Counting the manifold cost of being a disciple is the dark side of following the Lord, if it may be called that; it is a parcel of truth that is as lost, especially in the West, as the lost tribes of Israel are falsely supposed to be (Acts 26.7; James 1.1.) Moreover, prospects like privation, excommunication, desertion, and persecution are not as attractive to sinners as are promises of wealth, health, acceptance, miracles, and popularity. Worldly ministers who accumulate income and admirers instead of steadfast followers of Jesus Christ, have themselves not counted the cost in the way that a would-be disciple should. Their final reward will not be a pass into heaven, but the penalty of hell. Their sole purpose will be to magnify the justice and holiness of God by their perpetual burning in brimstone. And they, being blind leaders of the blind, will magnify these divine attributes more than most, and from the deeper, hotter parts of hell. Any sinner who has taken the Christian label in order to have something of the world to count, be it money, approval, admiration, or what have you, will be unveiled as an opportunist who should have counted the cost instead. False professors, if they know themselves so to be, have the Bible and prayer for their means of grace unto salvation. If they will not turn to these means and to godly sermons also, then the next best thing for them to do is to renounce their profession of faith, give up whatever sins they are able to turn from without the special grace of God to assist, and live as morally as they can in their own strength. This is different from working for salvation, and incurring debt thereby (Romans 4.4.) No doubt debts will pile up even without trying to merit salvation by good works. But renunciation of Christianity is better than the Christianity of pretence, and may contribute to a mitigation of misery in hell. “Nor do we know the measure of the ‘riches of God’s grace and mercy;’ how far he may think fit to exert it beyond the conditions and promises of the new covenant, at least to the lessening of such a person’s misery in another state” (Bishop Burnet, A Discourse of the Pastoral Care, p. 134.) That is to say, the less a person sins, the less he will be punished; if he throws off his hypocrisy, his hell will be less hellish. What we profess and how we live are matters that will affect us forever. There are degrees of status to come for the saved; there are degrees of torments to come for the damned. Equality of outcome is an ungodly, impracticable, socialist daydream; this is why it will have no place in the divine system of adjudication. Belief will be weighed against infidelity, hypocrisy against apostasy, merits against demerits, and good deeds against bad.
Disciples are called the ‘salt of the earth’ by the Lord (Matthew 5.13.) They are a good savor to society; they preserve the morals of a nation. Like salt that has lost its savor, conversely, a false disciple is less than useless; tasteless and preserving nothing, he will be cast out. He is like the lukewarm Laodicean, of whom the Lord says, “I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3.16.) He is good for nothing, in the end, not even for a dunghill. His kind of salt “is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out” (Luke 14.35.) An impulsive professor of faith who neglects to count the cost is a professor with a heart of stone, not flesh. He is not the salt of the earth. He is so far short of being a good savor to society and a moral preservative, that he is not even fit to fertilize the ground. When a faithful preacher sows his gospel seed (Luke 8.5), therefore, and a good plant springs up, the yield will not be on account of any dead salt that was cast in with the fertilizer. The professor of faith who has not counted the cost will have had nothing to do with any good result from his own evangelism or anyone else’s. He needs himself to be evangelized. But he is a hypocrite; and a hypocrite hates nothing more than to be told that he is not a father in Israel, even though he is not born again, much less a babe in Christ. He needs to be saved; but he takes it as an insult if you tell him so.
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” How can a tower get finished by someone who only thinks he’s building it? Or to ask a question by the use of the next illustration in Jesus’ argument: How can a person win a war when he only thinks he’s in the fight? Or to ask one by the use of a figure of speech from Paul: How can a person win a race who only fancies himself a runner? The warning to count the cost is for persons who have not been born again; it is for the purpose of preventing sinners from becoming hypocrites: from becoming twofold more the children of hell than they presently are (Matthew 23.15.) The warning is also a stimulus to Christians—for them to be pricked to live up to their profession. It would do each disciple good to be driven by the Spirit to count the cost from every conceivable angle. ‘Lead us not into temptation’—this is our prayer. But ‘help us to make our calling and election sure’—that should follow. If that prayer is answered, either our hypocrisy will be exposed, or we will gain a blessed assurance of salvation. With assurance or without it, it is certain that a dedicated life of separation from the world and sin is the way of laying up treasures in heaven. The more dedicated the life, the more treasures laid up; the more treasures laid up, the more rewards and responsibilities hereafter; the more of that, the more joy in, and glory to, God.
The absence of privation, excommunication, desertion, and persecution in the life of a professing disciple is something that should make him suspicious of the state of his soul. In the apostles’ time, some payment would soon be exacted for professing Christ. Whether the cost has really been counted may be harder to determine in a time of peace and prosperity. With peace and prosperity, however, come declension in churches; in the setting of a declining church, the true disciple will be found out, and he will be defied and defamed. The world, moreover, will show its hatred of him, if not by throwing him to the lions, then by obstructing his way in whatever arena he sets his foot in. There is always a way to tell if you have counted the cost.
