FALSE PROFESSORS SOLEMNLY WARNED NO – Charles Spurgeon

FALSE PROFESSORS SOLEMNLY WARNED NO.

102 “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” Philippians 3:18, 19. PAUL was the very model of what a Christian minister should be. He was a watchful shepherd over the flock. He did not simply preach to them and consider that he had done all his duty when he had delivered his message. His eyes were always upon the churches, marking their spiritual welfare, their growth in divine grace, or their declension in godliness. He was the unsleeping guardian of their spiritual welfare. When he was called away to other lands to proclaim the everlasting gospel, he always seems to have kept an eye upon those Christian colonies which he had founded in the midst of heathen darkness. While lighting other lamps with the torch of truth, he did not fail to trim the lamps already burning. Here you observe he was not indifferent to the character of the little church at Philippi, for he speaks to them and warns them. Note, too, that the apostle was a very honest pastor—when he marked anything amiss in his people, he did not blush to tell them. He was not like your modern minister, whose pride is that he never was personal in his life, and who thus glories in his shame, for if he were honest, he would be personal, for he would deal out the truth of God without deceitfulness, and would reprove men sharply, that they might be sound in the faith. “I tell you,” says Paul, “because it concerns you.” Paul was very honest—he did not flinch from telling the whole truth and telling it often, too, though some might think that once from the lip of Paul would be of more effect than a hundred times from anyone else. “I have told you often,” says he, “and I tell you yet again that there are some who are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” And while faithful, you will notice that the apostle was, as every true minister should be, extremely affectionate. He could not bear to think that any of the members of the churches under his care should swerve from the truth. He wept while he denounced them—he knew not how to wield the thunderbolt with tearless eyes. He did not know how to pronounce the threat of God with a dry and husky voice. No—while he spoke terrible things, the tears were in his eyes and when he reproved sharply, his heart beat so fast with love that those who heard him denounce so solemnly were yet convinced that his harshest words were dictated by affection! “I have told you often, and I tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” Beloved, I have a message to deliver tonight which is to the same effect as that of the Apostle Paul and I am afraid it is as necessary, now, as it was in his time. There are many now among us, as there were then, who walk in such a manner that we recognize them at once as the “enemies of the cross of Christ.” I fear that the evil, instead of having decreased, has multiplied and grown in danger! We have more profession, now, than there was in the age of Paul and, consequently, we have more hypocrisy. It is a crying sin with our churches that there are many in their midst who never ought to be there—who would be fit members of an ale-house or any favorite resort of the merry and frivolous, but who never ought to sip the sacramental wine or eat the holy bread, the emblems of the sufferings of our Lord! We have—O Paul, how would you have said it, tonight, and how would you have wept while saying it!—we have many in our midst who are the “enemies of the cross of Christ,” because “their god is their belly, they mind earthly things,” and their life is not consistent with the great things of God! I shall endeavor, for a short time, tonight, to tell you the reason of the apostle’s extraordinary sorrow. I never read that the apostle wept when he was persecuted. Though they plowed his back with furrows, I believe that never was a tear seen to gush from his eyes while the soldiers scourged him! Though 2 2 he was cast into prison, we read of his singing, never of his groaning! I do not believe he ever wept on account of any sufferings or dangers to which he, himself, was exposed for Christ’s sake. I call this an extraordinary sorrow because the man who wept was no soft piece of sentiment and seldom shed a tear even under grievous trials! He wept for three things—he wept on account of their guilt—on account of the ill effects of their conduct and on account of their doom. I. First, Paul wept on account of the GUILT of those persons who, having a name to live, were dead. While uniting themselves with a Christian church, they were not walking as they should among men and before God. Notice the sin with which he charges them. He says, “Their god was their belly.” By this I understand that they were sensual persons. There were those in the early church who, after they sat at God’s table, would go away and sit at the feasts of the heathen and there indulge in gluttony and drunkenness. Others indulged in lusts of the flesh, enjoying those pleasures (so miscalled) which, afterwards, bring unutterable pain even to the body, itself, and are disgraceful to men—much more to professors of religion! Their god was their belly. They cared more about the dress of their body than the dress of their soul. They regarded more the food of the outward carcass than the life of the inner man. Ah, my hearers— are there not many everywhere in our churches who still bow before their belly-god and make themselves their own idols? Is it not notorious, in almost every society, that professing men can pamper themselves as much as others?—I mean not all, but some. Yes, I have heard of drunken professors. Not men who positively reel through the street, who are drunk in midday, or intoxicated before their fellow men, but men who go to the very verge of drunkenness in their social parties. Men who take so much that while it would be an insult to their respectability to call them intoxicated, it would equally be an insult to the truth to call them sober! Have we not some men in our churches (it is idle to deny it) who are as fond of the excesses of the table and of the good things of this life as any other class of men?

Have we not persons who spend a very fortune upon the dress of their bodies, adorning themselves far more than they adorn the doctrine of their Savior—men whose perpetual business it is to take good care of their bodies, against whom flesh and blood never had any cause to complain—for they not only serve the flesh, but make a god of it? Ah, sirs, the church is not pure! The church is not perfect—we have scabbed sheep in the flock. In our own little communion, now and then, we find them out and then comes the dread sentence of excommunication, by which they are cut off from our fellowship. But there are many of whom we are not aware, who creep like snakes along the grass and are not discovered till they inflict a grievous wound upon religion and do damage to our great and glorious cause. Brothers and sisters, there are some in the church (both established and dissenting)—let us say it with the deepest sorrow—“ whose god is their belly.” Another of their sins was that they did mind earthly things. Beloved, the last sentence may not have touched your consciences, but this is a very sweeping assertion! I am afraid that a very large proportion of Christ’s church is verily guilty here. It is an anomaly, but it is a fact that we hear of ambitious Christians. Although Christ has told us that he who would be exalted, must humble himself, there are among the professed followers of the humble Man of Galilee men who strive to gain the topmost round of the ladder of this world! Their aim is not to magnify Christ, but to magnify themselves at any cost. It had been thought at one time that a Christian would be a holy, a humble and contented man—but it is not so nowadays! We have (oh, shame on you churches!) mere professors—men who are as worldly as the worldliest and have no more of Christ’s Holy Spirit in them than the most carnal who never made a profession of the truth of God. Again, it is a paradox, but it stares us in the face every day, that we have covetous Christians. It is an inconsistency. We might as well talk of unholy seraphim, of perfect beings subject to sin, as of covetous Christians! Yet there are such men—whose purse strings were never intended to slide, at least at the cry of the poor—who call it prudence to amass wealth and never use it in any degree in the cause of Christ. If you want men that are hard in business, that are grasping after wealth, that seize upon the poor debtor and suck the last particle of his blood—if you want the men who are grasping and grinding, that will skin the flint and take away the very life from the orphan, you must come—I blush to say it, but it is a solemn truth—you must sometimes come to our churches to find them! Some such there are among the highest of her officers, who “mind earthly things” and have none of that devotion to Christ which is the mark of pure godliness! These evils are not the fruits of religion— 3 3 they are the diseases of mere profession! I rejoice that the remnant of the elect are kept pure from these, but the “mixed multitude” are sadly possessed therewith. Another character which the apostle gives of these men is that they gloried in their shame. A professing sinner generally glories in his shame more than anyone else. In fact, he miscalls it. He labels the devil’s poisons with the names of Christ’s medicines! Things that he would reckon vices in any other man are virtues with him. If he could see in another man the same action which he has just performed— if another could be the mirror of himself—oh, how he would thunder at him! He is the very first man to notice a little inconsistency. He is the very strictest of Sabbatarians. He is the most upright of thieves. He is the most tremendously generous of misers. He is the most marvelously holy of profane men. While he can indulge in his favorite sin, he is forever putting up his glass to his eye to magnify the faults of others. He may do as he pleases, he may sin with impunity—and if his minister should hint to him that his conduct is inconsistent, he will make a storm in the church and say the minister was personal and insulted him! Reproof is thrown away upon him. Is he not a member of the church? Has he not been so for years? Who shall dare to say that he is unholy? O sirs, there are some of your members of churches who will one day be in hell! We have some united with our churches who have passed through baptism and sit at our sacramental tables, who, while they have a name to live, are dead as corpses in their graves as to anything spiritual! It is an easy thing to palm yourself off for a godly man, nowadays. There is little self-denial, little mortification of the flesh, little love to Christ. Oh, no. Learn a few religious hymns—get a few phrases and you will deceive the very elect! Enter into the church, be called respectable and if you cannot make all believe you, you will yet smooth your path to destruction by quieting an uneasy conscience! I am saying harsh things, but I am saying true things. My blood sometimes boils when I meet with men whom I would not acknowledge, whom I would not sit with anywhere and yet, who call me, “brother.” They can live in sin and yet call a Christian, “brother.” God forgive them! We can feel no brotherhood with them—nor do we wish to do so until their lives are changed and their conduct is made more consistent! You see, then, in the apostle’s days there were some who were a disgrace to godliness and the apostle wept over them because he knew their guilt. Why, it is guilt enough for a man to make a god of his belly without being a professor—but how much worse for a man who knows better? Worse, even, for one who even sets up to teach other people, still to go on and sin against God and against his conscience by making a solemn profession, which is found, in his case, to be a lie. Oh, how dreadful is such a man’s guilt! For him to stand up and say— “‘Tis done! The great transaction’s done! I am the Lord’s and He is mine,” and yet to go and sin like others—to use the same conversation, to practice the same chicanery, to walk in as ungodly a manner as those who have never named the name of Christ—ah, what guilt is here! It is enough to make us weep if we have been guilty, ourselves! Yes, to weep tears of blood that we should so have sinned against God! II.

But the apostle did not so much weep for them as for THE MISCHIEF THEY WERE DOING, for he says, emphatically, that they are, “The enemies of the cross of Christ.” “The enemies.” As much as to say, the infidel is an enemy. The curser, the swearer, the profane man, is an enemy. Herod, yonder, the persecutor, is an enemy—but these men are the chief soldiers—the lifeguards in Satan’s army! “The enemies of the cross of Christ” are Pharisaic professors, bright with the whitewash of outside godliness, while they are rotten within. Oh, I think there is nothing that should grieve a Christian more than to know that Christ has been wounded in the house of His friends! Look, there comes my Savior with bleeding hands and feet. O my Jesus, my Jesus, who shed that blood? Where did You get that wound? Why do You look so sad? He replies, “I have been wounded, but guess where I received the blow?” Why, Lord, surely You were wounded in the gin palace. You were wounded where sinners meet, in the seat of the scornful. You were wounded in the infidel hall. “No, I was not,” says Christ, “I was wounded in the house of My friends. These scars were made by those who sat at My table and bore My name and talked My language. They pierced Me and crucified Me afresh and put Me to an open shame.” Far worst of sinners, they that pierce Christ thus, while professing to be friends! Caesar wept not until Brutus 4 4 stabbed him. Then it was that he was overcome and exclaimed, “Et tu, Brute?” And you, “Have you stabbed Me?” So, my hearers, might Christ say to some of you. “What? You and you and you, professors, have you stabbed Me?” Well might our Savior muffle up His face in grief, or rather bind it in clouds of wrath and drive the wretches away who have so injured His cause! If I must be defeated in battle, let me be defeated by my enemies, but let me not be betrayed by my friends! If I must yield the citadel which I am willing to defend, even to the death, then let me yield it and let my foes walk over my body. But oh, let not my friends betray me! Let not the warrior who stands by my side open the gate and admit the enemy! That would be enough to break one’s heart twice—once for the defeat, and the second time at the thought of treachery! When a small band of Protestants were striving for their liberties in Switzerland, they bravely defended a pass against an immense host. Though their dearest friends were slain and they, themselves, were weary and ready to drop with fatigue, they stood firm in the defense of the cause they had espoused. All of a sudden, however, a cry was heard—a dread and terrible shriek! The enemy was winding up a steep acclivity, and when the commander turned his eye to see, O how his brow gathered with storm! He ground his teeth and stamped his foot, for he knew that some coward Protestant had led the blood-thirsty foe up the goat track to slay his friends! Then turning to his friends, he said, “On!” and like a lion on his prey, they rushed upon their enemies—ready, now, to die—for a friend had betrayed them! So feels the bold-hearted Christian when he sees his fellow member betraying Christ, when he beholds the citadel of Christianity given up to its foes by those who pretended to be its friends! Beloved, I would rather have a thousand devils out of the church, than have one in it. I do not care about all the adversaries outside. Our greatest cause of fear is from the crafty “wolves in sheep’s clothing” that devour the flock! It is against such that we would denounce in holy wrath the solemn sentence of divine indignation and for such we would shed our bitterest tears of sorrow. They are “the enemies of the cross of Christ.” Now, for a moment, let me show you how it is that the wicked professor is the greatest enemy to Christ’s church. In the first place, he grieves the church more than anyone else. If any man in the street were to pelt me with mud, I believe I would thank him for the honor, if I knew him to be a bad character and knew that he hated me for righteousness’ sake. But if one who called himself a Christian should injure the cause with the filthiness of his own licentious behavior—ah, that were more injurious than the stakes of Smithfield, or the racks of the Tower! The deepest sighs the Christian has ever heaved have been fetched from him by carnal professors. I would not weep a tear if every man should curse me who was a hater of Christ. But when the professor forsakes Christ and betrays His cause—ah, that, indeed, is grievous—and who is he that can keep back the tears on account of so vile a deed? Again—nothing divides the church more. I have seen many divisions in journeying through the country and I believe almost every division may be traced to a deficiency of piety on the part of some of the members. We would be more one, if it were not for cants that creep into our midst. We would be more loving to each other, more tender-hearted, more kind, but that these men, so deceptive, coming into our midst, render us suspicious. Moreover, they, themselves, find fault with those who walk worthily in order to hide their own faults against God and against justice. The greatest sorrows of the church have been brought upon her, not by the arrows shot by her foes, not by the discharge of the artillery of hell— but by fires lit in her own midst by those who have crept into her in the guise of good men and true—but who were spies in the camp and traitors to the cause! Yet again—nothing has ever hurt poor sinners more than this. Many sinners coming to Christ would get relief far more easily and find peace far more quickly if it were not for the evil lives of false professors. Now let me tell you a story, which I remember telling once before—it is a very solemn one. I hope to feel its power, myself, and I pray that all of you may do the same. A young minister had been preaching in a country village, and the sermon apparently took deep effect on the minds of the hearers in the congregation. There was a young man who felt acutely the truth of the solemn words to which the preacher had given utterance; he sought the preacher after the service and walked home with him. On the road, the minister talked of every subject except the one that had occupied his attention in the pulpit. The poor soul was under great distress and he asked the minister a question or two, but they were put off 5 5 very coolly, as if the matter was of no great importance. Arriving at the house, several friends were gathered together, and the preacher commenced very freely to crack jokes, to utter his funny expressions, and to set the company in a roar of laughter. That, perhaps, might not have been so bad, had he not gone even farther and uttered words which were utterly false, and verged upon the licentious. The young man suddenly rose from the table—and though he had wept under the sermon, and had been under the deepest apparent conviction—he rose up and went outside the door. Stamping his foot, he said, “Religion is a lie! From this moment I abjure God, I abjure Christ, and if I am damned I will be damned, but I will lay the charge at that man’s door, for he preached just now, and made me weep, but now see what he is! He is a liar, and I will never listen to him, again!” He carried out his threat. And some time afterwards, as he lay dying, he sent word to the minister that he wanted to see him. The minister had moved to a distant part, but had been brought there by providence, I believe purposely, to chasten him for the great sin he had committed. The minister stepped into the room with a Bible in his hand to do as he was accustomed—to read a chapter and to pray with the poor man. Turning his eyes on him, the man said, “Sir, I remember hearing you preach once.” “Blessed be God,” said the minister, “I thank God for it,” thinking, no doubt, that he was a convert, and rejoicing over him. “Stop,” said the man, “I do not know that there is much reason for thanking God, at any rate, on my part! Sir, do you remember preaching from such-and-such a text on such-and-such an evening?” “Yes, I do.” “I trembled then, sir—I shook from head to foot. I left with the intention of bending the knee in prayer and seeking God in Christ, but do you remember going to such-and-such a house and what you said there!” “No,” said the minister, “I cannot.” “Well, then, I can tell you, and mark you—through what you said that night, my soul is damned, and as true as I am a living man, I will meet you at God’s bar and lay it to your charge.”

The man then shut his eyes and died. I think you can scarcely imagine what must have been the feeling of that preacher as he retired from the bedside. He must always carry with him that horrid, that terrible incubus, that there was a soul in hell who laid his blood to his charge! I am afraid there are some in the ranks of the church who have much guilt at their doors on this account. Many a young man has been driven from a solemn consideration of the truth by the harsh and censorious remarks of Scribes and Pharisees. Many a careful seeker has been prejudiced against sound doctrine by the evil lives of its professors. Ah, you Scribes and Pharisees, you enter not in, yourselves, and they who would enter in, you hinder! You take the key of knowledge, lock up the door by your inconsistencies and drive men away by your unholy living! Again—they are “the enemies of the cross of Christ,” because they give the devil more theme for laughter and the enemy more cause for joy, than any other class of Christians. I do not care what all the infidel lecturers in the world like to say. They are very clever fellows, no doubt, and they have to be good to prove an absurdity and “make the worse appear the better reason.” But we care little what they say. They may say what they like against us that is false, but it is when they can say anything that is true about us that we do not like it. It is when they can find a real inconsistency in us and then bring it to our charge, that they have got stuff to make lectures of! If a man is an upright Christian, he never need fear what others say of him. They will get but little fun out of him if he leads a holy, blameless life. But let him be sometimes godly and at other times ungodly—then he may grieve—for he has given the enemy cause to blaspheme by his unholy living! The devil gets much advantage over the church by the inconsistency of professors. It is when Satan makes hypocrites that he brings the great battering ram against the wall. “Your lives are not consistent”—ah, that is the greatest battering ram that Satan can use against the cause of Christ! Be careful, my dear friends, be very careful that you do not dishonor the cause you profess to love by living in sin and walking in iniquity! And let me say a word to those of you who, like myself, are strong Calvinists. No class of persons is more maligned than we. It is commonly said that our doctrine is licentious. We are called Antinomians. We are cried down as hypers. We are reckoned the scum of creation! Scarcely a minister looks on us or speaks favorably of us because we hold strong views upon the divine sovereignty of God and His divine electing and special love towards His own people. In many towns, the legal ministers will tell you that there is a nasty nest of people there, who, they say, are Antinomians—such a strange set of creatures! Very likely, if a good minister enters the pulpit, when he has finished his sermon, up comes some man and grasps his hand and says, “Ah, brothFalse Professors Solemnly Warned Sermon #102 6 6 er, I am glad to see you down here. Sixteen ounces to the pound, today—our minister gives us nothing but milk and water.” “Where do you go?” he asks. “Oh, I attend a little room where we labor to exalt free grace alone.” “Ah, then you belong to that nasty set of Antinomians our minister was telling us of just now.” Then you begin to talk with him and you find that if he is an Antinomian, you should very much like to be one yourself! Very possibly he is one of the most spiritual men in the village. He knows so much of God that he really cannot sit down under a legal ministry. He understands so much of free grace that he is obliged to turn out, or else he would be starved to death! It is common to cry down those who love God, or rather, who not only love God, but love all that God has said, and who hold the truth firmly! Let us then, not as Christians, only, but as being a peculiar class of Christians, take care that we give no handle to the enemy but that our lives are so consistent that we do nothing to disgrace that cause which is dear to us as our lives, and which we hope to maintain faithfully unto death! III. Lastly, Paul wept BECAUSE HE KNEW THEIR DOOM. “Their end is destruction.” Mark— the end of a professing man who has been a hypocrite will be emphatically destruction. If there are chains in hell more heavy than others—if there are dungeons in hell more dark than others—if there are racks that shall more fearfully torment the frame—if there are fires that shall more tremendously scorch the body—if there are pangs that shall more effectually twist the soul in agonies, PROFESSING Christians must have them if they are found rotten, at last! I had rather die a profligate than die a lying professor! I think I had rather die the worse sweeping of the street than die a hypocrite! Oh, to have had a name to live and yet to have proved insincere! The higher the soar, the greater the fall. This man has soared high, how low must he tumble when he finds himself mistaken! He who thought to put to his mouth the nectared cup of Heaven, finds, when he quaffs the bowl, that it is the very draught of hell. He who hoped to enter through the gates into the city finds the gates shut and he, himself, bid to depart as an unknown stranger! Oh, how terrible is that sentence, “Depart from Me, I never knew you!” I think I had rather hear it said to me, “Depart accursed, among the rest of the wicked,” than to be singled out and to have it said, after exclaiming, “Lord, Lord”—“Depart from Me. I know you not. Though you ate and drank in My courts, though you came to My sanctuary, you are a stranger to Me and I am a stranger to you.” Such a doom, more horrible than hell, more direful than fate, more desperate than despair—will be the inevitable lot of those—“whose god is their belly,” who have “gloried in their shame,” and “minded earthly things.” Now I dare say most of you will say, “Well, he has stirred the churches up tonight! If he has not spoken earnestly, he has spoken harshly, at any rate.” “Ah,” says one, “I dare say it is very true. They are all a set of cants and hypocrites. I always thought so. I shall not go among them, none of them are genuine.” Stop a bit, my friend, I did not say they were all so! I would be very wicked if I did. The very fact that there are hypocrites proves that all are not so! “How is that?” you ask. Do you think there would be any bad bank notes in the world if there were no good ones? Do you think anyone would try and circulate bad sovereigns if there were no really good ones? No, I think not. It is the good bank note that makes the bad one, by prompting the wicked man to imitate it and produce a forgery. It is the very fact that there is gold in the world that makes another try to imitate the metal and so to cheat his neighbor. If there were no true Christians, there would be no hypocrites. It is the excellence of the Christian character which makes men seek after it and, because they have not the real heart of oak, they try to grain their lives to look like it. Because they have not the real solid metal, they try to gild themselves to imitate it! You must have a few brains left and those are enough to tell you that if there are hypocrites, there must be some who are genuine! “Ah,” says another, “quite right. There are many genuine ones and I can tell you, whatever you may think, I am genuine enough. I never had a doubt or fear. I know I was chosen of God. And though I do not exactly live as I would wish, I know if I do not go to Heaven, very few will ever have a chance! Why, sir, I have been a deacon the last ten years and a member twenty. And I am not to be shaken by anything you say. As for my neighbor, there, who sits near me, I do not think he ought to be so sure. But I have never had a doubt for 30 years.” Oh my dear friend, can you excuse me? I will doubt for you. If you have no doubt, yourself, I begin to doubt. If you are quite so sure, I really must suspect you. For I have noticed that true Christians are the most suspicious in the world— they are always afraid of themselves. I never met with a truly good man but he always felt he was not 7 7 good enough. And as you are so particularly good, you must excuse me if I cannot quite endorse your security. You may be very good, but if you will take a trifle of my advice, I recommend you to “examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith,” lest, being puffed up by your carnal fleshly mind, you fall into the snare of the Wicked One. “Not too sure,” is a very good motto for the Christian. “Make your calling and election sure” if you like—but do not make your opinion of yourself so sure! Take care of presumption. Many a good man in his own esteem has been a very devil in God’s eyes. Many a pious soul in the esteem of the church has been nothing but rottenness in the esteem of God. Let us then try ourselves. Let us say, “Search us, O God, and try our hearts; see if there is any wicked way in us and lead us in the way everlasting.” If you shall be sent home with such a thought, I shall bless God that the sermon was not altogether in vain. But there are some here who say that it does not matter whether they are in Christ or not. They intend to still go on trifling, despising God and laughing at His name. Mark this, sinner—the cry that does for one day won’t do forever, and though you now talk of religion as if it were a mere trifle, mark you, men—you will need it, by-and-by. You are on board ship and you laugh at the lifeboat because there is no storm. You will be glad enough to leap into it if you are able when the storm shall come! Now you say Christ is nothing because you do not need Him. But when the storm of vengeance comes and death lays hold upon you, mark me—you will howl for Christ! Though you will not pray for Him now, you will shriek for Him then! Though you will not call for Him now, your heart will burst for Him then; though you will not even desire Him now, “Turn you, turn you. Why will you die, O house of Israel.” The Lord bring you to Himself, and make you His true and genuine children, that you may not know destruction, but that you may be saved now and saved forever! Amen. 

Charles Spurgeon