The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (best book clubs txt) 📖

Chron 15:11-15). When a man’s desires put him upon prayer, run along with him in his prayer, break out of his heart and ascend up to heaven with his prayers, it is a good sign that he is a righteous man, and that his desire shall be granted.

Third. By desire a righteous man shows more of his mind for God, than he can by any manner of way besides; hence it is said, ‘The desire of man is his kindness, and a poor man,’ that is sincere in his desires, ‘is better than’ he that with his mouth shows much love, if he be ‘a liar’ (Prov 19:22).

Desires, desires, are copious things; you read that a man may ‘enlarge his desire as hell’ (Habb 2:5), that is, if they be wicked; yea, and a righteous man may enlarge his desires as heaven (Psa 73:25).

No grace is so extensive as desires. Desires out-go all. Who believes as he desires to believe? and loves as he desires to love? and fears as he desires to fear God’s name? (Neh 1:11). Might it be as a righteous man doth sometimes desire it should be, both with God’s church, and also with his own soul, stranger things would be than there are; faith, and love, and holiness, would flourish more than it does! O! what does a righteous man desire? What do you think the prophet desired, when he said, ‘O that thou wouldest rend the heavens and—come down?’ (Isa 54:1). And Paul, when he said, he could wish that himself were accursed from Christ, for the vehement desire that he had that the Jews might be saved? (Rom 9:1-3, 10:1).

Yea, what do you think John desired, when he cried out to Christ to come quickly?

Love to God, as I said, is more seen in desires than in any Christian act. Do you think that the woman with her two mites cast in all that she desired to cast into the treasury of God? Or do you think, when David said that he had prepared for the house of God with all his might, that his desires stinted when his ability was at its utmost? (1 Chron 29). No, no; desires go beyond all actions; therefore I said it is the desires of a man that are reckoned for his kindness. Kindness is that which God will not forget; I mean the kindness which his people show to him, especially in their desires to serve him in the world. When Israel was come out of Egypt, you know how many stumbles they had before they got to Canaan. But forasmuch as they were willing or desirous to follow God, he passes by all their failures, saying, ‘I remember thee,’ and that almost a thousand years after,[15] ‘the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown’ (Jer 2:2). Israel was holiness to the Lord, and the first fruits of his increase. There is nothing that God likes of ours better than he likes our true desires. For indeed true desires, they are the smoke of our incense, the flower of our graces, and the very vital part of our new man. They are our desires that ascend, and they that are the sweet of all the sacrifices that we offer to God. The man of desires is the man of kindness.

Fourth. Desires, true and right desires, they are they by which a man is taken up from the ground, and brought away to God, in spite of all opposers. A desire will take a man upon its back, and carry him away to God, if ten thousand men stand by and oppose it. Hence it is said, that ‘through desire a man having separated himself,’

to wit, from what is contrary to the mind of God, and so ‘seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom’ (Prov 18:1).

All convictions, conversions, illuminations, favours, tastes, revelations, knowledge, and mercies, will do nothing if the soul abides without desires. All, I say, is but like rain upon stones, or favours bestowed upon a dead dog. O! but a poor man with desires, a man that sees but little, that knows but little, that finds in himself but little, if he has but strong desires, they will supply all. His desires take him up from his sins, from his companions, from his pleasures, and carry him away to God. Suppose thou wast a minister, and wast sent from God with a whip, whose cords were made of the flames of hell, thou mightest lash long enough before thou couldest so much as drive one man that abides without desires to God, or to his kingdom, by that thy so sore a whip. Suppose again that thou wast a minister, and wast sent from God to sinners with a crown of glory in thy hand, to offer to him that first comes to thee for it; yet none can come without desires: but desire takes the man upon its back, and so brings him to thee.[16] What is the reason that men will with mouth commend God, and commend Christ, and commend and praise both heaven and glory, and yet all the while fly from him, and from his mercy, as from the worst of enemies?

Why, they want good desires; their desires being mischievous, carry them another way. Thou entreatest thy wife, thy husband, and the son of thy womb, to fall in with thy Lord and thy Christ, but they will not. Ask them the reason why they will not, and they know none, only they have no desires. ‘When we shall see him, there is no beauty in him that we should desire him’ (Isa 53:1-3). And I am sure if they do not desire him, they can by no means be made to come to him.

But now, desires, desires that are right, will carry a man quite away to God, and to do his will, let the work be never so hard.

Take an instance or two for this.

You may see it in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The text says plainly, they were not mindful of that country from whence they came out, through their desires of a better (Heb 11:8-16). God gave them intimation of a better country, and their minds did cleave to it with desires of it; and what then? Why, they went forth, and desired to go, though they did not know whither they went. Yea, they all sojourned in the land of promise, because it was but a shadow of what was designed for them by God, and looked to by their faith, as in a strange country; wherefore they also cast that behind their back, looking for that city that had foundations, of which mention was made before. Had not now these men desires that were mighty?

They were their desires that thus separated them from their dearest and choice relations and enjoyments. Their desires were pitched upon the heavenly country, and so they broke through all difficulties for that.

You may see it in Moses, who had a kingdom at his foot, and was the alone visible heir thereof; but desire of a better inheritance made him refuse it, and choose rather to take part with the people of God in their afflicted condition, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. You may say, the Scripture attributes this to his faith. I answer, so it attributes to Abraham’s faith his leaving of his country. But his faith begat in him these desires after the country that is above. So indeed Moses saw these things by faith; and therefore his faith begat in him these desires. For it was because of his desires that he did refuse, and did choose as you read. And here we may opportunely take an opportunity to touch upon the vanity of that faith that is not breeding, and that knows not how to bring forth strong desires of enjoying what is pretended to be believed; all such faith is false. Abraham’s, Isaac’s, Jacob’s, and Moses’ faith, bred in them desires, strong desires; yea, desires so strong as to take them up, and to carry them after what, by their faith, was made known unto them. Yea, their desires were so mightily set upon the things made known to them by their faith, that neither difficulties nor dangers, nor yet frowns nor flatteries, could stop them from the use of all lawful attempts of enjoying what they believed was to be had, and what they desired to be possessed of.

The women also that you read of, and others that would not, upon unworthy terms, accept of deliverance from torments and sundry trials, that they might,, or because they had a desire to, be made partakers of a better resurrection. ‘And others,’ saith he, ‘had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheep skins, and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and caves of the earth’ (Heb 11:35-38).

But we will come to the Lord Jesus himself. Whither did his desires bring him? Whither did they carry him? and to what did they make him stoop? For they were his desires after us, and after our good, that made him humble himself to do as he did (Cant 7:10). What was it, think you, that made him cry out, ‘I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished’!

(Luke 12:50). What was that baptism but his death? and why did he so long for it, but of desire to do us good? Yea, the passover being to be eaten on the even of his sufferings, with what desires did he desire to eat it with his disciples? (Luke 22:15). Yea, his desires to suffer for his people made him go with more strength to lay down his life for them than they, for want of them, had to go to see him suffer. And they were in their way going up to Jerusalem, he to suffer, and they to look on, ‘And Jesus went before them, and they were amazed, and as they followed, they were afraid’ (Mark 10:32; Matt 20:17).

I tell you, desires are strange things, if they be right; they jump with God’s mind; they are the life of prayer; they are a man’s kindness to God, and they which will take him up from the ground, and carry him away after God to do his will, let the work be never so hard. Is it any marvel, then, if the desires of the righteous are so pleasing to God as they are, and that God has so graciously promised that the desires of the righteous shall be granted? But we come now to

[THE USE AND APPLICATION.]

THE FIRST USE SHALL BE A USE OF INFORMATION. You have heard what hath been said of desires, and what pleasing things right desires are unto God. But you must know that they are the desires of his people, of the righteous, that are so. No wicked man’s desires are regarded (Psa 112:10). This men must be informed of, lest their desires become a snare to their souls. You read of a man whose ‘desire killeth him’ (Prov 21:25). And why? but because he rests in desiring, without considering what he is, whether such a one unto whom the promise of granting desires is made; he coveteth greedily all the day long, but to little purpose. The grant of desires, of the fulfilling of desires, is entailed to the righteous man. There are four sorts of people that desire, that desire the kingdom