Beloved, you may remember, I have preached ten sermons upon the glorified condition of the saints in heaven. It is now in my thoughts to speak of the tormented condition of the damned in hell, that if the former sermons about glory have not gained your affections, this of hell might startle your consciences. Ministers, as having a mixed people, must mix their doctrine, somewhile with comfort and sometimes with terror. You have heard ten sermons upon the former text; you may haply hear so many more upon this subject.
David, from his earlier days, to the close of his long and varied life, was visited with many and painful afflictions. Like Him whom in spirit he called “Lord,” though descended of David after the flesh, he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. But sanctified affliction produces godly sorrow, and godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation. Of this, David was a most conspicuous and instructive example.
The grand doctrine, on which the leading principles thus expounded in the standards of our church proceed, is that which is adverted to by the apostles, while vindicating their resistance to civil authority, at the 31st verse of the passage of Scripture before us—the doctrine, namely, embodied in these words, “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince.” That Jesus of Nazareth, whom the chief priests and rulers of Judea had slain and hanged on a tree was now seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens—all power, both in earth and heaven had been given to him—and having, in the exercise of that sovereign power, called the apostles and their successors in the ministry of the gospel to bear rule in his church, and to feed that flock which he had purchased with his own blood, no earthly ruler could interfere with them in the discharge of those functions which are proper and peculiar to their sacred office, without incurring the sin and danger, as Gamaliel expressed it, “of fighting against God.”
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.
There are two things in the text that claim our attention. There is a promise, and a statement of the circumstances in which that promise will be realised. The promise is, “there am I in the midst of them.” The circumstances are, “where two or three are gathered together in my name.” Let us attend to these points in the order in which they have now been stated.
Now, my brethren, it is permitted the people of God to inquire into the mystery of divine providence, and into the reasons why God deals so hardly with those that are his own children. It is even lawful for them to use familiarity in these inquiries, but this familiarity must always be restrained by reverence, and tempered by deep humility. And it is of the first importance in entering on such inquiries, that we should keep in our minds, and have deeply impressed on them, the essential moral attributes of the Almighty.
Prayer is the element of worship which is most often mentioned in the Scriptures. From Genesis, chapter 4, when men began to call on the name of the Lord, to Revelation, chapter 22, when the church prays, “Come, Lord Jesus,” the Bible is full of prayer.
The subject of the text is a remedy prescribed by Christ for certain fears which had sprung up in the mind of his Apostle. The occasion of these fears was (as we find by the context) a sight of the glory of Christ in his state of exaltation. This is a sight which all believers behold on earth.
We are to consider largely then in Philippians, chapter 1, and particularly, verse 21; the epistle to the Philippians, chapter 1, and verse 21. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” The Apostle Paul was in prison in Rome, because of his faithfulness in his testimony to Christ, and he’s writing this letter to the Philippians from prison. And you’ll notice that there is very little about his physical conditions in the prison. What he is more concerned about are the spiritual implications of his imprisonment, and the effect of his imprisonment upon the cause of Christ, and upon the church of Christ.
To establish purity of worship in the earth was an undertaking worthy of the Son of God. In the opinion of some, we believe, it had been a nobler enterprise of philanthropy to deal directly with man’s social state, to have rectified its inequalities, and provided for the secular interests of humanity, putting aside meanwhile the question of religion as of inferior importance—a world without God, or a God without worship, well according with their views. We suppose they would regulate heaven itself on the same principles and haply find fault with its blest inhabitants for making so much ado about devotion.
