1 Chronicles 29:18

Keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of Thy people.

What must Christians do, that the influences of the ordinances may abide upon them

The course to be taken for this purpose lies--

I. In the practice of some things.

1. Get new hearts, and get them daily more and more renewed. A heart thoroughly sanctified is to the ordinances like tinder, which soon takes fire and is apt to keep it till it be forced out; whereas a carnal, unmortified heart is like green wood, which is not soon kindled and will soon go out, if it be not well looked to. Holiness makes the soul both receptive and retentive of holy impressions.

2. Labour to be much affected with the ordinances while you are employed in them. If the ordinances pierce no further than the surface of the soul, the efficacy of them is not likely to continue. Prepare your hearts before you draw near to God. The heart is prepared when it is made--

(a) Tender (Jeremiah 4:3; Hosea 10:12). That which can make no impression at all upon a flint will sink deeply into softened wax.

(b) Sensible; apprehensive of your spiritual wants and necessities.

(c) Open. A quick sense of your spiritual condition will open your hearts. Desire opens the heart (Matthew 5:6; Psalms 107:9). We come to the ordinances too like the Egyptian dog, which laps a little as he runs by the side of Nilus, but stays not to drink. Christ invites us to eat and drink abundantly (Song of Solomon 5:1).

3. Mind the ordinances after you use them. Be much in meditation. Much of heaven and holiness is engraved on these ordinances; and the seal is, as it were, set upon the heart, while you are under them; but after-consideration lays more weight on it and impresseth it deeper. The heart takes fire at the mind (Psalms 39:3).

4. Let the efficacy of the ordinances be pursued presently into act (Psalms 119:60). When the blossoms of a fruit-tree are once knit, though the flourish thereof be gone, and you see nothing but the bare rudiment of the expected fruit, yet you think it more secured from the injury of frosts and winds than if it were still in the flower. Good motions, when they are once reduced into act, are thereby, as it were, knit, and brought to more consistency.

5. You must take much pains with your hearts if you would have them retain the virtue and efficacy of the ordinances. “The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting” (Proverbs 12:27). He loseth all his former labour because he will not take a little more pains.

6. Comply with the Spirit of God.

7. Be frequent in the use of ordinances. Good impressions do most usually wear off in the intervals of holy duties. It is observed that places under the line are not so hot as some climates at a further distance from it; and this reason is given for it: Those under the equinoctial, though they have the sun more vertical, and the beams, falling more perpendicularly, cause a more intense heat; yet the nights being of equal length with the days, the coolness of those long nights doth more allay the heat than where the nights are shorter. Long intermissions of holy duties are like long nights: you may find them by experience to be great coolers. Elijah in the wilderness had to eat more than once to be strengthened for his journey (1 Kings 19:6).

8. Look up to God for the continuance of this influence.

II. In the avoidance of other things.

1. Take heed that you perform not your duties negligently (Jeremiah 48:10; Malachi 1:8; Malachi 1:14; Jeremiah 30:21; Deuteronomy 32:46).

2. Beware of the world. Meddle not with it more than needs must. Carry yourself amongst worldly objects and employments as though you were amongst cheats and thieves: they have the art to pick your hearts slily. When your hearts are warmed with holy duties, you should be as cautious and wary how you venture into the world as you are of going into the frosty air when you are all in a sweat. What is kindled by the Word or prayer requires as much care to keep it in as to keep a candle in when you would carry it through the open air in a rainy, blustering night. The further you are above the world, the longer may you retain any spiritual impressions. Geographers write of some mountains whose tops are above the middle region of the air; and there lines and figures being drawn in the dust have been found, say they, in the same form and order, untouched, undefaced, a long time after; and the reason is because they are above those winds and showers and storms, which soon wear out and efface any such draughts in this lower region. The lower your minds and hearts and conversations are, the less will anything that is heavenly and spiritual abide upon them.

3. Take heed of any inordinacy in affection, inclination, or design. The ministry of John the Baptist had some influence on Herod (Mark 6:20); but sensuality being predominant, those better inclinations were quite overpowered.

4. Rest not in the best performance of any duty, nor in any assistances you find therein, though they be special and more than ordinary. It is observed that some professors have had the foulest falls, after they have been most elevated in holy employments. We are apt to take the most dangerous colds when we are in the greatest heats.

5. Make not the ordinances your end, but use them as the means to attain it. Application: If the efficacy of thy ordinances abide not in you, you cannot be fruitful under them; at least you cannot “bring forth fruit to perfection.” (David Clarkson, B. D.)