Few understand this meaning of the yoke. Fewer still are willing to accept it. The ox is forced by its owner to take the yoke upon its neck. But Jesus invites us. There is no compulsion here. How foolish we are to reject this invitation! We would rather take the heavy yoke of our own self-will with its accompanying frustrations, defeats, and regrets, than the light yoke of Jesus that brings true liberty and deep rest!
We read of Enoch that he "walked with God" Genesis 5: As a result, God testified that He was pleased with Enoch's life Hebrews This is the only way that we please God - by living and moving under His yoke, in His perfect will. Only thus shall we be able to stand before Him without regret when He comes again. It is possible for a believer to miss God's perfect will for his life. Saul was chosen by God to be king over Israel, but eventually as a result of his impatience and disobedience, God had to reject him.
True, he remained on the throne for some years more, but he had missed God's will for his life. Solomon is another example. He pleased God in this earlier years, but fell away later through marrying heathen women. Twice in the New Testament we are exhorted to take a warning from the example of the Israelites who perished in the wilderness. God's perfect will for them was that they should enter Canaan.
But all except two of them missed God's best through unbelief and disobedience 1 Corinthians Many believers have similarly missed God's perfect plan for their lives through disobedience and compromise - often in marriage or in the choice of a career. God had called him to be a missionary in his younger days, but he had turned aside from that calling as a result of marriage.
He then began a selfish business life, working in a bank, with the primary purpose of making money.
God's Plan is the Best
God continued to speak to him for a number of years, but he refused to yield. One day his little child had a fall from a chair and died. This drove him to his knees, and after a whole night spent in tears before God, he put his life into God's hands completely. It was too late for him to go to Africa now. That door was closed. He knew that had been God's best for him, but he had missed it. All that he could do was to ask God to put the rest of his life to some use. He became a teacher in a Bible School, but could never forget that this was only God's second-best.
We just cannot live the victorious life or be of maximum use to the Lord, or be a blessing to others in any place we choose. Some may feel that they can choose their own career and their place of residence and then seek to be a witness for the Lord wherever they are. The Lord may in His mercy use such believers in a limited way. But their usefulness in God's vineyard will be only a fraction of what it could have been had they earnestly sought His plan and remained in the centre of His perfect will.
Stunted spiritual growth and limited fruitfulness are but the consequences of a careless disregard of God's laws. If you have disobeyed God in some matter, turn to Him in repentance now, before it is too late. It may yet be possible for you, as in Jonah's case, to come back into the mainstream of God's plan for your life. Each of us has but one life. Blessed is the man who like Paul, can say at the end of it, that he has finished his God-appointed task 2 Timothy 4: Divine guidance cannot be considered by itself apart from our personal relationship with God.
Many desire the gifts but not the Giver. If we long for guidance but do not thirst for God Himself, we shall not obtain the guidance we seek. A person must be in fellowship with God in order to experience His guidance in his life. This implies, first of all, that he should have come into a vital relationship with Christ through the new birth. But this alone is not enough. There are certain other essential conditions to be fulfilled if we are to know God's leading. These prerequisites are mentioned in two passages of Scripture, one in the Old Testament and the other in the New Proverbs 3: Let us consider these passages in detail.
There are many who never come to a knowledge of God's will, because they simply do not believe God will guide them. Faith is a prime prerequisite when we are seeking God's guidance. By faith we mean not merely a mental acceptance of truth but a confidence in God that comes through personal knowledge of Him. When we lack wisdom knowledge of God's mind in a certain situation we are invited to ask God for this and we are promised that He will grant it to us in abundance - provided we ask in faith.
The one who asks without faith invariably receives nothing James 1: Young believers may feel Divine guidance is available only to the mature who have grown in the knowledge of the Lord for several years. It is no doubt true that the more we walk with God, the better we can discern His mind. Nevertheless it is also true that God desires to guide all His children. What was said to Paul is true for all of us -.
A father gladly reveals to his children his desires and plans for them - not only to the older ones but to the younger ones as well. It is the same with our Heavenly Father. God has said in His Word that in this day of the New Covenant or Testament all His children - "from the least to the greatest" - will know Him personally Hebrews 8: Every one of us can then come to Him "with the full assurance of faith" that He delights to make His will known to His seeking children.
The verse goes on to say that those who come to God must believe that He is a rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him. The evidence of a person's faith is found in his persistence in prayer. The one who doubts will stop praying very soon. But the one who believes will lay hold of God until he gets an answer. God honours earnestness because it is the product of a strong faith. We cannot receive anything precious from God without intensely desiring it first.
God has said, "Then you will seek Me, inquire and require Me as a vital necessity and find Me; when you search for Me with all your heart" Jeremiah Is it not true that when seeking God's guidance we have often gone about it half-heartedly? When Jesus sought the Father's will in the garden of Gethsemane, He prayed again and again "in desperate prayer and the agony of tears" Hebrews 5: How casual our seeking is, when compared to that!
We often seek God's will with no more earnestness than we would have when searching for a lost five-paisa coin! No wonder we don't find it. If we value the will of God as the greatest treasure on earth, we will seek it will all our hearts. Do we really believe that God rewards diligent seekers?
Then our faith will manifest itself in importunate prayer. If we are consumed with earnest desire to fulfil His will in every area of our lives, God will undoubtedly reveal His mind to us. He cannot but honour a faith that lays hold of Him until it received an answer. Faith, in the Bible, is often coupled with patience. Both are necessary if we are to inherit God's promises Hebrews 6: David exhorts us no doubt from his own experience , to commit our way to the Lord, trusting in Him and waiting patiently for His time and we are assured that He will not let us down Psalms One of the greatest temptations when seeking God's guidance is to fret and become impatient.
But the believing heart is a restful one. There are some decisions for which we don't need to wait for a perfectly clear indication of the mind of the Lord. For example, if you are seeking the Lord's will as to whether you should commence a journey on the 15th or the 16th of the month, you need not wait indefinitely for a clear word from Him.
Yet there are some decisions for which we must wait until we are perfectly clear about the will of God. When considering marriage, for example, we cannot afford to be uncertain. We have to be perfectly sure of God's will before deciding. Such a decision is obviously of greater moment than the former one, because its effects are more far-reaching. The more important the decision, the longer we usually have to wait to be sure of God's will.
If we trust in the Lord, we won't be afraid to wait. We will not seek to grab for ourselves ahead of God's time out of fear that we might lose the best by waiting. God is well able to safeguard the best for us in every realm. When we grab impatiently, we invariably miss the Lord's best. The Bible says that "he who believes In the great "Guidance" Psalm - Psalm 25 - David speaks again and again of waiting on the Lord verses 3, 5, None who wait for the Lord's time will ever regret having waited, for God "works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who earnestly waits for Him" Isaiah Often, it is only as we wait that God can make His mind clear to us.
James McConkey in his booklet, ' Guidance ', has written, "Sometimes you draw from the tap a glass of water which is muddy and turbid. How do you clear it? You place the glass of muddy water on your table. Moment by moment the sediment deposits at the bottom of the glass. Gradually the water grows clearer. In a few moments it is so clear that you may distinguish objects through it. It has all been brought about simply by waiting.
The law is the same in the realm of guidance. Here, too, God's great precipitant is waiting As we do so, the sediment slowly settles The trifling things assume their proper subordinate place. The big things loom up into their proper importance. Waiting is the solution of it all The vast majority of our mistakes come from neglect of it.
Haste is more often a trap of Satan than it is a necessity of guidance For such times the psalmist has a precious message in his word about the night-watchers. How do men, who wait in the night hours for the dawn, watch for the morning? The answer is four-fold:. Often our perplexity is so extreme that we seem to be waiting in total darkness. Often too as we wait, even as those who wait for the day, the first faint streaks of dawn seem to come, oh, so slowly! Then too, as there never yet has been a night of uncertainty as is sure to end in the dawn, so our night of uncertainty is sure to end in the dawning light of God's guidance.
Lastly, as the slow-coming dawn, when it does arrive, brings light and blessing without measure, so when our God-given guidance at last breaks upon us it will so gladden our waiting souls and so illumine our beclouded path, we shall almost forget the long days when we waited in darkness. Beware of being in a hurry. Impatience always stems from unbelief. It was said of the Israelites in the wilderness that "they did not earnestly wait for His plans to develop respecting them" Psalm They missed God's best thereby.
May God save us from such a tragedy. The one who does not distrust his own natural wisdom in spiritual matters has yet to learn one of the fundamental lessons of the Christian life. Meagre intelligence cannot by itself deprive a man of the knowledge of God's will, if the man leans upon God. But proud dependence on one's own cleverness and foresight can. Paul says in Philippians 3: Paul was a mighty intellectual, but he still had to distrust himself and lean upon God.
From his own experience he writes to the Corinthian Christians, "If any man among you thinks himself one of the world's clever ones let him discard his cleverness that he may learn to be truly wise. For this world's cleverness is stupidity to God" 1 Corinthians 3: Worldly wisdom is a hindrance to the knowing of God's will, and so must be discarded. Lest this last statement be misunderstood, let me add a word of explanation.
Rejecting worldly wisdom does not mean the non-use of our intellectual abilities. Paul used his and it is unthinkable that he would ever ask others not to use theirs. Worldly wisdom cannot refer to education and learning for both the learned Paul and the unlearned Corinthians to whom he was writing had to discard it. It refers to the measure of trust we put in our own cleverness, whether our learning be much or little. It is a malady that can afflict the learned and the unlearned alike.
The Bible likens believers to sheep. A sheep is a foolish animal, unable to find its own way around, and extremely short-sighted. Its only safety lies in following its shepherd wherever he goes. This is a very humiliating fact for self-confident man to acknowledge. His pride will rebel at the very suggestion of his being so stupid in spiritual matters.
Yet this utter distrust of self is an inescapable preliminary to knowing God's guidance in our lives. David took the place of a sheep before the Lord and thereby experienced Divine guidance - "The Lord is my Shepherd He leads me" Psalm Unless man humbles himself and takes this lowly place, he cannot know the ways of God. Self-confidence may be all right for the man of the world but certainly not for the child of God. Herein lies the reason why many believers miss God's plan for their lives. Confident of their own abilities, they do not earnestly seek the will of God. They depend instead upon their own genius and are thus led astray.
God often allows failure and confusion in our lives in order that we might see the total depravity of our hearts and the unreliability of our fallible intellects, and thus learn the necessity of clinging more closely to Him. One of the chief lessons which the Lord sought to teach His disciples was that without Him they could do nothing John They were very slow in learning this: The humble man who recognizes his limitations and leans heavily upon God will ascertain the Divine will without difficulty.
The self-confident Doctor of Theology, on the other hand, who depends on his Seminary training, will be left groping in the darkness. We are sometimes eager to know God's guidance in one area of our lives, but not so keen on having His direction in other areas. For example, we may earnestly seek God's will in marriage, but may not do so when looking for a job. Or it could be vice-versa. Or perhaps we may seek God's guidance how and where to spend our month's annual leave, but may never ask Him how to spend our money.
This is because we are inclined to want God's guidance only when it is convenient for us. Selfish motives often lurk, unknown to us, in our hearts. We seek God's will in some matters because we don't want to make mistakes that might cause us suffering or loss. The motive is not that we might please God but that we might be comfortable and prosperous. Hence we fail to receive God's guidance, for He has promised to guide only those who acknowledge Him in all their ways, those who gladly accept His direction in every area of their lives.
There are many areas in which God's will is already revealed to us in the Scriptures. For instance, the Bible says that God wants us to be holy and thankful:. Similarly, we are told that God expects us to love our neighbours as ourselves Romans If we have received God's forgiveness and salvation, we should desire the same for our neighbours.
God's will is clearly revealed in the New Testament: Loving our neighbours implies a concern primarily for their spiritual needs, but does not exclude their other needs. If we fail to obey the Lord in these areas where He has already revealed His will, then we cannot expect Him to guide us in other spheres. It is a principle of Divine guidance that God never grants further light to one who ignores the light he already has.
God will not show us the second step before we take the first. He is interested in our every step. The horse is characterized by impatience always wanting to rush ahead whereas the mule is characterized by stubbornness often refusing to move forward. We must avoid both these attitudes. God speaks to us through our consciences when we are disobedient. We should therefore be careful to heed the voice of conscience always. What did Jesus mean by the eye? So the eye must refer to the conscience which when obeyed constantly, leads us to purity of heart.
By itself, conscience is not the voice of God, for it is educated and determined by the principles on which a person bases his life. But if it is obeyed constantly and brought in line with the teaching of the Bible, it will reflect God's standard increasingly. The promise in Luke If we fail to listen to the voice of conscience in our daily lives, we shall fail to hear the voice of the Spirit when seeking God's guidance. Instant obedience to God whenever He speaks to us is one of the secrets of guidance. Recently, I read of a fifteen-year-old boy, blind from birth, who flew and landed an aircraft safely.
This remarkable feat was accomplished by his instantly obeying every order given by his instructor pilot. When facing life's manifold problems, we may feel like blind men trying to land a plane on an unknown and invisible runway. But if we develop the habit of instant obedience to God's commands, we shall find that we land safely. The New Testament exhorts us to become bondslaves to the Lord. Paul called himself a willing bondslave of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, there were two classes of servants - the bondslave and the hired servant.
A bondslave, unlike the hired servant was never paid. He was bought by his master for a price and as a result all that he was and all that he possessed belonged to his master. This is what every believer must recognize himself to be. We are therefore exhorted to present our bodies to God, once for all, as a living sacrifice, even as the burnt offering in the Old Testament. The burnt offering, unlike the sin offering, was wholly offered to God and signified the offerer's utter dedication unto Him.
When a man offered a burnt offering, he received nothing back. God could do whatever He liked with that offering. This is what it means to present our body as a living sacrifice to God: Only thus can we know His will. Lack of such yieldedness is usually the main reason why we are unable to ascertain God's will. Our yieldedness to the Lord is often with reservations. We are not really willing to accept anything that God may offer.
I met a brother once who was willing to take up any vocation except full-time Christian service. I told him that it was this reservation that kept him from being clear about God's plan for his life. When he finally yielded all to the Lord, he immediately gained a deeper assurance of God's will. God did not call him to full-time Christian service, but He wanted him to be willing. Many who come to God under the pretext of wanting to know His will really want only His approval of the path they have already chosen for themselves.
Hence they receive no answer from Him. How soon our problems of guidance would be solved, if only we gave ourselves without any reserve to our Lord saying,. It was Abraham's willingness to go anywhere and to do anything at any time for God that made him the "Friend of God.
George Muller of Bristol England was a man of great faith and one who could ascertain the will of God with remarkable accuracy. He has said in this connection,. Some want to know God's will first before deciding whether to obey or not. But God does not reveal His will to such people.
A willingness to do anything that God commands will alone qualify us to know what His perfect will is. This applies to small matters as well as big. Worldliness plugs our spirit's ears preventing us from hearing God's voice. Every person living in this world is affected by its spirit. No one has escaped its influence. From our childhood every one of us imbibes, day by day, either more or less of the spirit of this world into himself - by what we hear, see and read. This especially affects our minds and influences our thinking.
The decisions we take then come primarily from worldly considerations. The Spirit of God Who comes to live in us, when we are "born again" is opposed to the spirit of this world and therefore desires to renew our thinking completely. God's ultimate purpose for us is that we might be conformed to the image of His Son. This is the primary part of His will for all of us. Everything else - whom we should marry, where we should live and work - is secondary. All of God's dealings with us are directed towards this end - that we might become like Jesus see Romans 8: But this can be fulfilled in us only as we allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds daily.
The more our minds are thus renewed, the more accurately shall we be able to discern the will of God at life's crossroads. Worldliness is not basically something external - such as attending cinemas, drinking, smoking, wearing expensive and fashionable clothes and ornaments, or living extravagantly. These may denote a worldly person, but they are only outward expressions of his worldly thought-processes.
Conformity to the world exists essentially in a person's mind and shows itself in various ways, especially in his decisions. For example, when considering a job or a career, a worldly person will be governed by factors such as salary, promotion-prospects, comfort, ease, convenience, etc. And when contemplating marriage, he will be influenced by points such as family-status, caste, dowry available, position in life, physical beauty, or wealth.
A believer's decisions, on the other hand, should be governed primarily by spiritual factors, although other considerations should not be neglected. The glory of God's Name and the extension of His Kingdom should be our first concern. The process of discerning and eliminating worldly motives is vital if we are to know the will of God. To say, "God led me", when our motives were selfish, is blasphemy. Far better in such cases to say the decision was our own than to take God's Name in vain and give a cloak of spirituality to our worldliness.
We gain nothing by merely convincing others or even ourselves that we are doing God's will. After all, God cannot be fooled. As the Bible says,. The renewal of our minds will result in our beginning to think as the Lord thinks and to view situations and people as He views them. Such a transformation of our minds will enable us to know what pleases God and what does not please Him, and thus we shall be able to discern His will easily in the different situations we face. God's promise to us in this New Testament age is,. Such a renewal will give us an understanding not only of God's will, but also of His method and of His purpose - we will know, not only what God wants us to do, but also how He wants us to do it, and why.
Doing the will of God can be drudgery if we do not appreciate God's purposes. When we do appreciate them, the will of God becomes for us what it was to Jesus - a delight. It is because of our ignorance of God's nature that we fear His will. If we knew Him better, we would rejoice to do His every bidding. How can our minds be renewed? A wife living close to her husband in heart-companionship comes to know more and more of his mind and of his ways as the years go by. The same applies to the believer and his God.
The new birth is like a marriage with the Lord Jesus. We should go on from that point to walk in close fellowship with the Lord, conversing with Him day by day. We must also let Him speak to our hearts daily, both through His Word as well as through the discipline of trials that He sends into our lives. Thus we shall find ourselves growingly conformed to the image of our Lord 2 Corinthians 3: If we neglect daily meditation on God's Word and prayer-fellowship with the Lord, we will find it extremely difficult to ascertain God's mind.
Meditation on God's Word can straighten our warped and crooked ways of thinking and make us spiritually minded and sensitive to God's Voice. We can recognise the Lord's voice only by becoming accustomed to hearing it. A new convert once asked a mature servant of God why it was that though Christ had said, "My sheep know My voice", yet he could not hear the Lord's voice. The servant of God replied,. A son identifies his father's voice easily only because he has heard it so often. Even so, it is only by constantly listening to the voice of the Lord, that we will be able to distinguish it above the din and clamour of other voices that will ring in our minds when we seek God's will.
If you are habituated to listening to the Lord's voice, then in times of emergency, His promise is,. If, on the other hand, we turn to the Lord only in times of emergency, we are not likely to hear His voice at all. Some of God's children are so busy that they have no time to listen to the Lord in their daily lives and yet in times of crisis they want to know His will immediately. Speaking of such believers, G Christian Weiss has said that the spirit of their prayers in an emergency is something like this -.
See a Problem?
Daily fellowship with God in meditation and in prayer is vital, if we wish to have God's guidance in our lives. And he was lost in amazement that the plan of salvation, devised at such a cost to Heaven, should be refused by those for whom the infinite sacrifice had been made. John was shut in with God. As he learned more of the divine character through the works of creation, his reverence for God increased.
He often asked himself, Why do not men, who are wholly dependent upon God, seek to be at peace with Him by willing obedience? He is infinite in wisdom, and there is no limit to His power. He controls the heavens with their numberless worlds. He preserves in perfect harmony the grandeur and [76] beauty of the things which He has created. Sin is the transgression of God's law, and the penalty of sin is death. There would have been no discord in heaven or in the earth if sin had never entered.
Disobedience to God's law has brought all the misery that has existed among His creatures. Why will not men be reconciled to God? It is no light matter to sin against God, to set the perverse will of man in opposition to the will of his Maker. It is for the best interest of men, even in this world, to obey God's commandments. And it is surely for their eternal interest to submit to God, and be at peace with Him. The beasts of the field obey their Creator's law in the instinct which governs them. He speaks to the proud ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further" Job The planets are marshaled in perfect order, obeying the laws which God has established.
Of all the creatures that God has made upon the earth, man alone is rebellious. Yet he possesses reasoning powers to understand the claims of the divine law and a conscience to feel the guilt of transgression and the peace and joy of obedience. God made him a free moral agent, to obey or disobey. The reward of everlasting life—an eternal weight of glory—is promised to those who do God's will, while the threatenings of His wrath hang over all who defy His law. As John meditated upon the glory of God displayed in His works, he was overwhelmed with the greatness [77] and majesty of the Creator.
Should all the inhabitants of this little world refuse obedience to God, He would not be left without glory. He could sweep every mortal from the face of the earth in a moment, and create a new race to people it and glorify His name. God is not dependent on man for honor. He could marshal the starry hosts of heaven, the millions of worlds above, to raise a song of honor and praise and glory to their Creator.
For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him" Psalm John calls to remembrance the wonderful incidents that he has witnessed in the life of Christ. In imagination he again enjoys the precious opportunities with which he was once favored, and is greatly comforted.
Suddenly his meditation is broken in upon; he is addressed in tones distinct and clear. He turns to see from whence the voice proceeds, and, lo! But how changed is the Saviour's appearance! He is no longer "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" Isaiah He bears no marks of His humiliation. His eyes are like a flame of fire; His feet like fine brass, as [78] it glows in a furnace. The tones of His voice are like the musical sound of many waters. His countenance shines like the sun in its meridian glory.
In His hand are seven stars, representing the ministers of the churches. Out of His mouth issues a sharp, two-edged sword, an emblem of the power of His word. John, who has so loved his Lord, and who has steadfastly adhered to the truth in the face of imprisonment, stripes, and threatened death, cannot endure the excellent glory of Christ's presence, and falls to the earth as one stricken dead. Jesus then lays His hand upon the prostrate form of His servant, saying, "Fear not; I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore" Revelation 1: John was strengthened to live in the presence of his glorified Lord, and then were presented before him in holy vision the purposes of God for future ages.
The glorious attractions of the heavenly home were made known to him. He was permitted to look upon the throne of God, and to behold the white-robed throng of redeemed ones. His method of instructing the Indians. Difficulties attending the christianizing of the Indians. Second difficulty, To convey divine truths to their understanding, and to gain their assent. Fourth difficulty, The designs of evil-minded persons to hinder the work. Attestations of divine grace displayed among the Indians. Letter to his brother John, then a student. Letter to his brother Israel.
Letter to a special friend. Letter to a minister of the Gospel. Letter to his brother John. Letter to a young gentleman, a candidate for the ministry. Letter to his brother John, at Bethel. Scheme of a Dialogue in the Godly Soul. Thoughts of a Soul under Conviction. Some signs of Godliness. A Sermon preached in Newark at the Ordination of Mr. David Brainerd, by E. Observations concerning the Mysteries of Scripture.
God Glorified in Man's Dependence
Of God's Moral Government. Concerning the Divine Decrees. Of Satisfaction for Sin. Of the Perseverance of Saints. Fall of the Angels. Confirmation of the Angels. Judges to 2 Chronicles. Galatians to 2 Timothy. Natural Men in a dreadful Condition. God makes Men sensible of their Misery before he reveals his Mercy and Love. Hope and Comfort usually follow genuine Humiliation and Repentance. God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men. The Character of Paul an Example t.
The Portion of the Wicked. The Portion of the Righteous. The Pure in Heart blessed. Praise, one of the chief Employments of Heaven. Wicked Men inconsistent with themselves. Safety, Fullness, and sweet Refreshment, to be found in Christ. Christians a chosen Generation, a royal Priesthood, a holy Nation, a peculiar People.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The true Excellency of a gospel minister. Christ the Example of ministers. The Sorrows of the Bereaved spread before Jesus. Index of Scripture References. Index of Pages of the Print Edition. Navigation and searching hints. It contains all the matter included in the first collected American editionthat which was published at Worcester, and is regarded in the United States as the only one entitled to confidence. The various original extracts from the diary and papers of Edwards, first published in America, by his descendant Sereno E.
Dwight, in the year , are here incorporated. Several smaller pieces, printed originally in a separate form, and not hitherto included in any collection of the Works, are here introduced. The whole has been carefully revised by collation of all the previous editions. Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. But as we quickly found him a workman that needs not to be ashamed before his brethren, our satisfaction was the greater to see him pitching upon so noble a subject, and treating it with so much strength and clearness, as the judicious reader will perceive in the following composure: For in proportion to the sense we have of our dependence on the sovereign God for all the good we want, will be our value for him, our trust in him, our fear to offend him, and our care to please him; as likewise our gratitude and love, our delight and praise, upon our sensible experience of his free benefits.
In short, it is the very soul of piety, to apprehend and own that all our springs are in him; the springs of our present grace and comfort, and of our future glory and blessedness; and that they all entirely flow through Christ, by the efficacious influence of the Holy Spirit. By these things saints live, and in all these things is the life of our spirits.
Such doctrines as these, which, by humbling the minds of men, prepare them for the exaltations of God, he has signally owned and prospered in the reformed world, and in our land especially, in the days of our forefathers; and we hope they will never grow unfashionable among us; for, we are well assured, if those which we call the doctrines of grace ever come to be contemned or disrelished, vital piety will proportionably languish and wear away; as these doctrines always sink in the esteem of men upon the decay of serious religion.
We cannot therefore but express our joy and thankfulness, that the great Head of the church is pleased still to raise up from among the children of his people, for the supply of his churches, those who assert and maintain these evangelical principles; and that our churches notwithstanding all their degeneracies have still a high value for such principles, and for those who publicly own and teach them. And as we cannot but wish and pray that the college in the neighboring colony as well as our own may be a fruitful mother of many such sons as the author, by the blessing of Heaven on the care of their present worthy rector; so we heartily rejoice in the special favor of Providence in bestowing such a rich gift on the happy church of Northampton, which has for so many lustres of years flourished under the influence of such pious doctrines, taught them in the excellent ministry of their late venerable pastor, whose gift and spirit, we hope, will long live and shine in this his grandson, to the end that they may abound yet more in all the lovely fruits of evangelical humility and thankfulness, to the glory of God.
To his blessing we commit them all, with this discourse, and every one that reads it; and are. Preached on the Public Lecture in Boston, July 8, ; and published at the desire of several ministers and others in Boston who heard it. That no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: The apostle therefore observes to them, how God by the gospel destroyed, and brought to naught, their wisdom.
The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume Two
The learned Grecians, and their great philosophers, by all their wisdom did not know God, they were not able to find out the truth in divine things. But, after they had done their utmost to no effect, it pleased God at length to reveal himself by the gospel, which they accounted foolishness. What God aims at in the disposition of things in the affair of redemption, viz. That no flesh should glory in his presence,—that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
How this end is attained in the work of redemption, viz. First , all the good that they have is in and through Christ; He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is made of God unto us wisdom: Wisdom was a thing that the Greeks admired; but Christ is the true light of the world; it is through him alone that true wisdom is imparted to the mind.
It is in and by Christ that we have righteousness: It is by Christ that we have sanctification: It is by Christ that we have redemption , or the actual deliverance from all misery, and the bestowment of all happiness and glory.
Thus we have all our good by Christ, who is God. Thirdly , it is of him that we are in Christ Jesus, and come to have an interest in him, and so do receive those blessings which he is made unto us.
The Sanctified Life, by Ellen G. White. Chapter 9: John in Exile
It is God that gives us faith whereby we close with Christ. So that in this verse is shown our dependence on each person in the Trinity for all our good. We are dependent on Christ the Son of God, as he is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We are dependent on the Father, who has given us Christ, and made him to be these things to us. We are dependent on the Holy Ghost, for it is of him that we are in Christ Jesus ; it is the Spirit of God that gives faith in him, whereby we receive him, and close with him.
And, 2 dly , that God hereby is exalted and glorified in the work of redemption.
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There is an absolute and universal dependence of the redeemed on God. The nature and contrivance of our redemption is such, that the redeemed are in every thing directly, immediately, and entirely dependent on God: The several ways wherein the dependence of one being may be upon another for its good, and wherein the redeemed of Jesus Christ depend on God for all their good, are these, viz.
That he is the cause and original whence all their good comes, therein it is of him; and that he is the medium by which it is obtained and conveyed, therein they have it through him; and that he is the good itself given and conveyed, therein it is in him. Now those that are redeemed by Jesus Christ do, in all these respects, very directly and entirely depend on God for their all. First , the redeemed have all their good of God. God is the great author of it. He is the first cause of it; and not only so, but he is the only proper cause. It is of God that we have our Redeemer.
It is God that has provided a Savior for us. Jesus Christ is not only of God in his person, as he is the only-begotten Son of God, but he is from God, as we are concerned in him, and in his office of Mediator. He is the gift of God to us: God chose and anointed him, appointed him his work, and sent him into the world.
And as it is God that gives , so it is God that accepts the Savior. He gives the purchaser, and he affords the thing purchased. It is of God that Christ becomes ours, that we are brought to him, and are united to him. It is of God that we receive faith to close with him, that we may have an interest in him. It is God that pardons and justifies, and delivers from going down to hell; and into his favor the redeemed are received, when they are justified.
So it is God that delivers from the dominion of 4 sin, cleanses us from our filthiness, and changes us from our deformity. It is of God that the redeemed receive all their true excellency, wisdom, and holiness; and that two ways, viz. It is of God that we have the Holy Scriptures; they are his word. It is of God that we have ordinances, and their efficacy depends on the immediate influence of his Spirit. The ministers of the gospel are sent of God, and all their sufficiency is of him. The redeemed have all from the grace of God.
It was of mere grace that God gave us his only-begotten Son. The grace is great in proportion to the excellency of what is given. The gift was infinitely precious, because it was of a person infinitely worthy, a person of infinite glory; and also because it was of a person infinitely near and dear to God. The grace is great in proportion to the benefit we have given us in him. The benefit is doubly infinite, in that in him we have deliverance from an infinite, because an eternal, misery, and do also receive eternal joy and glory.
The grace is great according to the manner of giving, or in proportion to the humiliation and expense of the method and means by which a way is made for our having the gift. He gave him to dwell amongst us; he gave him to us incarnate, or in our nature; and in the like though sinless infirmities. He gave him to us in a low and afflicted state; and not only so, but as slain, that he might be a feast for our souls.
The grace of God in bestowing this gift is most free. It was what God was under no obligation to bestow. He might have rejected fallen man, as he did the fallen angels. It was what we never did any thing to merit; it was given while we were yet enemies, and before we had so much as repented. It was from the love of God who saw no excellency in us to attract it; and it was without expectation of ever being requited for it.
And it is from mere grace that the benefits of Christ are applied to such and such particular persons. He is sovereign, and hath mercy on whom he will have mercy. Man hath now a greater dependence on the grace of God than he had before the fall. He depends on the free goodness of God for much more than he did then. But now we are dependent on the grace of God for much more; we stand in need of grace, not only to bestow glory upon us, but to deliver us from hell and eternal wrath.
And as we are dependent on the goodness of God for more now than under the first covenant, so we are dependent on a much greater, more free and wonderful goodness. We were in our first estate dependent on God for holiness. We had our original righteousness from him; but then holiness was not bestowed in such a way of sovereign good pleasure as it is now. Man was created holy, for it became God to create holy all his reasonable creatures.
But now when fallen man is made holy, it is from mere and arbitrary grace; God may for ever deny holiness to the fallen creature if he pleases, without any disparagement to any of his perfections. And we are not only indeed more dependent on the grace of God, but our dependence is much more conspicuous, because our own insufficiency and helplessness in ourselves is much more apparent in our fallen and undone state, than it was before we were either sinful or miserable.
We are more apparently dependent on God for holiness, because we are first sinful, and utterly polluted, and afterward holy. So the production of the effect is sensible, and its derivation from God more obvious. If man was ever holy and always was so, it would not be so apparent, that he had not holiness necessarily, as an inseparable qualification of human nature. So we are more apparently dependent on free grace for the favor of God, for we are first justly the objects of his displeasure, and afterwards are received into favor.
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We are more apparently dependent on God for happiness, being first miserable, and afterwards happy. It is more apparently free and without merit in us, because we are actually without any kind of excellency to merit, if there could be any such thing as merit in creature excellency. And we are not only without any true excellency, but are full of, and wholly defiled with, that which is infinitely odious. All our good is more apparently from God, because we are first naked and wholly without any good, and afterwards enriched with all good.
We receive all from the power of God. The great power of God appears in bringing a sinner from his low state, from the depths of sin and misery, to such an exalted state of holiness and happiness. We are dependent on the power of God to convert us, and give faith in Jesus Christ, and the new nature. It is a work of creation: The fallen creature cannot attain to true holiness, but by being created again. That holy and happy being, and spiritual life, which is produced in the work of conversion, is a far greater and more glorious effect, than mere being and life.
And the state from whence the change is made—a death in sin, a total corruption of nature, and depth of misery—is far more remote from the state attained, than mere death or non-entity. It was an 5 effect of the power of God to make man holy at the first: It is a more glorious effect of power to make that holy that was so depraved, and under the dominion of sin, than to confer holiness on that which before had nothing of the contrary.
It is a more glorious work of power to rescue a soul out of the hands of the devil, and from the powers of darkness, and to bring it into a state of salvation, than to confer holiness where there was no prepossession or opposition. Secondly , they are also dependent on God for all, as they have all through him. God is the medium of it, as well as the author and fountain of it.
So that here is another way wherein we have our dependence on God for all good. God not only gives us the Mediator, and accepts his mediation, and of his power and grace bestows the things purchased by the Mediator; but he the Mediator is God. Our blessings are what we have by purchase; and the purchase is made of God, the blessings are purchased of him, and God gives the purchaser; and not only so, but God is the purchaser. Yea God is both the purchaser and the price; for Christ, who is God, purchased these blessings for us, by offering up himself as the price of our salvation.
He purchased eternal life by the sacrifice of himself. As we thus have our good through God, we have a dependence on him in a respect that man in his first estate had not. But now the righteousness that we are dependent on is not in ourselves, but in God. We are saved through the righteousness of Christ: He is made unto us righteousness; and therefore is prophesied of, Jer. Thirdly , the redeemed have all their good in God. We not only have it of him, and through him, but it consists in him; he is all our good.
By their objective good, I mean that extrinsic object, in the possession and enjoyment of which they are happy. Their inherent good is that excellency or pleasure which is in the soul itself. With respect to both of which the redeemed have all their good in God, or which is the same thing, God himself is all their good. The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption.
He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling-place, their ornament and diadem, and their everlasting honour and glory. They have none in heaven but God; he is the great good which the redeemed are received to at death, and which they are to rise to at the end of the world.
The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another; but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in any thing else whatsoever that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what shall be seen of God in them. The redeemed have all their inherent good in God. Inherent good is twofold; it is either excellency or pleasure. These the redeemed not only derive from God, as caused by him, but have them in him.
They have spiritual excellency and joy by a kind of participation of God. God puts his own beauty, i. They are made partakers of the divine nature, or moral image of God, 2 Pet. The saint hath spiritual joy and pleasure by a kind of effusion of God on the soul. In these things the redeemed have communion with God; that is, they partake with him and of him. The saints have both their spiritual excellency and blessedness by the gift of the Holy Ghost, and his dwelling in them. They are not only caused by the Holy Ghost, but are in him as their principle.
The Holy Spirit becoming an inhabitant, is a vital principle in the soul. He, acting in, upon, and with the soul, becomes a fountain of true holiness and joy, as a spring is of water, by the exertion and diffusion of itself. And the sum of the blessings, which the redeemed shall receive in heaven, is that river of water of life that proceeds from the throne of God and the Lamb, Rev. Which doubtless signifies the same with those rivers of living water, explained, John vii. It is by partaking of the Holy Spirit, that they have communion with Christ in his fullness.
God hath given the Spirit, not by measure unto him; and they do receive of his fullness, and grace for grace. It is in the communications, indwelling, and acting of the Spirit of God. Holiness and happiness is in the fruit, here and hereafter, because God dwells in them, and they in God. Thus God has given us the Redeemer, and it is by him that our good is purchased. So God is the Redeemer and the price; and he also is the good purchased.
So that all that we have is of God, and through him, and in him. God is glorified in the work of redemption by this means, viz. So much the greater concern any one has with and dependence upon the power and grace of God, so much the greater occasion has he to take notice of that power and grace.
So much the greater and more immediate dependence there is on the divine holiness, so much the greater occasion to take notice of and acknowledge that. So much the greater and more absolute dependence we have on the divine perfections, as belonging to the several persons of the Trinity, so much the greater occasion have we to observe and own the divine glory of each of them. That which we are most concerned with, is surely most in the way of our observation and notice; and this kind of concern with any thing, viz.
Those things that we are not much dependent upon, it is easy to neglect; but we can scarce do any other than mind that which we have a great dependence on. By reason of our so great dependence on God, and his perfections, and in so many respects, he and his glory are the more directly set in our view, which way soever we turn our eyes.
We have the more occasion to contemplate him as an infinite good, and as the fountain of all good. Such a dependence on God demonstrates his all-sufficiency. Our having all of God, shows the fullness of his power and grace; our having all through him, shows the fullness of his merit and worthiness; and our having all in him, demonstrates his fullness of beauty, love, and happiness. And the redeemed, by reason of the greatness of their dependence on God, have not only so much the greater occasion, but obligation to contemplate and acknowledge the glory and fullness of God.
How unreasonable and ungrateful should we be, if we did not acknowledge that sufficiency and glory which we absolutely, immediately, and universally depend upon! If the creature in any respects sets himself upon a level with God, or exalts himself to any competition with him, however he may apprehend that great honor and profound respect may belong to God from those that are at a greater distance, he will not be so sensible of its being due from him.
So much the more men exalt themselves, so much the less will they surely be disposed to exalt God. It is certainly what God aims at in the disposition of things in redemption if we allow the Scriptures to be a Rev. By its being thus ordered, that the creature should have so absolute and universal a dependence on God, provision is made that God should have our whole souls, and should be the object of our undivided respect. Thus it would be if we depended on God only for a part of our good, and on ourselves, or some other being, for another part: But now there is no occasion for this, God being not only he from or of whom we have all good, but also through whom, and is that good itself, that we have from him and through him.
So that whatsoever there is to attract our respect, the tendency is still directly towards God; all unites in him as the center. We may here observe the marvelous wisdom of God, in the work of redemption. Though God be pleased to lift man out of that dismal abyss of sin and woe into which he was fallen, and exceedingly to exalt him in excellency and honor, and to a high pitch of glory and blessedness, yet the creature hath nothing in any respect to glory of; all the glory evidently belongs to God, all is in a mere, and most absolute, and divine dependence on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
And each person of the Trinity is equally glorified in this work: Thus God appears in the work of redemption as all in all. It is fit that he who is, and there is none else, should be the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the all and the only, in this work. Hence those doctrines and schemes of divinity that are in any respect opposite to such an absolute and universal dependence on God, derogate from his glory, and thwart the design of our redemption.
However they may allow of a dependence of the redeemed on God, yet they deny a dependence that is so absolute and universal. They own an entire dependence on God for some things, but not for others; they own that we depend on God for the gift and acceptance of a 7 Redeemer, but deny so absolute a dependence on him for the obtaining of an interest in the Redeemer.
They own an absolute dependence on the Father for giving his Son, and on the Son for working out redemption, but not so entire a dependence on the Holy Ghost for conversion , and a being in Christ, and so coming to a title to his benefits. They own a dependence on God for means of grace, but not absolutely for the benefit and success of those means; a partial dependence on the power of God, for obtaining and exercising holiness, but not a mere dependence on the arbitrary and sovereign grace of God.
They own a dependence on the free grace of God for a reception into his favor, so far that it is without any proper merit, but not as it is without being attracted, or moved with any excellency.
They own a partial dependence on Christ, as he through whom we have life, as having purchased new terms of life, but still hold that the righteousness through which we have life is inherent in ourselves, as it was under the first covenant. Now whatever scheme is inconsistent with our entire dependence on God for all, and of having all of him, through him, and in him, it is repugnant to the design and tenor of the gospel, and robs it of that which God accounts its luster and glory.
Hence we may learn a reason why faith is that by which we come to have an interest in this redemption; for there is included in the nature of faith, a sensible acknowledgment of absolute dependence on God in this affair. It is very fit that it should be required of all, in order to their having the benefit of this redemption, that they should be sensible of, and acknowledge, their dependence on God for it.
It is by this means that God hath contrived to glorify himself in redemption; and it is fit that he should at least have this glory of those that are the subjects of this redemption, and have the benefit of it. Faith abases men, and exalts God; it gives all the glory of redemption to him alone. Let us be exhorted to exalt God alone, and ascribe to him all the glory of redemption. Let us endeavor to obtain, and increase in, a sensibleness of our great dependence on God, to have our eye to him alone, to mortify a self-dependent and self-righteous disposition.
Man is naturally exceeding prone to exalt himself, and depend on his own power or goodness; as though from himself he must expect happiness. He is prone to have respect to enjoyments alien from God and his Spirit, as those in which happiness is to be found. Let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord.
Hath any man hope that he is converted, and sanctified, and that his mind is endowed with true excellency and spiritual beauty? Let him give God all the glory; who alone makes him to differ from the worst of men in this world, or the most miserable of the damned in hell. Hath any man much comfort and strong hope of eternal life, let not his hope lift him up, but dispose him the more to abase himself, to reflect on his own exceeding unworthiness of such a favor, and to exalt God alone.
Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next preceding the text. That they were always exposed to destruction ; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them, being represented by their foot sliding.
It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment? Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves , without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.
For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then, at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.
The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers.
But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defense from the power of God. They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?
Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell.
And the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as he is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth; yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell.
God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God bums against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.
The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scripture represents them as his goods, Luke xi. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls.