A SERMON ON HOW DANGEROUS A THING IT IS TO FALL FROM GOD.
Part One
About our going away from God, the Wise Man says that pride was the first beginning, for by it the heart of man was turned away from God his Maker. "For pride," he says, "is the fountain of all sin: whoever has it will be full of cursings, and in the end it will overthrow him." (Sirach 10:13) And as by pride and sin we go from God, so will God, and all goodness with him, go from us.
The prophet Hosea plainly affirms that those who keep going away from God by vicious living, and yet would try to pacify him some other way by sacrifice and so win his favour, labour in vain; for in spite of all their sacrifice, he still goes away from them. "Because," says the prophet, "they do not set their minds to return to God, although they go about with whole flocks and herds to seek the Lord, yet they shall not find him; for he has gone away from them." (Hosea 5:6)
But concerning our turning to God, or away from him, you should understand that it may happen in various ways. Sometimes directly by idolatry, as Israel and Judah did then. Sometimes men go from God through lack of faith and mistrust of God, of which Isaiah speaks in this way:
Woe to those who go down into Egypt for help, trusting in horses, putting their confidence in the number of chariots and in the strength (or power) of horsemen, but have no confidence in the holy God of Israel, and do not seek the Lord. But what follows? The Lord will let his hand fall upon them, and down will come both the helper and the one who is helped; they will all be destroyed together. (Isaiah 31:1, 3)
Sometimes men go from God by neglecting his commandments concerning their neighbours — commandments that charge them to show heartfelt love towards every man. So Zechariah said to the people on God's behalf:
Give true judgment; show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother; plot no deceit against widows, or fatherless and motherless children, or the stranger, or the poor; let no man devise evil in his heart against his brother. (Zechariah 7:9-10)
But they cared nothing for these things. They turned their backs and went their way; they stopped their ears so that they might not hear; they hardened their hearts like a stone of adamant, so that they might not listen to the law and to the words that the Lord had sent through his Holy Spirit by his prophets of old. Therefore the Lord showed his great indignation against them. "It came to pass," says the prophet, "just as I told them: as they would not hear, so when they cried out they were not heard, but were scattered into all the kingdoms they had never known, and their land was made desolate." (Zechariah 7:13-14)
And, in short, all those who cannot bear the word of God but follow the urgings and stubbornness of their own hearts, going backward and not forward (as it is said in Jeremiah), turn themselves away from God. So much so that Origen says:
Whoever, with mind, with study, with deeds, with thought and care, applies and gives himself to God's word, and meditates on his laws day and night, gives himself wholly to God, and is exercised in his precepts and commandments — this is the man who is turned to God.
And on the other hand he says:
Whoever is busy with fables and idle tales when the word of God is read aloud, he is turned away from God. Whoever, during the reading of God's word, is preoccupied in his mind with worldly business, with money, or with gain, he is turned away from God. Whoever is entangled with the cares of possessions, filled with greed for riches, whoever strives for the glory and honour of this world, he is turned away from God.
So that, in his view, whoever does not give special heed to what God commands or teaches — whoever does not listen to it, embrace it, and print it on his heart, so that he may rightly shape his life by it — is plainly turned away from God, even though he does other things out of his own devotion and notion, which seem to him better and more to God's honour.
We are taught and warned that this is true in holy Scripture by the example of King Saul. God commanded him through Samuel to kill all the Amalekites and destroy them utterly, with their goods and livestock; yet Saul, moved partly by pity and partly (as he thought) by devotion to God, spared Agag their king, and all the best of their cattle, in order to make sacrifice to God. At this God was greatly displeased, and said to the prophet Samuel, "I repent that I ever made Saul a king; for he has forsaken me and not followed my words"; and he commanded Samuel to tell him so.
And when Samuel asked why, against God's word, he had spared the cattle, Saul excused the matter partly by fear, saying he dared do no other because the people would have it so, and partly because, since they were fine beasts, he thought God would be content, seeing it was done out of good intent and devotion, to honour God with their sacrifice. But Samuel, condemning all such intentions and devotions — however much they may seem to be for God's honour — if they do not square with his word, by which we may be assured of his pleasure, spoke in this way:
Does God want sacrifices and offerings, or rather that his word should be obeyed? To obey him is better than offerings, and to listen to him is better than to offer the fat of rams. Indeed, to rebel against his voice is as evil as the sin of soothsaying, and to refuse to agree with it is like abominable idolatry. And now, because you have cast away the word of the Lord, he has cast you away, so that you shall not be king. (1 Samuel 15:22-23)
By all these examples of holy Scripture we may know that, just as we forsake God, so he will always forsake us. And what a miserable state follows necessarily from this, a man may easily judge from the terrible threatenings of God. Although he cannot weigh all that misery to the full — it is so great that it surpasses any man's capacity in this life to consider it adequately — yet he will soon perceive so much of it that, unless his heart is more than stony, harder than adamant, he will fear, tremble, and quake to call it to mind.
First, God's displeasure towards us is commonly expressed in Scripture by two things: by his showing his fearful countenance upon us, and by his turning his face away or hiding it from us. By the showing of his dreadful countenance is signified his great wrath; but by the turning or hiding of his face much more is often signified — namely, that he utterly forsakes us and gives us over. These meanings are drawn from the ways of men. For men commonly wear a kind, cheerful, and loving expression towards those they favour, so that a man's face or expression commonly shows what goodwill or intent he bears towards others.
So when God shows his dreadful countenance towards us — that is, sends dreadful plagues of sword, famine, or pestilence upon us — it is plain that he is greatly angry with us. But when he withdraws from us his word, the true doctrine of Christ, and his gracious help and aid, which is always joined to his word, and leaves us to our own wit, our own will, and our own strength, he shows that he is beginning to forsake us.
For God has shown to all those who truly believe his Gospel the face of his mercy in Jesus Christ, which so lightens their hearts that, if they behold it as they ought, they are transformed into his image, made partakers of the heavenly light and of his Holy Spirit, and fashioned to him in all the goodness befitting the children of God. So, if afterward they neglect it, if they are unthankful to him, if they do not order their lives according to his example and doctrine and to the setting forth of his glory, he will take away from them his kingdom, his holy word, by which he should reign in them — because they do not bring forth the fruit of it that he looks for.
Nevertheless, he is so merciful and so long-suffering that he does not pour out this great wrath upon us suddenly. But when we begin to shrink away from his word, not believing it, or not expressing it in our lives, he first sends his messengers, the true preachers of his word, to admonish and warn us of our duty. For his part, out of the great love he bore us, he delivered his own Son to suffer death, so that we by his death might be delivered from death and restored to everlasting life, to dwell with him for ever and to be partakers and inheritors with him of his everlasting glory and kingdom of heaven; and so, for our part, we should walk in a godly life, as it becomes his children to do.
And if this does not work, but we still remain disobedient to his word and will — not knowing him, not loving him, not fearing him, not putting our whole trust and confidence in him — and on the other side behave ourselves towards our neighbours uncharitably, by disdain, envy, malice, or by committing murder, robbery, adultery, gluttony, deceit, lying, swearing, or other such detestable works and ungodly behaviour, then he threatens us with terrible denunciations, swearing in great anger that whoever does these works shall never enter into his rest, which is the kingdom of heaven.
Part Two
In the former part of this Sermon you have learned in how many ways men fall from God: some by idolatry, some through lack of faith, some by neglecting their neighbours, some by not hearing God's word, some through the pleasure they take in the vanities of worldly things. You have also learned in what misery a man is who has gone from God, and how God, of his infinite goodness, to call man back again from that misery, uses first gentle admonitions by his preachers, and afterward lays on terrible threatenings.
Now, if this gentle warning and threatening together do not work, then God will show his terrible countenance upon us; he will pour intolerable plagues upon our heads; and afterward he will take away from us all his aid and assistance, by which before he defended us from every such calamity. So the evangelical prophet Isaiah, agreeing with Christ's parable, teaches us. He says that God had made a goodly vineyard for his beloved children; he hedged it, he walled it round about, he planted it with chosen vines, and made a tower in the middle of it, and in it also a winepress; and when he looked for it to bring him forth good grapes, it brought forth wild grapes. And then it follows:
Now I will show you, says God, what I will do with this vineyard. I will pull down the hedges, so that it may perish; I will break down the walls, so that it may be trodden underfoot; I will leave it waste; it shall not be pruned, it shall not be dug, but briers and thorns shall overgrow it; and I will command the clouds that they rain no more upon it. (Isaiah 5:5-6)
By these threatenings we are warned that if we, who are the chosen vineyard of God, do not bring forth good grapes — that is, good works that may be delightful and pleasing in his sight when he looks for them, when he sends his messengers to call upon us for them — but instead bring forth wild grapes, that is, sour works, unsweet, unsavoury, and unfruitful, then he will pull away all our defence and allow grievous plagues of famine and war, dearth and death, to fall upon us. And finally, if these still do not work, he will leave us waste; he will give us over; he will turn away from us; he will dig and delve no more about us; he will let us alone and allow us to bring forth whatever fruit we will — to bring forth brambles, briers, and thorns, all wickedness[1] and all vice, and that so abundantly that they shall quite overgrow us, choke us, strangle us, and utterly destroy us.
But those who in this world live not according to God but according to their own carnal liberty do not perceive this great wrath of God against them — that he will dig and delve no more about them, that he is leaving them alone to themselves. Instead they take it for a great benefit from God to have everything at their own liberty; and so they live, as though carnal liberty were the true liberty of the Gospel. But God forbid, good people, that we should ever desire such liberty. For although God sometimes allows the wicked to have their pleasure in this world, yet the end of ungodly living is, at length, endless destruction. The murmuring Israelites had what they longed for:[2] they had quails enough — yes, until they were weary of them. But what was the end of it? Their sweet meat had sour sauce: even while the food was still in their mouths, the plague of God fell upon them, and they suddenly died. So if we live ungodly, and God allows us to follow our own wills, to have our own delights and pleasures, and does not correct us with some plague, there is no doubt that he is almost utterly displeased with us.
And although it may be long before he strikes, yet many times, when he does strike such persons, he strikes them once and for ever. So when he does not strike us, when he ceases to afflict us, to punish or beat us, and allows us to run headlong into all the ungodliness and pleasures of this world that we delight in, without punishment and adversity, it is a dreadful sign that he loves us no longer, that he cares no longer for us, but has given us over to our own selves.
As long as a man prunes his vines, digs at the roots, and lays fresh earth to them, he has a mind to them; he sees some sign of fruitfulness that may yet be recovered in them. But when he will spend no more such cost and labour on them, then it is a sign that he thinks they will never be good. And a father, as long as he loves his child, looks angrily at him and corrects him when he does wrong; but when that does no good, and on top of that he stops correcting him and lets him do whatever he pleases, it is a sign that he means to disinherit him and cast him away for ever.
So surely nothing should pierce our heart so deeply, and put us in such horrible fear, as when we know in our conscience that we have grievously offended God and still continue in it, and that yet he does not strike, but quietly allows us to remain in the wickedness we delight in. Then especially it is time to cry out, and to cry again, as David did: "Cast me not away from your face, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. (Psalm 51:11) Lord, turn not your face away from me; cast not your servant away in displeasure. (Psalm 27:9) Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down into hell." (Psalm 143:7)
These pitiful prayers of his, just as they assure us what horrible danger they are in from whom God turns his face — for that time, and as long as he does so — so they should move and stir us to cry to God with all our heart, that we may not be brought into that state, which is doubtless so sorrowful, so miserable, and so dreadful that no tongue can sufficiently express it and no heart can conceive it. For what deadly grief may a man suppose it is to be under the wrath of God; to be forsaken by him; to have his Holy Spirit, the Author of all goodness, taken from him; to be brought to so vile a condition that he is left fit for no better purpose than to be condemned to hell for ever!
For not only do such passages of David show that, when God's face is turned away from any persons, they are left bare of all goodness and far from any hope of remedy, but the passage of Isaiah rehearsed just before means the same. It shows that God at length so forsakes his unfruitful vineyard that he will not only allow it to bring forth weeds, briers, and thorns, but, to punish its unfruitfulness still further, he says he will not prune it, he will not dig it, and he will command the clouds that they rain not upon it. By this is signified the teaching of his holy word (which St. Paul in a like manner expresses by planting and watering), meaning that he will take that away from them.
So they shall be no longer of his kingdom; they shall be no longer governed by his Holy Spirit; they shall be put from the grace and benefits they had, and might ever have enjoyed, through Christ; they shall be deprived of the heavenly light and life they had in Christ while they remained in him; they shall be (as they once were) like men without God in this world, or rather in a worse case; and, in short, they shall be given into the power of the devil, who bears rule in all those who are cast away from God, as he did in Saul, and Judas, and generally in all such as work after their own wills — the children of mistrust and unbelief.
Let us beware, therefore, good Christian people, that we, by rejecting (or casting away) God's word — by which we obtain and keep true faith in God — are not at length cast off so far that we become like the children of unbelief. These are of two kinds, very different, indeed almost completely opposite, and yet both very far from returning to God.
The one kind, weighing only their sinful and detestable living against the right judgment and strictness of God's righteousness, are so without counsel and so comfortless (as all must be from whom the Spirit of counsel and comfort is gone) that they cannot be persuaded in their hearts of anything but that either God cannot, or else will not, take them again into his favour and mercy. The other, hearing the loving and generous promises of God's mercy, and so not conceiving a right faith of them, make those promises larger than ever God did — trusting that, although they go on in their sinful and detestable living ever so long, yet God at the end of their life will show his mercy upon them, and that then they will return. And both these two kinds of men are in a damnable state; and yet, nevertheless, God, who does not will the death of the wicked, has shown means by which both of them, if they take heed in time, may escape.
The first, since they dread God's rightful justice in punishing sinners (by which they should be dismayed, and should indeed despair as to any hope that may be in themselves) — if they would constantly (or steadfastly) believe that God's mercy is the remedy appointed against such despair and distrust, not only for them but generally for all who are sorry and truly repentant and will, with that, hold fast to God's mercy, they may be sure they shall obtain mercy and enter into the port or haven of safety. And whoever comes into it, however wicked they were before, shall be out of danger of everlasting damnation. As God says by Ezekiel: "Whenever the wicked man turns back and takes earnest and true repentance, I will forget all his wickedness." (Ezekiel 18:21-22)
The other, just as they are ready to believe God's promises, so they should be just as ready to believe the threatenings of God. They should believe the Law as surely as the Gospel; believe that there is a hell and everlasting fire as surely as that there is a heaven and everlasting joy; believe that damnation is threatened to the wicked and to evildoers as surely as that salvation is promised to those who are faithful in word and works; and believe God to be true in the one as much as in the other.
And the sinners who continue in their wicked living ought to think that the promises of God's mercy and the Gospel do not belong to them while they are in that state, but only the Law and those Scriptures that contain the wrath and indignation of God and his threatenings. These should assure them that, just as they too boldly presume upon God's mercy and live dissolutely, so God still more and more withdraws his mercy from them, and is so provoked thereby to wrath at length that he often destroys such presumers suddenly. For of such St. Paul said: "When they shall say, It is peace, there is no danger, then sudden destruction shall come upon them." (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
Let us beware, therefore, of such wicked boldness to sin. For God, who has promised his mercy to those who are truly repentant, even though it be at the very end, has not promised the presumptuous sinner either that he shall have long life or that he shall have true repentance at his last end. But for that very purpose he has made every man's death uncertain — that he should not put his hope in the end, and in the meantime, to God's high displeasure, live ungodly.
Therefore let us all follow the counsel of the Wise Man: let us make no delay to turn to the Lord; let us not put it off from day to day, for suddenly his wrath will come, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy the wicked. Let us therefore turn in good time; and when we turn, let us pray to God, as Hosea teaches, saying, "Forgive us all our sins; receive us graciously." (Hosea 14:2)
And if we turn to him with a humble and truly penitent heart, he will receive us into his favour and grace, for his holy Name's sake, for his promise's sake, for his truth and mercy's sake, promised to all faithful believers in Jesus Christ, his only natural Son. To him, the only Saviour of the world, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour, glory, and power, world without end. Amen.
Original "naughtiness" (and "naughty boldness" below) here means wickedness, not the modern, trivial sense of "naughty"; modernized as "wickedness."↩︎
Source reading uncertain here: the words restored as "had what they longed for" were badly garbled in the original scan. The sense — drawn from the quail episode of Numbers 11 — is not in doubt.↩︎