Part 30
_Secondly_, The words of the text discover to us an earnest longing after divine ordinances, and the presence of God in them. This abundantly appears also in several parts of this psalm: How mournfully doth the Psalmist complain, and what a painful sense he expresses of his long absence from the house of God! _verses_ 3, 4. What a sweet and sorrowful recollection he makes of past seasons of delight in worship? _My tears have been my meat day and night,—my soul is cast down and disquieted, I remember when I went with the multitude to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise_; but now God seems to have _forgotten me_, ver. 9. How earnestly doth he breathe after the sanctuary? Psalm lxiii. and lxxxiv. to _see thy power_, O God, and _thy glory, as he had seen it there_. He borrows metaphors and similitudes from some of the most vehement appetites of nature to signify his strong desires after God; _my flesh thirsteth for thee, even fainteth for the courts of the living God_.
And this is the blessed temper of a christian, when in his right frame; he is never satisfied when quite restrained from divine ordinances, whether by persecution, by banishment, by the unreasonable laws of men, or by afflictions and weaknesses laid on him by the hand of God. He thinks over again those seasons wherein he enjoyed the presence of God in worship, and the recollection of them increases his desires of their return. He watches every turn of providence, and hopes it is working towards his release: When he sees the doors of his prison begin to open, he is ready to break out of confinement, and seize the pleasure of public worship: He thinks it long till he appears before God again. “I have chosen God, saith he, for my highest good, for my everlasting portion, and I would willingly often resort to the place where God hath promised to communicate his blessings, and where I have so often _tasted that the Lord is gracious_.”
Remarks on the second head.—I. How very different are they from the temper of David, who enjoy public ordinances continually, and are weary of them? Who appear before God frequently on the Lord’s day, and yet cry, _what a weariness is it, when will the Sabbath be gone_; Mal. i. 13. and iii. 14. Amos viii. 5. When shall we return to the world again?
What is the reason of this great aversion to divine worship among those who call themselves christians? Truly the greatest part have nothing of christianity besides the mere name: Some are stupid sinners, and have no sense of divine things; and they think it is all lost time: They have no need to come before God, but that it is the custom of their country, or of the family where they live, and they must do it; they do not know how to spend the hour elsewhere without reproof and censure: Or they come merely to see, and to be seen, as is the fashion of the land.
Some perhaps have a sense of religion, and yet they cannot look upon God any otherwise than as their enemy, and so they come before him without any love or delight in his company; and then no wonder if they are weary of it. They do not come as friends to take pleasure in his presence; they would be well enough pleased, if they could live for ever in this world, and never have any thing to do with God: Their chief motive is the fear of hell, and therefore they drudge on in toilsome and undelightful religion.
And indeed this is one great reason why so many true christians feel no more longing after God, either in public or in private worship; because, though they have some faith and some cold hope, yet they are contented to abide in this state of uncertainty, without joy or assurance, and do not make it their business to advance in christianity: They cannot rejoice in God as their father, or their friend, with a lively soul; and they find but little pleasure in his house. But it is a divine pleasure, and a-kin to heaven, when a child of God, with a lively faith and joyful spirit, comes before God as his God, and entertains himself with all the blessed discoveries that he makes of his wisdom and grace in his churches, with all the promises of the covenant, with all the words of love that God hath written in his book, or publishes in his ordinances by the ministry of men. He feeds upon heavenly provisions in his Father’s house; and when he departs, he maintains on his soul a sweet savour of heaven. But alas! there is a great withdrawment of the Spirit of God from his churches; a deadness of heart has seized believers in our day, and they grow carnal: O pray that the Spirit may return to the sanctuary again!
II. Remark. How comfortable a thing would it be, to feel our souls longing for divine ordinances more earnestly after restraint! We should learn the language of Jonah, when in the belly of the whale; Lord, _I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple_; Jonah ii. 4. I will look while I am at a distance, and pray toward the mercy-seat, in hope and desire to come near the sanctuary.
We are too ready to grow indifferent, and think we can do well enough without this appearing before God? We grow, as it were strangers to him by long absence; and though the sacred correspondence in public be lost, yet sometimes it is not much regretted: This is a frequent distemper of the soul. When fasting increases a regular appetite, it is a sign of a healthy constitution; but weakly natures are so overwhelmed with a little fasting, that their appetite is gone too. Many christians may complain of this, and say, “Though I find some relish of pleasure when I am in the house of God, and amongst his saints; and though it was very painful to me to endure the first months of confinement, yet a long restraint has brought me under the spiritual disease, that my appetite and desire grow feeble, and my heart too indifferent to public worship.”
Now in order to enquire into the temper of our spirits, and to awaken us to greater longings after divine ordinances, let us consider what are the two chief ends of a christian in his appearance before God: It is either to do something for God by a public profession of his name among men, or to receive something from him in order to our own comfort and salvation. If we hope to receive, this calls faith into exercise; if we endeavour to do something for his service, this awakens our zeal. Now, is our faith active? Is our zeal lively in this matter? Some christians have one of these, some the other most in exercise: Some look most at honouring God in a public profession, some at obtaining some sensible benefit and delight to their own souls: But it is best when both of these invite us to the sanctuary, and make us long after the presence of God.
Some of us, it may be, have found the work of grace and salvation begun on our souls at public worship; there we were first awakened and convinced of sin, there we were first led to the knowledge and faith of Christ, and pardoning grace was revealed with power by the ministry of the word; therefore we long after the _sincere milk of the word_, in the same public dispensation of it, _that we may grow thereby_. Others have been favoured, it may be, with the presence of God more abundantly in secret; and reading, and meditation, and secret prayer, have been the chief sensible instruments of their conversion, sanctification, and peace; these therefore, sometimes have not the same earnest longing after public preaching as others have; yet they do continually attend on the ordinances of Christ in public, to maintain religion, in the profession of it, among men; and they ought to do it. But these persons are most in danger of growing cold and indifferent.
I grant it is a glorious and self-denying temper, to maintain a warm zeal to do much for the honour of God in the world, even though we enjoy but little of him; but this is not so frequent among men: For we are usually drawn to God by the blessings we hope to receive; and we should consider, that an utter neglect of all those enjoyments of God in the sensible increase of grace and joy, which are to be found in public worship, is a sign that our faith runs too low: We do not expect to receive much from God, even in his own appointed methods; and therefore we grow negligent whether we worship him in public or not. O let the soul who feels nothing of this negligence, but maintains a warm desire of ordinances under long restraint, rejoice and bless the Lord!
However, while any of us are confined, our desires after God ought to appear in this, that we often seek him in secret, and are perpetually with him in our thoughts; that we take all proper opportunities to lift up our souls to him in the midst of common affairs, and thus do what we can to make up the loss of the sanctuary: But we should be still breathing also after church-worship, and the communion of saints; for _God loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob_; Ps. lxxxvii. 2.
III. Remark. O what unhappy clogs these fleshly sinful bodies are to the mind! How they contradict the best inclinations of the soul, and forbid it to fulfil its spiritual desires! The soul would appear often before God, but the flesh forbids: The spirit would rejoice to be among christian assemblies, but the body is too often confined by sickness, or by the necessary cares that relate to this life, this poor animal life, that has so troublesome an influence upon the noblest enjoyments of the mind.
The soul would wait upon God whole hours together in praising, in praying, in hearing the word; but the body is weak, overwhelmed with a little attention, and can bear no more. The soul wrestles and strives against the infirmities of the flesh, and labours hard to abide with God; but these very wrestlings and strivings overcome languishing nature; the impotence of the flesh prevails against the sprightliest efforts and vigour of the mind; the flesh prevails, and the spirit must yield. Thus we are dragged down from the holy mount of converse with God, and the soul, who is a-kin to angels, and employed in their work, must descend, and lie idle, to refresh the animal. In vain would the spirit raise all its powers into lively and devout exercise, if the flesh grows faint under a warm affection, it is forced to let go the holy thought, and quit the divine pleasures of religion, until a better hour return.
Sometimes, through drowsiness, and want of natural spirits, we grow stupid and heavy in religious duties, and have but little sense of that God before whom we appear. Sometimes, through excess of spirits, our imagination grows vain and fluttering, and wanders far away from the God whom we worship. If we fix our thoughts one minute upon things of the highest importance and the most awful solemnity; the next flying idea catches the mind away, and it is lost from God and devotion again. We appear before God, and disappear again; we wander into the world, and return to God, twenty times in an hour.
Our eyes and our ears are constant witnesses of this painful weakness; and unhappy instruments they are to draw off our souls from the divinest meditation. Every thing around us is ready to disturb and divert our feeble nature in the most heavenly acts of worship: Poor broken worship! Poor frail estate of human nature! But there is a blessed assembly of better worshippers above: Awake our faith and desire to join them! and let each of us say, “_O when shall I go_ to that bright company, _and appear_ amongst them _before God_.”
SERMON XIV. _Appearance before God here and hereafter._ PSALM xlii. 2.—When shall I come and appear before God. THE SECOND PART.
By an appearance before God, in the text we are to understand our attendance upon him in the public ordinances of worship; and the longing desire the Psalmist had to draw near unto God in his ordinances, represents to us the character of every sincere christian, when he enjoys his own right frame, and heavenly temper of soul; He longs, he breathes after those seasons of divine improvement and comfort.
I shall make no further repetition of any thing before delivered; but considering that all our appearances before God in this world in his sanctuary, are but means to prepare us to stand before God in the world that is to come; I shall not think myself at all to wander from the text, if I spend my whole time, at present in shewing the difference that is between our appearance before God on earth here, and our appearing before him in the other world hereafter; and this in order to awaken the sinner, and to encourage the true christian.
There are two great future appearances before God, the one at judgment, and the other in glory in heaven. The one belongs to all men, the other only to the saints. And now that I may divide my discourse aright and give to every one their portion, I would beg leave chiefly to apply our general appearance before God at judgment, to those who are unconverted, and in a state of sin; for we have reason to fear that there may be some such among us: And I will apply the blessed appearance before God in heaven to converted souls, to whom only it belongs: These are the persons who have faith and love, and are in some measure prepared to appear and worship there.
_First_ then, Let us consider our appearance before God in judgment. It is true, at the moment of death our souls immediately stand before God to be judged, as well as our souls and bodies united, shall stand together there in the great day of the resurrection; yet I shall not make any distinction of these seasons now, lest I should multiply
## particulars; but shall treat of them together, to awaken the secure and
sinful worshipper, who appears before God here in the form of devotion: And to put him in mind he must ere long stand before God in another manner than now he does, and to set his thoughts at work to compare one with the other in these particulars:
1. The sinner now appears with some degree of willingness in the presence of God, then it is under a terrible constraint. A wicked man may be willing to come to public ordinances for many carnal ends, as to comply with his superiors, to follow the custom of the family where he dwells, to gain reputation among men, to satisfy the cries of an awakened conscience; for his conscience, perhaps, will not be easy without the performance of some duties; and so he makes use of divine worship, and his public appearances before God, as a kind of opiate, to stupify an uneasy conscience, and therefore he has some inclination and willingness to come before God here on earth: but at death, and at the general resurrection, he must appear whether he will or no; Heb. ix. 27. _It is appointed for all men once to die, and after death the judgment_; Rom. xiv. 10. and 2 Cor. v. 10. _We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. The angels shall gather the elect_ from the four quarters of the world, and bring them near to the judge with pleasure; but sinners shall be dragged toward that awful tribunal, and be forced to abide the trial.
While the believer, who walks in lively faith, says, When shall I come into that world of spirits, and appear there before God? the sinner wishes that day may never come: O that I might live for ever on earth! that I might for ever converse with men, and never see the face of that God who hates me, and whom I have never loved. O that death might make an utter end of me! O that the grave would cover me for ever, that I might rise no more. And when that dreadful day comes, then, “Fall on us, rocks; then, mountains press us down, and conceal us for ever from the wrath of God and the Lamb;” as in Rev. vi. 15, 16. that outcry is represented. But they must stand and see the terror; they are constrained to hear the glorious and dreadful sentence, Dost thou believe this, O my soul! and canst thou be content to live unprepared for the solemnities of this day?
2. Here sinners appear like the saints of God in disguise; but there as sinners, openly guilty, and exposed to light: Here not separated from the saints in the place of worship, there sufficiently distinguished and divided from all who love God, and that worship him in spirit: For when a sinful soul goes out of the body to appear before God, every angel in heaven knows him; he is naked without a covering of disguise, as well as without the covering of a justifying righteousness; and upon this account he appears all guilty, not only before the searching eye of God, and the terror of his anger, but also before the blessed spirits who are near the throne. Here those who are in the same assembly, know not whether we are the children of God, or _the children of the devil_; but in the world of spirits, all the children of Satan are as much distinguished from the children of God as an angel of light is from a spirit of darkness.
This flesh is a disguise to the soul, a thick cloud to cover a thousand hypocrisies; but at the great day the naked soul must be known; _All nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats_; Mat. xxv. 32. Jesus shall separate the one from the other; and what will the sinner say at that day? “I have on earth appeared before God among the saints, but now I must for ever dwell with my companions in iniquity, with my partners in _everlasting burnings_; I am so like to the spirits of hell, now I am undressed, and divested of all disguise, that I see myself justly divided for ever from the saints, and a fit companion for none but devils.” O who can tell the torment that is contained in such a self-condemning reflection as this?
3. Sinners appear now, and take no notice of God as Creator, or Christ as Mediator and Saviour; but at the appearance in judgment it will be impossible to stand before God, and not take notice of him. He appears there as a God of terrible and incensed majesty, and they must see him; and Jesus Christ sits there, and must be seen, not as the Saviour to secure them, but the judge ready to condemn them to everlasting punishment; Rev. i. 7. assures of this day, and speaks of it as already come: _Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. I shall behold him_, says the wretched Balaam, _but not nigh_; Num. xviv. 17. not as my God, near me, but as my enemy, afar from me. “Now God speaks with the voice of mercy in the church, and I turn a deaf ear to him, may the sinner say, but then it is the language of justice and vengeance: O that my ears and my eyes were sealed up for ever: for his looks, his words, his actions, smite my soul through with a thousand torments.”
It is impossible for the wicked to turn their eyes from God in that day, whereas now for a whole hour or two, in his worship, their hearts are not once fixed upon him. A God of holiness will be seen on his seat of judgment; and the sinner who _will not see, shall see_, and be confounded at the sight. Think of this, O my soul! and when thou findest thy thoughts wandering from God in the next duty of worship, take this awful hint to recal them again.
4. Now the sinner appears before God as on a throne of grace; there on a throne of justice: now in a state of trial: there for a final sentence. He comes now to hear the general language of God to men; there to hear his own particular judgment from the same God; now the sinner stands in the church, in a general assembly: and he stands within the reach of a general promise: _He that believes shall be saved; he that confesses, and forsakes his sin shall find mercy_: But then the book of all the promises is for ever shut, and it is declared by the Judge, that not one of them belongs to him: He hath refused all the offers of grace, and the day of grace is gone for ever.
Now he stands, and hears the general threatening of the word: _The soul that sinneth shall die; the wages of sin is death: he that believeth not shall be damned; he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption_: Yet he may escape all these threatenings. But in the great and last day he hears his own name, as it were, read together with each of these threatenings, and united to them all: “Thou art the impenitent sinner, and thou must die for ever? thou hast not believed in Christ: and thou art the person who shall be for ever damned.”
Now he appears before God, and though he is, as to his state; at a distance from him, yet he may be converted and brought near; he hears these blessed words; Mat. xi. 28. _Come all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest._ Is. xlv. 22. _Look unto me, ye that are at the ends of the earth_, and in immediate danger of hell, _and be ye saved_. But there the only word is, _depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire_; for I have not one word of promise, of encouragement, or of comfort for you.
Because he appears now in a state of trial, it is with some hope of obtaining pardon; but there he stands only waiting for the sentence of death, and therefore with everlasting despair: He appears there guilty in open light, and his condemnation is certain and unchangeable.