in appearance inconsistent. If we adopt a view that makes them contradict each other, or that contradicts palpable experience, our view is, and must be wrong. There is no need for any difficulty. When John says the children of God sin not and cannot sin, he is referring to the doctrine of a class of spiritual seducers whom he is confuting.

“Those things I write concerning them that seduce you.”

These men, in the language of Peter, “turned the grace of our God into lasciviousness:” that is, made the fact of justification by grace through faith a reason for “continuing in sin that grace might abound.” In contra- distinction to these, John maintains in 1John 3 that the man who holds the hope of seeing and being like Christ at his coming, “purifieth himself as he (Christ) is pure”-lives not in sin as other men do: cannot do so, for the seed of the word which brings forth fruit in harmony with itself, is in him and remaineth in him. It is morally impossible for a man believing the truth to live in rebellion against its demands.

Bring the thing to a practical test. The truth requires and causes us to love Christ: How could a man love Christ and live in habitual disobedience to his commandments? Christ himself makes this obedience at once the token and the result of our love for him.

Experience tells us that the love of any one constrains the lover naturally to do the things that are requested or commanded-especially the things that are pleasing-by the object of love. Could a man born of God live forgetful of God, regardless of God-in opposition to God-doing the things that God has forbidden, neglecting the things God has commanded? Impossible. The fact of his having been begotten by the truth and changed by the truth will necessarily make him love the truth and all things connected with the truth-the God of the truth, the sons of the truth, and the principles, obligations, and commandments of the truth. Such a man “cannot” live as the world lives, which is controlled in all ranks by “the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.” The universal law of affinities will make him stand apart from a system so alien to all that he loves, admires, and hopes for. He cannot sin in the sense contended for by “the evil men and seducers,” whom John was writing against.

But does this mean that these faithful servants and lovers of God have no faults to bemoan? -no shortcomings to confess? -no sins to ask the forgiveness of? Everything is against this manifest untruth. Where is Paul’s wretchedness at the law of sin in his members-preventing him from doing what he would, and compelling him to do things that he would not? (Rom. 7:18-23). Where is Peter’s denial of the Lord and his dissimulation in the presence of the Jewish brethren? (Gal. 2:12-14). Where are the post-baptismal sins which the Corinthian brethren were to forgive the offender? (2 Cor. 2:7), and which “many” were called on to repent? (2 Cor. 12:2). And where is the testimony of every enlightened man’s conscience, that with all his attainments, the clog of this corruptible nature, “in which we groan, being burdened,” lies heavily upon him, and prevents that uniform and steady faith which he admires and desires in his heart, and that fullness and fervency of divine communion after which he longs, and that constant conformity in all particulars with the beautiful law that requires continual meekness to man, and continual worship to God in that “love, joy, peace, and long-suffering,” which are the indispensable “fruits of the spirit?”

In our friendship for God, we are constantly blocked and impeded by the weakness concerning which, we have to say with Paul,

“It is no more I but sin that dwelleth in me.”

Perhaps it falls asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, or quails in the presence of the storm, or forgets the promises in the hour of darkness. In all these, we have to remember that-

“If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.”

“Having such an high priest,” it is our privilege which we are invited to avail ourselves of to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in every time of need, for he having suffered being tempted, is able, also, to succour them that are tempted. For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmity, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Does this exhaust the reasons we have for being glad as children of God? Far from it. In truth, we cannot exhaust them. Christ informs us that the Father careth for us. He asks us to have faith in him, and (by Peter) to “cast all our care upon him.” This refers to our present state of imperfection and weakness. But, oh? Let us look forward. The present dreary state will not last forever. It seems to our weak imagination as if it would never end. In truth, it will disappear as entirely as a dream, and when the moment comes for us its disappearance, whether by death or the lord’s coming, its disappearance will be sudden and final; it will never come back to us. When anything happens to others, we being left, the old humdrum story goes on. It will be very different when our turn comes. And just think what the ending of the present means for us. It means the Kingdom. “Ah, yes, we know,” some languidly say. They have almost lost their power to be glad about the Kingdom. They have talked so much and so long about it, that it has almost shrunk to a phrase in their hands. They are like children going to a party across a wintry moor, who have got so tired and so benumbed that they can only cry and cannot be rallied by any reminders of the pleasant time they are going to have. Ah, my fainting fellow-travellers, your sighs are “heard before the throne.” Your weakness is pitied and sympathised with there.

It is not in mere liking for sorrow that He puts His beloved to grief. There is a need be. Great will be the gladness of the tear wiping from every eye: but there must be the tears first. The long and dreary desert is part of the plan. The great thing is to endure it, and not murmur, as Israel murmured. Do not forget the glory to be revealed. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,” is not worthy of being put in the balance with it. “The Kingdom” means blessedness for all people when the wicked are overthrown. They are unblessed now, as we painfully know. The knowledge is often a distress: but here is gladness. The evils we deplore, which all kinds of men and movements are vainly trying to mend, will all disappear when they have served their purpose in this preparatory phase of the world’s history. The present darkness in all departments of human life will flee away before the bright morning that will come with Christ. Therefore, as it is written,

The bride and bridegroom, when they enter into possession of the earth-portion the Father has given them, will occupy and administer for the glory of God and the good of all mankind.

We go one step higher, and the case for gladness is complete. If the Kingdom will be good for the world as subjects, what will it be for us if we are permitted to reign? It is to this we are called. It is this that Christ promises. It is no flight of poetic imagination when we try to realise what it means for us when the promise is fulfilled. Are you now weak and burdened? You will then be strong and light of heart and foot. Are you now harassed with anxieties and difficulties in the way of providing necessary food, not to speak of the impossibility of doing for others what you would wish? There will be no end to the opulences of all things that will be under your hand for the great work of reigning with Christ. Are you small and despised-perhaps persecuted, perhaps oppressed by those about you? You will be an object of deference and worship among the happy people over whom Christ will set you to rule. Are you pining for true friendship-the sweetness of loving and being loved? You will be dear to a multitude of the glorified saints whom you will often see, and will find a constant feast in your recollection of them all. Are you oppressed with a conscious deficiency of knowledge and faculty and capacity, in various things, such as language, music, etc? All this deficiency will disappear under a change of nature that will cause you to know as you are known, and to possess in their fulness the gift of the Spirit which the apostles tasted, and which they described as “the powers of the world to come.” You will be able to commune with the highest of the saints on matters on which perhaps at present you would not be at home, and to take part with any of them as an effective executant in their joyful feasts of song.

In a word, whereas you are now weak and low, mortal and insignificant, inconsiderable and unsatisfied, you will, if God be pleased with your faith and obedience, become strong and immortal, efficient and glad, important and joyful among a multitude similarly privileged. You do not feel like it now. Remember it does not depend upon you at all except that conformity with the Father’s will on which all ultimately depends. You are invited freely to partake of a feast of God’s spreading. He is able to provide it. It is just as easy for Him to give all the good things He has promised, as to continue us in present lowly being. The elements of His power are all round. They merely require combining in the new shape He purposes. Take Him at His word and be glad.

He will fill the earth with joy and praise. His word cannot fail.

“Thou yet shall find it true to thee.”

Open your heart to all these things. You are, as it were, cheating yourself if you are not glad. We have to pull through the time. It is better we should do it in joy than in grief. There are causes of sadness, and sadness in its place is essential to the work of God, yet we may have too much for want of thinking. The gladness overtops all the sadness, and is so stupendous and so founded in the truth that only the dimness of our mental perceptions and the feebleness of our physical powers of endurance prevents us from being in a state of ecstasy all the day long. Let us try and improve our attainments in this respect. Let us give God pleasure by our manifest gladness at knowing Him and the purpose that He has purposed to show unto us, the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus not only that have no flaw, but that will never end.

Taken from: - “More Seasons of Comfort”

Pages 638-644

By Bro. Robert Roberts

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