Selected From: The Scottish Pulpit: Sermons Eminent Scottish Divines, Vol. 1 (Glasgow: 1839), 428–432. Farewell Sermon Preached in the Tron Church, Glasgow, on the Afternoon of Sunday, 18th November, 1832.
“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”
—Revelation 2:9
The Christian life is represented as pleasantness and peace, productive of present enjoyment, and leading to future and eternal blessedness. In every condition of life, the pious Christian has consolations and sources of happiness which the world knows not of, and of which it cannot deprive him; and in the depths of affliction, he has the cheering hope of a glorious immortality. Yet ought it not to be forgotten, that the Scripture exhibits the Christian to our view, as a soldier engaged in an arduous conflict, which needs steady perseverance, and which requires all the excitements to courage and fidelity which the Gospel supplies. He is constantly beset with enemies, numerous and powerful, who know how to employ the seductive temptations of the world, either to entice into a deviation from the path of duty, or to discourage and depress the mind in the discharge of it. It is necessary, therefore, that he put on the whole armour of God, and be encouraged to prosecute the warfare by that mighty leader, who himself was made perfect through suffering, and who promises to bestow on all his faithful followers a crown of life. In the text, we have a command, “Be thou faithful unto death,”—and a promise, “and I will give thee a crown of life.” In the first place, we shall consider the command, “Be thou faithful unto death.” Christian fidelity, in the full and comprehensive acceptation of that term, includes all Christian excellence, as it not only adorns, but sustains and perfects the character. It relates to the testimony God has given us—to the care which claims our obedience—to the talents intrusted to our charge, and to the duties that in consequence devolve upon us—to the courage that the Christian character requires; and in regard to its continuance, it extendeth unto death.
In the first place, Christian faithfulness relates to the testimony God has given in his word. Christian fidelity demands that we regard as an invaluable privilege—that we retain unmixed with error, as it comes from God, the same in all ages and in every country—the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. Other knowledge may be useful, but this is the direct communication from God, acquainting us with his rich compassion towards us, in not sparing his own Son, and, with the grace and condescension of him who has assumed human nature, voluntarily made himself a sacrifice for sin, that he might restore us to the moral dignity and real blessedness of the life and immortality which the Gospel has brought to light. This system of revealed truth we are to make the subject of habitual study, and the source of our chief consolation—it is to be the director of our conduct through life, a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path, till we have finished our course. We are to labour to have a full and comprehensive understanding of the whole counsel of God, of all the truths of the glorious Gospel, in their just proportion and proper connexion, that we may readily discern the errors that are opposed to them, and be capable of marking them with our disapprobation. Above all, we are to guard against holding the doctrines of the Gospel in unrighteousness, in unrenewed and unsanctified hearts, or in converting them to themes of mere speculative controversy, productive only of angry dispositions and unprofitable lives. Fidelity to the truth of God requires that we make an open, though an humble confession of it. To this, its intrinsic excellence, its vital importance, its admirable adaptation to all the wants and miseries of men, entitle it; and its author disclaims as his disciples those who refuse this confession in regard to his word or to himself. “Whosoever,” says he, “will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me; whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” To this public avowal of the truth, a duty which the people of God discharge in their successive generations, the world is indebted for the preservation and light of the Gospel; and solemn and impressive is the obligation which devolves upon us personally, to convey, by our open and constant acknowledgment of adherence, this precious blessing in all heavenly lustre to the ages to come. However retired our situation, or however circumscribed the sphere of our influence, we are bound to pronounce, by our profession and conduct, that we are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, convinced that it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, that we count all things but loss for the excellency of Christ Jesus, and are willing to suffer deprivation of all things that we may win Christ. In the performance of this duty, our Lord requires that all his disciples should be faithful unto death.
In the second place, Christian fidelity relates to the claims of the Saviour to our obedience. His benignity and excellence render him worthy of the love and homage of all created beings; but he has won to himself a title to the gratitude and obedience of mankind, by assuming the character of Redeemer—by suffering as their surety, and offering himself a sacrifice to God in their behalf. He claims, on those grounds, a cordial reception, a willing homage, and practical obedience from every human being. From this obligation no one to whom the Gospel is addressed can possibly be exempted; for if any one love not the Lord Jesus Christ, he is deserving of being accursed. His disciples, who profess to have received him, are bound to persevere in the fidelity of their obedience to him—they are to revere all his sayings, to imbibe his spirit, to imitate his example. They are to be faithful to him as their great High Priest, by making the atonement of his cross the ground of their confidence, to the utter renunciation of every other ground of hope, and by looking to him, as ever reconciling us unto God, without imputing to us our trespasses. They are to honour him as a priest and a king, to whom they owe the homage of their hearts, to whose authority in every case they are submissively to bow; and by the constraining influence of love to him, they are to observe all his commands, and to live, not to themselves, but to him who died for them and rose again. It is by a patient continuance in well-doing, by a firm adherence to Christ through evil as well as through good report, that they prove themselves the willing subjects of their exalted Lord. Our obedience to him must be at once perpetual and universal, extending to all the duties he has enjoined, and continuing amid all the trials and temptations of our earthly pilgrimage. When the enemy would persuade us to turn away from him, when temptation would lure us from the Captain of our salvation, when the indolence and remissness to spiritual exercises, natural to man, would often be a hindrance to our fidelity, let us hear his animating voice, saying, “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.”
In the third place, we are to be faithful in the exercise and in the improvement of the talents intrusted to our charge. All our powers and opportunities of promoting our own personal holiness, and the good, spiritual and temporal, of mankind, are represented in Scripture as talents committed to our care by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is hereafter to require an account from all his servants of their stewardship. The talents are, of course, various; but the gracious reward is to be proportioned, not to their number or extent, but according to the principle by which we are influenced in their use, and our diligence in their cultivation. Unto one he gave five, unto another two, unto another one; to every man, according to his several abilities. The opportunities afforded us of reading and of hearing the word of God, of observing the ordinances of religion, of becoming wise unto salvation, are privileges of a high order, conferred upon us by the distinguished goodness of God, and for the right improvement of which we are all deeply and personally responsible. To all of us some talent is committed by which we may promote the good of others, and extend the kingdom and glory of our Lord. To some are intrusted external possessions, by the wise and benevolent use of which they are a blessing to their neighbourhood, and instrumental to the cause of God. Others are distinguished by rich mental endowments, to which, by persevering study, they are making continual accessions, and by which, by humbly consecrating them to the service of the cross, they may be eminently conducive to the advancement of the divine glory. Or are you in possession of influence and authority, arising from the weight of your character in public estimation, or from the official situation you hold in society? Let these be diligently employed in discountenancing sin and error, in spreading truth and righteousness, in encouraging the peaceful and industrious, in maintaining and extending the blessings of pure and undefiled religion. To parents are given the means and opportunities of extensive usefulness. Are those of you who sustain this relation bringing up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, endeavouring to improve their hearts with a sense of his loveliness and glory, and to entice them to make choice of him as their Redeemer, and to be willing to consecrate themselves to his service? Even those who move in a humbler sphere have talents committed to their charge; and do such of you embrace every opportunity of doing good to others, by diffusing the blessings of the Gospel around you, and recommending that divine Saviour in whom you have found peace and safety? Is this love of Christ of such constraining influence that it teaches you this entire consecration of yourselves to him? Then, whatever your situation, and whatever your talents, be they two, ten, or one, you have the approval of your divine Master: be not, therefore, weary in well-doing; be diligent and persevering in your obedience, encouraged amid all your difficulties and trials by the assurance that your labours shall not be in vain in the Lord. “Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” “We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence, to the full assurance of hope unto the end; that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.”
In the fourth place, we are to be faithful in exercising the courage which the Christian warfare requires. It is in this acceptation of the expression that fidelity is enjoined by the words of the text. The allusion is to military life, and to the obedience due from a soldier to his general, leader, and commander—he must never, through treachery or cowardice, desert the banner he has sworn to defend, nor refuse to follow the order of his general. In like manner, the members of the church at Smyrna, in common with all Christians, have enlisted under the banners of the cross, professed obedience to the King of Zion, and are under obligation to persevering fortitude and fidelity in his service. They are in the midst of tribulation, and are exposed, for Christ’s sake, to poverty and persecution; but are encouraged to hold on the way, in the full confidence of being more than conquerors through him that loved them. “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed.” “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” It is in this language that our Lord addresses all his professed disciples. Ye are now in the scene of action, exposed, it may be, to hardships, trials, and suffering; engaged in an arduous contest with sin, Satan, and the corruptions of the world; and require all the courage which the hopes of the Gospel inspire, that you fall not into error, and stand fast in the faith. Your great Lord and Leader, while he points out the path to glory, cheers you on to victory by his own example, warns you of dangers and trials, and supplies the patience and fortitude necessary to overcome. But have you not voluntarily enlisted under this banner? Have you not solemnly sworn your engagement to obey whatever and wherever he commands you? He has said that you ought, under his guidance, to bid defiance to his enemies; and that you ought to continue, with undaunted courage, firmly and stedfastly to maintain the conflict, though surrounded by devils and death. This he demands, as the condition of his acknowledging you in that day, “when he will judge the world in righteousness.” “Whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels.” “Fight then, the good fight of faith.” Amid your trials, be encouraged by the promise of your divine leader, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”
I remark, in the last place, that Christian fidelity is to be continued unto death. The full period of the service which Christ demands is to extend from the time that we cordially embrace the Gospel, and enlist under the banners of the cross, to the close of our earthly career. Beyond that, neither knowledge, nor wisdom, nor device is to be of any avail in retrieving the interests that have been before neglected. Death is the period of man’s probation, and fixes immutably and forever his condition and his abode. Nothing short of death, however, can ever disqualify us from giving glory to God, or from being useful to men. We may be under bodily weakness, or under the infirmities of old age, but this need not prevent us from showing to all around us the obligations of the Gospel, or its influence in subduing the temper, and in promoting peacefulness, patience, and resignation, and the hope of everlasting glory.
The trials and afflictions we endure, when rightly endured, furnish us with capabilities of usefulness, which we could not otherwise have possessed, enabling us to counsel the inexperienced, to comfort the sorrowful, and to encourage the brethren in the good work of love. Though unfitted by divine Providence, for our accustomed vocations here, the obligations to glorify God, by implicit submission to his will and word, remains. Think not then that years of laborious exertion in the service of your Redeemer will warrant you in retiring from the field, and in sinking into indolence. While activity remains, your Lord commands you to use your powers for him, and to do zealously, and with all your might, whatever your hand findeth to do in advancing his cause. Even when the activity of your powers is gone, through disease or age, you are still to use whatever means or opportunities remain, in the faithful service of your Saviour and your God. You will thus, at the close of life, be able to say, “I am now ready to be offered; I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
We now proceed to consider, very shortly, in the second place, the promise of gracious reward expressed in the text: “I will give thee a crown of life.” As the soldier of ancient times was animated courageously to brave danger and death, by the prospect of obtaining, as an honorary reward for his services, a crown of laurel; so Christ’s disciple is here cheered, amid the toils and difficulties of his course, by the promise of a crown of life—a crown of glory, which fadeth not away. He is to be invested with the ensign of royalty—being made a king, as well as a priest, unto God, and to be put in possession of a kingdom, in which to enjoy supreme and immortal felicity. All the faithful followers of Christ, in the end of time thus honoured, were seen in prophetic vision by the Apostle John—a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, having washed in the blood of the Lamb, stood before the throne, clothed in white robes, and, in token of their triumph, with palms in their hands. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat: for the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” How glorious is the prize which the Saviour thus holds out to each of his followers! It is a crown, in comparison of the value and grandeur of which, all the insignia of earthly royalty are worthless as the dust. He knows, from personal experience, the trials and sorrows, the toils and the difficulties, of the service he has assigned to them; for, though the Son of God, yet learned he obedience by the things he suffered; and, having been tried in all things like as we are, he can sympathize in all our distresses, and soothe us when tempted. With what diligence, zeal, and persevering fidelity, did he work the works of him that sent him while it was day; forgetting no duty, discouraged by no difficulties; losing no opportunity, but continually engaged in doing the will of his heavenly Father! It is he who cheers you onward to victory and to glory; it is he who charges you to be faithful unto death, even as he himself was; to imitate him in zeal for the glory of God; in devotedness to his service, in constancy in duty, in diligence and perseverance in all well-doing. And surely your gratitude and affection are sufficient to induce you to consecrate yourselves, and your all, to his praise; you cannot refuse obedience to his command, fidelity to his cause, who has redeemed you to God by his blood. In serving him, you know, from experience, that there is a present, as well as a promised and future reward. He points to his faithful followers, the way to the crown of life, to strengthen them for the warfare in which they are engaged. He is ever present to counsel, direct, and succour; and, amid depressing difficulties and discouragements, he animates with the assurance, “My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is sufficient for your weakness; bear up a little longer, and all your future toils will for ever cease, and I will give you a crown of life.” Have we not all reason for saying, “I will go on in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.” “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.” Your divine Lord will give the promised crown of life to the weakest of the followers who is faithful unto death. He who does not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, will look not to the circumstance of men having worn rich diadems or coronets, nor to the variety and splendour of the gifts with which they are endowed, but to the principle of love itself, and from the regard to his glory by which they were distinguished. To many myriads unknown to fame, whose dearest ties on earth were dissevered by the hand of violence, and who died faithful to their Redeemer, amid all the reproach men heaped upon them, will he give a crown of glory—a crown of righteousness he will bestow on them. Ought not these considerations to encourage and strengthen those who, though faint, are still pursuing; who, though weakened, disheartened, and almost despairing of obtaining the prize, cannot cease to cling for hope and life to that Saviour whom they love? Consider what you must be to have this glorious reward. You are to receive it if faithful to death; but you know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of man cometh. The time cannot be far distant. Let your loins, therefore, be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is far spent—the morning of immortality is at hand. During the few fleeting hours that are to intervene before that blessed morning, let us redouble our diligence—let us become still more zealous and watchful, “Always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labour is not in vain in the Lord.”—“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Ever keep in view, also, the circumstances in which this crown shall be conferred, and the glory and happiness which its possession secures. It will be worn the moment after the conflict has ceased. It will be given before all the family of God, and where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain, the former things having passed away. But should we forget, in conclusion, the doom that awaits the unfaithful—a doom, not for the abuse of talents merely, but for their neglect. “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into utter darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.” It is not only the loss of a crown of life in the kingdom of glory that is to be suffered, but the endurance of everlasting separation from the presence and favour of God, in those regions where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Let it be the great concern of each of us to escape this fearful award of ungodliness and unbelief. Wherefore, give diligence to make your calling and election sure, that an entrance may be ministered to you abundantly in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
