When people read voices from the past and the depth of their thinking on Scripture and its application to the heart, it is easy to set down their writings or dismiss them as too inwardly focused. It is easier to deal with a text with exegetical skills than it is to have the Spirit open a person’s eyes to the depths of sin in his or her heart. It is easier to study a systematic theology book than it is to have one’s heart studied and then opened to our own study by the Spirit. It is easier to study the blackness of the human heart and the wickedness of a proud heart in an objective manner than it is to see these things as true of one’s self. It is easier to study about the doctrine of man’s inability from an intellectual basis than to feel the horror and fear of seeing the chains of bondage around our own hearts. But many men in the past studied the books of their own hearts under the tutorship of the Holy Spirit and to the degree that we ignore their writings and their practices is the degree that we will be impoverished.
The first quote is from Thomas Shepard and then a few comments on it by Alexander Whyte in a book he wrote on Shepard originally published in 1909. The second is from Jonathan Edwards.
‘Of all hypocrites,’ says Thomas Shepard, that pungentest of preachers, ‘take care that you be not an evangelical hypocrite.’ A hundred times and in a hundred ways Shepard says that. But what does the dreadful man mean? He means this: An evangelical hypocrite is a man who sins the more safely because grace abounds; who says to his lusts, both of mind and body, that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all such sin, and who reasons with himself thus: God cannot, by any possibility, cast any man into hell who loves evangelical preaching as I love it, and who would not sit a day but in an evangelical church. My evangelical brethren, let us take good care! For if evangelical hypocrites are to found anywhere in our day it is in a church like ours and under a doctrine like ours.
…without the least mortification of the pride of their hearts. But the essence of evangelical humiliation consists in such humility as becomes a creature in itself exceeding sinful, under a dispensation of grace; consisting in a mean esteem of himself, as in himself nothing, and altogether contemptible and odious; attended with a mortification of a disposition to exalt himself, and a free renunciation of his own glory… (Jonathan Edwards)
The modern day thinks of humility as a virtue and something that the free-will of man can put on and off as he pleases. But that is at the root of many of our problems in our day. We have not gone to the depths that Shepard and Edwards did in examining their hearts and the hearts of their parishioners by the light of the Spirit in applying Scripture. In his day Shepard warned people over and over of the dangers of being deceived about their salvation and the dangers of their own hearts. The very term “evangelical hypocrites” should chill us to the depths of our souls. Yet the theology that has swept our nation from the days of Finney and has turned much of our nation into a burned over district from his own preaching and practices as well as his followers have left us very susceptible to those things. His teachings and practices focused on intellectual decisions or commitments instead of focusing on the breaking and humbling of the heart which is necessary for proud hearts to have true faith.
What happens then is that a person that has been intellectually convinced can also make intellectual choices to be more moral and be more religious. But unless the person’s heart has been truly humbled, all that the person does comes from pride. This leads to “churches” being filled with a congregations and ministers who are evangelical hypocrites. Jesus said with great clarity that a soul must be converted and become like a little child in order to enter the kingdom (Mat 18:3). The type of teaching that Finney did changed that to the idea that one must make a decision and become moral in order to enter the kingdom. Jesus repeatedly said that a soul must deny self and take up the cross and follow Him, but Finney and his followers (theological ideas not necessarily the person) say that a person must make a choice and take up the cross and follow Him. The two comments listed above by Shepard and Edwards demonstrate for us if we care to see the massive difference between the theology and the practice of their time and that of ours. Now we have combined an intellectual choice with “eternal security” and do not warn people at all. Then even the most orthodox and moral of people were warned to beware of the salvation of their souls. Then Edwards would warn people that they must have evangelical humility or they were not converted, but today it is thought a trip up the aisle of saying one believes a creed is enough. Oh how we flee from a thorough plowing of our hearts in the modern day. How we long to put on humility as a work of the flesh rather than have God do the work of humbling our pride with His burning and hard trials that He sends to those He loves. We must beware.
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