The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (books to read to improve english .TXT) 📕

3. The riotous eaters of flesh have not the fear of God. For this is done “without fear” (Jude 12). Gluttony is a sin little taken notice of, and as little repented of by those that use it, but yet it is odious in the sight of God, and the practice of it a demonstration of the want of his fear in the heart: yea, so odious is it, that God forbids that his people should so much as company with such. “Be not,” saith he, “among wine-bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh” (Prov 23:20). And he further tells us, that they that are such, are spots and blemishes to those that keep them company, for indeed they fear not God (2 Peter 2:13; Rom 13:13; 1 Peter 4:4). Alas! some men are as if they were for nought else born but to eat and to drink, and pamper their carcasses with the dainties of this world, quite forgetting why God sent them hither; but such, as is said, fear not God, and so consequently are of the number of them upon whom the day of judgment will come at unawares (Luke 21:34).

4. The liar is one that fears not God. This also is evident from the plain text, “Thou hast lied,” saith the Lord, “and hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart: have not I held my peace even of old,” saith the Lord, “and thou fearest me not?” (Isa 57:11). What lie this was is not material; it was a lie, or a course of lying that is here rebuked, and the person or persons in this practice, as is said, were such as feared not God; a course of lying and the fear of God cannot stand together. This sin of lying is a common sin, and it walketh in the world in several guises. There is the profane scoffing liar, there is the cunning artificial liar, there is the hypocritical religious liar, with liars of other ranks and degrees. But none of them all have the fear of God, nor shall any of them, they not repenting, escape the damnation of hell—“All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev 21:8). Heaven and the New Jerusalem are not a place for such—“And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie” (v 27). Therefore another scripture says that all liars are without—“For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” (Rev 22:15). But this should not be their sentence, judgment, and condemnation, if they that are liars were such as had in them this blessed fear of God.

5. They fear not God who cry unto him for help in the time of their calamity, and when they are delivered, they return to their former rebellion. This, Moses, in a spirit of prophecy, asserteth at the time of the mighty judgment of the hail. Pharaoh then desired him to pray to God that he would take away that judgment from him. Well, so I will, said Moses, “But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will not yet fear the Lord God” (Exo 9:30). As who should say, I know that so soon as this judgment is removed, you will to your old rebellion again. And what greater demonstration can be given that such a man feareth not God, than to cry to God to be delivered from affliction to prosperity, and to spend that prosperity in rebellion against him? This is crying for mercies that they may be spent, or that we may have something to spend upon our lusts, and in the service of Satan (John 4:1-3). Of these God complains in the sixteenth of Ezekiel, and in the second of Hosea—“Thou hast,”

saith God, “taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images” &c. (Eze 16:17).

This was for want of the fear of God. Many of this kind there be now in the world, both of men, and women, and children; art not thou that readest this book of this number? Hast thou not cried for health when sick, for wealth when poor, when lame for strength, when in prison for liberty, and then spent all that thou gottest by thy prayer in the service of Satan, and to gratify thy lusts?

Look to it, sinner, these things are signs that with thy heart thou fearest not God.

6. They fear not God that way-lay his people and seek to overthrow them, or to turn them besides the right path, as they are journeying from hence to their eternal rest. This is evident from the plain text, “Remember,” saith God, “what Amalek did unto thee by the way when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary, and he feared not God” (Deut 25:17,18). Many such Amalekites there be now in the world that set themselves against the feeble of the flock, against the feeble of the flock especially, still smiting them, some by power, some with the tongue, some in their lives and estates, some in their names and reputations, by scandals, slanders, and reproach, but the reason of this their ungodly practice is this, they fear not God. For did they fear him, they would be afraid to so much as think, much more of attempting to afflict and destroy, and calumniate the children of God; but such there have been, such there are, and such there will be in the world, for all men fear not God.

7. They fear not God who see his hand upon backsliders for their sins, and yet themselves will be backsliders also. “I saw,” saith God, “when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also” (Jer 3:8, 2:19). Judah saw that her sister was put away, and delivered by God into the hands of Shalmaneser, who carried her away beyond Babylon, and yet, though she saw it, she went and played the harlot also—a sign of great hardness of heart, and of the want of the fear of God indeed. For this fear, had it been in her heart, it would have taught her to have trembled at the judgment that was executed upon her sister, and not to have gone and played the harlot also: and not to have done it while her sister’s judgment was in sight and memory. But what is it that a heart that is destitute of the fear of God will not do? No sin comes amiss to such: yea, they will sin, they will do that themselves, for the doing of which they believe some are in hellfire, and all because they fear not God.

But pray observe, if those that take not warning when they see the hand of God upon backsliders, are said to have none of the fear of God, have they it, think you, that lay stumblingblocks in the way of God’s people, and use devices to cause them to backslide, yea, rejoice when they can do this mischief to any? and yet many of this sort there are in the world, that even rejoice when they see a professor fall into sin, and go back from his profession, as if they had found some excellent thing.

8. They fear not God who can look upon a land as wallowing in sin, and yet are not humbled at the sight thereof. “Have ye,” said God by the prophet to the Jews, “forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, which they have committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? They are not humbled to this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law” (Jer 44:9,10).

Here is a land full of wickedness, and none to bewail it, for they wanted the fear of God, and love to walk in his law. But how say you, if they that are not humbled at their own and others’ wickedness are said not to fear, or have the fear of God, what shall we think or say of such that receive, that nourish and rejoice in such wickedness? Do they fear God? Yea, what shall we say of such that are the inventors and promoters of wickedness, as of oaths, beastly talk, or the like? Do they, do you think, fear God? Once again, what shall we say of such that cannot be content to be wicked themselves, and to invent and rejoice in other men’s wickedness, but must hate, reproach, vilify and abuse those that they cannot persuade to be wicked? Do they fear God?

9. They that take more heed to their own dreams than to the Word of God, fear not God. This also is plain from the Word—“For in the multitude of dreams, there are also divers vanities, but fear thou God”; that is, take heed unto his Word (Eccl 5:7; Isa 8:20).

Here the fearing of God is opposed to our overmuch heeding dreams: and there is implied, that it is for want of the fear of God that men so much heed those things. What will they say to this that give more heed to a suggestion that ariseth from their foolish hearts, or that is cast in thither by the devil, than they do to the holy Word of God? These are “filthy dreamers.” Also, what shall we say to those that are more confident of the mercy of God to their soul, because he hath blessed them with outward things, than they are afraid of his wrath and condemnation, though the whole of the Word of God doth fully verify the same? These are “filthy dreamers”

indeed.

A dream is either real, or so by way of semblance, and so some men dream sleeping, and some waking (Isa 29:7). And as those that a man dreams sleeping are caused either by God, Satan, business, flesh, or the like; so are they that a man dreams waking, to pass by those that we have in our sleep. Men, when bodily awake, may have dreams, that is, visions from heaven; such are all they that have a tendency to discover to the sinner his state, or the state of the church according to the Word. But those that are from Satan, business, and the flesh, are such—especially the first and last, to wit, from Satan and the flesh—as tend to embolden men to hope for good in a way disagreeing with the Word of God.[25]

These Jude calls “filthy dreamers,” such whose principles were their dreams, and they led them “to defile the flesh,” that is, by fornication and uncleanness; “to despise dominion,” that the reins might be laid upon the neck of their lusts; “to speak evil of dignities,” of those that God had set over them, for their governing in all the law and testament of Christ, these dreamt that to live like brutes, to be greedy of gain, and to take away for it, as Cain and Balaam did by their wiles, the lives of the owners thereof, would go for good coin in the best of trials. These