Season 11 is called, when sufferings for religion are laid upon us. This season focuses specifically on suffering for Christ rather than giving into the flesh. We will look at six helps for keeping our hearts to suffer for Christ, which is the distinct focus of this season. To keep the main teaching of this devotional fresh, here is what it means to keep the heart: Our whole will and understanding is to be loyally conformed and directed to God according to His commandments and Word, which is to manifest itself in every decision we make. Here is Flavel on season 11:
Another season, wherein the heart must be kept with all diligence, is when sufferings for religion are laid upon us. Blessed is the man who in such a season is not offended in Christ. Now, whatever may be the kind or degree of your sufferings, if they are sufferings for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s, spare no diligence to keep your heart. If you are tempted to shrink or waver under them, let what follows help you to repel and to surmount the instigation.
1. What reproach would you cast upon the Redeemer and his religion by deserting him at such a time as this! You would proclaim to the world, that how much soever you have boasted of the promises, when you are put to the proof you dare hazard nothing upon your faith in them; and this will give the enemies of Christ an occasion to blaspheme. And will you thus furnish the triumphs of the uncircumcised? Ah, if you did but value the name of Christ as much as many wicked men value their names, you could never endure that his should be exposed to contempt. Will proud dust and ashes hazard death or hell rather than have their names disgraced, and will you endure nothing to maintain the honor of Christ?
It can be very easy to seek compromise with what is deemed acceptable in the world. Our Christian convictions are becoming increasingly stigmatized and segregated from public life, and there hardly seems to be anything about our core beliefs that are not offensive to non-believers. Worse yet, the greatest attacks of this kind very often come from within the professing church. We hear attacks on the inspiration of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the teaching of the Trinity, the historicity of Genesis, the doctrine of God, the atonement of Christ, and a whole host of other essential Christian doctrines. Yet, despite these attacks, we need to stay true to Christ and not abandon biblical teaching. We must be bold to learn and affirm what the Bible teaches and not give in to either what is popular in academia or being pressured upon us, many times by fellow professing believers in our own churches! Rather, we can trust that the Holy Spirit has used the past 2,000 years of Church history to teach us all that we need to know about the essentials of the Faith. The Holy Spirit used them to help lay down the doctrinal foundation for the church. Can you imagine the reproach to Christ to say that the Holy Spirit—Who He gave to us for our understanding and growth in the Faith—was somehow deficient for them, since we now “know better,” all the while dismantling what He and the Church labored for millennia for our own protection and faithful practice? This is the height of arrogance! This is to spit in the face of Christ and to deny the sufficiency of His work and person. This is to spit at the Spirit. No, we maintain His honour despite any opposition we face, correctly dividing the Word of truth.
Many can also tend towards pursuing our own honour before men, regarding what others think of us rather than God. For such people, their battle lines become drawn for pursuing this worldly honour, not realizing that we have just drawn battle lines against Christ! For instance, part of the Church body’s function is to help others to understand and see their own sinfulness, to keep them accountable, and to instruct. The Christian response is to carefully consider their wisdom in light of Scripture (even when not given in the best spirit), and submit to biblical teaching. This also means submitting to our elders and overseers in the Church, recognizing that God has given them the authority to correct, rebuke, encourage, exhort, and so on. We are in service to the King of kings. We are to not regard our own honour as anything, but the honour of Christ. Those who humble themselves before God will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves—that is, those who pursue their own honour—will be brought low.
2. Dare you violate your conscience out of complaisance to flesh and blood? Who will comfort you when your conscience accuses and condemns you? What happiness can there be in life, liberty or friends, when inward peace is taken away? Consider well what you do.
Giving into the world’s ways of thinking and doing can initially appear compelling, and indeed, to be caught in its web has the effect of blinding one to the truth, holding them captive to do the world’s bidding. Yet, giving into the world has no lasting value. Its positive effects are no more than a smokescreen, giving the illusion of goodness all the while keeping it far from you. Nothing short of your assurance will be taken away, and you can be assured that you will not be living a life that is pleasing to God. In fact, if you are saved, then this compromise will become increasingly sorrowful to you. Nothing is gained by compromise with the world.
3. Is not the public interest of Christ and his cause infinitely more important than any interest of your own, and should you not prefer his glory and the welfare of his kingdom before every thing else? Should any temporary suffering, or any sacrifice which you can be called to make, be suffered to come into competition with the honor of his name?
When we become Christians—those faithful to Christ—we, by doing so, declare singular allegiance to Christ above all else. It is a declaration that “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” As Paul said, all that we can see as gain in this life we are to regard as rubbish or trash. And that is what everything the world has to offer truly is by comparison: garbage. Yet, there is an unimaginable height of contrast between the value of the things of Christ and the things of the world. How can, for instance, the innately destructive nature of carnal rebellion against God’s designs and teachings—designs and teaching designed for our good—ever be compared with what we have in Christ? The contrast is the very filth of death and despair versus the unsurpassable riches, goodness, and glory of knowing Christ. The stench of death become all the more odious to those in Christ, just as to those rejecting Him the Faith itself smells of this death. Do not be deceived by their wicked perception!
4. Did the Redeemer neglect your interest and think lightly of you when for your sake he endured sufferings between which and yours there can be no comparison? Did he hesitate and shrink back? No: “He endured the cross, despising the shame.” And did he with unbroken patience and constancy endure so much for you; and will you flinch from momentary suffering in his cause?
Christ Himself is our model of faithfulness. He endured all things so that we can be reconciled to Him. He was even willing to experience separation from the Father in His human nature—an unimaginable experience for One who has always been perfect and sinless! In this respect, even the cross pales by comparison to His suffering when He took on your sin and mine on the cross. It was not so much the fear of death as it was the isolation, shame, and filthiness of our own lives that He bore to satisfy the just wrath of the Father. Given that we have no possibility whatsoever to even come close to how much He suffered for us—or even imagine the magnitude of His sacrifice—dare we complain of the comparatively paltry shame we suffer on His behalf? No, instead, we must be willing to carry all the shame coming from singular obedience to Him, regarding the shame as nothing compared to the unparalleled greatness of knowing Christ.
5. Can you so easily cast off the society and the privileges of the saints and go over to the enemy’s side? Are you willing to withhold your support from those who are determined to persevere, and throw your influence in the scale against them? Rather let your body and soul be rent asunder. “If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”
Christ will not be pleased with us if we draw back. In fact, by distancing ourselves from Christ’s Church, we show ourselves to not be a part of its body. Those saved by Christ have been enabled to love Him and neighbor through ever-growing singular-inward-to-outward obedience to God’s commandments. Those who do not bare these marks are no people of His.
6. How can you stand before Christ in the day of judgment, if you desert him now? “He that is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Yet a little while, and the Son of man will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, to judge the world. He will sit upon the throne of judgment, while all the nations are brought before him. Imagine yourself now to be witnessing the transactions of that day. Behold the wicked; behold the apostates; and hear the consuming sentence which is pronounced upon them, and see them sinking in the gulf of infinite and everlasting woe! And will you desert Christ now, will you forsake his cause to save a little suffering, or to protract an unprofitable life on earth, and thus expose yourself to the doom of the apostate? Remember, that if you can silence the remonstrances of conscience now, you cannot hinder the sentence of the Judge then. By these means keep your heart that it depart not from the living God.
When we side with the world against Christ’s teaching, then we also seek to shame Christ. In fact, any capitulation to the world is an act of being ashamed of Christ. This of itself should be reason enough to cease all compromise and to pursue all the things of Christ, regardless of its cost. And can we say that the cost can ever be worth holding back service to Christ? This so-called “cost” is nothing short of idolatry: acting as though our own personal comforts, wicked desires, adulteries, worldly acquisitions, and relish of sin is something to be considered valuable. To avoid the shame of serving Christ is to take on ourselves the lasting and bottomless shame of rejecting the One by Whom shame itself is defined. Shall we give into the lies and presume that true shame is to oppose the ways and thinking of the world? Who, then, is our true lord and master? No, what is truly shameful is all manner of the rejection of Christ. The true, lasting, and unending shame is reserved for those rejecting Christ. Do not be deceived by the wiles of the world. God cannot be mocked, but stands already in triumph. Either your allegiance is for or against Him.
Next time we will be looking at the final season: season 12.