4) A Godly Man is Like God
A godly man loves God, though he is reduced to straits. A mother and her nine-year-old child were about to die of hunger. The child looked at its mother and said, "Mother, do you think God will starve us?"
"No, child," said the mother, "he will not." The child replied, "But if he does, we must love him, and serve him."
Use: Let us test our godliness by this touchstone: Do we love God? Is he our treasure and center? Can we, with David, call God our "joy", yes, our "exceeding joy" (Psalm 43:4)? Do we delight in drawing near to him, and "come before his presence with singing"? (Psalm 100:2)
Do we love him for his beauty more than his jewels? Do we love him, when he seems not to love us?
If this be the sign of a godly man, how few will be found in the number! Where is the man whose heart is dilated in love to God?
Many court him—but few love him. People are for the most part eaten up with self-love; they love their ease, their worldly profit, their lusts—but they do not have a drop of love to God. If they loved God, would they be so willing to be rid of him? "They say unto God,
Depart from us" (Job 21:14). If they loved God, would they tear his name by their oaths? Does he who shoots his father in the heart, love him? Though they worship God, they do not love him; they are like the soldiers who bowed the knee to Christ, and mocked him (Matt.
27:29). He whose heart is a grave in which the love of God is buried, deserves to have that curse written upon his tombstone, "Let him be
Anathema Maranatha" (1 Cor. 16:22). A soul devoid of divine love is a temper which best suits damned spirits. But I shall waive this, and pass to the next.
4. A Godly Man is Like God.
He has the same judgment as God; he thinks of things as God does; he has a Godlike disposition; he "partakes of the divine nature" (2
Pet. 1:4). A godly man bears both God's name and image; godliness is Godlikeness. It is one thing to profess God, another thing to resemble him.
A godly man is like God in holiness. Holiness is the most brilliant pearl in the King of Heaven's crown: "glorious in holiness" (Exod.
15:11). God's power makes him mighty; his mercy makes him lovely; but his holiness makes him glorious. The holiness of God is the intrinsic purity of his nature and his abhorrence of sin. A godly man bears some kind of analogy with God in this. He has the holy oil of consecration upon him: "Aaron the saint of the Lord" (Psalm
106:16). Holiness is the badge and mark of Christ's people: "The people of your holiness" (Isaiah 63:18). The godly are a holy as well as a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9). Nor have they only a frontispiece of holiness, like the Egyptian temples which were fair outside—but they are like Solomon's temple, which had gold inside. They have written upon their heart, "Holiness to the Lord". The holiness of the saints consists in their conformity to God's will, which is the rule and pattern of all holiness.
Holiness is a man's glory. Aaron put on garments "for glory and for beauty" (Exod. 28:2). So when a person is invested with the embroidered garment of holiness, it is for glory and beauty.
The goodness of a Christian lies in his holiness, as the goodness of the air lies in its clarity, the worth of gold in its purity.
Question: In what do the godly reveal their holiness?
Answer:
1. In hating "the garment spotted by the flesh" (Jude 23). The godly set themselves against evil, both in purpose and in practice. They are fearful of that which looks like sin (1 Thess. 5:22). The appearance of evil may harm a weak Christian. If it does not defile a man's own
conscience, it may offend his brother's conscience; and to sin against him is to sin against Christ (1 Cor. 8:12). A godly man will not go as far as he may, lest he go further than he should; he will not swallow all that others may plead for. It is easy to put a golden color on rotten material.
2. In being advocates for holiness. "I will speak of your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed" (Psalm 119:46). When piety is calumniated in the world, the saints will stand up in its defense; they will wipe off the dust of a reproach, from the face of religion. Holiness defends the godly, and they will defend holiness; it defends them from danger, and they will defend it from disgrace.
Use 1: How can those who are unlike God be reputed to be godly?
They have nothing of God in them, not one shred of holiness. They call themselves Christians—but blot out the word holiness; you may as well call it day at midnight.
So impudent are some, that they boast they are none of the holy ones. Is it not the Spirit of holiness which marks off the sheep of Christ, from the goats? "You were sealed (or marked) with the Holy
Spirit" (Eph. 1:13). And is it a matter for men to boast of, that they have none of the Spirit's earmark upon them? Does not the apostle say that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14)?
Such as bless themselves in their unholiness had best go and ring the bells for joy, that they shall never see God.
There are others who hate holiness. Sin and holiness never meet but they fight. Holiness discharges its fire of zeal against sin, and sin spits its venom of malice at holiness. Many pretend to love Christ as a Savior—but hate him as he is the Holy One (Acts 3:14).
Use 2: Let us strive to be like God in holiness.
1. This is God's great design which he drives on in the world. It is the object of the Word preached. The silver drops of the sanctuary are to water the seed of grace, and make a crop of holiness spring up. What