man judge himself by certain characteristics of the heavenly calling which I am about to mention. If in your Bible you turn to 2 Timothy, you will read these words — “Who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling.” {2 Timothy 1:9} Now here is the first touchstone by which we may test our calling — many are called but few are chosen, because there are many kinds of calls, but the true call, and that only, answers to the description of the text. It is “a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” This calling forbids all trust in our own doings and conducts us to Christ alone for salvation, but it afterwards purges us from dead works to serve the living and true God. If you are living in sin, you are not called; if you can still continue as you were before your pretended conversion, then it is no conversion at all; that man who is called in his drunkenness, will forsake his drunkenness; men may be called in the midst of sin, but they will not continue in it any longer. Saul was anointed to be king when he was looking for his father’s donkeys; and many a man has been called when he has been seeking his own lust, but he will leave the donkeys, and leave the lust, when once he is called. Now, by this shall you know whether you are called by God or not. If you continue in sin, if you walk according to the course of this world, according to the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, then you are still dead in your trespasses and your sins; but just as he who has called you is holy, so must you be holy. Can you say, “Lord, you know all things, you know that I desire to keep all your commands, and to walk blamelessly in your sight. I know that my obedience cannot save me, but I long to obey. There is nothing that pains me so much as sin; I desire to quit and be rid of it; Lord help me to be holy?” Is that the panting of your heart? Is that the tenor of your life towards God, and towards his law? Then, beloved, I have reason to hope that you have been called by God, for it is a holy calling by which God does call his people.
11. Another text. In Philippians you find these words. “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those which are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” {Philippians 3:13,14} Is then your calling a high calling, has it lifted up your heart, and set it upon heavenly things? Has it lifted up your hopes, to hope no longer for things that are on earth, but for things that are above? Has it lifted up your tastes, so that they are no longer grovelling, but you choose the things that are of God? Has it lifted your desires, so that you are not panting for earthly things, but for the things that are not seen and are eternal? Has it lifted up the constant tenor of your life, so that you spend your life with God in prayer, in praise, and in thanksgiving, and can no longer be satisfied with the low and base pursuits which you followed in the days of your ignorance? Remember, if you are truly called it is a high calling, a calling from on high, and a calling that lifts up your heart, and raises it to the high things of God, eternity, heaven, and holiness.
12. In Hebrews you find this sentence. “Holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling.” {Hebrews 3:1} Here is another test. Heavenly calling means a call from heaven. Have you been called, not by man but by God? Can you now detect in your calling, the hand of God, and the voice of God? If man alone calls you, you are uncalled. Is your calling from God? and is it a call to heaven as well as from heaven? Can you heartily say that you can never rest satisfied until you
—— behold his face
And never, never sin,
But from the rivers of his grace,
Drink endless pleasures in.
Man, unless you are a stranger here, and heaven is your home, you have not been called with a heavenly calling, for those who have been so called, declare that they look for a city which has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God, and they themselves are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth.
13. There is another test. Let me remind you, that there is a passage in scripture which may edify you and help you in your examination. Those who are called, are men who before the calling, groaned in sin. What does Christ say? — “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Now, if I cannot say the first things because of your doubts, though they are true, yet I can say this, that I feel myself to be a sinner, that I loathe my sinnership, that I detest my iniquity, that I feel I deserve the wrath of God on account of my transgressions? If so, then I have a hope that I may be among the called host whom God has predestinated. He has not called the righteous but sinners to repentance. Self-righteous man, I can tell you in the tick of a clock, whether you have any evidence of election. I tell you — No; Christ never called the righteous; and if he has not called you, and if he never does call you, you are not elect, and you and your self-righteousness must be subject to the wrath of God, and cast away eternally. Only the sinner, the awakened sinner, can be at all assured that he has been called; and even he, as he gets older in grace, must look for those higher marks of the high heavenly and holy calling in Christ Jesus.
14. As a further test, — keeping close to scripture this morning, for when we are dealing with our own state before God there is nothing like giving the very words of scripture, — we are told in the first epistle of Peter, that God has called us out of darkness into marvellous light. {1 Peter 2:9} Is that your call? Were you once in darkness with regard to Christ; and has marvellous light revealed to you a marvellous Redeemer, marvellously strong to save? Say soul, can you honestly declare that your past life was darkness and that your present state is light in the Lord? “For you were at one time in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; therefore walk as children of the light.” That man is not called who cannot look back upon darkness, ignorance, and sin, and who cannot now say, that he knows more than he did know, and enjoys at times the light of knowledge, and the comforting light of God’s countenance.
15. Yet again, another test of calling is to be found in Galatians, “Brethren, you have been called into liberty.” {Galatians 5:19} Let me ask myself again this question, “Have the fetters of my sin been broken off, and am I God’s free man? Have the manacles of justice been snapped, and am I delivered — set free by him who is the great ransomer of spirits?” The slave is not called. It is the free man who has been brought out of Egypt, who proves that he has been called by God and is precious to the heart of the Most High.
16. And yet once more, another precious means of test is in first Corinthians. “He is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” {1 Corinthians 1:9 } Do I have fellowship with Christ? do I converse with him, commune with him? Do I suffer with him, suffer for him? Do I sympathize with him in his objects and aims? Do I love what he loves; do I hate what he hates? Can I bear his reproach; can I carry his cross; do I tread in his steps; do I serve his cause, and is it my grandest hope that I shall see his kingdom come, that I shall sit upon his throne, and reign with him? If so, then I am called with the effectual calling, which is the work of God’s grace, and is the sure sign of my predestination.
17. Let me say now, before I leave this point, that it is possible for a man to know whether God has called him or not, and he may know it too beyond a doubt. He may know it as surely as if he read it with his own eyes; no, he may know it more surely than that, for if I read a thing with my eyes, even my eyes may deceive me, the testimony of sense may be false, but the testimony of the Spirit must be true. We have the witness of the Spirit within, bearing witness with our spirits that we are born by God. There is such a thing on earth as an infallible assurance of our election. Let a man once get that, and it will anoint his head with fresh oil, it will clothe him with the white garment of praise, and put the song of the angel into his mouth. Happy, happy man! who is fully assured of his interest in the covenant of grace, in the blood of the atonement, and in the glories of heaven! Such men are here this very day. Let them “rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.”
18. What would some of you give if you could arrive
