Luke 10:20

DISCOURSE: 1513
THE ENROLMENT OF OUR NAMES IN HEAVEN, A GROUND OF JOY

Luke 10:20. Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.

THERE is a holy jealousy which well becomes the ministers of God: for people are ever ready to pride themselves upon any distinctions which God may confer upon them, and to rest in the attainments they have made, instead of regarding them only as means to an ulterior good. It should seem that the seventy Disciples, who had been sent forth to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, were surprised when they found that devils and unclean spirits were subject unto them: and on their return to their divine Master, they could not help expressing the high gratification which this power had afforded them. Had their minds been more suitably affected, they would have rejoiced rather in the prospect which that circumstance afforded them of the final triumphs of their Lord. Jesus therefore, in a kind and tender manner, corrected their views, and pointed out to them a more just ground of self-congratulation: assuring them in the mean time that their powers should be still more enlarged, and their victory over Satan be more complete. The caution given to them is applicable to Christians in every age: their comforts and successes are doubtless a proper subject of joy and thankfulness; but it is the final success only that can make them completely happy; and the only solid joy is that which arises from a well-founded expectation of happiness beyond the grave.
In confirmation of this truth, we would observe,

I. That the enrolment of our names in heaven is a fact which may be known—

The names of all God’s people are, as it were, written in his book—
[The names of all the tribes of Israel were registered in a book. It was of that book that Moses spake, when he desired God to blot him out of it rather than not forgive his offending people [Note: Exodus 32:32.]. And as long as the Jewish states continued, such a book was carefully preserved [Note: Isaiah 4:3.]. Such a register God himself is represented as having formed of all his chosen people. His book is called “the book of life, of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world [Note: Revelation 13:8.].” This book, as well as the books of God’s remembrance, in which the actions of men were recorded, will be brought forth at the last day [Note: Revelation 20:12.]; and they who were written in it will be exalted to glory [Note: Revelation 21:27.], whilst “those who were not written in it will be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death [Note: Revelation 20:15.].”]

Our enrolment in that book is a fact which may be known—
[St. Paul knew it respecting many, both men and women, who had united with him in endeavours to advance the kingdom of Christ [Note: Philippians 4:3.]. And the same may be known also by those who are there enrolled. We cannot indeed go up to heaven to examine that sacred record; nor can we have it brought down to us on earth: yet may we assuredly know its contents as far as respects ourselves. There are two ways in which this may be done; first, by the testimony of the Spirit; and next, by the evidence of our lives. Respecting the witness of the Spirit, we do not say that the Spirit will bear any direct testimony to our souls, irrespective of any thing that he has wrought in us; (this I conceive to be a very dangerous error;) but he will shine upon his own work, and cause us to see it. When we are regenerate, he will, as “a Spirit of adoption, enable us to cry, Abba, Father;” and will “witness with our spirits that we are the children of God, and heirs of his everlasting kingdom [Note: Romans 8:15.].” When we are regenerate, I say, he will do this, but not before; for he never did, nor can, attest a falsehood, which he would do if he were to witness to any unregenerate man that he was a child of God. The evidence of our own lives also will enable us to ascertain this fact. There are certain “things which infallibly accompany salvation [Note: Hebrews 6:9.],” and which therefore warrant us to infer that we are in the number of God’s elect [Note: 1 Thessalonians 1:3.], and to assure ourselves of a final and everlasting acceptance with him [Note: 1 John 3:14; 1 John 3:18.]. The former is the more delightful to our feelings; the latter is the more convincing to our judgment: but from whichever source we draw our conclusions, if only our premises be right, our conclusions are infallible. Hence St. Paul was so assured of happiness in the eternal world [Note: 2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Timothy 4:8.]; and hence every believer is authorized to adopt the words of the Church of old, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.”]

Having shewn that the fact of our enrolment in heaven may be known, we observe,

II.

That when known, it is a ground of most exalted joy—

The expulsion of devils from the bodies of men was a just ground of joy—
[It was an evidence of God’s presence with the Disciples; (for who but God could cast them out?) it was also a strong confirmation of their word; (no stronger could be given:) it was, moreover, an unspeakable blessing to those who were thus delivered from Satan’s power; (and who must not rejoice in the communication of so great a good?) above all, it was a pledge of greater victories over Satan, and the utter destruction of his kingdom. Our Lord’s prohibition, therefore, must not be understood as absolute, but only as comparative; as when he bade his followers “not to labour for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life.”]
But the knowledge of our interest in the Divine favour is incomparably a greater ground of joy—
[Indeed nothing can for a moment be put in competition with this: this is infinitely beyond every other ground of joy.
It is the most sublime. What is the possession of thrones and kingdoms in comparison of this? All earthly things are lighter than vanity itself when weighed against the glories of the heavenly world [Note: See the description of the Christian’s state, Hebrews 12:22.].

It is the most pure. Every earthly joy has a tendency to corrupt the mind; to fill us with pride; to foster every evil disposition; to rivet us to the world; and to retard our progress toward the kingdom of heaven. But who was ever corrupted by a view of his interest in the Saviour? We do not ask, When did a corrupt man pretend to an interest in Christ, or boast that he was of the number of God’s elect? for that, alas! may be found in every place and every age; but we confidently ask, Whom did the knowledge of his interest in Christ ever corrupt in any respect whatever? Ignorant people imagine that a view of our election of God will puff us up with pride; or render us indifferent to the attainment of holiness: but every child of God is the more humbled by a conviction that God is pacified towards him [Note: Ezekiel 16:63.], and is the more determinately bent to fulfil the whole will of God. Of this we are assured on the authority of an inspired Apostle, on whose testimony we may rely with most implicit confidence [Note: 1 John 3:3.]—

It is the most substantial. Whatever other sources of joy we may have, they may all fail and disappoint us. Ask those who have attained the principal objects of their desire, whether they have found all the satisfaction in them that they once expected? and they will all be constrained to acknowledge, that vanity and vexation of spirit is the sum of all created good. In a little time our sweetest enjoyments cloy, and cease to afford us any material gratification: in a season of deep affliction they lose all their power, and are not unfrequently turned into sources of the greatest sorrow. But whom did the pardoning love of Christ ever fail to comfort? Who ever ceased to derive consolation from it under the heaviest afflictions? Who ever found it a source or an occasion of sorrow to his soul, except indeed that he sorrowed because he did not value it more, and improve it better? Other joys embitter the thought of death, and vanish the moment that the soul takes its flight from the body: but the knowledge of our acceptance with God makes the thought of death delightful; and the joy arising from it is perfected in the very instant of our departure hence. Lastly,

It is that, without which no other ground of joy can exist.We will suppose that you possess health, and riches, and wisdom, and honour, and every gratification that your heart can wish, and that too in the highest degree that it can be enjoyed; what is it all, whilst you have no prospect beyond the grave? If you were sensible of your state, you would be like a person sitting down to a banquet, with a sword suspended over his head by a single hair; you would not know one moment’s peace. Who would envy a man, that after a few hours was to be burnt alive? Whatever he might possess, he would be regarded by all as a pitiable object: and such is that man who, after a few more days, must be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone: whatever of wealth or honour he may have attained, he is a wretched creature, and if he be at all sensible of his state, he would gladly exchange conditions with the meanest and most afflicted saint on earth.

What comparison then will earthly joys bear with this? Even that of casting out devils, and finding them subject to one’s power, would be nothing, when it is considered that the person so honoured may soon be cast out himself, and bidden to “depart accursed into everlasting fire [Note: Matthew 7:22.].”]

Learn then,
1.

To seek this great blessing above all things—

[Some may be ready to say, ‘If God has not, of his own sovereign grace, inscribed my name in his book from all eternity, how shall I get it done now?’ To this I answer, The secret decrees of God are no ground of action to you: you are to act precisely as if all depended on your own personal exertion: nay, more, God encourages you so to act, with an assurance that you shall not exert yourself in vain. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ, and cast yourselves at the foot of his cross, and then see whether it shall be in vain. He has said, that “Whosoever cometh unto him, he will in no wise cast out;” and you may rest assured, that that promise shall be fulfilled to you. However distant you have been from God, you shall be “brought nigh to him by the blood of the cross;” and “from being strangers and foreigners, you shall become fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God [Note: This is the idea suggested in the text. The enrolling of names has respect to citizens, whose rights are thereby ascertained and assured.].” This blessing its your duty to seek in God’s appointed way; and if it be, as we have shewn, incomparably the greatest that a human being can possess, seek it with an earnestness proportioned to its worth — — —]

2. Never to grow weary in the pursuit of it—

[Many persons are fond of perplexing themselves with the deeper doctrines of religion, when they should rather be edifying themselves with those which are more plain. Some will argue, that if God have written our names in his book, he will never blot them out again, because “his gifts and calling are without repentance.” But though it is true, that “God will carry on his work,” and “perfect that which concerneth us,” it is equally true, that “if we draw back, we draw back unto perdition, and God’s soul will have no pleasure in us [Note: Hebrews 10:38.].” Of his faithful people he has said, that “he will not blot out their names from the book of life [Note: Revelation 3:5.]:” but he uses directly opposite language in reference to the ungodly, and to those who decline from his ways [Note: Exodus 32:33.Psalms 69:28; Jeremiah 17:13.]. It is “to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honour, and immortality, that God will give eternal life [Note: Romans 2:6.].” Let no difficulties then discourage you; but “press forward for the prize of your high calling:” and expect assuredly, that, as already “your witness is in heaven, and your record is on high [Note: Job 16:19.],” so your unworthy names shall in due time be acknowledged by your Lord and Saviour, and you shall “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”