"Dead Christians?"

"We are all Christians." "Why, are we belong to Christian nation; are we not born Christians?" "Surely we must be all right; we have always attended our parish church, is not that enough?" "Our parents were always godly; we were born into the church, were we not? Did they not take us up in their arms when we were little, and make us members of Christ? What more do we lack?" This is the common talk.

There is no Christian practice, there is no Christian habit, other than that imitated by people who have no vital godliness whatsoever. A man may appear much like a Christian, and yet possess no vital godliness!

Walk through the British Museum, and you will see all the orders of animals standing in their various places, and exhibiting themselves with the utmost possible propriety. The rhinoceros demurely retains the position in which he was set at first; the eagle soars not through the window; the wolf howls not at the night; every creature, whether bird, beast, or fish, remains in the particular glass case allotted to it. But you all know well enough that these are not the living creatures, but only the outward forms of them.

Yet in what do they differ? Certainly in nothing which you could readily see, for the well stuffed animal is precisely like what the living animal would have been; and that eye of glass even appears to have more brightness in it than the natural eye of the creature itself. Yet you know well enough that there is a secret inward something lacking, which, when it has once departed, you cannot restore. So in the churches of Christ, many professors are not living believers, but stuffed believers, Stuffed Christians! Dead Christians!

There is all the external of religion, everything that you could desire, and they behave with a great deal of propriety, too. They all keep their places, and there is no outward difference between them and the living, except upon that vital point; they lack spiritual life. This is the essential distinction, spiritual life is absent.

It is almost painful to watch little children when some little pet of theirs has died, how they can hardly realise the difference between death and life! Your little boy's bird moped down for awhile upon its perch, and at last dropped down in the cage; and do not you remember how the little boy tried to set it up, and gave it seed, and filled its glass with water, and was quite surprised to think that birdie would not open his little eye upon his friend as it did before, and would not take its seed, nor drink its water! Ah, you finally had to tell the poor boy that a mysterious something had gone from his little birdie, and would not come back again.

There is just such a spiritual difference between the mere professor, and the genuine Christian. There is an invisible, but most real, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the absence or presence of which makes all the difference between the lost sinner and the saint.

"It's Not Enough!"

For many Christians, it's enough for them to be sound in doctrine, and tolerably correct in practice. They care far less than they should about having intimate communion with Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is only in proportion as we hold fellowship with Christ and commune with Him, that either ordinances, or doctrines, or promises can profit us. All other things are dry and barren unless we are enjoying the love of Christ, unless we bear His likeness, unless we dwell continually with Him, and rejoice in His love.

"United With Christ..."

Oh, my brethren, what can I say now to enforce my text, but that, if you are like Christ on earth, you shall be like him in heaven? If by the power of the Spirit you become followers of Jesus, you shall enter glory. For at heaven's gate there sits an angel, who admits no one who has not the same features as our adornable Lord.

There comes a man with a crown upon his head. "Yes", he says, "you have a crown, it is true, but crowns are not the medium of access here." Another approaches, dressed in robe of state and the gown of learning. "Yes," says the angel, "it may be good, but gowns and learning are not the marks that shall admit you here." Another advances, fair, beautiful, and comely. "Yes," says the angel, "that might please on earth, but beauty is not wanted here." There comes up another, who is heralded by fame, and prefaced by the blast of the clamour of mankind; but the angel says, "This is well with man, but you have no right to enter here."

Then there appears another, poor he may have been, illiterate he may have been; but the angel, as he looks at him, smiles and says, "It is Christ again, a second edition of Jesus Christ is here! Come in, come in. Eternal glory you shall win! You are like Christ - in heaven you shall sit, because you are like him." Oh! to be like Christ is to enter heaven. But to be unlike Christ is to descend to hell.

Likes shall be gathered together at last, tares with tares, wheat with wheat. If you have sinned with Adam and have died, you shall lie with the spiritually dead forever, unless you rise in Christ to newness of life - then shall you live with him throughout eternity. Wheat with wheat, tares with tares. "Be ot deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Go away with this one thought, then my brethren, that you can test yourselves by Christ. If you are like Christ, you are of Christ, and shall be with Christ. If you are unlike him, you have no portion in the great inheritance.

"Heaven In The Head... Hell In Then Heart"

Now we will grant you this, that much of the religion which is abroad in the world is a "vain thing". The religion of 'ceremonies' is vain. If a man shall trust in the gorgeous pomp of un-commanded mysteries, if he shall consider that there resides some mystical efficacy in a priest, and that by uttering certain words a blessing is infallibly received, we tell him that his religion is a vain thing. You might as well go to the Witch of Endor for grace as to a priest; and if you rely upon 'words', the "Abracadabra" of a magician will as certainly raise you to heaven, or rather sink you to hell, as the performances of the best ordained minister under heaven. Ceremonies in themselves are vain, futile, empty.

All 'ceremonial religion', no matter how sincere, if it consists in relying upon the forms and observances, is a vain thing. So with 'creed-religion' - by which I mean not to speak against creeds, for I love "the form of sound words," but that religion which lies in believing with the intelect a set of dogmas, without partaking of the life of God; all this is a vain thing.

Again, that religion 'which only lies in making a profession of what one does not posses', in wearing the Christian name, and observing the ritual of the Church, but which does not so affect the character as to make a man holy, nor so touch the heart as to make a man God's true servant - such a religion in vain throughout. O my dear hearers, how much worthless religion may you see everywhere! So ling as men get the name, they seem content without the substance.

Everywhere, it matters not to what Church you turn your eye, you see a vast host of hypocrites, numerous as flies about a dead carcass. On all sides there are deceivers, and deceived ones; who write "Heaven" upon their brows, but have hell in their hears; who hang out the sign of an angel over their doors, but have the devil for a host within. Take heed to yourselves; be not deceived, for he who tries the heart and searches the imaginations of the children of men is not mocked, and he will surely discern between him that fears God, and him that fears him not.

"The Wedding Garment"

Too many professeors pacify themselves with the idea that they possess 'imputed righteousness', while they are indifferent to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. No man ever had the 'imputed righteousness of Christ' without receiving at the same time, a measure of the righteousness wrought in us by the Holy Spirit.

Justification by faith is not contrary to the production of good works. The faith by which we are justified, is the faith which prodices holiness, and no man is justified by faith which does not also sanctify him, and deliver him from the love of sin.

Godliness does not consist in 'profession', but must be proved by inward vitality and outward holiness. There is none in heaven or earth thought more despicable, more fit to be thrown away as rubbish and offal, than a man who had a Christian name, but had not the essentials of the Christian nature.

"Skin Deep Religion"

Many give a 'mental assent' to the gospel. If I were to mention any doctrine, they would say, "Yes, that is true - I believe that." But their 'heart' does not believe, they do not believe the gospel in the core of their nature. For if they did it would have an amazing life changing 'effect' upon them.

A man may say, "I believe my house is on fure," but if he goes to bed nd falls to sleep, it does not look as if he believed it, for when a man's house is on fire he tries to escape. If some of you really belived that there is a hell, and that there is a heaven, (as you believe other secular things), you would act very differently from what you now do.

You know that you must be born again, but you are still strangers to the new birth. You are religious as the seats you sit on, but no more; and you are as likely to get to heaven as those seats are, but not one whit more, for you are dead in sin, and death cannot enter heaven. You are like dunghills with snow upon them - while the snow lasts you look white and fair, but when the snow melts, the dunghill remains a dunghill still!

"...what should I do with you?" asks the Lord. "For your goodness vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight."Hosea 6:4

Oh, beware of pious veneering! Beware of the religion of the mind, the religion of vain imaginings. Beware of the religion which consists in putting on a thin slice of godliness over a mass of carnality!

We must have a transforming, on going work within; the grace which reaches the core, and affects the innermost spirit is the only grace worth having. The absence of the Holy Spirit is the greatest cause of religious instability - everywhere!

Beware of mistaking 'religious excitement' for the Holy Spirit, or your own well meant resolutions for the deep workings of the Spirit of God in the soul. All that human nature ever paints, God will burn off with hot irons. All that human nature ever spins he will unravel and cast away with the rags.

You must be born from above, you must have a new nature wrought in you by the Spirit of God Himself, for all his saints it is written, "you are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus." Oh, but, everywhere I fear there is an absence of the Holy Spirit! There is much getting up of a tawdry morality, barely skin deep, much crying "Peace, peace," where there is no true peace. There is very little deep heart seaching anxiety to be thoroughly purged from sin. The hopes of many hypocrites are flimsily formed, and their confidences ill founded. It is this which makes deceivers so plentiful, and fair religious shows so common.

"The Fruitless Branch"

A Church in land without the Spirit is rather a curse than a blessing. If you have not the Spirit of God, Christian worker, remember you stand in somebody else's way, you are a fruitless branch standing where a fruitful branch might grow.