God forbid that any of you would be saying in your heart, “If it looks like I have to suffer for this, I’ve got a way to get myself free from suffering.” What sort of way is that? “Oh, the last time I begged mercy and I confessed I’d done wrong and I promised never to do it again, and that’s how I’ll get off with it again.” Well, when all is said and done, you have made a fool’s bargain. You come here at hazard to yourself, and plan to sin in order to avoid the hazard. That is much worse than what you fear losing.

From time to time in the experience of the Christian church, it becomes extremely dangerous to gather with other believers for worship. This kind of threat surely sharpens our minds as to the purpose and benefit of assembling for worship. In his opening remarks to a sermon preached in 1671, the Covenanter Michael Bruce (1635–1693) confronts his hearers with the risks of attending his preaching in order that they would confront their own motivations for being there. How can it be for anything trivial? Bruce’s point in the following updated extract poses its own challenge to preachers to ensure that what they preach is worthwhile for people to turn out for, while hearers are reminded to look beyond their current circumstances — whether church attendance is currently dangerous or cost-free — to the great spiritual realities which should dominate our thinking and living. 

The Risks

From the fact that you’re here, it would seem that you are convinced it is good for you to seek the Lord in His own ordinance. Your coming here to hear His Word, at such risk to yourself in a time like this, weighs more with you than any danger you may be in of suffering for it. Your coming here presupposes that it’s better for you to come and take the risk of suffering than to stay away, however safe and free from suffering you would be.

Truly, I think that if you are not of this mind, you are fools to come here. You poor soul, to come here in a time like this, when you may find by experience that doing so may cost you the loss of all things that are dear to you in the world, and yet you do not see that there is something you can have which is worth the risk of losing all these things! I say you must be a fool if you don’t see this, and risk the suffering without having anything in mind to compensate for it.

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