DISLIKE TO MINISTERIAL FIDELITY
Isaiah 30:9-11. This is a rebellious people, &c.
Many wish to be deceived. They have made truth their enemy and shrink from the light, desiring present relief and peace, even at the expense of future happiness. Many a man does not like to be told the truth about his business or his health. The Jews did not like to be told the truth about their national prospects. The incessant reference of the prophets to the holiness of God was offensive to them, and they tried to silence their faithful monitors. Faithful ministers of Christ meet with the same reception from many of their hearers. These cannot bear to have their consciences roused, their fears alarmed, and their minds rendered uneasy.
I. THE TRUTHS WHICH ARE USUALLY OBNOXIOUS TO SUCH PERSONS. The spirituality and unbending strictness of the divine law, the deep depravity of human nature, the exceeding sinfulness of man’s conduct, the universal necessity of regeneration, the inefficacy of works for justification, the indispensable obligation to a separation from the world, the holiness of God, His irreconcilable hatred to all sin, and His irrevocable purpose to punish it, and the awfulness and interminableness of the doom of the impenitent. Such subjects call up the enmity of the carnal mind. They distress those who are wrongfully at ease in Zion, and they demand that the preacher shall leave them, and discourse on more pleasing themes.
II. THE CAUSE OF THIS DISLIKE OF MINISTERIAL FIDELITY.
1. Unbelief. Multitudes who admit in gross the authority of the Bible deny it in detail. Its unpalatable truths are rejected.
2. The refinements of modern society and taste. It is allowed that the curses of a violated law may be uttered in barns or churches for the poor, and may fall on the rude ears of the multitude, but the doctrine and style of preaching to the congregations of rank and fashion must be smooth and soft.
3. Wounded pride. Persons of outwardly blameless life hate the doctrine which disturbs their self-complacency, and revile the man who attempts to sink them in their own esteem.
4. Painful forebodings of future misery. Resolutely cleaving to their sins, they do not like to be reminded of the doom to which they are hastening.
III. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS DISLIKE OF MINISTERIAL FIDELITY.
1. It is foolish. Is it wise in the victim of vice to ask the physician to tell him that he is in good health, and is carrying on a harmless course of indulgence, &c., &c.? No concealment of the situation of the sinner can alter his condition in the sight of God or change the relation in which he stands to eternity.
2. It is sinful.
(1.) In its origin. It springs from a determination to go on in sin.
(2.) In its nature. It is a love of falsehood, a desire to confound the distinction between sin and holiness. Nor is this all; in aiming to suppress the voice of warning, he acts the part of that infatuated and cruel wretch who would bribe the sentinel to be silent when the foe is about to rush into the camp, or would seduce the watchman to be quiet when the fire had broken out at midnight and was raging through the city. The attempt to induce the preacher to utter “smooth things,” is an attempt to induce him to destroy himself and to contribute to the destruction of them that hear him.
(3.) In its consequences. Notwithstanding the most faithful warnings, they are hurried on by it to ruin. Like infatuated Balaams, they force a passage to destruction.
3. It is dangerous. It leads men to close their ears to what it concerns them especially to know. It is only by a faithful disclosure of their situation that they can escape, but they will not hear it.
APPLICATION.
1. To ministers.
(1.) The guilt of ministers who do not discharge the duties of their office with uncompromising fidelity is indescribable. They are mere pulpit agents of the devil, receiving the wages of the sanctuary while they do his work; keeping all still and quiet among his slaves, preventing all attempts to throw off his hateful yoke by flattering them with the idea that they are the servants of God.
(2.) The conversion of sinners should be the chief object of every minister of Christ. They constitute the majority of every congregation; they will soon be beyond the reach of salvation.
(3.) The conversion of the impenitent must be sought by suitable means. What may be called the alarming style of preaching is most adapted to convert the impenitent. Not gross and revolting descriptions of eternal torment; these are offensive and disgusting, and generally defeat their purpose, especially when done in a harsh, unfeeling manner. But a minister’s habitual preaching should be so discriminating as to leave no unconverted sinner at a loss with whom to class himself, whether with believers or with unbelievers; and it should not unfrequently contain those allusions to and descriptions of the wrath of God which, like the distant rumblings of the gathering and approaching storm, should drive men to the refuge provided by infinite mercy in the cross of Christ.
(4.) It is at our peril that we soften down the terrors of the Lord to please any man; we must not shun to declare the whole counsel of God; we must stand clear of the blood of the rich as well as of the poor. Did Paul regard the feelings of Felix?
2. To professing Christians.
(1.) Many would have the preacher confine himself to words of comfort, and object to everything searching and practical as legal. Upon their principles, all parts of God’s Word but the promises are unnecessary; they are useless to believers, for they are above them by privilege; useless to sinners, for they are below them in respect to obligation. What is this but a requesting that the Holy One of Israel may cease from before His people?
(2.) Inconsistent professors are likewise anxious that the preacher should confine himself to consolatory topics. Hypocrites! he gives you that which belongs to you. Consolation would be to you a deadly poison, a fatal opiate.
(3.) Sometimes even those who have only the ordinary imperfections of even the best men wish to hear less of the alarming parts of divine truth. But have you no concern for the salvation of others? Besides, who can tell but what you dislike may be necessary for keeping you awake?
(4.) Let those who cannot bear to hear the descriptions of future punishment think with themselves how they shall be able to endure it.—John Angell James, Sermons, ii. 181–214.