Paul’s Departure and Crown

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing (2 Tim 4:6-8).

These words were written by the apostle Paul to Timothy, whom he had begotten to the faith by the preaching of the gospel of Christ. They contain many things of great concern, both for instruction and for consolation, and I shall open some of them to you for your profit and edification.

But before I come to the words themselves, as they are an account of Paul’s own case, I shall take notice of something in them as they depend on the words that go before. Those words are a vehement exhortation to Timothy to be constant and faithful in his work, and in brief they may be summed up in these particulars. First, there is a solemn, binding charge before God and Jesus Christ our Lord that he be constant in preaching the Word, whether in season or out of season, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine. And this is because of the ungodly spirit that would possess professing Christians after Paul was dead. For the time will come, he says, when they will not endure sound doctrine, nor sound reproof, nor a sound trial of their state and condition by the Word. Instead, after their own lusts they shall heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, the very plague God once threatened against rebellious Israel (Deut 28:27), and they shall be turned to fables. Much like this is the passage in the Acts of the Apostles: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:29-31).

This evil, then, is to be prevented: by diligent watchfulness in ministers; by diligent preaching of the word of the Lord; and by sound and close rebukes, reproofs, and exhortations to anyone in whom the least swerving or turning aside from the gospel appears. Every minister of the gospel has all the authority that belongs to his calling and office. He need not wait for power from men before he puts the laws of Christ in his church into due and full execution (Titus 2:15). This “remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men” (Mic 5:7). Therefore he adds, “Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions,” if you should be opposed in your work; “do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry” (2 Tim 4:5). How our time-serving and self-saving ministers will salve their consciences against the stroke that God’s Word will one day give them, and how they will stand before the judgment seat to give an account of these doings of theirs, let them see to it. Surely God will require it at their hand!

But you, O Timothy, be diligent. Watch in all things, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry, “for I am now ready to be offered …” The words of my text, then, are a reason for this exhortation to Timothy, that he should continue watchful and remain faithful in his calling. “For I am now ready to be offered”; that is, to be put to death for the gospel.

From this, then, learn two things.

First, the murders and outrages that our brothers suffer at the hands of wicked men should not discourage those who are still alive from a full and faithful performance of their duty to God and man, whatever the consequence may be. Or put it this way: when we see our brothers before us fall to the earth by death, through the violence of the enemies of God, for their holy and Christian profession, we should be eager to make good their ground against those enemies, even though our turn should be next. We should act valiantly in this matter, as soldiers are accustomed to do in war: take great care that the ground is held and the front line kept full and complete. “Thou, therefore,” says Paul, “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Tim 2:3). And in another place he says that we should not be moved by these afflictions (1 Thess 3:3), but endure by resisting even to blood. Therefore Paul says again, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner; but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God” (2 Tim 1:8). So let the spirit of Moses rest on Joshua (Num 27:20), and the spirit of Elijah rest on Elisha (2 Kgs 2:15).

Stand up, therefore, like valiant heroes, as the ministers of my God, and do not scatter, every man to his own, while the cause, the ways, and the brothers of our Lord are buffeted and condemned by the world. And remember this: those who keep the charge of the Lord when most go whoring from under their God will be counted worthy, when he turns the captivity of his people, to come near to him, “to offer the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God.” But as for the rest, though they may still stand before the people, because they stood before them in a way of idolatry it shall not be to their honor or their comfort, but to their shame, as the same Scripture says (Ezek 44:10-16).

1. Let this, therefore, strike with conviction those who, in this day of Jacob’s trouble, have been false to God, to his cause, and to his people. I mean first and especially those who, as the chief ringleaders of this cowardice, have done it against light, against their profession, and against their own resolutions. Look, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sins will find you out. As a judgment of God upon you, you may now have your right eye darkened so that you cannot see (Rom 11:10). Yet the time of awakening will overtake you, and that, too, when you are caught in a narrow strait. Then he will show you, to the great confusion of your face and the amazement of those who look on, how great an affront he counts it to be deserted by you in a day when his truth is cast down to the ground.

I have often thought of that prophet who went down from Judah to Bethel to prophesy against the idolatry the king had set up there. Because he did not keep the commandment of God, but ate and drank in that place at the persuasion of a lying prophet, he was met at last by a lion, which killed him there in the road, where his carcass was made a spectacle of God to passersby (1 Kgs 13). If you are spiritual, judge what I say. And do not think you will be one of that number who shall have the harps of God when God appears for Zion, and who shall sing the song of Moses and also the song of the Lamb. For that is only for those who have fought the godly fight and gained the victory over the beast, his image, his mark, his number, and his name.

2. Let this also be a fearful warning to you who have hankerings to do as the others have done. Beware, and remember Judas and the end God brought upon him. God will not always bear such things; these times have already shown us that he looks on them with great dislike. Why should you hang up in chains as a terror to all who know you? And never object that some have done it and yet are at peace in their souls; for peace in a sinful course is one of the greatest of curses. And “the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead” (Prov 21:16).

Second, what we learn from these words, as they relate to the words that go before, is encouragement for those who are still in the storm, and that from three great arguments.

1. Paul’s peace and comfort now, at the time of his death, which he signifies to Timothy by these three expressions: “I have fought a good fight,” “I have finished my course,” “I have kept the faith.”

2. The blessed reward he should have for his labor from Christ in another world, together with all those who love the appearing of the Lord, at “that great and notable day.”

3. That his last act now should not be inferior to any act he did for God while he was alive and preaching in the world; for his body should now be an offering, a sacrifice well pleasing to God.

I shall say something about all of these in my discourse on these words. And so, to come to them.

I am now ready to be offered (2 Tim 4:6).

In these words we have two things to inquire into. First, what it is to be “offered.” Second, what it is to be “ready to be offered up.” “I am now ready to be offered.”

First. Take the first of these. When Paul says he was “to be offered,” he alludes to some of the sacrifices that were made of old under the law. By this he signifies to Timothy that his death and martyrdom for the gospel would be both sweet in the nostrils of God and of great profit to his church in this world; for so were the sacrifices of old. Paul, therefore, lifts his eyes higher than simply to look on death as the common fate of all people. And he had good reason to do so, for his death was violent; it was also for Christ, and for his church and truth. It is usual with Paul to set out in this way the sufferings of the saints which they undergo for the name and testimony of Jesus. Yes, he will have our prayers be a sacrifice; our praises, thanksgiving and mortification be sacrifices; our almsgiving, and the offering up of the Gentiles, be sacrifices, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Heb 13:15-16; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 15:16). And here his death too must be a sacrifice and an acceptable offering to God.

Peter also says that we are priests “to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5). And by Paul it seems that the death of a Christian for Jesus’ sake must be counted one of these sacrifices. Besides, Paul hints at this further in some other sentences in his epistles, as in the epistle to the Colossians, where he says, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the church” (Col 1:24). He does not mean this by way of merit, for in that sense Christ alone, by being offered once himself, has perfected forever those who are sanctified (Heb 10:10-14). Rather, his meaning is this: as Christ was offered in sacrifice for his church as a Savior, so Paul would offer himself as a sacrifice for Christ’s church, as a saint, as a minister, and as one who was counted faithful. “Yea,” he says, “and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all” (Phil 2:17). This, then, teaches us several things worth our consideration.

First, the blood that the saints lose for his name is a sweet fragrance to God. And so the Holy Spirit says: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Ps 116:15). And again: “He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight” (Ps 72:14).

Second, those who suffer for Christ are of great benefit to his church, just as the sacrifices of old confirmed and strengthened Israel. That is why Paul says that his bonds encouraged his brothers and made them much bolder in the way of God to speak his word without fear (Phil 1:14).

Third, the sufferings of the saints, or their being offered in sacrifice, are of great use and advantage to the gospel; of use, I say, in many ways. The blood of the saints (1) defends it, (2) confirms it, and (3) redeems whatever part of it has been lost in antichristian darkness.

1. By their blood the saints defend and preserve the gospel from those who would take it from us, or who would impose another one upon us. “I am set,” says Paul, “for the defence of the gospel” (Phil 1:17), and my sufferings have turned out for its furtherance. That is, the gospel has not only continued to hold its ground, but has also gained more by my contentions, sufferings and hazards for it.

2. Their blood confirms the gospel. This is part of Paul’s meaning in those long accounts of his sufferings for Christ, where he says, “Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, I am more … in prisons more frequent …” (2 Cor 11:23). As he says again, these things “I do for the gospel’s sake” (1 Cor 9:23). And again: “That the truth of the gospel might be continued with you” (Gal 2:5). So again, “I suffer,” he says, in the gospel “as an evil-doer even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound”; “yea,” he says, “therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake” (2 Tim 2:9-10). That is, he endures so that the gospel may be preserved whole, and so that souls not yet born may have the benefit of it, with eternal glory.

3. The sufferings of the saints have a redeeming power. For by patiently enduring and losing their blood for the word, they recover the truths of God that have been buried in antichristian rubbish, rescuing them from the dirt and smear that have clung to them for a long time because of it. That is why it is said, “They overcame him,” the beast, “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Rev 12:11). They overcame him; that is, they recovered the truth from under his slanders and delivered it from all its enemies.

David says, “The words of the Lord are … as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Ps 12:6). What is this furnace of earth but the bodies of God’s saints, in which the Word is tried, as by fire, in persecution? Yes, “purified seven times”; that is, brought out at last in its purity before the world by the death of Christians. How has the headship and lordship of Christ, with many other doctrines of God, been taken away from the Pope? By the sufferings of our brothers who went before us. While their flesh fried in the flames, the Word of God was cleansed and, by such means, purified in these earthen furnaces of theirs, and so delivered to us. Gideon’s lamps were revealed when his soldiers’ pitchers were broken (Judg 7:15-22). If our pitchers are broken for the Lord and his gospel’s sake, then those lamps will be revealed that before lay hidden and unseen. Much use might be made of this good doctrine.

Learn this much:

1. The judgment that carnal people make of our sufferings is not to be heeded at all. They do not see the glory that is wrapped up in our cause, nor the innocence and goodness of our conscience in enduring these afflictions. They judge according to the flesh, according to outward appearance. And by that appearance, indeed, we do seem to lie under contempt and to be in a disgraceful condition. But here all things are turned to another use and end. What is contemptible when people are guilty is honorable when they are innocent. And what brings shame when people are beaten for their faults is thankworthy in those who endure grief, suffering wrongfully (1 Pet 2:19-22). Though to suffer for sin is the token of God’s displeasure, yet to those who suffer for righteousness it is a token of the greatest favor. So do not care how the world regards you and your present distress, which you bear with patience for God and his Word. Rather, believe that the things that are shame and dishonor to others are glory and honor to you (2 Thess 1:4-10). Oh, for a man to be able to say, “For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain” (Acts 28:20)! It makes his face shine like the face of an angel, and his lips drop like the honeycomb (Song 4:11).

2. We also learn from this the reason why some in days before us have made light of the rage of the world. Indeed, they have laughed at destruction when it came (Job 5:21-22). They have gone out to meet the armed men, and have been like Job’s warhorse, which “mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted, neither turneth he back from the sword; the quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield, he saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha” (Job 39:22-23, 25). It has been their glory to suffer for Christ, as it is said of the saints of old: “they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41). As Paul also says, “most gladly I will” (mark it, “most gladly”) “rather glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake …” (2 Cor 12:9-10). Let those who suffer for theft and murder hang down their heads like a bulrush, and carry themselves like people on their way to the gallows. But let those whose trials are for the Word of God know that by these very things they are honored.

3. Learn also from this to be confident that your sufferings have a sound and a voice before God and before people. First, before God, to provoke him to vengeance “when he maketh inquisition for blood” (Ps 9:12). The blood of Abel cried out until it brought down wrath on Cain (Gen 4:9-11); and so did the blood of Christ and his apostles, until it had laid Jerusalem in heaps. Second, your blood will also have a voice before people, and possibly for their good. The faithful Christian, in his patient suffering, does not know what work he may do for God. Who knows whether your blood may be so remembered by your children, neighbors and enemies as to convince them that you stood for the truth? Yes, who knows whether their thoughts of your resolve for Christ, in your resisting to the point of blood, may have so good an effect on some as to persuade them to embrace his ways? The three young men in the fiery furnace made Nebuchadnezzar cry out that there was no God like theirs! Indeed, this is hard labor, but be content. The more dearly you pay to win the souls of others, the greater your crown will be when the Lord, the righteous Judge, appears. And in the meantime, your death will be like a sacrifice pleasing to God and his saints.

Second. The next thing I would inquire into is this: What does it mean to be “ready to be offered up”? Or how should we understand this word “ready” in “I am now ready to be offered up” (2 Tim 4:6)? I think it may be understood in three ways. First, with respect to the readiness that was continually in the hearts of those who hated him to destroy him along with his doctrine. Second, it may be understood with respect to the readiness of this blessed apostle’s own mind, his being always ready and willing to embrace the cross for the sake of the word. Or third, we may very well understand it to mean that he had done his work for God in this world and was therefore ready to be gone.

First. The enemies of God and his truth never lack the will and malice to oppose the Word of God. They are also always ready in this sense to murder and slaughter the saints, as the prophet cries to Jerusalem, “Behold the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood” (Ezek 22:6). That is, they had will and malice always at hand to oppose the upright in heart. And therefore our Lord Jesus says, “they are they that kill the body” (Luke 12:4). He does not say they can do it, as relating to their power, but that they do it, as relating to their will and their custom, if they are let loose. And we may understand by this that it is no more to them to kill the people of God than it is to butchers to kill sheep and oxen. For though it is indeed true that God’s hand is always safely on the hilt of their sword, yet by them we are killed all the day long and accounted as sheep for the slaughter (Ps 44:22; Rom 8:36). That is, in their desires always, as well as in their deeds whenever they are let loose. As Paul’s kinsman said to the captain, “There lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with a curse, that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him; and now are they ready, looking for a promise from thee” (Acts 23:12-13, 21).

And this is why the Word calls them dragons, lions, bears, wolves, leopards, dogs and the like, all of which are beasts of prey that delight to live by the death of others. Paul, then, seeing and knowing that this readiness was in his enemies to spill his bowels on the ground, cried out to Timothy, “Make thou full proof of thy ministry, for I am now ready to be offered” (2 Tim 4:5-6). That is, I am now ready to be slain. These words, understood this way, may be useful in many ways.

1. They show us that we live, not because of any good nature or kind inclination in our enemies toward us, for as to their wills, they are ready to destroy us. But they are in the hand of God, in whose hand our times are also (Ps 31:15). So though by the will of our enemies we are always delivered to death, yet “behold, we live” (2 Cor 6:9). Therefore in this sense it may be said, “Where is the fury of the oppressor?” His fury is not in his own power to dispose of. So here it may be said again that he is not “ready to destroy” (Isa 51:13). The cup that God’s people in every age have drunk from, the cup of affliction and persecution, is not in the hand of the enemy but in the hand of God, and he, not they, pours it out (Ps 75:8). So with all their raging waves, they have banks and bounds set to them (Job 38:10-11), by which they are kept within their range, as the bear is by his chain. “Surely the wrath of men shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain” (Ps 76:10).

2. This should encourage us not to forsake the way of our Lord Jesus when our adversaries threaten us, because they are on his chain. Indeed, they are ready in their wills to destroy us; but as for the power and liberty to do it, that is not with them at all. Who would be afraid to walk even right under the nose of a lion if his chain would not let him hurt us? It is far beneath the spirit of a Christian to fear a man that shall die (Isa 51:12-13). And those who have done so have forgotten the Lord their Maker, who preserves the hairs of our head (Luke 12:7). Yes, let me tell you, whoever does this is afraid to trust the Lord with his life, his estate and his concerns. He chooses rather to trust himself, and that, too, out of God’s way. And though such people may lick their wounds and make themselves whole for now, while they are fallen and without feeling, they must give account for these things later. Then they shall see that the fear of men, and being ashamed of Christ, will load them with no light burden.

Also, it is an unseemly thing for anyone who professes the faith to be in and out with the times, doing things when men wink at them that they would not do if men frowned. Do such people fear God? No, they fear the fear of men, when they should sanctify the Lord himself, and let him be their dread, and let him be their fear (Isa 8:12-13).

3. Let the readiness in the enemies of God to destroy provoke you to make ready too. As I said a little before, go out to meet the armed men. David ran to meet Goliath (1 Sam 17:46-48). Stir yourself up, man! Put on your armor. “Put on the whole armor of God” (Eph 6:11), so that you may be ready as well as your adversaries, as blessed Paul was here: “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim 4:6). But because this will fit best under the second head, I shall therefore discuss it there.

Second. The second thing to consider in the words is this: that to be ready may be understood with respect to the blessed apostle’s mind, which was graciously brought over into a willingness to embrace the cross for the Word’s sake. This is how he himself explains it in other places. “I am ready,” he says, “not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13). He implies as much where he says, “Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). As the enemies, then, were ready and willing in their hearts, so he was ready and willing in his. This man was like those mighty men of Solomon who were ready prepared for war and waited on the king, fit to be sent at any time on the sharpest and most pinching service (2 Chr 17:12-19). That is a thing that fitly becomes all the saints, but chiefly those who minister in the word and doctrine. Understand the words this way, and they also teach us many things, both for conviction and for edification.

1. Here we see that a Christian’s heart should be unclenched from this world. For whoever is ready to be made a sacrifice for Christ and his blessed Word must be someone who is not entangled with the affairs of this life. How else can he please the one who has chosen him to be a soldier (2 Tim 2:4)? So it was with this blessed man. He was brought to God’s foot, as Abraham was, and crucified to this world with Christ (Gal 2:20; Gal 6:14). He had passed a sentence of death on all earthly pleasures and profits beforehand (2 Cor 1:8-9), so that they might not deaden his spirit when he came to suffer for his profession.

2. This shows us the true effects of unfeigned faith and love, for they were the source of this most blessed frame of heart. Read 2 Corinthians 4:8-13 and compare it with 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. Men may talk all they like of their faith and love to the Lord Jesus and to his holy gospel. But if they give up their open profession of his name for fear of those who hate him, it is evident that their mouths go before their hearts, and that their words are bigger than their graces. “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small” (Prov 24:10), and so are your faith and love. Here is love: “that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

3. This shows us the true effects of a right sight and sense of the sufferings that come with the gospel: that they will become truly profitable to those who bear them rightly. What did he make himself ready for? It was for sufferings. And why did he make himself ready for them, except that he saw they were working out for him a “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17)? This is also what made Moses spurn a crown and a kingdom, and look with a disdainful eye on all the glory of Egypt. He saw the reward that was laid up in heaven for those who suffered for Christ. Therefore “he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Heb 11:24-27).

Not everyone can look this way on the afflictions and temptations that come with the gospel. No, not everyone who professes it can, as appears by the way they shrink and shirk at the noise of the trumpet and the alarm to war. Like cowards in a garrison, they can be content to lie still under some smaller pieces of service, such as hearing the Word, entering in, following along with a love that is in word and in tongue, and the like. But to “go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach” (Heb 13:13), and to be in jeopardy every hour (1 Cor 15:30) for the truth of the glorious gospel, that they dare not do. No, instead of making ready with Paul to engage the dragon and his angels (Rev 12:7-9), they study how to evade and shun the cross of Christ. They secretly rejoice if they can only delude their conscience and make it still and quiet while they go on acting unworthily.

4. By this readiness we may discern who are sincerely willing to search things out so that they may do the whole will of God. They are those who have already been made willing to suffer for his sake. They are always asking, “Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6), paying no mind to the cross and distress that come with it, and taking no account of them. “The Holy Ghost witnesseth” to me, says Paul, “in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me; but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy …” (Acts 20:23-24). Such people reckon that seeing and doing heavenly things will outweigh all the trouble and sorrow that come with them.

This, therefore, sharply rebukes those who can be glad to remain ignorant of some truths, especially of those truths that are persecuted, and who keep answering anyone who charges them with walking irregularly that they only act according to their light. (I do not judge those who walk according to rule and yet remain in the dark.) But hearts that are full of love for the name and glory of Christ will quietly return and come. Yes, and they will be glad if they find the words of God, and will eat them with relish and sweet delight, however bitter they are to the belly, because of the testimony those words bind us to maintain before peoples, and nations, and kings (Rev 10:10-11). “I am now ready to be offered” (2 Tim 4:6).

Third. The third thing to be considered in the words is this: by saying, “I am now ready,” the apostle signifies that he had now done the work God had appointed him to do in the world. “I am now ready,” because I have done my work. This is made plainer still by the words that follow in the text: “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim 4:6), that is, my time to depart this world. The words that come after are also much to the purpose: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course” (2 Tim 4:7). This is much like the word of our Lord Jesus: “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).

Now then, put all these things together, and this is what Paul is saying: I am to be offered as a sacrifice, and my enemies are ready for it; my heart is also ready; and because I have done my work, I am therefore ready in every way. This is a frame and condition of soul that deserves not only to stand in the Word of God for Paul’s everlasting praise, but also to be a spur to all who read or hear of it to follow in the same steps. So, to help this forward according to the grace I have received, I shall draw one conclusion from the words and speak a few words to it. The conclusion is this: It is the duty and wisdom of those who fear God so to manage the time and work he has allotted them, that they may not have part of their work still to do when they should be departing the world.

I might press this truth further from the very words of the text, since Paul wrote them on purpose to stir up Timothy and all the godly to press hard after this very thing. But I will pass over that, and remind you of some other scriptures that press it hard as a duty, and then go on to a few examples of the wise and most eminent saints. When I have done that, I shall, first, show you the reason for it; second, give you encouragement to it; third, press it with several motives; and fourth, make some use and application of the whole, and so conclude.

You may see that this is the duty and wisdom of those who fear God from Christ’s exhortation to watchfulness and to prepare for his second coming: “Therefore be ye also ready; for in an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh” (Matt 24:44). These words are spoken to stir up the godly to be ready to meet their Lord at his coming. But the godly must meet him in his judgments and providences here as well as at his personal appearing on the last day. Therefore they should be diligent to fit themselves to meet him in all such dealings of his. “And because,” says God, “I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” (Amos 4:12).

Now death is one of the most certain of those dealings. Yes, and it is such that it leaves no help at all, and no means ever after, to do whatever is lacking in your work, if anything is lacking. That is why Solomon also presses us to this very work, and from this very consideration: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest” (Eccl 9:10). Skip no part of your duty, and do not put off doing it. You are on your way to your grave, and there you cannot finish anything that you leave undone through neglect. So be diligent while life lasts.

Another scripture is the one in Peter’s epistle to those who were scattered abroad. “Seeing,” he says, “that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace…” (2 Pet 3:14). He is speaking there of Christ’s coming to judgment, as Christ also was in the other passage. From the certainty and dread of that day he presses them on to continual diligence. His words are to be understood like Paul’s words to Timothy, as calling for a diligent watching in all things (2 Tim 4:5), so that, as Paul says again, they may stand complete in all the will of God, not lacking this or that part of the work God gave them to do in this world.

Much more might be said to prove this duty further. But I will give you some examples of the godly men of old, by which it will appear that, as it is our duty to do this, so it is also our wisdom.

And so it is said of Enoch that he “walked with God” (Gen 5:22), and of Noah that he was faithful in his generation and also “walked with God” (Gen 6:9). That is, they kept faith with him, always keeping up with the work and duty that each day required. They did not do their duty by fits and starts, but served the Lord in a fervent spirit. So again, it is said of Abraham that his work was to walk before God in a way of faith and self-denial, and he did it with diligence. And therefore the Holy Spirit says he “died in a good old age” (Gen 25:8). By this he suggests that Abraham made both ends meet together, the end of his work with the end of his days, and so came to his grave “in a full age, as a shock of corn cometh in in his season” (Job 5:26).

Jacob also, when he blessed his sons as he lay on his deathbed before them, sweetly comforted himself with this after all his toil and travel, saying, “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.” It was as if he had said, “Lord, I have walked faithfully before you in the days of my pilgrimage, through the help and power of your grace. And now, having nothing left to do but die, I lie here waiting for you to come and gather me up to yourself and to my father.” So when he “had made an end of commanding his sons,” his thread was now all wound up; “he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people” (Gen 49:18-33).

Caleb and Joshua are said to be men of an excellent spirit, because they were faithful in this work of theirs (Num 14:24). David was eminent in this way, and had done his work before his dying day came. “After he had served his own generation by the will of God,” then he “fell on sleep” (Acts 13:36). In the Old Testament this is signified by three passages. First, by his losing his heat before his death, which showed that his work for God was done and he now only waited to die. Second, by the words “these are the last words of David” (2 Sam 23:1-2), the winding up of all the teaching of that sweet psalmist of Israel. Third, the word in the Psalms is very significant: “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended” (Ps 72:20). Taken as a whole, all these passages no doubt declare this above all: that David made great conscience of walking with God, laboring to drive his work before him so that his work and his life might meet together. For that, indeed, is a good man’s wisdom.

Job also made great conscience of this very thing, as both God’s testimony and his own conscience bear witness for him (Job 1:8; Job 31). Elijah had brought his work to the point where he had only to anoint Hazael to be king of Syria, Jehu to be king of Israel, and Elisha to be prophet in his place, and then be caught up into heaven (1 Kgs 19:15-16).

What shall I say? I might come to Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat and Josiah, and to old Simeon also, whose days were lengthened chiefly, not because he was behind with God and his conscience in his work for God in the world, but so that he might see with his own eyes, now at last, the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2:25-26). What a sweet preparation for death! Zechariah too, with Elizabeth his wife, that good old couple: how tender and careful they were in this matter, to walk “in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord” in a blessed, blameless way (Luke 1:6)! Their son is not to be left out either. Rather than be put out of his way and hindered from fulfilling his course, he would risk losing the favor of a king, and losing his head for a word (Mark 6:17-18).

All these, with many more, are so many mighty arguments commending what I asserted before, namely, that it is the duty and wisdom of those who fear God so to manage the time and work he has allotted them here, that they may not have part of their work still to do when they should be departing the world.

I might also urge many reasons to press this truth home on you, such as these.

1. Otherwise, as far as it lies in us, we frustrate and disappoint the great and chief purpose God had in sending us into the world, and especially in converting us and filling our souls with gifts and graces and many other benefits: that we might be here to the glory of his grace. “This people have I formed for myself,” he says; “they shall show forth my praise” (Isa 43:21). And again: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (John 15:16).

When God covered your nakedness with the righteousness of his dear Son, and delivered you from the condemning power of sin and the law, he never intended that you should go on living as those do who do not know God. “This I say therefore,” says Paul, “and testify in the Lord; that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles, in the vanity of their mind” (Eph 4:17). What! A Christian, and live as the world does (John 17:16)? A Christian, and spend your time, your strength, and your abilities on things that perish in the using?

Remember, man: if the grace of God has taken hold of your soul, you are a man of another world. Indeed, you are a subject of another and nobler kingdom, the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of the gospel, of grace, of faith and righteousness (Rom 14:16-18), and the kingdom of heaven hereafter. These are the things you should exercise yourself in. Do not make the heavenly things God has bestowed on you stoop to the things of the world. Rather, beat down your body here (1 Cor 9:26-27) and put your members to death. Hoist your mind up to the things that are above (Col 3:1-4), and in your practice hold forth before all the world that blessed word of life. This, I say, is God’s design. This is the tendency, the natural tendency, of every grace of God bestowed on you. And this is how our Father is glorified: that we bear much fruit (John 15:8).

2. Here is a second reason why Christians should manage their time, and the work God has appointed them to do for his name in this world, so that no part of it is left to do when they should be departing this world. If they do not, dying will be hard work for them, especially if God awakens them to their neglect of their duty (1 Cor 11:30-32).

God’s way with his people is to visit their sins upon them in this life. And the worst time for you to be visited for them is when your life is struck down, as it were, to the dust of death, when all your natural infirmities break in on you like a flood: sickness, fainting, pains, weariness, and the like. Now, I say, to be charged with neglect of duty at such a time as well, when you are in no condition to do it, and perhaps so feeble that you can hardly bear to hear your dearest friend in this life speak to you, will that not make dying hard? Yes, and when you seem, both in your own eyes and in the eyes of others, to fall short of the kingdom of heaven for this or that transgression, will that not make dying hard (Heb 4:1-2)?

David found it hard, when he cried, “O spare me” a little, “that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more” (Ps 39:13). At that time David was being chastened for some iniquity; indeed, for his folly he had been brought to the doors of the shadow of death. But he could not enter there without great distress of mind. So he cries out for a respite, and for time to do the will of God and the work allotted to him. So again: “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me; I found trouble and sorrow: then called I upon the name of the Lord” (Ps 116:3-4).

Yes, this will make you cry out too, even if you are as good as David! So let his sorrow teach you what it taught him at last: to serve his own generation by the will of God before he fell asleep. God knows how to pardon your sins and yet make them so bitter a thing, and so heavy a burden to you, that if you were once distressed by it, you would not come into that place again for all the world. Ah! It is easy for him to have this pardon in his bosom while he is breaking all your bones and pouring out your gall upon the ground. Yes, and it is easy for him to show himself to you then in so dreadful a majesty that heaven and earth will seem to you to tremble at his presence! So let the thought of this prevail with you as a reason of great weight, to stir you to take pains to manage your time and work wisely while you are well.

3. Here is another reason why those who fear God should manage their time and work for God in this world so that no part of it is left to do when they should be departing this life: loitering in your work does all it can to put off and hold back the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

One thing among many that hinders the appearing of Christ in the clouds of heaven is that his body, with its several members, is not yet complete and full. They have not all yet come to the knowledge of the Son of God, “to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:8-13), that is, to the complete making up of his body. For as Peter says, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). And so too they have not all yet come to the complete performance of all the duty and work they have for God in this world.

And I say, the faster the saints carry out the work of conversion, repentance, faith, self-denial, and the rest of the Christian duties in their day, the more they make way for the coming of the Lord from heaven. That is why Peter says again, “Seeing then that” we look for such things, “what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, and hasting unto,” or, as the margin has it, “hasting the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” (2 Pet 3:11-12).

When the bride has made herself ready, “the marriage of the Lamb is come” (Rev 19:7). That is, when his saints are fit to receive him, the Lord will wait on the world no longer. He said to Lot, when he came to burn down Sodom, “Haste thee” to Zoar, “for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither” (Gen 19:20-22). So it is with the great day of judgment on the world, which will also be the day of blessedness and rest for the people of God: it cannot come until the Lamb’s wife has made herself ready, until all the saints who belong to glory are ready.

And before I go further, what more might I say to fasten this reason on the truly gracious soul? What! Will you still loiter in the work of your day? Will you still be unwilling to hasten righteousness? Do you not know that by doing so you put off the coming of your dearest Lord? Besides, that is the day of his glory, the day when he will come in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels; and will you not help it forward by your diligence? Must the general assembly and church of the firstborn also wait on you for their full portions of glory? By acting like this, will you try to keep them still wrapped up in the dust of the earth, to dwell there with the worm and corruption? May the Lord awaken you, so that you may see that your loitering does this, and also keeps your own soul from the inheritance prepared for you.

4. Another reason why saints should press hard to complete the work God has allotted to them is that, so far as they fall short, they lessen their own glory. For as the Lord has commanded his people to work for him in this world, so he has also, of his grace, promised to reward whatever they do as Christians. For whatever good thing any man does, the same he will receive from the Lord, whether he is bond or free (Eph 6:8). Yes, God counts it unrighteousness to forget their work of faith and labor of love, but a righteous thing to repay them for it in the day of our Lord Jesus (Heb 6:10; 2 Thess 1:6-7). This, well considered, has great force to prevail with those who covet glory, such as Moses and Paul, with the rest who share that spirit. As the apostle also says to the saints at Corinth, “Be steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58).

Having given you the reasons why God’s people should be diligent in the work God has allotted them to do for him in this world, I will next give you some directions as helps to further you in this work. They are the kind that tend to take away the hindrances that come upon you, either through discouragement or through hardness and numbness of spirit; for great hindrances overtake God’s people from both of these impediments.

First. If you want to be faithful to do the work God has allotted you to do in this world for his name, labor to live much in the favor and the felt sense of your freedom and liberty by Jesus Christ. That is, keep this always before you, if possible: that you are a redeemed one, taken out of this world, from under the curse of the law, out of the power of the devil, and so on, and placed in a kingdom of grace and forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake. This is of absolute use in this matter. Yes, it is so absolute that it is impossible for any Christian to do his work in a Christian way without some enjoyment of it. For in the first chapter of Luke this is made the very ground of all good works, both as to their nature and as to our continuing in them. It is also reckoned there an essential part of the covenant God made with our fathers: “that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, before him all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74-75).

And indeed, take this away, and what ground can be laid for anyone to persevere in good works? None at all. For take away grace and the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake, and you leave people nothing to help them but the terrors of the law and the judgment of God. At best, these can beget only a servile and slavish spirit in the person in whom that spirit dwells. And that spirit is so far from being a help to us in our pursuit of good works that it makes us unable to endure what is commanded (Heb 12:20). Instead, like Israel (Exod 19), it flees from God as from the face of a serpent. As Solomon says, “A servant will not be corrected by words, for, though he understand, he will not answer” (Prov 29:19).

So get your soul possessed with the spirit of the Son, and believe that he has set you perfectly free from whatever you have deserved by sin at the hand of avenging justice. This doctrine loosens your bonds, takes off your yoke, and lets you walk upright. This doctrine puts spiritual and heavenly inclinations into your soul. And faith in this truth shows you that God has so surprised you, and so gone beyond you, with his blessed and everlasting love, that you cannot help but reckon yourself his debtor forever. “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh” (Rom 8:12).

Paul’s argument to Philemon is true here in the highest degree: for his grace to you, you owe God “even thine own self besides” (Phlm 19). Paul testifies to this further in both the sixth and the seventh chapters of Romans. In the one he says we are “free from sin”; in the other he says we are “dead to the law,” so that our fruit might be unto holiness, so that we might “bring forth fruit unto God” (Rom 6:22; Rom 7:4). For, as I said, if either your ungodly lusts or the power and force of the law have dominion over your spirit, you are in no condition now to be performing your work for God in this world.

I have marveled in the past at the quarrelsome spirit that possessed the people Malachi speaks of, and how they found fault with almost everything they were commanded to do. But I have since observed that their ungodly disposition was grounded on this: they doubted the love of God. “Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?” (Mal 1:2). And indeed, once people say to God, by way of doubt, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” it is no wonder if they are like those in Malachi’s time: a discontented, murmuring people, backward about everything that is good. Read that whole book of Malachi.

Second. If you want to be faithful to do the work God has allotted you to do in this world for his name, then labor to see a beauty and glory in holiness and in every good work. This does much to engage your heart. “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; fear before him, all the earth” (Ps 96:9). And to help you in this, think much on this general truth: “Thus saith the Lord” is what clinches every command. For indeed, much of the glory and beauty of duties lies in the glory and excellence of the person who commands them. That is why “Be it enacted by the King’s most excellent Majesty” stands at the head of every law: so that the law should be reverenced by all, and made glorious and beautiful to all. And we see, on this very account, what power and place the precepts of kings take in the hearts of their subjects. Every one of them loves and reverences the statute, because the name of their king is on it. “Will you rebel against the king?” is a word that shakes the world.

Well then, turn these things around into an argument for the matter in hand. Since God is wiser and better than kings, and of more glory and beauty, let his name beget in your heart a sense of beauty in all the things God commands you. And indeed, if you do not act this way, you will stumble at some of your duty and the work you have to do. For some of God’s commands are in themselves so mean and low that, if you take the name of God away from them, you will do as Naaman the Syrian did: despise instead of obey. What is there in the Lord’s Supper, in baptism, yes, in preaching the Word and in prayer, if they were not the appointments of God? His name, bound to them, makes every one of them glorious and beautiful. So no wonder if someone who looks at them without their title page goes away in a rage, like Naaman, preferring other things before them. What is Jordan? “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel; may I not wash in them and be clean?” he says (2 Kgs 5:10-12). This was because he did not remember that the name of God was in the command.

Israel’s trumpets of rams’ horns (Josh 6:2-4), Isaiah’s walking naked (Isa 20:3), and Ezekiel’s waging war against a tile (Ezek 4:1-4) would doubtless have been ignoble acts, except that the name of God was what gave them reverence, power, glory and beauty. So set the name of God, and “Thus saith the Lord,” against all the reasonings, slanders and reproaches that you find rising against your duty, whether from the world or from your own heart. Let his name and authority alone be a sufficient argument to you “to behold the beauty” that he has put on all his ways, “and to inquire in his temple” (Ps 27:4).

Third. Do you want to be faithful to do the work God has appointed you to do in this world for his name? Then make much of a trembling heart and conscience. For though the Word is the line and rule by which we must order and govern all our actions, a trembling heart and a tender conscience are absolutely necessary if we are to do so. A hard heart can do nothing with the word of Jesus Christ. “Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word” (Isa 66:5). “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Ps 2:11).

I spoke earlier against a servile and slavish frame of spirit, so you must not understand me here as if I now meant to cherish one. No, I mean a heart that trembles for, or at, the grace of God, and a conscience made tender by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ: a conscience awakened both by wrath and by grace, by the terror and by the mercy of God. For it fits the spirit of a son to fear before his father; yes, to fear chastisements, though not to fear damnation. So let destruction from God be a terror to your heart, though not the destruction that attends those who perish by sin forever (Job 31:23). I might add this too: it may do you no harm, but good, to cast an eye over your shoulder at those who now lie roaring under the vengeance of eternal fire. It may remind you of what you once were, and of what you must still certainly be, unless grace through Christ prevents it (Isa 66:24). Keep your conscience awake, then, with wrath and grace, with heaven and hell; but let grace and heaven bear sway.

Paul made much of a tender conscience; otherwise he would never have done what he did, nor suffered what we read of. “And herein,” he says, “do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men” (Acts 24:16). But a stony, numbed, bribed, deluded or muzzled conscience could not do this. Paul was like the nightingale with its breast against the thorn. So that his heart might keep waking, he would accustom himself to meditate on the things that should beget both love and fear, and he was always very careful not to offend his conscience. “Herein do I exercise myself…” So be diligent in this matter, if you want to be faithful with God. To some people a tender conscience is like Solomon’s brawling woman, a burden to those who have it (Prov 25:24). But let it be to you like those who invited David to go up to the house of the Lord (Ps 122:1). Listen to it, and cherish it with pleasure and delight.

Fourth. If you want to be faithful in doing the work God has appointed you to do in this world for his name, then let religion be the only business that takes up your thoughts and your time. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might” (Eccl 9:10). Do it with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength. To most people religion is only a side business, something they use to fill up their spare hours; or else it is a stalking-horse, used to catch the game. How few there are in the world whose conduct is “only as becometh the gospel” (Phil 1:27)! A heart sound in God’s statutes (Ps 119:80), a heart united to the fear of God (Ps 86:11), a heart molded and fashioned by the Word of God (Rom 6:17), is a rare thing. It is rare because it is hard to find, and rare because it is indeed the fruit of an excellent spirit and a token of one saved by the Lord. But this indifference in religion, this fashioning of ourselves to the fancies and follies of this world in our language, gestures, behavior and conduct, is very unbecoming in itself for a people who should bear the name of their God on their foreheads. And just as surely it cannot fail to be a very great and grievous obstruction to your faithful walking with God in this world.

Gird up your loins like a man, then. Let God and his Christ, his Word, his people and his cause be chief in your soul. And just as in the past you have given this world the greater part of your time, your labor and your study, so now turn all these to the service of religion. “As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness” (Rom 6:19). Holy things must be found in every heart where this is faithfully put into practice.

1. Bring your heart and the Word of God together daily, so that your heart may be brought level with it and also filled with it. Failing to do this sincerely is a great cause of the unfaithfulness toward God that is in us. So bring your heart to the Word daily, to test how you believe the Word today, and to test how your heart agrees with the Word today. This is the way to make clean work daily, and to keep your soul warm and living daily. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?” David says. “By taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Ps 119:9). And again: “Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer” (Ps 17:4). And again: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Ps 119:11). The one who delights “in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth meditate day and night, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (Ps 1:2-3).

2. Remember continually that each day has its own work allotted to you, and that the evils that attend you are sufficient for that day (Matt 6:34). This remembrance set Paul on his watch daily. It made him die to himself and to this world daily, and it also stirred him daily to wind up the spirit of his mind, transforming himself by the power of the Word away from the inclination toward carnal things that was in his flesh (1 Cor 15:30-33). This will make you keep the knife at your throat in every place, in all your business and in all company (Prov 23:2).

3. Let your heart be more moved by what concerns the honor of God and the profit and glory of the gospel than by your own concerns as a man, with all their earthly advantages. This will make you refuse things that are lawful if they appear to be inexpedient. Yes, this will make you, like the apostles of old, prefer another person’s peace and edification to your own profit, and take more pleasure in the increase of the power of godliness in anyone than in the increase of your grain and wine.

4. Settle accounts with your own heart every day before you lie down to sleep. Add up what you have received from God, what you have done for him, and also where you have fallen short. This will produce praise and humility, and it will set you on redeeming the day that is past. In this way, through the continual supplies of grace, you will be able in some good measure to drive your work before you and to shorten it as your life shortens. And you may live comfortably in the hope of bringing both ends sweetly together. But let me pass on from this.

Fifth. If you want to be faithful in doing the work God has appointed you to do in this world for his name, then beware that you do not stop and balk when hard work comes before you. It is with Christians as it is with other pupils: they sometimes meet with hard lessons. But these too you must learn, or you cannot do your work. The Word and Spirit of God sometimes come at us like chain shot, as if they would cut down everything. So it was when Abraham was to offer up Isaac (Gen 22), and when the Levites were to slay their brothers (Exod 32:26-28). Paul also had to go from place to place to preach, though he knew beforehand that he was to be afflicted there (Acts 20:23). God may sometimes say to you, as he said to his servant Moses, “Take the serpent by the tail” (Exod 4:3-4); or he may tell you, as the Lord Jesus told Peter, to walk upon the sea. These are hard things, but they have not been refused when God has called people to do them. Oh, how willingly our flesh and blood would escape the cross of Christ! The comforts of the gospel, the sweetness of the promise, how pleasing they are to us! Like Ephraim in this, we love to tread out the grain (Hos 10:11). We love to hear the pleasant songs and music that gospel sermons make, where only grace is preached and nothing of our duty in works of self-denial. But as for such people, God will tread upon their fair neck and yoke them with Christ’s yoke; for there they have a work to do, a work of self-denial.

Now this work sometimes lies in acts that seem desperate, as when a man must both leave and hate his life, and all he has, for Christ, or else he cannot serve him or be counted his disciple (Luke 14:26-33). So it seemed with Christ himself when he made his fatal journey up to Jerusalem. He went there, as he knew, to die, and so every step he trod was, as it were, upon his own heart. Yet no doubt he went with great temptation to shun and avoid that journey. And therefore it is said, “He set his face steadfastly to go up” (Luke 9:51), scorning to be persuaded otherwise, and forestalling the outcry of his weak disciples, “Master, save yourself.” It is said that he went up ahead of them, so that they were amazed to see his resolution, while they themselves were afraid of the dreadful outcome that might follow (Mark 10:32-34). Also, when he came there and was to be arrested, he went to the garden that Judas knew, his old accustomed place; and when they asked him the killing question, he answered, “I am he” (John 18:1-5).

At other times this work lies in acts that seem foolish. This is when people deny themselves the comforts, pleasures, friendships and honors of the world that they used to have, and choose rather to associate with the very outcasts of this world (I mean, those whom carnal people count as outcasts). They count the ways and manner of life of such people, though attended with a thousand calamities, more profitable, pleasing and delightful than all their former glory. So Elisha left his father’s house, even though it was to pour water on the hands of Elijah (2 Kgs 3:11). And so the disciples left their fathers’ ships and nets to live a beggarly life with Jesus Christ, as Paul left the feet of Gamaliel for the whip, the stocks and the deaths that attended the blessed gospel. One would have thought it a foolish thing of Peter to leave all for Christ before he knew what Christ would give him, as Matthew 19:27 seems to suggest; but Christ will have it so. Whoever will save his life must lose it; and whoever will lose his life in this world for Christ shall keep it to life eternal (John 12:25). I might add many things of this kind to show you what hard chapters God sometimes sets his best people. But your work, if you want to be faithful, is not to stop or balk at anything (Matt 10:37). Some, when they come to the cross, will either stop there and go no further, or else, if they can, they will step over it; and if they cannot, they will go around it. Do not do this. Instead, take it up and kiss it, and carry it after Jesus. “God forbid,” says Paul, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal 6:14).

Now, as for performing this piece of service for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ well: oh, it is hard work to pocket the reproaches of all the foolish people as if we had found great plunder, and to suffer all their revilings, lies and slanders without cursing them as Elisha did the children, and to answer their cursings with prayers and blessings. It is far easier to give them taunt for taunt and reviling for reviling, to give them blow for blow, yes, to call for fire from heaven against them. But to “bless them that curse you, and to pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt 5:44), even when they do it out of malice and old grudges, and on purpose to vex and afflict our minds and make us break out into a rage: this is work above us. Now our patience should look up to unseen things. Now remember how Christ carried himself toward those who spilled his blood. Otherwise everything is in danger of bursting, and you of miscarrying in these things.

I might also enlarge here on Job’s case and the lesson God set him, when at one stroke he beat down everything (Job 1:15) and spared only his life; yet he made even that so bitter to him that his soul chose strangling rather than life (Job 7:15). Oh, when every providence of God toward you is like the messengers of Job, and the last brings heavier tidings than all who went before him (Job 1); when life, estate, wife, children, body and soul, all at once, seem to be struck at by heaven and earth: here are hard lessons! Now to behave myself even as a weaned child; now to say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). So, with few words, Job ascribes righteousness to his Maker. But though they were only few, they came from so blessed a frame of heart that they made the penman of the Word stop and wonder, saying, “In all this Job sinned not” with his lips, “nor charged God foolishly” (Job 1:22). In all this! What a great deal the Holy Spirit will make of what seems only a little, when it flows from an upright heart! And indeed it may well be counted so by all who know what is in man and what he is prone to.

1. Labor to believe that all these things are tokens of the love of God (Heb 12:6; Rev 3:19).

2. Remember often that you are not the first to meet with these things in the world. “It hated me,” says Christ, “before it hated you” (John 15:18).

3. Arm yourself with a patient and quiet mind to bear and suffer for his sake (1 Pet 4:1-3).

4. Look back on the provocations with which you may have provoked God (Deut 9:7). Then you will accept the punishment of your sins (Lev 26:41-42), and confess that it was less than your iniquities deserve (Ezra 9:13).

5. Pray that you may hear the voice of the rod, and have a heart to answer God’s purpose in it (Mic 6:9).

6. Remember the promise: “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).

Sixth. If you want to be faithful in doing the work that God has appointed you to do in this world for his name, then labor hard to possess your heart with a right understanding both of the things that this world yields and of the things that will be hereafter. I am confident that most, if not all, of the miscarriages of the saints and people of God have their rise in deceptive thoughts here. The things of this world appear to us greater than they are, and the things to come appear less than they are. That is why so many are so hot and eager for the things of this world, and so cold and heartless toward the things in heaven. Satan is a mighty artist here. He can show us all earthly things through a glass that multiplies them; but when we look up to things above, we see them as if through sackcloth of hair.

But take heed. Do not be ruled by your sensual appetite, which can only savor fleshly things, and do not be ruled by carnal reason, which always darkens the things of heaven. Instead, go to the Word, and judge as it says. It tells you that all things under the sun are vanity, and worse, vexation of spirit (Eccl 1:2). It tells you that the world is not, even at the very time when it most appears to be. Will you set your heart on that which is not? “For riches certainly make themselves wings, they fly away as an eagle toward heaven” (Prov 23:5). The same may be said of honors, pleasures, and the like. They are poor, low, base things for a Christian’s heart to entertain.

The man who has the most of them may “in the fulness of his sufficiency be in straits”; yes, “when he is about to fill his belly with them, God may cast the fury of his wrath upon him” (Job 20:22-23). “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself” on earth, “and is not rich towards God” (Luke 12:20-21). A horse that is loaded with gold and pearls all day may have a foul stable and a galled back at night. And woe to him who increases what is not his, and who loads himself with thick clay (Hab 2:6). O man of God, throw this bone to the dogs. Do not suck at it; there is no marrow there.

Set your affections on “things that are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Col 3:1-4). Look at what God has prepared for those who love him. And if God has blessed you with anything, do not set your heart on it; honor the Lord with your substance. Labor to “be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim 6:17-19). Further, to give a little light to your eyes:

1. Concerning the glory of the world.

(1) It is what God mostly gives to those who are not his. For the poor receive the gospel; not many rich, “not many mighty, not many noble are called” (1 Cor 1:26).

(2) God permits the devil to dispose of much of this world and its glory, and the devil is called both its prince and its god (John 14:30; 2 Cor 4:4). Yes, when Satan told Christ that he could give it to whomever he would, Christ did not say, “You lie.” Instead he answered by the Word, “It is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:6-8). This also implies that, commonly, when people get much of the honors and glory of this world, it is by bending the knee too low to its prince and god.

(3) The nature of the best of worldly things, if they are hankered after, is to deaden the spirit (Rom 8:6-7), to estrange the heart from God (1 John 2:15), to pierce you through with many sorrows, and to drown you in perdition and destruction. “O man of God, flee those things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness”; and “Fight the good fight, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called…” (1 Tim 6:9-12).

2. As to the things of God, what shall I say? The things of his Word, and Spirit, and kingdom go so far beyond what the heart of man can conceive that no one can utter them except by the Holy Spirit. But there is no deceit in them; “no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). What they promise they will perform, with additions of amazing glory. Taste them first, and then you will see them. “O” come, “taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him” (Ps 34:8).

To stoop low is a good work. Such a work, which is an act of your own, if it is done in faith and love, even if it is only a cup of cold water, is really worth more in itself, and of higher esteem with God, than all worldly and perishing glory. There is no comparison. The one perishes with the using, and for the other there is laid up “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17).

But again, just as you should labor to possess your heart with a right understanding of the perishing nature of the riches and pleasures of this world, and of the durable riches and righteousness that are in Christ, and of all heavenly things, so you should labor to keep always before your eyes what sin is, what hell is, and what the wrath of God and everlasting burnings are. Transfer them to yourself, as it were onto a finger, so that you may learn to think of nothing more highly than is fitting, but to give to everything you look upon its own due weight. Then you will fear where you ought to fear, love what is worth your love, and slight what is of no worth. These are just weights and even balances; now you are not dealing with deceitful weights. And this is the way to be rich in good works, and to bring the work God has appointed you to a good conclusion by your dying day.

Seventh. But again, if you want to be faithful in doing the work that God has appointed you to do in this world for his name, then beware that you do not let slip, or let pass by, the present opportunity that providence lays before you. Work while it is called today; “the night cometh when no man can work” (John 9:4). In the parable of the man who took a far journey, it is said that as he gave every servant his work, so he “commanded the porter to watch” (Mark 13:34-35). That is, to watch for his Lord’s coming back, and in the meantime for every opportunity to do the work he had left in their hands and committed to their trust.

Do you see the poor? Do you see the fatherless? Do you see your foe in distress? Draw out your breast. Do not shut up your heart of compassion. Deal your bread to the hungry, bring the poor who are cast out into your house, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh (Isa 58:7; Rom 12:20). Take the opportunity that presents itself to you, whether by the eye, or by the hearing of the ear, or by some godly prompting that passes over your heart. “Say not” to such messengers, “go, and come again tomorrow; if thou hast it by thee” (Prov 3:28). Now that the opportunity is put into your hand, do not delay to do it, and the Lord be with you!

Good opportunities are God’s seasons for doing your work, so watch for them and take them as they come. Paul tells us that he was “in watchings often” (2 Cor 11:26-27). Surely that was so that he might take the season God would give him to do this work for God. As he also says to Timothy, “Watch thou in all things, … do the work…” (2 Tim 4:5). Opportunities for some things come only once in a lifetime. So it was in the case of Esther, and of Nicodemus and holy Joseph, when Esther begged for the life of the Jews, and the others for the body of Jesus. Had they once let that opportunity slip or neglected it, they could never have recovered it again.

Watch, then, for the opportunity.

1. Because it is God’s season, which without doubt is the best season and time for every purpose (Eccl 3:11).

2. Because Satan watches to spoil whatever you do for God, by mistiming it as well as by corrupting it. “When I would do good,” says Paul, “evil is present” (Rom 7:21); that is, present either to draw me away from my purpose or else to infect my work.

3. This is the way to be profitable to others. “Thy wickedness may hurt a man, as thou art, and thy righteousness may profit the son of man” (Job 35:8).

4. This is also the way to do good to yourself (Job 22:2). “He that watereth shall be watered himself” (Prov 11:25). “Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days” (Eccl 11:1; Deut 15:10). As God said to Coniah, “Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was well with him” (Jer 22:15-16).

And I say this: so that the opportunity does not slip past you for lack of either care or provision, (1) always sit loose from an excessive attachment to your own concerns, and believe that you were not born for yourself; “a brother is born for adversity” (Prov 17:17). (2) Get your heart tenderly affected with the welfare and prosperity of everything that bears the stamp and image of God (2 Cor 11:29). (3) Study your own place and the capacity God has put you in, in this world, for your work and opportunities are suited to your place (1 Cor 7:24). (4) Make provision beforehand, so that when things present themselves you may rise to a good performance; be “prepared to every good work” (2 Tim 2:21). (5) Beware of carnal reasonings and keep your heart tender, but set your face like a flint for God (Gal 1:9). (6) And look well to the manner in which you do every duty.

Eighth. Do you want to be faithful in doing the work that God has appointed you to do in this world for his name? Then believe that whatever good thing you do for him, if it is done according to the Word, is not only accepted by him now but also recorded, to be remembered for you against the time to come. Yes, it is laid up for you as treasure in chests and coffers, to be brought out and rewarded before both men and angels, to your eternal comfort, by Jesus Christ our Lord. “Lay not up,” says Christ, “treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” (Matt 6:19-20). The treasure that our Lord here commands us to lay up diligently in heaven is shown, in Luke, in Paul, and in Peter alike, to mean doing good work.

1. Luke renders it this way: “Sell that ye have and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth” (Luke 12:33). Here the latter part of the verse explains the former.

2. Paul says this: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy: that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate: laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim 6:17-19).

3. Peter also acknowledges and asserts this. In his exhortation to elders to do their duty faithfully and with cheerfulness, he affirms that if they do so, they “shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Pet 5:2-4). Paul also calls this a reward for cheerful work (1 Cor 9:17; 2 Tim 4:8). And it is given as an act of justice by the hand of a righteous judge, in the day when the Lord comes to give reward to his servants the prophets, and to his saints, and to all who fear his name, small and great. For “every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour” (1 Cor 3:8).

But before I go any further, I must answer three objections that may be raised by those who read this book.

First Objection. The first is this. Some godly heart may say, “I dare not believe that anything I do will ever be regarded by God in the other world, much less rewarded, because of the unworthiness of my person, and because of the many infirmities and sinful weaknesses that attend me every day.”

Answer. This objection is built partly on a bashful modesty, partly on ignorance, and partly on unbelief. My answer to it is as follows.

1. You must recall and look back to what has just been proved: that Christ and his apostles all agree in this, that there is a reward for the righteous, that their good deeds are laid up as treasures for them in heaven, and that these will certainly be bestowed on them at the last day with abundance of eternal glory.

2. Now then, I will speak to your case and take away the very bottom of your objection. You think that the unworthiness of your person, and the sinful infirmities that attend you in every duty, mean that your works will be neither regarded nor rewarded in the other world. But consider, first, the unworthiness of your person.

Those who are in Christ Jesus are always complete before God in the righteousness that Christ has obtained, however infirm and weak and wicked they appear to themselves. Before God, therefore, you stand in this righteousness all day long, and that on a double account. First, you stand by the act of faith, because you have believed in him so that you might be justified by the righteousness of Christ. But if this fails (I mean the act of believing), you still stand justified by God’s imputing this righteousness to you. That imputation rests purely on the grace and good pleasure of God toward you, and so it still holds you as just before God, even though at present you lack the comfort of it.

Thus your person always stands accepted. And indeed, no one’s works can be regarded at all unless his person is respected first. The Lord had respect first to Abel, and afterward to his offering (Gen 4:4; Heb 11:4). But God can have respect to no one before works are done unless he finds them in the righteousness of Christ. For they must be accepted through a righteousness, and because they have none of their own, they have one of God’s imputing, namely that of his Son, which he worked out for us when he was born of the Virgin, and so on.

As to your sinful infirmities that attend you in every work, they cannot hinder you from laying up treasure in heaven, so long as your heart is upright in the way with God. Nor will God be so unrighteous as to forget your good deeds in the day when Christ comes from heaven.

(1) Because by the same reasoning he would then have to disown all the good works of all his prophets and apostles, for they have all been attended with weaknesses and sinful infirmities. From the beginning until now there has not been a man, “not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not” (Eccl 7:20). The best of our works are accompanied with sin. “When I would do good,” says Paul, “evil is present with me” (Rom 7:21). This, therefore, must not hinder you.

And for your further satisfaction in this, consider: as Christ presents your person before God as acceptable without your works, freely and by his righteousness alone, so his office is to take away the iniquity of your holy things, so that they too may be accepted by God through him (Exod 28:36-38; 1 Pet 2:5). That is why it is further said, for the encouragement of the weak and feeble, that he shall not break a bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, but shall bring forth judgment unto victory (Matt 12:20).

The bruised reed, you know, is weak, and by bruises we should understand sinful infirmities. So also with the smoking flax: by smoking you must understand sinful weakness. But none of these shall hinder either the justification of your person or the acceptance of your performance, so long as it is done in faith and love, however many your temptations may be. And this is because of Jesus Christ’s priestly office, now at the right hand of God. By him, therefore, let us offer spiritual sacrifices, for they shall be acceptable to God and our Father.

(2) Because otherwise God and Christ would prove false to their own word, which is horrible blasphemy even to imagine. For he has promised that when the Son of God comes to judgment, he shall render to “every man according to his work” (Rev 22:12). And on this very account he encourages his servants to endure patiently the hottest persecutions: “for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt 5:12; Luke 6:23).

From this also he binds his saints and servants to be sincerely generous, and good, and kind to all (Luke 6:35). First, because otherwise they have no reward from their Father who is in heaven, that is, for what they do not do (Matt 6:1). But if they do it, then even if it is only a cup of cold water given to a prophet or a righteous man, they shall receive a prophet’s reward, a righteous man’s reward. Yes, they shall surely receive it: “they shall in no wise lose their reward” (Matt 10:41-42).

(3) It must be so, for otherwise he would deny a reward to the works and operations of his own good grace, which he has freely bestowed on us; and that he will not do. He is not so unfaithful as to forget your work of faith and labor of love (Heb 6:10). And so it is with all other graces: our work shall not be in vain in the Lord (1 Cor 15:58).

And, as I said before, temptations, weaknesses and sins shall not keep the truly gracious from this blessed reward of theirs. No, they shall further it: “if need be, ye are in heaviness, through manifold temptations; that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, might be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:6-7). And the reason is that the truth and sincerity of God’s grace in us shows itself all the more, the more it is opposed and resisted by weakness and sin.

It is recorded to the everlasting renown of three of David’s mighty men that they would break through a host of giant-like enemies to fetch water for their longing king, for it spoke of their courage, their love and their goodwill toward him (1 Chr 11:12, 15-18). The same is also true of your graces, and of every act of them, when they are assaulted by a host of weaknesses.

Second Objection. And now I come to the second objection. It arises from our being completely justified, freely, by the grace of God through Christ, and by the same means alone brought to glory. It may be framed like this: “But seeing that we are freely justified, and brought to glory by free grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; and seeing that the glory we shall possess on account of the Lord Jesus is both full and complete, both for happiness and for continuing in it, what need will there be for our work to be rewarded? Indeed, may not the doctrine of reward for good works be here not only needless, but actually something that impairs and lessens the completeness of that glory to which we are brought, and in which we shall live inconceivably happy forever, by free grace?”

Answer. That we are justified in the sight of the Divine Majesty from the whole lump of our sins, past, present and to come, by free grace, through that one offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, I bless God, I believe. And that we shall be brought to glory by the same grace, through the same most blessed Jesus, I thank God, by his grace I believe that also. Again, that the glory to which we shall be brought by free grace, through the merits of Jesus alone, is unspeakably glorious and complete, I question no more than I question the blessed truths I have just confessed.

But yet, notwithstanding all this, there is a reward for the righteous, a reward for their works of faith and love, whether by doing or by suffering. And that reward is not mainly to be enjoyed here, but hereafter: “great is your reward in heaven,” as I proved in the answer to the first objection. And now I shall answer further.

1. If this reward had impaired or detracted from the free grace of God that saves us, he would never have mentioned it to encourage us to good works, nor added a promise of reward for those who do them, nor counted himself unfaithful if he did not give it.

2. The same may be said of Jesus Christ, who doubtless loves and cherishes the honor of his own merits as much as any who are saved by him can, whether they are in heaven or on earth. Yet he has promised a reward to a cup of cold water, or to the giving of any other alms. And he has further told us that those who do these things lay up treasure in heaven, that is, a reward to be received by them when their Lord comes, to their eternal comfort.

3. Paul was as great a defender of the doctrine of God’s free grace, and of justification from sin by the righteousness of Christ imputed by grace, as anyone who ever lived in Christ’s service, from the world’s beginning until now. And yet he was for this doctrine. He expected such a reward himself, and encouraged others also to look for it, for doing and suffering for Christ; he calls it “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17). Surely, as Christ says in a case not far removed from the one in hand, “if it were not so, he would have told us” (John 14:1-3).

Now, if I could tell what those rewards are that Christ has prepared, and will one day bestow on those who act for him in faith and love in this world, I would in doing so be saying more than I now dare or ought. Yet let me say this in general: they are such as should make us leap to think of them. We should remember them with exceeding joy, and never think it contrary to the Christian faith to rejoice and be glad for what we do not yet understand (Matt 5:11-12; Luke 6:23). “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be …” But “every man that hath this hope in him,” namely, the hope that he shall be more than he can imagine here, “purifieth himself even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).

Things that are promised, but not revealed for us to know while we are here, are left unknown for this reason: they are too big and wonderful. When Paul was up in paradise, he heard unspeakable words that it is not possible for man to utter (2 Cor 12:3-4). So I find a reward, and one laid up in heaven; but what it is I do not know. Nor is it possible for anyone here to know it any further than by certain general words of God, such as these: praise, honor, glory, a crown of righteousness, a crown of glory, thrones, the judging of angels, a kingdom, with a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, and the like (1 Cor 4:5; 1 Pet 1:7; 2 Tim 4:8; 1 Pet 5:4; Matt 25:34-36).

So to both these objections let me give yet a few more words of answer. Your modesty, or your opinion, may not allow you to look for a reward for what you do here for your Lord by the faith and love of the gospel. Yes, in the day of judgment you may even make light there of all you did on earth for your Lord, saying, “When, Lord, when did we do it?” But he will answer, “Then, even then, when you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matt 25:37-40).

Third Objection. But is not the reward that God has promised his saints for their good works to be enjoyed only here?

1. As to that: holy walking according to God’s command yields an abundance of blessed fruit even here. As he says, “In keeping of them there is great reward” (Ps 19:11), and again, “This man shall be blessed in his deed” (Jas 1:25), that is, now, even in this time, as he says in another place. For indeed there is so much goodness and blessedness to be found in a holy and godly life that, if a man were to have nothing hereafter, the present comfort and glory that lies like the juice in the grape in everything rightly done for God would be enough to repay all our toil and self-denial in our work of faith and labor of love, in doing the will of God.

2. Do you love your friends? Do you love your enemies? Do you love your family or relatives, or the church of God? Then cry for strength from heaven, and for wisdom, and for a heart from heaven to walk wisely before them. For if a man is slack, negligent, and careless in his conduct, not much caring whom he offends, displeases, or discourages by doing this or that, so long as he may save himself, please his foolish heart, get this world, or the like, this man has lost a good report among those who are outside, and has fallen into reproach and the snare of the devil (1 Tim 3:7). He has fallen into reproach. He is slighted and disdained, both he and his profession, and everything he says, whether by way of reproof, rebuke, or exhortation. “Physician, cure thyself,” everyone says to such a man. “This man is a sayer but not a doer,” they say. “He does not believe what he says.” Yes, religion itself is made to stink by this man’s ungodly life. This is the man who hardens his children, who makes the world stumble, who grieves the tender and godly Christian. But, I say, the man who walks uprightly, who guards the name of God, the credit of the gospel, and the welfare of others, seeking with Paul not his own profit but the profit of others, that they may be saved, this man holds forth the Word of life. This man is a good savor of Christ among those who are saved. Yes, by so doing he may prove to be the instrument in God’s hand of the salvation of many souls.

3. This is the way to be clear of the blood of all men, the way not to be charged with the ruin and everlasting misery of poor immortal souls. Great is the danger that comes with an ungodly life, or an ungodly action, in those who profess the gospel (Jer 2:33). When wicked men learn to be wicked from professing Christians, when professing Christians cause the enemies of God to blaspheme, sad and woeful effects must without doubt be the fruit of it (2 Sam 12:14). How many in Israel were destroyed for what Aaron, Gideon, and Manasseh unworthily did in their day (Exod 32:25; Judg 8:24-27)! A godly man, if he does not take heed to himself, may do something in his life that sends many to everlasting burnings while he himself is in everlasting bliss. But on the other hand, let men walk with God, and then they will be excused. The blood of those who perish will lie at their own door, and you will be clear. “I am pure from the blood of all men,” says Paul (Acts 20:26). And again, “Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean” (Acts 18:6). Yes, the one who lives this way will leave in those who perish an accusing conscience, a conscience begotten by his good conduct. By it they will be forced to justify God, his people, and his way in the day of their visitation, in the day when they are going down into the pit to the damned (1 Pet 2:12).

4. This is the way to keep always the answer, the echoing answer, of a good conscience in your own soul. Godliness is of great use in this way, for the man who has a good conscience toward God has a continual feast in his own soul. While others say there is casting down, he will say there is lifting up, for God will save the humble person (Job 22:23-30). Some, indeed, in the midst of their profession, are reproached, struck, and condemned by their own heart. Their conscience is always biting and stinging them because of the uncleanness of their hands, and they cannot lift up their face to God. They do not have the answer of a good conscience toward him, but must walk as people false to their God and as traitors to their own eternal welfare. But the godly, upright man will have the light shine on his ways, and he will take his steps in butter and honey. “The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever” (Isa 32:17). “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God” (1 John 3:20-22).

5. The godly man who walks with God, who cares chiefly to do the work God has allotted him to do for his name in this world, has not only these advantages. Beyond them, he has, as it were, a privilege of power with God: he can sway him a great deal. As it is said of Jacob, as a prince he had power with God to prevail in times of difficulty (Gen 32:28). And again, it is said of Judah that, being faithful with the saints, he ruled with God (Hos 11:12). How many times did that good man Moses turn away the wrath of God from the many thousands of Israel! Yes, as it were, he held the hands of God and held off the judgments, not once or twice. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (Jas 5:16). One man who walks much with God may work wonders in this very thing. He may be a means of saving whole countries and kingdoms from the judgments their sins deserve. How many times, when Israel provoked the Lord to anger, did he still put off destroying them? And the reason for that forbearance, he tells them, was for David’s sake: for my servant David’s sake I will not do it. As the Lord also said concerning Paul, “Lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee” (Acts 27:24), that is, to save their lives from the rage of the sea. Yes, when a judgment is not only threatened, but the decree has gone out for it to be carried out, godly, upright men may sometimes cause the very decree itself to cease without ever bringing forth (Zeph 2:1-3). Or else they may so time the judgment that is decreed that the church will be best able to bear it (Matt 24:20).

6. The man who is tender of God’s glory in this world, always ruling and governing his affairs by the Word, and wanting to be faithful to the work and employment God has appointed him to do for his name, that man will continually be let into the secrets of God. He will know what God will keep back and hide from many. “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” says the Lord. “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord” (Gen 18:17, 19). So again, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant” (Ps 25:14). “And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God” (Ps 50:23). Such a man will have things new as well as old. His fellowship with the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit will be turned into a kind of familiarity. He will be led into the Word and will keep increasing in knowledge. When others are stunted and look out with old faces, black and dry as a stick, he will be like a fatted calf, like the tree that is planted by the rivers of water. His flesh will be fresh as the flesh of a child, and God will renew the face of his soul.

7. If any escape public calamities, usually they are those who are very tender of the name of God and who make it their business to walk before him. They escape either by being mercifully taken away before it comes, or by being safely preserved in the midst of the judgment until the indignation is past. Therefore God says in one place that the “righteous are taken away from the evil to come” (Isa 57:1). But if not so (and not all are), then they will have their life for a prey (Jer 39:15-18). Caleb and Joshua escaped all the plagues that fell on Israel in the wilderness, because they followed God (Num 14:24). You have something of this also in that scripture, “Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness, it may be, ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zeph 2:3). In line with this is that word in Luke, “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36). When a man’s ways please the Lord, he will make his enemies be at peace with him (Prov 16:7). Marvelous is the work of God in preserving his saints who are faithful with him when dangers and calamities come, as Joseph, David, Jeremiah, and Paul, with many others, may show. “He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. In famine he shall redeem thee from death; and in war from the power of the sword. Thou shalt be hid from the scourge of the tongue; neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh” (Job 5:19-21).

8. If afflictions do overtake you (for “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Heb 12:6)), yet those afflictions will not come on you for the causes for which they come on the slothful and backsliding Christian. Nor will they have that pinching and galling effect on you that they have on those who have left their first love and their tenderness for God’s glory in the world.

(1) The faithful, upright man may also be corrected and chastised for sin. Yet, I say, while he abides close with God, afflictions come on him rather for trial and for the exercise of the grace he has received than as rebukes for this or that wickedness. On the backsliding, heartless Christian, by contrast, these things will come from fatherly anger and displeasure, and that for their sins against him. Job did acknowledge himself a sinner, and that God might therefore chastise him; but still he rather believed it was chiefly for the trial of his grace, as indeed and in truth it was (Job 7:20; Job 23:10). “He is a perfect man,” says God to Satan, “and one that feareth God, and escheweth evil, and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause” (Job 2:3). God will not say this of everyone when affliction is laid on them, though they may still be his children. Rather, he declares and pronounces that it is for their transgressions, because they have wickedly departed from him (Ps 39:11; Ps 38:1-4).

(2) Now, since affliction arises from these two causes, its effects, in the manner of their working, are very different from one another, though grace turns them both to good. He who has been helped to walk with God is not assaulted, when he is afflicted, with those turnings and returnings of guilt that assault the one who has basely departed from God. The one can plead his integrity when the other blushes for shame. See both these cases in one person, that goodly, beloved David. When the Lord rebuked him for sin, then he cries, O bloodguiltiness! and “Cast me not away from thy presence” (Ps 51:11). But when at another time he knew himself guiltless, though then also sorely afflicted, see with what boldness he turns his face to God. “O Lord my God,” he says, “if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:) let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust. Selah” (Ps 7:3-5).

This, therefore, must be a blessed help in distress: for a man to have a good conscience when affliction has taken hold of him. When a man, looking behind him and before him, can then return with peace to his own soul, that man who can plead his innocence and uprightness must find honey in this lion. All the people curse him, says Jeremiah, but without a cause, for he has neither lent nor borrowed on usury, which, it seems, was a sin in that day (Jer 15:10).

9. When people are faithful with God in this world, doing the work he has appointed for them, their dying bed is made easier by this means, and that on a double account: first, because of the present peace such people will have, even in their time of languishing; and second, because of the good company they will have at their departure.

(1) Such souls usually abound in present peace. They do not look back on the years they have spent with the shame that the idle and slothful Christian feels. “Remember now, Lord, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart” (Isa 38:3). “Blessed is the man that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth; and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing; thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness” (Ps 41:1-3).

Ah! When God makes the bed, the one whom weakness has laid on it cannot help but lie easy. That man has a blessed pillow for his head, though to everyone looking on it seems as hard as a stone. Jacob, on his deathbed, had two things that made it easy. The first was the faith that he was going to his rest: “I am to be gathered unto my people” (Gen 49:29), that is, to the blessed who had yielded up the ghost before him. The second was the remembrance of how God had set the seal of his countenance upon him when he walked before him in the days of his pilgrimage. When Joseph came to see him before he left this world, Israel, says the Word, “strengthened himself and sat upon his bed”; and the first word that dropped from this good man’s mouth, oh, how full of glory it was! “God Almighty appeared unto me,” he says, “at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me” (Gen 48:1-3). Oh, blessed talk for a sickbed, when those who lie on it can talk like this, on as true a ground as Jacob had! And this is how God will make the bed of those who walk close with him in this world.

(2) The dying bed of such a person is also made easy by the good company they will have at their departure. That company is, first, the angels; and second, the good works they have done for God in the world.

[1] The angels of heaven will wait upon them, as they did upon blessed Lazarus, to carry them into Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:22). I know that all who go to paradise are conducted there by these holy ones. Yet for all that, those who die under clouds because of unchristian walking with God may meet with darkness in that day (Job 5:14), and may go heavily out of this world in spite of it. Yes, their bed may be as uncomfortable to them as if they lay on nothing but the bare bed cords, and their departure from it, so far as anyone can see, more uncomfortable by far. But as for those who have been faithful to their God, they will see what lies before them. They will know that their tabernacle “shall be in peace” (Job 5:24), and the everlasting gates shall be opened unto them. In all this they will see the glory even from earth (Acts 7:55-56).

I was once told a story of what happened at a good man’s death, which I have often remembered with wonder and gladness. After he had lain sick for some time, his hour came that he must depart. And behold, while he lay, as we call it, drawing on toward his end, there was heard around his bed, to the amazement of the mourners, such blessed and ravishing music as they had never heard before. It went on until his soul departed, and then it began to fade. Its sound grew as if it were leaving the house, and so it seemed to go farther and farther off, until at last they could hear it no longer. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor 2:9). See, then, how God can make your sickbed easy!

[2] A dying bed is made easy by the good works that people have done in their lives for the name of God: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them” (Rev 14:13). Yes, and they go before them too. No one needs to be afraid of being accompanied to heaven by good deeds. Be afraid of sins: they are like bloodhounds at your heels. And be sure your sins will find you out, you who have not been pardoned in the precious blood of Christ. But as for those who have submitted themselves to the righteousness of God for their justification, and who, through faith and love to his name, have been frequent in deeds of righteousness, they will not appear empty before their God. “Their works,” their good works, “follow them.” These will enter into rest, and walk with Christ in white.

I observe that when Israel had passed over the Jordan, they were to go and take possession between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, from which the blessing and the cursing were to be pronounced (Deut 27). I take the gospel meaning of this to be as follows. I take the Jordan to be a type of death, and these two mountains, with the cursing and the blessing, to be a type of the judgment that comes on every man as soon as he goes from here, and after death the judgment (Heb 9:27). So he who escapes the cursing, he alone goes into blessedness; but he whom Mount Ebal strikes falls short of heaven! Oh, no one knows the noise that sounds in sinners’ souls from Ebal and Gerizim once they have departed from here! Yet it may be that they do not know what will become of them until they hear these echoes from these two mountains. But here the good man is sure that Mount Gerizim pronounces him blessed. Blessed, then, are the dead who die in the Lord, for their works will follow them until they are past all danger. These are the Christian’s train that follows him to rest; these are a good man’s company that follows him to heaven.