"Make your calling and election sure" (2 Pet. 1 :10).
It is not so long ago that a believer who was assured of his salvation was generally considered a very presumptuous man. Law being the characteristic preaching rather than grace, human merit was the chief part of salvation, and so to be sure of one's eternal salvation meant, of course, to have reached a much greater degree of goodness than those who were full of doubts and fears.
The wave of blessed light, however, which has swept over the whole earth these eighty years past, has wrought a great change. Men of God broke through human traditions; returned with a prayerful spirit to the Holy Scriptures; learned to rightly divide them; proved that law was ordained of God not for salvation but for condemnation then Christ came, suffered and died in atonement for sin, and thus provided a full, free and eternal salvation, bestowed in pure grace upon all who repent of their sins and believe on Him.
That grace now declared that all believers had eternal life, that they could therefore never perish, and none could pluck them out of that Hand which, once crucified for their sins, now held them in its almighty grasp of love.
What an outburst of praise rose through these and other glorious truths from the great host of souls long in mournful bondage, now set free with a freedom that came from the Son of God. They were "free indeed." And, thank God, this has not ceased. It is going on daily. It has created missionary activity all over the world. It has made and is making an army of devoted souls forsake much and suffer much to make known to their fellows the riches of this grace, while waiting for the coming again in glory of Him by whom it came.
The opposite of legal bondage, however, is now what threatens to mar the grace. It is found in a host of people who have caught on the grace and are using it to quiet their consciences while going on in friendship with the world. They seem quite oblivious to the fact that, " If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (i John 2:15, 16). And again, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God " (Jas. 4:4).
One is amazed at times to hear people calmly tell you that, O yes, they know they are saved, while leading -lives quite suited to the world, sharing its ways and pleasures, and showing little, if any, devotion of spirit to the Lord Jesus by whom they profess to be saved. Is this making one's calling and election sure? What when the testing hour comes ? "For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." What then f If only those who walk in communion with God, and therefore apart from the world, can stand in the ordeal (Eph. 6:13), what of those who have flippantly used the grace which cost our Saviour the agonies of the cross ? Where can they turn in that day when, instead of having through a life of piety made themselves at home in the Father's bosom, they have sought to find a place in the bosom of the world ?
May the Lord stir up "His own," that since "they are not of the world," they may manifest it in their works, their character, their ways, their dress, their words, their object in life, their all.
Making our calling and election sure is by a daily life of piety and growing acquaintance and intimacy with God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. We may be well acquainted with the doctrine of God, but it is not with the doctrine we are going to spend eternity. It is with God Himself. His doctrine serves to reveal Him, and we are jealous of the doctrine, because we are jealous of what He is. By becoming thus acquainted with Him, the affections are formed which bind us to Him. Then, whatever betide, we nestle ourselves in His bosom. The doctrine indeed is the expression of Himself, but it is Himself who is our hiding-place, our refuge, our friend, our resource in all circumstances.
O fellow-believer, waste not the precious moments, but use them devotedly to this end, making thus thy calling and- election sure. If thou hast wasted them, repent and waste them no more.
Human Claims and God's Ends
Every man-made religion claims gradual growth and progress until it will swallow up every other, and reign supreme in all the earth.
God is the only one who predicts decrepitude and final apostasy in the religions of His establishment. In Deut. 31:16, 17, He predicts the end of what He had committed to the nation of Israel in the following words:"And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake Me, and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us ? "
In the same manner, concerning the Church, He prophesies her downfall in 2 Tim. 4:3,4 thus:" For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
What hope then is there ? And why toil in suffering at what is foretold to end so disastrously? Moses, who knew the sad end, toiled devotedly to his last breath for Israel's welfare. Paul, who perceived "the mystery of iniquity" already at work in his day for the final ruin, toiled abundantly and in much suffering for the welfare of the Church.
What sustained those men and gave them such courage? Ah, they saw beyond all the failure and downfall of what was entrusted to man. They saw the purpose of God. -They knew His ability to carry it out. Their faith rejoiced in the triumph at the end. Moses saw Israel's Messiah, like himself returning to the nation which had once cast Him off- returning to it from heaven in power and glory in the hour of its greatest extremity. A God-fearing remnant among them will be made to pass through the furnace of affliction, as illustrated in Daniel's three young friends. Messiah then appears for their deliverance, and that remnant becomes the nation as described in Psalm 45, "The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold." She is prosperous beyond all former measure; at the head of all the nations; their lovely Jerusalem, "beautiful for situation," is then "the joy of the whole earth," for it is "the city of the great King " (Ps. 48). That day will show that to have served such a nation in patience and love during her dark days was no waste of time nor of talents.
In like manner Paul saw the Church, once persecuted, despised, hated of the world, vilified by base imitations, split up into fragments as a flock of sheep driven by wolves, plagued with antichrists-he saw that Church as described in Rev. 19. There, in the presence of the hosts of heaven she is, as a bride on her wedding-day, reflecting the glory of her glorious Bridegroom, forming with Him the central figure in the noblest assemblage of the universe of God. "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready."
The Lord of heaven and earth, worshiped by all, makes manifest then what He thinks of the Church, and how she stands in the sweetest and nearest of all relations to Him. That day will show that to have served the Church, the Lamb's wife, in love and self-denial in the time of her widowhood and sorrow, was laid up in the heart of God for all eternity.
When the remnant of Israel appears in glory as referred to in psalm 45, the nation in apostasy, as prophesied by Moses, has fallen under the judgment of the returned, triumphant Messiah (Matt. 21:44). Likewise, when the Church, which is Christ's body, appears, as in Rev. 19, the apostate Church, described there as "the great whore," has also been judged, as seen in chaps. 17 and 18.
In view of such absolute and everlasting triumph, God can afford to tell the truth-all of it-even though it may seem to give Him an under place for a time, and cast a gloom over that with which His holy Name is so intimately and livingly associated.