Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1946
“Lay hold on eternal life.” 1 Timothy 6:12.
“Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” 1 Timothy 6:19.
“LAY hold on eternal life.” Observe that this precept is preceded by another—“Fight the good fight of faith.” Those who lay hold on eternal life will have to fight for it. The way of the spiritual life is no easy one—we shall have to contest every step of the way along which it leads us. “Contest the good contest of the faith” would be an accurate rendering of the passage and a contest it is against the world, the flesh and the devil! If we live unto God, we shall need to war a daily warfare and tread down the powers of death and Hell.
We fight the good fight by firm faith in the Lord our God—“This is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith.” That fight is the fight of faith, fought for the faith and by the faith. The article should be inserted and then the words are—“Fight the good fight of the faith.” “Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.” “Hold fast the form of sound words.” It is worth fighting for, even if we come to resistance unto blood! He who dies for the faith has laid down his life in a worthy cause and he shall find it unto life eternal. We can only hope that we shall be able to live unto God by faith in Him and faith in the great Truths which He has revealed to be the object of our faith. When I say unto you, “Lay hold on eternal life,” do not imagine that this is to be done in a dream, or accomplished without awakening your utmost energies, nor even then without that Divine assistance which only faith can receive.
As my text follows the command to “fight the good fight of the faith,” it teaches us that the best way of contending for the faith is for ourselves, personally, to lay hold on eternal life. You cannot defend the faith by mere reasoning— victory does not come through an array of arguments which have been, before, used by men of learning—you must, yourself, possess the inward life and exhibit the force and power of it in your daily conduct if you would be successful in the holy war. Men who forget the Divine Life soon cast away the Divine Truth. If the life is not in us, we may make what profession of orthodoxy we like, but we shall, in all probability, before long, turn aside like others, unto crooked ways. Well are the two commands joined together—“Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on eternal life.” It reminds me of our Lord’s words, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
My Brothers and Sisters, there is a higher and a better life than that which is known to the most of men. There is an animal life which all possess; there is a mental life which lifts us up above the beasts, but there is another life as much above the mental life as the mental life is above the mere animal life! The bulk of men are not aware of this and when they are told of it, they do not believe the statement. Men whom they would believe upon any other subject—honest and true men—are, nevertheless, regarded as a sort of madmen when they begin to talk about a spiritual life. How should the carnal mind discern that which is spiritual? it can only be spiritually discerned. But there is such a life, as many of us assuredly know, and this is the eternal life which we are bid to lay hold upon. The life of Heaven is none other than the Divine Life which God’s Grace imparts to Believers here below—only it is developed and brought to perfection. There is no jerk to the Believer in death—his line of life is unbroken. There is a change in his condition, for he drops this mortal body and those tendencies to sin which cling to it, but the same life is in him, in the body or out of it, unclothed or clothed. His life is the same day, only here it is the dawn, but in Glory it is full moon. His life is one and flows on like a river, widening and deepening until, at last, it swells into a sea of joyous, perfected life in Heaven!
Dream not that any of you will ever obtain eternal life hereafter unless you receive it in this life. Unless you are partakers of it now, tremble for the consequences! Where death finds you, eternity will leave you. Thus I read the Word of God. Let others read as they may. The only laying hold on eternal life that can be practiced by us must be commenced now—it is now brought to light by Christ Jesus in the everlasting Gospel—beware how you put it from you. Grip it now; lay hold of it now and hold on to it at all hazards! Do my expressions sound strange? Let me remind you of that exhortation of Holy Scripture—“Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” Once obtained, we may rest assured that this life will not be wrenched from us in the pangs of departure from the body nor in the Day of Judgment, nor throughout eternity! “Lay hold on eternal life.” I would dwell upon this precept, entreating the aid of the Holy Spirit that I may speak of this true life in a living and true manner.