25 APRIL (PREACHED 23 APRIL 1775)
‘Just so’ with God
‘Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.’ 2 Samuel 23:5
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Philippians 3:1–11
Not so with God. David’s children were something in the sight of men: king’s sons and honourable. But alas, says he, what will this avail, unless they are precious in the Lord’s sight? We are all ‘just so’ and no otherwise than as we are with God. His judgement is right. Those whom he favours are happy in a cottage. All others are and will be miserable though they may be rich and honourable in the sight of the world. Examine, my dear friends, do you truly think so? Do you regard his loving kindness as better than life, and account all things but loss and dung in comparison with Christ? [Philippians 3:8]. If not, unless the Lord change your mind, how miserably will you be disappointed when the things you love must leave you and you be constrained to appear before God? Here is a rule for parents: do you wish your children well? Then remember to seek for them the kingdom of God and his righteousness in the first place. Endeavour to impress them with a sense of the importance of eternal things. Pray for their souls. If you neglect this and only put them in a way and set them an example of heaping up wealth, you are not their friends but their enemies.
FOR MEDITATION: And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart. 1 Chronicles 29:19.
[When Newton was just a toddler, his mother’s pastor, David Jennings, challenged the parents in his church from the above prayer of David’s: ‘Did you ever pray this prayer for your children in good earnest? Lord give them a perfect heart. What pains have you taken to instruct and teach them the good ways of holiness?… O! be earnest and importunate with God, be daily intercessors with him for the souls of your dear children. Beg it of him, who is the God of grace, that he would give your children a perfect heart.’ Newton recalled his mother praying for him with tears.]
SERMON SERIES: 2 SAMUEL 23:5, NO. 1 [3/4]
Milo 