The Beatitudes - Thomas Watson
Exhortations to Christians as they are children of God
1. There is a
bill of indictment against those who declare to the world they are not the
children of God: all profane persons. These have damnation written upon their
forehead.
Scoffers at
religion. It were blasphemy to call these the children
of God. Will a true child jeer at his Father's picture?
Drunkards,
who drown reason and stupefy conscience. These declare their sin as Sodom. They
are children indeed, but `cursed children'. {2Pe
2:14}
2.
Exhortation, which consists of two branches.
(i) Let us prove ourselves to be the children of God.
(ii) Let us
carry ourselves as the children of God.
(i) Let us prove ourselves to be the children of God. There
are many false and unscriptural evidences.
Says one, The gravest divines in the country think me to be godly, and
can they be mistaken? Are the seers blind?
Others can
but see the outward carriage and deportment. If that be fair, they may by the
rule of charity judge well of thee. But what say God and conscience? Are these
your compurgators? Are you a saint in God's calendar? It is a poor thing to
have an applauding world and an accusing conscience.
Oh but, says
another, I hope I am a child of God; I love my heavenly Father.
Why do you
love God? Perhaps because God gives you corn and wine. This is a mercenary
love, a love to yourself more than to God. You may lead a sheep all the field
over with a bottle of hay in your hand, but throw away the hay, now the sheep
will follow you no longer. So the squint-eyed hypocrite loves God only for the
provender. When this fails, his affection fails too.
But leaving
these vain and false evidences of adoption, let us enquire for a sound
evidence. The main evidence of adoption is sanctification. Search, O Christian,
whether the work of sanctification has passed upon your soul! Is your
understanding sanctified to discern the things which are excellent? Is your
will sanctified to embrace heavenly objects? Do you love where God loves and
hate where God hates? Are you a consecrated person? This argues the heart of a
child. God will never reject those who have his image and superscription upon
them.
(ii) Let us
carry ourselves as becomes the children of God, and
let us deport ourselves as the children of the High God.
In obedience:
`As obedient children'. {1Pe 1:14} If a stranger bid a child to
do a thing, he regards him not. But if his father command, he presently obeys.
Obey God out of love, obey him readily, obey every command. If he bid you part
with your bosom-sin, leave and loathe it. `I set before the sons of the house
of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink ye
wine; but they said, we will drink no wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, commanded us saying, Ye shall drink no
wine, neither ye nor your sons for ever'. {Jer
35:5,Jer 35:6} Thus when Satan and your own
heart would be tempting you to a sin and set cups of wine before you, refuse to
drink. Say, `My heavenly Father has commanded me not to drink'. Hypocrites will
obey God in some things which are consistent either with their credit or
profit, but in other things they desire to be excused. Like Esau who obeyed his
father in bringing him venison, because probably he liked the sport of hunting,
but refused to obey him in a business of greater importance, namely, in the
choice of his wife.
Let us carry
ourselves as God's children in humility. `Be ye clothed with humility'. {1Pe 5:5} It is a becoming garment. Let
a child of God look at his face every morning in the glass of God's Word and
see his sinful spots. This will make him walk humbly all the
day after. God cannot endure to see his children grow proud. He suffers
them to fall into sin, as he did Peter, that their plumes may fall, and that
they may learn to go on lower ground.
Let us walk
as the children of God in sobriety. `But let us who are of the day be sober'. {1Th 5:8} God's children must not do as
others. They must be sober.
In their
speeches; not rash, not unseemly. `Let your speech be seasoned with salt'. {Col 4:6} Grace must be the salt which
seasons our words and makes them savoury. Our words
must be solid and weighty, not feathery. God's children must speak the language
of Canaan. Many pretend to be God's children, but their speech betrays them.
Their lips do not drop as an honeycomb, but are like
the sink, where all the filth of the house is carried out.
The children
of God must be sober in their opinions; hold nothing but what a sober man would
hold. Error, as Saint Basil says, is a spiritual intoxication, a kind of
frenzy. If Christ were upon the earth again, he might have patients enough.
There are abundance of spiritual lunatics among us
which need healing.
The children
of God must be sober in their attire. `Whose adorning, let it not be that
outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold...but let it be
the hidden man of the heart'. {1Pe 3:3}
God's children must not be conformed to the world. {Ro
12:2} It is not for God's children to do as others, taking up every
fashion. What is a naked breast but a glass in which you may see a vain heart?
What is spotting of faces, but learning the black art? God may turn these black
spots into blue. Walk soberly.
Let us carry
ourselves as the children of God in sedulity. We must be diligent in our
calling. Religion does not seal warrants to idleness. It was Jerome's advice to
his friend to be always well employed. `Six days shalt thou labour'.
God sets all his children to work. They must not be like the `lilies which toil
not, neither do they spin'. Heaven indeed is a place of rest. `They rest from
their labours'. {Re
14:13} There the saints shall lay aside all their working tools, and
take the harp and viol, but while we are here, we must labour
in a calling. God will bless our diligence, not our laziness.
Let us carry
ourselves as the children of God in magnanimity and heroicalness. The saints
are highborn. They are of the true blood-royal, born of God. They must do
nothing sneakingly or sordidly. They must not fear
the faces of men. As said that brave-spirited Nehemiah, `Shall such a man as I
flee?' {Ne 6:11} so should a child of God say, Shall I be afraid to do my duty? Shall I unworthily
comply and prostitute myself to the lusts and humours
of men? The children of the most High should do nothing
to stain or dishonour their noble birth. A king's son
scorns to do anything that is below him.
Let us carry
ourselves as the children of God in sanctity. {1Pe
1:16} Holiness is the diadem of beauty. In this let us imitate our
heavenly Father. A debauched child is a disgrace to his father. There is
nothing more casts a reflection on our heavenly Father than the irregular actings of such as profess themselves his children. What
will others say? Are these the children of the Most High?
Is God their Father? `The Name of God is blasphemed through you
Gentiles'. {Ro 2:24} Oh let us do nothing
unworthy of our heavenly Father.
Let us carry
ourselves as the children of God in cheerfulness. It was the speech of Jonadab
to Amnon, `Why art thou, being the king's son, lean?'. {2Sa
13:4} Why do the children of God walk so pensively? Are they not
`heirs of heaven'? Perhaps they may meet with hard usage in the world, but let them remember they are the seed-royal, and
are of the family of God. Suppose a man were in a strange land, and should meet
there with unkind usage, yet he rejoices that he is son and heir, and has a
great estate in his own country; so should the children of God comfort themselves
with this, though they are now in a strange country, yet they have a title to
the Jerusalem above, and though sin at present hangs about them (for they still
have some relics of their disease) yet shortly they shall get rid of it. At
death they shall shake off this viper.
And lastly,
let us carry ourselves as the children of God in holy longings and
expectations. Children are always longing to be at home. `We groan
earnestly...'. {2Co 5:2} There is bread enough in our
Father's house. How should we long for home! Death carries a child of God to
his Father's house. Saint Paul therefore desired to be dissolved. It is
comfortable dying when by faith we can resign up our souls into our Father's
hands. `Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit'. {Lu
23:46}