PART I, ARTICLE III: LIVING FOR THE KINGDOM; OR, A LIFESTYLE MANIFESTO, SECTION II

The theme of the passage that I have chosen to call, Living for the Kingdom, is widely and firmly upheld by the rest of the New Testament. This ethical passage is for members of the Church today. Its principles are presently applicable.

In Matthew 6.19-34 we have instruction from Jesus on the lifestyle of a disciple. The climax of the passage highlights the pattern’s aim, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6.33.) There are two topics addressed in the lifestyle pattern: treasures and essentials. For each one a principle is given by which to bring about the desired end. These principles are: fixing the eye, and fixing the mind. Disciples of Jesus ought to live lives that reflect the dominion that God is said to have over them. They are commanded to live under God’s dominion, in light of his kingdom to come. By properly fixing their eyes and mind, God’s will may be done in their lives, his blessed dominion may reflect outward to onlookers, and his kingdom will be made attractive to at least some of the sinners who are eating, drinking, and making merry on their way to hell. 

Before looking at the passage of which Matthew 6.33 is a part, an important qualification must be solicited from another part of Scripture. In Acts 5 the right to private property, and therefore of its disposal as the owner sees fit, is unmistakably affirmed. Ananias and Sapphira are not reproved for not giving all their property away, but for lying about doing so. “Whiles it remained, was it not thine own?” A justification for confiscation cannot be gotten from Scripture ‘whiles’ Acts 5 remains a part of the New Testament. Any law requiring any person to give anything that he owns is not a biblical law. Persuasion is the only medium that the New Testament endorses with respect to what a Christian should or should not own. There is an obligation to pay taxes; that is another matter. A Christian may become as rich as he wants to become. No one has the biblical right to stop him. The question is: Should he pursue this course? A Christian may pursue this course in order to procure the means to bless the less fortunate. The question is: Is he really motivated by a desire to relieve the poor? A Christian might become rich by way of inheritance, reward for service in his calling, or even by accident. The question then is not: How should his money be wrenched from him? The question is: What is the Holy Ghost prompting him, through his devotional exercises, to do with his gains? And what progress is he making, while rich, in a religious sense? Are millionaires more attached to, or more detached from, their Bibles? We all know the answer to that question. You know of an exception? The exception proves the rule. Televangelists are rich; but they are, for the most part, prosperity promoters, not Bible teachers. These Bible wavers are seldom Bible lovers; and rarely are they ‘heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ’ (Romans 8.17.) Televangelists are not entirely bad; no one is; this is why my remarks on them are qualified. As wrong on eschatology as Jack Van Impe was, nonetheless he was used by the Lord to draw me into God’s kingdom.

PART I, ARTICLE III: LIVING FOR THE KINGDOM; OR, A LIFESTYLE MANIFESTO, SECTION I

 

After spotting neat divisions between subjects in the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, I stopped to develop what I discerned was a manifesto for living the Christian life. The basic teaching in the passage that I worked up contains the doctrinal incentive for minimalist living. Practical necessities make minimalist living somewhat idealistic in a climate as cold as Canada is. But a pilgrim on his way to heaven should at least appear to be a sojourner more than a settler because the kingdom that he is a member of, is, as the Lord says, ‘not of this world.’  

Introduction

‘Kingdom’ is an enormous biblical theme. It is a multi-faceted subject that does not yield to a linear framework. The dominant kingdoms of the Old Testament are Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Israel, and Judah. The dominant, nearly exclusive, kingdom in the New Testament is called the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. These two terms may have particular and associate definitions; but they are generally interchangeable. We can be certain of this: The New Testament kingdom is the sphere of God’s dominion over his creatures, his special dominion in the hearts of his children, and the future rule of God everywhere and everlastingly. The kingdom is internal; the kingdom is external; the kingdom has come; the kingdom is present; and the kingdom is yet to arrive. All of this is true; all of this is relevant. The disciple of Jesus Christ is under the dominion of God, not only as a creature, but as a child through saving grace, anticipating the establishment of his government around the world in the hearts of his elected ones, and then everywhere else, in one form or another, in the never-ending hereafter. The literal one thousand year reign of Jesus Christ on earth that some Christians look forward to is likely not going to happen, as this belief seems insupportable. I used to believe in a literal reign on earth of that duration. Though I do not believe in it anymore, I am not dogmatically opposed to the possibility that I am wrong. It would be naïve to say otherwise, for even to the most serious Bible student, and maybe especially for him, the minutiae of eschatology is, if not more fluid than fixed, then fluid to a degree at least. And yes, even one thousand years is a minor matter compared to the full scope of history and the Lord’s everlasting reign. In any case, this article is not about eschatology, but about living for the kingdom right now, regardless of whether or not we are headed for a thousand years of peace on earth before the final separation between good and evil occurs at the judgment. Right now a disciple has the kingdom of God inside him, which is in continual conflict with sin, the world, and the devil; he strives to live for God’s kingdom in light of the fact that everything that is presently opposed to it will soon be entirely beaten down and forever put away. 

“Neither shall they say, lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17.21.) This is the kingdom to be acquainted with. Lo! can it be found inside of us? Lo! are we conscious of God’s dominion in our soul, especially as we live in the midst of, and as we face, the godless kingdoms of this world? “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1.11.) Immediately preceding this verse is a warning to diligently make sure that we have, indeed, been called to faith in Christ. And preceding this are the fruits by which we may test the authenticity of our profession of faith. Have we been elected to glory by grace? Have we begun to live for God through faith in Jesus Christ? If virtue has been added to our profession, plus knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love (verses 5-7)—and if we have been extricated from worldly corruption (verse 4)—then the kingdom of God does indeed reside inside of us, and we shall have ministered unto us an entrance into God’s glorious kingdom. It behooves us to make sure that we are on our way toward ultimately entering in. The kingdom of the beast is full of darkness spiritually. Because of this it will be full of darkness judicially (Revelation 16.10.) Unless the kingdom of God gets inside of us, our kingdom must be of this beastly character, and our destiny will be to endure darkness forever.          

In the Old Testament, a kingdom on earth is promised by God to Israel; for many years, though intermittently and to various degrees, the children of Israel enjoyed it. In the New Testament, the Son of David offers the kingdom of God (salvation) to Israel with the words, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4.17.) The Jews, refusing to turn from their sins, rejected their King, and the Scriptures say that “through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy” (Romans 11.11.) Thus it was that the New Testament Church was born into God’s kingdom. This turn of events was neither accidental nor reactionary. Why is Abraham called the father of the faithful? (Romans 4.16.) Genealogically, Jesus of Nazareth, the object of faith, may be traced back to Father Abraham. It was prophesied that through Abraham ‘all families of the earth’ would be blessed (Genesis 12.3.) The blessing comes through Jesus Christ, who loved, initiated, and gave himself for, the Church (Ephesians 5.2, 25.) 

Dispensationalists are wrong to assert that Jesus was extending a political kingdom to Israel when he declared that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The kingdom that Jesus offered was ‘not of this world’ (John 18.36.) This is why when certain men attempted to ‘make him a king,’ he ‘departed’ (John 6.15.) It had been prophesied that he would be a sacrificial victim, not a revolutionary. The Jews did not see this in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. The Messiah they had in mind was not one who would be compassed by dogs, pierced in his hands and feet, despised and rejected, and forsaken by God. The Messiah they looked for was not one who would be wounded for the transgressions of others and led as a lamb to the slaughter. They were not hoping for that kind of Messiah. The Jews were wrong in the Messiah they hoped for; the Dispensationalists are wrong in what they say the Messiah offered and the Jews rejected. Jesus did not offer a political kingdom; and the Jews did not reject the setting up of one. The kingdom at hand through the ministry of Jesus was the kingdom of God within, which could only be obtained through the miracle of regeneration.     

Entrance into the kingdom is by the new birth. Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John. 3:3.) The reign of God within is a new beginning for penitent sinners born into God’s kingdom. The sinner who is born again today, whether he is a Jew or a Gentile, becomes a member of the Church, under God’s dominion, and will enjoy the kingdom of God everlastingly, subsequent to the great judgment. This kingdom is spoken of from the Gospels to Revelation. Persons who have received the Spirit and who are led by the Spirit are called ‘heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ’ (Romans 8:17.) Heirs participate in a reign: “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him [Christ Jesus],” wrote Paul to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:12.) The apostle Peter called the elect of God ‘a royal priesthood’ (1 Peter 1.2; 2:9.) So these heirs are both royal and holy. “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Revelation 1:5, 6.)  

Near the close of Revelation, the apostle John discloses some final thoughts about this reign; unfortunately, his words have often been taken inflexibly and superficially, because out of context.  “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (Revelation 20.6.) These ‘thousand years’ may seem, on the surface, like a specific reference to a distinct theocratic-political reign on earth for a particular amount of time. And this ‘first resurrection’ seems literal as well. However, since the book of Revelation has been falsely interpreted, even by cautious exegetes, for two thousand years, we should have become wise enough by now, when treating this last book of God’s word, to focus on principles more than seasons and times. We should be especially wise after so many predictions have been proven false since the rebirth of Israel as a nation in 1948 and since the Six-Day War of 1967. Both of these dates have been used by prophecy pundits as watersheds from which to predict when all the ‘last things’ of Revelation will occur. By the reckoning of so many ‘end-time’ aficionados, we should by now be enjoying the reign of peace on earth with Jesus ruling from the sacred city. If we were to go back near the brink of 2000 A. D., take these prognosticators seriously, and then come back, we should right now be on the other side of a Y2K disaster, the rapture, and the great tribulation, enjoying worldwide peace through a blessed rule of iron from Jerusalem. Listen to old recordings of Jack Van Impe, for example, and see. During the mid to late nineties, I listened to him regularly. I remember well what this man taught. Has anyone been raptured? Has a millennium of perfect peace begun? No, but what is happening? Through political malfeasance, Europe is being invaded by Muslim migrants; half the population of America is resisting a Constitutional president (Donald Trump); Canada, through its Liberal prime minister (Justin Trudeau), is determined to be as socialist as Cuba and as post-national as Germany; the globalists are behind it all, overruling national sovereignty everywhere they can; and the peoples of Europe and North America are at risk of being economically crushed by the rising cost of sustaining border jumpers and by being made to pay additional taxes through hoaxes like global warming. Why are Western countries being flooded with uncivilized migrants? On the surface it’s about politicians collecting a voting bloc and foolishly supposing that uneducated, opportunistic third-world people will peacefully assimilate and one day contribute more money in taxes than they cost the taxpayer. Below the surface it’s about financial corruption and blackmail. On another level it’s about God using the invasion as a method to judge Westerners for their sins of blasphemy, idolatry, abortion, adultery, fornication, perversity, and acts of wickedness generally. Western nations have become, practically speaking, atheistic. If God demonstrated his intolerance of idolatry and polytheism in Old Testament times, why should we believe that he will tolerate practical atheism today? If we live as if God doesn’t exist, why should God permit us to prosper, endure, or even survive? We are not basking in a matter-of-fact millennium of peace; the millennium of worldwide peace is not at the door, near the door, or approaching the door. It seems more rational now, to read the Bible as if an imminent rapture and a subsequent thousand year reign on earth are imaginary. The kingdom of God is not a millennium of absolute peace on earth, and probably not a literal millennium. We should consider other options of how to interpret such events as great tribulation, the first resurrection, and a thousand years. Whatever one might believe concerning the ‘great tribulation’ that recent prophecy experts have no doubt misinformed us on, there is a kind of tribulation that each and every Christian must prepare himself to face. We like to gather up and stack promises from the Bible, don’t we? Why not claim the following one? “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16.33.) Tribulation should mark the Christian, and authenticate his profession of faith. There is such a thing as to have companions in tribulation (Revelation 1.9.) The kingdom of God is through tribulation’s door (Acts 14.22.) Until we figure out what the ‘great tribulation’ of Revelation 7.14 refers to, and even after we think it to be figured out, we had better be focusing on this other tribulation that we know for sure that Christians are promised to have to suffer through. Otherwise we will be undone when calamity strikes or when we are attacked for being Christian; in fact, without preparing for, and experiencing, tribulation, we shall be discomfited if the ‘great tribulation’ happens during our lifetime. As for the ‘first resurrection’ of Revelation 20.6, is it true that it refers to the dead in Christ rising first, and immediately after that every living Christian? (1 Thessalonians 4.16, 17.) We should grant that resurrection often means regeneration in Scripture, and that therefore it might be possible that this resurrection is called ‘first’ in Revelation 20.6 in order to distinguish a spiritual resurrection (regeneration) from the actual resurrection of the body that must happen later. There are many verses to choose from to show that to be risen is not always to have one’s body given life from the dead. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Colossians 3.1.) To seek those things which are above, we must be still below; indeed, the Colossians were not risen from the dead bodily when they received this letter of exhortation. They had been regenerated, born again from being spiritually dead. Each regenerate sinner should be seeking those things which are above, as the church at Colossae was encouraged to do. In consideration of the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20.6, we should know that the book of Revelation is of the apocalyptic-allegorical genre, as is much of the book of Daniel, and as are sections from the book of Isaiah. The book of Revelation is by nature figurative. Therefore, just as the lion eating straw like the bullock (Isaiah 65.25) might be meant figuratively, as denoting, not a change of palate, but a transition from instability to peace (examine the context and see), is it not possible that the thousand years of Revelation 20 could mean something else than a number of years that make up one thousand? In Scripture, a lion does not always mean a lion. Jesus is called ‘the Lion of the tribe of Juda’ (Revelation 5.5.) Is it not possible that the lion of Isaiah 65 is not a real lion? A lion eating straw is about as improbable as the promise that we shall literally ‘tread upon the lion’ and the ‘dragon’ (Psalm 91.13.) Who supposes that he will tread on actual lions and dragons? Obviously, we do not need to advert to apocalyptic texts in order to prove the use of figurative speech in Scripture. But why stop at the Psalms? Job 9.3: “If he will contend with him [God], he cannot answer him one of a thousand.” If by this thousand is meant an actual thousand times, we can answer back to God the time after that, and we can prosper by doing so. The number thousand here is plainly meant to inform us that we can never successfully contend with God. If God owns ‘the cattle upon a thousand hills’ (Psalm 50.10), does this mean that the cattle on the rest of the hills are not at his disposal? The number thousand in this verse signifies ‘everything.’ In the same vein, ‘a day in thy courts is better than a thousand’ (Psalm 84.10) is a way of pointing to an infinite number. The same is true of the ‘thousand generations’ mentioned in Psalm 105.8. Could the one thousand years in Revelation 20 not be figurative, then? Maybe it isn’t. But couldn’t it? A glance at the number thousand in the concordance should convince anyone that the figurative use of that number could be shown to occur ‘a thousand times’ in the Bible. Is it necessary to tell the reader to take this last sentence figuratively? A child reading his Bible might think that Saul slew his actual thousands, but that David slew his actual ten thousands (1 Samuel 18.7.) But the adult knows that this is part of a song that certain women sang because they favored David over Saul. The Holy Ghost never intended anyone to believe those numbers were actual. If the number thousand is used figuratively even in a historical book, will we not grant that the number could be used figuratively in the most figurative book in the Bible? We are gone aside, in any case, if all we can see of the kingdom of God is a thousand year reign of peace on earth. Prophecy programs have led us for years to believe things that have not, and will not, come to pass. Maybe one of those things is the kingdom of God on earth in the sense of this literal millennium of peace. When we see the modern prophecy seers failing in their predictions, why do we not question their mode of interpreting Scripture? Jack Van Impe (nicknamed ‘The Walking Bible’), in his own indirect but emphatic way, predicted that Juan Carlos, former King of Spain, was the Antichrist in waiting. That prophecy never materialized, and it never will. Could the great Jack Van Impe, along with his companions in trade, have errantly interpreted Scripture? Isn’t it wise to distrust a man’s use of Revelation if that man has falsely predicted that the King of Spain would be the Antichrist and that his performing this role was so imminent as to be at hand, even at the door? This king abdicated in 2014. It seems certain that he will die before fulfilling the role of Antichrist. Jack Van Impe and other Millenarians were wrong about the Antichrist, the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, Babylon, Armageddon, and so on, but especially the Millennium.   

The persons who are said in Revelation 20 to ‘live and reign with Christ a thousand years’ are persons who were ‘beheaded’ for the witness of Jesus (verse 4.) They are disembodied. The emphasis here, then, is living and reigning with Christ in heaven, not on earth. So the thousand years is likely a figurative period of time to indicate a reign in heaven while matters come to their conclusion on earth. ‘The first resurrection’ of verse 6 right here refers to regeneration: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” This kind of resurrection (regeneration), then, suits these disembodied souls of verse 4: “I saw the souls of them that were beheaded.” These disembodied souls have no resurrected bodies yet. The souls of these persons have been regenerated; but their bodies have not been resurrected. They will get their bodies back after the thousand years (in heaven) have ended, at which time the Lord will come back to judge the quick and the dead. So what is the ‘first resurrection’ that ‘the second death’ has no power over? (verse 6.) It is regeneration. What is the second resurrection? It is the resurrection of the body. “He, therefore, who would not be damned in the second resurrection, let him rise in the first” (Augustine, The City of God, 20.6.) Resurrection sometimes means regeneration in Scripture. And at least once regeneration means something else than being born again (Matthew 19.28.) Recognition of distinctions like these helps to clear up our foggy understanding of Scripture, not the least of which includes our hazy view of eschatology. “The evangelist John has spoken of these two resurrections in the book which is called the Apocalypse, but in such a way that some Christians do not understand the first of the two, and so construe the passage into ridiculous fancies” (Augustine, The City of God, 20.7.) Why does it speak of beheading in Revelation 20? It may be a general term to indicate the disembodiment of souls upon death. And it certainly denotes a mode of death that many Christians were suffering in the first century when John’s apocalyptic letter was written. John the Baptist was beheaded. James the brother of John was beheaded. The apostle Paul was beheaded. And so we see how encouraging this Revelation must have been to the Church in that day. These disembodied souls were now safe in heaven with Jesus Christ for a thousand years; that is, until the consummation of things on earth. And of course this good news implied to Christians then living that they had an everlasting consolation to look forward to, no matter how they died or no matter how they were martyred. Upon death these Christians, for a thousand blessed years, would join in voice with the martyred throngs in heaven: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6.10.)        

I once believed that heaven itself would be interrupted to usher in the millennium of worldwide peace on earth. In fact, this very article was of that opinion before this revision of it years later. I had used the following quote from Oswald J. Smith, an author/hymn writer, to lend support to my belief: “I used to think I would some time die and go to Heaven, there to be with God throughout Eternity. Now I know that I am to spend a thousand years upon this earth....” (The Voice of Prophecy, p. 65.) I used to think as Oswald Smith thought, but now am convinced that we both were wrong. As Christians going about to live for God, we ought to be charitable toward our fellow believers, for there is nothing more likely than that we, at some point in our pilgrimage, will err concerning the nature and timing of God’s kingdom. The Church is a ‘royal priesthood’ (1 Peter 2.9.) Even members of this royal nobility will disagree amongst themselves about when they will actually take possession of ‘all things’ (1 Corinthians 3.21) and what these ‘all things’ are.     

That God will increase his kingdom and establish it broadly is certain. How can the future be otherwise with an omnipotent loving God? But life on earth might never include a literal millennium of peace on earth. Tares and wheat, or infidels and converts, grow together in mixed multitudes until the end. “Let both grow together until the harvest” (Matthew 13.30.) The former tries to choke out the latter as the latter strives to receive light and heat from above. The devil interrupted the dominion that God gave to Adam and Eve; under the permission of God, Satan subsequently assumed a qualified, controlled authority over the kingdoms of the world; and the kingdom of God grows gradually in the world nevertheless, on the strength of what Jesus Christ accomplished in his life and on the cross. Indeed it has grown particularly and significantly since Jesus’ ministry on earth, as we know from Church history, among the Gentile nations. This historical fact informs the clause about the devil in Revelation 20.3: ‘that he should deceive the nations no more.’ And so the promise to Abraham has been in the process of fulfillment: “In thee shall all nations be blessed” (Galatians 3.8.) This is the growing kingdom of God, even among heathen nations all over the world. This kingdom will become as filled as God has ordained from eternity, until near the end of the world when the devil is permitted to deceive the nations one last time for ‘a little season’ (Revelation 20.3, 8); in other words, to cause widespread apostasy among Gentile nations where the gospel has been, by thousands and even millions, received in former times. This Adversary opposes the dominion of God, and has only one battlefield where he can, with God’s permission and to a degree, be victorious. Even his victories, however, happen through the will of God to accomplish what God has ordained to happen from eternity past. Whatever the devil thinks to have won will become ‘the chaff which the wind driveth away’ (Psalm 1.4), while for the saints it will be finally seen, not merely believed, that ‘all things work together for good’ (Romans 8.28.)  The devil’s warfare is directed at the kingdom of God in the daily life of each disciple. The saint’s faith in Christ is more or less perfected depending on the degree of his resistance to Satan, and his perseverance to live up to his holy titles of priest and king under God. That all things work together for good does not mean that each disciple does as good as he could. “If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3.14, 15.) It is much more important that we live for the kingdom—and that we live for it as obediently as we can—than to be bothered and busied about its future location and duration. To live in light of the kingdom is to live for our King.   

The lifestyle practiced by the Christian demonstrates the dominion that God has over him. If the Christian does not live as the word of God orders him to live, God’s dominion is not only less surrendered to than it should be, it is less visible in the eyes of the sinners that the Christian hopes to draw into God’s kingdom. A testimony may be a verbal statement; but it is, more importantly, a daily exhibition. 

“And his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth” (Zechariah 9.10; Psalm 72.8.) Whether this verse points to a worldwide administration of peace for a thousand years, or to the introduction of the gospel into the world, in either case the children of God are presently under the rule of God in a world of evil. As I said, I will not dogmatize against the possibility of a future worldwide rule by God in the person of Jesus Christ for a thousand literal years on this present earth; however, right beside Zechariah 9.10 is a prophecy whose fulfillment is now long past, of a certain King riding ‘upon a colt the foal of an ass’ (verse 9.) As foretold by the prophet Zechariah, “Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written” (John 12.14.) If our chief concern should be the demonstration of God’s dominion over us, then his dominion from one end of our heart to the other should be the kingdom that we are most concerned to establish. Any kingdom that is yet future will not refuse to come while we are occupied with extending the one inside of us. 

The kingdom of God is within each follower of Christ. When speculating on the kingdom of God ‘to come,’ are we not standing in need of hearing what Jesus told the Pharisees? “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation,” he said. “Neither shall they say, lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17.20, 21.) This does not mean that there is no kingdom other than this internal one. Jesus’ use of absolute language, though, means that this inner kingdom so concerns us that it is as if no other kingdom exists that we should be paying attention to. Only through our possession of this kingdom will we possess any other. Present ownership is the beginning and evidence of the eternity of peace that will follow. As Christians, we have an inheritance within us. Shall we appear to the world as heirs waiting for a kingdom to be ushered in? Or shall we also look as though our kingdom has come? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addressed the subject of present lifestyle with respect to future glory. The Sermon is not the gospel for the lost, and not a rule of life for a kingdom to come, but an ethical code—a code of conduct—for disciples presently. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as in heaven” (Matthew 6.10.) There is a kingdom to come as well as a kingdom within. But how may we help God’s will to be done until the future kingdom comes? We get the will of God done by doing his will—by obeying the rules that are explicitly imparted to the heirs of God. By the parable of the pounds, Jesus taught his disciples to occupy in light of his return. Jesus, like ‘the nobleman’ in the parable, was about to go ‘into a far country’; that is, up to heaven, maybe for a long time, maybe for a ‘thousand’ years. “And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, occupy till I come” (Luke 19.13.) The kingdom to come is a couple of thousand years closer than it was in the days of the first disciples. But like they did, we must occupy as conscientiously as we can while we patiently wait for the consummation of this probationary period. No generation of Christians, perhaps, than the one that is now passing away, has been more convinced that it would witness Jesus return bodily from heaven to set everything right and to start off a literal thousand years of peace on earth. No generation has produced more books on prophecy that have been so wrong. If this generation of Christians had really been living for the kingdom, such books would never have been read, much less believed.

PART I, ARTICLE II: COUNTING THE COST, SECTION VI

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.

PART I, ARTICLE II: COUNTING THE COST, SECTION V

Persecution 

In 2018, our Canadian Liberal government denied summer jobs grants to professing Christians and moralists. The prime minister accomplished this persecution by requiring all applicants to declare that they respect abortion and an assortment of other evils, which conscientious pro-life advocates would not do. Even though there have been times when the persecution of saints has been minimal, as in this case of denying grants, the norm is persecution of a more extreme degree. Men are born in sin. They are born with a proclivity to commit sin. It is consistent with their sin nature to take offense at calls to repent, the presence of righteousness, and especially Spirit-filled preaching of an apostolic character. Therefore there is persecution. 

Silence from God in a trying time is the worst thing that a saint can endure. Desertion, then, is good preparation for persecution; persecution, in turn, is the surest way out of desertion. It is the surest way, because then the face of God is sought as never before. The saint is likely to hear the voice of God during persecution more than at any other time. Of persecuted brethren on their way to grisly deaths, John Foxe relates, “The faithful proceeded with cheerful steps…the others [who had denied the Saviour during tortures] went on dejected, spiritless, and forlorn” (John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Volume I, p. 686.) Infinitely better is it than hell, to suffer desertion by God and persecution at the hands of men on our way to heaven, especially considering that where severe persecution begins, the comforting presence of God is more likely than at any other time. “But there shall not an hair of your head perish” (Luke 21.18.) The meaning is that all things work together for good for persons for whom death is termed ‘sleep in Jesus’ (1 Thessalonians 4.14.) For them the sting of death has been absorbed by their Saviour; it is as if they do not die, Christ having died in their place. If they are martyred, they are merely put to sleep, as it were, so safe for a good eternity that even the hairs of their heads are accounted for. If the would-be disciple counts the cost, even the hairs of his head will be counted by God both here and hereafter, and each one preserved.        

Shedding blood is a popular response to preaching, and the presence of God in, or about, saints. It was popular before the time of Jesus Christ, even ‘from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias’ (Luke 11.51.) It has been popular since Jesus Christ prophesied tribulation to his disciples. “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake” (Luke 21.17.) All four gospel records include some version of this prediction. Persecution is a cost that every would-be disciple should count on. We used to laugh and scoff in our platoon room at the possibility of going to war. The idea seemed absurd. About a dozen years after that, men from that very platoon (not me) were fighting in Afghanistan. Saints can go from enjoying peace to suffering persecution just as surprisingly as that. Our churches would be persecuted much more than they are if our pastors actually preached the gospel, and reproved sin as boldly as John the Baptist did just before he was beheaded. We are not greatly persecuted; the reason is that our gospel is not greatly preached. In fact, it is hardly preached. What is our gospel nowadays but something other than a Christological proclamation? A gospel without Christ is no gospel. And what is no gospel but a false gospel? What are pastors without a gospel but false prophets? Imagine the uproar if, after so much niceness and negligence among pastors, a bold man of God began suddenly to preach as he ought? Cowardly pastors make it hard on faithful preachers who, we hope, are on their way. 

Much persecution is going on in the Middle East against professing Christians: in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq particularly. Their villages are destroyed; their livelihoods are rendered impossible to practice; some are kidnapped and raped; others are tortured; multitudes are slaughtered. Only alternative media sources report on this because as far as the mainstream media is concerned, that which calls itself Christian is deserving of persecution of whatever sort and to whatever degree. Moreover, when Muslims are the culprits, mainstream media outlets not only ignore the crimes, but cover them up if they are exposed. As near as I have been able to tell, these professing Christian sects who are being persecuted, though, are not much different in belief and practice from Roman Catholicism. What a pity to suffer persecution for being merely nominal in the Christian Faith! Sadly, it appears that nominal faith is generally the case with persecuted members of these sects. A church member is not likely to believe above the standard of his church; therefore, if the standard is heretical, the member is likely a beguiled hypocrite. A theory of salvation by ceremonies, rituals, and works is not effectual for getting to heaven merely on account of persecution being appended to one’s life. Perfunctory prayers in Mary’s name will get the sinner nowhere near the kingdom of heaven. Rosary beads and Mary are poor substitutes for faith and Jesus Christ. What good are substitutes like those when no one but Jesus bore ‘our sins in his own body on the tree’? (1 Peter 2.24.) Jesus took the place of sinners; he is the sole substitute for them. He who prays through some other substitute than Jesus has no faith in what the biblical substitute did. If he does have faith in Jesus, why does he continue to pray to Mary? While reading through an old book from 1842 about a mission of inquiry concerning Jews in Israel in 1839, I came across some interesting, though not surprising, facts regarding churches of the superstitious, ritualistic, liturgical kind. There is an anecdote in there of a man, mistaken for a Jew, who saved his life only by agreeing to kiss a picture of the Virgin. This persecution by monks is an example of the satanic hatred that can creep into a soul through the adoration of Mary—Mary, a holy woman who has been made into a perpetual virgin-goddess by counterfeit Christianity. “The professing Christians here—Greeks, Armenians, and Roman Catholics—are even more bitter enemies to Jews than Mahometans; so that in time of danger, a Jew would betake himself to the house of a Turk for refuge, in preference to that of a Christian. How little have these Christians the mind of Christ! Instead of His peculiarly tender love for Israel, they exhibit rooted hatred, and thus prove that they are Anti-christ” (Andrew Bonar & R. M. M’Cheyne, Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839, p. 149.) In Lebanon, ‘Greek priests threw obstacles’ in the way of a man attempting to settle on the land to evangelize (Ibid., p. 169.) Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are squabbling, persecuting sisters, not sisters in the Christian Faith. False beliefs yield persecution, not good fruit. In her stunning account of growing up in Lebanon during the war there in the 1970s, Brigitte Gabriel tells about how she was indoctrinated to hate Jews. She is of the Maronite persuasion, which is a Roman Catholic sect. How much the Maronites contributed to this anti-Semitism, she does not say. But it is obvious that her religion did not counteract the aversion to Israel that had been instilled in her; only by a true experience of Israel’s kindness did Brigitte realize that she had been brainwashed. “The [Israeli] doctor treated my mother before he treated an Israeli soldier lying next to her because her injury was more severe than his. The Israelis did not see religion, political affiliation, or nationality. They saw only people in need, and they helped” (Brigitte Gabriel, Because They Hate, p. 77.) Religions whose adherents are brainwashed to hate Israel are little connected with, much less rooted in, the Bible. They have not been schooled to count the cost of loving the heritage that Christians are said to be grafted onto. “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee” (Romans 11.18.) Persecution of Israel does not agree with being grafted onto its stock. 

When counting the cost, the would-be disciple must count on being persecuted; if he becomes a disciple who persecutes, it is likely that he has counted the cost amiss, and is a false professor of faith. And if a disciple happens to be persecuted for nothing but his profession, which profession is false, how foolish he is! No one pretends to be a social conservative at a convention of violent leftists. The person who professes faith but has none is even more foolish than a man pretending to conservatism, for he adds to whatever faults he is guilty of, the grand fault of being a spiritual hypocrite, and greatly increases the judgment that he will receive for his hypocrisy. Hypocrites “take away the gospel’s good name. Therefore the Lord reserves the most deadly arrows in his quiver to shoot at them. If heathens be damned, hypocrites shall be double-damned. Hell is called the place of hypocrites (Matt. 24.51), as if it were chiefly prepared for them and were to be settled upon them in fee-simple [unconditional inheritance]” (Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, p. 69.)                      

During times of terror, some persons are glad to run toward death rather than live any longer on a loveless earth. Had France’s Reign of Terror continued for much longer, some historians allege that despairing citizens would have begun to line up, without being ordered to do so, to have their heads taken off. A young widow, says Du Broca, “being come to the foot of the scaffold, she ascended the steps with resignation and even unaffected pleasure. She received the fatal blow [of the guillotine] without appearing to have regarded what the executioner was doing” (H. N. Moore, The Reign of Terror, pp. 241, 242.) This is like the Christian martyr tripping along to the stake because the Holy Spirit has endued him with a lively sense of imminent hope. Anecdotes like this one from the French Revolution are not rare; but there is no reason that I have been able to find to believe that such victims were Christians. This woman, the narrative shows, was merely anxious to follow her husband, who had been killed some time before. Being glad in the face of death is no sure sign of being a saint. Since our uncritical churches have adopted the habit of crediting faith at the faintest hint of some parallel with Scripture, this observation is not casually annexed.

The average pastor is not fond of being known as a Protestant; he does not protest what Protestants once protested against and does not want anyone to be turned off by an ‘intolerant’ spirit. Reformers are now broadly regarded as men who took doctrine too seriously. If Reformers are mentioned in our churches, it is usually only generally done. A pastor will sometimes mention a Reformer in his sermon in order to make a show of historical knowledge or to keep his congregation awake. But mark how careful he is to avoid telling why exactly the Reformer was persecuted or burned alive. How seldom will he drop an excerpt like this: “I believe that the Holy Supper of the Lord is not a sacrifice, but only a remembrance and commemoration of this holy sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Therefore it ought not to be worshipped as God, neither as Christ therein contained; who must be worshipped in faith only, without all corruptible elements. Likewise I believe and confess that the Popish Mass is the invention and ordinance of man, a sacrifice of Antichrist, and a forsaking of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that is to say, of His death and passion; and that it is a stinking and infected sepulcher, which hideth and covereth the merit of the blood of Christ, and, therefore, ought the Mass to be abolished, and the Holy Supper of the Lord to be restored and set in his perfection again” (J. C. Ryle, Five English Reformers, pp. 65, 66.) This is the kind of belief that the Reformation was about. This is what John Hooper was burned for believing and professing. This is what being a Protestant is. The Reformation was not about being persecuted for beliefs that a Christian can afford to be ignorant, open-minded, or undecided about. Salvation hinges on doctrines that are in conflict with the Roman Catholic Mass. “Rather than admit the doctrine of the real presence of Christ’s natural body and blood under the forms of bread and wine, the Reformers of the Church of England were content to be burned” (Ibid., p. 27.) It is offensive to be this frank and graphic in the account of a Reformer because Transubstantiation is still Rome’s dogma, and so-called evangelical pastors commonly fraternize with Roman priests as if they are brothers in the same Christian Faith. They extend the right hand of fellowship in spite of the fact that Transubstantiation denies the finished work upon the cross, which final, sufficient act is a doctrine necessary to salvation, if any doctrine is. So the pastor will mention the part about the martyr’s death and perhaps a funny story about him if that can be found, but will include nothing about why he was excommunicated and burned and what the significance of these things are. Pastors who pal around with Roman priests as if their Mass is not a denial of Christ’s once and for all sacrifice upon the cross, are not Protestant Christians; and they are not evangelicals, though this is what they are called. The lamentable truth is that the conduct of so many of our pastors is more in line with how priests live than the lives of the heroes they quote for effect. They have not so much as counted the cost of losing a popish priest for a friend. If these pastors and their pals, the priests, are brothers in the same faith, that faith is not Christian, and therefore not saving faith.

PART I, ARTICLE II: COUNTING THE COST, SECTION IV

Desertion 

Called ‘spiritual depression’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the sense of having been abandoned by God is called ‘desertion’ in older books of theology. Desertion is the sense of having been excommunicated, not by a church, but by God. In order for a period of desertion to take place, a person has to have been in close communion with the Father. Who can feel deserted by someone that he has never been close to? For desertion to happen, a Christian has to have risen to more than average knowledge in divine things, for close communion develops through knowledge. There is not likely to be any intimacy, for example, with a person we have little knowledge of. The more growth that a Christian is determined to enjoy, the more likely it is that he will be deserted at some time. Preachers greatly used of God have been refined through desertion. The face of a man who has crossed the desert looks wizened; a soul that has gone through desertion has been made wise. Having crossed a desert, we have wrestled with nature; having come through desertion, we have wrestled with supernatural powers. 

The classic exhibition of this spiritual affliction is the biography of Job. He who had reproduced, prospered, and been vigorous, lost his family, his property, and his health. He who had closely communed with God, now feared that God had cut him off. On the one hand, he could say, “I have not concealed the words of the Holy One” (Job 6.10.) On the other hand, he had to admit that the Holy One seemed to have rendered his life hopeless. “What is my strength, that I should hope?” (verse 11.) It seemed as though he were being punished for having obeyed God. Before his afflictions, Job was a reverent man; during his afflictions, he was a reverent man confounded; after his afflictions, he was a reverent man humbled; since his death, he has been remembered as eminently reverent. “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the LORD God” (Ezekiel 14.14.) To be in the company of Noah and Daniel cannot be except through tribulations added to faith. Desertion ordinarily happens through an episode of marginalization or obscurity. Beyond the wilderness of desertion, though, are peace, joy, a sense of security, and recognition. 

Who can doubt that Noah and Daniel had each their desertions to contend with? But I pass on to the prophet Jeremiah for exhibit B. The desertions that Jeremiah suffered are so explicitly communicated that only characters such as Job and Ezekiel can compete with him in this matter as far as Old Testament history is concerned. After being told of his ordination to prophecy, Jeremiah answers, “Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child” (Jeremiah 1.6.) Maybe some selfish reluctance can be detected here—maybe. But the wider context shows this prophet to have been meek. He went out from the divine command, usually without so much as a question to return to God, and disclosed offensive prophecies to obstinate, dangerous men. When God commands a prophet to ‘be not afraid of their faces’ (Jeremiah 1.8), that prophet may count this as the cost: his opponents will be fearsome; deliverances from them will be necessary; he will sometimes feel abandoned by the God who sent him forth; deliverances may hinge on the prophet’s maintaining holiness; and he might, nonetheless, be executed for his faith. If the prophet had nothing but nominal faith, he would then have cause to fear their faces because if put to death he would instantly go from death to hell. To be so cast down that you purpose to speak no longer the word of the LORD, and at the same time feel compelled to speak nevertheless, is to be in the torment of a deserted frame of mind. “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay” (Jeremiah 20.9.) How had Jeremiah come to this vexing ambivalence? No matter how disappointing external appearances were, the prophet knew that the message committed to him was the word of God, and he felt it in his bones and bowels. That word was ‘shut up’ in his very ‘bones.’ He could not uproot it, though he was tempted to want to try. Deep down, he knew that his purpose to not speak could not out-bottom the trench that the word of God had dug in his soul. His foundation could not be undermined, even by desertion.

Desertion is quite a cost to have to count. Every would-be disciple should count on having to count it. And every disciple should endeavor to know God well enough that he will be counted worthy to suffer periods of it. How will he know that he is in such a period? It will be so obvious that he will not have to wonder about it. But if a definition is desired, take it from the experience of Job and Jeremiah: Desertion is when God seems to have left us with nothing but the weight of his word. It is then that the Scriptures appear as lucid as they feel locked up. They seem to laugh and mock, to which the disciple should nevertheless utter, in the fashion of Peter, “Where else to turn? These are the words of eternal life.” 

There are professing Christians who say they’ve never had doubts regarding their conversion, and none either, regarding any essential point in theology. I doubt that such persons have ever been deserted, and something intimates that they might never have been converted. A person who has been deserted has been humbled to the point of admitting his trials; and he is too honest to admit desertion and at the same time deny the doubts that he had during his trial. I know a Christian man who, speaking of supernatural elements that the Bible contains, exclaimed, “Sometimes I say to myself, ‘Do I really believe this stuff?!’”  I have more faith in the faith of a man like that than in the faith of a man who tells me that he has never doubted since the day of his conversion.       

Because of the desertion that Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, no desertion is without hope. Even Job, before the composition of the Pentateuch, looked forward to the Mediator between God and men. Disciples have the privilege of feeling rather than being, forsaken by God; they have this privilege because their faith is in the Lord who was forsaken by God on their behalf. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27.46.) Jesus was forsaken, or else he uttered a lie in the very place where the atonement is said to have been accomplished. Even to muse about the possibility that Jesus lied, or committed a sin, might be bordering on blasphemy, might it not? Musing may lead us into unpardonable territory. We must be careful. Therefore we accept that Jesus Christ was forsaken on the cross, even if he was God, and as God, omnipresent. We accept the paradox that we have no solution to, though the fact that he had (and still has) two natures helps us understand his desertion to a point. During desertion, we must rest on the fact that Jesus was deserted for us; acknowledging his desertion on our behalf is our way to regaining the sense of our being accepted by God. When God hides his face, our plea must be that he not allow our faces to turn away from him; and our resolution must be that we will look to him even from hell if it comes to that. We borrow a phrase from King Solomon’s prayer, “O LORD God, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember the mercies of David thy servant” (2 Chronicles 6.42.) And then, because the Son of David has come, we modernize the thought for our consolation: “O, LORD God, turn me not away; remember your mercy toward me through my faith in thy Servant, the Son of David, whose life is my obedience to the law, and whose death is my never-ending life.” When a person becomes a Christian, and determines to make progress in holiness and understanding, he may count on his theology being applied and his being led into trials of desertion. ‘Lead us not into temptation’ is our prayer. But being so led may happen for our testing. And to persevere through a period of desertion is the only way of passing this test. 

PART I, ARTICLE II: COUNTING THE COST, SECTION III

Excommunication 

That excommunication could be part of the cost that a would-be disciple must count on paying, will seem odd only to persons who are not acquainted with ‘all the counsel of God’ (Acts 20.27) and the fulfillment of prophecy in history. The apostle Paul, in that passage, testifies that he has ‘not shunned’ to preach any facet of God’s truth. Excommunication is one such facet. When the Church of God was in its infancy, and to no small extent made up of Jews who recognized and received Jesus as the Messiah, the synagogues were frequented by Jewish saints for worship and debate. Saul (afterwards named Paul) ‘preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God’ (Acts 9.20.) Jesus had prophesied that the Jewish leaders, for the most part, would not receive the message that the Messiah had come. “They shall put you out of the synagogues” (John 16.2.) Some disciples would be scourged there (Matthew 23.34.) And it would become a common thing for Jewish leaders to kill those who preached the Gospel of Christ. 

If the Jews had received their Messiah en masse, the synagogues would have become meeting places for disciples. Due to persecution, disciples met in homes, often in secret; eventually they met in buildings constructed for the purpose of that special kind of worship called ‘Christian.’ People who go to church today do not expect to be rejected or put out. There is no need to count on being excommunicated these days, is there? In fact, there is; if a disciple is faithful, he may be driven out; he should count on it happening. Though certain persons ought to be put out of God’s churches, like grossly immoral persons and heretics, they often enter in and remain. The apostle Paul warned about ‘grievous wolves’ who would ‘enter in among you’ after his departure (Acts 20.29.) Wolves not only enter in, they work themselves into the core in order to govern churches built for sheep to worship God in. If they are not ministers, they often hold sway over the ministers. An excommunication for the purpose of punishing an offender (1 Corinthians 5; 2 Thessalonians 3) and protecting a congregation from his noxious influence is so rare today that I have never heard of it being done even once in twenty-five years in my city of more than two dozen churches. This is astonishing in a city as sinful as this one is. Our city is crawling with sin, and there is no indication that sin will soon begin to vanish through preaching. A cockroach does not scurry away unless the lights are turned on. The light that we need is gospel light, and we don’t have it. Fornication and perversity are celebrated here, and pastors dare not disallow impenitent persons from proudly parading up and down their aisles and participating in church as redeemed sinners. Regrettably, when excommunications are executed, they are usually done against sheep, not wolves. But Jesus said that we should count on that happening. An excommunication of this sort may be done without the congregation’s knowledge or consent. The act may be informally done; that is, not in so many words, for the ministers, or executioners, know that they are in the wrong. They pay a visit to the orthodox threat, speak like politicians about how the member is free to worship elsewhere and how that would be best, given the controversial nature of stirring up the issue in question; and, before the member even realizes what the visit is for, he is ‘put out of the synagogue.’ If you have no knowledge of your church excommunicating a member for a sin like idolatry, fornication, railing, drunkenness, or extortion (1 Corinthians 5.10, 11), then it is almost certain that wolves are in charge of your church and that obedient sheep are the ones who have cause to fear. A Protestant Christian may not be happy worshipping beside couples living in sin, begetters of bastard children, flamboyant dromedaries, and arch heretics that Creeds are for singling out. But if he takes the matter up with his pastor, he will, almost certainly, be told to never mind; if he persists, he will be asked to leave, and he will be unceremoniously excommunicated. Excommunication is another cost to be counted among would-be disciples. 

When a church—one might nearly say any church—is steered toward a more biblical course, the man leading the way will be confronted; possibly he will be stopped and excommunicated. This happened even to the good and great Jonathan Edwards when he tried to reform a practice that his grandfather had corrupted. For his attempt to regulate the admission to Communion in order to bar those who were sincere but not saved, he was forced out of his own church. If one of the leading agents of the Great Awakening was turned out of his living; that is, after revivals had blown through the land through his instrumentality, any man might be excommunicated, and we should not be surprised when it happens. Sometimes a man, because of his orthodoxy and zeal, does not even get a chance to preach in the very branch of God’s Church that he was ordained by. Both George Whitefield and John Wesley, the leading evangelicals abroad during the Great Awakening, were ordained by the Church of England. Neither one, however, was allowed a pulpit in that Church. This means that they were effectively, though not officially, excommunicated. One of the benefits of knowing the history of the Church, not just the general sweep of it, but in the specific, is the strength that may be garnered from it through solidarity. It is easier to bear excommunication, whether formally by a word, or not in so many words informally, when some of God’s greatest men have borne it before us. 

After John Hus was excommunicated for preaching against the vices of the Roman clergy, and for refusing to recant his opposition to dogmas such as Transubstantiation and Papal Infallibility, he looked to the future for strength and uplift: “I am more afraid of the greatest of all excommunications, viz. that by which the Sovereign Pontiff, in presence of angels and men, will eternally excommunicate the wicked from all participation in eternal beatitude…whoever shall excommunicate a man from temporal interest or pride, or in order to revenge himself of some injury, and against his conscience, excommunicates himself” (John Huss, Letters, p. 211.) The Sovereign Pontiff spoken of in this passage is the Lord Jesus Christ, not the pope. The Only Infallible High Priest will decide whether or not we have deserved excommunication. Heavenly orders are on their way to repeal many excommunications; the LORD’s veto will not brook an objection; illegitimate excommunicators will be overawed by a Superior Executor.

PART I, ARTICLE II: COUNTING THE COST, SECTION II

Privation

To follow the way of life and the path of righteousness, a person must be prepared to deprive himself of the ways of darkness and the paths leading to sin. If he resolves to do that, he must count on being deprived by sinners who walk in darkness and for whom sin is a la mode. In other words, if you separate yourself from cultural excesses, you run the risk of being shut out of things that you did not even separate from. If you refuse to join in song because you think rock music is a poor replacement for hymns, for example, you may be blocked from teaching Sunday school. 

There are many false ideas of privation. It is folly to embark on a mission across the sea before first making sure that we are in the ark of salvation, which must be by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone; but this is what thousands of priests have done. They have taken privation as a way of salvation instead of a way of life for the saved. Monks and priests are still doing this today. They board the sinking ship of works, and take up their oars to produce their deeds. But their oars are weak instruments, and their rowing is not equal to the wind they face. Falling backward instead of making headway, and thus missing out on the encouragement that progress yields, their privation falls into distrust and disuse. Then, perhaps giving in to dissipation, they proceed to the end of their lives despairing. Going to heaven on the strength of Roman Catholicism is as futile as trying to cross an ocean with rosary beads for oars. “But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings” (2 Corinthians 6.4, 5.) This is a good description of privation, but only on the basis of having received the grace of God, not vainly, as through baptismal regeneration, but actually (verse 1.)

Some disciples don’t even go in for privation. Consequently, they are not deprived by others, not for their faith, at least. Yet, in spite of it all, or I should say, in spite of so little given up or taken away, they think themselves followers of the Lord. They go on a mission to Zimbabwe to put a building up, not once fasting during the week that it takes to do it. And yet they think they’ve suffered deprivation by flying to Africa and back on the wings of a jet.           

It might seem romantic to have to be fed, as Elijah was, by ravens through the interposition of God. But imagine how hungry a person has to get in order for such a divine initiative to take place. Imagine having to eat carrion dropped from the beak of a bird! “And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook” (1 Kings 17.6.) This is an experience of privation. Churches would be emptied of hypocrites if the price of continued membership included just a few days of imitating Elijah during the time of 1 Kings. Like a wild animal, the apostle Paul had to endure being driven from pillar to post in the matter of basic sustenance. “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” (Philippians 4.12.) To live from paycheck to paycheck can be stressful, for nothing can be laid up for a rainy day that way. Nevertheless, that steady income yields the blessing of stability. To live, however, in this manner: sometimes adequately, sometimes barely, and never sumptuously, is the experience of privation. Like a lynx or a coyote, the apostle Paul ate when he could—when food was available, which was far from always. By being regularly put to this elastic exercise, he came to the point at which he was happy at the prospect of giving thanks at an empty table. He kept under his body, God supplying him the opportunity of practice through privation. God supplied him the mean of mastering his body through a mean (scanty) supply. I recall a story in which the following question was put to a member of an outpost: “What do you do when you run out of food?” His answer: “We proclaim a fast.” We should not be unused to privation.

Privation is frequently, if not usually, the consequence of persecution. If a disciple is dismissed by his family because of his faith, which commonly occurs in eastern countries, he may soon be as needy as Elijah was. The privations experienced by John Hus, the Reformer, rival those of both Elijah and Paul. Before his burning at the stake, the Roman Church tried, as hard as its most wicked officials could, to extinguish his faith by removing his comforts. “Ten spans above the water you’ll see a small hole riveted thereto a grate of thick iron bars, through which, when the waves beat high, foam and drops splash into the dark chamber where Hus is sitting…I saw the poor prisoner…huddled at my feet in the foul straw. Upon a ledge stood a bowl with porridge, upon which lay a black, wooden spoon; next to it stood an earthen jar, near it lay a crust of bread. When the prisoner lies down, his head and his soles almost touch the walls. His clothing is falling to pieces and if he wants to relieve his bowels he must sit upon a round stonehole, from which a bestial stink rises, until the high water forces the excrements from the vault, which often happens only after three or four weeks…Hus was led out of his dungeon into a decent chamber, but his feet almost refused to carry him, he swayed as he walked; listless and unused to the day was the light of his eyes, deathly pale his cheeks and loose what was left of his teeth, since eleven had fallen out due to the damp prison. The nails on his fingers were terribly long, because he had been unable to bite them off for many weeks; upon his skin was a crust of dirt which exuded an awful stench and his otherwise brown hair fell in white ringlets upon his rotting and torn garb. His shoes had rotted upon his feet and his shirt and loincloth had vanished. The rounded flesh which had covered his bones had shrunken and shriveled and he had become a picture of woe without equal, unrecognizable to those who had known him before” (Poggius the Papist, Hus the Heretic, pp. 12-14.) This is a biblical portion of privation—worse treatment than what Dostoevsky received in a Russian gulag, and equal to any affliction in any German concentration camp.       

In our modern time in the West, God allows us an exceptional measure of liberty where food, accommodation, care, and comforts are concerned. We may live quite large depending on the abundance of our culture, government subsidies, charity, and the profits we make through labor. Privation not being our lot, therefore, it is up to us to learn to be abounding and yet suffer need by the practice of mortification. Through this exercise, we instruct ourselves to keep under our body—to master our bodily needs and desires. And the fact is: “Just so much meat and drink should be used as to reinvigorate the powers, not to oppress them” (Cicero.) It is discouraging to observe Christians never depriving themselves of whatever they want whenever they want it. To be always full to satisfaction is what leads to ennui. What is ennui but weariness caused by satiety? When anything we desire is readily had and indulged, we soon tire of everything, which is an irreligious humor in the face of God’s bounty. A Christian complaining of not knowing what to cook on account of being tired of all foods, what does he need but a bout of privation from a chastening God? Why not fast sometimes? Why not eat ‘bread of affliction’ (1 Kings 22.27) one day in the week? Or why not pick an even more chastening food? My personal favorite is ‘beans of ‘affliction,’ which concoction I came up with for its humiliating, mortifying effect. A soup made with nothing but lentils and mung beans, with a little salt, will buoy the soul by abasing the body. Bible reading and prayer open up by closing the door on preoccupations. Denying our belly turns our thoughts upward through spiritual exercises; this facilitates the denial of other sins than gluttony. “The eye must fast from impure glances. The ear must fast from hearing slanders. The tongue must fast from oaths. The hands must fast from bribes. The feet must fast from the path of the harlot. And the soul must fast from the love of wickedness” (Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, p. 52.) It is worth knowing, also, that privation caused by dietary issues, if we have them, or unexplainable malaise if we have that for our cross, is as much from God as privation through persecution. The Christian should remember to give thanks for this, for privation works toward humility, and humility is one of the chief virtues to lead us to that ‘secret place of the Most High’ (Psalm 91.1), the sanctum sanctorum, or holy of holies. And what is that but a sense of God by the Holy Ghost? What does this sense include but inexpressible joy, and peace beyond human understanding? Believers who have been in that sanctuary know where it is, what it is, and how heavenly it is to be there. Our limitations are not accidental; and they are meant to be instrumental. It is comforting to assume that a limitation is on account of discipline from God; and the assumption has a fair probability of being correct, given the sinners that we are. Regardless, what is it that we suffer from that is not, at the very least, by God’s permission? But if we are not put to a hard lot, it is up to us to not be too used to ease. The reader of Church history will have noticed that great preachers were accomplished mortifiers. Of John Bradford, the 16th century martyr, John Foxe relates, “He did not eat above one meal a day, which was but very little when he took it; and his continual study was upon his knees” (J. C. Ryle, The English Reformers, p. 131.) Is this not glaringly unlike the practice of today’s Christians generally? Is it not at variance in particular with Christians feasting in restaurants after service on the Sabbath? Do we believe the Sabbath to be for rest and worship when we, by having strangers cook and serve us food on that day, contribute to this holy day being profaned? Would a Christian like John Bradford not make most of us uncomfortable because of our lack of rigor and godliness? A would-be disciple should be advised to count the cost of privation, or self-denial when privation is lacking, for which behavior he will be avoided or hated by easygoing churchgoers—churchgoers who have never so much as heard that there is a cost to count.