When Love Declines Into Partiality: Richard Baxter

There are many schemes Satan, the world, and the flesh use to war against our progress in the life we have in Christ. One thing we need to guard ourselves against is declines in grace, or corruptions in what was once godly in our lives. Baxter warns against love for other Christians corrupting, declining, into partiality.

This can happen when our love for God’s people begins to narrow to be love for God’s people who are esteemed outwardly but not for spiritual reasons:

Many have honoured them that fear the Lord, who insensibly have declined to honour only those of them that were eminent in wealth and worldly honour, or that were esteemed for their parts or place by others, and little honoured the humble, poor, obscure christians, who were at least as good as they: forgetting that the "things that are highly esteemed among men, are abomination in the sight of God," Luke xvi. 15; and that God valueth not men by their places and dignities in the world, but by their graces and holiness of life.

This might look like thinking we love the church, when really we are loving people who are like us: the young couple with children, other singles, upwardly mobile people, socially astute and enjoyable people, etc. Baxter calls us to take note of who we love: do we value what God values? Is it graces and holiness that we are drawn to? Is it spiritual life we are seeking to know and foster in our brothers and sisters in our church, or are we drawn to outward, worldly things?

Yet, there is another way our love may corrupt or decline:

Abundance that at first did seem to love all christians, as such, as far as any thing of Christ appeared in them, have first fallen into some sect, and over-admiring their party, and have set light by others as good as them, and censured them as unsound, and then withdrawn their special love, and confined it to their party, or to some few; and yet thought that they loved the godly as much as ever, when it was degenerate into a factious love.

The Christian is called to receive other Christians in the Lord (Romans 15:7). Our union with Christ creates a union with each other (Romans 12:5). But there are those who “desire to be first” and draw people into their support or party. It may be around certain doctrinal distinctive or emphases, certain practices and methods, or ways of talking and acting (a style or brand). When those teachers have a particularly sectarian bent, they foster not only an undue admiration and loyalty to themselves as leaders and to their followers as the true and faithful servants, but they also foster an undeserved disdain for those who do not follow their sect, or even worse in their view, oppose it. Baxter’s insight is searching: could it be that my love for Christians is really love for my sect, my preferred type of Christian, a factious love? Is it the appearance of Christ in the brother or sister that I love, or is it the reflection of me in them that I love?

A third way that love may decline: when zeal for godliness in others morphs into a desire for their hurt or even damnation:

Are you zealous for God, and truth, and holiness, and against the errors and sins of others? Take heed lest you lose it, while you think it doth increase in you. Nothing is more apt to degenerate than zeal: in how many thousands hath it turned from an innocent, charitable, peaceable, tractable, healing, profitable, heavenly zeal, into a partial zeal for some party, or opinions of their own; and into a fierce, censorious, uncharitable, scandalous, turbulent, disobedient, unruly, hurting, and destroying zeal, ready to wish for fire from heaven, and kindling contention, confusion, and every evil work. Read well James iii.

My brothers and sisters, in the words of James “these things ought not be.” Let us be zealous for God: his name, his works, his word, his servants, his church. Be zealous that everyone who names the name of Christ would depart from iniquity. Be zealous that everyone who claims to know the Lord would know and love him in truth and be built up in the most holy faith. But may we turn from any enjoyment of other’s failures, pleasures in their mistakes, delight in uncovering dirt, zeal in stirring up controversy, nit-picky judgmentalism, and as Baxter says, every evil work.

A Prayer:

Holy Father,
To you who gives rain to the ungrateful and who is slow to anger,
who has chosen us in Christ not according to our merits but his mercies,
who has given us the Spirit of adoption that we would reflect your character:
we praise you and acknowledge you to be our great and faithful God.
Forgive us of not loving others as we ought,
and chiefly of not loving you and your kingdom as we ought.
Grant us, that being mindful of how we may fall from love into partiality, factiousness, and hatefulness,
we may instead be well pleasing to you, as your servants, loving your name and its service in the lives of others.
May we esteem others as more important than ourselves and so follow our Savior.
Bless us, and your whole church with us, that we may grow up into this holiness,
By the Spirit you have given,
To the praise and glory of Christ on the day of his coming in glory.
Amen.

From  “A Christian Directory (complete - Volume 1, 2, 3 & 4 of 4): A SUM OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY AND CASES OF CONSCIENCE by Richard Baxter” http://a.co/dr6a1rQ

Example Is More Effectual Than Precept: The Reformed Catholic Family, J. Merle D’Aubigne (free ebook)

This is a powerful excerpt from a short book, “Family Worship” by the Swiss minister and historian, J. Merle D’Aubigne (1794–1872). This book is available at the link below for free from our friends at Chapel Library. The book explores the proper motives for family worship and provides sound guidance for the venerable practice:

Parents! If your children do not meet with a spirit of piety in your houses; if, on the contrary, your pride consists in surrounding them with external gifts, introducing them into worldly society, indulging all their whims, letting them follow their own course, you will see them grow vain, proud, idle, disobedient, impudent, and extravagant!

They will treat you with contempt; and the more your hearts are wrapped up in them, the less they will think of you. This is seen but too often to be the case. But ask yourselves if you are not responsible for their bad habits and practices; and your conscience will reply that you are; that you are now eating the bread of bitterness that you have prepared for yourself. May you learn thereby how great has been your sin against God in neglecting the means which were in your power for influencing their hearts. And may others take warning from your misfortune, and bring up their children in the Lord!

Nothing is more effectual in doing this than an example of domestic piety. Public worship is often too vague and general for children, and does not sufficiently interest them. As to the worship of the closet, they do not yet understand it. A lesson learned by rote, if unaccompanied by anything else, may lead them to look upon religion as a study like those of foreign languages or history. Here, as everywhere, and more than elsewhere, example is more effectual than precept.

They are not merely to be taught out of some elementary book that they must love God, but you must show them God is loved. If they observe that no worship is paid to that God of Whom they hear, the very best instruction will prove useless. But by means of family worship, these young plants will grow “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither” (Psa 1:3). Your children may leave the parental roof, but they will remember in foreign lands the prayers of the parental roof, and those prayers will protect them.

Free ebook “Family Worship” from Chapel Library:

Free ebook link

Against Being Too Scrupulous: Richard Baxter

Can a person seek to be obedient in all things in a way that actually ends up undermining obedience in all things?

Baxter says yes, and that being overly scrupulous about small practical details (what many call legalistic) is a particular way of tripping ourselves up as Christians.

I’m working back and forth through Baxter’s monumental “Christian Directory”, and found this advice quite helpful:

Another temptation to confound you in your religion, is, by filling your heads with practical scrupulosity; so that you cannot go on for doubting every step whether you go right; and when you should cheerfully serve your Master, you will do nothing but disquiet your minds with scruples, whether this or that be right or wrong.

Baxter seems to be referring to the sort of person who stumbles over every small detail in their obedience, not able to see that such a negative and worrisome focus on these small details is a hindrance to what God calls them to do. They are sidetracked from the more important “cheerful obedience” to which they are called by thinking of God’s Law as tedious and condemning, by fixating on this small gnat, that small splinter.

He then provides a remedy, obedience that pursues pleasing God while always resting in our free justification in Christ:

Your remedy here, is not by casting away all care of pleasing God, or fear of sinning, or by debauching conscience; but by a cheerful and quiet obedience to God, so far as you know his will, and an upright willingness and endeavour to understand it better; and a thankful receiving the gospel pardon for your failings and infirmities.

Be faithful in your obedience; but live still upon Christ, and think not of reaching to any such obedience, as shall set you above the need of his merits, and a daily pardon of your sins. Do the best you can to know the will of God and do it: but when you know the essentials of religion, and obey sincerely, let no remaining wants deprive you of the comfort of that so great a mercy, as proves your right to life eternal. In your seeking further for more knowledge and obedience, let your care be such as tendeth to your profiting, and furthering you to your end, and as doth not hinder your joy and thanks for what you have received: but that which destroyeth your joy and thankfulness, and doth but perplex you, and not further you in your way, is but hurtful scrupulosity, and to be laid by.

When you are right in the main, thank God for that, and be further solicitous so far as to help you on, but not to hinder you. If you send your servant on your message, you had rather he went on his way as well as he can, than stand scrupling every step whether he should set the right or left foot forward; and whether he should step so far, or so far at a time, &c.

Hindering scruples please not God.

Godliness Evidenced When Against The Stream: Richard Baxter

I know law, and custom, and education, and friends, when they side with godliness, are a great advantage to it, by affording helps, and removing those impediments that might stick much with carnal minds. But truth is not your own, till it be received in its proper evidence; nor your faith divine, till you believe what you believe, because God is true who doth reveal it; nor are you the children of God, till you love him for himself; nor are you truly religious, till the truth and goodness of religion itself be the principal thing that maketh you religious. It helpeth much to discover a man's sincerity, when he is not only religious among the religious, but among the profane, and the enemies, and scorners, and persecutors of religion: and when a man doth not pray only in a praying family, but among the prayerless, and the deriders of fervent constant prayer: and when a man is heavenly among them that are earthly, and temperate among the intemperate and riotous, and holdeth the truth among those that reproach it and that hold the contrary: when a man is not carried only by a stream of company, or outward advantages, to his religion, nor avoideth sin for want of a temptation, but is religious though against the stream, and innocent when cast (unwillingly) upon temptations; and is godly where godliness is accounted singularity, hypocrisy, faction, humour, disobedience, or heresy; and will rather let go the reputation of his honesty, than his honesty itself. 

From Richard Baxter’s “Christian Directory”  http://a.co/0rbSMSd

“Twelve Men Went To Spy On Canaan” Part Two

  Numbers 13-14 contains the history of God’s people being given over to His fatherly judgement after turning away in unbelief from a difficult obedience. In my first post I pointed out that they had sadly failed the test before they started: the recon team failed to obey in faith Moses’ command to “be of good courage.” Their timidity and doubts spread rapidly among the congregation, and only Caleb had the faith to stand up and silence the revolt against God’s Word and His established church government.

In this post I’m hoping to dig deeper and press some applications to our consciences before we move on farther in the story.

We all know the temptation Israel fell under, and if honest, we know the experience of such a failure (known in the Bible as sin, wickedness, unbelief, and other non-PC things that offend the tenderhearted.) Like Israel, we cannot legitimately plead ignorance, instead we should admit to lacking courage and hope since we've not believed God's promises. We know what God’s word says: “Honor your father and mother.” “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” “In everything give thanks.” “Obey your rulers.” “Forgive as you have been forgiven.” “Do not lose heart.” He's even promised to bless these things. And yet, looking the obedience in the face it often appears: too difficult (the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large), nice but not rewarding enough (it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However…), and not what we would have chosen (we came to the land to which you sent us.)

There is a lot more in the passage for us, but maybe this is a good place to camp out and let it soak in: when I know what is right to do, the following lies are the enemies of my soul that I need to identify and fight:

1. This difficulty isn’t best for me. I know how my life should feel.

2. The blessings of obedience are good, but not good enough to justify the sacrifice.

3. I can’t do this. It is too hard.

Against these lies, the Word of God gives us many remedies. Here are some I have found:

Against: “This difficulty isn’t best for me. I know how my life should be.”

“You sent us here” the spies opine against Moses, and by extension, God. Isn’t this doubt in God’s goodness and sovereignty, which later in the passage comes to full display, behind so many of our “reasons” (otherwise known as excuses) for not doing what we know is right. We often dress this unbelief up in nicer words, but its essence is the same. God is either not good, we believe, or he is not in charge of what I am facing. But even when we do not believe God is good, he still is. Even when we think he has made a mistake in our life, he has not. When everything around us looks and feels differently, the promise of God’s sovereignty & goodness to his children is a rock underneath our lives that holds firm, sustains hope, and motivates obedience. It’s only a cliche when you do not believe it: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…” Romans 8:28

Against: “The blessings of obedience are good, but not good enough to justify the sacrifice.”

The spies saw the good stuff in Canaan, it just wasn’t good enough. I hate to say it, but I have seen this a hundred times in church life: “Look, what you’re teaching is good and I can see how it’s biblical and would work well, but for me it’s just too [hard, confusing, boring, painful, scary, unnecessary, inconvenient, harsh, heady, simple, etc., etc. etc.]” In this situation the failure consists in not appreciating the reward of obedience, not valuing the pleasures of God above our temporal or personal concerns. In Matthew 6:18-23 Christ teaches a piety that is concerned about the secret sight of the Father and his delight in graciously rewarding what he sees us doing to please Him. This reward has temporal dimensions but in Matthew 6 is primarily a heavenly treasure that is stored up like an account and will certainly have its payday. There are temporary rewards to serving the here and now, to serving what we see and feel to be circumstantially beneficial, but Jesus calls this laying up treasure on earth. He assures us that all such benefits will soon be destroyed, our joy lost with it. If we don’t see clearly the immeasurable difference between the pleasures of God and the temporal pleasures of unbelief and its disobedience, how great is our darkness!  

...that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! Matthew 6:18-23

Against: “I can’t do this. It is too hard.”

Colossians 1:10-12 contains the apostle’s prayer for us to know God’s will, to live in a way that pleases God, growing in our good works and good doctrine. Part of his prayer is that we would have strength that comes directly from God: “all power, according to his glorious might.”  

...so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Colossians 1:10-12

So pray, believing God is both able and willing to give us all the power we need for patience and endurance in doing his will more and more until the day of our inheritance in glory. That day is coming. Let’s not shrink back.

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, "Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who shrink back but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. Hebrews 10:35-39

“Twelve Men Went To Spy On Canaan” Part One

Over the next several posts, I hope to look at a scene from the life of Israel recorded in Numbers 13-14. If you can, open your Bible and read through these two chapters, reacquainting yourself with this well known story. The Lord has used this passage in my own life through the years to bring me repentance, to show me the way forward as a Christian, and to encourage other believers. It is the story of the people of Israel at the entrance to the promised land: spies were sent, grumbling ensues, few have faith, and many die in the wilderness under God’s judgement. It is, I believe, one of the saddest episodes in Israel’s life and demonstrates an important truth that must be firm in our hearts if we are to pass the test: “without faith it is impossible to please God.” (Hebrews 11:6)

In an act of strategic planning on God’s part, he commanded Moses, to send twelve spies to survey the future plunder of His people. Moses obeyed and commanded them to look carefully at the whole region for who lived there and how strong they were, what the land was like and what was its bounty. But alongside these instructions he gave an important command, one that would be disobeyed by ten of the spies and the mass of the people:

“Be of good courage” (vs. 20) 

None could know from the reappearance of the spies back in the camp, loaded down with grapes, pomegranates, and figs that they had disobeyed this most important command, yet the fruits of that heart-disobedience among the spies and congregation ripened instantly. They and the whole congregation begin to grumble. Against this unified dismay, a righteous division emerges. A hopeful and powerful man, Caleb, silences the grumbling, submits to God’s government in Moses, and demonstrates that unlike the mass of the spies, he was of good courage:

“But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said,’Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.’” (vs. 30) Let me stop here to note that such behavior is completely unacceptable in American Christianity: he made the aggrieved, the anxious, the reasonable, the deeply-convinced, the very-concerned, and all other forms of unbelieving congregants basically shut up. What a jerk! He quieted them under the command and commander given by God. What a patriarchal oppressor! He then turned them away from their doubts to the obedience of faith. What a legalist! As icing to the jerk-cake he could have added, “Turn in your Trinity Hymnals to selection 672, ‘Trust And Obey.’”

Imagine all the weak-hearted, unbelieving congregation! “He first tells us to be quiet; then he says ‘obey! God is with us!’ Then he has the nerve to choose that hymn? He doesn’t care how we feeeel! (BTW: I love Bible heroes who make me look winsome!)

Against the mob of worry and unbelief, this one voice of faith is the hero of this part of the story. He was the lone obedient, believing one. He had taken good courage in God’s promise and it gave him an entirely different perspective on the massive challenges ahead. Like the others, he knew this meant war. Unlike the others he knew that the roots of fear and unbelief would mean utter failure. Against the misery-wallowers of his time, through faith in God’s promise and power, he exclaimed, “We are well able to overcome it!”

Dear Christian, have you failed the test that you are facing from the outset? Did you forget that in order to survey the difficult obedience in front of you the right way you need to “be of good courage?” There is only one way forward in the Christian life: trust and obey! And without such trust it is impossible to please God.

"Augustine on the Christian Life" by Gerald Bray

Through February 19th 2016, Crossway is giving away a free eBook, "Augustine on the Christian Life" by Gerald Bray, from their Theologians of the Christian Life series. In a guest post for Crossway, Bray offered 8 ideas from Augustine that demonstrate his importance for Christians today:

1. The Importance of Real Relationship with God

2. The Necessity of the Church

3. The Helplessness of Humanity

4. The Supreme Authority of the Bible

5. The Trinity of Love

6. The Purpose of the Universe

7. The Christian Life as a Journey of Faith

8. The Christian Life as Mission

Augustine died in the knowledge that a few days later the barbarians would enter Hippo—which they were besieging at the time—and he must have feared that his life’s work would go up in flames. Things did not turn out quite as badly as that, but there was to be no lasting legacy of his labors in Hippo. No great basilica with his name carved into it. No academic chair dedicated to his memory. Not even a park bench with a plaque saying that his estate had paid for it.

To the naked eye, there was nothing. Yet as we know, what must have appeared then as a fairly insignificant ministry in a provincial town became the backdrop for the most productive life any theologian in the Western world has ever lived. Generations of Christians who would never go anywhere near Hippo would read what Augustine wrote in the hot and dusty chambers that were his earthly dwelling place, and would marvel at his gifts and intellect.

More than that, they would be moved—as we still are—by his passion for Christ, and would go away from his writings more determined than ever to walk in the way mapped out for them by God.

Read the whole article here: 8 Things We Can Learn from Augustine