PK’s Ponderings
Is Your Religion Positive or Negative?
Your
pastor has been communicating with the dead again. Well, OK, I have not been talking to the
dead, but rather listening. This time,
it was Thomas Watson who lived from 1620-1686, and he was speaking to me
through his sermon The Saint’s Spiritual
Delight which was based on Psalm 1:2: “But his delight is in the Law of the
Lord, and on that Law he meditates day and night.”
He
states one of the themes in the sermon like this:
There
are some in the world whose religion runs all upon negatives: they are not
drunkards, they are not swearers, and for this they
bless themselves. . . . The godly man goes farther: “he sits not in the seat of
the scorner, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.” . . . It is not enough
for us to say at the last day that we have done no hurt or have lived in no
gross sin; but what good have we done in
the [Lord’s] vineyard? [emphasis is
mine]
He
warns those who put their religion only in terms of negative statements thusly:
1.
You
may not be outwardly bad and yet not be inwardly good. You may be as far from grace as from vice;
though none can say that your eye is black, yet your soul may be.
2.
If
you are only negatively good, God makes no reckoning of you . . . Take a piece
of brass; though it is not so bad a metal as lead or iron, yet not being so
good as silver, there is little reckoning made of it; it will not pass for
current coin. Though you are not
profane, yet not being of the right metal, lacking the stamp of holiness upon
you, you will never pass. To God, you are but a brass Christian. (Emphasis is mine. See also Matthew 7:21)
3.
A
man may as well go to hell for not doing good, as for doing evil. He who does not bear good fruit, (John 15:2),
is as well fuel for hell as he who bears bad . . . . Therefore let no man build his hope for
heaven upon negatives.
Thomas
Watson challenges me and you to think about what positively we believe, how
positively we act when it comes to faith.
It is not enough to “not drink, or smoke or chew, or date those girls
who do”. I must be able to put words and
actions to positive spiritual desires as well:
I do desire to study God’s word.
I do desire to love my brother and sister in Christ. I do desire to alleviate the suffering of
those around me. I do desire to proclaim
the good news of Jesus in a lost and dying world with words of grace and truth.
When
asked the question “How do we know if we have true spiritual delight?”, Watson
gives 6 responses.
1.
He
who delights in God’s law is often thinking of it. What a man delights in, his thoughts are
running upon. He who delights in money
finds his mind taken up with it; therefore the covetous man is said to “mind
earthly things” (Philippians 3:19).
Thus, if there is a delight in the things of God, the mind will be
musing upon them.
2.
If
we delight in religion, nothing can keep us from it, but we will be conversant
in Word, prayer and sacraments. The
ordinances [of Word, prayer, sacrament, and corporate gatherings] are a gospel
market, and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will not stay away
upon every slight occasion. “I was glad
when they said unto me, ‘Let us go up to the house of the Lord’” (Psalm
122:1). You who are glad when the devil
helps you with an excuse to absent yourself from the house of the Lord are far
from this holy delight.
3.
Those
who delight in religion are often speaking of it. “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another” (Malachi 3:16). Where there is grace infused, it will be
effusive. . . . Words are the looking glass of the mind; they show what is in
the heart.
4.
He
who delights in God will give Him the best in every service. . . . Hypocrites
do not care what they put God off with; they offer that to the Lord which costs
them nothing, a prayer that costs them no wrestling, no pouring out of the
soul; they put no cost in their services. . . . He who delights in God gives
Him the fat of the offering, the purest of his love, the hottest of his zeal. And when he has done all, he grieves that he
can do no more.
5.
He
who delights in God does not much delight in anything else. The world appears in an eclipse. . . . Is it
so with us? Have we this low opinion of
all earthly comforts? . . . The astronomer said that if it were possible for a
man to be lifted up as high as the moon (remember, this was written in the
1600’s!) the earth would seem to him but as a little point. If we could be lifted up to heaven in our
affections, all earthly delights would seem as nothing.
6.
True
delight is constant. Hypocrites have
their pangs of desire and flashes of joy, which are soon over. . . . True delight, like the fire of the
altar, never goes out; affliction cannot extirpate it.
(PK’s
side note: The constancy of delight
should be seen as perseverance over the years.
In fullness, Watson also says “It is sometimes low tide in a Christian’s
soul; he finds an indisposition and irksomeness to that which is good. But within a while there is a high tide of
affection, and the soul is carried full sail in holy duties. It is with a Christian as with a man who has
a distemper: when he is sick he does not take that delight in his food as
formerly; but when he returns to his healthful temper again, then he has the
same delectability and cheerfulness in God’s service as before. This weariness in a regenerate person is
involuntary; he is troubled by it. He
does not hug his disease, but mourns under it.
He is weary of his weariness.”)
The
world is tired of and done with negative Christianity. May you and I be the kind of Christians who
are marked with a positive spiritual delight.
Let them marvel at those who are lost and enraptured in their warm love for
and holy devotion to the Rescuing Master of their souls.
