Tag Archives: The Christian in Complete Armor

A Note on Christian Politics

05 Saturday Oct 2019

Posted by in Politics, Uncategorized, William Gurnall

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William Gurnall noting how Paul responded to being imprisoned:

But how doth this great apostle spend his time in prison? Not in publishing invectives against those, though the worst of men, who had laid him in; a piece of zeal which the holy sufferers of those times were little acquainted with: nor in politic councils, how he might wind himself out of his trouble, by sordid flattery of, or sinful compliance with, the great ones of the times. Some would have used any picklock to have opened a passage to their liberty, and not scrupled, so escape they might, whether they got out at the door or window: but this holy man was not so fond of liberty or life, as to purchase them at the least hazard to the gospel.

He knew too much of another world, to bid so high for the enjoying of this; and therefore he is fearless what his enemies can do with him, well knowing he was sure of going to heaven whether they would or not. No, the great care which lay upon him, was for the churches of Christ; as a faithful steward, he labours to set this house of God in order before his departure. We read of no despatches sent to court to procure his liberty; but many to the churches to help them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free.

There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their spite against us, as by doing what good we can wherever we are. The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan’s prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth. Happy for Onesimus that Paul was sent to gaol; God had an errand for Paul to do to him and others, which the devil never dreamed of.

 William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 1.

Gurnall’s observations in The Christian in Complete Armour are echoed by Wang Yi’s statement released by his congregation, after his arrest by the Chinese Government:

My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience

On the basis of the teachings of the Bible and the mission of the gospel, I respect the authorities God has established in China. For God deposes kings and raises up kings. This is why I submit to the historical and institutional arrangements of God in China.

As a pastor of a Christian church, I have my own understanding and views, based on the Bible, about what righteous order and good government is. At the same time, I am filled with anger and disgust at the persecution of the church by this Communist regime, at the wickedness of their depriving people of the freedoms of religion and of conscience. But changing social and political institutions is not the mission I have been called to, and it is not the goal for which God has given his people the gospel.

For all hideous realities, unrighteous politics, and arbitrary laws manifest the cross of Jesus Christ, the only means by which every Chinese person must be saved. They also manifest the fact that true hope and a perfect society will never be found in the transformation of any earthly institution or culture but only in our sins being freely forgiven by Christ and in the hope of eternal life.

As a pastor, my firm belief in the gospel, my teaching, and my rebuking of all evil proceeds from Christ’s command in the gospel and from the unfathomable love of that glorious King. Every man’s life is extremely short, and God fervently commands the church to lead and call any man to repentance who is willing to repent. Christ is eager and willing to forgive all who turn from their sins. This is the goal of all the efforts of the church in China—to testify to the world about our Christ, to testify to the Middle Kingdom about the Kingdom of Heaven, to testify to earthly, momentary lives about heavenly, eternal life. This is also the pastoral calling that I have received.

For this reason, I accept and respect the fact that this Communist regime has been allowed by God to rule temporarily. As the Lord’s servant John Calvin said, wicked rulers are the judgment of God on a wicked people, the goal being to urge God’s people to repent and turn again toward Him. For this reason, I am joyfully willing to submit myself to their enforcement of the law as though submitting to the discipline and training of the Lord.

At the same time, I believe that this Communist regime’s persecution against the church is a greatly wicked, unlawful action. As a pastor of a Christian church, I must denounce this wickedness openly and severely. The calling that I have received requires me to use non-violent methods to disobey those human laws that disobey the Bible and God. My Savior Christ also requires me to joyfully bear all costs for disobeying wicked laws.

But this does not mean that my personal disobedience and the disobedience of the church is in any sense “fighting for rights” or political activism in the form of civil disobedience, because I do not have the intention of changing any institutions or laws of China. As a pastor, the only thing I care about is the disruption of man’s sinful nature by this faithful disobedience and the testimony it bears for the cross of Christ.

As a pastor, my disobedience is one part of the gospel commission. Christ’s great commission requires of us great disobedience. The goal of disobedience is not to change the world but to testify about another world.

For the mission of the church is only to be the church and not to become a part of any secular institution. From a negative perspective, the church must separate itself from the world and keep itself from being institutionalized by the world. From a positive perspective, all acts of the church are attempts to prove to the world the real existence of another world. The Bible teaches us that, in all matters relating to the gospel and human conscience, we must obey God and not men. For this reason, spiritual disobedience and bodily suffering are both ways we testify to another eternal world and to another glorious King.

This is why I am not interested in changing any political or legal institutions in China. I’m not even interested in the question of when the Communist regime’s policies persecuting the church will change. Regardless of which regime I live under now or in the future, as long as the secular government continues to persecute the church, violating human consciences that belong to God alone, I will continue my faithful disobedience. For the entire commission God has given me is to let more Chinese people know through my actions that the hope of humanity and society is only in the redemption of Christ, in the supernatural, gracious sovereignty of God.

If God decides to use the persecution of this Communist regime against the church to help more Chinese people to despair of their futures, to lead them through a wilderness of spiritual disillusionment and through this to make them know Jesus, if through this he continues disciplining and building up his church, then I am joyfully willing to submit to God’s plans, for his plans are always benevolent and good.

Precisely because none of my words and actions are directed toward seeking and hoping for societal and political transformation, I have no fear of any social or political power. For the Bible teaches us that God establishes governmental authorities in order to terrorize evildoers, not to terrorize doers of good. If believers in Jesus do no wrong then they should not be afraid of dark powers. Even though I am often weak, I firmly believe this is the promise of the gospel. It is what I’ve devoted all of my energy to. It is the good news that I am spreading throughout Chinese society.

I also understand that this happens to be the very reason why the Communist regime is filled with fear at a church that is no longer afraid of it.

If I am imprisoned for a long or short period of time, if I can help reduce the authorities’ fear of my faith and of my Savior, I am very joyfully willing to help them in this way. But I know that only when I renounce all the wickedness of this persecution against the church and use peaceful means to disobey, will I truly be able to help the souls of the authorities and law enforcement. I hope God uses me, by means of first losing my personal freedom, to tell those who have deprived me of my personal freedom that there is an authority higher than their authority, and that there is a freedom that they cannot restrain, a freedom that fills the church of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Regardless of what crime the government charges me with, whatever filth they fling at me, as long as this charge is related to my faith, my writings, my comments, and my teachings, it is merely a lie and temptation of demons. I categorically deny it. I will serve my sentence, but I will not serve the law. I will be executed, but I will not plead guilty.

Moreover, I must point out that persecution against the Lord’s church and against all Chinese people who believe in Jesus Christ is the most wicked and the most horrendous evil of Chinese society. This is not only a sin against Christians. It is also a sin against all non-Christians. For the government is brutally and ruthlessly threatening them and hindering them from coming to Jesus. There is no greater wickedness in the world than this.

If this regime is one day overthrown by God, it will be for no other reason than God’s righteous punishment and revenge for this evil. For on earth, there has only ever been a thousand-year church. There has never been a thousand-year government. There is only eternal faith. There is no eternal power.

Those who lock me up will one day be locked up by angels. Those who interrogate me will finally be questioned and judged by Christ.  When I think of this, the Lord fills me with a natural compassion and grief toward those who are attempting to and actively imprisoning me. Pray that the Lord would use me, that he would grant me patience and wisdom, that I might take the gospel to them.

Separate me from my wife and children, ruin my reputation, destroy my life and my family – the authorities are capable of doing all of these things. However, no one in this world can force me to renounce my faith; no one can make me change my life; and no one can raise me from the dead.

And so, respectable officers, stop committing evil. This is not for my benefit but rather for yours and your children’s. I plead earnestly with you to stay your hands, for why should you be willing to pay the price of eternal damnation in hell for the sake of a lowly sinner such as I?

Jesus is the Christ, son of the eternal, living God. He died for sinners and rose to life for us. He is my king and the king of the whole earth yesterday, today, and forever. I am his servant, and I am imprisoned because of this. I will resist in meekness those who resist God, and I will joyfully violate all laws that violate God’s laws.

The Lord’s servant,
Wang Yi

Means and Helps to Mortification.3

30 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Christopher Love, John Owen, Mortification, Prayer, Puritan, William Gurnall

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Love writes that to mortify sin one must “bend the strength of the heart in importunate prayer to God against the corruption that troubles you most.”  This is an interesting proposition in that Love bends two separate ideas into a single movement. First, there is the concept of prayer as a means of soliciting grace from God.  He gives the instance of Paul praying for relief from the thorn in his flesh (2 Cor. 12:8). Prayer is a means of fetching strength from God. William Gurnall in his masterwork, The Christian in Complete Armor writes:

The second reason may be taken from the absolute necessity of this act of faith above others, to support the Christian in the hour of temptation.  All the Christian’s strength and comfort is fetched without doors, and he hath none to send of his errand but faith; this goes to heaven and knocks God up, as he in the parable his neighbour at midnight for bread: therefore, when faith fails, and the soul hath none to go to market for supplies, there must needs be a poor house kept in the meantime. Now faith is never quite laid up till the soul denies, or at least questions, the power of God.  Indeed, when the Christian disputes the will of God, whispering within its own bosom, will he pardon? will he save? this may make faith go haltingly to the throne of grace, but not knock the soul off from seeking the face of God.  Even then faith on the power of God will bear it company thither: ‘If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;’ if thou wilt, thou canst pardon, thou canst purge.  But when the soul concludes he cannot pardon, cannot save, this shoots faith to the heart, so that the soul falls at the foot of Satan, not able more to resist; now it grows more listless to duty, indifferent whether it pray or not, as one that sees the well dry breaks or throws away his pitcher. (Doctrine First, Reason Second)

He writes of faith, but how does faith seek help except by prayer. Without the prayer of faith seeking help, the Christian cannot stand before temptation or sin.

The second idea embedded in Love’s sentence may be found in the word “bend”:  Not only does prayer seek to fetch help from God, the very act of prayer bends the will in submission to God. Sin necessitates rebellion against God. By bending one’s heart in submission and need toward God, one must twist away from temptation and sin. The very act of prayer is an act of freedom from sin.

John Owen emphasized the importance of prayer as a means to keep from sin in his book Temptation:

To pray that we enter not into temptation is a means to preserve us from it. Glorious things are, by all men that know aught of those things, spoken of this duty; and yet the truth is, not one half of its excellency, power, and efficacy is known. It is not my business to speak of it in general; but this I say as to my present purpose,—he that would be little in temptation, let him be much in prayer. This calls in the suitable help and succour that is laid up in Christ for us, Heb. 4:16. This casteth our souls into a frame of opposition to every temptation. When Paul had given instruction for the taking to ourselves “the whole armour of God,” that we may resist and stand in the time of temptation, he adds this general close of the whole, Eph. 6:18, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication.”

Without this all the rest will be of no efficacy for the end proposed. And therefore consider what weight he lays on it: “Praying always,”—that is, at all times and seasons, or be always ready and prepared for the discharge of that duty, Luke 18:1, Eph. 6:18; “with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,”—putting forth all kinds of desires unto God, that are suited to our condition, according to his will, and which we are assisted in by the Spirit; “and watching thereunto,” lest we be diverted by any thing whatever; and that not for a little while, but “with all perseverance,”—continuance lengthened out to the utmost: so shall we stand. The soul so framed is in a sure posture; and this is one of the means without which this work will not be done. If we do not abide in prayer, we shall abide in cursed temptations. Let this, then, be another direction:—Abide in prayer, and that expressly to this purpose, that we “enter not into temptation.” Let this be one part of our daily contending with God,—that he would preserve our souls, and keep our hearts and our ways, that we be not entangled; that his good and wise providence will order our ways and affairs, that no pressing temptation befall us; that he would give us diligence, carefulness, and watchfulness over our own ways. So shall we be delivered when others are held with the cords of their own folly.

John Owen, vol. 6, The Works of John Owen., ed. William H. Goold (Edinburg: T&T Clark), 126-27.

Love writes:

There is never a mortified man who has not been a praying man. Subduing lust can never be obtained without prayer, for prayer is the sword of the Spirit whereby we can conquer and overcome our corruptions.

A lesson on prayer as a means of sanctification: Prayer

Counseling the Discouraged Saint.2

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Augustine, Biblical Counseling, Christopher Love, Discipleship, John Owen, William Gurnall

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The prior post may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/counseling-the-discouraged-saint/

Fifth, God helps.

The Pelagian controversy began when a British monk named Pelagius heard of a prayer of Augustine recorded in chapter 39 of the tenth book of the Confessions:

My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt. [(Domine), da quod iubes et iube quod vis]. Thou commandest continence from us, and when I knew, as it is said, that no one could be continent unless God gave it to him, even this was a point of wisdom to know whose gift it was. For by continence we are bound up and brought back together in the One, whereas before we were scattered abroad among the many. For he loves thee too little who loves along with thee anything else that he does not love for thy sake, O Love, who dost burn forever and art never quenched. O Love, O my God, enkindle me! Thou commandest continence; give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.

Our Father knows that he has laid upon us burdens which we cannot bear. First, God commands us to believe, but we are by fallen nature rebellious and will not believe. Therefore, he must supply us with the faith to believe. Augustine notes the same in De Nono Perservantiae, XX:

Now what, indeed, does God command, first and foremost, except that we believe in him? This faith, therefore, he himself gives; so that it is well said to him, “Give what thou commandest.”

Here is a great comfort. A Christian who lacks a high view of God’s sovereignty in the work of the Gospel is left without a secure hope in the mortification of sin. A high view of God’s sovereignty is a grace and peace to the Christian suffering under sin.

If all the power resides solely in my will, unaided by grace, then I am alone to battle the sin.  I cannot turn to God for help: God commands, but God does not help.  God may command. God may promise reward or threaten punishment. But unless God can and does push from within, unless God can command my desire and will from the inside of my soul, I am doomed.

Yet, Augustine saw into the comfort of grace in the land of sin. God commands. God commands far above our ability. Yet, when God commands, God also wills. God does not leave us alone with sin and the command – that is the terror of the law without the great rain of Christ’s blood to drown the flames of sin and hell.  John Owen writes of such people in the third chapter of The Mortification of Sin:

This is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but hath no strength for the combat. They cannot but fight, and they can never conquer; they are like men thrust on the sword of enemies on purpose to be slain. The law drives them on, and sin beats them back.

That is the believer who seeks to mortify sin and still has not read Romans 8:13, If by the Spirit you …. The Spirit is the great engine of mortification. When we seek to “have victory over sin” we forget that Christ has already won that victory! God has sent his Spirit to convey the Cross of Christ to our hearts that we might become crucified to the world (Gal. 6:14).

Our enemy will seek to delude us to think that we are to fight sin alone. That way only leads to despair. The church is littered with the wrecks of such believers.

Such believers do not know the great truth of mortification: God helps. Christopher Love puts it as follows:

You have God’s promise and Christ’s power to help you in managing this great work of mortification….As God commands His children to obey Him, so He convey power and ability to enable them to do so.

Consider carefully this joyful observation made by William Gurnall, in The Christian in Complete Armor:

Doctrine.  That the Christian’s strength lies in the Lord, not in himself.  The strength of the general in other hosts lies in his troops.  He flies, as a great commander once said to his soldiers, upon their wings; if their feathers be clipped, their power broken, he is lost; but in the army of saints, the strength of every saint, yea, of the whole host of saints, lies in the Lord of hosts.  God can overcome his enemies without their hands, but they cannot so much as defend themselves without his arm.  It is one of God’s names, ‘the Strength of Israel,’ I Sam. 15:29.  He was the strength of David’s heart; without him this valiant worthy (that could, when held up in his arms, defy him that defied a whole army) behaves himself strangely for fear, at a word or two that dropped from the Philistine’s mouth.  He was the strength of his hands, ‘He taught his fingers to fight,’ and so is the strength of all his saints in their war against sin and Satan.  Some propound a question, whether there be a sin committed in the world in which Satan hath not a part?  But if the question were, whether there be any holy action performed without the special assistance of God concurring, that is resolved,  ‘Without me ye can do nothing,’ John 15:5.  Thinking strength of God, ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God,’ II Cor. 3:5.  We apostles, we saints that have habitual grace, yet this lies like water at the bottom of a well, which will not ascend with all our pumping till God pour in his exciting grace, and then it comes.  To will is more than to think, to exert our will into action more than both.  These are of God: ‘For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,’ Php. 2:13.  He makes the heart new, and having made it fit for heavenly motion, setting every wheel, as it were, in its right place, then he winds it up by his actuating grace, and sets it on going, the thoughts to stir, the will to move and make towards the holy object presented; yet here the chariot is set, and cannot ascend the hill of action till God puts his shoulder to the wheel: ‘to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not,’ Rom. 7:18.  God is at the bottom of the ladder, and at the top also, the Author and Finisher, yea, helping and lifting the soul at every round, in his ascent to any holy action.  Well, now the Christian is set on work, how long will he keep close to it?  Alas, poor soul, no longer than he is held up by the same hand that empowered him at first.  He hath soon wrought out the strength received, and therefore to maintain the tenure of a holy course, there must be renewing strength from heaven every moment, which David knew, and therefore when his heart was in as holy a frame as ever he felt it, and his people by their free-will offering declared the same, yet even then he prays, that God would ‘keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of his people, and prepare their heart unto him,’ I Chron. 29:18. He adored the mercy that made them willing, and then he implores his further grace to strengthen them, and tie a knot, that these precious pearls newly strung on hearts might not slip off.  The Christian, when fullest of divine communications, is but a glass without a foot [a glass on a stem without a base], he cannot stand, or hold what he hath received, any longer than God holds him in his strong hand.  Therefore, Christ, when bound for heaven, and ready to take his leave of his children, bespeaks his Father’s care of them in his absence.  ‘Father, keep them,’ John 17:11; as if he had said, they must not be left alone, they are poor shiftless children, that can neither stand nor go without help; they will lose the grace I have given them, and fall into those temptations which I kept them from while I was with them, if they be out of thy eye or arms but one moment; and therefore, ‘Father, keep them.’ (Part First, Branch the Third).

Grace is in this life is but weak

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Ministry, Quotations, William Gurnall

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CHRISTIAN IN COMPLETE ARMOR


Reason Second. The Christian’s grace is not only a creature, but a weak creature, conflicting with enemies stronger than itself, and therefore cannot keep the field without an auxiliary strength from heaven.  The weakest goes to the wall, if no succour comes in.  Grace in this life is but weak, like a king in the cradle, which gives advantage to Satan to carry on his plots more strongly to the disturbance of this young king’s reign in the soul, yea, he would soon make an end of the war in the ruin of the believer’s grace, did not Heaven take the Christian into protection.  It is true indeed, grace, wherever it is, hath a principle in itself that makes it desire and endeavour to preserve itself according to its strength, but being overpowered must perish, except assisted by God, as fire in green wood, which deads and damps the part kindled, will in time go out, except blown up, or more fire put to that little; so will grace in the heart.  God brings his grace into the heart by conquest.  Now, as in a conquered city, though some yield and become true subjects to the conqueror, yet others plot how they may shake off this yoke; and therefore it requires the same power to keep, as was to win it at first.  The Christian hath an unregenerate part, that is discounted at this new change in the heart, and disdains as much to come under the sweet government of Christ’s sceptre, as the Sodomites that Lot should judge them.  What, this fellow, a stranger, control us!  And Satan heads this mutinous rout against the Christian, so that if God should not continually reinforce this new planted colony in the heart, the very natives (I mean corruptions) that are left, would come out of their dens and holes where they lie lur­king, and eat up the little grace the holiest on earth hath; it would be as bread to these devourers.

War Against One’s Darling Sin

21 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in Quotations, Uncategorized

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The Christian is to proclaim and prosecute an irreconcilable war against his bosom sins;those sins which have lain nearest his heart, must now be trampled under his feet.  So David, ‘I have kept myself from my iniquity.’  Now what courage and resolution does this require?  You think Abraham was tried to purpose, when called to take his ‘son, his son Isaac, his only son whom he loved,’ Gen. 22:2, and offer him up with his own hands, and no other; yet what was that to this?

Soul, take thy lust, thy only lust, which is the child of thy dearest love, thy Isaac, the sin which has caused the most joy and laughter, from which thou hast promised thyself the greatest return of pleasure or profit; as ever thou lookest to see my face with comfort, lay hands on it and offer it up: pour out the blood of it before me; run the sacrificing knife of mortification into the very heart of it; and this freely, joyfully, for it is no pleasing sacrifice that is offered with a countenance cast down —and all this now, before thou hast one embrace more from it.

Truly this is a hard chapter, flesh and blood cannot bear this saying; our lust will not lie so patiently on the altar, as Isaac, or as a ‘Lamb that is brought to the slaughter which was dumb,’ but will roar and shriek; yea, even shake and rend the heart with its hideous outcries.

Who is able to express the conflicts, the wres­tlings, the convulsions of spirit the Christian feels, before he can bring his heart to this work?  Or who can fully set forth the art, the rhetorical insinua­tions, with which such a lust will plead for itself?  One while Satan will extenuate and mince the matter: It is but a little one, O spare it, and thy soul shall live for all that.

Another while he flatters the soul with the secrecy of it: Thou mayest keep me and thy credit also; I will not be seen abroad in thy company to shame thee among thy neighbours; shut me up in the most retired room thou hast in thy heart, from the hearing of others, if thou wilt only let me now and then have the wanton embraces of thy thoughts and affections in secret.

If that cannot be granted, then Satan will seem only to desire execution may be stayed awhile, as Jephthah’s daughter of her father: ‘let me alone a month or two, and then do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth,’ Judges 11:36, 37, well knowing few such reprieved lusts but at last obtain their full pardon; yea, recover their favour with the soul.  Now what resolution doth it require to break through such violence and importunity, and notwithstanding all this to do present execution?

Here the valiant swordsmen of the world have showed themselves mere cowards, who have come out of the field with victorious banners, and then lived, yea, died slaves to a base lust at home. As one could say of a great Roman captain who, as he rode in his triumphant chariot through Rome, had his eye never off a courtesan that walked along the street: Behold, how this goodly captain, that had conquered such potent armies, is himself conquered by one silly woman.

William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor, Chapter 1, The First Branch