False Professors Solemnly Warned

“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.

 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 do 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 mere 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 gay 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 wouldst thou have said it to night, and how wouldst thou 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 never read that the apostle wept when he was persecuted Though they plowed his back with furrows, I do believe that never a tear was seen to gush from his eye while the soldiers scourged him. Though 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.    Keep Reading>>>