God Loves… Himself

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.            Sir Richard Hill

While it is true that volumes have been written concerning false conversion and volumes will most likely be written in the future, this is not a job that should be left to scholars lengthy tomes. This is a vital truth about one of the primary practices of the evil one and that is true of all people. A scholarly tome may indeed have some good points here and there, but this is a basic truth that hits all people at all intellectual levels. This is also a truth that should hit every person that attends church, tries to be religious, and/or tries to be moral. The evil one uses all of those things to give people a false confidence of salvation for the purpose of damning them. This is a particularly diabolical practice in that not only are those with false confidence deceived, but that deceives many others as well. This helps deceive others with false confidence and yet deceives non-believers (in any way) about true Christianity.

The nature of true Christianity has always been under attack and the evil one has always tried to deceive people with the shell of it rather than the true life of it. The people with life in their soul have always been called derisive names by religious people without life in their souls. We must know that religious people can say the right words, have the right external morality, have the right creeds, but still be very, very lost because the evil one has deceived them by all of the things they do right. The severe lack of preaching in discerning the distinction between external religion and the life of Christianity does not help, but the numbers of those who teach the mere externals of Christianity seems to be the vast majority. As Hill notes above, this great deception of a confidence of salvation deceives many, but it appears almost exclusively among those who are decent formalists. This is a terrible deception when a person thinks that because s/he has the external form that s/he must be converted.

The mere formalist makes a huge mistake being deceived by the evil one through the pride, spiritual darkness, and self-love of the formalist. The formalist cannot come to the point of thinking himself as being worthy of damnation for what he has done and is doing. The formalist does not realize that his view of self is skewed by his own pride and darkness, so he does not see his sin and how far short of the glory of God his supposed religion falls. The formalist has never been broken and contrite for sin and instead follows along with the external duties thinking that those are demonstrative evidence of salvation, though indeed he has a wrong idea of God, of sin, and of the Gospel. This type of formalist can be quite orthodox in terms of creed or stated belief, but that intellectual belief of the truth does not sink any deeper into his heart than the teaching of his own sin does.

There are many formalists who will insist that they have loved God since they can remember and so they must have been saved at a very early age, but again this may not be the truth of the matter. If these people were told that God loved them and had a wonderful plan for them, they would have loved that god and not the biblical God. They would then be deceived into thinking that they loved God when in fact they just loved themselves and a false idea of the true God. So this type of formalist thinks that s/he has loved God and has never fallen into any bad sin (according to them), which deceives this formalist into thinking that s/he is converted. Jesus told Nicodemus who was a champion formalist of his time that he must be born again to see or enter the kingdom. That remains true for all people of all time. Being a formal believer is something to repent of rather than trust in for salvation. A formal believer is a deceived believer and on the way to hell. A false confidence of salvation can be eternally fatal.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.        Sir Richard Hill

In his day (in the 1600’s) Thomas Vincent wrote on how true conversion was rare. If those views of were correct in his day, then how much more so in our day? It is hard to express how far Christianity has fallen since the mid or perhaps early 1800’s. It is even harder to express how far Christianity has fallen since the late 1600’s and the 1700’s. The Gospel of grace alone is asserted as a doctrine and as part of a creed, but it appears to be rarely preached as a truth for the whole of life. The teaching and preaching of the day has been greatly influenced by psychology, humanism, and politics. It goes without saying that the liberal influence has been devastating. The morality of our nation is so far gone that it is almost useless to speak about it other than to state that it is still astonishing to behold. R.C. Sproul once said that if Luther came back to life and wrote a book today he would title it “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” Pelagianism has indeed taken over, though it may call itself Arminianism or various other things.

What is important to point out in this context is that the real problem is with the professing Church. One of the real problems with the professing Church of this day is that it works hard to get people to be confident that they are saved before they are saved and that in fact hardens them to the true Gospel. We have become so nice and politically correct that we want to comfort people and assure them that they are saved regardless of what condition they are in. We have reached the point where it is assumed that people who attend church (especially “my” church) are saved. We assume that a person that is moral or religious to some degree, especially if they believe like I do, must be converted. We will excuse almost anything except a person who will tell people that they are not converted. Yet, as Hill points out above, it is his belief that more souls are lost through a false confidence of salvation than perhaps any other method.

Several years ago a man by the name of John Montgomery wrote a book titled “Damned Through the Church.” If the paragraphs above even resemble something close to reality, his book is also descriptive of our day. While it was the case that years ago pastors trembled and warned their people against being deceived about being converted, pastors today tremble at the mere though that their congregants may not have perfect confidence that they are converted. Could it be that the older way was right? If so, there are many, many people being given confidence that they are converted by their ministers while they are on the way to eternal flames. In that case, they are being damned through the church.

The devil, while we must not give him more credit than he deserves, does have a diabolical plan of deceiving people regarding their conversion. When we add the fact that God turns people over to their sins, it leaves us with a very frightening view of the modern professing Church. True Christianity is rare, which is easy enough to say. But one of the implications of that is that the vast majority of professing Christianity are deceived by ministers who try to convince people that they are saved when in fact they are not. This is also to say that when ministers do not try to distinguish between those with a false confidence and those who are truly converted, God has withdrawn His hand from the professing Church and has given it over to unfaithful shepherds. It could also be that the professing Church has many, many false prophets as well. We are in need of a great Reformation once again.

There are perhaps more souls lost through a false confidence of salvation than by any other deceit the Devil makes use of. I do not mean those notorious sinners, but among the more decent formalists, who because they have never fallen into any foul, gross sins, or because their lives are somewhat reformed, and they practice some outward duties, make no doubt of the safety of their state. Yet they have no union with Christ by faith; the great renovating change has never been wrought in them; their natures are still unrenewed, their hearts unsanctified; they never saw and bewailed their own vileness; they never felt their real need of a Savior, in a way of renunciation of their own righteousness. They do not pant and labor after higher degrees of grace and holiness, like a true child of God, who can never rest contented with his present attainments [of grace]. They [the deceived] keep plodding on in the same beaten track, vainly thinking to divide their hearts between God and the world and content themselves with a formal, lifeless, luke-warm religion, which only tends to their greater delusion. Thus they go on dreaming of heaven till they awake in hell.     Sir Richard Hill

This is a very sobering and perhaps frightening statement. It is not frightening because of the use of hyperbole or because of flowery language, but because it is so earnest and so to the point. It is frightening because it appears to be so true of so many. It is frightening because it is biblical and so applicable to our present day, perhaps even more than the author’s own day. It is also frightening because this is the same thought of Jonathan Edwards and others. It is frightening because so many are encouraged and pumped up to think that they should have confidence in our day. It is frightening because so many ministers want to give their people confidence and hate the idea that their confidence would be shaken. It is frightening because there are so many ministers who will not try to discern between the false confidence of so many and that of a true faith.

The Lord Jesus spoke of a wide gate and a broad road that many are on. It can be that people think of that gate and road as referring to the whole world, but it refers to those who actually think that they are on the road to heaven. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mat 7:13-14). These people were trying to enter the gate that leads to life but they actually entered the gate that leads to destruction. The wide gate and the broad road that leads to destruction are populated or tried by those who think that they are on the way to life. This should startle us and wake us up to stop playing with the Gospel and the nature of true conversion. When the Gospel is watered down, the message becomes something other than the true Gospel and becomes a message with a wide gate and a broad road.

While it may be nothing more than an intellectual problem or something to tickle the fancy of others, this is as serious as it gets. A false confidence of salvation is used by the devil to deceive human beings to damnation. This means that professing churches can be one of the favorite places of the devil to deceive people. This means that people who are more concerned with evangelism than the truth may in fact be the evangelists of the devil. This means that preachers who are more concerned with numbers and growth than the true Gospel are preachers for the devil. All of those things lead people to a false confidence of salvation.

While the thought may seem repugnant to many, it makes perfect sense when one reads Scripture. The devil began his human history of deception with twisting the words of God. He tried to twist Scripture in his temptation of Jesus. There is only one place in all of history that God inspired (breathed forth) His words about the Lord Jesus and the true Gospel. This means that men who are careless in their handling of the Scriptures and preach and teach a gospel that is not according to the whole of Scripture are deceiving men about the Gospel. We live in a day where it seems that the vast majority of people judge professing churches by results, numbers, and money. Where is the Gospel? It has been watered down by people on all sides. Some will tell us that all a person has to do is repeat a prayer while others will give us a list of moral issues that we must take up. The devil, however, continues to give people a false confidence in their salvation while keeping people busy with so many other things rather than the Gospel itself. Once again, the genuine Gospel is rare in our day.

There are few sinners but what hope to repent before they die, and nevertheless continue to swallow the damnable intoxicating draughts of sin. The extravagant folly of such person may be compared to that of a man who stabs himself in order to heal the wound again…There are those who plunge themselves deeper and deeper into sin, in order to stifle the thoughts of those sins which they have already committed; this is just as if a man should drink a dose of poison to expel another.      Sir Richard Hill

Sin is the most horrible thing in the universe, though indeed few see it that way in reality. Sin is not just an intellectual theory, but it is reality at its very worst. Sin, because it is human nature, is not just a power exerted from the outside upon man, but instead it is the very nature of man. The very nature of man is depraved and sinful, though part of that sinful nature is pride and that hides sin from man to some degree. Men can see that there are things in the world that harm people and they will agree that those things are sin, but what they cannot see is that all a person does comes from the heart. If the heart is bad, then all the things that a person does is bad even if the things appear as good to the love a person has for self.

The eye of faith beholds what sin does to the soul, but those without faith only pursue and can understand whether it is good for their pleasure at the moment. While no sinner that understands the true nature of hell will want to go there, so clearly they hope to repent in some way before they die. But they don’t truly desire a true repentance because they continue to give themselves to those things that are the opposite of repentance. Sin is what hardens the heart and yet they continue to give themselves to sin which hardens the heart while they give lip service to saying they want to repent.

As Hill points out, people give themselves over to more and more sin in order to stifle the thoughts of previous sin and the pangs of conscience that go with it. These people give themselves over to sin just in order to feel better or stop the pain. They give themselves over to sin in order to sleep at night, but they will not wake up to the fact that they are doing the very thing that caused the problem in the first place. If sin causes the problem, and it does, then it will do no good to continue in sin to stifle previous sins. It is a circular issue and people will need to go deeper into sin in the future to stifle the memory and conscience of sins committed now.

In the statements by Hill above we see some things opened and revealed our understanding about modern society. Sin brings misery, though people don’t like that thought. They want to be free from pain and misery, yet they don’t want to give up the things that cause the pain and misery. People go on in their sin and they go to counselors who pump them up and provide them with medication or false theories that will allow them to go on in their sin. Sin is essentially living for the glory, honor, and pleasure of self rather than the glory, honor, and pleasure of God. No matter what people do apart from a true repentance granted them by God, they will go deeper into misery.

We can see many of the problems of modern professing “Christianity” in the writing by Hill. People want to go to heaven by a wide path and take their sins with them. While this is not true Christianity, it does expose what the hirelings and charlatans are doing. They are raking in lots of money while helping the people go along in their misery. Some people entertain themselves to death in order to keep them from thinking about their misery, yet others give themselves to religion in order to stifle their conscience and misery. Some want an easy road to heaven and so they have an easy type of belief, yet others want to earn a lot if not most of it and so they want a hard road to heaven. The problem, however, is that neither of those roads are the narrow road, but instead both are on the broad road. There is only one way to deal with sin and that is the blood of Christ who gives true repentance by grace alone. False Christians may seem to have more fun, but they actually have more misery. The Beatitudes tell us that those who mourn are those who are “happy” or are truly blessed. Sin brings misery regardless of what one holds to as a creed or as an intellectual or historical faith. Only the risen Christ living in the heart of man can bring true contentment and true joy.

Some people, especially those who have a name to live, and are dead, are so exceedingly averse to be brought to the knowledge of themselves, and to lose the good opinion they have formed of their own excellencies, that they cannot bear to see the corruption and rottenness of their own hearts, and are highly offended at the faithfulness of any minister who would strip off their varnish, and show them to themselves in their true colors.        Sir Richard Hill

There appear to be many good Christian men and women who are moral and quite involved in their churches, yet they are lost as lost can be. They can be ministers, elders, deacons and any other position in the church, but they are still lost and children of the devil. These people are religious and moral, but they are full of self and pride just like the devil. They are religious and so are self-righteous and do all their religious activity to gain a good opinion of self from others, but also self. These people are upstanding in terms of morality in both the church and the community, but they do all they do out of pride and for self.  So does the devil.

What these people don’t understand, however, is that they are sinners by nature and all that they do is sin. All of their religion and all of their morality is the religion and morality of self. They do what they do out of love for self and they do what they do with the intent and goal of it for self in some way. This is directly opposed to the Great Commandment which is to love God with all of a person’s being. They are dead in sin with their sinful nature and all of the religion and morality in the world cannot give them a new heart. They think they are serving God while they do nothing but serve self, so indeed they have a name to live while they are dead.

As this type of person grows in pride, self-righteousness, and knowledge of the Bible, instead of becoming godlier this person becomes more and more hardened to the truth of God and His Gospel. Their religion and morality are actually instruments which harden them in darkness and pride. When a faithful minister comes alone and begins to teach people the truth about themselves, these people will hate it. They love to think highly of themselves and their religion and morality, but that view of self cannot retained under faithful preaching. These people will almost always react with great vehemence towards those who faithfully tell them about their own wicked hearts even while they are held in high esteem by people in the professing Church.

This should not surprise us in the least. The Pharisees were the most religious people in their day and they hated Jesus and the apostles when they spoke the truth to the Pharisees. The Pharisees went after Jesus with venom when He exposed their hypocrisy, and the modern children of the Pharisees will do the same. How they will cry up all the rites and rituals of religion and cry up the importance of protests and moral issues, but they will not stand the test of the heart that true preaching will set before them. When a preacher sets out the rottenness of the natural man and how vile men are in the very best that they can do, how these people are highly offended and they will strike at the man who would dare speak to them in that manner.

In the quote by Hill above he shows what the issue really is like with his analogy concerning varnish. One can take a piece of wood that is rotten on the inside and yet put some varnish on it and make it look shiny. But the inside of the wood has not changed though the appearance of it looks much better. So men in their religion and their morality are pictured as putting coats of varnish on themselves and making themselves look better, but the reality of it is that they are just putting coats on top of that which is rotten. Only the appearance is changed. When faithful ministers strip off the varnish and show men how rotten and vile their hearts really are, instead of thanking them these people respond with anger toward the messenger. This shows the depth of the corruption in their hearts in that they will strike at others in anger and intend to do harm when they can rather than cry out for God to have mercy on them. It is far easier in this life to keep putting the varnish on rather than deal with the corruption and rottenness of the heart. But in the next life, which is for eternity, the hearts of men will be exposed and there is no Gospel in hell. There is no seeking of the Lord to have mercy there. Then men will know their own hearts and there will be no end to their weeping and gnashing of their teeth in hatred against God. Men should seek to be convicted of sin and broken for it now before they lift their eyes in hell and it is too late.

Nominal, lukewarm, Christians, are perhaps worse enemies to religion than professed infidels, and are generally the most bitter persecutors that the people of God meet with.        Sir Richard Hill

The book/letter of I John is written so that people may know that they have eternal life. One of the things that is listed as a way to know if a person has eternal life or not is whether a person loves true believers or not. When nominal (in name only) Christians come across true and vital Christianity, they hate it and fight against it tooth and nail. We can see that the most bitter persecutors that God’s true people meet with are the nominal Christians when we see the horrid persecutions that Roman Catholicism met God’s people with in the centuries before the Reformation, the time of the Reformation, and for quite some time after the Reformation. True believers were persecuted and killed in the name of religion.

When the Light Himself (Christ Jesus) shines in the hearts of men who are full of darkness, they hate that and flee from it. One way they flee from the truth and try to suppress it is to persecute those who truly have Christ, though of course they have a different explanation for it. The Lord Jesus dwells in His people and when people are true Christians they have the light of Christ shining in and through them. This means that those who profess Christ and yet dwell in darkness don’t like the true light and this comes out in words and actions against Christians.

We see this truth in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the prophets who truly spoke for God were hated by the people and by the false prophets. It was not just that the nations around Israel did not like Israel, thus showing the physical ramifications of the seed of the serpent having enmity with the physical seed of the woman, but within the nation of Israel those who were truly faithful to Christ were hated. The true prophets of God in that time were hated, maligned, tortured and at times killed. These things were done to them by religious people as well.

In the New Testament we see the great hatred that the most religious people of the day had toward true Christians. One, the Lord and Savior Himself was killed and He was perfect love and holiness in Person. He was hated, despised, mocked, and then put on the cross. Several times people wanted to kill Him when He spoke the truth, but they could not carry it out against Divine power. Two, the followers of Christ were persecuted and killed by the religious elite. Saul, who would later become Paul, was fanatical in his persecution of the followers of Christ. Eventually Paul was killed for the faith.

This statement by Hill is very short but expresses the truth that was stated in Scripture and has been seen across the ages. True believers will face hardships and be mocked by unbelievers, but the worst that they will face is from the nominal and lukewarm folks who profess Christianity but don’t truly have Christ. Jesus said that if the world hates us, it hated Him first. He was hated, however, by the religious elite of that day most of all. True believers may be surprised and puzzled why professing believers are irritated at them and don’t want to be around them. It is nothing personal in one sense, but the enmity is really against Christ. The Lord Jesus was hated while on earth by the professing religious people, so true believers should not be surprised when people hate them because Christ dwells in them. It should concern us if professing Christians (nominal, not true believers) like us and want to be around us.

There is a great deal of difference between praying and saying of prayers. There are many who never omit falling on their knees, night and morning, and repeating a certain number of words, who never prayed in all their lives. They often carry petitions to God that have no reference to their own case, and look upon their prayers rather as gifts that they bring to Him, than as means in the use of which they expect to receive any thing from Him. The heart may pray when there are no audible words, as in the case of Hannah (I Sam 1:13), and such prayer shall find access to the throne of grace; and, vice versa, there may be many words without any thing of the spirit of prayer accompanying them.   Sir Richard Hill

Unless one has some awareness of the distinction between external works and spiritual life, the difference between saying words thought to be a prayer may be thought of as actual praying (spiritual). As Hill notes, there are many who never omit repeating words while on their knees morning and night and think of that as prayer. The heart of prayer is the heart of man (true affections and desires) and apart from that the words that a man thinks of as prayer is nothing more than words offered to an idol. The words of these people are nothing more than words that they think will bring good to them in the guise of religion or perhaps a crass works system to God.

When people think of their prayers as something they are doing for God or for others, they are clueless as to what true prayer is. When people think of their prayers as a means that they use in order to obtain the things they want from Him, they are clueless as to what true prayer really is. In both the previous senses of so-called prayer it is build on a system of doing a religious work in order to obtain something for self. Jesus spoke strongly against the practice of the Pharisees in the way that they prayed, for they prayed in order to get men to honor them, though indeed they said they were praying to God (Mat 6). But instead of praying for self and instead of doing something for God, prayer is all about God. It is not a work in order to please God, but instead it is coming to God as a living sacrifice asking Him to make us into what would please Him.

It is also important, in an effort to distinguish prayer as a form of works versus prayer as a form of worship, to look at words and the intent of words. As Hill notes in the case of Hannah from I Samuel, she prayed with intensity and yet she did not say a word. It appeared that he heart burned within her and her thoughts, desires, and inaudible words were lifted up to God. Prayer must come from the true desires of the heart rather than be only what the words say. Our true prayer, regardless of the words, is what our heart truly desires as we say the words. God looks upon the heart and not just what we say. God knows our true intents, our true desires, and our true love when we say words and when we claim to come into His presence. God knows if our words are to impress men or if they are the desire of our hearts before Him.

There are many books out on how to pray and on the basic subject, but how many get to the real issues of prayer? Do they teach us that prayer is not the words we say but the hearts that the words come from? Do they teach us that the book itself cannot teach us to pray but Christ Himself by His Spirit must teach us to pray? We are given words to say and rituals to perform so God can answer prayer, but those words and those rituals do not earn anything from God and they do not form what true prayer is. This cannot be repeated enough. True prayer is not the saying of words regardless of how biblical the words are and how eloquent we say them.

Jesus said (John 15:5) that “apart from Me you can do nothing.” By that it is surely intended that no one can do anything good or holy or that pleases God apart from Him. Surely, then, that includes prayer. Can we pray apart from love? Well, love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Can we pray apart from the directions or pattern of prayer given to us in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6? That is a prayer that is centered upon God first and foremost in all things. True prayer is a work of the Trinity and not a work of the human flesh. True prayer can only happen when a soul is broken from self and is humbled before God and is truly seeking God and His face. True prayer can only happen when a soul longs for God Himself and His glory. If true Christianity is rare, as it certainly appears to be, then true prayer is rare as well. It could also be said that because true prayer is rare then true Christianity must be rare as well. True prayer will only come to people and the Church when people learn that true prayer must be given to them by grace and it is of the heart. Until then we will be slaves of rituals and words.

What avails it to attend constantly upon church and sacrament, to be liberal in our alms-deeds, and diligent in reading the Scriptures, if we are not created anew in Christ Jesus? St. Paul makes no difference between the vilest profligate and the fairest moralist, but ranks all without exception under the list of reprobates who have not Jesus Christ in them (II Cor 13:5). So also the same apostle assures us that if any man (be ever so strict, devout, and decent) have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Rom 8:9). The word of God makes it absolutely necessary that Christ be formed in us (Gal 4:9) and without this spiritual birth, eternal truth repeatedly assures us that we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3-6).          Sir Richard Hill

This quote gets to the real heart of the issue, both literally and figuratively. People could attend church every day and be devoted to what they think of as a church and still be as unregenerate as the vilest person on earth. Going to a place that one thinks of as a church may harden the heart toward God and His Son of glory rather than prove that one has new life in Christ. People can take the sacrament on a daily basis and that doing nothing but eating and drinking to their own damnation. Taking the sacrament will not give a person the life of Christ in the soul and taking it as a ritual and hoping in it is idolatry. People must really and truly have Christ.

It matters not, at least in the things that matter most, whether one is very generous in giving money to help others physically. Apart from Christ being in the soul and being the life of the soul, the very best of our deeds are as filthy rags (Isa 64). How many people give themselves to the study of the Scriptures and yet seem to miss what Jesus said to the Pharisees about that in John 5: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” One can search the Scriptures and have vast stores of information about Christ without knowing Christ and without having Christ as his or her life. Jesus Christ Himself said to one of the most religious people of His day (John 3:3ff) that he must be born from above in order to see and enter the kingdom. Without doubt Nicodemus knew the Scriptures very well in one sense and he was a very learned man in the Scriptures, but he did not study the Scriptures to learn and love Christ.

The most vital issue of Christianity is not the attending of a church or taking the sacrament, but it is whether and person has been born from above and has Christ dwelling in him or her. It is not whether a person gives money to help people and/or diligent in studying the Scriptures, but whether that person is born from above and has Christ dwelling in him or her. This is a vital issue and we should always have this in mind. Just before Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about his utter need to be born from above (at the end of John 2), the Scriptures tells us that many people believed in Him when they saw the miracles that He did. But the text goes on to say that Jesus did not believe/entrust Himself to them because He knew what was in man. People can believe in Jesus in many ways and yet not be born from above and as such not have true faith. This great and grand truth used to be preached and declared over and over again to people and today it is rarely (if ever for some) heard about.

The author (above) makes a statement that would be repudiated by most today. “St. Paul makes no difference between the vilest profligate and the fairest moralist, but ranks all without exception under the list of reprobates who have not Jesus Christ in them.” There it is, straight to the issue without a lot of nice words to make it more palatable. A person can be just like Adolph Hitler or even the man himself or be the most outwardly moral person on the planet, but both are on the same list and both will go to the same devil’s hell if they don’t have Jesus Christ in them. If Christ lives in a person that person will not be like Hitler or anything like that, but the person’s “morality” will not come from the love of self and the love of the applause of men, but instead it will come from love for Christ. This true morality will also come from the life of Christ in the soul and as such the strength will come from grace.

The most dangerous infidels are not the most open infidels. There is a set of men, who persuade themselves that they believe Christianity, whilst in truth they are reasoning Christianity quite out of doors.

What pains do some parents take to teach their children the catechism, to make them repeat prayers night and morning, and to bring them to church, perhaps to sacrament, who yet would be very uneasy and much displeased to see those children become real children of God, living by faith above the world.   Sir Richard Hill

Both quotes from above come from the same type of unregenerate heart that longs for religion, but just not God Himself and the true religion that flows from heaven through and by the true Christ. The first quote is quite consistent with many college and seminary professors and many ministers as well. One does not have to really and truly believe from a regenerate heart to believe certain things about Christianity while denying the very life of it. There appears to be many brilliant men that wear the robes of scholarship within Christendom and perhaps many more who are in the ministry, yet they hate true Christianity and use their scholarship and their pulpits to reason true Christianity away. There is a huge difference between the external forms and rituals of Christianity and the inward aspect of Life Himself who dwells in the souls of His people.

It is one thing to say words in front of people, but it is another thing to pray to the living God from a heart full of true life. It is one thing to preach the words of a text to people, but it is quite another to preach the living Christ out of love for Him and His glory. It is one thing to deal with a text in a way that a scholar (believer and/or unbeliever) will approve of, but it is quite another to deal with a text in a way that God approves of. It is one thing to deal with a text according to a way that humanistic scholarship will accept, but it is quite another to deal with a text out of love for God and His glory shining through Christ. Expositional preaching, writing, and studying can all be done from dead and unregenerate hearts. It is not possible to educate a person enough to regenerate them. It is not possible for good scholarship to regenerate people. Unregenerate hearts will reason the true nature of God and His glory down to a level where it is acceptable to scholarship, but also simply an abomination to God.

It is far easier to train children up in the ways of formal and ritual religion than it is to point them to Christ who alone can regenerate them. Children from a formal religion may indeed behave better in some ways than those who are not raised that way, but that may only make them closer to hell if they learn to trust in false religion and hate the truth of Christ. Getting children to say words in memorized prayers is easy while true prayer is impossible to train them in. What Sir Richard Hill may be getting at, then, is that it may be the case that parents who are very religious and very formal in what they are doing may indeed be training their children in the same formal and ritualistic way that they were trained. It is part of their formal and ritualistic religion to train their children up in that way.

What we must see, however, is that formal and ritualistic religion hates true Christianity even if it is going under that name. Parents who teach and train their children in the formal and ritualistic ways of religion hate true Christianity and they are training their children out of that hatred. They would not and could not be pleased to see their children turn from the false religion that they have raised them in and turn in love to Christ which they hate. Let us beware of what we approve of. If we approve of the way parents raise their children when they train them in the catechism and in strict formal and moralistic ways, what we may actually be approving is hatred of true Christianity and of the true and living God.

True Christianity may have some forms and some rituals, but Christ Himself living in His people as their life is the heart of true Christianity. One can memorize a catechism (any one or all) and not know Christ. One can say prayers all day and night and still not know Christ or be known by Christ. True Christianity lives by the life of Christ and Christ Himself is a person’s righteousness and sanctification. True Christianity is about the living Christ and not about studying things about Him or saying words in a general direction. True Christianity is about worship in spirit as well as truth. God Himself loves the humble and the contrite that are nothing but instruments of His glory, not those who think they can please Him by what they do.

Heart-searching preaching, where it does not convince, is sure to offend. Nothing is so cutting to an unrenewed heart, especially where there is a decent outside, as to have its rottenness exposed, its refuge of lies swept away, and the pillow of forms, whereon it was sleeping, removed from under the head. Whosoever attempts this must expect to see the old man rise and fume, since to approve the real Christian, and the real truth, would cause the Pharisee to condemn himself.   Sir Richard Hill

The prophets in the Old Testament spoke of the false prophets who spoke soothing words and Paul spoke of those who loved teachers who tickled their ears. This tickling of the ear can come in many forms. This tickling of the ear can be an entertaining type of preacher who is humorous or tells stories though they are disguised as illustrations. The tickling of the ear can be a libertine who does not condemn any sin and says all will be saved. The tickling of the ear preacher can be one that is orthodox in creed, but simply never speaks to the heart. The tickling of the ear preacher can be one that is extremely moral in the external sense and preaches on that, but the people are also that way and so they are never disturbed. The tickling of the ear preacher can be an exposition preacher who simply speaks of the text but never really reaches the heart of the people and so the people learn things about the Bible but are never disturbed.

A type of preaching that reaches the heart, on the other hand, is quite offensive to people who have unrenewed hearts and yet are moral on the outside. While virtually all preaching in the modern day appears to be planned to stay away from the hearts of people and leave them undisturbed, this is not what preaching should be. Preaching for the point of gaining knowledge or increasing morality is not Christianity, but instead the reign and rule of Christ is. Preaching in order to drive sinners from all hope and help from self so that they would see that Christ is the only hope is Christianity. Preaching the glory of God in all things and especially shining in the face of Christ is Christianity. Preaching the Gospel of grace alone and how God saves sinners to the glory of His own name is Christianity. But again, this is to say that true Christianity is rare in our day.

The heart of man rests on something for his hope and confidence at all times. If the sinner is sleeping on his rituals and forms and creeds as his confidence for salvation and someone comes along and sweeps those things away, the sinner will most likely be very angry as opposed to being thankful. This sinner was disturbed and now he has a lot of work to do to in order to rebuild his hope if at all. The sinner’s enmity toward God and the glory of His grace in the Gospel has been stirred up. The picture that Willcox gives is that of a person sleeping on a pillow of forms. We can also imagine that this is a very think pillow and when it is yanked out the person’s head lands on a hard object with a fair amount of force and as such is a very rude awakening. Such is the person that is resting on forms and rituals when that person has his or her heart searched during the preaching of the Word.

Willcox also gives the picture of a person that has a decent outside, which is to say that the person lives a moral life and thinks of self as a righteous person. This person can also be one that attends an orthodox church and hears the Bible preached in an expositional manner, but the heart is never touched. So the person thinks that s/he is orthodox because s/he agrees with the creed in an intellectual way and lives a moral life. But this person has never had his or her heart shredded and exposed to see what is really there. This person can simply believe some orthodox things in the intellect and live a moral life because it has its advantages and because it convinces that person that this is the fruit of true faith. There is nothing inconsistent about people like that and hearts that are unregenerate and at enmity with God.

The person in the previous paragraph has built a rotten edifice of some kind and is standing on that edifice of his or her own works and has no idea that it is rotten and will collapse at any moment. This type of person thinks that s/he is in great safety and is quite confident that s/he is converted. When a preacher begins to open the meaning of the Scriptures from a spiritual sense and begin to search hearts with it, the rotten edifice is seen and this moral person begins to see self and its rotten edifice in a totally different light. This type of person will hate to think of self as a rotten sinner with no hope of salvation in self and all of the lies that the unregenerate heart has taken refuge is shown to be nothing but a lie. This person is awakened with a start and sees that it is walking on rotten wood and is about to plunge through it. This person will respond with anger and perhaps get very nasty. But this just goes to show that genuine Christianity is quite rare. There are many orthodox moralists dead in their forms.