Thomas Watson · 3 of 36

The Preface to the Lord's Prayer · Part 3

(9) If God be our Father, no real evil shall befall us. ‘There shall no evil befall thee.’ Psa 91: 10. It is not said, no trouble; but, no evil. God’s children are privileged persons; they are privileged from being hurt of every thing. ‘Nothing shall by any means hurt you.’ Luke 10: 19. The hurt and malignity of the affliction is taken away. Affliction to a wicked man has evil in it; it makes him worse. ‘Men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God.’ Rev 16: 9. But no evil befalls a child of God; he is bettered by affliction. ‘That we might be made partakers of his holiness.’ Heb 12: 10. What hurt does the furnace to the gold? It only makes it purer. What hurt does affliction to grace? Only refine and purify it. What a great privilege it is to be freed, though not from the stroke, yet from the sting of affliction! No evil shall touch a saint. When the dragon, say they, has poisoned the water, the unicorn with his horn draws out the poison. Christ has drawn the poison out of every affliction, that it cannot injure a child of God. Again, no evil befalls a child of God, because no condemnation. ‘No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.’ Rom 8: 1. God does not condemn them, nor does conscience. When both jury and judge acquit, no evil befalls the accused; for nothing is really an evil but that which damns.

(10) If God be our Father, we may go with cheerfulness to the throne of grace. Were a man to petition his enemy, there were little hope; but when a child petitions his father, he may hope with confidence to succeed. The word ‘Father’ works upon God; it toucheth his very bowels. What can a father deny his child? ‘If his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?’ Matt 7: 9. This may embolden us to go to God for pardon of sin, and further degrees of sanctity. We pray to a Father of mercy sitting upon a throne of grace. ‘If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?’ Luke 11: 13. This quickens the church, and adds wing to prayer. ‘Look down from heaven.’ Isa 63: 15. ‘Doubtless thou art our Father’; ver 16. For whom does God keep his mercies but for his children? Three things may give boldness in prayer. We have a Father to pray to, and the Spirit to help us to pray, and an Advocate to present our prayers. God’s children should in all their troubles run to their heavenly Father, as the sick child in 2 Kings 4: 19: ‘He said unto his father, My head, my head.’ So pour out thy complaint to God in prayer. ‘Father, my heart, my heart; my dead heart, quicken it; my hard heart, soften it in Christ’s blood. Father, my heart, my heart.’ Surely God, who hears the cry of ravens, will hear the cry of his children!

(11) If God be our Father, he will stand between us and danger. A father will keep off danger from his child. God calls himself Scutum, a shield. As a shield he defends the head, guards the vitals, and shields off dangers from his children. ‘I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee.’ Acts 18: 10. God is a hiding-place. Psa 27: 5. He preserved Athanasius strangely; he put it into his mind to depart out of the house he was in, the night before the enemy came to search for him. As God has a breast to feed, so he has wings to cover his children. ‘He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.’ Psa 91: 4. He appoints his holy angels to be a lifeguard about his children. Heb 1: 14. Never was any prince so well guarded as a believer. The angels [1] are a numerous guard. ‘The mountain was full of horses of fire round about Elisha.’ 2 Kings 6: 17. ‘The horses and chariots of fire’ were the angels of God to defend the prophet Elisha. [2] A strong guard. One angel, in a night, slew a hundred and fourscore and five thousand. 2 Kings 19: 35. If one angel slew so many, what would an army of angels have done? [3] The angels are a swift guard; they are ready in an instant to help God’s children. They are described with wings to show their swiftness: they fly to our help. ‘At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come.’ Dan 9: 23. Here was swift motion for the angel, to come from heaven to earth between the beginning and ending of Daniel’s prayer. [4] The angels are a watchful guard; not like Saul’s guard, asleep when their lord was in danger. 1 Sam 26: 12. The angels are a vigilant guard; they watch over God’s children to defend them. ‘The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.’ Psa 34: 7. There is an invisible guardianship of angels about God’s children.

(12) If God be our Father, we shall not want anything that he sees to be good for us. ‘They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.’ Psa 34: 10. God is pleased sometimes to keep his children on hard commons, but it is good for them. As sheep thrive best on short pasture, so God sees too much may not be good for his people; plenty might breed surfeit. Luxuriant animi rebus secundis [In prosperity men’s characters run riot]. God sees it good sometimes to diet his children, and keep them short, that they may run the heavenly race the better. It was good for Jacob that there was a famine in the land; it was the means of bringing him to his son Joseph; so God’s children sometimes see the world’s emptiness, that they may acquaint themselves more with Christ’s fulness. If God sees it to be good for them to have more of the world, they shall have it. He will not let them want any good thing.

(13) If God be our Father, all the promises of the Bible belong to us. His children are called ‘heirs of promise.’ Heb 6: 17. A wicked man can lay claim to nothing in the Bible but the curses; he has no more to do absolutely with the promises than a ploughman has to do with the city charter. The promises are children’s bread; they are mulctralia evangelii, the breasts of the gospel milking out consolations; and who are to suck these breasts but God’s children? The promise of pardon is for them. ‘I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me.’ Jer 33: 8. The promise of healing is for them. Isa 57: 19. The promise of salvation is for them. Jer 23: 6. The promises are the supports of faith; they are God’s sealed deed; they are a Christian’s cordial. Oh, the heavenly comforts which are distilled from the promises! Chrysostom compares the Scripture to a garden: the promises are the fruit trees that grow in this garden. A child of God may go to any promise in the Bible, and pluck comfort from it; he is an heir of the promise.

(14) God makes all his children conquerors. They conquer themselves; fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit moenia [he who conquers himself is stronger than he who conquers the stoutest ramparts]. The saints conquer their own lusts; they bind these princes in fetters of iron. Psa 149: 8. Though the children of God may be sometimes foiled, and lose a single battle, yet not the victory. They conquer the world. The world holds forth her two breasts of profit and pleasure, and many are overcome by it; but the children of God have a world-conquering faith. ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.’ 1 John 5: 4. They conquer their enemies. How can that be, when their enemies often take away their lives? They conquer, by not complying with them; as the three children would not fall down to the golden image. Dan 3: 18. They would rather burn than bow. Thus they were conquerors. He who complies with another’s lust, is a captive; he who refuses to comply, is a conqueror. God’s children conquer their enemies by heroic patience. A patient Christian, like the anvil, bears all strokes invincibly. Thus the martyrs overcame their enemies by patience. God’s children are more than conquerors. ‘We are more than conquerors.’ Rom 8: 37. How are they more than conquerors? Because they conquer without loss, and because they are crowned after death, which other conquerors are not.

(15) If God be our Father, he will now and then send us some token of his love. His children live far from home, and meet sometimes with coarse usage from the unkind world; therefore, to encourage them, he sends them tokens and pledges of his love. What are these? He gives them an answer to prayer, which is a token of love; he quickens and enlarges their hearts in duty, which is a token of love; he gives them the first fruits of his Spirit, which are love tokens. Rom 8: 23. As he gives the wicked the first fruits of hell, horror of conscience and despair, so he gives his children the first fruits of his Spirit, joy and peace, which are foretastes of glory. Some of his children, having received those tokens of love from him, have been so transported, that they have died for joy, as the glass often breaks with the strength of the wine put into it.

(16) If God be our Father, he will indulge and spare us. ‘I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.’ Mal 3: 17. God’s sparing his children, imports his clemency towards them. He does not punish them as he might. ‘He has not dealt with us after our sins.’ Psa 103: 10. We often do that which merits wrath, grieve God’s Spirit, and relapse into sin. God passes by much and spares us. He did not spare his natural Son, and yet he spares his adopted sons. Rom 8: 32. He threatened Ephraim to make him as the chaff driven with the whirlwind, but he soon repented. ‘Yet I am the Lord thy God.’ Hos 13: 4. ‘I will be thy king;’ ver 10. Here God spared him, as a father spares his son. Israel often provoked God with their complaints, but he used clemency towards them; he often answered their murmurings with mercies. Thus he spared them, as a father spares his son.

(17) If God be our Father, he will put honour and renown upon us at the last day. [1] He will clear the innocence of his children. His children in this life are strangely misrepresented. They are loaded with invectives — they are called factious, seditious; as Elijah, the troubler of Israel; and Luther, the trumpet of rebellion. Athanasius was accused to the Emperor Constantine as the raiser of tumults; and the primitive Christians were accused as infanticidii, incestus rei, ‘killers of their children, guilty of incest.’ Tertullus reported Paul to be a pestilent person. Acts 24: 5. Famous Wycliffe was called the idol of the heretics, and reported to have died drunk. If Satan cannot defile God’s children, he will disgrace then; if he cannot strike his fiery darts into their consciences he will put a dead fly to their names; but God will one day clear their innocence; he will roll away their reproach. As he will make a resurrection of bodies, so of names. ‘The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away.’ Isa 25: 8. He will be the saints’ vindicator. ‘He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light.’ Psa 37: 6. The night casts its dark mantle upon the most beautiful flowers; but the light comes in the morning and dispels the darkness, and every flower appears in its orient brightness. So the wicked may by misreports darken the honour and repute of the saints; but God will dispel this darkness, and cause their names to shine forth. ‘He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light.’ Thus God stood up for the honour of Moses when Aaron and Miriam sought to eclipse his fame. ‘Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ Numb 12: 8. So God will one day say to the wicked, ‘Wherefore were ye not afraid to defame and traduce my children? Having my image upon them, how durst you abuse my picture?’ At last his children shall come forth out of all their calumnies, as ‘a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.’ Psa 68: 13. [2] God will make an open and honourable recital of all their good deeds. As the sins of the wicked shall be openly mentioned, to their eternal infamy and confusion; so all the good deeds of the saints shall be openly mentioned, ‘and then shall every man have praise of God.’ 1 Cor 4: 5. Every prayer made with melting eyes, every good service, every work of charity, shall be openly declared before men and angels. ‘I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: thirsty, and ye gave me drink: naked, and ye clothed me.’ Matt 25: 35, 36. Thus God will set a trophy of honour upon all his children at the last day. ‘Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.’ Matt 13: 43.

(18) If God be our Father, he will settle a good inheritance upon us. ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, which has begotten us again unto a lively hope, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled.’ I Pet 1: 3, 4. A father may have lost his goods, and have nothing to leave his son but his blessing; but God will settle an inheritance on his children, and an inheritance no less than a kingdom. ‘It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ Luke 12: 32. This kingdom is more glorious and magnificent than any earthly kingdom; it is set out by pearls, precious stones, and the richest jewels. Rev 21: 19. What are all the rarities of the world, the coasts of pearl, the islands of spices, the rocks of diamonds, to this kingdom? In this heavenly kingdom is satisfying, unparalleled beauty, rivers of pleasure, and that for ever. ‘At thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.’ Psa 16: 2. Heaven’s eminence is its permanence; and this kingdom God’s children enter into immediately after death. There is a sudden transition and passage from death to glory. ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord.’ 2 Cor 5: 8. God’s children shall not wait long for their inheritance; it is but winking, and they shall see God. How should this comfort those of God’s children who are low in the world! Your Father in heaven will settle a kingdom upon you at death, such a kingdom as eye has not seen; he will give you a crown not of gold, but glory; he will give you white robes lined with immortality. ‘It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’

(19) If God be our Father, it is a comfort in case of the loss of relations. Hast thou lost a father? If thou art a believer, thou art no orphan, thou hast a heavenly Father, a Father that never dies. ‘Who only has immortality.’ 1 Tim 6: 16. It is comfort in case of your own death. God is thy Father, and death is but going to thy Father. Well might Paul say death is yours. 1 Cor 3: 22. It is your friend that will carry you home to your Father. How glad are children when they are going home! It was Christ’s comfort at death that he was going to his Father. ‘I leave the world, and go to the Father.’ John 16: 28. ‘I ascend unto my Father.’ John 20: 17. If God be our Father, we may with comfort, at the day of death, resign our souls into his hand. Thus did Christ. ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Luke 23: 46. If a child has any jewel, he will in time of danger put it into his father’s hands, where he thinks it will be kept most safe; so the soul, which is our richest jewel, we may resign at death into God’s hands, where it will be safer than in our own keeping. ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ What a comfort it is that death carries a believer to his Father’s house, where are delights unspeakable and full of glory! How glad was old Jacob when he saw the wagons and chariots to carry him to his son Joseph! ‘The spirit of Jacob revived.’ Gen 45: 27. Death is a triumphant chariot, to carry every child of God to his Father’s mansion-house.

(20) If God be our Father, he will not disinherit us. He may for a time desert his children, but will not disinherit them. The sons of kings have sometimes been disinherited by the cruelty of usurpers; as the son of Alexander the Great was put out of his just right, through the violence and ambition of his father’s captains; but what power on earth can hinder the heirs of the promise from their inheritance? Men cannot, and God will not cut off the entail. The Armenians hold falling away from grace, so that a child of God may be deprived of his inheritance, but God’s children can never be degraded or disinherited, and their heavenly Father will not cast them off from being children. It is evident that God’s children cannot be finally disinherited, by virtue of the eternal decree of heaven. God’s decree is the very pillar and basis on which the saints’ perseverance depends. That decree ties the knot of adoption so fast, that neither sin, death, nor hell, can break it asunder. ‘Whom he did predestinate, them he also called,’ &c. Rom 8: 30. Predestination is nothing else but God’s decreeing a certain number to be heirs of glory, on whom he will settle the crown; for whom he predestinates, he glorifies. What shall hinder God’s electing love, or make his decree null and void? Besides God’s decree, he has engaged himself by promise, that the heirs of heaven shall never be put out of their inheritance. His promises are not like blanks in a lottery, but as a sealed deed which cannot be reversed; they are the saints’ royal charter; and one promise is that their heavenly Father will not disinherit them. ‘I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.’ Jer 32: 40. God’s fidelity, which is the richest pearl of his crown, is engaged in this promise for his children’s perseverance. ‘I will not turn away from them.’ A child of God cannot fall away while he is held fast in these two arms of God — his love, and his faithfulness. Jesus Christ undertakes that all God’s children by adoption shall be preserved in a state of grace till they inherit glory. The heathens feigned of Atlas that he bore up the heavens from falling; but Jesus Christ is that blessed Atlas that bears up the saints from falling away.

How does Christ preserve the saints’ graces, till they come to heaven?

(1) Influxu Spiritus [By the influence of the Spirit]. He carries on grace in the souls of the elect, by the influence and co-operation of his Spirit. He continually excites and quickens grace in the godly; he by his Spirit blows up the sparks of grace into a holy flame. Spiritus est vicarius Christi; the Spirit is Christ’s vicar on earth, his proxy, his executor, to see that all that he has purchased for the saints be made good. Christ has obtained for them an inheritance incorruptible, and the Spirit is his executor, to see that the inheritance be settled upon them. 1 Pet 1: 4, 5. (2) He carries on his work perseveringly in the souls of the elect, by the prevalence of his intercession. ‘He ever liveth to make intercession for them.’ Heb 7: 25. He prays that every saint may hold out in grace till he comes to heaven. Can the children of such prayers perish? If the heirs of heaven should be disinherited, and fall short of glory, then God’s decree must be reversed, his promise broken, and Christ’s prayer frustrated, which would be blasphemy to imagine.

(3) That God’s children cannot be disinherited, or put out of their right to the crown of heaven, is evident from their mystic union with Christ. Believers are incorporated into him; they are knit to him as members to the head, by the nerves and ligaments of faith, so that they cannot be broken off. ‘The church, which is his body.’ Eph 1: 22, 23. What was once said of Christ’s natural body, is as true of his mystic body. ‘A bone of it shall not be broken.’ As it is impossible to sever the leaven and the dough when they are once mingled and kneaded together, so it is impossible, when Christ and believers are once united, that they should ever, by the power of death or hell, be separated. Christ and his spiritual members make one Christ. Is it possible that any part of Christ should perish? How can Christ want any member of his mystic body and be perfect? Every member is an ornament to the body, and adds to the honour of it. How can Christ part with any mystic member, and not part with some of his glory too? By all this it is evident that God’s children must needs persevere in grace, and cannot be disinherited. If they could be disinherited, the Scripture could not be fulfilled, which tells us of glorious rewards for the heirs of promise. ‘Verily there is a reward for the righteous.’ Psa 58: 11. If God’s adopted children should fall away finally from grace, and miss of heaven, what reward would there be for the righteous? Moses indiscreetly looked for the recompense of the reward, and a door would be opened to despair.

But the doctrine of final perseverance, and the certainty of the heavenly inheritance may lead to carnal security, and unholy walking.

Corrupt nature may suck poison from this flower; but he who has felt the efficacy of grace upon his heart, dares not abuse this doctrine. He knows that perseverance is attained in the use of means, and walks homily, that in the use of the means he may arrive at perseverance. Paul knew that he should not be disinherited, and that nothing could separate him from the love of Christ; but who more holy and watchful than he was? ‘I keep under my body.’ 1 Cor 9: 27. ‘I press toward the mark.’ Phil 3: 14. God’s children have a holy fear which keeps them from self-security and wantonness; they believe the promise, therefore they rejoice in hope; they fear their hearts, therefore they watch and pray.

Thus you see what strong consolation there is for all the heirs of the promise. Such as have God for their Father are the happiest persons on earth; they are in such a condition that nothing can hurt them; they have their Father’s blessing, all things conspire for their good; they have a kingdom settled on them, and the entail can never be cut off. How comforted should they be in all conditions, let the times be what they will! Their Father who is in heaven rules over all. If troubles arise, they carry them sooner to their Father. The more violently the wind beats against the sails of a ship, the sooner it is brought to the haven; and the more fiercely God’s children are assaulted, the sooner they come to their Father’s house. ‘Wherefore comfort one another with these words.’ 1 Thess 4: 18.

Use 4. For exhortation. Let us behave ourselves as the children of such a Father.

(1) Let us depend upon him in all our straits and exigencies; let us believe that he will provide for all our wants. Children rely upon their parents for the supply of their wants. If we trust God for salvation, shall we not trust him for a livelihood? There is a lawful and prudent care to be used. But beware of being distrustful. ‘Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; and God feedeth them.’ Luke 12: 24. Does God feed the birds of the air, and will he not feed his children? ‘Consider the lilies how they grow: they spin not; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these;’ ver 27. Does God clothe the lilies, and will he not clothe his lambs? Even the wicked taste of his bounty. ‘Their eyes stand out with fatness.’ Psa 73: 7. Does God feed his slaves, and will he not feed his family? His children may not have a liberal share in the things of this life; they may have but little meal in the barrel; they may be drawn low, and almost dry; but they shall have as much as God sees to be good for them. ‘They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.’ Psa 34: 10. If God gives them not ad voluntaten [what they want], he will ad sanitatem [what is good for them]; if he gives them not always what they crave, he will give them what they need; if he gives them not a feast, he will give them a viaticum — a bait by the way. Let them depend upon his fatherly providence; let them not give way to distrustful thoughts, distracting cares, or indirect means. ‘Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.’ I Pet 5: 7. An earthly parent may have affection for his child, and would gladly provide for him, but may not be able; but God is never at a loss to provide for his children, and he has promised an adequate supply. ‘Verily thou shalt be fed.’ Psa 37: 3. Will God give his children heaven, and will he not give them enough to bear their charges thither? Will he give them a kingdom, and deny them daily bread? O put your trust in him, for he has said, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ Heb 13: 5.

(2) If God be our Father, let us imitate him. The child not only bears his father’s image, but imitates him in his speech, gesture and behaviour. If God be our Father, let us imitate him. ‘Be ye followers of God, as dear children.’ Eph 5: 1. Imitate God in forgiving injuries. ‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions.’ Isa 44: 22. As the sun scatters not only thin mists, but thick clouds, so God pardons great offences. Imitate him in this. ‘Forgiving one another.’ Eph 4: 32. Cranmer was a man of a forgiving spirit: he buried injuries and requited good for evil. He who has God for his Father, will have him for his pattern. Imitate God in works of mercy. ‘The Lord looseth the prisoners.’ Psa 146: 7. He opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Psa 145: 16. He drops his sweet dew upon the thistle as well as the rose. Imitate God in works of mercy; relieve the wants of others; be rich in good works. ‘Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful.’ Luke 6: 36. Be not so hard hearted as to shut out the poor from all communication. Dives denied Lazarus a crumb of bread, and Dives was denied a drop of water.

(3) If God be our Father, let us submit patiently to his will. If he lay his strokes on us, they are the corrections of a Father, not the punishments of a judge. This made Christ himself patient. ‘The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?’ John 18: 11. He sees we need affliction. 1 Pet 1: 6. He appoints it as a diet drink, to purge and sanctify us. Isa 27: 9. Therefore dispute not, but submit. ‘We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.’ Heb 12: 9. They might correct out of ill humour, but God does it for our profit. Heb 12: 10. Therefore say as Eli, ‘It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good’. 1 Sam 3:18. What does the child get by struggling, but more blows? What got Israel by their murmuring and rebelling, but a longer and more tedious march, till, at last, their carcass fell in the wilderness?

(4) If God be our Father, let it cause in us a childlike reverence. ‘If I be a father, where is mine honour?’ Mal 1: 6. It is part of the honour we give to God to reverence and adore him; if we have not always a childlike confidence, let us always preserve a childlike reverence. How ready are we to run into extremes, either to despond or to grow wanton! Because God is a Father, do not think you may take liberty to sin, if you do, he may act as if he were no Father, and throw hell into your conscience. When David presumed upon God’s paternal affection, and began to wax wanton under mercy, God made him pay dear for it by withdrawing the sense of his love; and, though he had the heart of a Father, yet he had the look of an enemy. David prayed, ‘Make me to hear joy and gladness.’ Psa 51: 8. He lay several months in desertion, and it is thought never recovered his full joy to the day of his death. O keep alive holy fear! With childlike confidence, preserve an humble reverence. The Lord is a Father, therefore love to serve him, he is the mighty God, therefore fear to offend him.