Deuteronomy 32:47

For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life.

Religion a necessity

Religion is not a luxury, but a necessity of our being. It is not a vain service, because it is our life. Immersed as men are in the world, and conversant with material interests, it is difficult for them to feel this reality and absolute necessity of religion for their best life. There has been too much colour given to the presumption that religion was not deeply grounded and inlaid in our nature, but was a gift from without, a factitious culture and experience superinduced upon it, not the true working of the utmost being with all its powers. For religion has been offered to man too much as a strange, unnatural, and special thing, not as the real light of life. It has been enveloped in mystery, surrounded by a formidable array of pains and penalties, inculcated as supernatural, not only in the sanction and revelation of its truths, but in their incorporation and assimilation to the soul. The first thing to be done, therefore, is to create in men a belief that religion is not a manufactured want, but a natural necessity of our being; that, instead of its being an innate grace of temperament and constitution which, like genius, some have and others have not, and many do without, it is the bread of life for all.

I. The nature of man bears unequivocal testimony to the necessity of religion. “In scepticism,” said Goethe, “is no good thing.” Religion is a later development, as wisdom in general is, but just as normal as any other manifestation of our nature, art, or invention, or calling of life. All the elements are in man. Thus he naturally believes. He may not always believe alike,--sometimes in Moses, in Mahomet, or in Christ,--but uniformly he has faith in something. Thus, too, he naturally makes distinctions of right and wrong; his decisions on these points may not always be coincident in every nature, and under different systems of culture. In Sparta one set of things, in England another, is wrong or right. But that does not militate against the fact of a moral sense, for no people has yet been found sunk so low that they do not make the distinction somewhere. So in regard to the future, hope, aspiration, anticipation, work in all human bosoms in different degrees of intensity, and towards varying ends and objects in the boundless future, but always, everywhere, towards some ends, towards some high ideals, throned and veiled by the cloud curtain of the future.

II. The condition of man corroborates the view drawn from his nature; for his condition is his nature in progression, ill continuity. If we go over the catalogue of items of this condition, from the time he lies helpless in the cradle till he lies helpless again in the coffin, we trace an unbroken line of religious wants. It is a great and continual hunger. For at every point, at every time, under every combination of surrounding circumstances, we detect the demand for that peculiar quantity and unknown value without which we cannot work the equation of life aright, or solve with certainty its great problem. Human life, for instance, is a condition of formation, growth, education, and yet we see at once that, if this process is not carried on according to the primal principles which are involved in the plan of the Chief Husbandman, we shall have crude windfalls and stunted growths, not the golden fruit. Human life is a state of exposure to great and trying temptations, plucking at our virtue, and dragging down our aims and acts, until we go the way of all the earth. The commanding truths and the vivid sentiments and the impressive promises of religion can alone disperse this unhallowed brood, and exorcise the evil spirits from possessing mind and heart.

III. The destiny of man strengthens all the previous arguments for the reality and necessity of religion. If man is created in the image of the Everlasting God, and called to the inheritance of a conscious being through all the unending ages of the future,--if, even in this morning of his days, he is filled with aspirations, dim it may be, but vast, grand, and exalting, for sweeter joys, for purer delights, a serener happiness, a more thrilling, inward, and abiding bliss, than the rarest moments of this life have given; if such is the realm of being to which man is on his way, and to whose celestial city he is already lifting up his eyes, what, we ask, shall best fit him for such a sublime career? What is adequate to prepare him to live forever? Only what is of the same kind with itself can meet the wants of an immortal spirit, namely, an immortal religion, an immortal Saviour, an eternal God. Power, and fame, and learning even, and some of the lower of man’s attainments, even in the moral and intellectual sphere, are but freezing comforters to the bereaved, sick, and dying. But in these critical seasons of our being, when man is driven in from the outworks to the centre and substance of his nature, religion utters her grand tones of courage, promise, and eternity, and vindicates herself as the soul’s supreme necessity, the one thing needful which, once possessed, can never be taken away, but will grow dearer and brighter and diviner forever. (A. A. Livermore.)

Religion-a reality

The Christian dispensation is one which requires much faith to receive it. We walk not by sight, but by faith alone; and it is little marvel that when ungodly men see the righteous afflicted, and discover that their comfort lies in matters which only faith can apprehend, they should cry out, “It is a vain thing,” and should turn aside from the ordinances of God. Besides, to confess the truth, there have been so many counterfeits of true religion, that it is not remarkable that unconverted men should consider even the genuine article to be but a vain thing.

I. The true religion of Christ, which consists in a vital faith in His person, His blood, and His righteousness, and which produces obedience to His commands and a love to God, is not a fiction.

1. The objects of true religion are, to those who believe in Jesus, no fiction.

(1) God the Father.

(2) Christ Jesus.

(3) The Holy Spirit.

2. The experience which true religion brings is no fiction.

(1) Repentance.

(2) Joy and peace in believing.

3. There is a reality in the privileges of religion.

(1) Prayer,

(2) Communion with Christ.

(3) Christian love towards one another.

4. The religion of Christ is evidently not a vain thing if you look at its effects.

5. To the man who really possesses it, it is his life. His religion is not like a man’s regimentals, which he can take off and go in undress; it is inside of him; it is woven right through and through him.

II. It is no trifle.

1. It deals with your souls.

2. It connects you with God.

3. Those who have ever known anything of it tell you it is no “child’s play.”

4. Sinners, when they are in their senses, find it no trifle.

5. True ministers of God feel it to be no trifle.

III. It is no folly. If you would accomplish the proudest feat of human intellect, it is to attain to the knowledge of Christ crucified. Here the man whose mind makes him elephantine may find depth in which he may swim. Here the most recondite learning shall find itself exhausted. Here the most brilliant imagination shall find its highest flights exceeded, Here the man who understands history may crown his knowledge by the history of God in the world; here men who would know the secret, the greatest secret which heaven and earth and hell can tell, may find it out, for the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. All the learning of man is doubtless folly to the angels, but the foolishness of God in the Gospel is wisdom to cherubim and seraphim, and by the Church shall be made known to them in ages to come the manifold wisdom of God,

IV. It is no speculation. People sometimes ask us what we think about the heathen, whether they will be saved or not, Well, sirs, there is room for difference of opinion there; but I should like to know what you think about yourselves--will you be saved or not?--for after, all,. that is a question of a deal more importance to you. Now, the religion of Christ is not a thing that puts a man into a salvable state, but it saves him. It is not a religion which offers him something which perhaps may save him; no, it saves him out and out, on the spot. It is not a thing which says to a man, “Now, I have set you a-going, yon must keep on yourself.” No, it goes the whole way through, and saves him from beginning to end. He that says “Alpha” never stops till He can say “Omega” over every soul. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Religion not a vain thing

I. The object to which Moses refers.

1. Personal religion.

(1) Imperative in its nature.

(2) Comprehensive in its requirements.

(3) Universal in its extent.

(4) Perpetual and eternal in its obligation.

Set your hearts to consider the nature of this law. Set your hearts to pray for that grace which will enable you to love the law of the Lord. Set your hearts to expect the accomplishment of that promise (Deuteronomy 30:6).

2. Family religion.

(1) Parental duty must be regulated by the law of God.

(2) Parental duty is authorised by the command of God.

II. The affirmation which He makes concerning it.

1. It is not

(1) an empty, airy, unsubstantial thing;

(2) not a vain, deceitful thing;

(3) not a foolish, senseless thing;

(4) not a fruitless, unproductive thing.

2. It is “your life.” To the Jews especially it--

(1) was the means of prolonging their life;

(2) added to the happiness of their life.

(3) promoted the utility of their life;

(4) prepared them for eternal life.

Concluding inferences--

1. Religion consists in setting your heart to know and to keep the commandments of God.

2. Religion is not a vain thing. Thousands deceive themselves. Some treat it with sovereign contempt. Others profess to know it, but their conduct belies their profession.

3. Religion is your life. Then seek to know, love, and serve God. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)