“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>>>
