HE PRECIOUS SAVIOUR - Burns, William Chalmers

238 chapter 19

 1864

Unto you who believe he is precious. ” – 1 peter 2:7

There are very few people who would not agree with the apostle when he says, that Christ is precious to believers. All who have been educated in a Christian land, however incorrect their views, and however dead their hearts, have a notion, at least, that but for Christ they could never get to heaven; and few or none would therefore contradict the assertion, that he is a savior to be valued. But when one comes a little closer, and asks professing people why he is precious to them, and in what degree, the answers to this question are indefinite and vague. It is not of Christ himself that most professors will speak. Some will say they need his righteousness, others that they hope in his death; but ah! The genuine child of god alone can say, from the very bottom of his heart, “to me Christ is precious. the heart is so very deceitful, my dear friends, that a man’s attachment to Christ may be nothing more than a name, without his being aware of it. Most people’s knowledge carries them the length of a certain desire to have his merits and his blood laid to their account in the eye of god, while their hearts are yet entirely strangers to the words of the text. Christ’s righteousness cannot be separated from himself, and nothing but faith in a living, conquering, reigning Jesus will save the soul, a faith that clings to him above all in his character of a king, willing and able, yea, pledge to root out and destroy his people’s iniquities. Neither can his righteousness be separated from his presence in the believer’s soul; he only becomes “precious: by personal acquaintance, and therefore, he can be so to none, who live habitually at a distance from the mercy-seat. Faith brings about a very close connection between the soul and him, and this is kept alive mainly by a sight of sin. In a word, we must know him as our own savior, while it is not self-interest alone that makes us love him. It is something higher, it is excellence seen in the lord himself that draws out the heart. No mere report of others about him will do, he must be seen, believed on, and embraced as the portion of the soul. We must get such a sight of him, as would enable the soul to sing that sweet psalm of thanksgiving to Jehovah- jesus,

I love the lord, because my voice

And prayer he did hear,

I, while i live, will call on him

Who bowed to me his ear.

If you are not god’s children, you can scarce go through that psalm without faltering and feeling a sad blank, and an inability to fill out the words with your own experience.

But now to apply the subject more directly, we shall briefly notice a few characteristics in believers themselves, which seem to show that to them Christ is precious.

Innumerable marks might be given, but here is a distinguishing one, Christ is the object nearest to a believer’s heart. He dwells in the soul, nearer than any creature, more closely entwined round the heart- strings than aught beside. Has Jesus ever got this near place to your heart, dear fellow-sinner?

Has he got a deep seat in your soul? — is he reigning there as lord of the conscience? Do you welcome him in all his grace and love as a god and

savior, willingly submitting yourself and all others to his sway? Who in this congregation knows anything of his drawing near thus? There is a deep conflict in that hour, a conflict that will hardly end without leaving some traces on the soul of a divine hand at work, traces not well to be mistaken, nor lightly to be forgotten. Sin is cast out then from its vile dominion – the world is put down, every idol falls, and lies smitten and broken. The affections of the regenerate soul are set on things above, they cluster around the lord Jesus; its desires are fixed on his free salvation, and cannot rest amid the fleeting vanities of time. Now, my dear friends, what are you saying to this? Does no counterpart to such a transaction as we have described rise in your memory? If not, to you Christ is not precious.

The second mark of the believer’s value for the lord Jesus, is, that he puts no society in comparison with his presence, no other company has such sweetness or such power to refresh and comfort and purify the soul. Here is a sure and unfailing test to detect the unregenerate. Some of them see to take pleasure in religious society, others appear almost willing to cast in their lot with the people of god; but then they stop at that, and are satisfied without anything more; but ah! God’s true children cannot rest there, whether alone or in company, they must have the presence of Jesus. Solitude loses all its sweetness, and the company of the most godly becomes insipid and profitless, unless the lord be found in both. Try yourself again, dear fellow-sinner, do you know anything of this? Do you know what it is to meet spiritually with Christ? I fear many will answer yes, without knowing what they say; and even those who do understand its nature, fall far short of that blessed fellowship with the father and the son, which the apostle spake of. Oh! We have all indefinite ideas of this at the best. You think it is merely some kind of feeling; no, it is deep, reap, personal, spiritual in its nature; it is the very life of the soul, and it brings down actual, rich, and gracious blessings to the needy sinner who has found true access to Jehovah.

The third proof of the estimation in which Christ is held by his people, is, that, for his sake, and for the love they hear him, they give up all known sins. Fellow-sinner! Try yourself here. What sin have you given up for Christ? A deep-rooted love for sin reigns in every unconverted soul, deluded men inflict severe penance on themselves that they may obtain a free license to sin afterwards; yes, and the world sets at nought present peace, rejects salvation, seals its everlasting doom, all to gratify its thirst for sin. Oh! How precious then, when a soul is really brought to mortify and deny all ungodliness! I know you cannot do this. Ah, no! tis beyond the power of man or angel, no hand but Jehovah’s can do it. There can be no casting out of sin, till god comes near and does the work for us. Christ must be precious indeed, before the love of iniquity, which is born and brought up with us, is weakened and yields. Employ the physician himself to do it by his almighty spirit, and he will bruise both sin and Satan under your feet. The fourth proof that we shall now mention is, that, where jesus is precious his ordinances are highly prized – we shall value his word, alone and in the family, as well as in the house of god. Not because we have received as a tradition that it is profitable so to do – nor merely to follow the example of godly parents, nor because it is a good and universal custom to take it up at certain times. No; but because it is the channel of living waters from the upper sanctuary, and a divine means of meeting with Jehovah, and of feeding on Christ by faith. And so also with his house, his table, his sabbath, we shall not wait on these merely because it is a statute for Israel forever that men should thus assemble to hallow the seventh day, but we shall value them as meeting-places with an absent lord; above all shall we love his day because it is a proof of his resurrection, the standing witness in all ages that he came and died for men, and the sure token that, after appearing like a criminal at Pilate’s bar, and meeting an accursed death, the surety was set at large by divine justice, and rose from the grave. why was this change made to the first day of the week? the believer will say within himself; “the jew still keeps the old day, and why am i now keeping the lord’s day, if not as a seal of my justification in the beloved? let infidels answer that, and tell why the christian world keeps that first day of the week; where in the book of history could you find a surer proof of his divinity? Ah! There is a testimony here that he is the only begotten of the father, and this makes the sabbath a precious day to the believing soul, and makes him desire to see all open violations of it arrested and put down, that others, as well as himself, may learn to use it as a time for rising beyond all that is seen to the things within the veil, and for laying the soul anew by faith on the great foundation stone.

Again: god’s people are precious to the believer, and in some aspects this is also a distinctive mark, though we shall not dwell on it, as each one can easily apply it to himself; we would only say that they are often most precious to a genuine believer when they have nothing else to recommend them; he may almost be apt to turn away from them when they are found in ease and prosperity, under the smile of the world; but when he finds them in prison, naked, poor, forsaken, ah! The heart of the child of god is drawn out to them in love, he sees them as they will be seen at the last great day with all the lord’s beauty shining on them.

Another mark that Christ is precious to believers is that they are longing for his second coming. The way to heaven is to be in Christ – and heaven is to be with Christ, this is what makes it “far better to depart, ” and what enables them to “hasten unto the day of god.

Now what say you to all these marks of value for the savior? Not that your opinion of him will make any difference. The preciousness of Christ stands eternally separate from your judgment of him, and it has been attested by multitudes now in glory, and by thousands now on earth: but is he precious to you? As a redeemer – as a sanctifies through his spirit poured forth? For we speak not of a name to be found in history, or of a dead man like the false prophet, whose followers still speak of what he was on earth, and i fear that the lord Jesus is little more than this in the hearts of you – carnal professors.

No, but we speak of him who liveth and reigneth – dead, but alive again, and giving evidence at this hour in men’s souls that there is a king in Zion. Oh! The blindness of poor sinners, that they can see no beauty in him. We look up to Jesus, and to the eye of faith he seems “the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely” one. We ask of you, and you say there is no beauty in him. Whence is this! The god of this world hath done it. Lay this to heart, fellow-sinner; be alarmed; say, alas for me! That he should be so precious, and that i should not feel it! Ah! My dear friend, would you like to taste and see that he is good, you need no title to obtain it, but that he is god’s free gift to a dying world. Jehovah is testifying. behold i lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation.

Only believe on him, and you will find him to be the stay and the rock of a sinking soul. Cry to him like blind wartime, and remain at his footstool until he bless you. It is high time to be up and awake. Oh that there were some among you becoming persuaded that there is a reality in Jesus – no fiction, no mistake, no overdrawn picture, but a real, divine, glorious Christ, ready to become your intercessor with the father – your friend in life and death – your all in all to eternity. If i see not that in him i am lost; if you see not that in him you are lost; but ah! You need not remain so. Do not despair – do not limit him – put him to the proof, for there is nothing he loves so well as to be tried and trusted by a poor hell-deserving sinner – do it at once – do it now. And you, believer, press on. Do not think you know enough of him. Oh! What is any discovery you have made compared with what is in him! Paul had seen much of his glory and tasted much of his love when he said, “that i may know him. Paul could say in the same breath, “i count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my lord. yet it seemed to him that but a drop from the ocean had reached his breast, and so he adds, like one who as yet knew nothing of him, “that i may know him. ” ah! Paul felt that all he had seen was but a chink opened to let Emmanuel’s glory into his soul. His glory! Oh, it will be the subject of eternal anthems. Make it all your boast now – be concerned for his glory – hate all that would intercept the shining of his countenance. Let sin be bitter to you. Let error be shunned. Error dims him, sin offends him; call upon him, then, in sincerity and truth. Let us now draw near to him in prayer. Fellow- sinners! Will you not join us in seeking his face? Seek now, knock now, ask now. He is rich to all that call upon him; and his heart-satisfying, enduring riches will begin to flow in upon your soul from the hour when you first can call him precious.