HEAVENLY TEACHING

HEAVENLY TEACHING

 JOSEPH CHARLES PHILPOT (1802-1869)

Preached at Zoar Chapel, Great Alie Street, London, on Lord’s Day Morning, August 6, 1843

"All thy children shall be taught of the Lord." Isa 54:13

THE full extent of the "spiritual blessings" wherewith God has blessed the church in "heavenly places in Christ" can never be thoroughly known in this time-state. It is only when the ransomed of the Lord shall reach the heavenly Canaan, that they will fully know either the awful gulf of misery from which they have been delivered, or the height of bliss and glory to which they are exalted in Christ. But sufficient is revealed in the word of God to shew that they are indeed blessed with peculiar privileges and mercies; and that in being thus blessed their distinction as "a peculiar people" chiefly consists. Moses, therefore, on one occasion thus pleaded with God: "Wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth". Ex 33:16

But of these peculiar blessings that God has blessed his church with in Christ, four seem especially prominent above the rest -their eternal election -their particular and personal redemption -their regeneration- and their heavenly teaching, which last is the promise contained in the text, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord."

But why should this last occupy a prominent place in the catalogue of covenant blessings? Because without it the others would be in a measure nugatory; for such is the blindness of man’s heart by nature, so thick a vail of ignorance is spread over his understanding, and so completely is he "alienated from the life of God," that he never can have any spiritual knowledge of the "only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent" (in which knowledge eternal life consists) , until he is made a partaker of this divine teaching.

We will endeavour, then, with God’s blessing, to trace out a little of the nature and effects of this divine teaching in the soul. And as it consists for the most part of two leading branches: first, the teaching whereby we know God; and secondly, the teaching whereby we know ourselves, we will look at each of these in their order.

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