Religion Our True Interest

Holding Fast in Times of Apostasy

The Scripture of Truth (Dan 10:21) is the ground of faith. This portion of Scripture, which now comes before us, has its sacred elegancies and is "all glorious within."

It was composed by Malachi, whose name means "Messenger." He came on an embassy from the God of Heaven. This prophet was so famous that Origen and others, though mistakenly, supposed him to be an angel. He lived after the building of the second Temple and was contemporary with Haggai and Zechariah.

This blessed prophet lifted up his voice like a trumpet and told the Jewish nation of their sins. He was the last trumpet that sounded in the Old Testament. The words of the text fall into these parts.

I. A character of the godly.

1. In general, they were fearers of God: "they that feared the Lord."

2. In particular:

1.) "They spake often one to another."

2.) "They thought upon God's Name."

II. The good effects of their piety.

1. The Lord regarded it: "he hearkened and heard."

2. He recorded it: "a book of remembrance was written."

3. He rewarded it, and this reward consisted in three things.

1.) God's owning them: "they shall be mine."

2.) God's honoring them: "in that day when I make up my Jewels."

3.) God's sparing them: "I will spare them as a man spareth his own Son that serveth him."

Before I come to the several parts distinctly, there is a connective particle standing at the front of the text that must not be omitted: the word "Then."

"Then they that feared the Lord, etc." (Mal 3:16) "Then," that is, after Israel's return from the Babylonian captivity; "then," when the majority of the people had grown corrupt and came out of the furnace worse than they went in (verses 13 and 14), in this bad juncture of time, "then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." Calvin notes that nothing was sound, neither among the priests nor among the common people; they ran loose in every kind of wickedness, as if all restraint had been removed. From this, observe:

The profaneness of the times should not slacken but heighten our zeal. The looser others are, the stricter we should be. In those degenerate times, when men had reached the height of impudence and dared to speak treason against Heaven, "then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another." When others were plaintiffs against God, these were defendants; when others spoke against God, these spoke for God.

In Noah's days all flesh had corrupted itself, the old world was drowned in sin before it was drowned in water, and yet at that very time "Noah was perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God" (Gen 6:9). He was the phoenix of his age. Athanasius stood up in defense of the truth when the world had turned Arian. As one writer says, "This man sustained the assault of the whole world." The more outrageous others are in sin, the more courageous we should be for truth. When the atheists said, "It is vain to serve God," "then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another."

Question: Why should we be holiest in evil times?

Answer 1: Because of the divine injunction. God charges us to be singular (Matt 5:47), to be circumspect (Eph 5:15), to be separate from idolaters (2 Cor 6:17), and to "shine as lights in the world" (Phil 2:15). He forbids us to conform to sinners or do as they do. The way to Hell is a well-traveled road, and the Lord calls us to turn out of it: "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil" (Exod 23:2). As Bias observed, the majority are evil. This is reason enough to keep ourselves pure in a time of common infection. As God's Word is our rule, so his will is our warrant.

2. To be holiest in evil times is an indication that grace is genuine. To profess religion when the times favor it is no great matter. Who would not court the queen of the Gospel when she is hung with jewels? But to own the ways of God when they are decried and maligned, to love a persecuted truth, this evidences a vital principle of goodness. Dead fish swim down the stream; living fish swim against it. To swim against the common stream of evil shows that grace is alive. The prophet Elijah continuing zealous for the Lord of Hosts, when they had torn down God's altars (1 Kgs 19:10), showed that his heart and lips had been touched with a coal from the altar.

Application 1. See here how unworthy they are of the name of Christians who engage in sinful compliance and cut the garment of their religion according to the mode and fashion of the times. They ask not what is best, but what is safest. Complying spirits will truckle to the humors of others. As Seneca says, they go not where they ought to go but where the crowd is going. They can bow either to the East or to the Host; they prefer a whole skin over a pure conscience. Like the planet Mercury, they can vary their motion; like the mariner, they can shift their sail with every wind; and like the mongrel Israelites, they can speak the language of Canaan and of Ashdod. These are like the Samaritans of whom Josephus says: when the Jews flourished, they pretended to be related to them and to come from the tribe of Ephraim and Manasseh; but when the Jews were persecuted, they disclaimed all kinship with them.

The old serpent has taught men crooked windings, to be for that religion which has not truth on its side but power.

Application 2. Let us keep up the vigor of our zeal in times of degeneracy. By a holy counterforce, we should burn hotter in a frozen age. We live in the dregs of time; sin has grown common and impudent. It is excellent to walk in a way directly opposite to the world (Rom 12:2). Let us be as lilies and roses among the briars. Sin is never better because it is in fashion, nor will this plea hold at the last day, that we did as most others did. God will say: "Seeing you sinned with the multitude, you shall go to Hell with the multitude." Let us keep pure among the dregs; let us be like fish that retain their freshness in salt water, and like that lamp which shone in the smoking furnace (Gen 15:17).

Consider, 1. To be holy in times of general apostasy is something God is greatly pleased with. The Lord was much taken with the holy conferences and conversations of these saints in the text. When others were railing against the Deity, that there should be a company of holy souls speaking of glory and the life to come, their words were music in God's ears.

2. To keep up a spirit of holiness in an adulterous generation is a Christian's honor. This was the glory of the church of Pergamus, that she held fast Christ's name even "where Satan's seat was" (Rev 2:13). The impiety of the times is a foil that sets off grace the more and makes it cast a greater luster. Then a Christian is most lovely when he is, as Ambrose says, like the cypress, which keeps its color and freshness in the winter season. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright" (Ps 37:37). An upright man is always worth beholding, but he is most to be admired when, like a bright star, he shines in the dark and, having lost all, holds fast his integrity.

3. To be good in a profligate age does much to animate weak beginners; it strengthens feeble knees (Isa 35:3) and shores up those temples of the Holy Spirit that are ready to fall. One man's zeal is a torch for others to light at. How did the constancy of the martyrs inflame the love of many to the truth! Though only Christ's blood saves, the blood of martyrs may strengthen. St. Paul's prison chain made converts in Nero's court, two of whom were afterward martyrs, as history records. Mr. Bradford's holy advice and example so confirmed Bishop Farrar that he would not touch the Roman pollution (Fox, Acts and Monuments).

4. How sad it will be for Christians to fall off from their former profession and embrace a novel religion. Julian bathed himself in the blood of beasts offered in sacrifice to the heathen gods, and so, as far as in him lay, washed off his former baptism. In the time of Julius Caesar this prodigy occurred: after a plentiful vintage, wild grapes appeared upon the vines, which was regarded as an evil omen. When men seemed to bring forth the fruits of righteousness and afterward bring forth the wild grapes of impiety, it is a sad omen and sign of their ruin: "For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it to turn from the Holy Commandment" (2 Pet 2:21). Let all this move us to maintain the power of holiness in the worst times.

Though others may marvel that we do not sin at the rate they do, remember: it is better to go to Heaven with a few than to go to Hell in the crowd.

Question: How may we keep up the liveliness and fervor of grace in times of apostasy?

Answer 1: Let us beware of letting our hearts become too attached to the world. The world dampens zeal the way earth smothers fire. We are commanded to love our enemies, but the world is one enemy we must not love: "Love not the world" (1 John 2:15). The world bewitches with its pleasures and kills with its silver darts. The man who becomes a Demas will become a Judas; a lover of the world will, for a piece of money, betray a good cause and make shipwreck of a good conscience.

2. Let us be volunteers in religion, that is, let us choose God's service: "I have chosen the way of truth" (Ps 119:30). It is one thing to be good out of design, and another to be good out of choice. Hypocrites are good only for worldly advantage; they embrace the gospel for secular gain, and so they will fall away in time. The Chelidonian stone retains its virtue only as long as it is set in gold; remove it from the gold and it loses its virtue. False hearts are good only as long as they are surrounded by golden prosperity; remove them from it, and they lose all their apparent goodness. If we would retain our sanctity in backsliding times, we must serve God purely out of choice. The person who is good out of choice loves holiness for its beauty and holds to the gospel even when all the jewels of preferment are stripped away.

3. Let us be inlaid with sincerity. When a piece of timber begins to bend, it is because it is not sound. Why do people bend and comply against their conscience? Because their hearts are not sound: "Their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant" (Ps 78:37). Sincerity produces stability. When the apostle urges us to stand firm in the evil day, among all the pieces of Christian armor he commands us to "put on the girdle of truth," "Stand fast therefore, having your loins girt about with truth" (Eph 6:14). The girdle of truth is nothing other than sincerity.

4. Let us cultivate love for Christ. Love is a holy transport; it fires the affections, steels the courage, and carries a Christian above the love of life and the fear of death: "Many waters cannot quench love" (Song 8:7). Love made Christ suffer for us. If anyone asks what Christ died of, the answer is: he died of love. If we love Christ, we will own him in the worst times, and be like the virgin Basil speaks of, who, refusing deliverance on sinful terms, cried out, "Let life and money go, welcome Christ."

5. If we would keep up the lively vigor of grace in evil times, let us harden our hearts against the taunts and reproaches of the wicked. David was "the song of the drunkards" (Ps 69:12). A Christian is never the worse for reproach. The stars are no less glorious for having ugly names given them, the Bear, the Dragon, and the like. Reproaches are only the chips of the cross. How will a person endure the stake who cannot bear a scoff? As Jerome asks: what would that man do in the fire who blushed for Christ at the cloud? Reproaches for Christ are marks of honor, badges of adoption (1 Pet 4:14); what men call accusations, God counts as commendations. Let Christians bind these as a crown about their heads. It is better to have men reproach you for being good than to have God condemn you for being wicked. Do not be laughed out of your religion.

If a lame man mocks you for walking upright, will you therefore limp?

6. If we would keep up the vigor of devotion when grace seems to fail everywhere, let us beg God for confirming grace. Habitual grace may falter; Peter had habitual grace, yet he was foiled. He lost a single battle, though not the war. We need exciting, assisting, and strengthening grace, not only grace in us, but grace with us: "By the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor 15:10). This auxiliary grace, a fresh gale of the Spirit, will carry us undauntedly through the world's blustering storms. By these means we shall be able to keep up heroic zeal in corrupt times and stand as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved.

The Character of the Godly and the Fear of God

First. Having finished with the preface of the text, I begin with the Character in General of the godly. They are fearers of God: they that feared the Lord.

Question: What kind of fear is meant here?

1. Negatively, it is not meant of a natural fear, which is a trembling or palpitation of the heart occasioned by the approach of some imminent danger, as in "fears shall be in the way" (Eccl 12:5). Aristotle defined fear as a kind of pain or disturbance arising from the imagination of an impending evil.

2. Nor is it meant of a sinful fear, which is twofold.

1.) A superstitious fear: some people are more alarmed by a hare crossing the road than by a harlot lying in their bed.

2.) A carnal fear, as the old proverb says, fear is the worst prophet in doubtful matters. This is the ague of the soul that sets it shaking. The person who is timorous will be treacherous; he will betray his friend and deny his God. Three times in one chapter Christ cautions us against the fear of men (Matt 10:26, 28, 31). Aristotle says the reason the chameleon turns so many colors is excessive fear; in the same way, fear makes men change their religion as the chameleon changes her colors.

Carnal fear has two great faults. First, it is tormenting: "Fear hath torment in it" (1 John 4:18). The Greek word for torment is sometimes used for hell (Matt 25:46), so we can say that fear has hell in it. Second, it is pernicious. It disposes a person against duty: the disciples, under the power of fear, were fitter to flee than to pray (Matt 26:56). And it drives men toward indirect means to save themselves: "The fear of man bringeth a snare" (Prov 29:25). What made Peter deny Christ, and Origen sprinkle incense before the idol, but fear?

2. Positively, the fear meant in the text is a divine fear, which is the reverencing and adoring of God's holiness and keeping ourselves always under his sacred inspection. The infinite distance between God and us produces this fear. When God's glory began to shine out on the mount, "Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake" (Heb 12:21). Those who approach God's presence with light, careless hearts and worship him in a rude and negligent manner have none of this fear. In the text there are two parts.

1.) The act: fear.

2.) The object: the Lord.

They that feared the Lord. The fear of God is the sum of all religion (Eccl 12:13). Fear is the leading grace, the first seed God sows in the heart. When a Christian can say little of faith and perhaps nothing of assurance, he still dare not deny that he fears God (Neh 1:11). God is so great that he is afraid of displeasing him, and so good that he is afraid of losing him.

It is an indispensable duty incumbent on all Christians to be fearers of God: "Fear thou God" (Eccl 5:7); "That thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy God" (Deut 28:58). This goes to the very constitution of a saint. One can no more act as a Christian without fear than he can act as a man without reason.

This holy fear is the fixed temper and disposition of the soul. It is not servile but filial. There is a difference between fearing God and being afraid of God. The godly fear God as a child fears his father; the wicked are afraid of God as a prisoner is afraid of the judge. This divine fear will appear admirable when you consider how it is mixed and interwoven with several of the graces.

1. The fear of God is mixed with love (Ps 145:19–20). The chaste spouse fears to displease her husband because she loves him. Fear and love must necessarily go together. Love is like sails that speed the soul's motion, and fear is like ballast to keep it steady in religion. Love will grow wanton unless it is balanced by fear.

2. The fear of God is mixed with faith: "By faith Noah, moved with fear" (Heb 11:7), prepared an ark. When the soul looks either to God's holiness or to its own sinfulness, it fears, but it is a fear mixed with faith in Christ's merits. The soul trembles yet trusts, like a ship lying at anchor: though it shakes in the wind, it is held fast. In his great wisdom God couples these two graces of faith and fear. Fear preserves seriousness; faith preserves cheerfulness. Fear is like the lead on a fishing net, keeping a Christian from floating into presumption; and faith is like the cork on the net, keeping him from sinking into despair.

3. The fear of God is mixed with prudence. The person who fears God has the serpent's eye in the dove's head. He foresees and avoids the rocks that others run upon (Prov 22:3). Though divine fear does not make a person cowardly, it makes him cautious.

4. The fear of God is mixed with hope: "The eye of the Lord is on them that fear him, that hope in his mercy" (Ps 33:18). One would think fear would destroy hope, but it actually cherishes it. Fear is to hope what oil is to a lamp: it keeps it burning. The more we fear God's justice, the more we may hope in his mercy. Those who have no fear of God do sometimes hope, but it is not "good hope through grace" (2 Thess 2:16). Sinners pretend to have the helmet of hope (1 Thess 5:8), but they lack the breastplate of righteousness (Eph 6:14).

5. The fear of God is mixed with industry: "Noah moved with fear prepared an ark" (Heb 11:7). There are two kinds of fear. First, a fear of diffidence, which pictures God as a severe judge; this takes the soul off from duty (Matt 25:25). Second, a fear of diligence: a Christian fears and prays, fears and repents. This fear quickens industry. The bride, fearing that the bridegroom may come before she is ready, hastens to put on her jewels so she may be prepared to meet him. Fear produces a watchful eye and a working hand. Fear banishes sloth from its domain. The greatest labor in religion, says holy fear, is far less than the least pain the damned feel in hell. There is no greater spur in the heavenly race than fear.

Cogent Reasons for Fearing God

The reasons for this holy fear are as follows.

1. God's eye is always upon us. A person who stands before an earthly ruler will take care not to do anything that offends him. How much more should we take care before God? "Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?" (Job 31:4). God sees in the dark: "The darkness hideth not from thee" (Ps 139:12). The night is no curtain, and the clouds are no canopy to block his sight. He also sees the heart. A judge can rule on the act, but God judges the heart (Jer 17:10). He is like Ezekiel's wheels, "full of eyes" (Ezek 10:12), and, as Cyril says, he is "all eye." Should this not make us walk with fear and circumspection? We cannot sin without our Judge looking on.

2. God interprets our failure to fear him as a contempt of him. Just as failing to praise God wrongs him, so failing to fear God slights him. Of all things, a person can least endure to be slighted: "Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God?" (Ps 10:13). For a worm to slight its Maker causes fury to rise up in God's face (Ezek 38:18).

3. God has power to destroy us. "Fear him who hath power to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt 10:28). God can look us into our graves and with a breath blow us into hell, and shall we not fear him? Is it easy to wrestle with flames? "Who knoweth the power of his anger?" (Ps 90:11). What engines or buckets can quench the infernal fire? We are quick to fear those who have power to hurt us. But what is their power compared to God's? They threaten a prison; God threatens hell. They threaten our life; God threatens our soul. Shall we not tremble before him? How dreadful it will be when the great fountains of God's wrath are broken open and all his bitter vials poured out: "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with thee?" (Ezek 22:14).

As Bernard says, in hell the one who torments never grows weary, and the one who is tormented never dies.

But are we not told to serve God without fear (Luke 1:74)?

We must not fear God the way the wicked do. They fear him as a Turkish slave fears his master, they fear him in such a way that they also hate him and wish there were no God. As the saying goes, "Whom they fear, they hate." We must not serve God with this hellish fear. We must serve him with a genuine fear sweetened with love.

The Practical Improvement of the Proposition

This teaching refutes the Papists, who hold that a Christian cannot have assurance because he is to serve God with fear. Assurance and fear are different but not contrary. A child may have assurance of his father's love and yet still fear offending him. Who was more fearful of sin than Paul? "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection" (1 Cor 9:27). Yet who had more assurance? "Who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20). Faith procures assurance (Eph 1:13); fear preserves it.

If it is a duty to fear God, what strangers to religion are those who are empty of this holy fear! The godly fear and sin not; the wicked sin and fear not. They are like the Leviathan, who is "made without fear" (Job 41:33). The absence of the fear of God is the root cause of all wickedness: "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood" (Rom 3:14–15). And why? "There is no fear of God before their eyes" (Rom 3:18). Abraham suspected the men of Gerar would stop at no sin, and his reason was plain: "I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place" (Gen 20:11). The judge in the Gospel is called "an unjust judge" (Luke 18:6), and no wonder, for "he feared not God" (Luke 18:2).

Sin will inevitably overflow where the fear of God is absent to restrain it, just as water overflows where there are no banks to hold it. We live in a godless age. Would men dare sin at the rate they do, if the fear of God ruled their hearts? Would they swear, live unclean, use false weights, bear false witness, hate purity, mock God's signs in the heavens, forge plots, and persecute Christ's body, if they had the fear of God before their eyes? Such men proclaim to the world that they are Atheists; they do not believe in the immortality of the soul. They are worse than brutes: a beast fears fire, yet these men do not fear hellfire. They are worse even than devils, for "they believe and tremble" (Jas 2:19).

Let us mourn the absence of the fear of God. Justice herself has abandoned the earth.

Why do so few fear God?

1. Because they have no knowledge of God. "They hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord" (Prov 1:29). If people truly knew God in his immense glory, they would be swallowed up in divine amazement. When the prophet Isaiah glimpsed God's glory, he was struck with holy terror: "Woe is me! I am undone; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isa 6:5). Ignorance of God banishes fear. All sin is, in the end, founded on ignorance.

2. Men do not fear God because they presume on his mercy. God is merciful, and they do not doubt the power of that sovereign remedy. But for whom is God's mercy? "His mercy is on them that fear him" (Luke 1:50). Those who do not fear God's justice will never taste his mercy.

Let this be cause for lamentation: the fear of God has so nearly vanished. Where is it to be found? Some fear shame; others fear danger, but who is there who fears God? Diogenes came into a crowded marketplace carrying a candle and lantern. When asked what he sought, he answered, "I seek a man," that is, a wise man. So among the crowd today we may go and search for a man who fears God.

And not only among the common people, but even among Professors, how few fear God in truth! Profession of faith is often made a cloak to cover sin. Absalom disguised his treason with a religious vow (2 Sam 15:7). The Pharisees made long prayer a preface to oppression (Matt 23:14). To pursue wicked designs under a mask of piety is expressly forbidden. Snow covers many a dunghill; a white snowy profession covers many a foul heart. The sins of Professors are more odious. Thistles are bad in a field, but worse in a garden. The sins of the wicked anger God; the sins of Professors grieve him.

This teaching reproves Jovial sinners, who are so far from fearing God that they spend their time in mirth and wantonness. "They did eat, they drank, they married, till the flood came and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:27). There is a place in Africa called Timbuktu where the inhabitants spend all the day in piping and dancing. What sensual, effeminate lives the gallants of our age live! They spend their lives in a frolic, as though God had made them to play like the Leviathan in the sea. "They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ" (Job 21:12). They ride to hell on the back of pleasure and go merrily to damnation.

Though the times are grievous, such people have no fear about the public state of things. Does not God call us to trembling? Our sins are the fiery comets that presage evil. May we not fear that the glory is departing? May we not fear the death of religion before the birth of reformation? May we not fear some portentous calamity bringing up the rear of former judgments? And yet, as the prophet Ezekiel says, "Should we then make mirth?" (Ezek 21:10). But jovial spirits have banished the fear of God: "That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments" (Amos 6:4–5). Sinners whose hearts are hardened by soft pleasures, let them have their lusts, and farewell to Christ and his Gospel. "Feeding themselves without fear" (Jude 12). But they forget that death will bring in the reckoning, and they must pay that reckoning in hell.

When the Great Turk intends the death of any of his Bashaws, he invites them to a sumptuous feast and then has them taken from the table and strangled. So Satan gluts men with sinful pleasures and then strangles them. Foolish gallants are like fish that swim pleasantly through the silver streams of Jordan, until at last they fall into the Dead Sea (1 Tim 6:9).

This teaching reproves secure sinners who have no fear of God, like the people of Laish of old, "a people quiet and secure" (Judg 18:27). Those who are least safe are most confident. Security casts men into a deep sleep. Birds that build and roost in steeples grow so used to the continual ringing of bells that the noise does not disturb them at all. So sinners who have long been accustomed to the sound of Aaron's bells, though peals ring out against their sins again and again, are not startled. A secure sinner is known by these marks: