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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 20: 1874
   Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
   LC Call no: BV42
  LC Subjects:

               Practical theology

               Worship (Public and Private) Including the church year, Christian
               symbols, liturgy, prayer, hymnology

               Times and Seasons. The church year
     __________________________________________________________________

Life More Abundant

   (No. 1150)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 4, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I am come that they might ha ve life, and that they might have it more
   abundantly." John 10:10.

   "THE thief comes not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy."
   False teachers, whatever their professions, seriously injure and
   endanger the souls of men and in the end cause their destruction. Their
   selfish ends can only be answered by the ruin of their dupes. The Lord
   Jesus, the true Teacher of men, causes injury to none, and brings death
   to no man's door. His teaching is full of goodness, kindness and love.
   It works most effectually for human happiness and benefit. Error is
   deadly. The Truth of God is life-giving. The coming of the old serpent
   worked our death. The Advent of the woman's Seed has brought us life.
   We shall omit all preface and ask you to note that, according to the
   text, Jesus Christ is come, first, that His people may have life. And,
   secondly, that where life is already given it may be enjoyed more
   abundantly.

   I. The first Truth is that JESUS CHRIST HAS COME THAT MEN MAY HAVE
   LIFE. I will not dwell upon the thought that even the prolonged natural
   life of the sinner is due, in a large measure, to the coming of Christ.
   That barren tree would not stand so long in the garden of life if it
   were not that the dresser of the vineyard intercedes and cries, "Spare
   it yet another year, until I dig about it and fertilize it." The
   interposition of the Mediator accounts for the lengthened lives of
   gross offenders whose crimes tax the long-suffering of Heaven. If the
   prayers of our great Intercessor should cease for a single hour, the
   ungodly among mankind would, perhaps, sink down quickly into Hell, as
   Korah, Dathan and Abiram did when the Lord's anger broke forth upon
   them.

   That, however, is not the drift of the text. Life, in the sense of
   pardon and deliverance from the death penalty, is a great result of
   Christ's coming. All men in their natural condition are under sentence
   of death, for they have sinned, and they must be shortly taken to the
   place of execution, there to suffer the full penalty of the second
   death. If any of us are delivered at this time from the sentence of
   death and have now the promise of the crown of life, we owe the change
   to the coming of the Redeemer to be a Sacrifice for our sins. Every man
   among us must go down to the endless death unless, through Him who came
   to earth and hung upon the tree as the sinner's Substitute, we obtain
   full remission for all offenses--and the verdict of life instead of
   death. There is life in a look at Jesus, but apart from Him, the sons
   of Adam are under sentence of death.

   Moreover, we are all, by nature, "dead in trespasses and sins." In the
   day when our first parents broke the Law, they died spiritually, and
   all of us died in them. And now, today, apart from Christ, we are all
   dead to spiritual things, being devoid of that living Spirit which
   enables us to have communion with God and to understand and enjoy
   spiritual things. All men are by nature without the Spirit which
   quickens to the highest form of life. Unregenerate men have physical
   life and mental life, but spiritual life they have not--nor will they
   ever have it except as Jesus gives it to them. The Spirit of God goes
   forth according to the Divine will and implants in us a living and
   incorruptible seed which is akin to the Divine Nature. He confers on us
   a new life, by virtue of which we live in the realm of spiritual
   things, comprehend spiritual teachings, seek spiritual objects and are
   alive unto God, who is a Spirit.

   No one among us has any life of this kind by birth, neither can it be
   bestowed upon us by ceremonial rites, nor obtained by human merit. The
   dead cannot rise to life except by miracle--neither can man rise to
   spiritual life except by the working of the Spirit of God upon him, for
   it is He, alone, who can quicken us. Christ Jesus has come to call us
   from the graves of sin. Many have already heard His voice and live.
   This spiritual life is the same life which will be continued and
   perfected in Heaven. We shall not, when we rise again from the grave,
   obtain a life which we do not possess on earth--we must be alive unto
   God here or take our places among those whose worm dies not and whose
   fire is not quenched.

   There beats within the Believer's heart this day the same life which
   shall enjoy the fullness of joy in the Divine Presence. If you have
   only looked to Jesus a few minutes ago, yet there is now in your heart
   the blessed life. The incorruptible seed is sown in you which lives and
   abides forever. The heavenly life is within you and this Jesus Christ
   came to bestow upon us. The Truth that Jesus is the life-giver is clear
   enough in the text and it leads to the following practical
   reflection--life for your soul is only to be had in Jesus. If, then,
   you are, this day, seeking salvation, you are instructed as to the only
   source of it!

   Spiritual life is not the result of working--how can the dead work for
   life? Must they not be quickened, first, and then will they not rather
   work from life than for life? Life is a gift and its bestowal upon any
   man must be the act of God. The Gospel preaches life by Jesus Christ.
   Sinner, see where you must look! You are wholly dependent upon the
   quickening voice of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. "This,"
   says one, "is very discouraging to us." It is intended to be! It is
   kindness to discourage men when they are acting upon wrong principles.
   As long as you think that your salvation can be effected by your own
   efforts, or merits, or anything else that can arise out of yourself,
   you are on the wrong track--and it is our duty to discourage you.

   The way to life lies in the opposite direction. You must look right
   away from yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ! You must rely upon what He
   has done and not upon what you can do. And you must have respect not to
   what you can work in yourself, but to what He can work in you. Remember
   that God's declaration is that, "Whoever believes in Jesus has
   everlasting life." If, therefore, you are enabled to come and cast
   yourselves upon the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, you have
   that eternal life immediately--which all your prayers, tears,
   repentance, church-going, chapel-going and sacraments could never bring
   to you!

   Jesus can give it to you freely at this moment, but you cannot work it
   in yourself. You may imitate it and deceive yourself. You may garnish
   the corpse and make it seem as though it were alive--and you can
   galvanize it into a spasmodic motion--but life is a Divine fire and you
   can not steal the flame, or kindle it for yourself! It belongs to God,
   alone, to make alive, and therefore I charge you look alone to God in
   Christ Jesus! Christ has come that we may have life! If we could have
   obtained life without His coming, why did He need to come? If life
   could come to sinners apart from the Cross, why nail the Lord of Glory
   to the shameful tree? Why Your bleeding wounds, Immanuel, if life could
   come by some other door?

   Yet, further, why did the Spirit of God descend at Pentecost, and why
   does He still abide among men if they can be quickened without Him? If
   life is to be obtained apart from the Holy Spirit, to what end does He
   work in the human heart? The bleeding Savior and the indwelling Spirit
   are convincing proofs that our life it not from ourselves, but from
   above. Away, then, from yourself, O Trembler! Seek not the living among
   the dead! Search not in the sepulcher of self for the Divine Life. The
   life of men is in yonder Savior and whoever believes in Him shall never
   die!

   II. But we intend to spend the most of our time at this time upon the
   second Truth of God, namely, that JESUS HAS

   COME THAT THOSE TO WHOM HE HAS GIVEN LIFE MAY HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY.
   Life is a matter of

   degrees. Some have life, but it flickers like a dying candle and is
   indistinct as the fire in the smoking flax. Others are full of life and
   are bright and vehement, like the fire upon the blacksmith's forge when
   the bellows are in full blast. Christ has come that His people may have
   life in all its fullness.

   Increase of life may be seen in several ways. It may be seen in
   healing. A man lies sick upon his bed--he is alive, but he can hardly
   move a limb--he is helplessly dependent upon those around him. His life
   is in him, but how little is its power! Now, if that man recovers,
   rises from his bed and takes his place in the world's battle, it is
   evident that he has life more abundantly than in his illness! Even thus
   there are sick Christians of whom we need to say, "Strengthen you the
   weak hands and confirm the feeble knees." Their spiritual constitution
   is weak, they do but little. When the Lord Jesus restores them,
   strengthens their faith, brightens their hope and makes them healthy,
   then they not only have life, but they have it yet more abundantly!

   Our Lord desires to have us in spiritual health. He has for that end
   become the Physician of our souls. He heals all our diseases and is the
   health of our countenance. A person may, however, be in health and yet
   you may desire he had more life. Yonder little child, for instance, is
   in perfect health, but as yet it cannot run alone. Put it upon the
   ground, it totters a little way, and is ready to fall. Those bones must
   harden, those muscles must gather strength. When the boy becomes a man,
   he will have life more abundantly than when he was a babe. We grow in
   Divine Grace, we advance in

   knowledge, in experience, in confidence and in conformity to the image
   of our Lord. From babes in Christ Jesus we advance to young men. And
   from young men we become fathers in the Church. Jesus would have us
   grow. This is one of the designs of His coming and thus do we possess
   life more abundantly.

   A person might, however, have both health and growth, and yet enjoy a
   stinted measure of life. Suppose he is confined as a prisoner in a
   narrow cell where chains and granite walls perpetually bound his
   motions--can you call his existence, life? Might it not be accurate to
   speak of him as dead while he lives and to describe his dungeon as a
   living tomb? Can that be life which is forbidden pure air which is the
   poorest man's estate? Denied the sun which shines for all that breathe?
   He lives, for he consumes that piece of dry bread and empties the
   pitcher placed daily upon the stone floor, but in the truest sense he
   is shut out from life, for he is denied liberty. When the poor prisoner
   once more climbs the hill, crosses the ocean's wave and wanders where
   he will, he will gratefully know what it is to have life more
   abundantly.

   Now, mark well that if the Son of God shall make you free, you shall be
   free, indeed, and in that freedom find life sparkling, flashing and
   overflowing like the streams of a fountain! To be under bondage through
   fear of death is scarcely life. To be continually fretted with
   mistrusts and receive the spirit of bondage, again, to fear, genders
   unto death. But it is truly life to be able to cry, "You have loosed my
   bonds!" Yet I can suppose a man at liberty and in health who might have
   still more abundant life. He is extremely poor. He may wander where he
   wills, it is true, but no foot of ground can he call his own. He may
   live where he chooses, if he can live, but he has scarcely bread for
   his body, covering for his limbs, or shelter from the night. He is
   extremely poor.

   The poor man works from before the sun proclaims the morning till far
   into the night to earn a miserable pittance. This toil is exacting to
   the last degree and his remuneration barely sufficient to provide
   necessities. He can scarcely keep body and soul together. Is this life?
   It is almost a sarcasm to name it so! When we have met with persons
   compelled to sleep upon the bare floor, or who have for many hours been
   without a morsel to eat, we have said, "These poor creatures exist, but
   they do not live." This saying is true. And so, sometimes, there are
   Believers who rather exist than live. They are starving. They do not
   feed upon the promises. They do not enjoy the rich things which Christ
   has stored up in the Covenant of Grace. When the Lord Jesus enables
   them to partake of the "fat things full of marrow," and the wines on
   the lees well-refined, then they not only have life, but they have it
   "more abundantly."

   I can still suppose a person who is free, in health and in the
   enjoyment of abundance, who needs more life. He is mean and despised--a
   pariah and a castaway. He has none to love him or look up to him with
   respect. He does not even respect himself! He slinks along as if the
   mark of Cain were upon him. He has forgotten hope and bid farewell to
   love. You pity such a man every time you think of him. To possess the
   love and esteem of our fellows is necessary if we would live. When
   under conviction of sin a man has felt himself to be less than nothing,
   a sinner unworthy to lift his eyes to Heaven, a leper fit to be shut up
   among the unclean, or as a dead man, forgotten and out of mind--then, I
   tell you by experience--he finds it a mighty addition to his life when
   the Lord Jesus lifts him up from the dunghill and puts him among
   princes, even the princes of His people!

   Brothers and Sisters, to know that you are no longer a slave, but a
   son, an heir of Heaven, a joint heir with Jesus Christ for whom the
   saints are companions and to whom the angels are servitors--this is to
   have life more abundantly! Is it not? I have thus hastily hinted at
   some of the points in which increased life reveals itself. I will now
   set forth the same subject in another way. I would lay before you seven
   particulars in which Christians should seek after more abundant life.
   First, let them desire more stamina. An embankment is to be thrown up,
   or a cutting to be dug out. You need laborers. Here are your spades,
   your picks and your wheelbarrows--only men are required. Look, a number
   of persons offer themselves for hire. They are very thin, they have
   singularly bright eyes, sunken cheeks and hollow churchyard coughs--
   they are a choice company from the Consumptive Hospital!

   Will you hire them? Why do you look so dubious? These men have life.
   "Oh, yes," you say, "but I wish they had it more abundantly--they
   cannot do such work as I have to offer them." We must send these poor
   men away, they must go to the doctor and be taken care of. Look
   yonder--another band of rough, stalwart fellows! These men will suit
   your purpose. Look at their ruddy faces, their broad shoulders, their
   mighty limbs--hand them the picks and the spades and the barrows and
   you will see what British workers can do! What is the difference
   between the two sets of men--these laborers and those consumptives?

   Why the difference lies in the presence or absence of stamina in their
   constitutions! There is a something--we cannot exactly say what it is,
   perhaps the physician himself cannot put his finger upon it--but the
   one set of men without it are weak, and the others with it are full of
   force! Our Lord Jesus has come that, in a spiritual sense, we may have
   stamina, may have a well-founded, well-furnished, well-established,
   confirmed and vigorous life so that we may be capable of arduous
   service and powerful action! He would have us walk without weariness
   and run without fainting. He would have us quit ourselves like men and
   be strong.

   Beloved, do you not see how great a difference there is between some
   Christian men and others? Are not some of them spiritual invalids? They
   believe, but their favorite prayer is, "Lord, help our unbelief!" They
   hope, but fear is almost as fully in possession of their hearts. They
   have love to Christ, but they often sing--

   "Do I love the Lord or not? Am I His or am I not?"

   They need medicine and nursing. Give them any work to do for the Lord
   and how soon they grow weary! Discourage them a little and they are in
   despair! Oh that the Spirit of God would give them life more
   abundantly! I am afraid that a very large proportion of Christian men
   in this day are on the sick list. They are in a decline from need of
   deep-seated principle and sound vitality of godliness, which is what I
   mean by stamina.

   It is sad to see how some professing Christians are led astray by any
   error which is plausibly put before them. If all Christians were alike,
   then Popery might easily become the universal religion of the country,
   for they have no Protestant principle, no grounding in doctrine, no
   firmness in the faith! They believe, but they know not why or what, and
   cannot give a reason for the hope which is in them. It is to be feared
   that they do not profess the Truth of God because others go this way
   and that, and some eloquent preacher wins their affection and becomes
   their oracle. They have not the stuff in them of which martyrs are
   made. They have no grit in their nature, no decision, no tenacity of
   belief, no firmness of grip!

   Consequently, whenever persecuting times come over this land, they will
   be our weakness. We shall have to look after such puny camp followers
   and put them in the rear--or the enemy will make sad havoc among them.
   Those who have life more abundantly are good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
   They have learned to stand fast in the Truth, and by the blessing of
   God they are more than a match for the teachers of error, for they know
   what they know and are able to put to silence the fair speeches of
   deceivers. They are not carried away with every wind of doctrine, but
   abide in the Truth of God as they have been taught. They cry, "O God,
   my heart is fixed!" They are "strong in the Lord and in the power of
   His

   might."

   I pray that every member of this Church may be a man of inward
   stamina--not one of those spiritual babies whom we have to be looking
   after every day and feeding with spiritual spoon victuals every
   Sunday--but men who, by the blessing of God, have got something in them
   which they know the value of, and which they could not give up if all
   the world should tempt or threaten them! I compared such strong
   Believers to navigators and I shall not withdraw the comparison, for we
   need men who can say to the mountains, "Be you removed," and to the
   valleys, "Be you exalted." It is by such agents that the Lord will make
   straight in the wilderness a highway for His march of mercy.

   In a second sense we have life more abundantly by the enlargement of
   the sphere of our life. To some forms of human life the range is very
   narrow. Wordsworth's farmer had no great abundance of life, for--

   "The primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And
   nothing more."

   To plow and sow, and reap and mow, were his philosophy. The seasons
   preached no sacred homilies to him. The birds sang, but he would have
   been as much pleased if they had been silent. The hills were a
   weariness to climb and the view from their summit he thought nothing
   of. His soul was inside his smock frock and his corduroys, and never
   wished to go beyond them.

   Nor in the fields, alone, are there such beings. Our streets swarm with
   men in broadcloth of the same race, to whom "the music of the spheres"
   means the clink of sovereigns--and whose choice quotations relate to
   the price of stocks and changes of the market. Over the Exchange we
   read, "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," but they read
   it, "This earth is our God and the fullness thereof is our all." The
   souls of such men live like squirrels in cages, and each day their
   wheel revolves--it is all the world they know. Jesus Christ has come to
   give His people a wider, broader life than this!

   True, there are many men upon whom Christ has never looked, whose life
   traverses wider areas than those which content the baser sort. Such men
   map out the stars and fathom the sea--they read the mysterious story of
   the rocks and of the ages past. They are deep in philosophy and force
   their way into the secret chambers where the immature principles of
   things are nestling. They have a life which is bounded only by time and
   space. But, Beloved, when Jesus comes, He enlarges the sphere of the
   most capacious mind and makes the greatest intellect to feel that it
   was but "cabined, cribbed, confined," until He set it free. Beyond time
   and space does Jesus lead us! The life which He has given us has been
   tossed upon the stormy sea of sin and has descended into the deeps of
   the tremendous ocean of terror.

   We have been like Jonah at the bottom of the mountains, where the earth
   with her bars seemed about us forever. The Grace of our pardoning God
   has now set us on a rock and given us to behold the paradise of pardon!
   What a blessed thing it is to be forgiven, to be dear to the Father's
   heart and to feel the Father's kiss! This is a new world to us--to live
   as they live who live at home with God--to see His smile and feast upon
   His love! This is a life of no mean dimensions, for we dwell in God and
   are in fellowship with the Infinite. We are no longer shut up to self,
   but we hold conversation with the spirits before the Throne of God and
   commune with all the saints redeemed by blood!

   Now we have seen those mysteries which were before hidden from our
   eyes. The path which the eagle's eyes have not seen we have gazed upon,
   and the way which the lion's whelp has not trod we have traversed! We
   have entered into the mysteries of the invisible and have stood within
   the veil! We were as little birds within their shells, but the Lord has
   broken our prison and His Spirit has led us into all Truth and shown us
   that which was hid from ages and from generations. In this sense we
   have life more abundantly.

   Thirdly, our life in Christ becomes more abundant as our powers are
   brought into exercise. I suppose all the powers of the man are in the
   child, but many of them are dormant and will only be exercised when
   life is more abundant. None of us know what we may be, we are but in
   our infancy. Christ has come to give us a fuller life than we have yet
   attained. Look at the Apostles! Before Pentecost they were mere junior
   scholars, only fit to occupy the lower forms. They were often ambitious
   and contentious among themselves--but when Jesus had given them the
   Spirit, what different men they were! Would you believe that the Peter
   of the Gospels could be the same person as the Peter of the Acts? Yet
   he was the same man! Pentecost had developed in him new powers.

   When I hear him saying, "I know not the Man," and a few weeks after see
   him standing up in the midst of the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
   boldly preaching Christ, I ask, What has happened to this man? And the
   reply is, Christ has given him life more abundantly and he has
   developed in himself powers which were concealed before! Beloved, you
   pray, yes, but if God gives you more life, you will pray as prevalently
   as Elijah! Even now you seek after holiness, but if you have life more
   abundantly, you will walk before the Lord in glorious uprightness as
   Abraham did! I know that you praise the Lord, but if the more abundant
   life fills you, you will rival the angels in their songs! I repeat what
   I have already said to you--we do not know what we may become.

   Gladly would I fire you with a holy ambition! Pray to Jesus to make you
   all you can be. Say to Him, "Lord, nurture in me all the Graces, powers
   and faculties by which I can glorify You. To the fullness of my manhood
   use me. Send a full stream of life upon me that all my soul may wake up
   and all that is within me may magnify You. Get all out of me that can
   possibly come out of such a poor thing as I am. Let Your Spirit work in
   me to the praise of the glory of Your Grace." I desire, Brethren, for
   myself and you, that we may be alive all over, for some professors
   appear to be more dead than alive! Life has only reached a fraction of
   their manhood! Life is in their hearts, blessed be God for that--but is
   only partially in their heads--for they do not study the Gospel nor use
   their brains to understand its Truths. Life has not touched their
   silent tongues, nor their idle hands, nor their frost-bitten pockets.
   Their house is on fire, but it is only at one corner, and the devil is
   doing his best to put out the flame.

   They remind me of a picture I once saw in which the artist had labored
   to depict Ezekiel's vision of the dead bodies in course of
   resurrection. The bones were coming together and flesh gradually
   clothing them--and he represents one body in which the head is
   perfectly formed, but the body is a skeleton--while in another place
   the body is well covered, but the arms and legs remain bare bones. Some
   Christians, I say, are much in the same state--they are alive only in
   parts--and in some it must be some very hidden part which is quickened,
   for little or nothing is to be seen of practical love or zeal. Oh for
   men who are alive from head to feet! Whose entire existence is full of
   consecration to Jesus and zeal for the Divine Glory--these have life
   "more abundantly."

   Fourthly, an increased degree of energy is intended in the text. We may
   have the powers, but may not exercise them, and no doubt many men have
   great spiritual capacities, but they lie still for lack of intensity of
   purpose. Now, when is a man most alive? Some are so alive when they are
   in determined pursuit of a favorite purpose. They have formed a
   resolution and they mean to carry it out. You can see their whole man
   pressing forward upon the track, all aroused and full of eagerness.
   Now, the Lord Jesus has furnished us with a purpose which is sure to
   stimulate us to energetic life, for "the love of Christ constrains us."

   He has given us a motive and an impulse which we cannot resist and we
   are in covenant with Him that we will glorify His name so long as we
   have any being. We are solemnly resolved and earnestly set to seek His
   honor. This gives an intensity to life which increases its abundance by
   arousing it all. A man is said to be full of life when he is worked up
   into excitement and livid with passion. Enthusiasm is life
   effervescing, life in volcanic eruption. Where there is determined
   resolve, if you arouse the man by opposition, you will see his whole
   life come into action. He was quiet enough before, but you have
   awakened the lion in him! His life was slumbering at ebb--now it is
   dashing up at flood.

   The man is carried right away! In his look and speech he is all alive.
   And in his actions he is energetic to the last degree. Our Divine
   Master has aroused the flame of our life by inspiring us with the
   glorious passion of love to Himself. This provides us with stimulus and
   impetus. A heart which is wholly surrendered to the love of Jesus is
   capable of thoughts and deeds to which colder souls must forever be
   strangers! Energetic, forceful, triumphant life belongs to souls
   enamored with the Cross and espoused in ardent love to the heavenly
   Bridegroom!

   Abundance of a kind of life is painfully manifest in insane persons.
   The demoniac in the Scripture burst the chains with which he was bound,
   for he had unusual strength when the sudden outburst of his rage was on
   him. Now, if possession by an evil spirit arouses men to an unusual
   force of life, how much more shall possession by the Divine Spirit gird
   a man with extraordinary energy! It is not possible for us to tell how
   potent for good any man among us may become. As the man who was feeble
   enough before, when he became possessed with an evil spirit refused to
   be held in bondage, so the man possessed by the Divine Spirit becomes
   supernaturally strong and refuses to be the captive of sin or Satan!

   Look at Martin Luther! Could you have believed that such a poor monk
   would shake the Vatican? And yet in his zeal for the Truth of God and
   hatred of error he did it! Look at other men in other times who have
   been raised up of God for a special purpose--what abundant life their
   holy ardor gave them! They were like Samson of old. Go up to Samson,
   feel his flesh, look at his bones--he is no larger than another man!
   Though his thighs indicate enormous strength, yet he does not seem so
   surprisingly superior to others. But wait till the Spirit of God moves
   him in the camp of Dan, and then woe to the thousands of the
   Philistines! Look how he piles them heaps upon heaps, while hip and
   thigh he smites them! See how he takes the pillars of their temple and
   rocks them to and fro and brings the edifice down upon their heads! The
   Spirit of God is on the man and He works wondrously! If the Spirit of
   God shall come upon you, it will make you do greater things than these
   and achieve loftier victories. Only believe it, and come to Christ, for
   abundant life is yet to be

   had.

   We will change the line of our thought, and, coming to the fifth point,
   we will say that abundance of life is often seen in the overflow of
   enjoyment. On a spring morning, when you walk in the field and see the
   lambs frisking so merrily, you have said, "There is life for you." You
   see a company of little children, all in excellent health--how they
   amuse themselves and what pranks they play! You say, "What life there
   is in those children!" Catch one of the little urchins and see if he
   does not wriggle out of your arms, and you say, "Why, he is all life."
   Just so, and therefore his happiness! In youth there is much life and
   overflow of spirits. When Israel came out of Egypt, she was young
   Israel, and how merrily did she smite her timbrels and dance before
   Jehovah!

   When Churches are revived, what life there is in them, and then what
   singing! Never comes a revival of religion without a revival of
   singing! As soon as Luther's Reformation comes, the Psalms are
   translated and sung in all languages! And when Whitfield and Wesley are
   preaching, then Charles Wesley and Toplady must be making hymns for the
   people to sing, for they must show their joy, a joy born of life! When
   the Lord gives you, dear Friend, more life, you also will have more
   joy. You will no more go moping about the house, or be thought
   melancholy and dull when the Lord gives you life more abundantly!

   I should not wonder but what you will get into the habit of singing at
   work and humming tunes in your walks. I should not wonder if people
   ask, "What makes So-and-So so happy? What makes his eyes twinkle as
   with some strange delight? He is poor. He is sick, but how blissful he
   appears to be!" This will be seen, Brothers and Sisters, when you not
   only have life, but when you have it more abundantly!

   Now, sixthly, this is a somewhat peculiar fact, but I think it should
   not be omitted. The abundance of life will be seen in delicacy of
   feeling. No doubt there is a very great deal of difference as to the
   amount of pain which persons suffer under the same operation. There are
   persons so constituted that you might cut off an arm and they would
   scarcely feel more than another person would suffer during the drawing
   of a tooth. There are some, on the other hand, to whom the slightest
   pain involves a thrill of horror, they are so sensitive. Whether it is
   an advantage or a disadvantage I cannot tell, but it has certainly been
   observed by skillful physicians that those persons who have strong
   mental constitutions--who use their brains a lot and have a fine mental
   organization--are usually those who suffer most when subjected to pain.
   There is more life in them of a certain sort, and they are more
   sensitive for that reason.

   Now, when the Lord Jesus Christ gives His people life in its higher
   forms, they become more capable of pain. The same sin will pain them a
   hundred times more than it used to do--and they will shrink from it
   with greater anxiety to avoid it. If you are only just a Christian, you
   may do wrong and you will be penitent. But if you have much life and
   you do wrong, ah, then your heart will be wrung with anguish and you
   will loathe yourself before God! The man full of delicate life will not
   only suffer more, but he has probably more pleasure--he is sensitive to
   joys unknown to others-- and his whole constitution thrills with a
   pleasure which another but faintly perceives.

   The name of Jesus is inexpressibly sweet to those who have abundant
   life! It is precious if you only have life, but it is beyond all price
   to those who have very tender hearts which swell with exuberant life. I
   have met with some Christians who say they cannot understand Solomon's
   Song, and I have often wondered at it, myself. That is a test book for
   sensitive souls--and when men have much of the life of love--that
   sacred canticle suits their feelings better than any other book in the
   Bible, because it is a tender book of sacred love and glows like altar
   coals! Oh, I pray you, have much of the tenderness of the intense life!

   Nor is this all I mean by delicacy. I mean this. There is a delicacy of
   hands which a man may acquire by long practice which renders that
   wonderful member a great worker of feats. The fingers and palms are all
   life and can execute manipulations of a most surprising kind. Even so,
   the hands of educated faith can not only grasp but handle the good Word
   of Life. When gifted with this faculty, we pry into the mysteries of
   the heart of Jesus as others cannot! The lips, also, can become
   sensitive. Laura Bridgman learned to read with her lips, the raised
   letters--blind persons very generally have a wonderful life in the ends
   of their fingers which others of us have not yet developed. So the Lord
   would have His people enjoy a sensitively discerning life which shall
   reveal to them what they would never have felt and known. Oh, when your
   soul is blest with holy delicacy! When every part of your nature has
   become full and brimming over with intense sensitiveness! And, when you
   have an educated sensitiveness to the Divine mind and will, then are
   you getting where Christ would have you to be!

   Once more, this delicacy shows itself in a marvelous apprehensiveness
   and keenness of perception which had not been there before, The Indian
   will put his ear to the ground and say, "There is an enemy on the way,"
   while you cannot hear a sound. When he comes to a turn in the forest,
   "There is the trail," he says, "to the right," though you cannot see
   that a stick has been moved, or that a single blade of grass has been
   bent. His faculties are full of life and therefore he has a better ear
   and a better eye than you. Remember the story of the Siege of Lucknow?
   When the Highland woman said, "Dinna you hear it?--dinna you hear it?"
   She could hear the sound of the Highland music when it was far away. I
   do not doubt she heard it, though others did not--her ear was quicker
   then theirs.

   Jesus would have us quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord so
   that we shall say, "He is coming--He is coming! I can hear His
   footsteps!" And the world will say, "You are mad! Let us eat, and
   drink, and be married and given in marriage." We want to be able to
   say, "I can hear the Bridegroom's voice," when others will say, "Not
   so, it is mere imagination." We need eyes which will see the land which
   is very far off so that the golden gates of our heavenly home shall be
   visible to us. Thus shall we have life "more abundantly."

   The seventh point is this--life, when it is in abundance, becomes
   supreme. Some races of men have physical life, but have it not
   abundantly. For instance, the Red Indian and the Australian races have
   life, but after awhile they perish and

   die from off the face of the earth, while other races of more vigorous
   life battle with their surroundings and survive. Christians should have
   such abundant life that their circumstances should not be able to
   overcome them--such abundant life that in poverty they are rich, in
   sickness they are in spiritual health, in contempt they are full of
   triumph--and in death full of glory!

   Glorious is that life which defies circumstances! Christ has given to
   us, Brothers and Sisters, a supreme life, supreme in its tenacity--it
   cannot be destroyed, none can cut its thread. "Who shall separate us
   from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" Neither things
   present, nor things to come shall ever avail to do this. We have life
   so abundantly that it triumphs over all. What I desire for us, beyond
   everything is to have this life so abundant that it may be supreme over
   our entire selves. There is death within us and that death struggles
   with our life. Our life has dashed Death down and holds it beneath its
   feet--but tremendous is the struggle of Death to rise again and get the
   mastery.

   Brethren, we must hold Death down, we must grip him as with bands of
   iron and hold him down--and plant the knee of prayer upon his bosom and
   press him to the earth. We must not suffer sin to have dominion over
   us, but life more abundant must, through Divine Grace, triumph over
   inward corruption! There is yet much beyond you, Christian Brethren,
   but that much is attainable. You are not to sit down and say, "We must
   be always captives to the flesh, to yield it obedience." Beloved, you
   may overcome! God's Grace being in you, you may overcome!

   You shall not, this side of the grave, congratulate yourselves upon
   perfection--such boasting be far from you! But in the strength of God,
   the life of God which is in you may be increased and shall be
   increased, for Christ has come to increase it, till Death shall be trod
   down and you shall be more than conquerors through Him that has loved
   you!

   My time has gone, the subject is too large for me. Only this I conclude
   with--if you need life, you must get it from Christ. If you need more
   life, you must go to the same place. Do not look to Christ for the
   beginnings and then somewhere else for the ending! Christ has come that
   you might have more life. Come to Him by faith. Do not look to
   ceremonies or outward services or anything else for growth in Grace,
   apart from Jesus, but fly to Him and He will give it to you--and you
   shall be rich to all intents of bliss.

   God grant that all the members of this Church may have this great
   blessing for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--JOHN 10. HYMN FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--46 (VERSION II) 798, 818.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Revival Promise

   (No. 1151)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JANUARY 11, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the
   dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon your seed, and My blessing upon
   your offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows
   by the watercourses. One shall say, I am the Lord's; and another shall
   call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his
   hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel" Isaiah
   44:3-6.

   IN the Christian Church at this moment there is a very general desire
   for a revival of religion. You may go where you may among Christian
   people and you will find that they are mourning over the present state
   of things and saying, one to the other, "When will a greater blessing
   come? How can we obtain it? When shall we make some impression upon the
   masses of the ungodly? When shall our houses of prayer be filled with
   attentive hearers? When will the Lord's kingdom come and His right arm
   be made bare in the eyes of all the people?"

   I am delighted to hear the inquiry My soul magnifies the Lord as I
   discern tokens of growing anxiety about the cause and kingdom of Jesus
   and the perishing sons of men. This is an omen of better times. "As
   soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." Searchings of
   heart, anguish, groans which cannot be uttered and abounding
   intercession are the heralds of blessing! They are the sound in the
   tops of the mulberry trees which calls Believers to bestir themselves
   in hope of victory! May the movement among the saints continue and
   deepen till it brings forth a movement among sinners far and wide.

   At this time, also, there are manifest the most pleasing signs that God
   is about to work among His people. A very notable gathering of converts
   has taken place in the town of Newcastle and the two Brothers whom God
   honored to be the means of it have now moved to the city of Edinburgh.
   There the ministers of all denominations are united in helping them and
   in earnestly imploring the Divine blessing of the gracious visitation
   which has already come upon Edinburgh is such as was probably never
   known before within the memory of man. The whole place seems to be
   moved from end to end! When we hear of many thousands coming together
   on weekdays, to quite ordinary meetings, and crying, "What must we do
   to be saved?" there is, we are persuaded, the hand of God in the
   matter!

   Now, there is among earnest Christians a general feeling that what has
   been done for Edinburgh is greatly needed for London and must be done
   for London if prayer and earnest effort can obtain it. Our prayers must
   go up incessantly that God will be pleased to send forth His saving
   health among the people of this great city of four million souls and
   turn many to righteousness, to the praise of the glory of His Divine
   Grace. Our growing anxiety for Christ's Glory and our faith in the
   energy of His Spirit will be two hopeful signs of a coming blessing. As
   a Church we have always felt a delight in any work which has to be done
   for God of this kind and we have enjoyed, for many years, a continuous
   visitation of the Holy Spirit.

   That which would be a revival anywhere else has been our ordinary
   condition--for which we are thankful. By the space of these 20 years,
   almost without rise or fall, God has continued to increase our numbers
   with souls saved by the preaching of His Truth. Unto Him be all the
   praise! But now we are anxious to take a part in a yet further
   advance--we want a greater blessing! What we have had has not
   decreased, but rather stimulated our appetite. Oh, for more
   conversions! More hearts for Jesus! Would God that the dews of Heaven
   would fall in sevenfold abundance upon us and our fellow
   Christians--and the past be put to the blush by the future! That this
   desire may be fanned to a flame in all our hearts is my earnest prayer.

   I have taken this text as one which is full of encouragement, that we
   may be all moved with hope and excited with expectation. I shall handle
   it in this way. First, we have before us the great Covenant blessing of
   the Church. Secondly, we

   have the glorious result of that blessing described. And when we have
   spoken thus, we shall spend the rest of our time in speaking of the
   conduct which is consistent with the desire, that this blessing and its
   results may come to us.

   I. In our text we have THE GREAT COVENANT BLESSING OF THE CHURCH. It is
   the gift of the Holy Spirit. Whatever metaphor is used, this is the
   meaning of it. He is the refreshing, life-giving, fertilizing
   water--the living water of which Jesus spoke. The first promise of the
   text, "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the
   dry ground," is explained by the second, "I will pour My Spirit upon
   your seed, and My blessing upon your offspring." While speaking upon
   this, it is well for us to remember, first, that this blessing has been
   already given. We must never underrate the importance of the ascension
   of our Lord and the gift of the Spirit which followed.

   God forbid that we should think lightly of Pentecost--the Holy Spirit
   then descended and we have no record that the Spirit has since ascended
   and departed from the Church. He is the Church's perpetual heritage and
   abides with us always. I like to sing--

   "The Holy Spirit is here,

   Where saints in prayer agree, As Jesus 'parting gift He's near Each
   pleading company. Not far away is He,

   To be by prayer brought near, But here in present majesty, As in His
   courts on high."

   He is permanently resident in the midst of the Church. But when are
   have received that Truth of God, we may still go on to use the language
   which is very frequent among us and pray for the outpouring of the
   Spirit. If the language is not exactly accurate, the meaning is most
   excellent. So far as any one assembly or person is concerned, we may
   request the Holy Spirit to be poured forth upon us in His gracious
   operations. We desire to see the Spirit of God working more mightily in
   the Church--we long, each one of us, to be more completely subject to
   His influences and more filled with His power--so that we may be full
   of faith and of the Holy Spirit.

   We want the Holy Spirit poured upon those who have Him not--upon the
   dead in sin that they may be quickened, upon the desponding that they
   may be consoled--upon the ignorant that they may be illuminated and
   upon seekers that they may find Him who, alone, is our peace. We, being
   evil, give good gifts unto our children, and therefore we are persuaded
   that our heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
   Him. We do but enlarge upon the prayer of the Apostolic benediction
   when we cry for the blessing peculiar to the Holy Spirit. It is the
   Spirit that quickens--neither the letter of the word nor the energy of
   our manner can give life! Therefore we feel that when we have
   prophesied to the dry bones we must also prophesy to the Wind, for
   unless the Divine Breath shall come, the dry bones will never live.

   Notice, Beloved, that this great Covenant blessing of the Spirit is, in
   our text, the subject of a promise. "I will pour water upon him that is
   thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon
   your seed, and My blessing upon your offspring." We may always be
   confident of receiving those blessings which are promised by the Lord.
   The general promise, "No good thing will I withhold from them that walk
   uprightly," is very comforting. Under its broad cover we are encouraged
   to plead for many favors for which we have no special note of
   promise--but when we can put our finger upon a plain and specific word,
   by which a certain good thing is guaranteed to us, our faith rises to
   full assurance, and we feel confident of receiving an answer to our
   prayer!

   "You have said, 'I will pour My Spirit upon your seed,' therefore, O
   Lord, fulfill this word unto Your servant, in which You have caused him
   to hope." You have God's word for it--place your finger upon it and on
   your knees beseech the Lord to do as He has said. He cannot lie, He
   will never revoke His Word. Has He said and shall He not do it?--

   "As well might He His being quit As break His promise or forget." He
   has spontaneously made the promise and He will Divinely make it good.
   Upon every promise the blood of Jesus Christ has set its seal, making
   it, "yes and amen" forever. Test Him here, then, and you shall find Him
   faithfulness itself! A promise of God is the essence of the Truth of
   God, the soul of certainty, the voice of faithfulness and the substance
   of blessing. What a right royal promise it is! How lofty and full of
   assurance is the language! "I will pour water upon him that is
   thirsty." It is for God to say, "I will" and, "I will."

   We may venture as far as declaring, "I will if I can." But there are no
   limits to His power. Our wisdom is to say, "I hope I shall be able to
   do as I desire." But there are no impossibilities with the Almighty.
   His Spirit falls upon men as a dew from the Lord, waiting not for man,
   neither tarrying for the sons of men. When the time has come for a
   shower, God asks not the potentates of earth to give their consent, but
   down come the blessed drops! When the season for spring has arrived,
   the Lord does not ask man to help Him to remove the ice from the
   streams, or the snow from the hills, or the dampness from the air. He
   asks no human aid in quickening the seeds and awaking the plants, so
   that the sleeping flowers may open their lovely eyes and smile on all
   around. He does it all!

   His mystic influences, as Omnipotent as they are secret, come forth,
   and the work is done. And so, glory be to God, we have a promise, here,
   which is the word of Omnipotence, and when we plead it we need not be
   at all dismayed by the question, "Can such a thing be?" We know that
   dry bones can live when the Spirit breathes upon them and we are
   equally well persuaded that the life-giving Spirit can so breathe, for
   we have a Divine promise that He shall be given to the people. We hear
   the double "I will, I will," and we are certain that the Lord can and
   will "pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry
   ground."

   It becomes us also, Brothers and Sisters, to notice that this gift,
   which is the subject of a promise, is a most necessary blessing. I have
   sometimes heard it sneeringly remarked that we know very well we need
   the Holy Spirit, but there is no need to be everlastingly talking about
   it. But, Brethren, we need to make frequent acknowledgment of this
   Truth--it is due to the Holy Spirit, Himself, that we should do so. If
   we do not honor the Holy Spirit, we cannot expect Him to work with us.
   He will be grieved and leave us to find out our helplessness. Moreover,
   I fear that, however generally the doctrine of the necessity of the
   Spirit's work may be believed as a matter of theory, it is not acted
   upon--and what is not believed in practice is, in fact, not believed at
   all.

   I am very suspicious of a man who tires of a Truth of God so vitally
   important and dares to call it a platitude. We shall not hesitate to
   repeat the doctrine again and again--and we feel persuaded that God's
   people will not tire of it. Without the Spirit of God we can do
   nothing! We are as ships without wind, or chariots without steeds,
   without the Holy Spirit. We are like branches without sap, we are
   withered without the Holy Spirit! We are like coals without fire. We
   are as useless as an offering without the sacrificial flame, without
   the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we are unaccepted. I desire
   both to feel and to confess this fact whenever I attempt to preach. I
   do not wish to get away from it, or to conceal it, nor can I, for I am
   often made to feel it to the deep humbling of my spirit.

   I pray that you who teach in the Sunday school, you who visit the poor,
   you who work in any way for God may acknowledge your impotence for good
   and look for power from on high. To our hands the Holy Spirit is the
   force, to our eyes He is the light. We are but the stones and He the
   sling, we are the arrows and He the bow. Confess your weakness and you
   will be fit to be strengthened. Acknowledge your emptiness and it will
   be a preparation for receiving Divine fullness. For, observe, the
   promise of the living water is to "him that is thirsty," or, as it may
   be better rendered, and the figure would be more clear, "I will pour
   water upon it (the land) that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry
   ground."

   The blessing is to come where it is needed--upon the desert, the
   parched places which are as the Valley of Death till the rain comes. If
   you think yourself to be as the well-watered plain of Sodom, God will
   pour no food upon you. It is upon the thirsty land, upon the heart
   which laments its barrenness and confesses its own unworthiness, that
   the Spirit of God shall come! I do pray that as a Church we may never
   imbibe the idea that we have a lock on God's blessing, or a monopoly on
   His benediction, so that He is sure to grant His approval to any one
   particular ministry, or any form of Church government.

   The Lord might leave us, and will, unless we lie low before Him and
   acknowledge our nothingness. Remember His Word which He spoke to His
   erring people when they boasted of their pedigree and called themselves
   His temple--"Go you, now, unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I
   set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness
   of My people Israel." He may leave His garden to be overgrown with
   briers, and His vineyard to be marred with stones. God is not tied to
   any one place or people--He can remove the candlestick and set it up in
   another chamber--let the seven churches of Asia Minor serve as a
   warning to us in this thing. O blessed Spirit of the living God, we do
   confess the barrenness of our soil and the drought of our land, and we
   beseech You never to withdraw Your dew, or cause Your rain to depart
   from us! What greater curse could You inflict than to let us alone? Oh,
   come upon us, we beseech You, and let the Divine promise be fulfilled!

   It should be very comfortable to us to reflect that, while we need the
   Spirit of God, His working is most effectual to supply all our needs
   when He does come upon us. In the east, you can generally tell where
   there is a stream or a river by the line of emerald which marks it. If
   you stood on a hill, you could see certain lines of green, made up of
   grass, reeds, rushes and occasional trees which have sprung up along
   the watercourses. Nothing is required to make the land fertile but to
   water it. We are told by travelers that they have seen plains looking
   completely barren, apparently covered with dry dust and powder--yet a
   heavy shower has fallen, and in a space of time which seems incredible
   in our colder climate--the most lovely flowers and the most refreshing
   verdure have clothed the plains till the wilderness and the solitary
   places have been glad--and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the
   rose! Yes, it has blossomed exceedingly--and an excellency as of Carmel
   and Sharon has been upon it.

   Even thus, let the Spirit of God come upon any Church, and He is all
   that it needs to make it living and fruitful! Church machinery, apart
   from the Spirit of God, lacks the motive power. The motive power
   coming, your machinery will do its work. Of course, if it is imperfect
   machinery, the Holy Spirit will not make it do all the work which
   better organizations have done. Still, even the most imperfect shall
   accomplish so much as to astonish all who behold it! What a blessing it
   is when the Church does really receive the Spirit of God abundantly!
   Her minister may be slow in utterance-- like Moses, the leader of the
   people may be a man of stammering speech--or, like Paul, his personal
   appearance may be mean and his speech contemptible. But this matters
   not when the Spirit of God is upon the man and in the people! The
   Church may be very small, the members may be very poor, and many of
   them illiterate, too, but as the barley cake of the soldier's dream
   smote the royal pavilion of Midian, so that it lay along, so the Lord,
   by the hands of the most feeble, shall do His greatest deeds and get to
   Himself renown! Where the Spirit of God is, there is the majesty of
   Omnipotence!

   I, here, call your attention to the fact that the promise in our text
   is liberal and unstinted. "I will pour water upon the thirsty land, and
   floods upon the dry ground." The Lord does not need to stint His gifts.
   When He gives a blessing He gives it like a king. His treasury will not
   be exhausted by giving, or replenished by withholding. I have seen in
   Italy the fields watered by the processes of irrigation--there are
   trenches made to run along the garden and smaller gutters to carry the
   lesser streams to each bed--so that each plant gets its share of water.
   But the gardener has to be very careful, for he has but little water in
   his tank, and only an allotted share of the public reservoir.

   No plant must have too much. No plot of ground may be drenched. How
   different is this from the methods of the Lord! He pours the water. He
   deluges the land! "The parched ground shall become a pool, and the
   thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of dragons, where each
   lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes." Oh that He would pull up
   the sluices, now, and let a torrent of Divine Grace rush through this
   Tabernacle! Oh that at this moment He would open the windows of Heaven
   and send us a flood of Grace, like the deluge of vengeance in Noah's
   day, till the tops of our loftiest expectations should be covered! He
   is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask, or even think. He
   gives liberally, and upbraids not!

   Our abounding sin and death need abounding life and power! In such a
   city as this the largest blessing will be none too great. Let us open
   our mouths wide, that He may fill them. The Lord is illimitable in His
   wealth of Grace and boundless in His goodness and power. Let us take
   the promise as it stands, and plead it at the Throne of God, "Have You
   not said, 'I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon
   the dry ground'? Lord, do it, to the praise of the glory of Your
   Grace." One other remark and I leave this point. This Covenant blessing
   is, in our text, peculiarly promised to a certain class of persons who
   are especially dear to us. "I will pour My Spirit upon your seed, and
   My blessing upon your offspring."

   Parents, lay hold greedily upon these points of the promise! I am
   afraid we do not think enough of the promise which the Lord has made to
   our children. Grace does not run in the blood--we have never fallen
   into the gross error of birthright membership, or the supposition that
   the child of godly parents has a right to Christian ordinances! We know
   that religion is a personal matter and is not of blood nor of birth. We
   know, also, that all children are heirs of wrath till the Grace of God
   regenerates them. But still, there is some meaning in that gracious
   saying, "The promise is unto you and your children, even to as many as
   the Lord your God shall call."

   Paul was assuredly not wrong, but sweetly right, when he said to the
   jailer, in answer to his question, "What must I do to be saved?"
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, and your
   house." Lay hold of those words, Christian parents, and do not be
   content to get half the promise. Pray to God to fulfill it all. Go to
   Him this very day,

   you mothers and fathers, and implore Him to have pity upon your
   offspring. Cry unto Him, and say, "You have said, 'I will pour My
   Spirit on your seed, and My blessing upon your offspring.' Do it, Lord,
   for Jesus Christ's sake."

   II. We are now to consider THE GLORIOUS RESULT OF THIS COVENANT
   BLESSING. The certain result of the outpouring of the Spirit is the
   springing up of spiritual life. Wherever the water comes in Palestine,
   as I said before, the grass will be sure to follow and vegetation
   becomes at once lively. Wherever the Spirit of God comes, there will be
   life in the Church and life in the ministry, life in prayer, life in
   effort, life in holiness, life in brotherly love. The next effect will
   be seen in the calling out of numerous converts by the Holy Spirit.
   "They shall spring up as among the grass, and as willows by the
   watercourses."

   Who can count the blades of grass? They are a fine symbol of the
   greatness of number and might as justly be used for that purpose as the
   sands of the seashore. Where the Spirit of the Lord comes, converts are
   not few as the cedars of Lebanon, but they flourish like the grass of
   the earth! They fly as a cloud and as doves to their dovecots. Can we
   be satisfied with having in a year a dozen or so added to the Church?
   Yet do I meet with some of my Brothers--and far be it from me to judge
   them--who say they have had a happy year and are very comfortable
   though they have had only three or four persons added to the Church.
   Surely, however small the congregation, that must be a very
   unsatisfactory reward for a year's ministry!

   My Brothers and Sisters, where, in this day, do we see results
   attending the Gospel which should satisfy us? Hundreds may be added to
   the Church in a year, as has been our common blessing, but what are
   hundreds? If 400 were brought into our fellowship last year, what is
   that out of four million? What are these saved ones among so many? The
   headway made by the Church is next to nothing! It hardly keeps pace
   with the growth of the population. We need more of the Spirit of
   God--and if we had it--I have no doubt, whatever, the converts would at
   once be counted by thousands and tens of thousands! And there is no
   reason whatever why the Church of God, which is now in a pitiful
   minority, should not become in many a district a triumphant
   majority--and the influences of the Divine Grace of God be felt far and
   near!

   Observe that the text tells us that the converts called out by the
   Spirit of God are vigorous and lively. "They shall spring as the
   grass." Now the grass in the east springs up without any sowing,
   cultivating, or any other attention. It comes up of itself from the
   fruitful soil. There is the water--and there is the grass! So where the
   Spirit of God is with a Church there are sure to be conversions, it
   cannot be otherwise. True, we are bound to use all agencies that are
   fit and right for the promotion of the good end. But where the Spirit
   of God is we shall often be astonished to find the life has extended
   far beyond the usual result of agencies! The willows, also, are
   mentioned, to indicate great vitality. How rapidly the willow grows!

   There is a proverb in Cambridgeshire that a willow will buy a horse,
   where an oak won't buy a saddle, because the willow grows so quickly
   and yields such frequent boughs to the cutter. You may cut it this
   year, and in a short time you may remove its pliant boughs again, for
   they will come anew. So truly saved ones will bear discouragement and
   trial but still spring up. If you cut every bough from the willow tree
   it will be green again next spring--and if you even cut it down to the
   root it does not matter--at the scent of water it will bud! Do you not
   remember when you were children taking little twigs of willow to make
   hoops around your little garden? You thought them dead and used them as
   a little fence. But in a short time, to your astonishment, they were
   all sprouting out with green! The willow is full of life.

   Now, where the Spirit of God is, the newly converted are full of life.
   You may check them, but they will not be repressed. You orthodox
   people, who happen to have surly tempers, may go round with your
   pocketknives and snip at their boughs cruelly, and say, "We do not need
   these young people. We do not need revivals," but they will grow in
   spite of you! Blessed be God, you elder Brothers and Sisters cannot
   turn the penitent prodigals out of doors! Should you even be so unkind
   to the newly grown willows as to cut them right down, they will spring
   up again, for if they are plants of the Lord's own right hand planting,
   and of the Spirit's watering, they will outlive the worst of usage!
   They will grow as the grass and as willows by the watercourses.

   We may expect, then, if the Spirit of God shall work among us, that
   there will be an abundance of converts, and those of the most vigorous
   kind. These conversions will come from all quarters. The text says, one
   shall say, and another shall call, and another shall subscribe. Here is
   one who is the son of a deacon--we expected him to give his heart to
   Jesus. Here is another--he is not the child of a religious professor,
   but comes from an ungodly family. Ah, here is another, he

   had grown up and come to ripe years, having followed after folly and
   confirmed himself in sin--yet he comes forward, for the Grace of God
   has called him! One comes from the wealthy, another comes from the
   poor, a third comes from nobody knows where--but they will and must
   come--for God knows His own and will call them!

   They shall come from all trades and occupations, from all churches and
   denominations! From these little boys below me, I hope, and from you
   gray-headed people over yonder--one here, another there! We shall be
   wonderstruck as we hear from all corners, and parts, and places, "I am
   the Lord's." And again, "I am called by the name of Jacob." And again,
   "I am surnamed this day by the name of Israel." The vessel of Divine
   Grace does not run in a groove, but breaks out where it seems least
   likely to do so! At one time it creates a revival at Samaria. At
   another time it saves a widow at Joppa, or the eunuch on the road to
   Gaza. Lord, call whomever You will, but do call many, for Jesus' sake!

   One memorable thing about the conversions worked by the Holy Spirit is
   this--that these converted people shall be led to acknowledge their
   faith. They shall not, like Nicodemus, come to Jesus by night. They
   shall not hope to go to Heaven creeping all the way behind the hedge,
   but they shall avow their allegiance. "One shall say, I am the Lord's;
   and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall
   subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name
   of Israel." The God of Israel shall be their God and the people of
   Israel shall be their people. I love to see both these things in young
   converts. Some appear to dedicate themselves to God, but they feel
   themselves such superior beings that they do not join with any Church.
   Rather they hold themselves in the isolation which practically means,
   "Stand by, I am holier than you."

   They do not think any Church good enough for them, but my private
   opinion is that they are not good enough for any Church! On the other
   hand, some will join a Church, but do not seem to have had enough
   respect to the inward, vital part of religion in giving themselves up
   to the Lord and, therefore, no Church will find them to be any great
   gain. There must be the two together--a surrender to God and then a
   union with the people of God. Consider the first of these points--One
   shall say, "I am the Lord's." He shall confess that from head to foot,
   body, soul and spirit--he is not his own, but Christ's. He will feel,
   "I have been washed in His blood. I have been pardoned all my sins and
   been renewed in heart. And now I am the Lord's, and I desire to live to
   His praise. Tell me what I can do, and how I can serve the Lord, for I
   am His and mean to be His forever." This is delightful. Oh, to hear
   hundreds of you saying this! I would give my life to see it!

   Another convert is said to subscribe with his hand to the God of Jacob.
   He gives himself over to God and he does it deliberately--as
   deliberately as a person who signs a deed by which he makes over an
   estate. He writes his name and places his finger on the seal, and
   calmly says, "This is my act and deed." We do not recommend persons to
   write out covenants with God and sign them--they are apt to gender unto
   bondage--but we do recommend them to make such a covenant in their
   hearts before the Most High, saying--

   "'Tis done, the great transaction's done!

   I am my Lord's and He is mine!

   He drew me, and I followed on,

   Charmed to obey the voice Divine." The text may have another rendering,
   for, if you notice, the word "with" in the text is in italics, to show
   that it was inserted by the translators. It might run thus--"Another
   shall subscribe his hand unto the Lord." This alludes to the custom
   which still exists, but which was more common in those days, of a
   servant being marked or tattooed on the hand with his master's name.

   So was it with soldiers--frequently, when they were enthusiastic for a
   leader, they would print his name on some part of their body, but very
   often upon the palms of their hands. There are constant allusions to
   this in the classics. We know that devout worshippers dedicated
   themselves to the god they worshipped and were stamped with a secret
   mark. Paul alludes to this when he says, "Henceforth let no man trouble
   me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," as much as to
   say, "I am Christ's--I have had His name branded upon me." When he
   suffered from being scourged and beaten with rods, he called it bearing
   the marks of the Lord Jesus, and did as good as say, "Flog away, you
   will only engrave His name into my flesh, for I am Christ's."

   Now it would be a very superstitious and foolish thing for any man to
   be tattooed with the name of the Lord, or with a cross, for all that
   such an act meant in those who did it of old, we ought to mean, namely,
   that we are forever and beyond recall, the property of Jesus. Our ear
   is bored. We are servants, as long as we live. to our dear Master. They
   may

   sooner kill us than lead us away from Him whose we are, and whom we
   serve. Who shall separate us from the love of

   God?--

   "High Heaven that heard the solemn vow, That vow renewed shall daily
   hear, Till in life's latest hour I bow, And bless in death a bond so
   dear." There was dedication to God of the fullest kind, but side by
   side with it went unity with the Church, for the declaration, "I am the
   Lord's," was parallel with, "calling himself by the name of Jacob." Now
   the name of Jacob was the first, the lower, the common name of God's
   people--they were the seed of Jacob. "Ah," says the man who is
   converted, "I do not care what they call Christian people, they may
   call me by the same title if they will, and I will not complain. They
   may call us Puritans, Methodists, Ranters, Quakers--or whatever they
   like--I am one of them."

   I have read of a certain nobleman who was also a saint, that when he
   heard religious persons scoffed at as Puritans, he was accustomed at
   once to declare, "I am a Puritan, too. I glory in being one of them!"
   They felt that it was of little use to mock at him--he was too stout a
   soldier and too bold a speaker. It is a grand thing when a man can say
   in company, "It does not matter what you think of religion, I belong to
   such-and-such Christian people, and I am not ashamed of it. I know
   their name is a mockery and their minister is despised, but it does not
   matter, I am one of them." It is mentioned, also, that one surnamed
   himself by the name of Israel. That was the grand name of the Church in
   those days--Israel, the prevailing prince.

   We ought to feel that to be a Christian is to possess a patent of
   nobility second to none. Duke, earl, knight, esquire--we covet none of
   these--call us by the name of Christ and we have honor enough! The name
   of Caesar is a poor thing compared with the name of Christ! Better be
   known as a disciple of Jesus than as an emperor of emperors! Oh, may
   the Spirit of God be poured out upon this place, that many of you may
   be savingly converted, and then say, "I will give myself to the Lord,
   and will also cast in my lot with His people. Where they dwell I will
   dwell. Where they die there would I die. Their people shall be my
   people, since their God has become my God." Pray, dear Brothers and
   Sisters, that the promise before us may be fulfilled in this Church,
   and in all the Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   III. Now, lastly, I have to speak upon THE CONDUCT SUITABLE IF WE
   OBTAIN THIS BLESSING. First, O my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, if we
   would obtain these floods of blessing we must confess how dry, how
   thirsty, how wilderness-like we are! Humble yourselves, therefore,
   under the hand of God, and He will exalt you in due time. "He has
   filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He has sent empty
   away." Oh, for the spirit of humiliation throughout

   the Church!

   Next to that let us cultivate prayer. "For this will I be enquired of
   by the house of Israel to do it for them." If you have a man's check
   for a thousand pounds, it would be very wicked of you to say, "I cannot
   get my money, this paper is not paid," if you have never taken it to
   the bank. And so, if you have God's promise and have never pleaded it,
   it is your own fault if you have not obtained the blessing. The very
   least thing God can ask of us is that we shall ask of Him. "Ask and it
   shall be given you: seek and you shall find: knock and it shall be
   opened unto you." Plead more earnestly in private. Make your Prayer
   Meetings more energetic, attend them more often, throw your hearts more
   fully into them and God's Spirit will be surely given.

   Next to that, if we want the blessing we must put forth our own
   personal effort. It would be a most absurd thing for a man to pray for
   a harvest, and neither plow nor sow! I cannot conceive anything more
   insulting to the majesty of God than for us to pray and meanwhile, fold
   our arms! It is not thus that we prove our sincerity. I desire to
   preach to you as if the conversion of these sinners around us depended
   wholly upon me, but then I delight to fall back upon the Truth of God
   that it wholly depends upon the Lord God! Sunday school teachers, use
   the means for the conversion of your children! Try and speak personally
   to every one of them. If you can find opportunity, pray alone with
   them, one by one. You will win young hearts for Jesus in that way.

   Try, dear Friends, to get hold of individuals. You who come here
   continually, look out for individuals in the congregation and endeavor
   to tell them what you have experienced of the love of Christ. If you
   cannot speak to them, write letters to them! An earnest letter is as
   good as a sermon. Do anything, do everything, to bring souls to Jesus!
   While we are working we shall find God working with us, for He is never
   slower than His people. If we are building, He will be the Master
   Builder, and will build through us. For a man to pray that he may have
   a safe journey and then to go to

   bed--and not start from home would be wickedness! And to pray to God to
   convert sinners and then not to preach or teach them the Gospel would
   be a piece of impudent mockery of God. Beloved, see to this. I cannot
   pause to stir you up about it, for our time is going, but I pray the
   Holy Spirit to stir you, that everyone here may become a soul-winner.

   Once more, I have a word to say to those who are not the people of God.
   O beloved ones who are not saved, all our concern is about your
   salvation! We are always preaching and praying about you! How can you
   obtain saving faith? I would urge you to labor after a clear idea of
   your real position. O unconverted people, try to know where you are,
   and what you are. It might, perhaps, awaken you from your present
   indifference. If you would really and distinctly understand that you
   are out of Christ, condemned already--an enemy to God by wicked works,
   with the wrath of God abiding on you and in danger of eternal Hell--it
   might startle you and lead you to desire salvation.

   I would think hopefully of you if I knew that you were taking stock and
   estimating your condition before God. I ask you, when you get home, to
   sit down and write, every one of you, on a piece of paper, "Saved," if
   you are saved, and "Condemned," if you are not a Believer. For that is
   your condition! I want you to realize whose you are and where you are
   going. When you have done so, I pray that a sense of your condition and
   prospects may be deepened upon your mind! Sinners, do you think enough?
   Do you consider enough? You are busy about a thousand things, but do
   you really think about your souls, death, judgment and eternal Hell? Do
   you think enough about the Savior's love? Do you ponder your sin and
   the blessed fact that it may be pardoned?

   Oh, that you would reflect, consider and turn your whole mind to God!
   But I am beating around the bush! I have a much more important precept
   to which to exhort you. Remember, the Gospel command is, "Believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Every minute that you
   remain an unbeliever you are adding to your sin! You are increasing
   your iniquity and confirming yourself in condemnation. Oh, that you
   would believe the Divine Testimony concerning Jesus, for that is the
   object of faith! What you are asked to believe is true. He whom you are
   commanded to trust in is able to save you--and the promise that you
   shall be saved if you trust is a sure and certain one!

   Do not, therefore, fling away your souls and despise the mercy of God!
   May it please the Eternal Spirit to lead you, at this very moment, to
   put your trust in Jesus Christ and to be saved! Then you will be one of
   those who spring as the grass, and as the willows by the watercourses.
   May God bless you, every one of you, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 44. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--98, 95 (SONG II), 67.
     __________________________________________________________________

A Lesson from the Life of King Asa

   (No. 1152)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Herein you have done foolishly: therefore from henceforth you shall
   have wars." 2 Chronicles 16:9.

   OUR text leads us to speak upon historical matters, and for this I
   shall by no means apologize, although I have sometimes heard very
   foolish professors speak slightingly of the historical part of
   Scripture. Remember that the historical books were almost the only
   Scripture possessed by the early saints and from those they learned the
   mind of God. David sang the blessedness of the man who delighted in the
   Law of the Lord, yet he only had the first five books and, perhaps,
   Joshua, Judges and Ruth--all books of history in which to meditate day
   and night. The Psalmist, himself, spoke most lovingly of these books,
   which were the only statutes and testimonies of the Lord to him, with,
   perhaps, the addition of the Book of Job.

   Other saints delighted in the histories of the Word before the more
   spiritual books came in their way at all. If rightly viewed, the
   histories of the Old Testament are full of instruction. They supply us
   both with warnings and examples in the realm of practical morals. And
   hidden within their letter, like pearls in oyster shells, lie grand
   spiritual Truths of God couched in allegory and metaphor. I may say of
   the least important of all the books what our Lord said of children,
   "Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones." To take away
   from Holy Writ involves a curse upon the daring deed--may we never
   incur the penalty!

   I feel Scripture is given by Inspiration and is profitable--be it ours
   to gain the profit. Let us see whether we cannot get a lesson from the
   life of King Asa. We will commence by noticing who he was and what he
   had done in his better days, for this will help to understand more
   clearly the fault into which he fell. He was a man of whom it is said
   that his heart was perfect before God all his days. It is a great thing
   to have said of anyone--indeed, it is the greatest commendation which
   can be pronounced on mortal man! When the heart, the intention, the
   master affection is right--the man is reckoned a good man before the
   Lord, notwithstanding that there may be a thousand things which are not
   commendable--yes, and some things which are censurable in the man's
   outward career.

   Asa is noticeable, in the early part of his life, for the fact that he
   set up the worship of God and carried it out with great diligence,
   though his mother was an idolater and his father, Abijah, was little
   better. He had enjoyed no training as a youth that could lead him
   aright, but quite the contrary. Yet he was very decided, even in the
   first days of his reign, for the Lord, his God, and acted in all things
   with an earnest desire to glorify Jehovah and to lead his people away
   from all idols to the worship of the true God.

   Now, a life may begin well, and yet may be clouded before its close.
   The verdure of earnestness may fade into the sere and yellow leaf of
   backsliding. We may have the Grace of God in our earliest days, but
   unless we have, day by day, fresh help from on high, dead flies may
   pollute the ointment and spoil the sweet odor of our lives. We shall
   need to watch against temptation so long as we are in this wilderness
   of sin. Only in Heaven are we out of gunshot of the devil. Though we
   may have been kept in the ways of the Lord, as Asa was, for 50 or 60
   years, yet if left by the Master for a single moment we shall bring
   discredit upon His holy name.

   In the middle of his reign Asa was put to the test by a very serious
   trial. He was attacked by the Ethiopians and they came against him in
   mighty swarms. What a host to be arrayed against poor little Judah--an
   army of a million footmen and 300,000 chariots! All the host that Asa
   could muster--and he did his best--was but small compared to this
   mighty band. And it appeared as if the whole land would be eaten up,
   for the people seemed sufficient to carry away Judea by handfuls. But
   Asa believed in God and, therefore, when he had mustered his little
   band, he committed the battle to the Lord his God. Read attentively
   that earnest believing prayer which he offered. "And Asa cried unto the
   Lord his God and said, Lord, it is nothing with You to help, whether
   with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord

   our God; for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this
   multitude. O Lord, You are our God; let not man prevail against You."

   How grandly he threw all his burden upon God! He declared that he
   rested in the Most High and believed that God could just as well
   achieve the victory by a few and feeble folk as by a vast army. After
   this prayer he marched to the battle with holy confidence--and God gave
   him the victory. The power of Ethiopia was broken before him and
   Judah's armies returned laden with spoil. You would not have thought
   that a man who could perform that grand action would become, a little
   after, full of unbelief! But the greatest faith of yesterday will not
   give us confidence for today unless the fresh springs which are in God
   shall overflow again. Even Abraham, who at one time staggered not at
   the promise through unbelief, yet did stagger some time afterwards
   about a far less difficult matter. The greatest of God's servants, if
   their Lord hides His face, soon sink even below the least. All the
   strength of the strongest lies in Him.

   After Asa had thus, by Divine strength, won a great victory, he did
   not, as some do, grow proud of it, but he set to work, in obedience to
   a prophetic warning, to purge his country by a thorough reformation. He
   did it, and did it well. He did not show any partiality towards the
   rich and great in his country who were guilty of the worship of false
   gods. His own mother was a great fosterer of idolatry and she had a
   grove of her own with a temple in it--in which was her own peculiar
   idol. But the king put her away from her eminent position, took her
   idol and not merely broke it, but stamped upon it and burned it, with
   every sign of contempt, at the brook Kidron, into which ran the sewage
   of the temple--to let the people know that, whether in high places or
   among the poor--there should be nothing left to provoke the Lord
   throughout the land.

   This was well done. Oh that such a reformation might happen in this
   land, for the country is beginning to be covered with idols and mass
   houses! Everywhere they are setting up the altars of their broaden
   deity, shrines to the queen of heaven, the crucifix and the saints,
   while the spiritual worship of God is put aside to make room for vain
   shows and spiritual masquerades. The God of the Reformation--how much
   is He forgotten nowadays! Oh for a return of the days of Knox and his
   covenanting brethren! Asa was for a root and branch reform and he went
   through with it bravely. You would not have thought that a man so
   thorough--a man who, like Levi of old, knew not his own mother when it
   came to the matter of serving God, but made "through stitch" with it,
   as the old writers used to say--you would not have supposed that he
   would be the man who, when he came to another trial, would be running
   after an idolater and cringing before him and praying him to help him!

   Alas, the best of men are men at the best! God, alone, is unchangeable!
   He, alone, is always good, or, indeed, at all! "There is none good save
   one, that is God." We are only good as He makes us good. And if His
   hand is withdrawn, even for a moment, we start aside like a deceitful
   bow, or a broken bone which has been badly set. Alas, how soon are the
   mighty fallen and the weapons of war broken if the Lord upholds not!
   Asa, who could do marvels, and who walked so well and thoroughly before
   his God, yet, nevertheless, came to do foolishly and bring upon himself
   lifelong chastisement. I have thus brought before you his character
   because it was most fitting to start with this. It was due to his
   memory and due to ourselves, for we must remember that whatever we
   shall have to say against him, he was assuredly a child of God.

   His heart was right. He was a sincere, genuine, gracious Believer. If
   any object that he had grievous faults and, therefore, could not be a
   child of God, I shall be obliged to answer that they must, first of
   all, produce a faultless child of God this side Heaven before they will
   have sufficient ground for such an objection. I find that the holiest
   of men in Scripture had their imperfections, with the sole exception of
   our Master, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, in whom was
   no sin. His garments were whiter than any fuller could make them, but
   all His servants had their spots. He is Light and in Him is no darkness
   at all. But we, with all the brightness His Grace has given us, are
   poor dim lamps at best.

   I make no exceptions, even of those who claim perfection, for I have no
   more faith in their perfection than in the Pope's infallibility! There
   is enough of the earthen vessel left about the best of the Lord's
   servants to show that they are earthen--and that the excellency of the
   heavenly treasure of Divine Grace which is put within them may be
   clearly seen to be of God and not of them.

   I. Now, we shall turn to notice the GRAVE ERROR INTO WHICH ASA
   FELL--the foolishness for which the Prophet rebuked him. He was
   threatened by Baasha, the king of the neighboring territory of Israel.
   He was not directly assailed by war, but Baasha began to build a
   fortress which would command the passages between the two countries--

   and prevent the people of Israel from coming to settle in the land of
   Judah, or make their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Now, one would
   naturally have expected, from Asa's former conduct, that he would
   either have thought very little of Baasha, or else that he would have
   taken the case to God, as he did, before, in the matter of the
   Ethiopians.

   And this was a smaller trouble, altogether, and somehow, I fancy, it
   was because it was a smaller trouble, Asa thought that he could manage
   it very well himself by the help of an arm of flesh. In the case of the
   invasion by countless hordes of Ethiopians, Asa must have felt that it
   was of no use calling in Benhadad, the king of Syria, or asking any of
   the nations to help him, for with all their help he would not have been
   equal to the tremendous struggle. Therefore he was driven to God. But
   this, being a smaller trial, he does not seem to have been so
   thoroughly divorced from confidence in man. He looked about him and
   thought that Benhadad, the heathen king of Syria, might be led to
   attack the king of Israel and so draw him away from building the new
   fort. It would also divide his attention, cripple his resources and
   give Judah a fine opportunity of attacking him.

   Believers frequently behave worse in little trials than in great ones.
   I have known some children of God who have borne with equanimity the
   loss of almost everything they had, who have been disturbed and
   distracted and led into all sorts of doubt and mistrust by troubles
   that were scarcely worth the mentioning. How is it that vessels which
   bear a hurricane may, nevertheless, be driven upon a sandbank when
   there is but a capful of wind--that ships which have navigated the
   broad ocean have yet foundered in a narrow stream? It only proves this,
   that it is not the severity of the trial, it is the having or not
   having of God's Presence that is the main thing! In the great trial
   with the Ethiopians, God's Grace gave Asa faith, but in the little
   trial with Baasha, king of Israel, Asa had no faith and began to look
   about him for help from men.

   Observe that Asa went off to Benhadad, the king of Syria, who was a
   worshipper of a false God--with whom he ought to have had no connection
   or alliance whatever! And, what was worse, he induced Benhadad to break
   his league with Baasha. Here was a child of God teaching the ungodly to
   be untrue--a man of God becoming an instructor for Satan, teaching a
   heathen to be false to his promise! This was policy. This is the kind
   of thing which the kings of the earth practice towards one
   another--they are always ready to break treaties, though bound by the
   most solemn pledges. They make but light of covenants. The great matter
   with ambassadors even nowadays is to see which can entangle the other,
   for, as a statesman once said, "An ambassador is a person who is sent
   abroad to lie for the good of his country."

   Oh, the tricks, plots, deceptions, equivocations and intrigues of
   diplomacy! No chapter in human history shows up our fallen nature in
   more mournful colors. Asa, I have no doubt, thought that all was fair
   in war. He took the common rule, the common standard of mankind, and
   went upon that. Whereas, as a child of God, he ought to have scorned
   anything that was dishonorable or untrue. And as to saying to a heathen
   king, "Break your league with Baasha and make a league with me"--why,
   if he had been in a right state of heart, he would sooner have lost his
   tongue than have uttered such disgraceful words! But, child of God as
   he was, when he once got off the plain simple way of believing in God
   and taking his trouble to God, there was no telling what he would do.

   When you set the helm of your vessel towards the point to which you
   mean to steer, and steer right on, whatever comes in your way, your
   course will be well enough if you have a motive power within
   independent of wind and tide. But when you take to tacking this way,
   then you will have, in due time, to tack the other way--and when policy
   makes you do this wrong thing, policy will lead you to do another wrong
   thing--and so on, to a most lamentable degree. When our walk is with
   the Lord, it is a safe, holy, honorable walk. But the way of the flesh
   is evil and ends in shame. If you follow the way of the world, though
   always a crowded way, it will turn out, before long, to be a miserable,
   pettifogging, cringing, humiliating, dishonorable and wretched way to
   the true-born heir of Heaven!

   Dust shall be the serpent's meat and if we practice the crawling,
   twisting, slimy arts of the serpent, we shall have to eat the dust,
   too. Should a child of God degrade himself in that fashion? If he acts
   as he should act, he acts like a nobleman, no, like a prince of the
   blood imperial of Heaven, for is he not a son of God, one of Heaven's
   true aristocracy? But when he degenerates to acting as worldlings do,
   then, alas, he stains his garments in the mire! I charge you, my dear
   Brothers and Sisters, to look well to this. Perhaps I may be speaking
   as God's mouth to some of you who are now entering upon a testing time,
   a trouble in the family, a trial in business, or a difficulty in
   reference to a contemplated marriage, and you are asking, "What course
   shall I take?"

   You know what a man of the world would do and it has been suggested to
   you that such a course is the right one for you to follow. My dear
   Brother, remember you are not of the world, even as Christ is not of
   the world! Mind you act accordingly. If you are a worldly man and do as
   worldly men do, why, I must leave you--for them that are without God He
   judges. But if you are a man of God and an heir of Heaven, I beseech
   you, do not follow custom or do a wrong thing because others would do
   it! Do not do a little evil for the sake of a great good, but in your
   confidence possess your soul and abide faithful to conscience and to
   the eternal law of rectitude. Let others do as they please, but as for
   you, set the Lord always before you and let integrity and uprightness
   preserve you.

   Ask the Lord to help you. Is it not written that He will, with the
   temptation, make a way of escape? "Cast your burden upon the Lord: He
   will sustain you. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved." Do
   not put forth your hand to iniquity. You may, in order to help
   yourself, do in five minutes what you cannot undo in 50 years! And you
   may bring upon yourself a lifelong of trial by one single unbelieving
   action. Beware of staying yourself on Egypt and sending for help to
   Assyria, for these will distress you and help you not! Cry, "Lord,
   increase our faith!" That is what you greatly need in the trying hour,
   lest you should, like Asa, first of all, turn from confidence in God
   and, then, looking to an arm of flesh, should be tempted to use
   illegitimate means in order to induce the creature to let you rely upon
   it.

   Asa, having advanced so far in the wrong path, did worse, still, if
   worse could be, for he took of the gold and silver which belonged to
   the House of the Lord, in order to purchase the alliance of the Syrian
   monarch! I will say nothing about what belonged to his own house. He
   might do as he liked with that, so long as he did not spend it upon
   sin. But he took of the treasure that belonged to the House of the Lord
   and gave it to Benhadad--to bribe him to break his league with
   Baasha--and be in league with himself! Thus God was robbed, that the
   unbelieving king might find help in an arm of flesh. And, "Will a man
   rob God?"

   A Christian never doubts God and looks to the creature without robbing
   Him. If you rob Him of nothing else, you rob Him of His honor. Shall a
   father find his child trusting a stranger rather than his own father?
   Shall the husband see his wife putting confidence in his enemy? Will
   not that rob him of that which is far more precious than gold? Is it
   not a breach of that undivided affection, and that complete confidence
   which ought to exist in the conjugal relationship? And shall I mistrust
   my heavenly Father, my almighty Helper, and put confidence in a poor,
   broken reed? Shall I cast my burden upon a poor fellow sinner and
   forget to rest in my Savior? Shall the Well-Beloved of my soul be only
   trusted in fair weather? And shall I have such a sorry opinion of Him
   that when it comes to a little storm, I run to someone else and ask him
   to be my refuge?

   Beloved, let it not be so with us, or we shall surely grieve the Lord
   and bring ourselves into much perplexity! Have we not already been
   guilty enough of this? Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we
   bent upon grieving His Holy Spirit? Can we not take warning from Asa?
   Need we run upon this rock when we can see the wrecks of others all
   around? The Lord grant we may take heed according to His Word! So this
   good man, by his lack of faith, fell into many sins. I am compelled to
   add that he had to bear the blame of the consequences of his conduct,
   for when Benhadad, the king of Syria, came up and attacked Israel, he
   did not content himself with a battle or two, but he fell to plundering
   the Israelites and murdering them wholesale, so that great sorrows were
   brought upon the people of Israel. And who was to blame for these
   sorrows but the king of Judah, who had hired the Syrians for that very
   purpose?

   He who ought to have been a brother to the Israelites became their
   destroyer! Every time the cruel sword of the Syrians slew the women and
   children of Israel, the poor afflicted people had Asa to thank for it.
   The beginning of sin is like the letting out of waters--none can
   foresee what devastation the floods may cause. Brethren, we can never
   tell what may be the consequences of one wrong action! We may kindle a
   fire in the forest merely to warm our hands, but where the sparks may
   fly--and how many leagues the conflagration may spread--an angel cannot
   prophesy! Let us jealously keep away from every doubtful deed lest we
   bring evil consequences upon others as well as ourselves. If we carry
   no matches, we shall cause no explosions.

   Oh, for a holy jealousy, a deep conscientiousness and, above all, a
   solemn conscientiousness on the point of faith! To rest in the
   Lord--that is our business! To stay ourselves only upon Him--that is
   our sole concern! "My Soul, wait you only upon God, for my expectation
   is from Him." Unbelief is, in itself, idolatry! Unbelief leads us to
   look to the creature, which is folly. To look to the creature is, in
   effect, to worship the creature, to put it into God's place and so to
   grieve God and set up a rival in the holy place.

   I want you to listen yet a little while longer to this story of Asa. It
   came to pass that Asa's hiring Benhadad turned out to be a fine thing
   for him and, in the judgment of everybody who looked on, I dare say it
   was said that it was a fortunate stroke of business. According to God's
   mind, the king's course was evil, but it did not turn out badly for him
   politically. Now, many people in the world judge actions by their
   immediate results. If a Christian does a wrong thing and it prospers,
   then at once they conclude he was justified in doing it, but, ah,
   Brothers and Sisters, this is a poor, blind way of judging the actions
   of men and the Providence of God! Do you not know that there are
   devil's providences as well as God's Providences?

   I mean this. Jonah wanted to go to Tarshish to flee from God and he
   went down to Joppa--and what? Why, he found a ship just going to
   Tarshish. What a providence! What a providence! Are you so foolish as
   to view it in that light? I do not think Jonah was of that mind when he
   cried unto God out of the deeps! When the chief priests and Pharisees
   would take Jesus, they found Judas ready to betray Him. Was this also a
   providence? May not Satan have some hand in the arrangement which lays
   a weapon so near a murderer's hand, or renders robbery and fraud so
   easy? Do you think it an instance of Divine goodness that the tares
   often grow plentifully when the wheat suffers from drought? Often have
   we observed people who wanted to do wrong and things have just happened
   rightly to help them--and they have, therefore, said, "What a
   providence!"

   Ah, but a Providence that was meant to test and try, not a providence
   that was intended to aid and abet in the doing of a wrong thing--a
   Providence not to rejoice in, but concerning which we are taught to
   pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." A wrong
   is a wrong, whatever comes of it! If by uttering one falsehood you
   could become a rich man forever, it would not change the nature of the
   falsehood. If by doing one wrong transaction you could rid yourself
   from all liabilities in business and be, from now on, in competent
   circumstances, that would not, before God, take off the edge of the
   evil! No, not a single jot! God was pleased, for wise reasons, to allow
   the policy of His erring servant Asa to prosper, but now you will see
   that Asa was put in a worse place than ever because of it.

   The trial of Asa's spirit, the testing of his unswerving
   faithfulness--whether he would walk before God or not-- became more
   severe than before, for God sent His servant the Prophet to him, and he
   said to him, "When you came to God, and trusted Him about the
   Ethiopians, did not God prosper you? Though there were so many of them,
   did not the Lord give you the victory? And now you have gone away from
   your faith, you have lost a great blessing by it; for if you had
   trusted in God, you would have gone to war against Baasha and Benhadad,
   and you would have beaten them both, and your own kingdom would have
   grown strong by the putting down of these rival kingdoms. But you have
   lost that; you have acted very foolishly, and God means to chasten you
   for it, for from this very day you will have no more peace, but you
   will have war so long as you are a king."

   Now, observe, if king Asa had met with a trouble when he acted
   unjustifiably, he would have been humble, I have no doubt. Then he
   would have seen how wrong he was and he would have repented. But
   inasmuch as what he had done did not bring disaster with it--and God
   did not chasten him--the king's heart grew proud and he said, "Who is
   this fellow that he should come to tell his king his duty? Does he
   think I do not know, as well as he can tell me, what is right and what
   is wrong? Put the arrogant intruder in prison." When a Prophet came to
   Rehoboam, who was a bad king, Rehoboam did not put him in prison--he
   respected and reverenced the Word of the Lord. A bad man may do better
   than a good man on some one particular occasion--and so Rehoboam did
   better in that matter than Asa did.

   But Asa was now all wrong, he was in a high bullying spirit--and this
   was but what we might have expected, for whenever a man will cringe
   before his fellow men, you may be sure he is beginning to walk proudly
   before God. In his haughtiness of heart he put the Prophet in prison!
   Instead of weeping and humbling himself for what he had done, he
   imprisoned his reprover! And then, being in an irritable temper and a
   domineering humor, he began to oppress certain of his people. I do not
   know who they may have been, but probably they were godly persons who
   sympathized with the Prophet, and said, "We shall surely meet with a
   terrible judgment for dealing thus with God's servant." Perhaps they
   spoke freely about it and so Asa put them in prison, too.

   Thus God's own child had become the persecutor of God's servant and of
   other faithful ones. Oh, it was very sad, very sad! Well might God,
   then, resolve that the angry should smart for his faults very severely,
   that the rod should come home to his bone and his flesh, and render his
   remaining days exceedingly sorrowful. O beloved Friends, among your
   most earnest prayers pray God never to let your sins prosper, for if
   they do, they will breed a gangrene in your spirit

   which will lead on to yet more dangerous diseases of your soul! And
   they will inevitably entail upon you a dreary inheritance of
   affliction. God does not always whip His children the next minute after
   they do wrong. Sometimes He tells them that the rod will come and so
   makes them smart in apprehension before they smart in actual
   experience, for they are thinking of what it will be and that may be
   even a worse trial to them than the trial itself.

   But as surely as they are His own peculiar people, they must and shall
   be taught that sin is an exceedingly great evil, and they shall have no
   joy of their dalliance with it. Thus I have shown you who Asa was, and
   what faults he fell into, and how this led to other faults.

   II. And now we have to show you what God did with him when he came to a
   close reckoning. "Now," He seemed to say, "I will take you in hand
   Myself," and He sent him a disease in his feet--a very painful disease,
   too. He had to suffer night and day. He was tormented with it and found
   no rest. God's own hand was heavy upon him and some of us know to our
   regret that disease in the feet can become a very grievous affliction,
   second, indeed, to none, unless it be a malady of the brain. Now did
   the king learn that embroidered slippers give no ease to gouty feet and
   that sleep flies when disease bears rule.

   This should have driven Asa to repentance, but, to show that
   afflictions of themselves will not set a man right, Asa had fallen into
   such an unbelieving spirit that, instead of sending to God for help,
   and crying for relief to Him who sent the disease, he sent for the
   physicians! It is not wrong to send for physicians, it is quite
   right--but it is very wrong to send for physicians in place of crying
   to God--thus putting the human agency before the Divine. Besides, it is
   very probable that these physicians were only heathen magicians,
   sorcerers and pretenders to magical arts, and could not be consulted
   without implicating the patient in their evil practices. Though Asa
   would not approve of their heathenism, yet he might think, "Well, they
   are famous for their cures, and who they may be is not so much my
   concern. I will put up with that--if they can cure me, they may come."

   So his unbelief deprived him of the cure which God could readily enough
   have given him and he had his physicians and their medicine, but they
   were miserable comforters to him, giving him no relief, and probably
   causing him to suffer more than he would have suffered without them.
   They were physicians of no value, and their medicines were a delusion.
   How often is it so when we persist in looking away from God? He who has
   God has all, but he who has all besides God has really nothing at all!
   Asa's life, after that period, was a life of war and pain. His evening
   was clouded and his sun set in tempest. Have you ever noticed the
   career of David? What a happy life David's was up to one point! In his
   youth he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, but he was
   very merry. What joyful Psalms he used to sing when he was a humble
   shepherd boy!

   And when, afterwards, he was an exile in the caves of Engedi, how
   gloriously he poured out notes of gratitude and joy! He was at that
   period, and for years after, one of the happiest of men. But that hour
   when he walked on the roof of his house and saw Bathsheba--and gave way
   to his unholy desires--that hour, I say, put an end to the happy days
   of David. And though he was still a child of God and God never cast him
   away, yet his heavenly Father never ceased to chasten him. From that
   day his life teemed with trouble--troubles from his own children one
   after another, ingratitude from his subjects--and annoyance from his
   enemies. Afflictions sprang up for him as plenteously as hemlock in the
   furrows. He became a weeping monarch instead of a rejoicing one. The
   whole tenor of his life changed--a somber shade was cast over his
   entire image. You recognize him as the same man, but his voice is
   broken. His music is deep bass, he cannot reach one high note of the
   scale. From the hour in which he sinned he began to sorrow more and
   more.

   So will it be with us if we are not watchful. We may have led very
   happy lives in Christ up to this moment--and we know the Lord will not
   cast us away--for He does not cast away His people whom He did
   foreknow. But if we begin to walk distrustfully and adopt wrong
   actions, and dishonor His name, He may from that moment, say, "You only
   have I known of all the people of the earth, therefore I will punish
   you for your iniquities. Because I love you I will chasten you, for I
   chasten every son whom I love. And now, because you have thus gone
   astray, you shall be filled with your own backslidings. Your own
   vanities shall become your vexation throughout the rest of your days."

   Asa does not appear to have had any peace until at last he fell asleep,
   and then, I trust, his dying bed was as sweetly perfumed with penitence
   and pardon as his funeral couch was odoriferous with fragrant spices.
   The sweet spices of forgiving love and reviving faith were there and he
   died rejoicing in his God through the great Sacrifice. Brought back
   after a time of wandering, the cloudy day, at last, ended in a calm,
   bright evening. But who wishes to go so far astray,

   even if he is, at length, restored? O Brothers and Sisters, we do not
   merely want to go to Heaven, but we desire to enjoy a Heaven on the
   road to Heaven! We would like not only to come up from the wilderness,
   but to come up from the wilderness leaning on our Beloved! We would not
   wish to be saved, "so as by fire," but to have an abundant entrance
   administered to us into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus
   Christ.

   Asa's character was well known among the people and they loved and
   respected him. The mistake he had made grieved many of the godly, I do
   not doubt, but for all that, they felt that one fault must not blot out
   the recollection of nearly 40 years of devoted service to God. So they
   loved him and they honored him with a funeral worthy of a king--a
   funeral by which they expressed both their sorrow and their esteem. But
   may it never be said of you and of me, "He led a good life. He was
   eminent in the service of God and did much, but there was an unhappy
   day in which the weakness of the flesh mastered the inner life."

   dear Sister, if you have brought up your children and have seen your
   family about you--and they have been proofs to all the world of the way
   in which you have walked with God and of your care to discharge your
   duties--do not let your old age be given up to petulance and murmuring
   and complaining so that your friends will have to say of you, "At the
   last she was not the happy Christian woman that she used to be." My
   dear Brother, you have been a merchant and you have resisted a great
   many temptations. You have been noted for your honorable character--do
   not now, in a moment of extreme trial, begin to doubt your God! May the
   Holy Spirit preserve you from so great an ill. In the time of your need
   you will find the Lord to be Jehovah-Jireh. He is no fair weather
   Friend, but He is a shelter from the storm, a covert from the tempest.

   Stand fast in your faith in Him! Do not question your God and do
   questionable things in consequence, for, if you do, it will be said by
   those who come after you, and perhaps even while you live by those who
   love you. "He was a good man, but there was a sad period of weakness
   and inconsistency. And though he was deeply penitent, yet from that
   unhappy day he went limping to his tomb." What a precious Christ we
   have, who saves such sinners as we are! What a dear and blessed Lord we
   have, who does not cast us away, notwithstanding all our slips and
   falls and shameful wanderings! Beloved, let us not be so base as
   wantonly to grieve Him--

   "We ha ve no fear that You should lose

   One whom eternal love could choose.

   But we would never this Grace abuse.

   Let us not fall. Let us not fall."

   With such a warning as this of Asa before us, now, do not let us relax
   our watchfulness and insensibly turn aside. "The path of the just is as
   the shining light which shines more and more unto the perfect day."

   That is your model--that is the promise which Scripture sets before
   you. Plead it and try to realize it. Let us go from strength to
   strength. Let us ask to grow in Divine Grace and in the knowledge of
   our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If we have wanted props up to
   now--outward and visible props--and have not been altogether able to
   rely upon God, may the Lord help us to grow stronger so that we may
   have done with Ready-to-Halt's crutches! May we walk uprightly before
   the Lord because we rely upon Him, trusting always in His sure
   faithfulness, and in the power which guarantees that His promise shall
   be fulfilled.

   1 do not know to whom I may be speaking a necessary word, except that I
   know it is necessary for myself. Perhaps there are some here to whom it
   may be just the word that is needed. Dear Brother, the life of faith is
   a blessed one! A Believer's course is a tried one--it is a
   warfare--but, for all that, all the sorrows of faith put together do
   not equal in bitterness one drop of the sorrow of sin, or one grain of
   the misery of unbelief. The king's highway may be rough, but By-Path
   Meadow, in the long run, is the rougher way of the two! It looks very
   pleasant to walk on the green turf, but remember, it is only in
   appearance that By-Path Meadow is smooth. The ways of Christ are ways
   of pleasantness and all His paths are peace as compared with any other
   paths in the world. And if they were not--if to serve the Lord led us
   only into sorrow and trouble--I trust the loyal hearts here, the virgin
   souls whom Christ has chosen, would resolve through floods or flames,
   if Jesus led the way, to follow still!

   O Beloved, may you cleave to the Lord by a simple faith! May you cleave
   to Him when the many turn aside! May you witness that He has the Living
   Word and none upon earth beside! Because your hearts are frail and
   feeble, ask Him, now, to cast the bands of His love about you and the
   cords of a man to bind you fast to His altar that you may not go away
   from it. For except He holds you fast, you must, you will decline and
   prove apostates after all. But He will hold you! He

   will keep the feet of His saints! Only trust not in yourselves. "He
   that trusts in his own heart is a fool." If any man says, "I stand,"
   let him take heed lest he fall!

   Beware of that self-confidence and spiritual boasting which is becoming
   common among Christians! Some even brag of their attainments--when, if
   they did but know themselves, they would confess that they are nothing
   better, even at the best, than poor, naked, miserable sinners! We all
   have need to look to Jesus, for we are nothing but empty boasters apart
   from Him! Only in Christ are we anything. "When I am weak, then am I
   strong," but at no other time. When I think I have a reason to glory,
   then am I, indeed, despicable! I know not myself and have become nearly
   blind, so as only to see what my own pride makes me think I see.

   May the Holy Spirit keep us humble--keep us at the foot of the
   Cross--keep us flat on the promise, resting on the eternal Rock and
   crying, "I am nothing Lord--nothing! You are All in All. I am all
   emptiness--come and fill me. I am all nakedness--come and clothe me. I
   am all weakness--come and glorify Your power, by making use of me!" God
   bless you, dear Friends, and if there are any among you who have not a
   God to trust in, or a Savior to love, may you seek Jesus now! If you
   seek Him, He will be found of you, for whoever believes in Him is
   saved! Whoever trusts Christ is saved! Pardon and salvation belong to
   every soul that hangs its hope upon the Cross! May God bless you
   richly, for Christ's sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Parts of 2 Chronicles
   14,15.16. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--668, 667.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Matchless Mystery

   (No. 1153)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"
   Ephesians 5:30.

   I DO not hesitate to say that this is one of the most wonderful texts
   in the whole compass of Revelation. It sets forth the mystery of
   mysteries, the very pith and marrow of the loftiest divinity. It is
   fitted rather to be the theme for a hundred elaborate discourses than
   for one brief homily. Most assuredly it is a deep that knows no
   sounding, an abyss where thought plunges into never-ending
   contemplations. He who handles it had need, first of all, to be filled
   with all the fullness of God. Therefore we feel incapable of dealing
   with it as it should be dealt with--it is all too great and vast for
   us--we can no more hope to compass it than a child can hold an ocean in
   his hand.

   Beloved, it is a text that must not be looked upon with the eyes of
   cold, theological orthodoxy which might make us content to say, "Yes,
   that is a great and important Truth," and there leave it. It is a text
   to be treated as the manna was that fell from Heaven, namely, to be
   tasted, to be eaten, to be digested and to be lived upon from day to
   day! It is a text for the quietude of your meditation, when you can sit
   still and turn it over and, like Mary, ponder it in your hearts. Long
   and loving should be your gaze upon the facets of this diamond of
   Truth, this diamond of Revelation.

   It is a golden sentence fitted for those choice hours when the King
   brings us into His banqueting house and His banner over us is love.
   When the distance between earth and Heaven has become less and less,
   till it scarcely exists--those undisturbed times when all is rest round
   about us, because He who is our Rest enables us to lean upon His bosom
   and to feel His heart of love beating true to us. I ask you, O my
   Brothers and Sisters, therefore, as though you were quite alone in your
   own chamber, to pray for that frame of mind which is suitable to the
   subject, and to pray for me that I may be placed in that condition of
   heart which shall best enable me to speak upon it. We need our thoughts
   to be focused before they can reveal to us the great sight before us.
   Get to the place where Mary sat at Jesus' feet and then will this text
   sound like music in your ears.

   Without any accompaniment of exposition from me, it will have all
   Heaven's music in it--"We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of
   His bones." Sevenfold will be the happiness of the spirit which knows
   how to sit down and to taste of the marrow and the fatness, to drink of
   the "wine on the less well-refined," which are to be found in this
   Inspired declaration. Before I preach upon it, there is one thing which
   it is necessary for us to do. They have a way in Scotland, before the
   communion, of "fencing the table," that is to say, warning all those
   who have no right to come to the table to avoid the sin of unlawful
   intrusion, and so of eating and drinking condemnation unto themselves.
   They help the hearers to self-examination, lest they should come
   thoughtlessly and participate in that which does not belong to them.

   Now, my text is like a table of communion richly loaded, and far from
   you to whom it does not belong, unless you learn the sacred way of
   coming in by the Door, into this sheepfold, where the pasture is so
   rich and green. If you come by Christ, the Way, come and welcome! If
   you rest in Him, if His dear wounds are the fountains of your life, and
   if His atoning Sacrifice is your soul's only peace, come and
   welcome--for of you, and such as you, and all of us who are trusting in
   Jesus, it may be truly said--"We are members of His body, of His flesh,
   and of His bones."

   But if not Believers in Him, this heavenly verse has nothing to do with
   you. It is "the children's bread." It belongs only to the children. It
   is Israel's manna--it falls for Israel. It is the stream which leaps
   from Israel's smitten rock and comes neither for Edom, nor for
   Amalek--but only for the chosen seed, alone. Look back, then, to the
   beginning of the Epistle, and see of whom the Apostle was speaking when
   he said, "we." This little word, "we," is like the door of Noah's
   ark--it shuts out and shuts in. Does it shut us out or in?

   Now, the Apostle wrote his Epistle to those of whom he said, "Blessed
   be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
   all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He
   has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
   be holy and without blame before Him in love." Answer this question,

   you who would enjoy this text--Have you made your calling and election
   sure? Has that matter ever been decided in your spirit after honest
   search and inquiry into the grounds of your confidence? Have you been
   led to choose your God, for if so, your God had long ago chosen you!
   That matter is ascertained beyond all question and out of it springs
   the undoubted assurance that you are one with Him, since of all whom He
   has chosen it is true--"We are members of His body, of His flesh, and
   of His bones."

   The Apostolic description is before you, I pray you read on--"Having
   predestinated us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
   Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." Do you know
   anything about adoption? Have you been taken out of the family of Satan
   and enrolled in the family of God? Have you the Spirit of adoption in
   you? Does your soul cry, "Abba, Father," at the very thought of God?
   Are you an imitator of God as a dear child? Do you feel that your
   nature has been renewed, so that, whereas you were a child of wrath,
   even as others, you have now become a child of God? Judge, I pray you,
   and discern concerning these things, for on your answer to this
   question depends your condition before God, your union with Christ, or
   your separateness from Him.

   Note, still, the Apostle's words as you read on, "To the praise of the
   glory of His Grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved."
   Dear Hearer, do you know the meaning of those last words, "Accepted in
   the Beloved"? You can never be accepted in yourself--you are sinful,
   and undone, and unworthy--but have you come and cast yourself upon the
   work, the blood and the righteousness of Jesus? Are you, therefore,
   accepted, "Accepted in the Beloved"? Have you ever enjoyed a sense of
   acceptance so that you could draw near to God, as no longer a servant
   beneath the curse, but a son beneath the blessing? If so, come and
   welcome to the text! It is all your own!

   But note the next verse--"In whom we have redemption through His
   blood." Oh, dear Brothers and Sisters, do you know the blood? I do not
   care what else you know if you do not know the blood. Nor do I much
   mind what else you do not know. You may differ very widely in doctrine
   from some of the Truths of God which I think I have learned from the
   Word of God, but do you know the blood? Were you ever washed in it?
   Have you seen it sprinkled overhead and on the side posts of the house
   where you dwell, so that the destroying angel passes you by? Is the
   blood of Christ the lifeblood of your hope? God save me from preaching,
   and you from believing in a bloodless theology! It is a dead theology!
   Take Christ away, take the Atonement by a substitutionary Sacrifice
   away--and what is there left? But, oh, if we in very deed have
   redemption through His blood, then we are "members of His body, of His
   flesh, and of His bones."

   The Apostle adds, "The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of
   His Grace." And here, again, I press home the question upon the
   consciences of the members of this Church, and upon the members of
   every professing Church of Christ--Have you tasted forgiveness? Have
   you felt the burden of sin? Have you gone with that burden to the foot
   of the Cross? Has the Heavenly Father ever said to you, "Your sins are
   forgiven you"? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins, and that in
   reference to yourselves? Oh, do not be satisfied unless you do! Do not
   be put off with a bare hope that perhaps your sin is forgiven you, but
   struggle after that blessed full assurance which is able to say--

   "Oh, how sweet to view the flowing Of my Savior's precious blood, With
   Divine assurance knowing He has made my peace with God!" And if you do
   know, possess and enjoy the forgiveness of sins, then are you "members
   of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."

   Oh, how this last sentence concerning pardon and rich Grace seems to
   cheer my soul! If none might come but those who never sinned, my guilty
   soul could never venture near the Lord! If none might come but those
   who have committed little sin, then I must be debarred. But it is "the
   forgiveness of sins" on a grand scale! Let me read the words--"The
   forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace." So it is
   great forgiveness, the forgiveness of great sin, because of great love.
   O beloved Hearer, great sinner as you have been, yet if you are
   "accepted in the Beloved," and have "redemption through His blood,"
   then all that is in the text belongs to you!

   So I will keep you waiting in the vestibule no longer, but set the door
   wide open, saying, "Come in, you blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand
   outside?" I pray the Holy Spirit to help you come in to this high
   festival, give you a sacred appetite and enable you, now, to appreciate
   the extraordinary sweetness of the words before us! First, I shall try
   and expound--and it must be but feebly what the text means and,
   secondly, what the text secures.

   I. First, WHAT DOES THE TEXT MEAN? "We are members of His body, of His
   flesh, and of His bones." Read it in the light of the second chapter of
   the book of Genesis, for it is evident that there is a distinct
   allusion to the creation of before. The very words of Adam are quoted
   and we are mentally conducted to that scene in the Garden of Eden when
   the first man gazed upon the first woman, created to be his dear
   companion and helpmeet. What did Adam mean when he used these words?
   The great Husband of our souls must mean the same, only in a more
   spiritual and emphatic sense.

   First, there was meant here similarity of nature. Adam looked at Eve
   and he did not regard her as a stranger, as some creature of a
   different genus and nature, but he said, "She is bone of my bones, and
   flesh of my flesh." He meant that she was of the same race, a
   participant in the same nature. He recognized her as a being of the
   same order as himself. Now, that is a low meaning of the text, but it
   is one meaning.

   Beloved Brethren, think of this Truth for a moment. Jesus, the Son of
   God, counted it not robbery to be equal with God. "Without Him was not
   anything made that was made." He is "very God of very God." Yet He
   deigned, for love of us, to take upon Himself our nature, and He did it
   completely, so that He assumed the whole of human nature, apart from
   its sin. And in that respect we may say of ourselves--that we are "bone
   of His bone, and flesh of His flesh." The very nature which we wear on
   earth, Christ Jesus once carried about among us, and at last carried
   aloft to Heaven. You believe in His Godhead--take heed never to
   commingle His Godhead and His humanity. Remember, Christ was not a
   deified man, neither was He a humanized God.

   He was perfectly God, and at the same time perfectly Man, made like
   unto His brethren in all things. Dwell for a moment upon this Truth of
   God, for the text sets it forth. Born of a human mother and swaddled
   like any other child, He was, from His birth, as perfectly human even
   as you are. In nothing did He differ from you except in this, that He
   never wandered from God and broke His Commandments, and He was not
   defiled with that hereditary taint of Original Sin which dwells in you
   by nature. The like depressions--those which sadden your spirit--He
   knew. The temptations of our nature assailed Him. Men and devils both
   sought to influence Him. He was amenable to all the external physical
   arrangements of the globe.

   On Him the shower pelted down and wet His garments. And on Him the
   burning sun poured forth its undiminished heat. Upon His sacred Person
   on the lone mountainside, the dews descended till His head was wet with
   them, and His locks with the drops of the night. For Him there were
   poverty, hunger, thirst, reproach, slanders and treachery. For Him the
   sea tossed the boat as it will for you. And for Him the land yielded
   thorn and thistle, as it does to you. He suffered, He ate, He toiled,
   He rested, He wept and He rejoiced, even as you do, sin, alone,
   excepted. A real kinsman was He, not in fiction, but in substantial
   reality. Are you man? Jesus was a Man! Do not doubt it. Do not look at
   your Lord as standing up there on a pinnacle of superior nature where
   you cannot come near Him, but view Him as your own flesh and blood, "a
   Brother born for adversity."

   For so he is. He comes to you and says, "Handle Me and see. A spirit
   has not flesh and bones as you see I have." He invites your faith to
   look at the prints of the nails and the scar of the spear. Did He not,
   after He had risen from the dead, prove His true humanity by eating a
   piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb? And that same humanity has
   gone to Heaven! The clouds received it out of our sight, but it is
   there--

   "A Man there was, a real Man, Who once on Calvary died; And streams of
   blood and water ran Down from His wounded side."

   That same blest Man exalted sits high on His Father's throne. Believe
   this, and you will see how He is bone of your bone, and flesh of your
   flesh. And then remember that, as His Nature is as yours, so, in
   another sense, He has made your nature as His, for you are born-again
   and gifted with a higher life. You were carnal--He has now made you
   spiritual. You could not drink of His cup, or be baptized with His
   baptism till His Spirit had come upon you.

   But now you are made "partakers of the Divine Nature"--strong words,
   but Scriptural--"partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped the
   corruption that is in the world through lust." "For as you have borne
   the image of the earthy Adam, you shall also bear the image of the
   heavenly." Now, you, as spiritual men, cry out to God in prayer, and so
   did He when He was here. Now you are in an agony as you strive with God
   and so was He, but the bloody sweat is a part of His substitutionary
   work in which He trod the winepress alone. His meat and drink was to do
   the will of Him that sent

   Him, and it is yours, I trust--at any rate, it should be if you are
   your Lord's. He lived for God. He lived and died for love of men. And
   that same love of God and man, though in a feebler measure, burns
   within your heart.

   You are, therefore, now made, by His Grace, to participate in His moral
   and spiritual Nature, and you will never be satisfied till you awake in
   His likeness. And you will awake in His likeness, so that when He sees
   you and you see Him, then it shall be abundantly manifest to you that
   you are a member "of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"--

   "Such was Your Grace, that for our sake

   You did from Heaven come do wn.

   You did of flesh and blood partake,

   In all our sorro ws one.

   Ascended now, in glory bright,

   Still ours with us You are.

   Nor life, nor death, nor depth, nor height.

   Your saints and You can part.

   Oh, teach us, Lord, to know and own

   This wondrous mystery,

   That You with us are truly one,

   And we are one with Thee!

   Soon, soon shall come that glorious day,

   When, seated on Your Throne,

   You shall to wondering worlds display,

   That you with us are one!" Similarity of Nature, then, is the first
   meaning of the text.

   Regard, I pray you, Brothers and Sisters, with much solemn attention, a
   higher step of the ladder. It signifies intimate relationship, for I
   hardly think that Adam would have said quite so strongly, "She is bone
   of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," if he had thought that the woman
   would disappear, or would become the wife of another. It was because
   she was to be his helpmeet and they were to be joined together in bonds
   of the most intimate communion, that, therefore, he said, "Not only is
   she of the same bone and flesh as I am, but she is bone of my bones,
   and flesh of my flesh. She is related to me." What a near and dear and
   loving relationship marriage has bestowed upon us! It is a blessing for
   which good men dwelling with affectionate wives praise God every day
   they live.

   Marriage and the Sabbath are the two choice gifts of primeval love that
   have come down to us from Paradise--the one to bless our outer and the
   other our inner life. Oh, the joy, the true, pure, elevated peace and
   joy which many of us have received through that divinely ordained
   relationship! We cannot but bless God every time we repeat the dear
   names of those who are now parts of ourselves. Marriage creates a
   relationship which ends only when death parts us. Only then may it may
   be dissolved. Alas, sin enters even here! A dark crime may be
   committed, but, with the exception of that, it is for life--for better,
   for worse--only the mortal stroke can part.

   Now think of it. As is your relation, O woman, to your husband, and as
   is your relation, O man, to your wife, such is the relation which
   exists between you, as a believer in Jesus, and Christ Jesus your Lord!
   It is the nearest, dearest, closest, most intense and most enduring
   relationship that can be imagined. I love and bless God, forever
   declaring that His relationship to us may be likened to that of a
   father or a mother to a child. Did you ever hear those words without
   tears--(I think I never did)--"Can a woman forget her sucking child,
   that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they
   may forget, yet will I not forget you."

   And yet there is a closer intimacy, somehow, in the relationship which
   is declared in the text, because there is a kind of equality between
   the married ones, tempered by that headship of which the Apostle speaks
   and which we delight to recognize in our beloved Lord towards
   ourselves. The child cannot, while it is yet a babe, at any rate, enter
   into its mother's feelings. It is far below the mother. But the wife
   communes with her husband--she is lifted up to his level! She is made a
   partaker of his cares and sorrows, of his joys and his successes, and
   the intimacy arising out of their conjugal union is of the closest
   kind.

   Now--again I say it, and I cannot open it up further than to say
   it--such is the relationship between the Believer's soul and the Lord
   Jesus. Well did the spouse break out with the rapturous language, which
   forms the first word of the song--"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of
   His mouth, for His love is better than wine," as if she did not need to
   describe

   her relationship, but longed to enjoy the sweets of it. My Brothers and
   Sisters, I pray you may so enjoy it, that now, if you are poor in this
   world, if you are an orphan, if you are almost alone in this great
   city, you may feel, "No longer am I an orphan, no longer am I alone. My
   Maker is my Husband. The Lord of Hosts is His name, and my Redeemer,
   the Mighty One of Israel. And from this day forth will I rejoice that I
   am bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh." Similarity of Nature and
   closeness of relationship are evidently in the text.

   But I clearly see another and deeper meaning. It meant, from Adam's
   lips, mysterious extraction. I will not make bold to say that he knew
   what had occurred to him in his sleep. He might not have known all, but
   he seems to have had a mystic enlightenment which made him guess what
   had occurred--at least the words seem to me to have that ring in them.
   "She is bone of my bones"--for a bone had been taken from him, "and
   flesh of my flesh," for out of him had she been taken. He seems to have
   known that somehow or other she sprang from him. Whether he knew it or
   not, Christ knows right well the origin of His spouse! He knows where
   His Church came from. There is still the mark in His side-- there is
   the memorial in the palms of His hands and on His feet.

   From where came this new Eve, this new mother of all living? From where
   came this spouse of the second Adam? She came of the second Adam. She
   was taken from His side, right near His heart. Have you never read,
   "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone;
   but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit"? Had Jesus never died, He
   would have been made to abide alone as to any who could be helpmeets
   for Him, and could enter into fellowship with Him. But, inasmuch as He
   has died, He has brought forth much fruit and His Church has sprung
   from Him. And in that sense she is bone of His bones, and flesh of His
   flesh.

   "What do I mean by the Church?" asks one. I mean by the Church all the
   people of God, all the redeemed, all Believers, as I explained at the
   commencement. Do you think I mean by the Church the harlot of the seven
   hills? God forbid that Christ should have fellowship with her! How can
   He so much as look upon her except with horror? Do you think He means,
   by the Church, the politically supported corporation that men call a
   Church nowadays? No, but the spiritual, the quickened, the living, the
   believing, the holy people--wherever they may be--or by whatever name
   they may be called. These are they that sprang of Christ, even as Levi
   from the loins of Abraham. They live because they receive life from Him
   and at this day they are dead in themselves--and their life is hid with
   Christ in God. So the text leads us to a deep meditation as to
   mysterious extraction.

   But I find the time goes too swiftly for me and I must observe, next,
   that I am sure that in the text there is more than this. There is, in
   the fourth place, loving possession. He said, "She is bone of my bones,
   and flesh of my flesh." He felt she was his own and belonged solely to
   him. Of anything there might be in the Garden, Adam was but owner in
   the second degree. But when he saw her, he felt she was all his own. By
   bonds and ties which did not admit of dispute, his bone and his flesh
   was she. Now, Beloved, at this moment let this thought dance through
   your soul--you belong to Jesus-- altogether you belong to Jesus! Let
   not your love go forth to earthly things, so soiled and dim, but send
   it all away, up to Him to whom you belong--yes, send it all to Him.

   "Set not your affection upon things on the earth," but set it all upon
   things above, for you belong wholly to your Lord. All that there is of
   your spirit, soul and body--the treble kingdom of your nature--Christ
   has purchased by His blood. It were a dark thought to cross a man's
   mind, that his spouse belonged in part to some other. It could not be!
   And will you provoke your Lord to jealousy? Will you suffer it to seem
   so by your actions or your words? No, rather say tonight, anew--

   "'Tis, done, the great transaction's, done!

   I am my Lord's and He is mine!

   He drew me, and I followed on,

   Charmed to confess the voice Divine.

   High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

   That vow renewed shall daily hear,

   Till in life's latest hour I bow,

   And bless in death a bond so dear." "For you are not your own, you are
   bought with a price." "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of
   His bones." We belong entirely to Him.

   And to close this exposition--this skimming of the surface,
   rather--there is one more matter and this is the very essence of the
   meaning. A vital union exists between us and Christ. When the Apostle
   wrote, showing that we were one with Christ, as the wife is with the
   husband, he felt that the metaphor, though it set forth much, did not
   set forth all. He would have us know that we are more closely knit to
   Jesus than is a woman to her husband, for they are, after all, separate
   individualities, and they may act and too often do so, far too
   distinctly for themselves. But here he puts it, "We are members of His
   body." Now, here is a vital union, the closest imaginable! It is not
   unity--it is identity! It is more than being joined to--it is being
   made a part of--and an essential part of the whole!

   Do you think I strain the text and go beyond the fact? Listen to this
   word. The Apostle, in speaking of the Church, said, concerning Christ,
   that the Church was His body, "the fullness of Him that fills all in
   all." And note the majesty of that speech--that the Church should be
   the fullness of Christ! Now, Christ, without His fullness, is evidently
   not full-- He must have His people--they are essential to Him. The idea
   of a Savior is lost, apart from the saved. He is a head without a body
   if there are no members. Without His people Jesus is but a king without
   subjects, and a shepherd without a flock. It is essential to any true
   thought of Christ that you think of His people! They must come in. They
   are one with Him in every true view of Jesus Christ our Lord.

   How are we one with Him? Ah, Brothers and Sisters, much might be said,
   but I fear little would be explained by words. I want you to feel it
   and to be comforted by the fact of the vital union of Jesus and His
   people. Have you never heard Him say to you--

   "I feel in My heart all your sighs and your groans,

   For you are most near Me, My flesh and My bones.

   In all your distresses, your Head feels the pain,

   They all are most necessary, not one is in vain"? Oh, do get to know
   this, you tried and tempted ones, you poor poverty-stricken people of
   God! Get to know this, you who could not help coming here tonight, wet
   as it was, because you must have spiritual meat, you were so hungry
   after your Lord! Oh, do get this morsel now, and feed on it! You are
   one with Him! You were "buried in Him in baptism unto death," wherein
   also you have risen with Him! You were crucified with Him upon the
   Cross! You have gone up into Heaven with Him, for He has raised us up
   together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ
   Jesus. And surely you shall be actually in your very person with Him
   where He is, that you may behold His Glory! You are one with

   Him!

   Now, tie up these five Truths of God like five choice flowers in a
   nosegay. Band them, like sweet spices, and let them be a bundle of
   camphire and a cluster of myrrh to lie all night upon your bosom to
   give you rest and to sweeten your repose. There is between you and your
   Lord a similarity of Nature and an intimate relationship! You have a
   mysterious extraction from Him and He has a loving possession of
   you--and a vital union with you. Come, now, we must only have a few
   minutes to catch some of the juice that will flow out of these clusters
   of Eshcol while we tread them for a moment, just to show what the wines
   of the kingdom are like.

   II. WHAT DOES THE TEXT SECURE? First, it seems to me, that the text
   secures the eternal safety of everyone who is one with Christ. You know
   the figure we often use, that when a man's head is above water you
   cannot drown his feet--and as long as my Head is in Glory, though I am
   but the sole of His foot--and only worthy to be trod in the mire, how
   can He drown me? Is it not written, "Because I live you shall live
   also"--all of you who are one with Him? The idea of Christ losing
   members of His body is to me grotesque and at the same time ghastly.
   Does He change His members like some aquatic creatures which lose their
   limbs and get fresh joints? I know it is not so with Christ, the second
   Adam! Will He lose His members? Can He lose one member? NO! Then can He
   lose all?--

   "Ifever it should come to pass That sheep of Christ could fall away, My
   fickle, feeble soul, alas, Would fall a thousand times a day."

   But herein lies our safety--"I give unto My sheep eternal life, and
   they shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of My hand."
   I know that some have perverted this blessed Truth of God into the
   wicked lie that the Christian man may live as he likes and yet be safe.
   No such doctrine is to be found between the covers of this Book! The
   doctrine of the safety of the saints is far other than that! It is that
   the renewed man shall live as God likes, shall persevere in holiness

   and hold on his way until he arrives at the blessed perfection of his
   Lord, changing from glory to glory into that image which he shall reach
   and possess forever. I see--I pity those who do not see it, but I will
   not blame--I see, I think, strong reason for believing in the security
   of every soul which is one with Christ.

   But, next, I see here a very sweet thought. If I am one with Christ,
   then I certainly enjoy, above all things, His love. Last Saturday week,
   in the evening, I was trying to turn over this text to preach to you
   from it in the morning, but I was wrung with bitter pains which made me
   feel that I should not preach, and kept me wearily waiting through the
   night watches. But do you know what comforted me very much about the
   text? It was that sentence which is a near neighbor of it--"No man ever
   yet hated his own flesh." I seized upon that and my sad heart cried
   out, "Surely the Man Christ Jesus never yet hated His own flesh." If we
   are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, He may
   chasten, He may correct and lay on heavy strokes, and give sharp
   twinges, and make us cry out--He may even thrust us in the fire, and
   heat the furnace seven times hotter--but He never can neglect and abhor
   His own flesh!

   There is still love in His heart. I hate no part of my body, not even
   when it aches. I hate it not, but love it still--it is a part of
   myself--and so does Jesus love His people. And you, poor Sinners, who
   feel that you are not worthy to be called His people, nevertheless His
   love goes out to you, despite your imperfections. Having loved His own,
   which were in the world, He loved them to the end and He has left it on
   record--"As My Father has loved Me, even so have I loved you. Continue
   you in My love."

   Another most enchanting thought also arises from our subject. The
   Apostle goes on to say, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but
   nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord of the Church." Oh, those
   two words, "nourishes it." Are you living in a district where you do
   not get the Gospel? Well, then, go to the Gospel's Lord and say to Him,
   "Lord, hate not Your own flesh, but nourish me." Have you been for a
   while without visits from Christ? Have you lost the light of His
   countenance? Do not be satisfied with nourishing--go further and plead
   for cherishing! Ask for those love tokens, for those gentle words, for
   those secret blandishments known to saints, and to none but saints,
   for, "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He will
   show them His Covenant." Go and ask for both these forms of love and
   you shall be nourished and cherished!

   The good husband does not merely bring so much bread and meat into the
   house and fling it down, saying, "There, that will nourish you." Oh,
   not so--there are tender words and kind acts by which he cherishes as
   well as nourishes. And your Lord will not only give you bread to eat
   which the world knows not of, but He will give it to you according to
   His lovingkindness and the multitude of His tender mercies, for He
   makes us to lie down in green pastures, He leads us beside the still
   waters, gently guiding as a shepherd conducts his flock. Rejoice, then,
   that your nourishing and your cherishing are secure!

   I will not keep you longer when I have said this much. If we are
   members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, then He will one
   day present us to Himself, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such
   thing," for the whole body must be so presented. Alas, our spots are
   many, and sadly mar our beauty! Brothers and Sisters, I love not to
   think little of my spots. I wish I had not even a speck. Alas, our
   wrinkles! Let us not talk lightly of them. It is most sad that on the
   Beloved's darling there should be a solitary blot. It is the worst
   wrinkle of all when a man does not see his own wrinkles, or when he
   does not mourn over them. But there are spots and wrinkles. I hope we
   do not say, "Yes, they are there," and then add, "And they must be
   there." No, Beloved, they ought not to be there--there ought to be no
   sin in us.

   If there is a sin which ought to be upon us, why it is clear it is no
   sin! A thing that ought to be is not a sin. If we served our Master as
   He deserves to be served, we should never sin, but our lives would be
   perfect. Therefore it is our daily burden that the spots and wrinkles
   still will show--but this is our consolation--that He will one day
   present us to Himself, holy and without blemish, "not having spot or
   wrinkle, or any such thing."--

   "Oh, glorious hour, oh, blest abode; I shall be near, and like my God.
   Nor spot nor wrinkle shall remain, His perfect image to profane."

   It will be a blessed thing, indeed, to have attained to this, to wear
   the image of the heavenly and be perfect even as our Bridegroom is
   perfect.

   Then, remember, all the glory Christ has we shall share in. You cannot
   honor a warrior who returns from the wars, and say to him, "Great
   general, we honor your head." Oh, no, he who fought his country's
   battles and won the victory,

   when he was honored was altogether honored as a man. And when the
   Master, at the last, shall have finished all His work and the whole
   battle that He undertook is finished and the victory gained. When He
   enters perfectly into His joy, we, too, shall enter into the joy of our
   Lord! Does He sit upon a throne? He has said we shall sit upon His
   Throne. Has He triumphed? We shall bear the palm branch, too. Whatever
   He has, we shall share. Are we not heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus
   Christ? My soul feels ready to leap right away from this body at the
   thought of the glory that shall be revealed in us--not in Paul and
   Peter only, but in us!

   Poor things, poor things, that struggle hard each day with infirmities
   and trials, you shall be with Him where He is, and shall behold His
   Glory forever! So shall we ever be with the Lord. Comfort one another
   with these words."--

   "Since Christ and we are one,

   Why should we doubt or fear?

   If He in Heaven has fixed His Throne,

   He'll fix His members there."

   In this spirit come to the Communion Table and find your Master there!
   But oh, if you are not resting in Him. If the blood was never upon you,
   you are condemned already because you have not believed on the Son of
   God! I pray that your bed may be cold and hard as a stone to you
   tonight and your eyes may forget to sleep--and your heart may know no
   rest till you have said--"I will arise, and go to my Father, and will
   say unto Him, Father, I have sinned." Then take with you Jesus as a
   Mediator and draw near to the Throne of Grace! Plead His blood and
   merits, and you shall live! And then you, too, shall be able to join
   with the saints who say, "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and
   of His bones." Amen. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Genesis 2:18;
   Ephesians5:22-33. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--761, 762.

   A MESSAGE:

   I have revised this sermon at Cannes, to which place I have come for
   health. I am happy to inform all friends that I am already much better.
   The influences of a warm, sunny climate and rest from great labor are
   being blessed by Infinite Mercy to my restoration. I commend the work I
   am obliged to leave to the prayers of God's people and I desire, also,
   to thank numerous friends for their substantial help to the College and
   Orphanage, so that I am not tempted to be anxious about funds for these
   at a time when ease of mind is especially desirable. With this I send
   most loving salutations to all my readers. May the Lord send to our
   beloved land a great revival of true religion.

   C. H. SPURGEON.
     __________________________________________________________________

                          Daniel Facing the Lions' Den

   (No. 1154)

   Delivered by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the [1]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his
   house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he
   kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks
   before his God, as he did aforetime"— Daniel 6:10.

   Daniel was of royal race, and, what is far better, he was, of royal
   character. He is depicted on the pages of scriptural history as one of
   the greatest and most faultless of men. How grand and impressive his
   first appearance as a young man, when he was introduced to
   Nebuchadnezzar! The Chaldeans and magicians and astrologers had all
   failed to divine the secret which perplexed the king and troubled his
   spirit; till at length there stood up before him this young prince of
   the house of Judah to tell his dream and the interpretation thereof. No
   wonder that the excellent spirit which shone in him led to his being
   made a great man, procured for him rich gifts, and led to his promotion
   amongst the governor, of Babylon. In after days he showed his dauntless
   courage when he interpreted the memorable dream of Nebuchadnezzar, in
   which the king's pride was threatened with a terrible judgment. It
   needed that he should be a lion-like man to say to the king, "Thou, O
   king, shalt be driven from among men, and eat grass as oxen, and thy
   body shall be wet with the dew of heaven, till thy hairs are grown like
   eagles' feathers, and thy nails like birds' claws." Yet what he told
   him came true, for all this, came upon the king Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel
   discharged his duty to his conscience, so there was nothing to disquiet
   him. Well might he have said—

   "I feel within me
   A peace above all earthly dignities,
   A still and quiet conscience."

   In lurid light, in terrible grandeur, Daniel comes forth again, on the
   last night of Belshazzar's reign, when the power of Babylon was broken
   for ever. Persians had dried up the river, and were already at the
   palace doors. "Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting,"
   said the prophet, as he pointed to the mysterious handwriting on the
   wall. After this he appears again, and this time in a personal dilemma
   of his own. Great as he was in the palace, and great in the midst of
   that night's carousel, he appears, If possible, greater, because the
   faith that animates him shines more radiantly when he is upon his
   knees. The princes have conspired against him. They have, by fraud,
   perverted the king's mind, so that he has passed an edict. Though
   Daniel knows that it is contrary to the law of the realm for him to
   pray or ask a Petition of any god or man save of king Darius, yet he
   does pray and give thanks before his God. In the higher sovereignty of
   the King of kings he believes; and to the edicts of his everlasting
   kingdom he yields fearless and unqualified obedience. The sequel shows
   that the Most High God delivers him. Of this Daniel we are about to
   speak to you.

   I. Our first point will be that DANIEL'S PRAYERFULNESS WAS THE SECRET
   OF HIS POWER. Daniel was always a man of prayer. If you saw him great
   before the people, the reason was because he was great before his God.
   He knew how to lay hold of divine strength, and he became strong. He
   knew how to study divine wisdom, and he became wise.

   We are told that he went to his house to pray. He was a great man—the
   highest in the land—consequently he had great public duties. He would
   sit as a judge probably a large part of the day. Life would be engaged
   in the various state offices distributing the favors of the king; but
   he did not pray in his office, save of course that his heart would go
   up in adoration of his God all day long. He was in the habit of going
   to his house to pray. This showed that he made a business of prayer,
   and finding it neither convenient to his circumstances nor congenial to
   his mind to pray in the midst of idolaters, he had chosen to set apart
   a chamber in his own house for prayer. I don't know how you find it,
   but there are some of us who never pray so well as by the old
   arm-chair, and in that very room where many a time we have told the
   Lord our grief, and have poured out before him our transgressions. It
   is well to have, if we can have, a little room, no matter how humble,
   where we can shut to the door, and pray to our Father who is in heaven,
   who will hear and answer.

   He was in the habit of praying thus three times a day. He had not only
   his appointed seasons of morning prayer and of evening prayer, as most
   believers have; but he had his noon-day retirement for prayer, as
   perhaps only a few have. He was an old man, over eighty years of age at
   this time, but he did not mind taking three journeys to his house to
   pray. He was a very busy man. Probably no one here has half so much
   important business to transact daily as Daniel had, for he was set over
   all the empire, and yet he found time regularly to devote three stated
   intervals for prayer. Perhaps he thought that this was prudent economy,
   for, if he had so much to do, he must pray the more; as Martin Luther
   said, "I have got so much to do to-day that I cannot possibly get
   through it with less than three hours of prayer." So, perhaps, Daniel
   felt that the extraordinary pressure of his engagements demanded a
   proportionate measure of prayer to enable him to accomplish the weighty
   matters he had on hand. He saluted his God, and sought counsel of him
   when the curtains of the night were drawn, and when his eyelids opened
   at the day dawn, as well as when the full sunlight was poured out from
   the windows of heaven. Blessing the Lord of the darkness, who was also
   the Lord of the light, Daniel thrice a day worshipped his God.

   A singularity in his manner is noticeable here. He had been in the
   habit of praying with his windows open towards Jerusalem. This had been
   his wont: by long use it had become natural to him, so he continues the
   practice as heretofore; though it was not essential to prayer, he
   scorns to make any alteration, even in the least point. Now that the
   decree had been signed that he must not pray, he would not only pray,
   but he would pray just as often as he had done, in the same place and
   the same attitude, and the same indifference to publicity, with the
   windows open. Thus openly did he ignore the decree! With such a royal
   courage did he lift his heart above the fear of man, and raise his
   conscience above the suspicion of compromise. He would not shut the
   window, because he had been accustomed to pray with it open. He prayed
   with his window open towards Jerusalem, the reason being that the
   temple was being built, and if he could not go himself at any rate he
   would look that way. This showed that he loved his native land. Great
   man as he was, he did not scorn to be called a Jew, and everybody might
   know it. He was "that Daniel of the children of the captivity of
   Judah." He was not ashamed to be accounted one of the despised and
   captive race. He loved Jerusalem, and his prayers were for it. Hence he
   looked that way in his prayer. And I think also he had an eye to the
   altar. It was the day of symbol. That day is now past. We have no altar
   save Christ our Lord; but, beloved, we turn our eyes to him when we
   pray. Our window is open to Jerusalem that is above, and towards that
   altar whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle with
   outward religiousness. We worship with our eye to Christ. And during
   that age of symbol Daniel saw by faith the realities that were
   foreshadowed. His eyes were turned towards Jerusalem, which was the
   type and symbol of the one Lord Jesus Christ. So he prayed with his
   window open. I cannot help admiring the open window, because it would
   admit plenty of fresh air. There is much good in fresh air; the more
   the better. We do not want our bodies to be sleepy, or our senses
   sluggish, for if they are we cannot keep our souls awake and our
   spirits lively.

   And it would appear that whenever Daniel prayed he mingled his
   supplication with thanksgiving. He "prayed and gave thanks." I wonder
   if he sang a psalm; perhaps he did. At any rate prayer and praise,
   orisons and p3/4ans, sweetly blend in his worship. He could not ask for
   more grace without gratefully acknowledging what he had already
   received. Oh, mix up thanks with your prayers, beloved! I am afraid we
   do not thank God enough. It ought to be as habitual to us to thank as
   to ask. Prayer and praise should always go up to heaven arm in arm,
   like twin angels walking up Jacob's ladder, or like kindred aspirations
   soaring up to the Most High.

   I will not say more of this feature of Daniel's character. Oh, that we
   might all emulate it more than we have ever done! How few of us fully
   appreciate and fondly cultivate that communion with God to which secret
   prayer, continuously, earnestly offered, is the key and the clue! Could
   we not all of us devote more time to seeking the Lord in the stillness
   of the closet greatly to our advantage? Have not all of us who have
   tried it found an ample recompense? Should we not be stronger and
   better men if we were more upon our knees? As to those of you who never
   seek unto the King eternal, how can ye expect to find him? how can you
   look for a blessing which you never ask for? How can you hope that God
   will save you, when the blessings he does give you you never thank him
   for, but receive them with cold ingratitude, casting his word behind
   your backs Oh, for Daniel's prayerful spirit!

   II. We pass on to DANIEL'S DIFFICULTIES, OR THE PRIVILEGES OF PRAYER.
   Daniel had always been a man of prayer; but now there is a law passed
   that he must not pray for thirty days, for a whole calendar month. I
   think I see Daniel as he reads the arriving. Not proud and haughty in
   his demeanour, for, as a man used to govern, it was not likely that he
   would needlessly rebel; but as he read it, he must have felt a blush
   upon his cheek for the foolish king who had become the blind dupe of
   the wily courtiers who had framed a decree so monstrous. Only one
   course was open to him. He knew what he meant to do: he should do what
   he always had done. Still, let us face the difficulty with a touch of
   sympathy. He must not pray. Suppose we were under a like restriction. I
   will put a supposition for a minute. Suppose the law of the land were
   proclaimed, "To man shall pray during the remainder of this month, on
   pain of being cast into a den of lions,"—how many of you would pray? I
   think there would be rather a scanty number at the prayer-meeting. Not
   but what the attendance at prayer-meetings is scanty enough now! but if
   there were the penalty of being cast into a den of lions, I am afraid
   the prayer-meeting would be postponed for a month, owing to pressing
   business, and manifold engagements of one kind and another. That it
   would be so, not here only, but in many other places, I should he prone
   to anticipate. And how about private prayer? If there were informers
   about, and a heavy reward was offered to tell of anybody who bowed the
   knee night or morning, or at any time during the day, for the next
   thirty days, what would you do? Why, some persons will say, "I will
   give it up." Ah, and there are some who would boastfully say, "I will
   not give it up," whose bold resolve would soon falter, for a lion's den
   is not a comfortable place. Many thought they could burn in Queen
   Mary's days that did not dare to confront the fire, though I think it
   almost always happened that whenever any man through fear turned back,
   he met with a desperate death at last. There was one who could not burn
   for Christ, but about a month afterwards he was burnt to death in bed
   in his own house. Who has forgotten Francis Spira, that dreadful
   apostate, whose dying bed was a foretaste of hell? It is left on
   record, as a well authenticated narrative of the miseries of despair,
   though it is scarcely ever read now-a-days, for it is far too dreadful
   for one to think upon. If we quail at suffering for Christ, and evade
   his cross, we may have to encounter a fiercer doom than the terror from
   which, in our craven panic, we shrunk. Men have declined to carry a
   light burden, and been constrained to bear a far heavier one. They have
   fled from the bear, and the lion has met them; they have sought to
   escape from the serpent, but the dragon has devoured them. To shrink
   from duty is always perilous. To demoralize yourselves in demoralized
   times is a desperate alternative. Better go forward, better go forward.
   Better, I say, even though you may have no armor. The safest thing is
   to go on. Even if there are lions in front, it is better to go ahead,
   for if you turn your back the stars in their courses will fight against
   you. "Remember Lot's wife! "She looked back, and was turned into a
   pillar of salt. The apostate is of all creatures the most terrible
   delinquent; his crime is akin to that of Satan, and the apostate's doom
   is the most dreadful that can be conceived. Master Bunyan
   pictures—(what was the man's name? I forget for the moment)—one
   Turnaway (was it not?) who was bound by seven devils, and he saw him
   taken by the back way to hell, for he had been a damnable apostate from
   the faith as it is in Jesus. It may be hard going forward, but it is
   worse going back.

   Now it is a great privilege that we enjoy civil and religions liberty
   in our favored land; that we are not under such cruel laws, as in other
   times or in other countries laid restrictions upon conscience; and that
   we may pray, according to the conviction of our judgment and the desire
   of our heart. But as I want you to value the privilege very much, I
   will put a supposition to you. Suppose there was only one place in the
   world where a man might pray and offer his supplications unto God.
   Well, I think there is not a man among us that would not like to get
   there at some time or other, at least to die there. Oh, what pains we
   should take to reach the locality, and what pressure we would endure to
   enter the edifice! If there were only one house of prayer in all the
   world, and prayer could be heard nowhere else, oh, what tugging and
   squeezing and toiling, there would be to get into that one place! But
   now that people may pray anywhere, how they slight the exercise and
   neglect the privilege!

   "Where'er we seek him he is found,
   And every place is hallowed ground."

   Yet it would argue sad ingratitude, if seeking were therefore less
   earnest or prayer less frequent. And suppose there was only one man in
   the world who might pray, and that one man was the only person who
   might be heard, oh, if there was to be an election for that man, surely
   the stir to get votes for that man would be far more exciting than for
   your School Boards or your representatives in Parliament. Oh, to get to
   that man and ask him to pray for us; what overwhelming anxiety it would
   cause! When the promoters and directors of railways had shares to
   dispose of during the old mania, how they were stopped in the streets
   by others who wished to get them and secure the premiums they carried
   in the market! But the man who was entrusted with the sole power of
   prayer in the world would surely have no rest day or night: we should
   besiege his house with petitions, and ask him to pray for us. But now
   that we may each pray for ourselves, and the Lord Jesus waits to hear
   those who seek him, how little is prayer regarded! And suppose nobody
   could pray unless he paid for the privilege, then what "rumblings there
   would be from the poor, what meetings of the working men, because they
   could not pray without so many pounds of money. And what a spending of
   money there would be! What laying out of gold and silver to have the
   privilege of speaking to God in prayer! But now that prayer is free,
   without money and without price, and the poorest need not bring a
   farthing when he comes to have audience with God, oh, how prayer is
   neglected! Perhaps it would not be a bad thing on some accounts if
   there could be a law to prevent men from praying; because some would
   say, "We will pray." They would pray. They would get over the traces
   and stoutly protest, "We are not to be kept down, we must pray."
   Suppose I were bound to tell you now that God would not hear your
   prayers all next week, you would be afraid to abide in your houses, and
   you would be equally afraid to leave them. You would be scared with
   terrors in your bed, and you would be afraid to get up and face the
   perils of moving about. You would say, "Whatever happens, I cannot ask
   God for his blessing; whatever I do, I cannot expect his blessing on
   it, for I must not pray." Then perhaps, you would begin to wish that
   you could pray. Oh, dear soul, do not live this night through without
   prayer! Get you to the mercy seat! Let sin be confessed to God. Let
   pardon be sought, and all the blessings of grace. Do not despise or
   turn away from that blessed mercy seat which stands open to every soul
   that desires to draw near unto God.

   III. Having thus dwelt upon Daniel's difficulty, I now want to draw
   your attention to DANIEL'S DECISION. The king says he must not pray.
   Daniel did not deliberate for a single minute. When we know our duty,
   first thoughts are the best. If the thing be obviously right, never
   think about it a second time; but straightway go and do it. Daniel did
   not deliberate. He went to his house and prayed in the morning, he went
   to his house and prayed at noon; and he retired to his house and prayed
   at eventide. "He kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed,
   and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime."

   I greatly admire one feature in Daniel's decision. He did not alter his
   accustomed habit in any single particular. Without disguise and without
   parade he pursued the even tenor of his way. As we have already said,
   the time was the same, the attitude was the same, the open window was
   the same. There was no precaution whatever to conceal the fact that he
   was going to pray, or to equivocate in the act when he was praying. He
   does not appear to have taken counsel of his friends, or to have
   summoned his servants, and charged them not to let any intruder come
   in. Neither did he adopt any measure to escape his enemies. Not one jot
   of anxiety did he betray. His faith was steadfast, his composure
   unruffled, his conduct simple and artless. Doubtless Daniel felt that
   as he was the greatest man in Persia, if he, a worshipper of Jehovah,
   the God of the Hebrews, failed in any degree, he would set a bad
   example to others, and greatly discourage any poor Jew who might have
   grace enough to stand out, provided his example led the way. Persons
   who occupy high positions should know that God expects more of them
   than of other people. England expects every man to do his duty, but
   especially the men that are put to the front. If the standard-bearer
   fall, how is the battle to hold? Now, Daniel, thou art much looked at
   and watched; God has put thee in an eminent place; therefore take care
   that thou dost not flinch one solitary jot: go and do as thou hast been
   wont, though the sky look overcast with clouds of evil omen. It would
   have been foolish daring rather than self-possessed courage in Daniel,
   had he been accustomed ordinarily to shut his window, should he have
   selected this crisis to open it; and if he had been accustomed to pray
   twice a day, I do not see why he should go now and pray three times;
   but he did as aforetime; it was his habit, and he would not be put out
   of it. He would show that his conscience was obedient to God, and owed
   no allegiance to man. He could not and would not yield anything through
   menace. What a despot might lay down as law, a degraded sycophant might
   accept as equity; but a just man is proof against the corruption of an
   unjust judge.

   It might be asked, perhaps, "Should not Daniel obey the king?
   "Certainly kings' laws are to be respected; but any law of man that
   infringes the law of God is, ipso facto, null and void at once. It is
   the duty of every citizen to disregard every law of earth which is
   contrary to the law of heaven. So Daniel felt that whatever he owed to
   his temporal sovereign, he owed to his God a vast deal more. "But
   should not a man take care of his life? Life is valuable; should he run
   such a risk? "Remember that if a man were to lose his soul, in order to
   save his life, he would make a wretched bargain. If a man lost his life
   to save his coat he would be a fool; and a man who loses his soul to
   save his life is equally a fool, and more so still. So Daniel felt that
   the risk of being put into a den with lions was nothing to the risk of
   being put into hell, and he chose the smaller risk, and in the name of
   God he went straight on. And I will tell you what Daniel would have
   said, if he lived in these days and had he been like some of my
   brethren—I mean like some of my brethren in the ministry—clergymen of a
   political church, by law established. He would have said, "This is not
   quite right! The decree of his Majesty's Privy Council is utterly at
   variance with my creed; but you see I occupy a position of great
   usefulness, and would you have me give up that position of usefulness
   that I hold, to let these governors and counsellors, that are all such
   bad fellows, have the entire management of the realm? Everything will
   go wrong if I do not compromise my profession. Although it perhaps may
   not be quite consistent with conscience, it is pardonable in the light
   of policy, and thirty days will soon pass away; so for the sake of your
   usefulness," he would have said to himself, "for the sake of your
   usefulness, you had better stop where you are." Oh, I have heard men
   who teach little children to repeat the words, "In my baptism I was
   made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the
   kingdom of heaven," and who know that that is a lie, and yet stick in
   their un-protestant church, and say, "I remain here because of my
   usefulness,"—my precious usefulness!—"for if I were to go out of the
   church I should be leaving it to those bad persons who are in it." To
   know that as long as I am there, I am in complicity with men who are
   dragging back the church to Romanism, as fast as ever they can, and yet
   to say, "I am so useful, and I should injure my usefulness"! In the
   name of Almighty God, are we to do evil that good may come? If I
   thought I could save every soul in this place, or do any other
   stupendous thing by making the slightest compromise with my conscience,
   I dare not in the sight of the living God do it, for so have I not been
   taught by the Spirit of God. Consequences and usefulness are nothing to
   us: duty and right—these are to be our guides. These were Daniel's
   guides. The empire of Persia might go wrong; Daniel could not help
   that, he would not go wrong himself. It might be that these villanous
   courtiers and lords of the council might have the sway. Be it so. Leave
   God to manage them. It was not for Daniel even for thirty days to give
   up prayer. "Ah, but," they would say, "you can pray in your heart; you
   need not boor the knee; you can pray in your soul." But it will not do
   to sell principle, or to bide with strict integrity and sterling truth
   in the smallest degree. Every jot and little has its intrinsic value.
   Our bold Protestant forefathers were of a different breed from the
   present race of temporizing professors. Talk ye of apostolic
   succession! By what strange process ye suppose that Fuller, Ridley,
   Latimer, Donue, and the like worthies, did transmit their mitres and
   their benefices to the craven seed who now hold their titles and enjoy
   their livings, we are at a loss to understand. The identification
   baffles us. Do they inherit the same spirit, defend the same doctrines,
   or observe uncompromising allegiance to the same gospel? We trow not.
   It seems to us that progenitors and progeny are wide apart as the
   poles. If Jesus Christ were here to-day, there are plenty of people who
   would sell him for two groats; they would not want thirty pieces of
   silver, but would sell him for a smile of patronage or a nod of
   approbation. Oh that we had book the old covenantors who would not
   swerve an inch! Look at John Bunyan when they bring him up before the
   magistrates and tell him he must not preach! "But I will preach," said
   he, "I will preach to-morrow by the help of God." "But you will be put
   in prison again." "Never mind, I will preach as soon as I get out."
   "But you will be hanged, or kept in prison all your life." "If I lie in
   prison," said he, "till the moss grows upon my eyelids, I can say
   nothing more than this, that with God's help, I will preach whenever I
   get a chance." Do not tell me that these are non-essentials. To men
   that will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, even the opening or
   the shutting of a window, if need be, is essential. Be jealous over
   what are called "trifles." They may be mere straws, but they show which
   way the wind blows. We want the race of grand old bigots back again. We
   have been howling at bigots these many years and praising up universal
   "charity," which means nothing else than denying that there is any
   truth in the world to defend, or any army of saints in which to enlist.
   A Protestant on one occasion was bidden to bow down before the cross
   when he was about to be knighted, and many others did so. "It is only a
   form, you know," they said. "But," said he, "by God, I won't." And they
   called him "By God," and afterwards others who stood out boldly in the
   same way were called "By Gods," or "Bigots." So that tone of refusal
   has become a term of reproach. Here is a grandest bigot of all! Daniel
   is his name. He will pray. They will throw him into a lions' den. "The
   bigoted fool! "Ah, yes, but God did not discountenance his unswerving
   uprightness. He had said before his God that he would do the right, and
   the right thing he did, whatever might happen. Young men and young
   women, I would like you to go to school before Daniel and learn to say,
   "Whatever happens, we cannot lie, cannot do the wrong thing; are cannot
   believe what men teach us, when contrary to God's teaching; we cannot
   give up prayer and personal holiness, whether there be a lions' den or
   no lions' den. We will stand fast by that for God's own sake." May that
   same spirit come back to Englishmen, and if it ever does, then I
   warrant you the shavelings of Rome will need to pack up and get
   straight away, for it is the bending men, the willow men, that will
   sell truth any price. Oh that we may learn to sell it at no price, but
   to stand fast like pillars of iron for God, for Christ, for truth, for
   every holy thing!

   Now I fear me I ought to say, before I leave this series of
   reflections, that there are some who have no decision of character at
   all, because they are not Christians. Some men are Christians, perhaps,
   though they have not decision enough to avow it—sneaking Christians!
   They have, they say, with their heart, but never with their mouth,
   confessed Christ. They have never been baptised as he bids them, and as
   they ought to be, according to his word. And there are some that have
   made a profession, but it is a smuggled profession. Their friends at
   home hardly know it, and they do not want them to know it. Oh, if I
   enlisted in Her Majesty's service, and had my regimentals given me to
   wear, I would wear them. I should not like to have them packed away and
   go about in other clothes, for I should be afraid of being taken up as
   a deserter. There are others who dishonor their profession, and do not
   live as they should. And there are those who, if they were persecuted,
   would speedily throw off their profession. They can go with Christ with
   silken slippers over smooth-shaven lawns, but as to walking through
   mire and mud with him, that they cannot do. Oh for the heart of a
   Daniel, every one of us, to follow Christ at all hazards.

   IV. Our last point is DANIEL'S DELIVERANCE. With that we will conclude.
   The evil that threatened Daniel did come. He was to be put into a
   lions' den, and into a lions' den he was put. So, young man, you say,
   "I will not do wrong." You hope to escape unscathed. Yet it may be that
   you will be discarded by your friends, and discountenanced by your
   associates. Expect it, go through it. If you are a tradesman, and by
   saying you will not subunit to an evil custom of the trade you will
   become a loser, be willing to be a loser; expect that the lions' den
   will be there, and that you will be put into it. Daniel came there, but
   there was not a scratch upon him when he came out of it. What a
   splendid night he must have spent with those lions! I do not wonder
   that in after days he saw visions of lions and wild beasts; it seems
   most natural that he should; and he must have been fitted by that night
   passed among these grim monsters to see grand sights. In any case he
   must have had a glorious night. What with the lions, and with angels
   all night to keep him company, he was spending the night-watches in
   grander style than Darius. And when he came out the next morning, so
   far from being a loser, he was a gainer. The king approved him, admired
   him, loved him. Every body in the city had heard that Daniel had been
   put into the lions' den. He was a great man, and it was like putting
   the prime minister into the lions' den. And when he came out, with what
   awe they looked upon him! The king was not regarded as half so much a
   god as Daniel. Daniel had a smooth time of it afterwards. The
   counsellors never troubled him again; the lions had taken care of them.
   There would be no more plotting against him. Now he would mount to the
   highest place in the empire, and no man would dare to oppose him, for
   very dread of the same fate that had fallen upon his enemies and
   accusers. So Daniel had to the end of his days smooth sailing to the
   port of peace.

   Now, believe me, to be decided for the right is not only the right
   thing but the easiest thing. It is wise policy as well as true probity.
   If you will not yield an inch, then somebody else must move out of the
   way. If you cannot comply with their proposals, then other people will
   have to rescind their resolutions. So you will find that, if you
   suffer, and perhaps suffer severely at first, for decision of
   character, you will get speedy recompense for all you endure, and a
   grand immunity in the future. There will be an end to the indignities
   that are offered you. If it be not obstinacy, but real conscience that
   prompts you, you will rise to a position which otherwise you could not
   have attained. The opposition so strong against you at first will very
   likely lead to your enemies endorsing your views, and the dishonor you
   have meekly to bear will be followed by a deference flattering to your
   vanity, if not perilous to your future consistency. Only put your foot
   down now, be firm and unfaltering now. If you yield to-day, you will
   have to yield more to-morrow. Give the world an inch, and it will take
   many an ell. Be resolved, therefore, that no inch you will give, that
   to the lions' den you would sooner go than there should be
   equivocation, prevarication, or anything approaching to falsehood.
   However great the difficulty may be at the outset, yet do it, and you
   will be unhurt: you will be an immediate gainer by it, and, to the rest
   of your days, God will give you a better and happier life than ever you
   have had before. "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his
   enemies to be at peace with him." You Christian soldiers in the
   barracks, be decided; stand up for Jesus. You will be ridiculed at
   first, but you will live that down before long. But if you are
   cowardly, the ridicule will last many and many a day, and your
   fellow-soldiers will take delight in laughing at you. If any of you are
   in a workshop, take courage, do not yield. Why should not we have our
   way, as they have theirs? Young men in business, take care how you
   begin your business in an honest, straightforward manner; for, if you
   begin it with artifice and crooked stratagem, it will go on crooked,
   and then, it you try to get straight, you will find it very difficult.
   But begin as straight as a line, never swerve from it. Act on the
   outset as a Christian should. What if employers should frown, or
   customers be vexed, or friends fail? Bear it! It will be the best
   policy in the long run. That is not, however, for you to consider. Do
   the right thing, whatever happens. Let us be as Daniel. Oh that the
   young among you would emulate the purpose of heart with which Daniel
   began life! Oh that the active and vigorous among you would seek with
   Daniel's constant prayerfulness for that high gift of wisdom equal to
   all emergencies with which God so richly endowed him! And, oh, that the
   harassed, tempted, and persecuted among you would learn to keep a clean
   conscience in the midst of impurities, as Daniel did; to preserve, like
   him, faith and fellowship with the faithful and true God, though living
   among strangers and foreigners, profane in all their thoughts and
   habits; and to hold the statutes and commandments of the Lord as more
   to be desired than wealth or honor—yea, dearer to you, as Daniel
   accounted them, than even life itself! So shall you honor God, and
   glorify Christ, and bless and praise his precious name in a way in
   which nothing else but decision of character can possibly lead you to
   do. God grant us all to have Christ for a Savior, and to live to his
   praise. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON—Daniel 6.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Chariots Of Amminadib

   (No. 1155)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Before I was even aware, my soul made me like the chariots of
   Amminadib." Song of Solomon 6:12.

   WE cannot be quite sure at this date what these chariots of Amminadib
   were to which the Inspired poet here refers. Some suppose that he may
   have alluded to a person of that name who was renowned, like Jehu of
   old, for his furious driving. Therefore it might have been familiar at
   the time and afterwards have become proverbial to speak in metaphor of
   the chariots of Amminadib. The conjecture seems harmless, still it is
   only a conjecture, and cannot be verified. It is quite possible,
   however, that our translators may have retained as a proper name a
   conjunction of two words, which, taken separately, are capable of being
   interpreted.

   You remember the word "Ammi" as it occurs in the prophet Hosea? "Say
   unto your brethren, Ammi," which signifies "you are My people," even as
   before He had said, "Call his name Loammi, for "you are not My people."
   The one word Ammi, thus stands for "people," and the other word,
   "Nadib," means "willing," so that the two united may be rendered
   "willing people"--"like the chariots of a willing people." Or the words
   may be read, I think, more correctly, "The chariots of the princely
   people"--the princely chariots, the chariots of the prince.

   Some have understood them to mean the chariots of God, of the people
   that surround the Great Prince, Himself, that is to say, the chariots
   of the angels, according as we read, "The chariots of God are twenty
   thousand, even thousands of angels." In this case the figure would be a
   very striking one--"Before I was even aware, my soul made me like the
   chariots of the attendants upon the Great King. I was like the cherubim
   themselves, all aglow with consecrated fire." In whatever way the
   critical point is deciphered, the practical solution appears to be
   this--the writer's soul was quickened because full of life, full of
   energy, full of might, full of spirit and full of princely dignity,
   too. And not only stimulated to a high degree, but also elevated,
   lifted up from dullness, indifference, and apathy--"Before I was even
   aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib."

   To whom does this text refer? Probably those of us who would never
   raise a doubt about the Song being a dialogue between Christ and the
   spouse--a matter we have no intention to canvass just now--as we take
   it for granted. We might find no small difficulty in determining to
   which of the two sacred personages this speech belongs, whether it was
   to Solomon or to Shulamite (the masculine or the feminine variety of
   the same name)--the Prince the husband, or the princess the
   spouse--whether, in a word, it was Christ or the Church. There is very
   much to be said for its being Christ Himself that is speaking.

   You will notice in this chapter that, from the fourth verse, He has
   been referring to His Church. "You are beautiful, O My love, as Tirzah,
   comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. Turn away your
   eyes from Me, for they have overcome Me," and so on. He is speaking of
   His Church on to the 10th verse. "Who is she that looks forth as the
   morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army
   with banners?" Then the 11th verse proceeds, "I went down into the
   garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the
   vine nourished, and the pomegranates budded. Before I was even aware,
   My soul made Me like the chariots of Amminadib." May it not be the Lord
   Himself who is speaking here?

   We may entertain the question for a moment without absolutely fixing
   upon this as its proper solution. If it refers to Christ, it means just
   this--that He had been, for a while, away from His people. They had
   grieved Him and He had hid His face from them. Out of very love and
   faithfulness He felt bound to chasten them, by hiding from them the
   brightness of His Countenance. But He began to think tenderly of His
   people--His heart turned towards His Church--and while He was thinking
   of her, He saw such beauties in her that His soul was melted with her
   charms. Oh, what an extraordinary thing that He should see loveliness
   in His poor imperfect Church!

   And He saw such a loveliness about her, as her image rose up before His
   face, that He said, "You have ravished My heart, My Sister, My Spouse;
   you have ravished My heart with one of your eyes." "Turn away your eyes
   from Me, for they have overcome Me." And then, musing upon her, still,
   and coming into her garden and seeing the various Graces like plants
   and flowers in their different stages of development, His heart began
   to grow warm again towards her and all that concerned her. It had never
   really been cold--it only seemed so in the deviation of His accustomed
   manner. But, like Joseph before his brethren, He could not refrain any
   longer.

   When He saw some of His people budding with desires, others bursting
   into the realization of those desires. When He saw some like ripe and
   mellow fruit upon the bough, ready for Heaven. When He saw others just
   commencing the Divine life, He was charmed to be in the garden of
   nuts--before He was even aware, He found He must be with His people--He
   must return in the fullness of His love to His Church! Not her beauties
   only, but the kindling of His own soul began to stir Him. His Free
   Grace sought free hope--His Infinite love became more than a match for
   the temporary prudence that had made Him hide His face, and, swift as
   the chariots of Amminadib, did He speed back to His people to let them
   see Him again--to let them enjoy His fellowship again.

   There are other Scripture passages where the Savior is spoken of as
   being like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether, or
   division, because He is so willing to come to His people--so willing to
   make matters up with them--and end the days in which they mourn because
   the Bridegroom is absent. When He has hidden His face for a while out
   of love for them, and out of desire to reveal to them their faults--I
   say again, He is so willing to blot out their faults once more and to
   return to them again with mercies--that His return is compared for
   swiftness and irresistibleness to the motions of the chariots of
   Amminadab!

   It is a delightful thought that if communion between our souls and
   Jesus is suspended, it is not because He takes pleasure therein. His
   delights are with the sons of men. He a thousand times invites His
   chosen to abide in Him, to continue in His love and to remain in His
   company. In this Song He cries again and again, "Come with Me, My
   Spouse." This should encourage us to seek Him for renewed love-tokens,
   however serious may have been our departures from Him, and however dark
   our prospects under the hiding of His face. If He who is the aggrieved
   party is eager to be reconciled, the matter is easy and we may at once
   rise to the blessed condition from which our sin has cast us down.
   Jesus longs to embrace us! His arms are opened wide--do not our hearts
   warm at the sight? Do we not at once rush to His bosom and find a new
   Heaven in a fresh sense of His boundless love? Why hesitate? What
   possible cause can there be for abiding in darkness? Lord, we fall upon
   Your bosom and our joy returns!

   Not that I intend to adopt that view as the groundwork of our present
   reflections. It appears to me that without the slightest degree of
   twisting the passage, or deviating from an honest interpretation, we
   may understand that this is the language of the Church concerning
   Christ. If so, Christ's words conclude at the end of the 10th verse and
   it is the Church that speaks at the eleventh. There is not an instance
   in the whole Song, so far as I can remember, of the Prince, Himself,
   speaking in the first person singular. Therefore, this would be a
   solitary exception, or else, following the current plan, where the same
   pronoun is used, the Church is speaking to Christ and telling Him of
   herself.

   "I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valley,
   and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded.
   Before I was even aware, my soul made me like the chariots of
   Amminadib." Taking the text, then, as referring to the Church in
   particular, and more generally to the Lord's people, there will be four
   observations which we would pointedly make and prayerfully meditate.
   May God bless us, now, in fulfilling this purpose!

   I. Our first observation shall be this. What is most needed in all
   religious exercises is THE MOTION, THE EXERCISE OF THE SOUL. "Before I
   was even aware, my soul made me"--or my soul became--"like the chariots
   of Amminadib." Soul-worship is the soul of worship and if you take away
   the soul from the worship, you have killed the worship--it becomes dead
   and barren. Let us turn over that well-known thought.

   It may benefit us if we look at the many sides of it. There are
   professors in this world who are perfectly content if they have gone
   through the mechanical part of public devotion. If they have occupied
   their seats, joined in the hymns and the prayers, and listened to the
   preaching, they go away quite content and easy. They would not like to
   be absent from the solemn assembly and their conscience would prick
   them if they neglected the outward ordinances. And having gone through
   them and complied with the accustomed form, they are perfectly content
   with themselves--and think they have done that which is lawful and
   right--comely and excellent.

   Now, it is never so with the child of God. If his soul is awakened from
   the torpor of death, and his sensibilities quickened into the vigor of
   life, he will feel that unless in the song he has really praised God in
   strains of gratitude with emotions of thankfulness, he has rather
   mocked his heavenly Father than acceptably adored Him. He knows that in
   prayer, if it is not the soul that speaks with God, it is but the
   carcass of prayer, destitute of the sweet savor which can find
   acceptance with God, and of the sweet satisfaction that can bring
   refreshment to one's own breast. When he hears the Word preached, he
   longs to feel it penetrate his heart, even as the rain soaks into the
   soil. And if he cannot so receive the Truth of the Gospel when it
   breaks on his ears as the engrafted Word that saves his soul, and so
   feed upon it as the Bread of Life which nourishes his soul, he goes
   away sad at heart, deploring that, while others were feasting at the
   banquet, he was there without appetite and had not the pleasure or the
   profit which they derived.

   Beloved, in our public services we ought to account nothing truly and
   rightly done which is not done with the heart. That is one reason why
   in this Tabernacle we have tried to lay aside everything of outward
   show or external form which might distract the thoughts or disturb the
   simplicity of waiting on the Lord. As far as I can, I try to avoid the
   use of all symbols, except the two which Scripture has ordained--lest
   the symbol should tempt you to rest satisfied with itself, as I believe
   it generally does--and so prevent your reaching the Lord with your
   heart. We try to lay aside everything that would at all touch your
   senses in the worship--anything which appeals to the ear in the way of
   sweet music--anything of the aesthetic that would appeal to the eye.

   If you do not worship God with your souls, I hope you will get tired of
   our fellowship. Yet, be it confessed, I painfully feel that it is
   almost as easy not to worship God with the bald plainness of Quakerism
   as it is not to worship God with the studied pomp of Ritualism! In any
   form, or without any form of worship, the amount of real devotion must
   be measured by the quantity of soul that is in it--provided the quality
   is pure, sincere, guileless. If the soul is there in the full exercise
   of its powers and passions, knowing what is revealed and feeling what
   is Inspired, I believe God is gracious to pity and forgive a thousand
   mistakes in outward fashion and skill of execution.

   The preacher's modulation may be faulty and the people's singing may be
   ill-timed to barbarous tunes without peril of the unpardonable sin. But
   if the soul is lacking, though you should have worshipped according to
   the pattern given on the Mount and have never had a word uttered or a
   sound made but such as, in itself, would be accredited by men and
   acceptable with God had it been quickened by the Spirit, yet without
   that Divine Spirit, which alone can give force and fervor to the human
   soul, it is all null and void!

   I think every genuine Christian knows it is so and feels it is so. He
   says, "My heart cries out for God, for the living God!" Nor can he be
   satisfied unless he finds God and draws near before Him. As in public
   worship, it is precisely the same in our own private and personal
   transactions with the Most High. The religious worldling will say a
   prayer when he wakes in the morning, and perhaps, unless he is out
   late, or too sleepy at home, he will have a bit of prayer at night,
   again, in the way of the repetition of some collect, or something which
   he has learned by rote. And very likely he has family prayer, too. It
   is not so much a custom as it was, but there are some who think they
   cannot go through the day unless they have what they call, "Prayers."

   But mark how the Christian prizes private prayers above everything that
   has to do with the ordering of his daily habits! And look how he
   esteems family prayer to be a necessity of every Christian household!
   At the same time he is not content because he prays for a few minutes
   unless he draws near to the Lord. He is not satisfied because he
   gathered his children together and read the Scriptures and prayed with
   them, if, on adding up the sum total of the day, he is compelled to
   say, "It was heartless worship. When I awoke it was heartless worship.
   When I gathered my children and my servants it was the same. And it was
   sleepy, heartless worship when I knelt by my bedside and professed to
   seek the Lord

   at nightfall."

   If it is heartless it is unacceptable! God cannot receive it. If we
   have not thrown our heart into it, depend upon it, God will never take
   it to His heart and be pleased with it. Only that prayer which comes
   from our heart can get to God's heart. If we pray only from the lips,
   or from the throat, and not low down from the very heart of our nature,
   we shall never reach the heart of our Father who is in Heaven. Oh, that
   we may be more and more scrupulous and watchful in these things! In the
   diary of Oliver Heywood, one of the ejected ministers, he often says,
   "God helped me in prayer in my chamber and in the family." And once he
   writes thus--"In my chamber this morning I met with more than ordinary
   incomings of Divine Grace and outgoings of heart to God."

   I am afraid we may get satisfied with ourselves, especially if we are
   regular in private Scripture reading, private prayer, family prayer and
   public prayer. Instead of being satisfied with these exercises we ought
   to be weeping over them and deploring the formal and heartless manner
   in which we are prone to discharge them. Be it always remembered that
   we do not pray at all unless the soul is drawn out in pleading and
   beseeching the Lord. Si nil curarem, nil orarem, said Melanchthon,
   "Were I without cares, I should be without prayers."

   Now, perhaps you may know a friend of yours who thinks himself a poet.
   He can make poetry at any time, all the year round! Just pull him by
   the sleeve and he will make you, very soon, a verse or two at the spur
   of the moment to show the readiness of his wit and the versatility of
   his talent. Yet I dare say you think that he is about as far off from
   being a poet as a sparrow is from being an eagle! You know if he were a
   poet he would not be able to command the glow of imagination at one
   time and at another time he would hardly be able to control it. He
   would sometimes have a Divine melting upon him, as some call it, and
   then noble thoughts in appropriate words would flow from his pen.
   Otherwise he would be just as dull and insipid as ordinary mortals. He
   would tell you indignantly that he could not write verses to order like
   those who scribble rhyme to advertise a tailor's wares. Unless the
   inspiration comes upon me, he would say, I cannot compose a line!

   In like manner, a man cannot always pray--and the man who pretends he
   can, only utters jargon! He never prays at all, as the other never
   makes poetry at all. Prayer is a Divine art. It is a thing which needs
   the Inspiration not of the muses, but of the Spirit of God, Himself,
   and it is when the Spirit comes upon us with Divine force and makes our
   soul like the chariots of Amminadib that we can pray! And at other
   times when that Spirit is not with us, we cannot pray as we did before.
   Every living child of God knows this. We must measure our prayers by
   the state of soul that we were in. Take another illustration from the
   painter. One person, who thinks himself a painter, can paint any day
   you like anything you ask him--a mountain, a river, a horse, an insect,
   or a flower--it is all the same to him. He takes a brush and soon
   produces something which ordinary people might think to be a picture.

   But send that daub of his to the Royal Academy and they will tell you
   that it may do for a tea tray, but not for the walls of a gallery. But
   the man that can paint, how does he mix his colors? The great painter
   will tell you that he mixes his brains with his colors--and when he
   takes his brush and dips it into the paint, he lays it on with his
   soul. In a great picture, such as sometimes we have seen by a Titiens,
   or a Raphael, it is not the color, but the man's heart that has got out
   onto the canvas. Somehow he has managed to drop his brush into his
   soul! That is real painting. And so it is with prayer. The most humble
   man that prays to God with his soul understands the fine art of prayer.
   But the man who chants a pompous liturgy, or repeats an extemporaneous
   effusion has not prayed. He has dashed off what he thinks to be a
   picture, but it is not a picture, it is not a prayer.

   Had it been a prayer it would have had a palpable inspiration in its
   light and shade. A painting may consist of few lines, but you will see
   the painter's hand in it. And a prayer may consist of only half a dozen
   words, but you can see the hand of God in it. The formality repels you
   in the one case--the vitality attracts you in the other. So we will
   come back to the proposition with which we started. We can only pray
   according to the proportion in which our soul puts forth its force and
   feeling. And it is the same with praise. We have praised God up to the
   amount of soul that was in the sense as well as in the sound--be it
   with an organ or without an organ--with good music or with groans that
   cannot be uttered. We may have praised God either way, but only if our
   soul has been in full swell. With every kind of religious exercise, the
   soul is the standard of the whole compass of worship.

   II. We proceed to a second remark. SOMETIMES IT HAPPENS THAT THE HEART
   IS NOT IN THE BEST

   STATE FOR DEVOTION. If religion is a matter of soul, it cannot always
   be attended to with equal pleasure and advantage. You can always grind
   a barrel organ--it will invariably give you the same discordant noise
   which people call music--but the human voice will not admit of being
   wound up in the same fashion, nor will it, for the most part, discharge
   the same monotonous functions. The great singer finds that his voice
   changes and that he cannot always use it with the same freedom. If the
   voice is a delicate organ, how much more delicate is the soul! The soul
   is continually the subject of changes.

   Ah, how often it changes because of its contact with the body! If we
   could be disembodied, oh, how we would praise God and pray to Him! "The
   spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak." I sat among some
   Brethren the other day who were devout, and I tried to be, but I had a
   splitting headache. I do not know whether you could pray under so
   grievous a

   disability--let me confess to you that I could not. At another time,
   not long ago, I was one of a solemn assembly, when various disturbances
   occurred in the room--somebody getting up and others coming in late, as
   some of you do--and I could not get into a right frame as I ought to
   have done. Little things will affect little minds and our minds, many
   of them, are little. In that case I could not pray because my mind was
   being distracted and my attention was being taken away.

   Such distractions frequently happen and they bitterly remind us of our
   infirmities. The Apostles, themselves, fell to sleeping when they ought
   to have been praying. And under Paul's preaching, Eutychus went to
   sleep, and Paul never blamed him. He died as the result of it, but he
   got raised again from the dead, so I suppose there was no fault in him.
   We may sometimes, without any willfulness on our part, as a necessary
   result of the weakness of our nature, or the stress of our toil and
   care, have brought ourselves into a condition in which we cannot feel
   like the chariots of Amminadab--and it is no use for us to attempt it!
   The body affects the soul materially and a thousand outside agencies
   will tell upon our mental susceptibilities.

   I have known persons come into this Tabernacle who have, perhaps, been
   annoyed with somebody in their pew, or somebody outside. It ought not
   to be so, but it is so. A little fly buzzing about one's face--as small
   a thing as that--will disturb one's devotion so that you cannot pray as
   you would and as you desire. And then, alas, our sins are a much more
   serious hindrance to our devotion. A sense of guilt puts us into such a
   state that we cannot be bold in our faith and childlike in our
   confidence when we appear before God. Perhaps we have been angry. How
   can we come before the Lord calmly when our spirit has been just now
   tossed with tempest? Probably we have been seeking the world and going
   after it with all our might. How can we suddenly pull up and put all
   our strength into a vigorous seeking of the Kingdom of God and His
   righteousness in a moment?

   It is possible, too, that there is a sick child at home, or a wife
   lying suffering, or serious losses and crosses about business and
   domestic affairs. Perhaps one has a very heavy heart to bring before
   the Lord. Now God's Grace can help us to overcome all these things and
   can even make our souls like the chariots of Amminadab! We need Divine
   Grace for such emergencies. The soul, in its different phases and
   states, has need of help from the sanctuary to which it repairs.
   "Well," perhaps one here will say, "I always do what I think right
   every Sunday in much the same manner. I always pray the same and I
   don't know but what I can always sing God's praises the same." Yes, let
   me answer our good friend, I have no doubt of your thorough sameness,
   or of your habitual self-content.

   If you were to ask one of the statues in St. Paul's Cathedral how it
   felt, I have no doubt it would say that it always felt the same because
   it never had any feeling. Appeal to anything destitute of life and you
   will find that it has no change. But where there is life, and that
   which is intensely delicate--spiritual life--and where it is placed in
   circumstances so hostile to it as the circumstances which surround us
   here, there, I say, you will find that not only the revolutions of the
   seasons, but the variations of the temperature affect it. And every man
   who has this life in him experiences such changes. We have read of
   those who have no changes--and therefore they do not fear God. The fact
   that a Believer cannot, at all times, draw near to God as his spirit
   would desire, becomes accordingly the key which interprets to him the
   Grace and goodness whereby he sometimes gains access after a manner
   that surprises and delights his spirit.

   III. This leads cheerfully up to our third observation--THERE ARE
   SEASONS WHEN OUR HEART IS SWEETLY MOVED TOWARDS GOD. "Before I was even
   aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib."

   Have you not proved welcome opportunities when all your thoughts have
   been quickened, enlivened and stimulated to activity in the highest
   degree about your highest interests? We have ceased to moan--

   "Our souls, how heavily they go

   To reach eternal joys,"

   and we have been all wings, and could soar and mount aloft Like David!
   We could have danced before the ark of God for very joy! And if any had
   said to us that we might, ourselves, fall by our enthusiasm while we
   seemed vile by our hilarity, we should have replied that we purposed to
   be viler still!

   All within us was awake--there was not a slumbering faculty. Our memory
   told us of the goodness of the Lord in days gone by and our hopes were
   regaled by the mercy which we had not tasted yet, but which was made
   sure to us by promise and brought near to us by faith. Our faith was
   active and bright of eye. Our love, especially, shed a clear light over
   all our prospects. Oh, we have had blessed times when our soul has been
   light and rapid as the chariots of

   Amminadib! And at such times we were conscious of great elevation. The
   chariots of Amminadib were those of a prince. And oh, we were no more
   mean and low, beggarly and groveling--we saw Christ!--and were made
   kings and princes and priests with Him!

   Then we longed to crown His head. Then we could have performed martyrs'
   deeds. Then we were no cowards, we were afraid of no foes. We sat down
   at the feet of Jesus and thought everything little compared with Him!
   Suffering for His sake would have been a gain! And reproach would have
   been an honor! We had princely thoughts, then--large, liberal,
   generous, capacious thoughts concerning Christ and His people, His
   cause and His conquests--our souls were like the chariots of Amminadab!
   At the same time they were full of power, for, when the chariots of
   Amminadib went forth, who could stop them? Who could lay his hand upon
   the reins and turn the coursers as they went onward in their mighty
   tramping? Such was our spirit! We laughed at thoughts of death and
   poured contempt upon the trials of life. We were "strong in the Lord
   and in the power of His might." Oh, what splendid times we have had
   when God has been with us!

   Do you remember when you had them? I remember, when newly converted,
   how full my spirit was of love and holy triumph, like the chariots of
   Amminadab! Yours, no doubt, were much like mine. The love of your
   espousals was upon you. With what pleasing rapture you embraced your
   Lord and said, "I will never let You go." Stronger is love than death
   or Hell. You felt it to be so. You flamed and burned and glowed--and
   though in yourself you were like low brushwood--yet you were like the
   bush in the desert that burned with fire because God was in your soul!
   Do you remember that? Well, since then, in private prayer, you have
   sometimes had gracious access, and meditation has been added to prayer,
   and the love of Christ has come in upon you like a great flood tide and
   drowned everything in your soul except itself.

   There have been periods when a sense of the eternal, immutable,
   never-ending love of God--His electing sovereign favor, the love of God
   in giving His Son for you--have been upon your spirit with a mighty
   influence that has laid you prostrate for very joy! You could not speak
   because words were too poor to express the emotions of your soul! You
   had to feel the force of James Thomson's hymn of the seasons--"Come,
   then, expressive silence, muse His praise," for you could not speak it.
   You know it has been so with you. sometimes--and has not it been so,
   sometimes, under the Word, when you have been ready to stand up and
   clap your hands for joy?

   Have not I seen gratitude and exultation reflected on your faces,
   sometimes, when the Lord has been present in the preaching of the
   Gospel? When the Truth of God has come to you like marrow and fatness
   from the King's own hands till Dr. Watts has proved to be a faithful
   interpreter of the very scene and circumstance that ravished your
   heart?--

   "The King Himself draws near

   And feasts His saints today.

   Here we may sit and see Him here,

   And love, and praise, and pray." Oh, yes, in God's House you have known
   the days of Heaven upon earth! Might I speak for the rest of you I
   should pronounce the choicest periods of fellowship those we have found
   at the Lord's Table. When the bread has been broken and the wine poured
   out down in the Lecture Hall, He has been with us in the breaking of
   bread! If ever we have come near to Christ, surely it has been in that
   blessed communion!

   There are the windows of agate and the gates of carbuncle through which
   Christ comes to His people in the ordinances He has ordained. By His
   Grace we will never slight them! We cannot! The Master puts such
   reality and fullness of joy into them--apart from Him they are idols.
   But with Him, when He is there, when we have the real Presence--not the
   superstitious presence some speak about--but the real Presence which
   His own Spirit imparts and our waiting souls participate--ah, then we
   have said--

   "No beams of cedar or of fir

   Can with His courts on earth compare,

   As myrrh new bleeding from the tree,

   Such is a dying Christ to me."

   Not infrequently, too, have I known that the Lord has appeared to His
   people and warmed their hearts when they have been working for Him.
   Some idle, indolent, sluggish professors who have used the ordinances
   have not found benefit in the ordinances because the Lord has intended
   to rebuke their sloth.

   But when they have got up and gone forth among the poor. When they have
   gone forth to visit the sick, the sorrowful and the dying, they have
   heard such delightful expressions from the lips of holy, suffering men
   and women, or felt their hearts so kindled by a sight of Divine
   compassion in the midst of desperate poverty and gracious pardon for
   grievous sin, that a quickening has come over them! And whereas they
   did not seem to care, before, whether souls were lost or saved, they
   have gone out into the world with zeal to win fresh trophies for the
   Messiah! Their hearts have been, by His Grace, like the chariots of
   Amminadib through the benefits they have received from Christian
   service!

   A great many Christian people never will be happy and never fully alive
   to the destinies that wait on their Redeemer till they get something to
   do to give them an interest in those mighty issues. The rule of the
   Christian life is, "If any man will not work, neither shall he eat." If
   you will not serve God as Christians, you shall not feed upon the sweet
   things of the kingdom to your own soul's comfort. A little more service
   and your soul would become like the chariots of Amminadib.

   Beloved, there is no need that I should enlarge. I merely say this to
   bring up your grateful memories that you may thank God for what He has
   done. Remember whatever He has done in the past He will do again in the
   future. When the Lord has come once to His people, He says, "I will see
   you again, I will come to you again, and your hearts shall rejoice." Of
   everything He has ever given you, He has got as much in store--and He
   is quite as able to give it to you now as He was before. You have never
   gone so high in joy but you may go higher yet! You have never drunk
   such draughts from the well of Bethlehem as left the well empty--you
   shall drink of it again.

   Do not say, "I had those sweet times when I was young, I shall never
   have them again." You shall have precious times again! Get back to your
   first love, dear Brother, dear Sister--go forward to a higher love than
   ever you had, for God will help you say, "I look back and think--

   "What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!

   How sweet their memory still!

   But they have left an aching void

   The world can never fill."

   Thank God for that ache! Bless God for the aching void. If your soul
   aches for God, He will be to your relief before long. Whenever a soul
   puts up a flag of distress at the masthead, he may be sure that Christ
   is on the lookout for just such a soul. He has thrown up the windows of
   Heaven and wherever He sees a soul that does what is right and longs to
   find joy and reconciliation with God, He will come to it--and before
   long it shall be better for you than even the chariots of
   Amminadab--and more desirable.

   IV. Our last observation is this--SOMETIMES THE SWEET SEASONS COME TO
   US WHEN WE DO NOT EXPECT THEM. "Before I was even aware, my soul made
   me like the chariots of Amminadib." Some poor hearts do not reckon ever
   to have these joys again. They say, "No, no. They are all gone. The
   last leaf has blown from the tree. The last flower has faded in the
   garden. My summer is past. It is all over with me!" That is the bitter
   complaint and the hollow murmuring of unbelief. But the Lord for whom
   you wait can suddenly appear--and while you are saying hard things of
   yourself He can refute them with the beams of His Countenance.

   Even at this very moment you may stand like Hannah, a woman of
   sorrowful spirit, feeling as if you would be sent away empty. Yes, and
   God's servant, himself, may address you with rough words as Eli did
   her--and may even tell you that you are drunk when it is deep grief
   that enfeebles your steps and chokes your voice--and all the while the
   Lord may have in store for you such a blessing as you have never
   dreamed of! And He may say to you, "Go your way, My daughter. I have
   heard your petition, your soul shall have its desire." Before I was
   even aware, while my unbelief led me to think such a thing impossible,
   You have made me like the chariots of Amminadab! "Before I was even
   aware," as if it came upon me almost without my own consent. Glad
   enough I was when it did come, but it took me by surprise. It led me
   captive.

   Now, is not that the way that the Lord dealt with you when you were not
   aware of it, when you had no reason to expect Him, when you found and
   felt yourself to be utterly lost, ruined, and undone? Did He not
   surprise you with His mercy and prevent you with His lovingkindness?
   Again, you are diminished and brought low through oppression,
   affliction and sorrow. There is nothing that leads you to expect a
   season of joy--you are just as empty and unworthy as you can well be.
   You feel as if your heart were of stone and you cannot stir it, and you
   are saying, "I only wish I could enjoy the freedom that my companions
   have, and keep the solemn feasts with their holy gladness. But, alas,
   for me! I am

   afraid I have got to be a mere mechanical Christian without the lively
   instincts and lofty inspirations of spiritual worship."

   Thus you are writing bitter things against yourself. Oh, Beloved, the
   Lord is looking down upon you now as His son or daughter, as His own
   dear child! And He is about to surprise you with His infinite love! Let
   me give you one text to put into your mouth and take home with you. The
   Lord has said, concerning every one of His people, "You are all fair,
   My Love; there is no spot in you." "Why, now, I am all covered over
   with spots and blemishes," you say, "and no beauty!" But the Lord Jesus
   Christ has washed you with His blood and covered you with His
   righteousness! Do you think He can see any imperfection in that? You
   are members of His body, united to Him!

   In Christ you are without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. You are
   all spots in yourself, but He sees you as He intends to make you before
   He has done with you--and He can discern unspeakable beauties in you.
   "Oh," you say, "does He think that? Surely, then, I see unspeakable
   beauties in Him! His love to me opens my eyes to see how dear an one He
   must be. Is He enamored of me? Has He given His whole heart to me? Did
   He prove His love to me by bleeding on the Cross? Oh, then, I must love
   Him, if He will but let me! Shall such a poor worm as I am love
   Infinite Perfection? Oh, yes, I must, since Infinite Perfection deigns
   to love me! And since the Sun of Righteousness, in all His Glory deigns
   to shine on my soul!"

   You are beginning to warm already, I see you are! Before you are aware,
   your soul is making you like the chariots of Amminadab! And if you keep
   on with these holy contemplations, you will leave off all misgivings
   about your love to Him, so deeply absorbed will you be in musing on His
   love to you! You will forget all the while about your sin, while you
   remember the blood that has put that sin away--the perfect
   righteousness that has made you accepted in the Beloved-- and the
   Everlasting Covenant which, through Grace, has put your feet upon a
   rock and saved your eyes from tears and your feet from falling!

   Engaged in such sweet soliloquies, before you are aware, your soul will
   make you like the chariots of Amminadab! The Lord make it so! God grant
   that surprising Grace may come likewise even to sinners, and lead them
   to Jesus, and constrain them to look to Jesus. Then, while looking,
   faith will breathe in their spirit so that they will sing--

   "Your mercy is more than a match for my heart,

   Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart.

   Dissolved by Your goodness, I fall to the ground

   And weep to the praise of the Glory I've found."
     __________________________________________________________________

Rubbish

   (No. 1156)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "There is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall"
   Nehemiah 4:10.

   REMEMBER that Jerusalem had been totally destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar
   and what is meant by the destruction by the Babylonians may be inferred
   from the vast heaps of the dust of powdered bricks and charred wood
   which have been discovered upon the sites of cities which were utterly
   razed to the ground by the fierce soldiers of that terrible king. The
   ruins are frequently so complete that even tradition has forgotten the
   name of the mound or heap which is the sole memorial to mark the
   sepulcher of a queenly city. The Babylonians made sure work when they
   did it, their plowers made deep furrows and their destroyers cried one,
   to another, "Overturn, overturn, overturn, till not a stone shall abide
   in its place."

   They reaped a nation with their swords as corn is cut down by the
   sickle and they beat their cities till the ruins were small as the dust
   of the summer threshing floor. Do you wonder that on the site of
   Jerusalem there remained much rubbish? Many modern destroyers have done
   their desolating work most wonderfully and I may venture to quote what
   I have seen of their doings as an example of the much rubbish with
   which the foundations of a ruined city are sure to be covered. I have
   stood upon the Palatine Mount in Rome, where formerly the pale of the
   Caesars raised themselves in more than imperial grandeur. But what an
   Alp of fragments! What a mountain of broken walls and columns, and
   stones peering upward like the natural rock of mother earth!

   Houses, convents, palaces have been built upon the mass and for many
   seasons trees have bloomed and fruited, and gardens have brought forth
   their harvests above the spot where once the imperial tyrant was known
   to awe the nations with a nod. To restore the palaces of the Palatine,
   the first labor would be the unearthing of the foundations--and this
   would probably be as huge an undertaking as the rebuilding of the
   palaces, themselves. A mountain must be carried away before a stone can
   be laid. If you were able to visit the Forum at Rome, you would see, if
   you were there today, numbers of laborers with horses and carts
   continually at work taking away hundreds of thousands of tons of
   rubbish which have covered up all that still remains of the ancient
   center and heart of Rome.

   Jerusalem, I do not doubt, was one vast heap made up of the debris of
   its houses, of the tower and armory of David, of the palace of the
   king, and of the Temple itself. And though now, at the period we are
   about to speak of, the temple had been rebuilt and modern houses
   covered the site of the older Jerusalem, yet, when they came to the
   wall of the city, with the view of thoroughly restoring it, they found
   it a complete ruin--and such a ruin that the mass which covered it up
   was difficult to dig through. They could not build the wall because
   there was so much rubbish.

   Now, this, it seems to me, is intended, or at least may justifiably be
   used, for a type of the work which God's people have to carry on in the
   name of Jesus and in the power of His Holy Spirit, in the world. We
   have to build the walls of the Church for God, but we cannot build it
   for there is so much rubbish in our way. This is true, first, of the
   building of the Church, which is the Jerusalem of God. And this is
   equally true of the temple of God, which is to be built in each one of
   our hearts. Full often we feel discouraged. Though we hear the voice
   that says, "But you, Beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy
   faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,"
   still we are apt to feel that we cannot build this wall because there
   is so much rubbish.

   I. I shall speak first, then, of the great work comprised in THE
   BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH. Now, this enterprise is the work of God. He
   alone can build the Church. "When the Lord shall build up Zion, He
   shall appear in His Glory." And we may build as we may, but "except the
   Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Still, our
   full and firm conviction that it is God's working does not at all
   interfere with the grand Truth of God that He employs agents for the
   building up of His Church in the world! That, in fact, He has
   commissioned us, His chosen servants, and sent us into the world, each
   one according to our ability and opportunity, to labor for Him.

   We work because God works by us. We are hindered, however, in this
   service by the fact that there is much rubbish in the way. It was
   always so. When Paul began to build for God, and the Apostles went
   forth as wise master builders, there lay before them, in towering
   heaps, the old Jewish rubbish--hard to remove, heavy to bear away--and
   in quantity equal to a huge hill. The foundation was there. Thank God
   we have not to lay that! That is laid in Christ Jesus, and firmly laid,
   and "other foundation can no man lay." But the Jews, with their
   traditions, had overlaid the foundations-- they had added to the Word
   of God. They had put glosses upon it. They had taken away its real
   meaning and put to it a meaning of their own.

   They had invented innumerable rites and ceremonies--and dark and
   mysterious traditions of the fathers, so that though a man should seek
   to find out the Truth of God--he could not by reason of the abundance
   of the confused material and traditional superstition with which they
   had covered it up. The Apostles had to begin their Gospel labor among
   their fellow countrymen in the midst of this much rubbish. No sooner
   did they begin to remove the worthless deposits than the lovers of
   tradition assailed them, raised a great dust, and became their violent
   persecutors. They followed them from city to city, scandalizing them
   and committing all manner of violence against them. You cannot remove
   ruins without awakening the owls and bats.

   The most rotten rubbish upon earth is sure to find some defender. By
   this rubbish many have gained their wealth and they are full of wrath
   if any threaten to disturb it. The Apostles soon found that they had
   fallen upon troublous times, yet by God's help, they cleared away that
   rubbish and were enabled to build their wall till the New Jerusalem
   became famous in the earth. They encountered, in the wider world of the
   Roman empire, the rubbish of old paganism and oh, what rubbish that
   was! He who is acquainted with the classic writers knows how polluted
   were the people of their times. Their satirists ascribe vices to them
   mirthfully which even with tears we would not dare to mention! The
   superstitions of the age were groveling to a hideous degree--their very
   gods were monsters of crime--and their sacred rites orgies of lust and
   drunkenness.

   The priests had successfully endeavored to make vice into a religion
   and under the pretence of mysterious worship had devised means for
   pandering to the most base passions of the most corrupt human nature.
   It is no small mass of rubbish which the student of today sifts over as
   he researches the Greek and Roman mythology. Men could not discover
   God, for many gods and many lords stood in the way. Neither could they
   believe in the simplicity of Jesus Christ because their foolish heart
   was darkened. "God made man upright, but he has found out many
   inventions." And all these inventions helped to turn him from his
   uprightness and to pervert his judgment. Yet those who went before us
   labored on amidst that foul and noisome rubbish--and were so successful
   in their earnest excavations--that at this day no one thinks of
   worshipping Jupiter, or Saturn, or Venus, or Mercury!

   These demon-deities have gone to the limbo from where they came. They
   have been smitten--smitten by the Gos-pel--and they have withered like
   grass so that no man bows himself before them anymore. The God of Truth
   has come-- and these bats and owls of the night have thrown themselves
   into obscurity and oblivion! This rubbish was cleared away and the
   foundations were built upon by earnest men that went before us, though
   they had to lay each stone in martyr blood and cement it with agonies
   and tears.

   Moreover, remember that in those early days the Church, in her
   building, had to encounter mountains of "much rubbish" of the various
   philosophies of mankind. There was a kind of "feeling after God" in the
   heathen mind, but this feeling after God was misdirected and proudly
   self-confident--and therefore it missed its way--and in the process of
   thought the more spiritual-minded among men (if I may venture to call
   men spiritual at all who were not renewed by Divine Grace) invented
   theories and superstitions which they thought to be exceedingly wise,
   but which, in fact, were folly, itself, dressed out in the robes of
   vainglory!

   These philosophies had a great following and exercised so powerful an
   influence that they were felt even in the Church itself. In the
   writings of the Apostles Paul and John you continually meet with
   allusions to the great Gnostic philosophy which perverted so many
   Christians. Ever since that day human wisdom has been a greater curse
   to the Church than anything else! The ignorance of Christians has never
   been so evil a thing, bad as it is, as the vain knowledge, the false
   wisdom with which men have been puffed up in their fleshly minds. It is
   an ill day when men know too much to know Christ! It is a great
   misfortune when men are too manly to be converted and to become as
   little children, and sit at the

   feet of the great Teacher! Yet there are many professors of religion
   who talk as if this was their condition and as if they were proud of
   it.

   Even at this present time the outside philosophies of unchristian men
   infect the Church, spoil her, injure her, dilute the wine of the
   kingdom, overturn the children's milk and, to a great extent, poison
   the Bread of Life. Sad that it should be so, but the rubbish of
   philosophy has always been in the way of the building up of the wall of
   the Church of God. The story of the Apostolic age may serve as a great
   comfort to us in these evil times. As they were hindered, so are we,
   but as they persevered and overcame even so will we, by our great
   Master's aid. After that lot of rubbish had been cleared away, the task
   was only begun, for soon after Apostolic times and the first zeal of
   Christians had gone, there came the old Roman rubbish, which in the end
   proved a worse hindrance than all which had preceded it.

   This Popish rubbish was found in layers--first one doctrinal error and
   then another and then another, and then another, and then another--till
   at this time the errors of the Church of Rome are as countless as the
   stars, as black as midnight and as foul as Hell! Her abominations reek
   in the nostrils of all good men. Her idolatries are the scorn of reason
   and the abhorrence of faith! The iniquities of her practice and the
   enormities of her doctrine almost surpass belief! Popery is as much the
   masterpiece of Satan as the Gospel is the masterpiece of God! There can
   scarcely be imagined anything of devilish craftiness or Satanic
   wickedness which could be compared with her--she is unparalleled as the
   queen of iniquity. Behold upon her forehead the name, MYSTERY, BABYLON
   THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

   The Church of Rome and her teachings are a vast mountain of rubbish
   covering the Truth of God! For weary years good men could not get at
   the Foundation because of this very much rubbish. Here and there a
   Wycliffe spied out the precious Cornerstone and leaped for joy because
   he could get his foot upon it, and say, "Jesus Christ Himself, elect
   and precious, is the Stone on which I build my hope." Here and there a
   John Huss, or a Jerome of Prague, or a Savonarola in the thick
   midnight, yet, nevertheless, found the Foundation and wept their very
   hearts out because of the much rubbish which threatened to bury even
   them while they were seeking Him!

   A master excavator was Martin Luther--how grandly he laid bare the
   glorious foundation of Justification by faith alone! An equally grand
   worker at this great enterprise was Master John Calvin who laid open
   long stretches of the ancient foundations of the Covenant of Grace.
   Well was he supported by his brother of Zurich, Zwingle, and John Knox
   in Scotland, and others in this land. They cleared away, for a while,
   some of the rubbish. But there was such a mass of it that they had to
   throw it up in heaps on either side--and it is beginning to come
   crumbling down again onto the foundation and to cover it up once more.

   A perfect reformation they could not work, and the remnant of the
   rubbish is now our plague and hindrance. Everywhere the much rubbish is
   being diligently cast upon the pile by the emissaries of the Evil One,
   and we can scarcely get to the foundations to build again the gold and
   silver and precious stones which God commits to us with which to build
   up His own house. Alas, there is very, very much rubbish! I saw in Rome
   that the waggoner which took away the earth from the Forum were marked,
   "Regia Scava." They belonged to the royal excavations and I long to see
   royal excavators, employed by the King of Kings, get to work to
   excavate, again, the foundations of the wall of Jerusalem and cart away
   some of the tremendous heaps of rubbish that still lie upon the walls.
   God grant we may see good and great work done in this direction before
   long.

   But, beloved Friends, if this rabbinical, pagan, philosophical and
   Romish rubbish were all gone, still the work would scarcely have begun,
   for there is yet very much rubbish of other kinds lying hereabout.
   There is so much rubbish arising from the world, the flesh and the
   devil, that we are not able to build the wall. Look at human sin. How
   that impedes us! Oh, if there were no false systems of religion. If
   priest and scribe were silent. If false prophets and Antichrist were
   both out of the way, yet the sins of men are a vast and hideous mass of
   rotten rubbish--and our labors of love are hindered by them. How hard
   it is to get at human ears--for the world has the first word--and often
   the last word, with the most of men. Eargate is choked with rubbish!

   How harder, still, it is to get at human hearts--for there Satan reigns
   as in his own palace--and takes care to erect huge barricades and
   earthworks of the rubbish of carnal lust and pride and unbelief! Men
   are wrapped up in indifference to eternal things, like mummies in their
   bands and gums. They give all their energy to the answering of the
   question, "What shall we eat and what shall we drink, and with what
   shall we be clothed?" Immortal as they are, they live only for

   mortality! Though their grandest destiny lies in eternity, yet all
   their efforts are bounded by the narrow space of time. Charm, O you
   charmer, ever so wisely, but this adder has no ear for you! This
   people, bent on its lusts, will still follow its own devices.

   Though Christ beckons with His pierced hand, yet they turn their back
   on Him--and even He from Calvary cries--

   "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by, Is it nothing to you that
   Jesus should die?" He is despised and rejected of men! They see no form
   nor comeliness in Him whose countenance contains within itself all
   celestial beauty. They cannot be got at by love or law, by tears or
   terrors, by prayers or preaching! They are absorbed in earthly things.
   We cannot build the wall for their much rubbish. They are wedded to
   their sins. They cling to their idols. They will not even think about
   their soul, or their God, or their Savior. They choose their own
   delusions and reject their own mercies. It seems as if everything in
   the world helped them to be this way--for the business of life, the
   care and the ease, the quiet and the noise, the tumult and the turmoil,
   alike, ensnare them--all these things are transformed by their
   alienated hearts into a mass of rubbish!

   With one man it is the pursuit, the arduous pursuit of learning. With
   another an intense greed for gold. With a third, ambition. With a
   fourth the lust of pleasure. But in each man the heap of rubbish
   prevents our getting at the heart. We cannot build the wall. Who among
   us has not often gone back to his God and said, "Who has believed our
   report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" And this age of
   competition seems to make things worse than ever. Some are so poor that
   they tell us they cannot listen, for they have to work and toil like
   slaves for their bread merely to keep body and soul together. And as
   for those who are rich--O God, help the rich! Still it is true and
   perhaps more true now, than ever, that, "it is easier for a camel to go
   through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
   kingdom of God." The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of
   riches are a mass of rubbish so that we cannot build the wall.

   Oh, how sad is the retrospect of the pastor as he remembers the many in
   whom he could never reach the conscience because of the intervening
   rubbish! And how mournful is the prospect that lies before him! Our
   only consolation is that if we cannot build, there is One who can--and
   if the rubbish is so much that the strength of the bearers of burdens
   is decaying, yet there is a Strength which is not decayed! There is an
   arm which is not weary and can perform all that is needed! I am afraid,
   dear Brothers and Sisters, that in the work of building up the Church
   the rubbish does not lie all with the sinners, but there is much of it
   also with the saints. There is very much rubbish among professors, so
   that we cannot build the wall.

   I would be very patient with all men for I need much patience toward
   myself, but there are far too many, dear Brethren in Christ, who seem
   to me to spend all their time in diligently doing nothing. I have heard
   of a man who had, by dint of great patience and much skill, after many
   days of work, very splendidly carved the image of Caesar on a cherry
   stone. What a splendid result to have achieved! The exploit was duly
   reported and chronicled. But what of it? Truly, I have read books which
   seemed to me to be elaborately learned about nothing of any practical
   value and to amount to about as much as a carving on a cherry stone,
   and no more. What good was to come of it? I am sure I could not tell!

   Brothers come out, every now and then, in the religious world, with
   some new fad and fancy of theirs--some grand discovery that they have
   made, some wonderful point of doctrine, some marvelous, soul-stirring
   discovery, as it seems to be to them--and they expect all the world to
   stand still. They expect all the Churches to be broken up, and I don't
   know what, until they have exhibited this precious thing--which, when
   you have carefully looked at it, turns out to be very much like the
   mouse which was the famous product of the labor of the mountain! It
   comes to nothing more. There is very much rubbish about, Brothers and
   Sisters!

   And, therefore, for the present distress, if every minister were to
   keep to preaching Christ and Him Crucified, and nothing else, I think
   he would do well. And if every Christian man were to just keep to the
   plain Truths of Scripture and have them worked into his soul by the
   Holy Spirit--and then speak them out with power and fire for
   soul-winning, and care for nothing else, he would do well. But there is
   very much rubbish. A whole evening will be spent by Brethren in
   discussing a question about as valuable as the famous inquiry of the
   schoolmen--as to how many angels would be able to stand on the point of
   a single needle! After discussing it with some little temper, perhaps,
   and having prayed over it a good deal, too--though I wonder how they
   dared do so--the whole of it ends in a bag of wind or a bottle of smoke
   and nothing else.

   Had that same time been spent in the visitation of the sick and
   reclaiming the Arabs of our streets, the lifting up of the ruffianism
   and the blackguardism of London into something like decency, morality
   and Christianity, it might have been much better. But there is very
   much rubbish and I am very much afraid we, all of us, contribute to
   that rubbish heap a little. We have all some favorite notion, some
   conceit, some invention of our own, some addition to the Word, some
   subtraction from it, some impossible theory, some dogma or doctrine of
   our own inventing than of Bible teaching, and so there is very much
   rubbish so that we cannot build the wall. Does not one feel inclined,
   full often, to say, "Oh, how I wish I could get at it--really get at
   it--get to doing something for God, and Christ, and the souls of men"?
   Just let the dust cart come and clear the way. These very excellent
   works upon futurity and profound books upon nothing--yet, let them go,
   beautifully written as they are--and let us plunge into the middle of
   affairs and say, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of
   our Lord Jesus Christ."

   Now, two or three things about this matter by way of comfort. And the
   first comfort to us is, well, well, the Foundation is laid! The
   Foundation is laid--and in addition to the Foundation there are goodly
   rows of precious stones built up. The Lord has not yet laid all the 12
   jeweled courses, but the instructed eye may see some of the lower bands
   of precious stones. Looking back in history I can see a foundation of
   martyrs built upon Christ, who with the Apostles and confessors make up
   the lower foundations of jasper and sapphire and chalcedony. I can
   already see the glitter of those rows of gems upon the wall. Read in
   the book of Revelation and see how they are described. For the last
   1800 years, stone upon stone, without sound of hammer, they have been
   built and the walls are still rising!

   Glory be to God, the Gospel is a success! Notwithstanding the sneer of
   Sanballat and the cruel speech of Tobiah, the Ammonite, the wall is
   being built and the Divine eye is upon it! It is God's great piece of
   architecture and He regards it with delight. Concerning it, it may be
   said, "I the Lord do keep it. I will keep it every moment, lest any
   hurt it. I will keep it night and day." There is, for this building,
   the Divine decree, "Thus says the Lord, Behold the man whose name is
   THE BRANCH, He shall build the temple of the Lord, even He shall build
   the temple of the Lord, and He shall bear the glory." That decree is
   Omnipotent! It is being fulfilled and shall be fulfilled unto the end!

   I see at this moment the master Mason upon the wall and I read
   concerning Him, "He shall not fail or be discouraged," and I read yet
   again of Him, "The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." I
   see with Him, moreover, a band of men whose hearts the Lord has
   touched, and these labor day and night, and cease not--neither will
   they cease till the walls of Jerusalem are finished. He is the great
   master Builder, and we, each one of us, bearing both sword and trowel,
   as we are taught by Him, must be wise builders under His direction. The
   work is going on, for it is in hands that never weary and it is
   directed by a mind that never faints!

   By firm decrees, also, is it banded and built and cemented, so that it
   cannot fail, or so much as a stone be cast down. And we have this to
   encourage us--that God has never yet left a work unfinished! He began
   the creation. 'Tis true it was not so difficult a task as this building
   up of His Church, for in the creation, though there was nothing, there
   was nothing in the way--and He spoke and all things came into
   existence. Here in the building of the Church there are two works--
   destruction and creation--the removal of the old and the erection of
   the new. But, nevertheless, He who said, "Behold, I make all things
   new," is quite equal to the task to which He has set Himself. And as He
   did not leave the world half finished, did not make it a garden without
   a man to live in it--no, did not leave the man unfinished, but made the
   woman to be his helpmeet--so He will not leave the work of salvation to
   which He has once put His hand, unfinished, but course upon course
   shall the jewels be laid.

   Emerald shall follow chalcedony. The sardius shall be piled upon the
   sardonyx. The beryl upon the chrysolyte and the chrysoprasus upon the
   topaz, till, at length, in the appointed age, the last garnishing of
   jacinth and amethyst shall crown the wall! And then they shall bring
   forth the top stone with shouts of, "Grace, Grace unto it." He did not
   pause when He made the world because He needed fresh strength. He did
   not wait and say that the undertaking was too much. But its story ran
   on gloriously through all those wonderful six evenings and mornings
   until the seventh day came and the Lord rested from all His work. The
   six days are passing over us, now, with their evening gloom and morning
   brightness! The Lord is making the new world and He is building up His
   Church, slowly, as we think--but surely and in fit time and due order.

   Wait in patience and possess your souls, for there shall yet come that
   Millennial Sabbath in which, again, the sons of God shall shout for joy
   and the angels shall sing because the Word of God is accomplished and
   His work is done! Have

   courage, my Brothers and Sisters! Bear your burden in removing the
   rubbish! Use your sword and your trowel, for the work is the Lord's and
   it shall be accomplished! If it were ours, woe were the day in which it
   was laid upon such feeble shoulders! But since it is His we need not
   indulge a solitary trembling thought, but arise and be of good cheer!

   II. Now I change the subject to OURSELVES, awhile, and may God grant we
   may speak to profit for a few minutes upon that branch of our topic.
   There is a building going on in us. It is the Spirit's work to edify
   us. That is to say, to build us up in Divine Grace, and that building
   up is carried on by the Grace of love. "Knowledge puffs up, but love
   builds up." We are, each one of us, called to be builders--builders in
   God's strength, as I have said before--and let that not be forgotten.

   But, Beloved, I am afraid most of us have to say, "There is much
   rubbish, so that we are not able to build the wall." Do you not often
   feel that you cannot be built up in heavenly Graces because of the
   rubbish of your own corrupt nature? Oh, What a fall the Fall was! What
   a total ruin did it make of our moral nature! Brothers and Sisters, do
   you not dis-cover--I do, almost every day--some fresh heap of rubbish
   which you hardly knew was there? Points in which we thought ourselves
   strong turn out to be our weaknesses! There was an infirmity from which
   we half indulged the thought that we were clear and therefore we were
   rather severe upon others for having such an infirmity and sin. But at
   last it broke out in ourselves! It always had been in us, but it had
   not had the occasion and opportunity. At length the provocation came
   and the hidden evil was revealed.

   Ah, Brethren, much more of such rubbish remains in us! Oh, the rubbish
   of pride, of unbelief, of evil lusting, of anger, of despondency, of
   self-exaltation! Brothers and Sisters, it is not worth while to stir
   it, it is such a foul heap! I have no desire to turn a cinder sifter to
   it, for there is never a jewel in it that will pay for the sifting! But
   there it is and the building of Divine Grace does not advance as we
   would wish because of the corruption which still abides in us,
   notwithstanding all that some may say.

   Then there is oftentimes in Christian people the old rubbish of legal
   thought, of legal actions, and legal fear. In our old estate we were
   going to be saved by our own merits. That was our notion. Since our
   conversion, we doctrinally abhor the idea of any thought of human
   merit, but experimentally we indulge in it. The legal spirit will come
   in--like an ill weed it springs up spontaneously in the garden from
   which Grace uprooted it. Though we are not children of the bondwoman,
   but of the free, yet the flesh often tries to put the old yoke of
   bondage upon us, so that if Paul were here he would say to us, "Having
   begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?"

   Ishmael tries to domineer over Isaac, Though driven out of the house,
   he shows his tyrant face at the window. We get the bond slave's dread,
   yes, and sometimes entertain the bond slave's hope and think that we
   are to work for wages instead of understanding that the gift of God is
   Eternal Life, while the only wages we could earn would be the wages of
   sin, which is death. Oh, the old legal tendency! How deep-seated! How
   prone to revive! It will scarcely be conceived that sinners should, at
   the same time, be self-righteous and guilty--but yet it is so, that,
   abounding as we do in the tendency to sin--we equally abound in the
   tendency to fancy that in us, that is, in our flesh, there dwells some
   good thing. Therefore arises another heap of rubbish!

   And then old habits--what rubbish they are! You who have been, before
   your conversion, guilty of gross sin, do you not often find the
   remembrance of those old times coming over you like a hideous dream? I
   know some, who, when a hymn is given out, cannot help remembering an
   old song which they used to sing, which is suggested to them by,
   perhaps, the holiest word in the Psalm. Yes, and a text of Scripture
   has sometimes conjured up before their memory a sin which they wished
   with all their hearts had never occurred, and which they would give
   their eyes to forget! Yes, the old habits win struggle for mastery and
   if we do not fall into them, as I pray God we never may, yet will they
   vex and trouble us! And here, also, the much rubbish prevents the
   building up of the wall of the Divine life.

   So is it with worldly associations. Do you not find that even the
   common associations of business into which you are obliged to enter do
   very much heap rubbish upon the wall of your spirit? You have to meet
   with ungodly men. You cannot commend their tongues--you may rebuke
   their language when it becomes profane, but there is very much of talk
   which is not profane and which we could not very well rebuke--but
   which, nevertheless, is not sweet with godliness, or savory with Grace,
   and it damages us. We wish, sometimes, that we were altogether away
   from worldly men. We cry, "Woe is me that I dwell in Hesech, and
   tabernacle in the tents of Hedar!" And so, again, as the result of our
   being in the world, there is very much rubbish.

   And I will tell you another kind of rubbish that I think some Brothers
   and Sisters have quite enough of, if not too much. That is the idea
   that they have come to be somebody, after all. Many acquire that notion
   if they are getting on in the world. If God prospers them, they say,
   "Ah, now I really am a great one and worthy of much honor. I am not now
   like my poorer Brethren." It is sad to see what fine airs certain
   prosperous professors give themselves. They forget the rock from which
   they were hewn. They lift up their horn on high, as if they were more
   than mortal! That is rubbish, indeed.

   And there are some others who have had choice seasons of fellowship
   with Christ and they have been, for a while, free from temptation.
   There has been some great breaking up of the great deep of corruption
   within them and, therefore, they say, "Ah, now I am getting on! I
   think, somehow, I am getting up to the higher life. I should not wonder
   that I should be perfect one of these days." Rubbish, Brothers and
   Sisters! It is all rubbish! Every bit of it--it is not worthy harboring
   for an instant! It may be very glittering rubbish--it looks amazingly
   like gold--but, "all is not gold that glitters." Any notion of our own
   attainments which could lead us, for a moment, to speak of what we are
   with any degree of complacency is only rubbish! For my own part, I
   desire constantly to stand at the foot of the Cross, with no other
   testimony concerning myself than this--

   "I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."

   Personal holiness is to be sought for with all our hearts, and it can
   only be obtained by faith in Jesus Christ--by simple faith in Him.

   He gives us power to overcome sin through His precious blood, but,
   depend upon it, the moment we conclude that we have overcome and can
   say what Paul could not say--that he had attained and was already
   perfect--we are in an evil case! Our pride has overpowered our judgment
   and we are fools! If anyone here is in a condition in which he is able
   to open his mouth wide in his own praise, I would advise him to fetch a
   big dust cart, or rather all the dust carts in the parish and take that
   boasting, every shovel full of it, away! It is of no use to him and it
   will very soon make such dust as to fly in the eyes and ears of his
   Christian Brothers and Sisters. We cannot build the wall while there is
   so much of this proud rubbish!

   "In me, that is in my flesh, there dwells no good thing." Low down at
   the foot of the Cross, in the dust, is still our place--for we are, in
   ourselves, less than nothing--emptiness, vanity, death! That is our
   place. Christ is made of God unto you, "wisdom, righteousness,
   sanctification and redemption." In Him is all your glorying--and in
   Him, alone-- for if not so, the rubbish will cover up the foundation.
   Now, I will suppose that some of you are mourning tonight-- some of
   God's people--because of all this rubbish. I want to say this to you.
   First, dear Brothers and Sisters, thank God that you have the
   Foundation surely laid. Are you sure of that? I pray you rest not till
   you are certain of it--

   "I know that safe with Him remains,

   Protected by His power,

   What I've committed to His hands

   Till the decisive hour."

   "I know whom I have believed." None but Jesus, none but Jesus! There
   rests our souls' only hope--upon His precious blood and
   righteousness--every other hope we heartily abhor. Well, the Foundation
   is laid. Blessed be God for that! When a man is brought to rest alone
   in Jesus, then there is laid for him in Zion a sure foundation stone,
   and to that he is cemented by Sovereign Grace.

   Now, let us thank God, again, that the building up of His temple in us
   is His own work. He began it. He dug out and made clear to us our own
   emptiness. He cast out our self-righteousness and He laid Christ where
   our self had once been. The Lord did that and He has done everything
   else which has been done in us that has been worth the doing. I cannot,
   I am sure no Brother or Sister here can, look upon any step he has ever
   taken as a real advance in Divine life which was taken in any strength
   but in the strength of God. Whatever we have done of ourselves had been
   much better undone, for all that Nature spins will have to be unraveled
   sooner or later. "Salvation is of the Lord." Jonah learned that in the
   whale's belly. It was worthwhile getting into the whale's belly to
   learn. We need to know it through and through. Salvation is of the
   Lord, alone, and unto Him must be all the praise.

   And there is our comfort! It is His work to save us--we are not our own
   saviors--Christ is the Savior. It is the Spirit's work to make us meet
   to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. It is the
   Bridegroom, not the bride,

   that is to make the bride fit for her Husband. So says the Scripture.
   "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might
   sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He
   might present it to Himself, a glorious Church, not having spot, or
   wrinkle, or any such thing." It is He that presents the bride to
   Himself and He that makes her fit to be presented. Blessed be God, the
   work is in sure and competent hands!

   And therefore, finally, let us, by Divine Grace, work on in faith, with
   diligence. In faith, I say, believing our work of faith and labor of
   love are not in vain in the Lord--believing that prayer is not a vain
   exercise, that drawing near to God in communion is not a vain thing,
   that trusting in the Lord is no idle dream--but that surely He will
   complete what He has begun. But let us add to faith the most earnest
   endeavors--let us diligently strive to throw away this rubbish!
   Whatever bad habit obstructs our edification, God help us to conquer
   it! Whatever sin there is about us, may the blood of Jesus enable us to
   subdue it!

   Let us press forward, dear Brothers and Sisters, never content, never
   satisfied till we wake up in His likeness! And, as we have not all His
   likeness--not satisfied with ourselves, let us press forward, looking
   to that which is before us--and forgetting that which is behind. Faith
   and diligence, by God's good Grace, shall allow us to be built up on
   our most holy faith--not with wood and hay and stubble--but with gold
   and silver and precious stones which will abide the fire! Make sure you
   are built on the Foundation! That is the last and yet the first
   question--Are you on the Foundation? Some build very rapidly, but they
   are not on the Foundation. Yes, you have a fine character and you make
   a noble profession, but is the palatial structure based on the Rock, or
   on the sand?

   Our little children at the seaside will build very fine castles with
   their wooden spades. But the next tide sweeps all away because it is
   sand built on sand. I am afraid the religion of multitudes is just like
   that--sand built on sand. Is that your religion, dear Hearer? Does it
   consist of Church attendance, or going to Chapel and Prayer Meetings,
   and receiving sacraments, and all that? Well, then, it is sand built on
   sand! But if you are a poor and needy sinner and you have rested your
   soul on Jesus, and then, renewed in heart by His Spirit, have been
   zealous for good works--then is it no longer sand built on sand--but
   the work of the Spirit of God upon the one Foundation which God laid
   from all eternity, in the Person and the work of His only-begotten Son!

   The Lord bless you, every one of you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Nehemiah 4. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--623, 641, 665.

   MESSAGE:

   This sermon I have revised at Mentone after an attack of severe pain
   from which I am recovering, by God's good hand. I beg, in my great
   feebleness, to ask the prayers of my friends that I may return to my
   beloved sphere of labor free from the disease which is my constant
   cross, and that every personal trial may work in me for the good of
   others by rendering my ministry more deeply experimental. From this
   delicious retreat I desire Christian love to all the people of God, of
   whom I am both the servant and friend."

   C. H. SPURGEON.
     __________________________________________________________________

Shiloh

   (No. 1157)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Until Shiloh comes; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people
   be." Genesis 49:10.

   THE dying Patriarch was speaking of his own son, Judah, but while
   speaking of Judah, he had a special eye to our Lord, who sprang from
   the tribe of Judah. Everything, therefore, which he says of Judah, the
   type, he means with regard to our greater Judah, the Antitype, our Lord
   Jesus Christ. You will remember how Jacob gathered his 12 sons around
   his bed and, addressing them individually as representatives of the 12
   tribes that bear their names, uttered different predictions, and gave
   to each a special blessing. After first addressing Reuben, Simeon and
   Levi, he proceeds to salute Judah in words full of majesty--"Judah, you
   are he whom your brethren shall praise." A happy expression, for the
   word, "Judah," signifies "praise." The name was given to him by his
   mother as expressing her gratitude to God at his birth.

   It is now confirmed to him by his father, who discerns in it a presage
   of his character and his destiny. And verily this is true of Jesus. If
   the virgin mother hailed His advent, how much more do His grateful
   Brethren laud His career! Do not His Brethren recognize in Him a Leader
   and Commander, a Savior and a Friend? Is it not here, on earth, our
   sweetest employment, and will it not be in Heaven our highest delight
   to praise His name? The praise we bestow on men is mere flattery--the
   praise we receive from men is insincere. But Jesus has a peerless name
   and His Brethren derive from Him priceless benefits.

   In Jesus are fulfilled the dreams of Joseph. The sun and the moon and
   the 11 stars all bow before Him! All the sheaves make obeisance unto
   His sheaf. Let Him be crowned with majesty who bowed His head to death
   is the common verdict of all the Brotherhood of the House of God. "Your
   hands shall be at the neck of Your enemies." As one that gets his hands
   upon the neck of his prey, stops its breath and destroys it--or as one
   who seizes his enemy by the throat and flings him down to death. How
   true has this been of Jesus! He has laid His hands upon the neck of His
   enemies. When He came to the Cross, fought foot to foot with the old
   Serpent, and there vanquished sin and death and Hell for us, it was a
   terrible battle, but it ended in a splendid victory, of which we shall
   never cease to sing!

   Nor do we doubt but the hands of Jesus Christ are at this moment on the
   neck of His enemies. They may be very rebellious, and, for a time, they
   may seem to get the ascendancy--but He has got the upper and as surely
   as Truth and righteousness must flourish and prevail--as surely as
   Jehovah is the living God, the kingdom of Christ will yet break in
   pieces all the powers that resist it. "He shall break them as with a
   rod of iron: He shall dash them in pieces like potters' vessels." "Your
   father's children shall bow down before you."

   To the descendants of Judah in the persons of David and Solomon the
   whole nation gave allegiance. But worship of a higher order, homage of
   deeper significance and adoration from a wider circle pertain to Him,
   for whom our Father in Heaven demands of all His faithful children
   love, honor, and obedience. "Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my
   son, you are gone up." And how does this describe the Savior--that
   "Lion of the tribe of Judah"--that strong and mighty Lion who entered
   into conflict with the lion of the Pit and overcame him! From the prey
   He has gone up again, up into His Glory--gone up beyond the stars, up
   to the right hand of the Infinite Majesty--there to sit in perpetual
   peaceful triumph.

   "He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion." The lion
   may have been an emblem that befitted the son of Jesse. The lion
   couching might have been fitly chosen for his heraldic device, when the
   Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and of Saul.
   Yet with how much more propriety may this emblem be emblazoned on the
   arms of Prince Emmanuel! Did He not stoop down? Was ever such a stoop
   as His? Let Him be crowned with majesty who bowed His head to death! It
   is for this that He deserves to conquer, because He was willing to
   submit to shame and death, itself, for the sake of His people. How
   glorious is it to think that He has gone up, seeing that He once came
   down! Who should deserve such honors but He who laid such honors aside
   for a while?

   "Who shall rouse Him up?" A grand question! Who shall rouse up the Lion
   of the tribe of Judah? Who dare do it? Who can stand against Him? He is
   a Lamb, gentle and tender. "A bruised reed He will not break, and the
   smoking flax He will not quench." But let Him be provoked--then fiercer
   than a lion that roars from the forest will He be upon His foes! So
   shall it come to pass on that tremendous day when He will ease Himself
   of His adversaries and shake Himself clear of all His enemies. Do you
   not remember these terrible words of His--"Beware, you that forget God,
   lest I tear you in pieces, and there are none to deliver"? "The scepter
   shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
   until Shiloh come."

   The sovereignty remained with Judah. It continued to be the royal tribe
   till the prophetic epoch. When other tribes lost their peculiar
   position and their positive distinctiveness, Judah still remained--and
   it survives in the common appellation of the Hebrew people to this day.
   The Israelites are more commonly called Jews than by any other name.
   Jesus, the tribe of Judah, is the King of the Jews, even though they
   reject Him. Over His head upon the Cross was written the indelible
   Truth in letters of Hebrew, Greek and Latin, "This is Jesus, the King
   of the Jews." Yes, He is King of all faithful Jews and of all believing
   Gentiles at this hour--with a sovereignty wider than that of
   emperors--yes, as wide as the dwelling places of all mankind! He is
   "King of kings, and Lord of lords."

   Of Shiloh it is the Patriarch speaks when, with the vision of a Seer,
   he describes the grand climax. Before the dim organs of his sight he
   saw all his 12 sons gathered to take leave of their dying sire. Before
   the beaming eyes of his faith he beheld the gathering of all their
   distant posterity, or perhaps of all the kindreds of the earth to greet
   with glad acclaim the everlasting King, of whose kingdom there shall be
   no end! "Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." This simply
   and pointedly does Jacob refer to the Lord Jesus Christ by the name of
   Shiloh. Of that name and of that prophecy I shall try to speak.

   First, let the title, "SHILOH," and secondly the TESTIMONY, "To Him
   shall the gathering of the people be," engage our attention. The title,
   "SHILOH." What an old word it is! What an old world word! I should not
   wonder if it was one of Jacob's own coining. A pet name is often the
   product of peculiar love. Tender affection takes this kindly turn.
   Those whom we fondly regard, we familiarly call by some other name than
   chance has bequeathed or choice bestowed. Not content with the names
   that others understand or use, there is often a new mode of recognition
   between two who love each other, as much as to say, "You are to me what
   you are to none upon earth beside me."

   Even God gives to His people new names--and I do not wonder if they
   give to Him new names. Well may Believers have each a favorite name for
   Jesus. Which name of your Lord do you love the best? If the question
   were passed round, perhaps some would say--and the majority
   might--"Jesus, the name divinely sweet." Another would say--

   "Sweeter sounds than music knows Charm me in Emmanuel's name." That is
   the choice name. Others, it may be, might put in a claim for
   pre-eminence to the title of, "The Well-Beloved," which always seems to
   me to have a great charm about it. And if George Herbert were here, you
   know he would say, "How sweetly does 'My Master' sound!" "My Master!"
   That was the name he loved to call his Lord. Well, Jacob's name for
   Jesus was, "Shiloh," and it is so long ago since he called Him Shiloh
   that I do not wonder that we have almost forgotten the meaning of it.

   He knew it had a wealth of meaning as it came from his lips and the
   meaning is still there. But the well is deep and those that have
   studied the learned languages have found this to be a word of such rare
   and singular occurrence that it is difficult, with any positive
   certainty, to define it. Not that they cannot find a meaning, but that
   it is possible to find so many meanings of it! Not that it is not rich
   enough, but that there is an embarrassment of riches! It may be
   interpreted in so many different ways. I will give you, one by one,
   some of the meanings that have been proposed. There is something to be
   said for each one. Though I shall not trouble you with the names of the
   learned authors who stand up for each particular translation, as that
   would be useless, I will take care to put last the one which I conceive
   to be the best, has the most authority, and will probably commend
   itself to you as the most acceptable.

   Some maintain that the word," Shiloh," signifies "sent." Like that word
   you have in the New Testament, "He said to him, go to the pool of
   Siloam, which is, by interpretation, Sent.''" You observe the likeness
   between the words Siloam and Shiloh. They think that the words have the
   same meaning, in which case Shiloh, here, would mean the same as Me-

   ssiah--the Sent One--and would indicate that Jesus Christ was the
   Messenger, the Sent One of God, and came to us, not at His own
   instance, and at His own will, but commissioned by the Most
   High--authorized and anointed to that end.

   Here let us stop a minute. We rejoice to know that whatever this title
   means, it is quite certain that Jesus Christ was sent. It is a very
   precious thing to know that we have a Savior, but often it has cheered
   my heart to think that this dear Savior who came to save me did not
   come as an amateur, unauthorized from the courts of Heaven, but He came
   with the credentials of the Eternal Father, so that, whatever He has
   done, we may be sure He has done it in the name of God.

   Jehovah will never repudiate that which Jesus has accomplished! God has
   set Him forth to be a Propitiation. He is a Mediator of God's own
   sending. He is our Substitute, but He is a Substitute of God's own
   finding. "I have laid help upon One that is mighty." So says the Oracle
   and who shall dispute it? "The Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of
   us all." It is the Lord that has done it! An ambassador who had no
   credentials from the court he represented would be but a dubious
   blessing to the people. But when as a plenipotentiary, with full
   authority from his sovereign, he comes with terms of peace, he might
   well be received without hesitation or opposition.

   Sinner, have you received the Savior, Jesus? You profess to acknowledge
   the God who sent Him, but know that in turning from the Emissary you
   are spurning the Sovereign! If you deny Jesus, you defy God
   Himself--yes, you make God a liar because you have not believed His
   testimony concerning His Son. Beloved, do you welcome Jesus Christ as
   being sent to you personally? When you have labored under a sense of
   sin, burdened to the very ground with trouble of conscience, was Jesus
   ever sent to you to say, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends
   of the earth"? Was He ever sent to lead you to look? Did you look unto
   Him and were you lightened?

   Oh, then, you will forever bless His name, the name of the Most High,
   who sent such an One that He might lift you up out of your miseries,
   bring the bandaged ones out of the dungeon and set the captives free!
   Dwell, sweetly dwell, upon this meaning of the word Shiloh. If it means
   "sent," there is great sweetness in it. Others have referred it to a
   word, the root of which signifies the Son. Upon such a hypothesis the
   name would be strictly appropriate to our Lord. He is the "Son of God."
   He is the "Son of Man." He was the "Son of Judah." He was the "Son of
   David." "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given." Let us
   linger for a while upon this--"Until Shiloh"--"Until the Son comes."

   Be the annotation right or wrong, Jesus is the Son of God! He that has
   come to save us is Divine. No angel could bear the stupendous burden of
   redemption. Sooner might angels create than redeem, but they can do
   neither the one nor the other! They can only sing the high praises of
   Him who is able to do both! Who but God Himself could snatch a sinner
   from Hell? God has done it! He that died upon the Cross was none other
   than He that made the world! Trust the Divine Savior, O sinner! If you
   have had any doubts about the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to save, cast
   them all aside, for, if He is the Son of the Highest, and, "God over
   all, blessed forever," they that rest in Him shall never be confounded.

   The Son of God is He, but He is also the Son of Man, and this is an
   equal joy to us. Jesus Christ is "bone of our bone, and flesh of our
   flesh," a man like ourselves. Though He is now in Heaven, think not
   that He is transformed into a spirit there, or that He has discarded
   our Nature, or disowned our flesh and blood. Oh, no! After He was risen
   from the dead He appeared to His disciples and ate with them--He
   partook of a fish and of honeycomb to show that He was not spirit, but
   flesh. He said, "Handle Me, and see, a spirit has not flesh and bone:
   as you see I have." In that very body of His He has gone up into His
   Glory! And today, at the right hand of God--there He sits--a man
   clothed in a body like our own!

   Oh, Beloved! Let not terror frighten us, or misgivings keep us back
   from a High Priest that can be touched with a feeling of our
   infirmities, a dear Savior who is not ashamed to call us Brethren!
   "This man receives sinners." Oh, Sinners! may you be willing to be
   received by Him! Let us bless Him as the Son--the Son of God, the Son
   of Man. A third meaning has been given to the word, "Shiloh," which
   rather paraphrases, than translates it. The passage, according to
   certain critics, would run something like this--"Until He comes to whom
   it belongs, to whom it is, for whom it is reserved." Or, as Ezekiel
   puts it, "Overturn, until He shall come whose right it is, and you will
   give it Him."

   It may mean, then, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah until He
   shall come whose that scepter is." This meaning is supported by many
   learned authorities and has its intrinsic value. The scepter belongs to
   Christ. All scepters belong to Him. He will come, by-and-by, and verify
   His title to them. Have you not seen the picture that represents Nelson
   on board a French man-of-war receiving the swords of the various
   captains he has conquered--while there stands an old sailor, at his
   side, putting all these swords underneath his arm as they are brought
   up? I have often pictured to myself our great Commander, the only King
   by Divine right, coming back to this, our earth, and gathering up the

   scepters of the kings in sheaves and putting them on one side, and
   collecting their crowns--for He alone shall reign King of kings and
   Lord of lords!

   When the last and greatest of all monarchs shall come a second time,
   "without a sin-offering unto salvation"--oh, the glory of His triumph!
   He has a right to reign! If ever there was a king by nature, and by
   birth, it is the Son of David! If ever there was one who would be
   elected to the monarchy by the suffrages of all His subjects, it is
   Jesus. How often do we sing--

   "Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all"?

   And we cannot repeat it too often! Our hearts and lips ought to be
   always saying, "Crown Him, crown Him; crowns become the victory brow."
   His is the right to reign! Dear Souls, acknowledge that right. If you
   have never acknowledged it, acknowledge it now. "Kiss the Son, lest He
   is angry and you perish from the way, while His wrath is kindled but a

   little."

   You that love Him and have made Him your King, oh, kiss His feet again!
   Let Him have your highest homage, your purest love, your perpetual
   service! Was never such a King as You are, O Jesus! "The chief among
   ten thousand, and the altogether lovely." Let Him be crowned with
   majesty forever and ever! To Him the royalty belongs, for Him it is
   reserved. The interpretation, however, which has the most support, and
   which I think has the fairest claim to be accorded correct, is that
   which derives the word, "Shiloh," from the same root as the word,
   "Salem." This makes it signify peace. "Until the Peace, or the
   Peace-Bearer, or the Peace-Giver," or, if you like it better, "the
   Rest, or the Rest-Maker--shall come." Select the word you prefer--it
   will sufficiently represent the sense.

   "Until the Peace-Bringer comes, until the Rest-Maker comes." His advent
   bounds the Patriarch's expectation and his desire. Oh, Beloved, what a
   vein of soul-charming reflection this opens! Do you know what rest
   means? Such "peace, peace," such perfect peace as he has whose soul is
   stayed because he trusts, as the Prophet Isaiah has it. Have you ever
   said to yourself, "There is nothing I desire--nothing that I wish for.
   I am satisfied--perfectly content. I am without a fear, without a
   dread"? "No," you say, "I never reached that status!" You may be worth
   millions of money without ever coming to that pass. All the gold in the
   world will never fill a man's heart and you may have broad acres across
   which a swift horse could hardly rush in a day, but you will not have
   enough.

   All the land in the world cannot fill a heart. You may have all the
   beauty, rank, honor and fame that ever can come to a human being, and
   yet say, "Ah, me! I am still wretched." But full many who have found
   Jesus have been able to say, "It is enough--I need no more." Believing
   in Jesus and learning to yield up everything to His will. Living to His
   Glory and loving Him supremely, we enjoy peace with God--a "peace that
   passes all understanding," which--"keeps our heart and mind" by Jesus
   Christ. Are we adopted into the family of God?--we are sure that He
   never cast a child out of the family that was once received into it!
   Are we made members of the body of Christ? There is no fear of
   dismemberment--that which is perfected and compacted together cannot be
   mangled or torn asunder. Our good hope through Grace is not precarious.
   Well may we sing with the seraphic Toplady--

   "Yes, I to the end shall endure, As sure as the earnest is given. More
   happy, but not more secure Are the glorified spirits in Heaven."

   Here is rest!

   Man may well take his rest when he has to, when it is all done for him.
   And that is their gospel. The world's way of salvation is "Do," God's
   way of salvation is, "It is all done for you; accept and believe." The
   world, that says, "Do," never does anything! While the Gospel which
   tells us, "It is all done," imparts such joy and peace within that we
   spring to our feet ready and willing to do and dare anything for Him
   who gave Himself up for us! While active and passive obedience spring
   out of the Doctrines of Grace, nothing but pride and self-righteousness
   can come out of the religion which prates of merit and prescribes
   duties to be done in order that you may be saved!

   All that ever will be saved were saved on Calvary's bloody tree. Jesus
   said, "It is finished." Here His humiliation reached its climax. He
   humbled Himself even unto death. It was finished. Those for whom He
   died were, then and there, redeemed. The ransom price paid for them
   exempted them from the penalty of their transgressions, exonerated them
   from legal responsibilities and extinguished for them the fiery threat
   of Hell. He had suffered in their place and they could not

   be called upon to suffer for themselves. He had offered a righteousness
   to God on their behalf and they were accepted because of that
   righteousness.

   Do you say, "I wish I were one of those people"? Do you believe in
   Jesus? Then you are one of them! Do you trust Jesus? Then you are
   saved! The moment a sinner believes and trusts in His crucified Lord,
   he is pardoned at once--he receives salvation in full through Christ's
   blood. Do but rest your soul on Jesus and it is done, and peace will
   enter your soul--oh, such a deep and blessed peace--the like of which
   is not to be found out of Heaven! Jesus is the great Peace-Giver and
   Peacemaker--He is our Peace! God grant us to know Him and to understand
   this aspect of His mediatorial Character. Believe me, my Hearers, I
   feel in my soul, as I look round upon you, the utmost longing for you
   all. Oh, that you did know my Lord and the peace He gives!

   It is years ago--23 years or more--since I went to Him. I could not
   believe it possible that He would receive me. I felt myself too great a
   sinner. How should there be mercy for me? But I heard a sermon from the
   text, "Look unto Me and be you saved all you ends of the earth!" I
   never understood it before, but when I came to understand that all I
   had to do was to look, oh, what a revelation it was to me! No feelings,
   no works, no doings, no purchase money demanded as a qualification!
   Christ on the Cross was evidently set forth crucified before my eyes! I
   did but look, and I was saved! Saved the moment I looked. When I turned
   to the Scriptures I found that was just what the Scriptures said, "He
   that believes in Him is not condemned." I did believe it. I did trust.
   I did simply rest there.

   Neither shall I ever forget the rush ofjoyous feeling that went through
   my spirit! This was the cessation of long years of melancholy bordering
   on despair. This was the coming out into a clear light, which I thank
   God I have never lost, for, with all the troubles of this material
   life, I would not change places with any man that breathes! No, nor
   with the angels before God's Throne! The station and the privilege of
   angels will not bear comparison with the eternal dignities reserved for
   the saints. For an angel no redeemer ever died, and no angel will be
   able to sing, "Worthy is He that has washed me in His blood!" Oh, to be
   superlatively indebted to the infinite love of Jesus! To be a cleansed
   sinner and to be put among the children is so enchanting that it is
   enough to make one say, "Ah, not even an angel would I envy, nor with
   one of those celestial ministers would I change my happy lot."

   I wish you could all sympathize in this. Would that you all had
   fellowship with us in this Grace wherein we stand! Many of you have,
   thank God. Some of you have not. What do you poor people do without a
   Savior? I cannot understand why you, who have so little in this life,
   do not look out for the promise of a better inheritance! And what do
   you poor rich people do without a Savior? I pity you most of all, for
   your lives are generally passed in a very senseless and insipid
   fashion. With nothing but a round of visits to pay and a few elegant
   trifles to attend to, like butterflies, you flit from flower to flower!
   A poor man's time is taken up with hard labor--but you often ask
   yourselves, and consult one another how best you can spend the hours
   and kill the time that hangs heavily on your hands.

   If you cannot think upon Christ. If you cannot fall back upon the
   Covenant of Grace. If you cannot look up to the eternal God and say,
   "My Father, You are mine, and with You shall I dwell forever," I pity
   you, whether you are rich or poor! God grant you to have and to enjoy
   the fullness of the treasure that is in Jesus Christ! Then you can
   say--

   "I would not change my blest estate With all that earth calls good or
   great. And while my faith can keep her hold, I envy not the sinner's
   gold."

   Trusting, then, dear Friends, that your faith has identified the Shiloh
   of Jacob's vision, let us occupy the few minutes that remain us in
   considering the TESTIMONY which the Patriarch here bears. "Unto Him
   shall the gathering of the people be."

   "UNTO HIM," as the Hebrew runs, "shall the gathering of the peoples
   be." So wide the circumference that converges in this glorious center!
   It comprehends all the peoples of the Gentiles as well as Jews. Of
   course it includes the favored nation, but it also takes in the isles
   afar off--yes, all of us, my Brothers and Sisters! "Unto Him shall the
   gathering of the peoples be." What joy this announcement should give
   us! Do you realize that around Jesus Christ, around His Cross, which is
   the great uplifted standard, the people shall gather? Just open your
   eyes and look! If you can see and your eyes have been touched with eye
   salve, you may perceive the power of attraction by which this
   magnificent issue is already in progress!

   Over yonder in America a poor sinner is seeking eternal life! If he is
   seeking aright, he is being gathered to Christ. Or, look at home in
   your own country. Perhaps, tonight, in many thousands of places that
   are open for Divine worship, the like magnetic influence is at work! I
   only wish I could hope that there was someone in every assembly that
   was looking for eternal life! If it is so, they are all looking to
   Jesus Christ! Cast your eyes, now, to India, or France, or Prussia, or
   over to Australia--in whatever direction you will--every soul that is
   in earnest in seeking life is seeking it through Jesus Christ! I see
   them coming! He is the Center and they are all drawing near to Him.
   Every soul that is saved is drawn to Jesus--none are saved without Him.

   The people gather to Him as their only hope, and all else has failed.
   They do not fly to Him until they have tried every other hope. Nobody
   ever comes to Christ until He cannot go anywhere else. The sinner comes
   to Him by stress of weather--driven in, sometimes, as ships are into
   harbors of refuge--because they cannot keep pace with it outside the
   bar. It is when the sinner is in difficulties that he is driven to
   Jesus Christ--and every soul that is really looking for eternal life in
   the right place is looking to Jesus and gathering to Jesus! And I see
   little silver threads going out from Christ, the Center, from all over
   the world, drawing men to Himself. I hope there is one of these threads
   drawing you! Oh, yield to the gentle pressure! Follow it--for it is
   your only hope!

   Look again and you will see that all over the world those that are
   saved are gathering to Jesus, rallying round Him and accepting Him as
   their Leader, Instructor and King! The Jews said, "We have no king but
   Caesar." The Christians say, "We have no king but Jesus." I mean no
   spiritual Lord--no Teacher, no Leader except Jesus Christ, Himself.
   "Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." His people out of all
   nations shall come and take His easy yoke and wear it-- and find rest
   unto their souls! And now, at this moment, my eyes can see myriads all
   over the world who are coming nearer and nearer to Jesus, with instant
   eager cry, saying, "Draw us, Lord, draw us nearer to Yourself! Make us
   more like Yourself! Help us to live more to Your Glory."

   Is there one of those golden threads drawing you? Then run, if you are
   drawn, and seek to love your Lord and serve Him better than ever you
   have done, for "unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." Be
   assured of this--Christ is the only Center of true unity to His people.
   There is a society, I believe, for the promotion of the unity of
   Christendom. I am afraid it does not do much good, or cement much
   fellowship. The unity of Christendom! That will all depend upon what is
   the keystone of the arch you are going to build. If you expect there
   will be a unity of the Greek Church, the Latin Church and the Anglican
   Church, I can only say that were all three united, the union of
   Christians would be as far off as ever!

   In the midst of that professed Christendom, but distinct from it, there
   is an inner Christendom, a secret, sacred brotherhood of real
   Christians that knows little about these great secular churches. The
   true Christendom consists of all that worship God in spirit, not having
   confidence in the flesh. The true Church consists of all that believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ and are quickened by the Holy Spirit! The only
   unity that society could ever get would be a confederation
   ecclesiastical, to be dominated over by some lordly priest or other.
   That would certainly be no desirable thing! Christ is the Center of the
   Church and true unity will be found only in Him. "Unto Him shall the
   gathering of the people be."

   Were I to give you a book to read about Jesus Christ, full of love to
   Him, and when you had read it, if I were to ask you who wrote it, I
   imagine you would not guess rightly what denomination the man belonged
   to. Perhaps you will say, "Well, there is a hint in it of Roman
   Catholicism now and then. But really, it is so good a book I cannot
   think a Roman Catholic could have written it." "Or," you will say, "it
   has a little of the Plymouth Brother here and there, and that is not a
   sweet flavor. But still, I hardly think they could have written it."
   By-and-by you will say, "I do not know at all. I am at a loss." Often,
   after reading books which have a savor of Christ in them, I have felt a
   love to the author, though I may have found out, perhaps, that he was
   an ecclesiastical opponent of mine.

   I do not care! I love him if he loves my Master! Be he who he may or
   from where he comes--if he loves Jesus Christ, I love him! When we are
   down on our knees praying for the kingdom of Christ, or standing up to
   sing Messiah's praise, it is wonderful how like we are to each other!
   Mr. Wesley did not like Toplady, and Mr. Toplady did not like
   Wesley--he called him, "an old fox," and said that he would pluck him,
   and have him "tarred and feathered." But take up any hymn book you like
   and you will find, side by side, Charles Wesley's, "Jesus, Lover of My
   Soul," and Top lady's, "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me"! And which is the
   better hymn of the two? I am sure I do not know, they are so much
   alike! So were these men, after all, two blessed souls, for all their
   mistakes and all their misunderstandings of one another.

   When you get to the Cross you get together. "Unto Him shall the
   gathering of the people be." When you come to talk of Him and what He
   did--His life and death, His atoning Sacrifice, His glorious conquest
   of all our foes--then are you agreed! Oh, Brethren, we must, therefore,
   strive vigorously, and try incessantly to lift Christ up! We want to
   see, during this year, a great gathering of souls. We shall see it if
   we lift Christ up! Here is a lot of steel filings among a heap of
   ashes. How can I separate them? There are a great many ways of trying
   to do it. Bring a magnet in--put a magnet into the heap--see how it
   draws the steel filings away.

   In this congregation there is a great number of individuals, and who
   among them are God's elect I do not, nor can I know. But let me preach
   Jesus Christ--and Jesus Christ will draw His own! "My sheep hear My
   voice; I know them and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal
   life." Preach Christ! That is the magnet! He will draw His own to
   Himself. And, dear Friends, if we want to see more conversions this
   year than all past years there must be more preaching, more constant
   preaching of Christ! Christ must be in every sermon and He must be top
   and bottom, too, of all the theology that is preached--"Jesus Christ
   and Him crucified"--and nothing else! I am bound to preach Jesus Christ
   and Him crucified, for I do not know anything else to preach!

   My simplicity is my safeguard. I have often felt to be of Paul's
   mind--"I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him
   crucified." Some are wise to interpret prophecies. I am not. It is
   enough for me to know about the Cross! Some are able to split a
   hair--they can divide a hair between the north and the north-west side.
   I am no logician. If, knowing the terrors of the Lord, I can persuade
   men to fly to Christ and escape from the wrath to come, I shall fulfill
   my mission to my heart's delight!

   Consider this, all of you Brothers in Christ called to preach the
   Gospel! Let each of us go back to the first principles of the Gospel
   and bring out, again and again, the old, old story of sinners lost and
   a Savior come to redeem--of guilt sinking man to Hell like a
   millstone--and the Savior taking all that guilt away! If you preach the
   blood, the precious blood of Jesus, you set forth the great soul-saving
   Gospel and you do honor to Him unto whom "shall the gathering of the
   people be." And, Brothers, by the climax of destiny that is opened up,
   let the conduct of our daily life be disciplined. Let us aim to gather
   more and more to Jesus ourselves. We cannot get too near to Him. Be it
   ours to strive to get closer than ever we have been! Even if a cross
   should be necessary to raise us, let us not be afraid of the cross, so
   long as it brings us nearer to Jesus!

   You are happiest, healthiest, and holiest when you are nearest to
   Christ. To Him shall the continual "gathering of the people be." And
   oh, let us pray, also, that this gathering may go on both among saints
   and sinners--that saints may gather nearer to Jesus--and that sinners
   may gather savingly to Him. The text says, "To Him shall the gathering
   of the people be." It is a faithful saying and we believe it. Not death
   nor Hell can keep back the Lord's elect from coming to Christ. Come
   they must and shall, for the Divine decree shall be accomplished, and
   each one for whom Jesus specially shed His blood shall be saved
   infallibly, saved beyond all risk--but it is ours to pray for it. Oh,
   Lord Jesus, it is said, "Unto You shall the gathering of the people
   be." Make it so! The gathering shall be worked by Yourself!

   "He shall gather the lambs in His arms." It is His to gather the
   strayed sheep. He gathers together the outcasts. Surely He is the great
   Gatherer! Well may they be gathered to Him when He, Himself, gathers
   them! Ask Him to gather your children. Ask Him to gather your dear
   beloved ones under your roof, your servants, your neighbors. Ask Him to
   gather them. Ask Him to gather this great city! Oh, what a city it has
   grown to be! Would God that Jesus had it! It would be a glorious
   diamond in the state jewels of Christ if He could call London His own!
   The biggest of cities--would God it were the holiest! Oh, that it were
   wholly Christ's from one end to the other!

   They used to say, in Cromwell's day, that if you walked down Cheapside
   at a certain hour, you would have heard the voices of family prayer and
   praise at every house on the whole street, both morning and evening. I
   know it is not so in any street in London now. We have gone back since
   the grand old Puritan times. But we will repair to the Throne, again,
   by God's good Grace, and yet shall there be salt in this city, for the
   city shall be seasoned through and through with the power of the Gospel
   of Jesus! Only to your knees! To your knees! To your knees if you would
   have it so. You would get this fulfilled among your fellow citizens if
   you would get it first vouchsafed to you as a blessing of your God.
   Tell Him He has said, "Unto Him shall the gathering of the people be."
   Hold Him to His word! Plead with Him that He cannot break it and we
   shall live to see the day, yet. "To Him shall the gathering of the
   people be."

   Oh, my dear Hearers! as I draw these reflections to a close, one
   thought passes over my mind to which I must give expression. You will,
   all of you, either be gathered to Christ to be saved, or else you will
   have to be gathered, by-and-by, for another purpose. There shall ring
   out upon the midnight air a trumpet call that shall be loud enough to
   be heard east and west--south and north! It shall startle all the
   sleepers, and more than that, it shall arouse the dead! At its sound
   the sepulcher shall vomit forth its prey and they that are rocked in
   slumber beneath the waves of the ocean shall hear that trumpet call and
   rise--the whole mass of Adam's family--the myriads of all our race! Oh,
   what an assembly that will be!

   The motley throng within these walls is but as a grain of sand compared
   with the seashore, to the multitudes that will then be congregated!
   Gather! Gather! You that have been dead these 6,000 years. Gather!
   Gather! You that were drowned in Noah's flood--gather! Gather! All you
   hosts of Egypt and you myriads of Chaldea, and of Babylon, of Persia
   and of Greece. Gather! You legions of Rome! You myriads of the Middle
   Ages! You countless millions of China and of swarthy India! And you of
   the world across the sea! Gather! Gather! Men of every skin and every
   tongue!

   All must gather--and there in the midst of you all shall be the cloud
   sailing through the air--and on it the Great White Throne of Him whose
   spotless justice is mirrored in it! There you will stand--and if you
   have not looked at Christ on the Cross--you will have to look at the
   Christ upon the Throne! And if you have never trusted Him--you will
   then have to tremble at Him. Listen how the trumpet sounds! How that
   clarion rings out again and again and again! And lo, all are there!

   And now He comes, whose pomp is beyond conception, and the books are
   opened. As they are opened, page after page, He reads the story of each
   man's life. And now He has come to yours. And He reads the page that
   chronicles this fleeting hour. On such a night, gathered with this
   great congregation, you were bid to believe in Jesus and bow down
   before the great Peace Giver. You refused and sealed your doom forever!

   Shall it be so? Oh! shall it be so? God grant it may not be so! May
   there be another book opened, which is the Book of Life, and in that
   book may your name stand recorded as one who humbly trusted in the
   finished work of Jesus and therefore were accepted in the Beloved and
   found mercy on that day! The Lord grant it to every one of you. I may
   not ever again speak to some of you as long as I live. This, then, I
   say to you while your ears are open and attentive to my voice--Lay hold
   on eternal life! Put your trust in Jesus!

   And if, Beloved, any of you to whom I am so familiar, to whom I speak
   so often--if you should depart from the world while I am absent, or if
   I should never return but find a grave in some distant land--I charge
   you, meet me on the other side of Jordan! I charge you, meet me at my
   Master's right hand! I charge you, cling to the atoning Sacrifice by
   faith and we will meet together where He sits and reigns--our best
   Beloved--the Judah, the Jesus, whom all His Brethren shall praise--the
   Shiloh, the Prince of Peace--for whose glorious Second Advent all His
   saints look, and to whom they shall be gathered in fullness of joy
   forever and forever. Amen and Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

The Sieve

   (No. 1158)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Not everyone that says unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
   kingdom of Heaven; but he that does the will of My Father which is in
   Heaven." Matthew 7:21.

   IN reading this chapter one is led to feel that it is not, after all,
   an easy thing to be a sincere Christian. The way is hard, the road is
   narrow. Who will, may represent the way to Heaven as being easy, but
   our Savior does not speak so of it. "Strait is the gate and narrow is
   the way, and few there are that find it." "Many are called and few
   chosen." The difficulty of being right is increased by the fact that
   there are men in the world whose trade it is to make counterfeits.
   There were, and there are, many false prophets. Our Savior has spoken
   about them in this chapter and given us a way of testing them--but they
   are still carrying on their trade as successfully as ever.

   Now, since there are traitors abroad whose business it is to deceive,
   we ought to be doubly vigilant and constantly upon our watchtower lest
   we be misled by them. I charge you, examine every statement you hear
   from Christian pulpits and platforms! I charge you, sift and try every
   religious book by the great standard of the Word of God. Believe none
   of us if we speak contrary to this Word--yes, believe not an angel from
   Heaven if he preaches any other Gospel than that which is contained in
   Inspired Scripture.

   "To the Law and to the Testimony," if they speak not according to this
   Word it is because there is no truth in them. God grant us Grace to
   escape from false prophets! We shall not do so if we are careless and
   off our guard, for the sheepskin garment so effectually covers the
   wolf--the broad phylactery so decorates the hypocrite--that thousands
   are deceived by the outward appearance and do not discover the cheat!
   Crafty are the wiles of the enemy and many foolish ones are still
   ignorant of his devices. Tutored by the experience of ages, seducers
   and evil men not only wax worse and worse, but they grow more and more
   cunning. If it were possible, they would deceive even the very elect!
   Happy shall they be who, being elect, are kept by the mighty power of
   God unto salvation so that they are not carried away with any error.

   In addition to the fact that there are false teachers, it is certain
   that there are false professors. There never was a time in the Church
   of God in which all were Christians who professed to be so. Surely the
   golden age of the Church must have been when the Master Himself was in
   it and had selected 12 choice spirits to be nearest to His Person and
   to act, as it were, as the prime ministers of His kingdom. Yet there
   was a devil among the 12--a devil in the Church of which Jesus was
   Pastor! Judas, the treasurer of the Apostles, was also a son of
   Perdition. When Paul and the Apostles kept watch over the elect Church,
   surely that must have been a happy time--and when persecution raged all
   around and acted like a great winnowing fan to drive away the
   chaff--one would have expected to find that the threshing floor
   contained only clean grain!

   But it was not so. The heap upon the threshing floor of the Church was,
   even then, a mingled mass of corn and chaff. Some turned aside from
   love of the world and others were deluded into grievous error. And
   there were others who remained in the Church to discredit it by their
   impurity and to bring chastisements upon it by their sin. We shall
   never see a perfect Church till we see the Lord face to face in Heaven.
   Above yon clouds is the place for perfection! But here, alas, nothing
   is undefiled. Even in the purest Churches we find deceivers and
   deceived. Among you over whom it is my calling to preside, I know that
   there are false professors--lovers of the world rather than lovers of
   God--and though I cannot remove you any more than the servants of the
   householder could uproot the tares from the wheat, yet I sigh over you
   and you are my daily cross and burden. Oh, that God would convert you
   and make you true to your professions, or else remove you from the
   Church which you so greatly grieve and weaken!

   But now, if in the Church of God there are those who are deceivers and
   deceived, the question comes to each one of us, "May we not, also, be
   mistaken? Is it not possible that we, though making a profession of
   religion, may, after all, be insincere or deluded in that profession
   and fail to be what we think we are?" Therefore let us put ourselves,
   at this time,

   into the attitude of self-examination--and whatever is spoken, let it
   come home to us personally. May we try ourselves whether we are right
   or not, not flinching from any pointed Truth of God but anxiously
   desiring to be tried and tested before the Lord Himself.

   I would bring the text before you by noticing, first, that it contains
   a very commendable expression, "Lord, Lord." But, secondly, it was used
   by gross hypocrites. And then, thirdly, we shall show wherein these
   hypocrites failed--what it was that they lacked which rendered it
   impossible that they should enter into the kingdom.

   I. First, then, the text contains A VERY COMMENDABLE SPEECH. We may be
   sure the speech was a good one, or the hypocrites would not have used
   it as a cloak for their hypocrisy. Men do not use dubious expressions
   when they want to appear exceedingly devout. They take care, however
   bad their deeds may be, to make their words, at any rate, sound well.
   Therefore the persons spoken of in the text said to Jesus, "Lord,
   Lord." It is a fitting mode of speech for each one of us to use.

   And first, dear Friends, we ought to say to Jesus, "Lord, Lord," in
   reference to His Divinity. How can we be saved if we do not? Jesus
   Christ of Nazareth is to us Lord and God! We do not hesitate to use the
   language of Thomas when he put his finger into the print of the nails
   and said to Him, "My Lord and my God." Let others say of Him what they
   will. Let them make Him to be a mere man, or a Prophet, or a delegated
   God--such talk is nothing to the point with us! We believe Him to be
   very God of very God and we worship Him this day as He is enthroned in
   the highest heavens, believing Him to be worthy of the adoration which
   is due to God, alone!

   I do not wonder that those who believe our Lord Jesus Christ to be a
   mere man say severe things of us. Nor must they wonder if we deliver
   very strong utterances with regard to them! If we are wrong, we are
   idolaters, for we worship a person who is only a man. If we are right,
   much of their teaching is blasphemous, for they deny the Deity of the
   Christ of God! There is a great gulf between us and it is only common
   honesty to admit it. To conceal the fact in order to be thought liberal
   would be a mean artifice--unworthy of an honest man. The question in
   debate is a vital one and there can be no halting place between one
   view or the other.

   Compromise must always be impossible where the Truth of God is
   essential and fundamental. There are some points in which we may agree
   to differ, but these are points in which there can be no mutual
   concessions or toning down of statement. Christ Jesus is either God or
   He is not! And if He is God, as we believe He is, then those who reject
   His Deity cannot be true believers in Him. And therefore they must miss
   the benefits which He promises to those who receive Him. I cannot
   conceive any man to be right in religion if he is not right in
   reference to the Person of the Redeemer. "You cannot be right in the
   rest unless you think rightly of Him." If you will not have Him to be
   your God, neither will He save you. Let His abundant miracles, His
   Divine teaching, His unique Character and His Resurrection convince you
   that "the Word was God," and is in all respects equally Divine with the
   Father and the Spirit.

   The expression before us is commendable under another aspect--one in
   which, very likely, it was used by these hypocrites. We use it towards
   Christ to denote that we acknowledge Him to be our Master--He is,
   "Lord, Lord," to us. In the true Church of Christ there are no lords
   but this one Lord. "One is your Master, even Christ, and all you are
   brethren." "Lord Bishop" is an expression suitable for Babylon or
   Rome--but not for the new Jerusalem. I challenge the whole world to
   find any Apostolic title of the kind, or anything approaching to it in
   the days of the Apostles! It is as contrary to Christianity as Hell is
   contrary to Heaven!

   As servants of one common Master, we stand upon equality. Did He not
   say, "The rulers of the Gentiles exercise lordship over then, but it
   shall not be so among you"? Christ is Lord to us and no one else in the
   Church of God. And the Church takes care, when she is in a right state,
   that there shall never be any legislator for her except Christ. He is
   her lawmaker--not Parliaments or kings. Jesus walks in the midst of the
   Churches, among His golden candlesticks, to observe and prescribe her
   order. He tolerates no other lawgiver or ruler in spiritual things. We
   know no Rabbi but Christ! Doctrine comes from His lips and from His
   Word, but from no councils and no teachers or divines.

   As to the rules of the Church, if they are not the rules of Jesus,
   given by the authority of His Spirit, they are not rules for us. As for
   human traditions, prescriptions and ordinances in reference to
   religion, tear them to pieces and toss them to the winds! Christ is
   Lord and every Christian's heart echoes to the words when I say, in the
   name of His people, "Jesus, son of Mary, Son of God, You are to us
   Lord, Lord. Your mother's sons bow down before You and do You homage.
   The sun and moon and 11 stars of Israel's household bow before You--You
   who were separate from your brethren for your

   brethren's sake." Onto Jesus, who was once nailed to the tree, be honor
   throughout all ages. He is Lord, Lord, in that sense.

   And, beloved, as he is thus beyond all controversy Lord divinely and
   Lord as legislator, it is right that this should be spoken. It was a
   brave thing for the Covenanters of Scotland to be ready to die for the
   headship of Christ in His Church, and I trust there are thousands still
   alive who would as gladly relinquish life, itself, to preserve the
   crown right of our exalted Lord. It would be well worth any man's while
   to lay down his life to defend the Deity of Christ, which doctrine
   cannot be taken away without removing the very foundations of the
   faith! And if the foundations are moved, what can the righteous do?
   Bear your testimony, then, you followers of the Lamb, and be not afraid
   to acknowledge His name! Though hypocrites have said it, you need not
   blush to say it--for it is most true that Jesus is both Lord and God.
   Say "Lord, Lord" with unfaltering tongue!

   Say it daily by your actions. Have respect unto your Master and let
   others see that you respect Him. Do this good action because Christ
   bids you. Refuse to do that evil thing because Christ forbids you. Move
   in that line because He leads the way. Refuse that other line because
   you do not see His footprints there. Let all men see that you
   practically say, "Lord, Lord," whenever you think of Jesus. This is the
   very spirit of Christianity--to do what Christ bids us--and to honor
   Him in heart and lip and life forevermore! I wish that some Christians
   were a little more outspoken in their acknowledgment of their great
   Lord and Master--and I commend these hypocrites, if I can commend them
   at all--that they wisely choose a fit and godly speech, though, alas,
   they dishonored the good speech by using it so foully when they said,
   "Lord, Lord."

   II. And now, secondly, THERE WERE HYPOCRITES WHO USED THIS EXCELLENT
   MODE OF SPEECH. What sort of people were they who said, "Lord, Lord,"
   and yet the Master says of them, that not everyone of them shall enter
   into the kingdom of Heaven? Well, I think He refers to a considerable
   number of people, and I will search for them. I wonder whether I shall
   find any in this congregation? Help me, my Brothers and Sisters, by
   your own self-examination to discover these people. There can be no
   doubt our Lord referred, in the first place, to a certain class of
   superficial externalists, who said, "Lord, Lord," and there their
   religion ended.

   Such persons still exist all around--they are superficial in nature and
   in general character. They say good things, but they never feel what
   they say. Their pious expressions come from as low as the throat, but
   never from the abysses of the heart. They are of the stony ground order
   and have no depth of earth. The hard, barren rock is barely concealed
   by a sprinkling of soil. They may accurately be styled externalists,
   for they have the notion that when they have attended to the outside of
   godliness, the whole matter is fully discharged. For instance, if they
   sing with their voices, they conclude that they have praised God--and
   that when the hymn is uttered to melodious notes--worship has been
   presented to God, even though the heart has never praised Him at all.

   When they bow the head and close their eyes in public prayer, they
   consider they are doing something very right and proper--though they
   are very likely thinking of their farm, their garden, their children,
   or their home--casting up their accounts and wondering how they will
   find trade and the money-market on Monday when they get to their shops.
   The externalists are satisfied with the shell of religion whether life
   remains or not. They have a form of godliness, but they are strangers
   to its power. If they read a chapter every day, they feel very
   self-complacent and think they are searchers of the Word, though they
   have never entered into the inner sense, but merely allowed the eye to
   run over the verses and lines.

   If they never get an answer to prayer, they feel quite satisfied
   because they have duly said their prayers. Like boys who give runaway
   knocks, they have no expectation of an answer. They merely give God the
   husks and they think He never looks to see if there is a kernel there.
   They give Him the outward sign and imagine that He is satisfied, though
   the thing meant is absent. Oh, how large a proportion of our fellow
   creatures seem to be content when they have rendered an outward
   obedience to religious requirements! They are content to have made
   clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but the washing of the
   inside--the new heart, the Truth in the inward parts, the giving of the
   heart's love to Jesus--does not seem to be worthy of their attention.
   And if we talk of it, they are weary of it, and think we are
   Puritanical and imagine that we mean to judge them after a too lofty
   standard.

   We are too severe with them, they say, but oh, Beloved, it is not so!
   Does not every thoughtful man see that without the heart, religion must
   be vain? What can there be in mere external forms? Put it to
   yourselves--what can there be?

   What do you, yourselves, think of your children if you see them doing
   what you bid them, but doing so because they must--not from an obedient
   spirit, or because they love you? What would you think of them if they
   had no trust in you, no confidence in their father's love and in their
   mother's care, but just went about the house mechanically doing what
   you bade them and no more? You would feel you needed your children's
   love--you must have their hearts.

   And God, our Father, thinks the same of us! If we do not love Him,
   whatever we may do cannot be acceptable with Him. Perhaps you have
   attended regularly at Church or Meeting House almost since you were
   born. And it is possible that you have gone through all the rites and
   ceremonies of the community to which you belong. I am not about to
   condemn you for doing so if you are a Churchman, or if you are a
   Methodist, or if you are a Presbyterian, any more than I will if you
   are a Baptist--only I will put the whole together and say--"God abhors
   the sacrifice where the heart is not found, and if you have brought Him
   nothing but these externals, the verdict of truth concerning your
   religion is just this--'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'"

   If you say "Lord, Lord," you must yield a hearty obedience to Jesus and
   make your inner nature to be the temple of His Holy Spirit, or else
   your hypocrisy will condemn you at the Last Great Day as one who dared
   to insult the God of Truth with a false profession! Another class of
   persons who say, "Lord, Lord," and yet are not saved, are those who
   regard religion as a very excellent thing for quieting their
   conscience, but who do not look upon it as a practical influence which
   is to affect their lives and to influence their conduct. I have known
   persons who certainly would not be easy if they had not gone through
   their morning and evening prayers--and yet they were bad husbands and
   quarrelsome neighbors. They could falsify an account and put down an
   article twice to a customer without a very great disturbance of their
   self-satisfaction--and they would not like to have been away from the
   house of God on the Sabbath--or to have heard an unsound discourse.

   Either of these things would have touched their conscience, though it
   was callous on the point of unfair dealing! They could lie, could lie
   handsomely, but they would not swear, or sing a song. They draw the
   line somewhere and compounded for a thousand sins of dishonesty by
   avoiding certain other vices--thus being left to cheat themselves as a
   righteous punishment for cheating others. Oh, the deceits and cheats
   which men play upon themselves! They are their own most easy dupes. A
   mere matter of religious form will outweigh the most important matters
   of virtue when the judgment is perverted by folly. We have heard of the
   Catholic in Spain who had a very serious sin to confess to his priest.
   He had been a brigand and had murdered hundreds, but the sin that lay
   upon his conscience was not murder.

   He had perpetrated a thousand robberies but the sin that troubled him
   was not theft. Once upon a time, upon a Friday, a drop of blood spurted
   from a man he had killed and it had fallen on his lips, so that he had
   tasted flesh on a Fri-day--that had troubled him! His conscience,
   which, like Achilles, was invulnerable everywhere else, could yet be
   rounded at the heel. Though we might smile, the same eccentric fact
   might be declared concerning many beside the brigand. Their eyes see
   motes and overlooks beams. Their judgment strains out gnats and
   flies--and yet it swallows camels and elephants. They leap one hour and
   limp another. They are very nice on points of ritual and equally lax as
   to common honesty.

   The thing really worth having--love to God and love to man--they fling
   behind their backs and fancy they shall be saved because they have
   complimented God by a hypocritical presence of worship and have
   deceived men by sanctimonious pretensions. As though if I cheated a man
   every day I could make up for it by taking my hat off in the streets to
   him! They bow to the Almighty and rebel against Him. Do they fancy He
   is to be fooled by them? Do they dream that He is gratified by their
   sound words and empty declarations? Whatever they may imagine, it is
   not so! Many say, "Lord, Lord," to quiet their conscience, but they can
   never enter the kingdom of Heaven!

   Now, of this class of hypocrites there are many. There is one I have
   met with--an old acquaintance of mine--he may be here now. He is a
   gentleman who is exceedingly orthodox. I would have you know that he
   assesses the imperial and infallible standard of orthodoxy. I believe
   there is a legal pound and a legal yard, kept somewhere in London, to
   which all measures must conform. This gentleman has got the legal
   standard of theology in his own possession. He knows exactly what a
   preacher ought to say upon a text. And it is one of his great delights
   to sit down and listen to a sermon and say, "A part of that was right,
   but it was not all so. It was yes and no. The preacher gave a pail of
   good milk and then tipped it over at the close. He was not bound on
   such a point, and such a point."

   This gentleman can divide a hair between the west and north-west side
   with extreme accuracy--and he can never be wrong under any
   circumstances. He has infallibility. The truth was born when he was
   born and will expire when he expires. He is a paragon of accuracy as to
   his beliefs--but unfortunately he is not quite so accurate in the daily
   conduct of his business. He may be sound in his creed, but he is
   cracked in his manners. His wife never told me so, but I think if she
   did speak out her mind, she would complain that she has the most
   crabbed, ill-tempered husband that ever a woman was plagued with! His
   children don't go to the place of worship where their father goes
   because he does not know whether they are elect. He does not trouble
   himself whether they are so or not, for if they are to be saved they
   will be saved in God's own time and it does not matter whether they go
   to a place of worship or not.

   Neither would they like to accompany their father, for they have come
   to the very natural conclusion that whatever religion their father
   believes in, they would like to believe the very opposite--for they
   would like to follow a religion which would make them different from
   what he is! He is known in the place where he lives as being a man who
   will walk 10 miles to hear some favorite preacher, but would not stir a
   finger to reclaim the sinner or instruct the ignorant. And he is known
   for another thing, that, with the exception of his divinity, you cannot
   believe a word he says! Oh, may God deliver us from these men! There
   are such to be found in most of our villages. They set themselves up
   for judges in God's heritage and yet they know not what it is to have
   their nature renewed--in fact, if you were to preach a sermon to them
   upon, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord," they would try to
   pump the meaning out of it and put another sense upon it, instead!

   They would say that practical godliness is legality and that the
   children of God are not to be talked to in that fashion. They imagine
   that they may live as they like and yet be the dear people of God.
   Beloved, may God save us from this spirit of Antinomianism! For of all
   the devils that have ever come up from Hell, I believe this is one of
   the most brazenfaced and deceitful, and has done more damage among
   professors than almost any other. They say, "Lord, Lord," but they
   shall not enter into the kingdom! We have also met with others who say,
   "Lord, Lord," but not in sincerity. They are very busy
   professors--always ready to do anything--and they are not happy unless
   they have something to do. I blame them not for being busy--I would to
   God that the sincere people were half as busy!

   But I detect in them this vice--they are fondest of doing that which
   will be most seen. They prefer to serve God in those places where the
   most honor will be gained. To speak in public is infinitely preferable
   to them to the visitation of a poor sick woman. To work or to give
   where the deed will be blazoned abroad is after their minds. To take
   the chair at a public meeting and receive a vote of thanks is
   delightful to them. But to go into a back street and look after the
   poor, or plod on in the Sunday school in some inferior class is not
   according to their taste. It may seem harsh, but it is nevertheless
   true that many are serving themselves under the pretence of serving
   Christ! They labor to advance the cause in order that they may be,
   themselves, advanced--and they push themselves forward in the Church
   this way and that way for the glory of place and position--that
   everybody may say, "What a good man that is, and how much influence he
   has, and how well he serves his Master!"

   Beloved, if you and I do anything nominally for God, and at the bottom
   we are doing it for the sake of praise, it is not for God. We are doing
   it for ourselves! I do not say there is anybody here of that sort, but
   I would like your conscience to ask you, as my conscience is asking me,
   "Do I really serve the Lord, or do I work in the Church in order that I
   may be considered to be an industrious, praiseworthy minister, seeking
   the good of my fellow men?" I charge you before God, shun the desire of
   human praise and never let it pollute your motives! May the Holy Spirit
   purify you from so base a motive! The praise of God--to have it said by
   Him, "Well done, good and faithful servant"--that you should seek. But
   honor from men avoid as you would a viper! Shake it off into the fire
   if ever you find the desire of it clinging to your soul, else it may be
   your unhappy lot to find at last, that saying, "Lord, Lord," will not
   secure you an entrance into the kingdom.

   In all Churches, I fear, there are some of another class of hypocrites,
   who say "Lord, Lord," for the sake of what they can get by it. John
   Bunyan speaks of Mr. Byends who had many motives for going on
   pilgrimage besides going to the Celestial City. He came from the town
   of Fairspeech and there he had a large circle of interesting relatives.
   Mr. Smooth Tongue, Mr. Doublemind, and Mr. Facing-Bothways who made all
   his money as a waterman, by looking one way and pulling the other. Many
   of his race still survive in all circles--gentlemen who hold with the
   hare and run with the

   hounds--especially run with the hounds if the hare is likely to be
   caught. They believe that if gain is not godliness, godliness may be
   made helpful to gain.

   These gentlemen flourish in all quarters of town and country. One of
   them set up in a village and the first question he asked before he
   opened his shop was, "Which is the most respectable congregation in the
   neighborhood?" His object being to go there that he might not only get
   good, but dispose of his goods as well! We meet with persons in another
   rank in life whose object in attending a place is that they may get
   into a respectable circle and have wealthy friends, and have their hand
   upon the door handle of society. Swimming with the stream is their
   delight and they prefer that stream in which there are the most gold
   fish. Others who are poorer have a keen eye to the loaves and fishes
   and those Churches are best where the loaves are not made with barley,
   as they used to be, but with white flour--and are not mere penny
   loaves--but good substantial quarterns.

   They are pleased, also, if the fishes are larger than those we read of
   in the New testament. One of these loathsome hypocrites came to Rowland
   Hill and was soon detected by that shrewd Divine. "Well," he said, "and
   so you profess to have been converted?" "Yes," said the old lady, "I
   was converted under your blessed ministry." "And where have you
   attended since that time?" "Sir, I have always attended your blessed
   ministry." "And I hope you have been comforted and built up?" "Yes, I
   have, very much, under your blessed ministry." "I suppose you know some
   of the rich people who attend with us." "Yes, I have been kindly
   noticed by many who sit under your blessed ministry." Mr. Hill then
   said, "I suppose you have heard that we have some blessed almshouses?"
   "Yes," she said, she had, "and she hoped she might have the blessed
   privilege of dwelling in one of them."

   Alas, alas, the blessed almshouses and the other blessed charities,
   which, indeed, are blessed if given from pure motives, have often been
   perverted to most accursed ends, and, "Lord, Lord," has been said with
   importunity by some whose sole object for saying it was that they might
   gain pence thereby. In whatever station of life you may be, I beseech
   you, scorn this meanness! Many a member of Parliament is as mean as any
   man in this respect. He pretends to be zealous for religion in order to
   gain a seat in the House. Everywhere there is too much of making
   religion a stalking horse by which lower ends may be reached. If you
   wish to be rich and opulent, go and get a ladder from anywhere except
   from Calvary! Put not the Cross to so mean a use! If you take the
   wounds and blood of Jesus and the Savior's precious name, and only to
   get worldly gain by them, what can come upon you but an angry blast
   from Almighty God? How can He bear such hypocrisy? And yet many will
   say, "Lord, Lord," for this reason and will never enter into the
   kingdom.

   Well, the list is sorrowfully long, but I must mention one or two
   others. One is the Sunday Christian. I dare say he is here now. He is
   an excellent Christian on Sunday. As soon as the sun shines upon the
   earth on the first day of the week, all his religion is awake! But,
   alas, he is a very strange Christian on Monday and a remarkably bad
   Christian on Saturday nights. Many people keep their piety folded up
   and put away with their best clothes--they only give it an airing on
   the Sabbath. Their Bible is to be seen under their arm on Sunday--but
   on Monday, where is that Bible? Well, not at the man's right hand as a
   perpetual companion! Where are the precepts of Scripture? Are they in
   the shop? Are they in the house? Alas, the golden rule has been left in
   Church to lie dusty in the pews until next Sunday!

   Religion is not needed by some people on a weekday--it might be
   inconvenient. Many there are who sing Psalms of praise to God but
   confine their praises to the congregation. As to praising Him in their
   heart at home, it never occurs to them. Their whole religion lies
   inside the Meeting House walls, or comes up at certain times and
   seasons during the day, when the family is called in to prayer. May God
   bare us from intermittent religion! May He grant us Grace to be always
   what we should wish to be if we were about to die! May religion never
   be to us a coat or a cloak to be taken off, but may it be intermingled
   with the warp and woof of our nature so that we do not so much talk
   religion as breathe and live it!

   I desire to eat and drink and sleep eternal life, as an old Divine used
   to say. May that be ours. Good John Newton used to say of his Calvinism
   that he did not preach it in masses of dry doctrine like pieces of lump
   sugar, but that it was stirred up in all his preaching, like sugar
   dissolved in our tea. Oh, that some of those people who keep lumps of
   religion for Sundays would sweeten their lives and tempers with it till
   men could see that their ordinary everyday actions were full of the
   Grace of God and that they were actuated at all times by the love of
   the Most High!

   God save us from being Sunday Christians! I will not continue the list,
   as our time is almost fled. There are many more varieties of vain
   professors, even as of unclean beasts there are many kinds. May we not
   be among them!

   III. WHERE DID THESE PEOPLE FAIL? That is the last point. The Savior
   said that they did not do what He said. "He that does the will of My
   Father which is in Heaven," says He, "shall enter the kingdom." What is
   the will, then, of His Father in Heaven? We are expressly told that
   this is the will of Him that sent Christ--that whoever sees the Son and
   believes on Him should not perish. It is a part, then, of the will of
   God, which we must do if we would be saved, that we believe on Jesus
   Christ.

   Dear Hearer, have you believed in Jesus? It not, your sacraments, your
   Church attendance, your Chapel attendance, your prayers and hymns all
   are for nothing! If you do not trust in Jesus, you have not even the
   foundation stone of salvation! You are lost, and may God have mercy
   upon you! It is a part of God's will, moreover, that where there is
   faith there should be obedience to God, conformity to the Divine
   precepts. In fact, true faith in Jesus always brings this. There never
   was a man that believed in Jesus but what he sought to do the will of
   Jesus! Now it is a part of the will of Jesus that all those who are His
   should love one another. Hypocrites do not love one another--though
   they are always talking about the need of love there is in the Church.

   Listen to them! They are always denouncing other people--and this is no
   mark of love to the Brethren. They have a keen eye for the
   imperfections of others, but they have no love to those they censure.
   We must love the Brethren or we lack the most plain and most necessary
   evidence of salvation, "for we know that we have passed from death unto
   life, because we love the Brethren." The true child of God, also, adds
   to his faith, love, and faith begets in him all the Graces and virtues
   which adorn renewed manhood and bring glory to God. Alas, I have known
   some high professors, not commonly truthful, who would talk about
   communion with Christ and sweet enjoyments of Divine love, and yet they
   seemed to miscalculate the multiplication table and did not know how
   many pounds went to a hundredweight! How dwells the love of God in a
   man who is a thief?

   How can it be that he is a servant of a just and holy God, when he is
   unjust in his dealings toward his fellow men? It will not do, Sir! You
   prate as long as you will, but you are no Christian unless the rule of
   integrity is the rule of your life! Yes, and there are some who are
   unchaste, and yet dare to talk about being Christians. My eyes might at
   this moment glance upon some who make this Tabernacle their place of
   pretended worship and profess to hear the words we speak with pleasure,
   who are a disgrace to Christianity all the time! Let them get home to
   their knees and pray God to give them manliness enough, at least, to be
   damned honestly and not to go down to Perdition wearing the name of
   Christian when Christians they are not! If I served Satan and loved the
   pleasures of sin, I would do so out-and-out like a man! But to sneak
   into the Church of God and to live unchastely--I have no words
   sufficiently strong with which to denounce such detestable meanness!

   Alas, I must add that here are some professed Christians who are not
   sober. If a man is not temperate in meats and drinks, how dare he talk
   about the power of prayer? How dare he come to the Prayer Meeting and
   open his month? Do you suppose that Christ has any communion with
   Bacchus, that He will strike hands across the ale house bar, and call
   him a friend who staggers out of the door of the gin palace to go and
   listen to a sermon? "Is that ever done?" asks one. Done? Yes, let some
   here confess that they have done it this very day! How dare they say,
   "Lord, Lord," and yet drain the drunkards' bowl in secret? O Sirs, I
   don't want to put any of these cases in such a way that you should be
   vexed and angry, and say, "He is too personal." But if you did say so I
   should not apologize! I would tell you that so long as you are personal
   in your offense to Christ, I shall be personal in my rebukes! If you
   are personally insulting the Savior, you must expect the Savior's
   servant to be personal in upbraiding you!

   Once more, I fear there are, in these days, a large number of
   professors who never exercise real private prayer. The Savior says He
   will say to them, "I never knew you." Now He would have known them if
   they had been accustomed to conversing with Him in private prayer. Had
   they communed with Him in earnest supplications, the Lord Jesus could
   not, then, have said, "I never knew you," for they would each one have
   replied, "Not know me, Lord? I have wept before You in secret when no
   other eyes saw me but Yours. I brought You habitually my daily cares
   and cast my burden upon You. Do You not know me? I have spoken to You
   face to face, as a man speaks with his friend! I know You, O my Lord,
   by joyous experience of Your goodness, and therefore I am sure You know
   me. Your answers to my prayers and your gifts of Divine Grace have been
   so constant that I am sure You know me! Who is there on earth You know
   if You do not know

   me?"

   Happy is the man who can speak thus! But alas, many are quite unable to
   make such a reply. I fear there are some professors now before me who
   do not pray. You were baptized and yet you do not pray! You have joined
   the Church and yet you restrain prayer! You dare come to the Communion
   Table, although for a long time you have lived without prayer, for I
   cannot call that prayer which you slobber over in the way you do with
   your morning prayer when you are in a hurry, and your evening prayer,
   when you are almost asleep. God bless you, Beloved, and save you from
   sham praying! May He, by His Grace, make you to have truth in your
   inward parts and cause you to be sincere before the living God.

   Now, I know what will happen. Some dear trembling heart will say, "I
   always thought I was a hypocrite. Now I know I am. I have always been
   fretting and troubling about that." It generally falls out contrary to
   our desire--those who are not hypocrites think they are--while real
   hypocrites throw off our warnings as an ironclad man-of-war casts off
   the shots of an ordinary gun! I try to make caps fit heads which
   deserve to be covered, but the people whose heads they will fit never
   put them on! And others for whom they were never intended at all--dear,
   loving, tender-hearted Believers, always watchful and careful--are the
   very ones who will put them on their own heads and cry, "Yes, I fear I
   am the hypocrite."

   Ah, dear Soul, do not write bitter things against yourself, because if
   you will consider the matter, you will soon see that you are no
   hypocrite. Would you do anything to grieve Christ? Do you not, above
   all things, desire to trust Him? Do you know anybody to trust in but
   Jesus? Are you not depending upon Him? And though you could not say you
   would die for Him, yet I believe, if it came to that, that your
   trembling faith would still stay alive--but some of the boastful ones,
   who, in their own esteem, are almost perfect--would give way and end in
   apostasy. To each one I would say, if you believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ with all your heart--you are no hypocrite!

   But if any one of you has been a hypocrite and has to plead guilty to
   many things I have mentioned, come to the foot of the Cross and say,
   "Jesus, Master, I am the chief of sinners--have mercy upon me! Look on
   me and let my sins pass away. Look on me and let all cunning and
   hypocrisy be driven far from me. Give me a new heart and a right
   spirit, and from this day make me Your child and I will glorify You,
   both on earth and in Heaven, forever and ever."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Matthew 7. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--643, 640, 637.

   MESSAGE:

   Beloved Friends--This is the last sermon to be issued in my absence. I
   hope to present you next week with a discourse preached on my return. I
   have been very ill during my absence in foreign lands, but I hope the
   result will be that on recommencing my work I shall be both physically
   and mentally all the more fitted for it. And I pray that to these
   blessings spiritual energy may be added by the abiding power of the
   Holy Spirit. It is a period of revival--may the Lord revive His work in
   each of us! I entreat the prayers of my readers and of my beloved
   flock. Grace, mercy, and peace be with you all. Amen.

   Mentone, Feb. 12,1874 C. H. SPURGEON.
     __________________________________________________________________

Counting the Cost

   (No. 1159)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 22, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sits not down first, and
   counts the cost, whether he has sufficient to finish it? Lest haply,
   after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all
   that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and
   was not able to finish." Luke 14:28-30.

   THIS passage is peculiar to Luke. He tells us that at the time when our
   Lord uttered it, great multitudes followed Him. It is observable that
   when our Lord was forsaken by the crowd, He was not depressed, and when
   His ministry became popular He was not elated. He was calm and wise in
   the midst of the excitement of the thronging multitudes. This passage
   is sufficient evidence of that fact. On this occasion our Lord spoke
   with a view to the winnowing of the great heap of nominal discipleship
   which lay before Him, that the chaff might be driven away and only the
   precious corn might remain.

   The discourse before us reminds us of Gideon's process of diminishing
   that vast but motley host of which the Lord said, "The people are too
   many for Me." After having bid the faint-hearted go, He next brought
   down the remaining thousands to the river and bade them drink. And then
   He only kept for Himself those who lapped in a certain peculiar manner,
   which indicated their zeal, their speed, their energy and their
   experience. Our Lord tested His followers that He might have only those
   remaining who would be fit for the conquest of the world. To carry His
   precious treasure He would select vessels whom Divine Grace had made
   fit for His use--the rest He could dispense with.

   Our Lord Jesus was far too wise to pride Himself upon the number of His
   converts. He cared, rather, for quality than quantity. He rejoiced over
   one sinner that repented, but 10,000 sinners who merely professed to
   have repented would have given Him no joy whatever. His heart longed
   after the real. He loathed the counterfeit. He panted after the
   sub-stance--the shadow could not content Him. His fan was in His hand
   with which to thoroughly purge His floor and His axe was laid to the
   root of the trees to hew down the fruitless. He was anxious to leave a
   living Church like good seed-corn in the land--as free as possible from
   all admixture.

   Therefore in this particular instance one might even think that He was
   repelling men rather than attracting them to His leadership. But,
   indeed, He was doing nothing of the kind! He understood right well that
   men, to be truly won, must be won by truth--that the truest love is
   always honest, and that the best disciple is not he who joins the class
   of the great Master in a hurry, and then afterwards discovers that the
   learning is not such as he expected--but one who comes sighing after
   just such knowledge as the teacher is prepared to give. Moreover, our
   Lord knew what sometimes we may forget--that there is no heartbreak in
   the world to the godly worker like that which comes of disappointed
   hopes.

   When those who have said, "Lord, I will follow You where ever You go,"
   turn back unto their evil ways. And when the hot breath which shouted,
   "Hosanna!" turns into the cruel, cold-blooded cry, "Crucify Him!
   Crucify Him," nothing is more injurious to a Church than a large
   dilution with half-hearted members--and nothing more dangerous to the
   persons themselves than to allow them to put on an untrue profession.
   Therefore did the Master take most care at the time when that care was
   most needed, that none should follow Him under misapprehension, but
   should be made fully aware of what was meant by being His disciples, so
   that they should not say afterwards, "We have been misled. We have been
   beguiled into a service which disappoints us."

   Unlike the enlisting sergeant, who sets forth all the glories of
   military service in glowing colors in order to gain a recruit, the
   great Captain of our salvation would have His followers take all things
   into consideration before they cast in their lot with Him. This morning
   our text may be equally suitable and its warning may be as necessary
   and as salutary as when first the Master pronounced it, for great
   multitudes are just now following Christ--a revival has come and
   stirred

   the mass of you. Among the would-be disciples (blessed be God!) are
   many whom the Lord Himself has called, for every one of whom we give
   most hearty thanks!

   But with them, necessarily, (for when was it ever different?), there
   are others who are not called of God at all. They are moved by the
   natural impulse of imitating others and stirred by feelings which are,
   none the less, fleeting because just now they are intense. And
   therefore, in Christ's name, it is ours to address you even as He did,
   and warn you in His own words--"If any man comes to Me, and hates not
   his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brother, and
   sisters, yes, and his own life, also, he cannot be My disciple. And
   whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me, cannot be My
   disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sits not down
   first, and counts the cost, whether he has sufficient to finish it?
   Lest haply, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish
   it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to
   build, and was not able to finish."

   To assist our memories, we will divide our meditation into three parts.
   The first will be headed in this manner--true religion is a costly
   thing. The second shall bear this motto--Wisdom suggests that before we
   enter upon it we should estimate the cost. And the third shall bear
   this inscription--Cost what it may, it is worth what it costs.

   I. First, then, it is clear from our text that TRUE RELIGION IS COSTLY.
   Far be it from us to create any confusion of thought here! The gifts of
   God's Grace cost us nothing, neither could His salvation be purchased
   with money, nor with merit, nor by vows and penances. "If a man should
   give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be
   condemned." The Gospel motto is, "without money and without price." We
   are "justified freely by His Grace, through the redemption which is in
   Christ Jesus."

   Yet, for all that, if a man will be a Christian it will cost him
   something. Consider a moment. Here is a blind man sitting by the
   wayside begging. He asks to have his eyes opened. Will it cost him
   anything? No, the Savior would not accept all the gold in the world for
   the cure! He will freely open his eyes. But when they are opened it
   will cost that blind man something! Obtaining his sight, he will be
   called upon to discharge the duties of one who has eyes. He will not be
   allowed, any longer, to sit there and beg, or, if he tries to do so, he
   will lose the sympathy which is bestowed upon blindness. Now that his
   eyes are opened he must use them, and earn his own bread. It will cost
   him something, for he will now be conscious of the darkness of the
   night which he knew nothing of before!

   And there are sad sights which now he must look upon which never
   grieved him before, for often what the eyes do not see, the heart does
   not know. A man cannot gain a faculty except at some expense. He that
   increases knowledge or the means of gaining it, increases both sorrow
   and duty. Take another case. A poor man is suddenly made a prince--it
   will cost him the giving up of his former manners--and will involve him
   in new duties and cares. A man is set on the road to Heaven as a
   pilgrim--does he pay anything to enter by the wicket gate? He does not.
   Free Grace admits him to the sacred way.

   But when that man is put on the road to Heaven it will cost him
   something. It will cost him earnestness to knock at the wicket gate and
   sweat to climb the Hill Difficulty. It will cost him tears to find his
   roll again when he has lost it in the Arbor of Ease. It will cost him
   great care in going down the Valley of Humiliation. It will cost him
   resistance unto blood when he stands foot to foot with Apollyon in
   conflict. It will cost him many fears when he has to traverse the
   Valley of the Shadow of Death. It may cost him his life when he comes
   to Vanity Fair, if, like Faithful, he is called to bear testimony at
   the stake!

   True religion is the gift of God and there is nothing we can do to
   purchase it. But at the same time, if we receive it, certain
   consequences will flow from it--and we ought to consider whether we
   shall be able to put up with them. You may be sure that the cost must
   be great, since our Lord compares it to the building of a tower. The
   word here used for, "tower," has often been employed to signify a
   turreted house, a villa, or country mansion. "Which of you," says He to
   the people, "intending to build for himself a mansion in which to
   reside at your ease, would not first of all count the cost?" The
   building is to be a costly one!

   Doddridge is wrong in the supposition that a temporary tower is here
   intended. That it would cost a considerable sum is clear from the
   Savior's saying that the wise man sits down and counts the cost. He
   does not merely stand up and pass his hand over his brow and say, "This
   tower will cost me so many hundred pounds." Since it is to be an
   elaborate construction, an almost palatial edifice, he sits down, like
   a merchant at his desk, and thoughtfully considers the under-

   taking. He consults the architect and the mason, and calculates what
   will be the expense of the outer walls, of the roof, of the interior
   fittings and the like. And he does not make a rough estimate, but
   counts the cost as men count their gold.

   It is evidently a matter of consequence with him, and so is true
   religion--it is no trifle, but an all-important business. He who thinks
   that a careless, hit-or-miss, headlong venture will suffice for his
   eternal interests is the reverse of wise! True godliness is the
   building up of a character which will endure the Day of Judgment. It
   begins in laying deep the foundations in faith, love and a renewed
   heart. It is carried on by the putting patiently and carefully, and
   often painfully, stone upon stone, the materials of the fair edifice,
   diligently adding, "to your faith courage, and to courage knowledge,
   and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to
   patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to
   brotherly kindness charity."

   Our lifework consists in "building up ourselves in our most holy
   faith." Don't you see that it is a glorious palace to which the
   Christian character is likened? But, lest we should still think the
   expense small, our Lord compares it to a war! He speaks of the number
   of troops engaged in that war, showing that it is no petty skirmish of
   two insignificant tribes. He likens it to a war in which, upon one side
   there is an array of 10,000, and on the other a host of twenty
   thousand. Now, warfare is always expensive work--besides the cost for
   accoutrements and ammunition, there is the cost of human life and
   blood.

   There is the removal of strong arms from work at home and the direr
   risks of defeat, captivity and devastation. The Lord compares religion,
   then, in its externals, to a battle between the gracious man and the
   evils rampant in the outside world. The disciple of Jesus has to defend
   himself against a gigantic foe and he has within himself a power which,
   so far as he is concerned, is not sufficient for the contest. The odds
   are fearful--10,000 against twenty thousand! Well does the Savior say
   in the latter case that it is well to sit down to consult. The king
   with the smaller army consults, asks his sage senators, takes counsel
   from experience, calls in good advisers and debates whether the thing
   can be done or not.

   So should we consider the matter of our souls, for religion is a costly
   thing and not to be entered on, as the Frenchman said, "with a light
   heart." That light heart cost his nation dearly and so it will,
   ourselves, if we indulge it. We might have inferred this, I think, from
   some other considerations--namely from the fact that true religion is a
   lasting thing. It lasts for life. False religion comes and goes. True
   regeneration is never repeated and it is the commencement of a life
   which will loom no end, either in time or in eternity.

   Now anything which is to last must be expensive! You shall get your
   glass colored, if you will, cheaply, but the sun will soon remove all
   its beauty. If you would obtain a glass which shall retain its color
   for centuries, every single step in the process of its manufacture will
   be costly, involving much labor and great care. So is it with true
   religion. You may get it cheap if you will--it will look quite as well
   as the real thing and for a little while it will bring you almost all
   the comfort and respect which the genuine article would have brought
   you--but it will not last. Soon will its color fly and the beauty, the
   excellence which were there but in pretence, will soon have gone. You
   need, dear Friend, (I am sure you do), you need a godliness which will
   last you till you die! Well, then, it must cost you something, you can
   be sure of that.

   Remember, also, that true religion will have to bear a strain, for it
   is certain to be opposed. This tower will not be built without
   opposition! It is like the wall of Jerusalem. Sanballat and Tobias will
   be sure to hinder the building. True religion must be able to endure
   hardness--if it cannot do that it is good for nothing. The old Toledo
   blade cost the warrior much at first hand, but when he has once
   procured it, he knows that it will cut through joint and marrow in the
   day of battle. Therefore he is not afraid to dash into the thick of the
   fray, trusting to its unrivalled temper and keen edge.

   Could he not find a cheaper sword? I think he could have found it
   easily enough, and with small expense of gold. But then, in the moment
   when his sword smote upon his enemy's helmet, instead of cleaving
   through the skull, it would snap in the warrior's hand and cost him his
   life! Such is the cheap religion with which so many take up. There is
   no self-denial in it, no forsaking of the world, no giving up of carnal
   amusements--they are just the same as the world--their religion costs
   them nothing and at last, when they need it, it will fail them--it will
   snap like the ill-made sword in the day of battle and leave them
   defenseless!

   Oh, if you want that which will endure the conflict, you must pay a
   cost for it! Jesus Christ knew that the persons to whom He spoke would
   not be able to bear the tests which awaited His disciples. They did not
   know that He would be crucified, for just then He was popular, and they
   hoped that He was to be the King of Israel. But the Savior knew that
   there would come dark days in which the King of the Jews would be
   hanged upon a tree and His disciples, even His true

   ones, would forsake Him for the moment and would flee. And therefore
   He, in effect, said to them, "You must be prepared for cross-bearing.
   You must be prepared to follow Me amid derision and shame and reproach.
   And if you are not ready for this, your discipleship is a mistake!

   In their case it did not stand the test. These people were nowhere to
   be found when the time of trial came. And remember, dear Friends--and I
   dwell with great emphasis upon this point--we need a religion which
   will abide the inspection of the Great Judge at the Last Day. Now,
   there are things in the world which will endure for a while, but if
   they are closely looked at, and especially if they are placed under a
   microscope, they will be seen to have many flaws. No microscopic
   examination can, for a moment, be compared with the glance of Jehovah!
   He will read us through and through. Oh, what a withering will there be
   for fair professions in the day when His fiery eyes shall gaze upon
   them! Never does the grass dry up under the hot dry wind one-half as
   swiftly as the fair plains of pretended Christianity will wither
   beneath the Divine glance in the Last Tremendous Day!

   He will look upon what men call Christendom and it will almost, if not
   altogether, vanish for, "when the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith
   upon the earth?" Will it not, then, be evidently true that "many are
   called, and but few are chosen"? "Strive to enter in at the strait
   gate," is still the voice of Christ to all of us, "for many shall seek
   to enter in, but shall not be able." If our religion is to be weighed
   in the balances, and may, perhaps, be found wanting, it is well for us
   to see to it and to know that it must be sincere, genuine and costly if
   it is to pass that ordeal. What, then, is the expense? What is the cost
   of building this tower or fighting this war?

   The answer is given by our Savior, not by me! I should not have dared
   to invent such tests as He has ordained! It is for me to be the echo of
   His voice and no more. What does He say? Why, first, that if you would
   be His and have His salvation, you must love Him beyond every other
   person in this world. Is not that the meaning of this expression, "If
   any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother"? Dear names!
   Dear names! "Father and mother!" Lives there a man with soul so dead
   that he can pronounce either of these words without emotion--and
   especially the last--"mother"? Brothers and Sisters, this is a dear and
   tender name to us--it touches a chord which thrills our being! Yet far
   more powerful is the name of Savior, the name of Jesus!

   Father and mother must be less loved than Jesus Christ! The Lord
   demands precedence, also, of the best beloved "wife." Here he touches
   another set of heart-strings. Dear is that word," wife," partner of our
   being, comfort of our sorrow, delight of our eyes--"wife!" Yet, Wife,
   you must not take the chief place. You must sit at Jesus' feet, or else
   you are an idol, and Jesus will not allow your rivalry. And "children,"
   the dear babes that nestle in your bosom and clamber to your knee and
   pronounce your name in accents of music--they must not be our chief
   love--they must not come in between us and the Savior. Nor, for their
   sakes, to give them pleasure or to promote their worldly advantage,
   must we grieve our Lord.

   Many a son is master of his father. Many a daughter has been mistress
   to the mother. But if it is for evil, this must be ended at once! If
   they tempt us to evil they must be treated as if we hated them--yes,
   the evil in them must be hated for Christ's sake! If you are Christ's
   disciples your Lord must be first, then mother, father, wife, children,
   brothers, and sisters will follow in due rank and order. I am afraid
   that many professors are not prepared for this. They would be
   Christians if their family would approve, but they must consult their
   brother, father, or wife. They would make a stand against worldly
   pleasures if others would, but they cannot bear to appear singular, or
   to oppose the views of relatives.

   They say, "My father wishes it and I dare not tell him that it is
   wrong" "My mother says that we must not be too strait-laced and
   therefore, though my conscience tells me it is wrong, yet will I do
   it." Or else they say, "My girls are growing up and must have
   amusement. My boys must be allowed their pleasures and therefore I must
   wink at sin." Ah, my Brothers and Sisters, this must not be if you are,
   indeed, Christ's disciples! You must put them all aside--the dearest
   must go sooner than Jesus be forsaken! Does He not say in the Psalms,
   "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear; forget also
   your own people, and your father's house; so shall the King greatly
   desire your beauty: for he is your Lord; and worship you Him"?

   Mark you, you will best prove your love to your relatives by being
   decided for the right, since you will be the more likely to win their
   souls. Love them too much to indulge the wrong in them! Love them so
   truly that you hate that in them which would injure you and ruin them!
   You must be prepared to suffer from those who are bound to you by the

   dearest ties. Sin must not be tolerated whatever may happen. We cannot
   yield in the point of sin--our determination is invincible--come hate
   or come love, we must follow Christ!

   The next item of cost is this--self must be hated. I am afraid there
   are some who would sooner hate father or wife than hate their own life.
   Yet such is the command. It means this--that when my own pleasure, or
   my own gain, or my own reputation, or even my own life shall come in
   the way of Christ's Glory, I am too little to make any account of
   my-self--that I must even hate myself if self shall stand in the way of
   Christ! I am to look upon father, mother, brother, sister and myself,
   also, as foes, so far as they are opposed to the Lord Jesus and His
   holy will! I am to love them and desire their good as I also desire
   good for myself, but I am not to desire any good for them or for myself
   at the cost of sinning and robbing the Lord Jesus of His Glory. As for
   myself, if I see anything in myself opposed to Jesus I must do away
   with it. I must mortify the flesh with its affections and lusts,
   denying myself anything and everything which would grieve the Savior,
   or would prevent my realizing perfect conformity to Him.

   Next, the Savior goes on to say that if we would follow Him we must
   bear our cross--"Whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me
   cannot be My disciple." Sometimes that cross comes in the shape of
   confessing our faith before gainsayers. "Ah," says the timid heart, "if
   I do so I shall have all my friends against me." Take up your cross! It
   is a part of the cost of true discipleship. "I shall scarcely be able
   to bear myself in the house if I avow my religion." Take up your cross!
   My Brother, unless you do, you cannot be Christ's disciple. "Well, but
   it will involve a change even in my daily life." Make the change, my
   Brother, or you cannot be the Lord's disciple.

   "But I know there is one very dear whom I have looked upon as likely to
   be my future companion--and he will leave me if I forsake the ways of
   the world." Then, heavy as the loss may be, let him go, my Sister, if
   it is so that you cannot follow Christ and unite with Him. You must
   follow Jesus, or be lost forever! What trying words these are! What
   detectors of the hypocrisy of many professing Christians! Did they ever
   separate from the world? No, not they--they fell in with its fashions
   as the dead fish floats with the current! Have they any cross to bear?
   Does anybody reproach them with being too rigid, and too puritanical?
   Oh, no! For theirs is the religion which the world praises and
   consequently the religion which God abhors! If any man loves the world,
   the love of the Father is not in him--and he who has the smile of the
   ungodly must look for the frown of God!

   But, more than this, the Savior, as another item of cost, requires that
   His disciple should take up his cross and come after Him, that is to
   say, he must act as Christ acted. If we are not prepared to make Christ
   our example, yes, if it is not our highest ambition to live as He
   lived, to give ourselves up to act as He did, we cannot be His
   disciples. Last of all, we must make an unreserved surrender of all to
   Jesus. Listen to these words: "Whoever he is of you that forsakes not
   all that he has, he cannot be My disciple." It may yet come to this,
   that persecution may arise and you may actually have to give up all!
   You must be prepared for the event. You may not have to give up
   anything, but the surrender must be just as real in your heart as if it
   had to be carried out in act and deed. No man has truly given himself
   to Christ unless he has also said, "My Lord, I give to You this day my
   body, my soul, my powers, my talents, my goods, my house, my children
   and all that I have. Henceforth I will hold them at Your will, as a
   steward under You. Yours they are--as for me, I have nothing--I have
   surrendered all to You."

   You cannot be Christ's disciples at any less expense than this--if you
   possess a farthing that is your own and not your Master's, Christ is
   not your Master! It must be all His, every single jot and tittle--and
   your life, also--or you cannot be His. These are very searching words,
   but I would remind you, once again, that they are not mine. If, in
   expounding them I have erred, I am grieved that it should be so. But I
   am persuaded I have not erred on the side of too much severity. I
   confess I may have spoken too leniently. The words of the text lay the
   axe to the root and are sweeping to the last degree.

   Oh, count, then, the cost! And if any of you have taken up a religion
   which costs you nothing, put it down and flee from it, for it will be
   your curse and your ruin! Is there any getting to Heaven without this
   cost? No! But may we not be Christians without these sacrifices? You
   may be counterfeits, you may be hypocrites, you may be brothers and
   sisters of Judas, but you cannot be real Christians! This cost is
   unavoidable, it cannot be bated one solitary mite. God grant that you
   may be enabled to submit to it.

   II. The second head is this, WISDOM SUGGESTS THAT WE SHOULD COUNT THE
   COST. You feel you would

   like to be a Christian. Dear Friend, give me your hand. I am glad you
   have such a desire. But as I grasp your hand and

   would gladly draw you towards Christ, I look you in the face and say,
   "Do you know what you desire?" Are you sure you desire it? There are
   men lying on beds of sickness who cry for help, but when they recover
   and have to go out and battle with the world, the time may come when
   they will say, "I would just as soon be on the bed of sickness again."
   I should not like a time to come when any one of you shall say, "I
   joined the Church, but it was a mistake. I did not weigh the matter
   rightly. I am now in for it, and I am sorry I am, for I ought not to be
   where I am."

   If honest, you ought to give up your profession, if such is the case.
   If you have no Divine Grace, I hope you will have enough of common
   honesty not to stick to a practical falsehood. I should grieve, indeed,
   if that should happen, and therefore this morning, I pray you, count
   the coat! For mark, if you do not count the cost, you will not be able
   to carry out your resolves. It is a great building. It is a great war!
   No mistake can be greater than the notion that in order to be a
   Christian there is only needed a measure of emotion during a few
   days--and the belief of some one decisive hour! If I preached such
   doctrines I should be deceiving your souls!

   Faith and repentance are not the work of a week or two, they are a
   lifework! As long as the Christian is on earth he must repent. And as
   for faith, it is not saying, "I believe in Jesus, and therefore I am
   saved," but it is a daily Grace, the trust of a lifetime. The Christian
   continues, still, to believe and repent until he commences to triumph
   in eternal Glory. Moreover, faith is continually productive of
   sanctifying results upon the life of the Believer, or otherwise he is
   not possessed of the right faith. He who believes in Jesus Christ is
   saved--but if there were such a thing as a temporary faith there would
   be such a thing as a temporary salvation. He who truly repents of sin
   is a renewed man, but if repentance of sin were only a transient thing
   and were soon over, the life which it indicated would be over, too. You
   must not be content with false and fleeting religion! You are beginning
   to build a tower of which the top stone will never be laid till you are
   taken up to Heaven--and you are commencing a war which will never end
   till you exchange the sword for the palm branch.

   Remember, also, that to fail in this great enterprise will involve
   terrible defeat, for what does our Lord say? He says that not to be
   able to finish will expose you to ridicule. I beg you to notice the
   form of that ridicule. "All that pass by will begin to mock him, saying
   one to the other (for that is the force of the expression) this man
   began to build but was not able to finish." Our Lord does not represent
   them as saying to the foolish builder, "You began to build and were not
   able to finish," but as speaking about him as a third person--"This
   man." Now, half-hearted Christians, half-hearted religious men may not
   be scoffed at in the public streets to their faces, but they are common
   butts of ridicule behind their backs. You false professors are
   universally despised! Worldlings laughingly say, "Ah, these are pretty
   specimens of Church members!"

   The world looks upon a worldly church with utter disdain, and for my
   part, little do I regret that such derision is poured upon an object
   which so well deserves it! To be a mere pretender to Christian
   discipleship is to become an object of scorn in time and in eternity.
   And such will be the false professor's fate. Sir, if you mean to be a
   Christian, resolve that it shall be the right thing, thorough and
   decided--for then, though men will not go about and praise you to your
   face, they will honor you--and even those who hate you will know your
   value. But if you are only half a Christian and not thorough, they may
   not come to your face and show their contempt, but as they pass by they
   will sneer and will have more respect for a downright worldling than
   for you--because he is what he says he is, and makes no pretence of
   being anything else! But as for you, you began to build and could not
   finish.

   What a wretched object is a sham Christian! We have sometimes seen
   great buildings which have been commenced and deserted by
   over-speculative persons. The neighbors have called them "Smithy's
   Folly," or "Brown's Folly," or "Robinson's Folly," or the like. These
   are but fleeting causes of derision. But the pretender, the man who, in
   appearance, commenced to be a Christian and then broke down at it, will
   be pointed at even by the lost in Hell! The drunkard will cry, "And
   you? Have you, also, come here? You who were so eloquent about
   sobriety, and so ready to rebuke the tippler." "Aha!" cries another,
   "you are the man who lived down our street and made so much show of
   your religion! You told me I was very wicked, but are you better off
   than I am?"

   Behold, I see the openly profane raise themselves up from their racks
   of remorse to exclaim, "Have you become like one of us? You
   Church-member, are you, too, in Hell? Is the taste of the sacramental
   wine still upon your lips? Why, then, do you demand a drop of water to
   cool your tongue? That sacramental bread which you did swallow so
   readily, does it not even now stick in your hypocritical throat? You
   liar before God and man! It is meet and right that you are

   cast out even as we." Oh, if you must be lost, be lost as anything but
   hypocrites! If you must perish, perish rather outside the Church than
   in it! Do not mock the Lord of Glory! I know of no worse act than to
   mimic the excellences of the Savior with bold imitation of His Graces!
   What worse offense can you render to the Majesty of His sacred virtue
   than to travesty His holiness and mock His perfection?

   III. The last word shall be this, that COST WHATEVER IT MAY, TRUE
   RELIGION IS WORTH THE COST. We

   are like a man with the black pest upon him who knows that he is dying
   and yet yonder is a drug which will heal him. "Physician," says he,
   "you ask so great a price that each drop costs me a diamond! You are
   demanding more than its weight in choicest pearls, but it does not
   matter, I must have it! If I do not, I am a dead man--and then what
   will it profit me that I have kept my gold?" It is the case of every
   one of us here present--we must have Christ or perish for-ever--and it
   will be better for us to cut off our right arm and pluck out our right
   eye than that we should be cast into

   Hell fire!

   Mark you, Brothers and Sisters, the present blessings of true religion
   are worth all the cost. What if I have to rend some fond connection?
   Jesus, You are better to me than husband, wife, or child. If it must be
   so that she who lies in my bosom shall count me for her enemy, You
   shall be in my heart, my Savior, better than a Rachel, or a Rebekah.
   Yes, if it must be so that my father shall say, "You shall never darken
   my doors again if you follow Christ," he must say it, for when father
   and mother forsake me the Lord will take me up. The immediate joy will
   recompense for the immediate loss. Yes, doubtless you may count all
   things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
   your Lord and yet remain a gainer.

   And again, what recompense comes for all cost in the consolation
   afforded by true godliness in the article of death? To lie a-dying--why
   it will give no pain to be able to say, then, "I was cast out of any
   family for Jesus." It will be no sorrow to remember, "I was ridiculed
   for Christ." It will cause us no pangs to say, "I was counted too
   precise and too much of a Puritan." No, my Brothers and Sisters, those
   are not the things which put thorns into death pillows. Oh, no! There
   we shall see how sweet it was to have borne any part of Jesus' Cross--a
   sliver of His Cross will be worth a king's ransom on a dying day!
   Moreover, at the Judgment, when the trumpet rings out and the dead are
   rising, we shall not say, "I suffered too much for Christ."

   When to the right His chosen go, and we among them, we shall not look
   back with regret to the fact that we lost caste in society and position
   among the refined for Jesus' sake! We shall not lament that we attended
   a despised conventicle and worshipped among the poor of this world out
   of love to Jesus, and fidelity to His Gospel. Oh, no! I guarantee you
   in that day he shall shine brightest who was most beclouded for his
   Lord's sake! Midst the bright ones, doubly bright shall be the martyr
   band of whom the world was not worthy--who were accounted as the
   offscouring of all things! And while each one of the disciples shall
   receive a hundredfold for all he may have given up for his Lord's
   cause, these shall have the fairest portion.

   Moreover, let me remind you, Beloved, that Christ asks you to give up
   nothing that will injure you. If you must hate father and mother it is
   only in this sense--that you will not yield to their wrong requests,
   nor will you leave Christ for them. If you must give up any pleasure it
   is because it is not a fitting pleasure for you--it is poisonous sugar
   of lead-- and not true sweetness. Christ will give you greater
   enjoyments by far. I remember that our Redeemer does not ask any one of
   us to do what He has not done Himself. That thought pierces me to the
   quick--I wish it might affect you, also. Master, do You say, give up my
   father? Did You not leave Your Father? Do You bid me even leave my
   father's house if it must be for Your sake?

   Did You not leave the glorious mansions of Heaven? What if I am called
   to bear reproach? They called the Master of the house Beelzebub! What
   if I am cast out? They also cast You out. When we think of the
   scourging, the shame and the spitting which the Lord endured, what are
   our griefs? And if, for His sake, we should even be condemned to death
   we know how He hung on the Cross, stripped of His all, that He might
   save us from the wrath to come! O Believer, can you follow your Lord
   where ever He goes? Soldiers of the Cross, can you follow Him? Is the
   path smooth enough for those dear feet and too rough for you? There He
   is in the center of the battle where the blows fall fastest--will you
   follow Him? Dare you follow Him, or do you pine for the tents of ease
   and the soft couches of the cowards, yonder, who are shrinking back and
   deserting to the enemy?

   Oh, by everything that is good, if you are, indeed, His followers, I
   charge you, cry, "Where He is, there let His servant be! As He fares,
   so let His servant fare--in this world let His humiliation be ours so
   that in the world to come we may be partakers of His Glory." This is
   strong preaching, you tell me, but the Savior meant all that I have
   said. His was a testing discourse, but there are Truths of God to be
   remembered which may console us while hearing them. It is true that you
   cannot build the tower--Joshua said to the people in his time--"You
   cannot serve the Lord." If you have counted the cost, you know, by this
   time, that you cannot wage the war. Ten thousand cannot stand against
   twenty thousand. But yet it must be done, inevitable necessity drives
   on behind--whatever may be in front--we dare not turn back.

   Remember Lot's wife. What, then, must we do? Hear the Lord's words,
   "With men it is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Are
   you willing? Then the Spirit of God will help you! You shall give up
   the world and the flesh without a sigh! You shall fight against your
   lusts and you shall overcome them through the blood of the Lamb! The
   tower shall be built and the Lord shall inhabit it! Cast yourselves on
   Jesus by a simple faith--rest in His power--and from day to day believe
   in His strength, and He will bear you safely through!

   Do you notice the verse which follows this passage? I wonder whether
   anything like it will follow my sermon. It is astonishing that though
   Jesus thundered out as from the top of Sinai and His words seemed
   harsh, yet it is written, "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans
   and sinners for to hear Him," as if they said to themselves, "This man
   tells us the Truth of God, therefore we will hear Him." And then He
   began to tell them the precious Truths of His Free Grace, acting just
   as the farmer does who puts in the plow and turns up the soil--when he
   sees the clods breaking in the furrow, then he scatters the golden
   seed--but not till then.

   Listen, every one of you who would have Christ! Come, and have Him! You
   who would have salvation, accept it as the gift of His Sovereign Grace!
   But do not receive it under misapprehension--understand what is meant
   by it. Salvation is not deliverance from Hell, alone--it is deliverance
   from sin! It is not the rescue of men, merely from eternal pain--it is
   their redemption from this world's vain and wicked ways! It cannot be
   divided! It is a garment without seam, woven from the top throughout.
   If you would have justification, you must have sanctification! If you
   would have pardon, you must have holiness! It you would be one with
   Christ, you must be separate from sinners. If you would walk the
   streets of gold above, you must walk the road of holiness below! God
   grant you His Holy Spirit to enable you to do so and His shall be the
   praise forever! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 103; Luke 14:25-35.
   HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--906, 671, 596
     __________________________________________________________________

The Entreaty of the Holy Spirit

   (No. 1160)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 1, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, Today if you will hear His voice,
   harden not your hearts." Hebrews 3:7.

   THE peculiar circumstances in which we are now placed as a congregation
   demand of me that my discourses should be principally directed to the
   unconverted, that the awakened may be decided, that those may be
   awakened who as yet remain unmoved, and that a desire to seek the Lord
   may spread all around us. We may leave the 99 in the wilderness for a
   little while, just now, and go after that which has gone astray. It is
   our duty, usually, to feed the children, but for a while we may leave
   that to other agencies, and hand out food to those who are perishing of
   hunger. These seasons of revival do not last forever--they come and
   they go and, therefore--they must be taken advantage of while they are
   with us.

   The farmer tells us that he must make hay while the sun shines and we,
   also, must attend, in the season, to the labor which it suggests--and
   that duty seems to me to look in the direction of the undecided. While
   God is speaking so mightily, we should plead with men to hear His
   voice! Clearly, it is our wisdom to say, "Amen," to what the Lord is
   saying, for as His Word cannot return unto Him void, ours will be sure
   to be fruitful when it tallies with the Lord's. Therefore the subject
   of my sermon this morning shall be that of our hymn writer--

   "'Hear God while He speaks,' then hear Him today. And pray while you
   hear, unceasingly pray! Believe in Hispromise, rely on His Word, And
   while He commands you, obey your great Lord." I have taken this text
   with the earnest hope that God may bless it and I look to the Lord's
   people to baptize the text in floods of anxious tears for the unsaved.

   I. The first point which it presents for serious consideration is
   this--THE SPECIAL VOICE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. "As the Holy Spirit says,
   Today if you will hear His voice." The Apostle is continually quoting
   from the Old Testament, but he does not often present his quotations in
   this peculiar fashion. In the very next chapter, when he is speaking of
   the same passage, he uses the expression, "Saying in David"--mentioning
   the human author of the Psalm. But in this case, to give full emphasis
   to the Truth of God, he quotes the Divine Author alone--"As the Holy
   Spirit says."

   These words, it is true, are applicable to every passage of sacred
   Scripture, for we may say of all the Inspired Books--"As the Holy
   Spirit says." But it is designedly used here that the passage may have
   the greater weight with us. The Holy Spirit, in fact, not only speaks
   thus in the 95th Psalm, but it is His unvarying utterance. The Holy
   Spirit says, or continues, still, to say, "Hear you His voice today."
   He has a certain doctrine upon one occasion and a still deeper Truth of
   God at another period, according as there was need, or as His people
   were prepared for it. But this particular utterance is for all time and
   for every day of Divine Grace. The Holy Spirit, by Paul, as before by
   David, says, "Today."

   Yes, that is still the burden which He lays upon His ministering
   servants--in every place they entreat and persuade men, saying, "Today
   if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." How does the Holy
   Spirit thus speak? He says this first, in the Scriptures. Every command
   of Scripture calls for immediate obedience. The Law of God is not given
   to us to be laid by upon the shelf to be obeyed at some future period
   of life! And the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not so
   intended for the 11th hour as to be lightly trifled with during the
   first ten. Wherever the Holy Spirit exhorts, He speaks in the present
   tense, and bids us now repent, or now believe, or now seek the Lord!

   I pray you always remember, whenever you read the Bible, that it is the
   Spirit of the living God who there admonishes you to immediate
   obedience! The calls of the Inspired Word are not those of Moses, or
   David, or Paul, or Peter, but the solemn utterances of the Holy Spirit
   speaking through them. With what a dignity does this Truth invest Holy
   Scrip-

   ture and with what solemnity does it surround our reading of it!
   Quibbling with Scripture, trifling with it, disputing its doctrines, or
   neglecting its admonitions we grieve the Spirit of God! And this is
   very dangerous ground to trespass on, for although He is long-suffering
   and pitiful, yet remember it is of the sin against the Holy Spirit that
   it is said, "It shall never be forgiven."

   Not every sin against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable--God be thanked
   for that! But there is a sin against the Holy Spirit which shall never
   be forgiven. Therefore do we tread, I say, on very delicate ground when
   we vex Him, as we do if at any time in reading His Word we count His
   teachings to be light matters. Beware, I say, you men of England, who
   have your Bibles in your houses among whom the Word of the Lord is
   common as wheat bread! Beware how you treat it, for in rejecting it you
   reject not only the voice of Apostles and Prophets, but the voice of
   the Holy Spirit Himself! The Holy Spirit says, "Today." He bids His
   people make haste and delay not to keep the commands of God! And He
   bids sinners seek the Lord while He may be found--and call upon Him
   while He is near. Oh, may you hear His warning voice and live!

   Further, while the Holy Spirit speaks in Scripture in this way, He
   speaks in the same manner in the hearts of His people, for He is a
   living and active Agent. His work is not ended--He still speaks and
   writes--the pen is still in His hand! Not to write with ink upon paper,
   but upon the fleshy tablets of prepared hearts! Now the Spirit of God
   has been in this Church communicating with His people, and the tenor of
   the communication has been this--"Seek to win souls." And I will
   guarantee this assertion, that in no case has the Spirit said, "Seek
   the conversion of sinners at the end of the year-- awake to earnestness
   about their souls when you have become more mature in years and
   judgment." But every man and woman here saved by Grace, who has felt
   the Holy Spirit within him, has felt an impulse to seek the conversion
   of sinners at once! He has felt a longing that they should no longer
   abide in sin, that they should now be awakened, should immediately lay
   hold of eternal life and find instantaneous peace in Christ.

   I appeal to my Brothers and Sisters if it is not so. Have you not felt,
   "it is high time to awake out of sleep"? Have you not felt the force of
   the admonition, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your
   might"? At other times we have been satisfied to feel that there was a
   good work going on secretly, that the soil was being prepared for
   future harvests, that somehow or other God's Word would not return unto
   Him void. But now we are not so readily contented! We feel as if we
   must, during each service, see the Lord at work and we plead for
   immediate conversions! We are as eager for souls as misers are for
   money! I say not that all of you feel this, but I say that all who have
   been fully influenced by the Holy Spirit during this period of gracious
   visitation have been filled with agony for the immediate salvation of
   souls.

   Like unto a woman in travail they have longed eagerly to hear the cry
   of new-born souls. Their prayer has been, "Today, good Lord, answer our
   entreaties and lead our fellow men to hear Your voice that they may be
   saved." I appeal to the people of God whether the Holy Spirit, when He
   stirs them up to soul-winning, does not say, "Today--today seek the
   salvation of men." The same is also true when the Holy Spirit speaks in
   the awakened. They are not yet numbered with the people of God, but
   they are under concern of soul--and I shall make my appeal to them,
   also.

   You are now conscious that you have offended your God--you are alarmed
   to find yourselves in a condition of alienation from Him--you want to
   be reconciled and you pine for the assurance that you are really
   forgiven. Do you wish to wait for that assurance till six or seven
   years have passed away? Do you feel, this morning, that you could be
   perfectly satisfied to go out of this house in the state you are now
   in--and continue in it month by month? If such delay would satisfy you,
   the Spirit of God has not spoken with you in an effectual manner. You
   have been but partially influenced, like unhappy Felix, and having
   said, "When I have a more convenient season I will send for you," we
   shall hear no more of you.

   If the Spirit of God is upon you, you are crying "Help, Lord, help me
   now! Save me now or I perish! Make haste to deliver me, make no
   tarrying, O my God. Hasten on wings of love to pluck me from the pit of
   destruction which yawns beneath my feet."--

   "Come, Lord, Your fainting servant cheer,

   Nor let Your chariot wheels delay.

   Appear, in my poor heart appear,

   My God, my Savior, come away!" A truly awakened sinner pleads in the
   present tense and cries mightily for a present salvation! And it is
   certain that whenever the Holy Spirit strives with men, He urgently
   cries, "Today! Today!"

   Once more, the Holy Spirit speaks, thus, by His deeds as well as by His
   words. We have a common proverb that actions speak more loudly than
   words. Now the acts of the Holy Spirit, in the leading of many in this
   place to the Savior, are so many practical invitations, encouragements
   and commands to others. The gate of Mercy stands open everyday of the
   year--and its very openness is an invitation and a command to
   enter--but when I see my fellow men go streaming through, when I see
   hundreds finding Christ as we have seen them, do not all these, as they
   enter the portal of Grace, call to others to come? Do they not say,
   "This way may be trod by such as you are, for we are treading it! This
   way assuredly leads to peace for we have found rest in it!"

   It is surely so! This way of speaking from the Holy Spirit has come
   very closely home to some of you, for you have seen your children enter
   the kingdom, and yet you are not saved yourselves! Some of you have
   seen your sisters saved, but you still remain unconverted! There is a
   husband, yonder, whose wife has told him with sparkling eyes of the
   rest she has found in the Savior, but he himself refuses to seek the
   Lord! There are parents here who have found Jesus, but their children
   are a heavy burden to them, for their hearts are unrenewed! Did I see
   my brother pass the gate of salvation? May I not take that as an
   intimation from God's Spirit that He is waiting to be gracious to me,
   also? When I see others saved by faith, may I not be sure that faith
   will also save me?

   Since I perceive that there is Grace in Christ for the sins of others
   exactly like myself, may I not hope that there is mercy, also, for me?
   I will venture to hope and dare to believe! Should not that be the
   resolve of each? And is not that the point to which the Holy Spirit
   would lead us? Is not the bringing of one sinner to Himself intended to
   allure others? "The Holy Spirit says, Today." But why so urgent,
   blessed Spirit, why so urgent? It is because the Holy Spirit is in
   sympathy with God--in sympathy with the Father who longs to press the
   prodigal to His bosom--in sympathy with the Son who is watching to see
   of the travail of His soul!

   The Holy Spirit is urgent because He is grieved with sin and would not
   see it continued for an hour! And every moment that a sinner refuses to
   come to Christ is a moment spent in sin. Yes, that refusal to come is,
   in itself, the most wanton and cruel of offenses! The hardness of man's
   heart against the Gospel is the most grievous of all provocations!
   Therefore does the Holy Spirit long to see man rid of it, that he may
   yield himself to the Omnipotent power of love. The Holy Spirit desires
   to see men attentive to the voice of God because He delights in that
   which is right and good. It is to Him a personal pleasure. He is glad
   to behold His own work in the sinner carried on till salvation is
   secure. Besides, He waits to execute His favorite office of Comforter,
   and He cannot comfort an ungodly soul! He cannot comfort those who
   harden their hearts.

   Comfort for unbelievers would be their destruction. As He delights to
   be the Comforter and has been sent forth from the Father to act
   specially in that capacity, that He may comfort the people of God, He
   watches with longing eyes for broken hearts and contrite spirits, that
   He may apply the balm of Gilead and heal their wounds. Therefore "the
   Holy Spirit says, Today." I leave this fact with you. The special voice
   of the text is not of man, but of the Holy Spirit Himself. He that has
   ears to hear let him hear--

   "Then while 'tis called today,

   Oh, hear the Gospel sound!

   Come, Sinner, hurry, oh, hurry today,

   While pardon may be found."

   II. The text inculcates A SPECIAL DUTY. The duty is that we should hear
   the voice of God. If you so read it, the text bids us hear the voice of
   the Father saying, "Return unto Me, you backsliding children. Come now,
   and let us reason together: though your sins are as scarlet they shall
   be as wool." Or it may be the voice of Jesus Christ, for it is of Him
   that the Apostle is here speaking. It is Jesus who calls, "Come unto
   Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
   In fact, the voice to be heard is that of the Sacred Trinity, for with
   the Father, the Son and the Spirit also say, "Come." We are bid to hear
   and that, surely, is no hard duty. The grand evangelical precept is,
   "Incline your ear and come unto Me, hear and your soul shall live,"
   for, "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." Hear,
   then, the Lord's voice!

   "Well," says one, "we do hear it. We read the Bible and whatever is
   preached on Sunday we are willing enough to hear." Ah, my dear Hearers,
   but there is hearing and hearing. Many have ears to hear, but they do
   not hear in reality. The kind of hearing which is demanded of us is the
   hearing with reverence. The Gospel is God's Word, not man's--the voice
   of your Maker, your Lord--the voice of Infallible Truth, of Infinite
   Love, of Sovereign Authority and therefore no com-

   mon attention should be bestowed upon it. Listen to it devoutly,
   summoning all your powers to adoring attention. Angels veil their faces
   in Jehovah's Presence--and shall man trifle before Him? When God speaks
   do not regard it as the voice of merely a king, to whose message it
   might be treason to turn a deaf ear, but as the voice of your God,
   towards whom it is blasphemy to be inattentive!

   Hear Him earnestly, with anxiety, to know the meaning of what He says,
   drinking in His doctrine, receiving with meekness the engrafted Word
   which is able to save your soul, bowing your understanding to it,
   longing to comprehend it, desirous to be influenced by it. "Hear His
   voice"--that is, hear it obediently, eager to do what He bids you, as
   He enables you. Do not hear and forget, as one that looks in a glass
   and sees his face, and afterwards forgets what manner of man he is?
   Retain the Word in your memories and, better still, practice it in your
   lives? To hear in this case is, in fact, to yield yourselves to the
   will of God, to let yourselves be as the elastic clay and His Word as
   the hand which molds you, or your tears as the molten metal and the
   Word as the mold into which you are delivered.

   Hear the Lord when He instructs you. Be willing to know the Truth of
   God. How often are men's ears stopped up with the wax of prejudice, so
   that they are dull of hearing? They have made up their minds as to what
   the Gospel ought to be and will not hear what it is. They think
   themselves the judges of God's Word, instead of God's Word being their
   judge. Some men do not want to know too much--they might be
   uncomfortable in their sins if they did. And, therefore, they are not
   anxious to be instructed. When men are afraid of the Truth of God there
   is abundant reason to fear that the Truth of God is against them. It is
   one of the worst signs of a fallen condition when a son of Adam hides
   away from the voice of His Creator.

   But, O dear Hearers, today hear His voice! Learn of Jesus! Sit as
   scholars at His feet, for, "Except you are converted and become as
   little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Hear Him as
   scholars hear their teacher, for all the children of Zion are taught of
   the Lord. But the Lord does more than instruct you--He commands. Let
   men say what they will, the Gospel to be preached to the ungodly is not
   merely warnings and teachings, it has its solemn, positive commands.
   Listen to this--"The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now
   commands all men everywhere to repent." As to faith, the Lord's Word
   does not come as a mere recommendation of its virtues, or as a promise
   to those who exercise it, but it speaks on this wise--"Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned." The
   Lord puts the solemn sanction of a threat of condemnation upon the
   command to show that it is not to be trifled with!

   "All power," says Christ, "is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth,"
   and therefore clothed with that authority and that power, He sends out
   His disciples, saying to them, "Go you, therefore, and teach all
   nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
   of the Holy Spirit." The Word goes forth with Divine authority, saying,
   "Repent you and believe the Gospel." This is as much God's command as
   that which says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
   heart," and there is this much the more of solemn obligation, that
   whereas the Law was given by Moses, the Gospel command was given by the
   Son of God Himself!

   "He that despised Moses' Law died without mercy: of how much sorer
   punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trod under
   foot the Son of God! Hear, then the commands of Jesus, for be sure of
   this--His Gospel comes to you with the imperial authority of the Lord
   of All! But the Lord does more than command, He graciously invites.
   With tenderness He bids sinners come to His banquet of mercy, for all
   things are ready. As though He pleaded with men and would gladly
   persuade where He might command, He cries, "Ho, everyone that thirsts,
   come you to the waters; and you that have no money, come buy wine and
   milk without money and without price."

   Many of the Lord's invitations are remarkable for their extreme
   sympathy, as though it were rather He that would suffer than the
   sinner, if the sinner remained obstinate! He cries, "Turn you, turn
   you, why will you die, O house of Israel?" Like a father pleading with
   a beloved but disobedient son who is ruining himself, God, Himself,
   pleads as if the tears stood in His eyes--yes, the Incarnate God in
   very deed wept over sinners, and cried--"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
   often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her
   chickens under her wings, and you would not." Will you not listen,
   then, when God instructs? Shall He give light and your eyes be closed?
   Will you not obey when God commands? Do you intend to be rebels against
   Him? Will you turn your backs when God invites? Shall His love be
   slighted and His bounty treated with scorn? God grant it may not be so!
   The good Spirit asks no more than is just and right when He cries,
   "Hear you the voice of the Lord."

   But the Lord does more than invite, He adds His promises. He says,
   "Hear and your soul shall live; and I will make an Everlasting Covenant
   with you, even the sure mercies of David." He has told us that, "if we
   confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and
   to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Glorious promises are there in
   His Word--exceedingly great and precious! Oh, do not, I beseech you,
   count yourselves unworthy of them, for if so, your blood will be on
   your own heads! The Lord also threatens as well as entreats. He warns
   you, "If you turn not, He will whet His sword: He has bent His bow and
   made it ready." He declares that the despisers shall wonder and perish.
   He asks, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

   He says, "The wicked shall be cast into Hell with all the nations that
   forget God." Though He has no pleasure in the death of him that dies,
   but had rather that he should turn unto Him and live, yet He will by no
   means clear the guilty, but every transgression and iniquity shall have
   its just recompense of reward. If Christ is rejected, eternal wrath is
   certain! By that door you enter Heaven, but if you pass it by, even He
   who at this hour stands with pierced hands to woo you, will, at the
   Last Great Day come with iron rod to break you. "Today, if you will
   hear His voice, harden not your hearts." I leave these thoughts with
   you. May God grant they may make impressions where His will designs
   they should.

   III. There is, in our text, A SPECIAL TIME EMPHASIZE. "The Holy Spirit
   says, Today." Today is the set time for hearing God's voice. Today,
   that is, while God speaks. Oh, if we were as we should be, the moment
   God said, "Seek you My face," we should reply, "Your face, Lord, will I
   seek." As soon as the invitations of mercy were heard there would be an
   echo in our souls to them and we should say, "Behold, we come unto You
   that we may be saved."

   Observe how in creation God's voice was heard in an instant. The Lord
   said, "Let there be light, and there was light." He said, "Let the
   waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature," and straightway it
   was so. There were no delays. God's fiat was immediately executed. Oh,
   you whom God has made men and endowed with reason, shall the insensible
   earth be more obedient than you? Shall the waves of the sea swarm with
   fish and the earth teem with grass as soon as Jehovah speaks--and will
   you sleep on when the heavenly voice cries, "Awake, you that sleep, and
   arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life"? Hear God today,
   for today He speaks.

   The Apostle says in the next chapter, "Today--after so long a time,"
   and I will dwell upon that phrase--"after so long a time." I see that
   some of you have bald heads, or gray hairs lie thick upon them. If you
   are unconverted, well may the Holy Spirit say, "Today, after so long a
   time, hear His voice." Is it not long enough to have provoked your God
   these 60 years? Man, are not 70 years of sin enough? Perhaps you have
   almost fulfilled your fourscore years and still you hold out against
   the overtures of Divine mercy! Is not a graceless old age a standing
   provocation of the Lord? How long do you intend to provoke Him? How
   long will it be before you believe Him? You have had time enough to
   have found out that sin is folly and that their pleasures are vanity.
   Surely you have had time enough to see that if there is peace it is not
   to be found in the ways of sin! How long do you intend to linger on
   forbidden and dangerous ground? You may not have another day, O aged
   man, in which to consider your ways! O aged woman--you may not have
   another year granted you in which to provoke your God. "After so long a
   time," with sacred pressure would I urge you--"Today, if you will hear
   His voice."

   I hope it is not only I pleading with you but, I trust, the Holy
   Spirit, also, says in your conscience, "Today attend the voice of God."
   "Today," that is, especially while the Holy Spirit is leading others to
   hear and to find mercy. Today, while the showers are falling. Today,
   receive the drops of Grace! Today, while there are prayers offered up
   for you. Today, while the hearts of the godly are earnest about you.
   Today, while the footstool of Heaven's Throne is wet with the tears of
   those who love you. Today, lest lethargy should seize the Church again.
   Today, lest the preaching of the Word of God should come to be a matter
   of routine and the preacher, himself, discouraged, should lose all zeal
   for your soul! Today, while everything is peculiarly propitious, hear
   the voice of God! While the wind blows, hoist the sail! While God is
   abroad on errands of love, go forth to meet Him!

   Today, while yet you are not utterly hardened--while there is still a
   conscience left within you--today, while yet you are conscious of your
   danger in some degree, while yet there is a lingering look towards your
   Father's house--hear and live! Today, lest, slighting your present
   tenderness, it should never come again--and you should be abandoned to
   the shocking indifference which is the prelude of eternal death! Today,
   young people, while yet you are undefiled with the grosser vices.
   Today, you young men who are new to this polluting city, before you
   have steeped yourselves in its streams

   of lust. Today, while everything is helpful to you, hear the loving,
   tender, wooing voice of Jesus and harden not your hearts!

   To me the text seems wonderfully Gospel-like when it says "Today," for
   what is it but another way of putting the doctrine of that blessed
   hymn--

   "Just as I am, without one plea."

   "Today"--that is, in the circumstances, sins and miseries in which you
   now are--hear the Gospel, and obey it! Today, since it finds you in
   yonder pew, hear God's voice of mercy in that pew! Today, you who have
   never been concerned before, while God speaks, let it concern you!
   "Ah," you say, "if I were living in another house." You are culled
   today, even if you are living with the worst of sinners! "I will
   hearken when I have enjoyed that sinful pleasure which I promised to
   myself next Wednesday" you say. Ah, if it is a sinful one, flee from
   it, or it may make a turning point in your history and seal your soul's
   ruin. "Today, if you will hear His voice."

   "Ah, if I had attended a few more revival meetings, and felt in a
   better state, I would obey." It is not so written, Sinner! It is not
   so! I am not told to preach the Gospel to those of you who are ready to
   receive it and say, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved,
   if he is already, in a measure, prepared to believe." No, but to every
   creature here I have the same message to deliver! In the name of Jesus
   of Nazareth, who is also God Almighty at the right hand of the Father,
   believe in Him and you shall live, for His message to you is for
   TODAY--it admits of no delay. "But I must reform, I must amend and then
   will I think about believing." That is to put the effect before the
   cause! If you will hear His voice, the reforming and the amending shall
   come to you. But you must not begin with them as the first matter.

   The voice of God does not say that, but it says, "Believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ." Oh, hear that voice! I must occupy a moment in showing
   you why the Lord in mercy says, "Today." Do you not know that other
   people die? Why may you not die, yourself? During these present
   services several have been taken from among us. I was surprised when I
   came home to find how many have died of late concerning whom I should
   have predicted a much longer life. Why may you not die speedily? "I am
   robust and healthy," says one. If you ever hear of a sudden death, does
   it not generally happen to the robust? It seems as if the storm swept
   over the sickly and they bowed before it like reeds--and so escaped its
   fury--while the vigorous in health, like powerful forest trees, resist
   the storm and are torn up by it. How often does sudden death come just
   where we least expected it! "Today, if you will hear His voice."

   I will put a question to you which that holy man, Mr. Payson, puts to
   the awakened. He says, How would you like to arrange that you would
   find Christ at the end of the year and that your existence should
   depend upon the life of another person? Select the strongest man you
   know, and suppose that everything in reference to your eternal welfare
   is to depend upon whether he lives to see the next year. With what
   anxiety would you hear of his illness! How concerned you would be about
   his health! Well, Sinner, your salvation is risked by you upon your own
   life--is that any more secure? If you are procrastinating and putting
   off repentance, why should you be any more secure about your own life
   than you would be if all depended upon the life of another? Be not such
   fools as to trifle yourselves into your graves and trifle your souls
   into

   Hell.

   "You would not stake your fortune on the cast of the dice, as the mad
   gambler does, and yet you are staking your soul's eternity upon what is
   quite as uncertain, for you do not know, when you fall asleep tonight,
   whether you shall awake tomorrow in your bed or in Hell! You do not
   know that the next breath you are expecting will ever come--and if it
   does not come you will be driven forever from God's presence." Oh,
   Sirs, if you want to play at hazards, hazard your gold, or hazard your
   reputations, but do not jeopardize your souls! The stakes are too heavy
   for any but those who are made mad by sin. Risk not your souls, I beg
   you, upon the hazard of your living another day, but listen to the
   voice of God today!

   IV. I have little time for my last point, but I still must have space
   for it even if I detain you beyond the accustomed time of departure.
   The last point is this--The SPECIAL DANGER which is indicated in the
   text. "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts'" That
   is the special danger. And how is it incurred? When persons are under
   concern of soul their heart is, in a measure, softened--but they can
   readily harden it--first, by willingly relapsing into their former
   indifference-- by shaking off all fear and saying in willful rebellion,
   "No, I will have none of it."

   I once preached in a certain city and I was the guest of a gentleman
   who treated me with great kindness. But I noticed on the third occasion
   of my preaching that he suddenly left the room. One of my friends
   followed him out of the place and

   said to him, "Why have you left the service?" "Well," he said, "I
   believe I should have been converted altogether if I had stayed any
   longer, for I felt such an influence coming over me. But it would not
   pay--you know what I am--it would not pay." Many persons are of that
   kind. They are shaped, for a while, according to the earnest word they
   hear, but it is all in vain--the dog returns to his vomit and the sow
   that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. This is to harden your
   heart and provoke the Lord.

   A common way of provoking God and hardening the heart is that indicated
   by the context. "Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, in the
   day of temptation in the wilderness"--that is to say, by unbelief--by
   saying, "God cannot save me, He is not able to forgive me. The blood of
   Christ cannot cleanse me. I am too black a sinner for God's mercy to
   deal with." That is a copy of what the Israelites said--"God cannot
   take us into Canaan; He cannot conquer the sons of Anak." Though you
   may look upon unbelief as a slight sin, it is the sin of sins! May the
   Holy Spirit convict you of it, for "when the Spirit of Truth is come He
   shall convince the world of sin," and especially of sin, "because they
   believe not on Jesus." "He that believes not is condemned already,"
   says Christ, "because he has not believed on the Son of God," as if all
   other sins were inconsiderable in power to condemn in comparison with
   this sin of unbelief!

   Oh, do not, therefore, doubt my Lord! Come, you blackest, filthiest
   sinner out of Hell! Jesus can cleanse you! Come, you granite-hearted
   sinner, you whose affections are frozen like an iceberg so that not one
   melting tear of penitence distils from your eyes! Jesus' love can
   soften your heart! Believe Him, believe Him, or else you harden your
   heart against Him! Some harden their hearts by asking for more signs.
   This, also, is after the manner of the Israelites. "God has given us
   manna. Can He give us water? He has given us water out of the Rock, can
   He give us meat, also? Can He furnish a table in the wilderness?" After
   all that God had done, they wanted Him to work miracles or they would
   not believe!

   Let none of us harden our hearts in that way. God has already worked
   for men a miracle which transcends all others and is, indeed, the
   compendium of all wonders! He has given His own Son out of His bosom to
   be a Man and to die for sinners! The sinner who is not content with
   that display of the mercy of God will never be satisfied with any proof
   of it! Christ on the tree is the sum of all miracles under the Gospel
   dispensation. If you will not believe God, who "so loved the world,
   that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
   not perish, but have everlasting life," then you will never believe!

   "Oh, but I want to feel! I want the influence that is abroad to come
   upon me in a strange manner! I want to dream at night, or to see
   visions by day." Do you? You are hardening your heart! You are
   rejecting what God gives and demanding Him to play the lackey to
   you--and to give you what your petulant pride demands. If you had these
   things you would still not believe! He who has Moses and the Prophets
   and rejects them, would not believe, even though one came to him from
   the dead! Christ on the Cross is before you--do not reject Him! For if
   you do, nothing else can convince you and there must you
   remain--hardening your heart in unbelief.

   Those also harden their hearts who presume upon the mercy of God and
   say, "Well, we can turn when we please." Ah, how different will you
   find it. "We have only to believe and be saved." Yes, but you will
   find, "only believing," to be a very different thing from what you
   imagine! Salvation is no child's play, believe me. I have heard of one
   who woke up one morning and found himself famous--but you will not find
   salvation in that way. "He that seeks finds, and to him that knocks it
   shall be opened." You harden your hearts if you plunge into worldly
   pleasures--if you allow loose companions to talk with you--if on this
   holy day you indulge in idle talk, or listen to unhallowed mirth. Many
   a tender conscience is hardened by the company which surrounds it. A
   young woman hears a powerful sermon and God is blessing it to her, but
   she goes off tomorrow to spend the evening in a scene of gaiety--how
   can she expect that the Word of God will be blessed to her? It is a
   deliberate quenching of the Spirit and I wonder not that God should
   swear in His wrath that those who do so shall not enter into His rest.
   Oh, don't do these things, lest you harden your hearts against God!

   Now, I must conclude, but I must put the matter fully before you. I
   want every sinner here to know his position this morning. God commands
   all men everywhere to repent! Christ commands men to believe in Him
   today. One of two things you have to do, you have no other
   choice--either you must say that you do not intend to obey God's
   command, or else you must yield to it. Like Pharaoh, you must say, "Who
   is the Lord that I should obey His voice?" Or else, like the prodigal
   son, you must resolve, "I will arise and go unto my Father." There is
   no other choice! Do not attempt to make excuses. God makes short work
   with sinners' excuses. Those who were invited to the great supper said,
   "We are going to

   our farm and our merchandise. We are about to try our yokes of oxen, or
   we have married a wife," but all the Lord said about it was, "None of
   the men which were bidden shall taste of My supper." That was the end
   of it.

   There was a man, once, who had a talent, and he buried it in a napkin
   and said, "I knew that You were an austere man," and so on. What notice
   did his Master take of that speech? He merely said, "Out of your own
   mouth will I condemn you. You knew that I was an austere man, and
   therefore, for that very reason you ought to have been the more
   diligent in My service." The Lord sees through your excuses, therefore
   do not insult Him with them! I have you here, this morning, before me,
   and you shall say one thing or the other before the living God--and
   before Christ--who shall judge the quick and the dead. He bids you turn
   from your sin and seek His face now, and believe in His dear Son. Will
   you do it or not? Yes or no? And mark you, that, "Yes," or, "No," may
   be final.

   This morning the last appeal may have been made to you! God commands
   and I charge you, if your heart intends rebellion, say, if you dare, "I
   will not obey." Then you will know where you are and you will
   understand your own position. If God is not God, fight it out with Him.
   If you do not believe in Him, if He really is not the Lord who made you
   and who can destroy you, or if you mean to be His enemy--take up your
   position and be as honest, even, if you are as proud as Pharaoh, and
   say--"I will not obey Him." But, oh, I pray you, do not thus rebel! God
   is gracious! Will you be rebellious? God is love! Will you, therefore,
   be hard-hearted? Jesus, by His wounds, invites you to come to Himself!
   And the Holy Spirit, Himself, is here and is saying in the text, "Today
   harden not your hearts." Yield yourselves now to His love--

   "Who round you now

   The bands of a man would cast,

   The cords of His love who was given to you

   To His altar binding you fast."

   At His altar may you be found safe in the day of His appearing! God
   bless you. I beg those of you who know how to pray to implore a
   blessing on this word, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON: Numbers13:26-33,14:1-23;
   Psalm 95. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--98 (VERSION II), 497, 546.

   A MESSAGE FROM BROTHER SPURGEON, IN 1874, TO HIS READERS [IN THE 21st
   CENTURY?]:

   Those readers who think this sermon likely to be useful are earnestly
   requested to give it away, that it may be useful to others. The
   preacher is most anxious that his message should be scattered broadcast
   over the land.
     __________________________________________________________________

Without Money and Without Price

   (No. 1161)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 8, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1.

   THE spiritual blessings promised and provided in the Gospel comprise
   all that man can need. They are described in the chapter before us as
   "water" refreshing and cleansing--the "Water of Life," of which if a
   man drinks he shall never thirst again. They are next described as
   "wine," the wine of joy--exhilarating, comforting, "making good the
   heart of man"--a wine in which is no woe, but fullness of holy delight.
   These blessings are thirdly represented as "milk," for milk is almost
   the only article of diet which contains everything that is necessary
   for the support of man, and therefore it is a type of the satisfying
   qualities of the Gospel. He who receives the Gospel of Jesus Christ has
   all that his soul can possibly need for time and for eternity, so that
   water, wine and milk set forth a full supply of life, joy and
   satisfaction for our spirits.

   According to the text, this provision for our souls in presented to us
   free. We are to buy it, that is to say, we are to have it with as good
   as a right, and as full an assurance, as if we had purchased it--but
   the purchase is to be made "without money," and lest we should make
   mistakes and suppose that although money literally might not be
   brought, some other recompense must be offered to God, it is added,
   "without price." The double expression is most sweeping, clearing away,
   once and for all, from the mercies of God, all idea of their being
   purchasable by any method whatever. The Gospel is not to be bought with
   gold. Vain are your treasures if you should lavish them at the feet of
   Christ! What cares He for gold and silver?

   Neither are they to be procured by knowledge and wisdom, which are the
   mind's wealth, the money of the soul. A man may know much, but his
   knowledge may only puff him up, or increase his condemnation. Neither
   are the gifts of God's Divine Grace to be obtained by human merit.
   Merit, connected with man is out of the question--call it demerit and
   you are correct. If we had done all that we ought to have done, still
   we ought to have done it, and even in that case we should still be
   unprofitable servants. Away with the notion of merit as possible to
   fallen man! The day which saw Adam driven out of Paradise blotted the
   words "human merit" out of the dictionary of the Truth of God. Every
   sort of gift to God with the view of procuring His favor is excluded by
   the term, "without price."

   Some have dreamed that they might barter if they may not purchase.
   They, therefore, bring to God, instead of inward holiness the beauty of
   outward ceremonies. And instead of a perfect righteousness they offer a
   baptismal regeneration and a sacramental sanctity. If they have not
   kept the Law, yet, at any rate, they have observed the rubric. If they
   have not loved their God with all their heart, they have at least bowed
   the knee during the performance of a priest. Thus would they barter
   with the Lord and give Him rites and ceremonies in payment for His
   Grace!

   They conceive that a kind of witchcraft rests in the use of certain
   words and postures--and that God is thereby moved to blot out their
   sins! Others, who are not quite so insane, have fallen into the same
   error under another form-- they fancy that a certain amount offeeling
   will procure for them the gifts of Divine Grace--they must be
   distressed up to a certain point and made to tremble in a certain
   measure. They must become despairing or they can never hope for mercy.
   Thus they make unbelief, which is a sin, into a preparation for
   Grace--and despair--which is an insult to a merciful God, and magnify
   them into a fitness for the reception of His bounty!

   Others have dreamed that partial reformation, the saying of prayers,
   the leaving of legacies, attendance upon orthodox teaching, or the
   performance of benevolent actions will surely procure for them the
   gifts of Grace! To one and all of them comes this Gospel
   declaration--the gifts of God's love are "without money and without
   price." I wish I knew how to put this Truth of God into such words that
   everybody could understand me, and that nobody could misunderstand me.
   Whenever a man is saved, he is saved because God freely saves him, not
   because there was anything in him to deserve salva-

   tion, or any particular fitness in him why God should deliver him and
   not another. The gifts of God's Grace are absolutely free in the most
   unrestricted sense of that term.

   Nothing good, whatever, is brought by man, or is expected from man, by
   way of recommendation to mercy. Everything is given gratis and is
   received by us "without money and without price." Upon that one thought
   I shall dwell, hoping that the Spirit of God will make it plain to your
   minds.

   I. And, first, I shall notice THE SURPRISING NATURE OF THIS FACT, for
   it is very surprising to mankind to hear that salvation is "without
   money and without price." It is so surprising to them that the most
   plain terms cannot make them understand it. And, though you tell them a
   thousand times a day, yet they persist in thinking that you mean it
   costs something. They cannot be brought to accept it as literally true
   that they are to have everything for nothing-- salvation gratis--and
   eternal life is the pure gift of Heaven's charity.

   Why, there are those sitting in this house, this morning, who know the
   way of salvation and are saved--and they will tell you that for many
   years they heard the Gospel very plainly put--but that until God the
   Holy Spirit enlightened them, they did not really understand what was
   meant by simple faith in Jesus. They will admit that they could not
   bring themselves to the idea that, then and there, just as they were,
   they had but to accept the salvation of God and it would be their own!
   They were unable to believe that so simple a matter could be the
   Gospel! They looked for mystery, difficulty and a complex preparation.
   They understood the words, but missed the central sense--the Grace and
   the freeness of the Gospel surpassed their thoughts!

   It is not an unusual thing to find children of godly parents who have
   heard the Gospel from their earliest youth still ignorant of the way of
   salvation, having failed to learn this simple Truth of God--that
   salvation is the free gift of God and can only be received as such!
   Now, why is it that man does not see this? Why is it that when he does
   see it he is surprised at it? I think it is, first, because of man's
   relation to God and his wrong judgment of Him. Man thinks that God is a
   hard master. That expression of the man who hid his talent in a napkin,
   "I knew that you was an austere man, gathering where you have not
   strewned," is precisely the idea which the mass of mankind have of the
   Lord. They Judge Him to be exacting, hard, severe--and that His Law
   claims more of man than it should.

   They judge that He might have dealt more leniently with a poor, erring,
   fallible mortal like man. When the Holy Spirit convinces men of sin
   they still retain hard thoughts of God and fear that He cannot be so
   gracious as to blot out their sins. Judging the Lord by their own
   standard, they cannot think that He will freely forgive. And though
   they are reminded of the great Atonement which enables God to be just
   and yet the Justifier of the ungodly, they still think that because
   they could not readily forgive offenses against themselves, God must be
   as slow to pardon as they are. They believe He must be urgently pleaded
   with, recompensed with penances, conciliated with promises, or moved by
   tears, before He will be brought into a loving state of mind so as to
   be willing to bestow His Grace!

   Little do they know that mighty heart of love which throbs in Jehovah's
   bosom! Little do they understand that His heart yearns to clasp His
   Ephraims to His breast and that He has declared, "As I live, says the
   Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the
   wicked turn from his way and live." Learn, then, you sons of men, that,
   "as high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are His ways above
   your ways, and His thoughts above your thoughts." He waits to be
   gracious and is abundantly willing to pardon the ungodly if they do but
   turn to Him. No doubt, also, the condition of man under the Fall makes
   it more difficult for him to comprehend that the gifts of God are
   "without money and without price," for he finds that he is doomed to
   toil for almost everything he needs. "In the sweat of your face shall
   you eat bread" is the sentence upon our race.

   If man wants bread, the earth demands that he dig for it, or use some
   other form of labor. Under the artificial conditions of civilization
   scarcely anything comes to us of itself, but must be bought with money.
   Man finds that he is in a place where, if he buys, it certainly is not
   "without money and without price." Money and price must be in his hands
   in every market and store or else he must go away empty-handed and,
   therefore, he is apt to reckon that as it is so in this sin-blighted
   world, it must be the same in the kingdom of Christ. And when he finds
   that he is not by works to purchase Divine favor, he counts it strange
   and is long in believing that it can be true. He reads the words,
   "without money and without price," and thinks that there must be
   something written between the lines to modify the sense, for surely
   there must be something to do or to feel before a sinner can receive
   the gifts of Grace!

   Again, man remembers the general rule of men towards each other, for in
   this world what is to be had for nothing except that which is worth
   nothing? Nothing for nothing is the general system! Nobody in trade
   thinks of trading except for profit. And if a man were urged to sell
   without a price he would open his eyes wide and declare that he would
   soon find himself a bankrupt! Dealing with our fellow men we must
   naturally expect, even according to the golden rule, that we should
   give them an equivalent for what we receive. Of course the Christian
   religion lifts true Believers into a condition in which they are
   willing to give, hoping for nothing, again--but the general rule all
   round is--you must pay for what you have. Can you clothe yourself? Can
   you warm your hands in the winter? Can you find a shelter for your
   children? Can you obtain a bed upon which to lay your weary bones
   without money? And so "without money and without price" is quite a
   novelty--and man is astonished at it and cannot believe it to be true!

   Another matter puts man into this difficulty, namely, his natural
   pride. He does not like to be a pauper before God. The mass of mankind
   have generally some excellency or other which, in their own esteem,
   exalts them above others. You shall find a large proportion of the
   upper classes perfectly convinced that they are far superior to the
   poor--that the working classes are, indeed, an inferior order of beings
   compared with themselves. You shall find an equal pride among the
   working classes which leads them to think themselves the real backbone
   of the country--a sturdy independence, it is sometimes called--but when
   it intrudes into religion it is nothing better than evil boasting!
   Pride is woven into man's nature.

   The prodigal became a prodigal through his love of independence. He
   desired his own portion of goods to do with as he liked. After he
   became a prodigal his time was occupied with spending--he spent his
   money riotously--he loved to play the fine gentleman and spend. Even
   when the prodigal came to himself, the old idea of paying was still
   with him and he desired to be a hired servant, so that if he could not
   pay in money he would pay in labor. We do not like to be saved by
   charity--and to have no corner in which to sit and boast. We long to
   make provision for a little self-congratulation! You insult a moral man
   if you tell him that he must be saved in the same way as a thief or a
   murderer--yet this is no more than the Truth of God! For a woman of
   purity to be told that the same Divine Grace which saved a Magdalene is
   necessary for her salvation is so humbling that her indignation is
   roused, and yet it is the fact--for in every case salvation is "without
   money and without price."

   Once more, all religions that have ever been in the world of manly
   making teach that the gifts of God are to be purchased or merited. Draw
   a line and you shall find the Gospel on the one side teaches Free
   Grace, but the whole ruck of false relig-ions--from heathenism down
   through Muslim to Popery--all demand a price for the promise of
   salvation! The Pharisee reckons that none can have it unless he shall
   wear a broad phylactery and fast twice in the week. The heathen will
   swing with a hook in his back, or roll over and over for hundreds of
   miles, or torture his body, or make great sacrifices at the altar of
   his idol. The Muslim has his pilgrimages and a host of meritorious
   prayers. As for the Papist, his religion is merit and payment from
   beginning to end--not only for the soul while it is yet in the body,
   but when it is departed--for by means of "masses" for the dead a tax is
   still exacted!

   Man would gladly bargain with God and make God's temple of mercy into
   an auction where each man bids as high as he can and procures salvation
   if he can reach a certain figure. But here stands the open-handed
   Gospel with all the treasures of infinite Grace unlocked, and all the
   granaries of Heaven with the doors taken off their hinges--and it
   cries--"Whoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely."
   It asks neither money nor price, nor anything of man! It magnifies the
   infinite Grace of the all-bounteous Father, in that He has mercy on
   whom He will have mercy, and reveals His Grace to the undeserving.

   Thus I have spoken upon the surprising nature of this fact. But I need
   to add that though I have thus shown grounds for our surprise, yet if
   men would think a little they might not be quite so unbelievingly
   amazed as they are. For, after all, the best blessings we have come to
   us freely. What price have you paid for your lives? And yet they are
   very precious. Skin for skin, yes, all that you have would you give for
   them! What price do you pay for the air you breathe? What price does a
   man pay for the blessed sunlight? I wonder they have not a game law to
   preserve the sunbeams so that the lords of the land, alone, might enjoy
   the genial rays--while the poor should be liable to punishment for
   poaching in pursuit of sunshine! No, they cannot pen in the sun's
   light! God has given it freely--and to the pauper it is as free as to
   the prince!

   Life and air and light come to us "without money and without price."
   And our faculties, too--who pays for eyesight? The eye which glances
   across the landscape and drinks in beauty, what toll does it pay? The
   ear which hears the

   song of the birds at dawn, what price is given for it? The senses are
   freely bestowed to us by God--and so is the sleep which rests them.
   Tonight when we lay our heads down upon our pillows the poor man's
   sleep shall be as sweet as the sleep of him who reclines on down. Sleep
   is the unbought blessing of Heaven, you cannot purchase it! All the
   mines of Potosi could not buy a wink--yet God gives it to the sea boy
   on the giddy mast.

   It is clear, then, that some of the best blessings we possess come to
   us by the way of free gift. Yes, and come to the undeserving, too, for
   the dew shall sparkle tomorrow upon the grass in the miser's field and
   the rain shall fall in due season upon the rising corn of the wretch
   who blasphemes his God. The influences which nurture wheat, barley and
   other fruits of the earth are given to the farm of the atheist as well
   as to the fields of the godly--they fall, alike, for the evil and for
   the good--for, "the Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are
   over all His works." We ought not, therefore, to be so surprised, after
   all, that the gifts of His Divine Grace are free!

   II. In the second place, dear Friends, I want to show you THE NECESSITY
   OF THE FACT mentioned in our text. There was a necessity that the gifts
   of the Gospel should be "without money and without price." A threefold
   necessity. First, from the Character of the Donor. It is God that
   gives. Oh, Sirs, would you have Him sell His pardons? The King of
   Kings--would you have Him vend forgiveness to the sons of men at so
   much per head? Would you have Him sell His Holy Spirit? And would you
   come like Simon Magus and offer money to Him for it?

   Would you have Him give to you as the reward of merit, adoption into
   His family, that you might become His sons, and brag, even in the halls
   of Heaven, that you climbed to this dignity by your own good works?
   Talk not so blasphemously proud! The great King has made a great
   supper--would you have Him demand a price for entrance and sit as a
   receiver at the gates of mercy--and stop each one who comes to see if
   he has brought a price to pay for entrance? No, no, it is not like our
   God! He deals not thus. When the prodigal came back, imagine the father
   keeping his son in quarantine to see if he had a clean bill of health!
   Imagine him saying, "My son, have you brought a gift to reconcile me?"

   The parable would be spoiled by the hint of such a thing! Its glory
   lies in the freeness of the Father's love which asked no questions, but
   pressed the repenting child to His bosom just as he was. God, the great
   Father, must not be so dishonored in your thoughts as to be conceived
   of as requiring a price of you! You displease Him when you think that
   you are to do something or feel something or bring something in your
   hands as a recommendation to Him. Can you picture Jesus going about
   Palestine selling His cures? Can you imagine Him saying to the blind
   beggar, "How much have you left of the alms of the charitable to give
   to Me for your eyesight?" Or saying to Martha and Mary, "Bring Me all
   you have and I will raise your brother, Lazarus."

   Oh, I loathe to speak of it! It makes me sick to imagine such a thing!
   How weary must the Lord be with your self-righteousness--with your
   attempts to traffic and to bargain with Him! Oh, Sirs, you are not
   dealing with your fellow men--you are dealing with the King of Kings,
   whose large heart scorns your bribes! Salvation must be given without
   price since it is God that gives! Again, it must be for nothing,
   because of the value of the blessing. As one has well said, "it is
   without price because it is priceless." You could not conceive of a fit
   price for the blessing, therefore it must be left without price. I will
   suppose, this morning, that I am sent here by high authority to sell a
   diamond worth ten thousand times as much as the Queen's crown jewels.

   It is a jewel worth a thousand millions of pounds! I am bound to sell
   it to you now, but I am sure you cannot purchase it at any price worthy
   of it. All you could offer would be so small a portion of its value
   that I would sooner give it away than lower the reputation of the jewel
   by taking such a trifle for it. The Gospel is so precious a thing that
   if it is to be bought, the whole world could not pay for it--and
   therefore if bought at all it must be without money and without price.
   It cost the Lord Jesus His blood--what have you to offer? What? Do you
   imagine that you can buy it with a few paltry works? God Himself must
   become a man and bleed, and die to bring pardon and eternal life to
   sinners! And do you think that your tears, bending your knees, gifts of
   money and emotions of your heart are to purchase this unpurchasable
   blessing? Oh, believe, because it is so rich, it must be given away if
   it is to belong to us!

   And there is another reason arising from the extremity of human
   destitution. The blessings of Divine Grace must be given "without money
   and without price," for we have no money or price to bring. I was, the
   other night, speaking to inquirers, and I put this matter in a very
   homely way, as I will again. I said, "I will suppose there is a
   terrible famine among you, as there is in India, and that all your
   money is gone--and that all of you together have not so much as a
   farthing between you. Now, I am sent with bread, and I want to sell it
   to you. I begin by saying, 'Well, of course, now that

   there is a famine we must make a little profit out of you. You must
   expect the price to be raised, but we will be very mod-erate--we will
   let you have it for a shilling a quarter loaf.'

   "You say, 'We do not find fault with the price, but we have not a
   farthing to pay you with. Oh, Sir, we cannot buy from you.' Well, well,
   we will reduce the price. You can have it at the ordinary price of
   household bread! Come, you cannot ask for anything more reasonable than
   this! Will you have it? 'It is not unreasonable,' you say, 'the price
   is a very proper one, but still it is useless to us. We would gladly
   purchase, but we have not a penny between us. What can we do?' Come,
   then, we will reduce the price a great deal more. We will let you have
   the best bread at two pence a quartern. Did you ever hear of bread at
   that rate? Surely you may fill your children's mouths every day at this
   price. 'Alas,' you cry, 'it is of no use! We cannot find even two
   pence.'

   "Well, now, we will bring the price down to one farthing a loaf--and
   who has ever heard of bread at that rate before? Still, with tears in
   your eyes, you cry to me, 'Oh, we can no more get it at a farthing than
   we could buy it at a shilling, for we have not a single farthing left.'
   Come, then, I must come down to you altogether--you shall have it for
   nothing. Take it, I say, for nothing and I will give you a piece into
   the bargain--I will give you something over and above weight. I see you
   wonder what I mean by that. Listen to these words--'Believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.' That is the
   piece over and above what you asked or even thought. Is not that good
   reasoning that God must give eternal life for nothing, because you have
   nothing which you could offer as a price?"

   If you are to have eternal life, no terms but those of Divine Grace
   will meet your case. Think, dear Friends, when the dying thief was
   hanging at the side of Christ--suppose the Lord Jesus Christ had made a
   rule that a man should live a holy life for a week and then should have
   the blessing. Why, the thief must have died unblest! Suppose that He
   had said to all men, it is absolutely essential that you join a Church
   and be baptized, or else I cannot save you? Then poor bedridden sinners
   must perish hopelessly! A Gospel for nothing suited the dying thief. "I
   admit it," says somebody. Ah, my Friend, then surely you cannot be in a
   worse condition!

   Some years ago I had a very high compliment paid me by a gentleman who
   intended an insult. He ridiculed my preaching and remarked that it
   would be eminently suited to the lowest class of the American slave.
   This I accepted as an honorable admission, for he who could reach and
   bless the black man will not preach in vain to white people. I have
   heard of a preacher of whom his detractors said that he might do very
   well to preach to old women. Ah, then, he will do for anybody! I
   suppose he would suit old women because they are on the borders of the
   grave and that it is where we all are--for we are all much nearer to
   the grave than we imagine. Free salvation suits the vilest of the vile
   and it is equally suitable for the most moral. If it is all for
   nothing, none can be so poor as to be excluded from hope! If it is to
   be had "without money and without price" no soul need be without it!

   Surely the price is brought low enough. The difficulty is that the
   price is too low for human pride--sinners will not come down to it.
   Whereas every other salesman finds that he cannot get his customers up
   to his price, my difficulty is that I cannot get my customers down to
   mine! They will still higgle and haggle to do something, be something,
   or promise something. Whereas here are the terms, and the only terms
   upon which Gospel grace is to be had--"without money and without
   price." You shall have it freely but God will have none of your
   bargaining! Take mercy--take it just as you are--you are welcome to it.
   But if you tarry till you are better, your very betterness will make
   you worse! If you wait until you are fit, your fancied fitness will be
   your unfitness!

   Your hunger is your fitness for food. Your nakedness is your fitness
   for clothing. Your poverty is your fitness for the riches of mercy.
   Your sin, your loathsomeness, your hardness of heart and obduracy do
   but make you fit objects for wondrous Divine Grace, and for the amazing
   transformation which Divine power can work in men! It is absolutely
   necessary that the blessings of Grace should be "without money and
   without price," and, glory be to God, they are!

   III. My third point is this--THE SALUTARY INFLUENCE OF THIS FACT. If it
   is "without money and without price," what then? Well, first, that
   enables us to preach the Gospel to every creature. Jesus Christ said,
   "Go you into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He
   that believes and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believes not
   shall be damned." If we had to look for some price in the hands of the
   creature, or some fitness in the mind of the creature, or some
   excellence in the life of the creature, we could not preach mercy to
   every creature--we should have to preach it to prepared creatures--and
   then that preparation would be the money and the price.

   I am sorry that some of my Brothers entertain the idea that the Gospel
   is to be preached only to certain characters. They dare not preach the
   Gospel to everybody--they try to preach it only to the elect. Surely,
   if the Lord meant them to make the selection He would have set a mark
   upon His chosen. As I do not know the elect and have no command to
   confine my preaching to them, but am bid to preach the Gospel to every
   creature, I am thankful that the Gospel is put in such a way--that no
   creature can be too poor, too wicked, or too vile to receive it--for it
   is "without money and without price." That is going to the very bottom!

   Surely, that takes in the most degraded, debased and despised of our
   race--whoever they may be! If before I preach the Gospel I have to look
   for a measure of fitness in a man, then I cannot preach the Gospel to
   any but those whom I believe to have the fitness. But if the Gospel is
   to be preached freely, with no conditions or demands for preparations
   or prerequisites--if this is the Gospel, that "whoever believes in
   Jesus is not condemned"--then may I go to the most degraded Bushmen, or
   savage Ashantees, or untameable Modocs and tell them the Good News! We
   may speak of mercy to harlots and thieves--and we may carry the
   gladsome message into the Guilt Garden and Hangman's Alley! We may
   penetrate the jungles of crime and cry with the same entreaty from
   Heaven--"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
   thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon
   him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." The fact that the
   mercy of God is "without money and without price" enables us, by His
   Grace, to preach it to every man, woman and child of woman born!

   Now, note secondly, that this fact has the salutary effect of excluding
   all pride. If it is "without money and without price," you rich people
   have not a half-penny worth of advantage above the poorest of the poor
   in this matter! Your station may be very respectable, but God is no
   respecter of persons! You may be numbered among the rank and fashion of
   society, but in God's esteem, one rank is as evil as another--and the
   fashion of all men passes away. Divine Grace comes to the Queen upon
   her throne and to the beggar in the street with this same
   message--"without money and without price." The pride of wealth is
   utterly abolished by the Gospel and so is the pride of merit! You have
   been so good and so charitable, and you are so excellent and so
   religious--and so everything that you ought to be--and you fancy that
   there must be some private entrance, some reserved door, for persons of
   your quality.

   But, Sirs, the gate is so strait that you must rub shoulders with
   thieves, drunkards and murderers if you are to enter eternal life!
   There is but one way and that is the way of Grace. "Where is boasting,
   then? It is excluded. By the law of works? No, but by the law of
   Grace." Those who are saved never sing, "well done," to themselves, but
   when they get to Heaven they glorify Grace alone--

   "Grace all the work shall crown Through everlasting days, It lays in
   Hea ven the topmost stone And well deserves the praise."

   What a slap in the face this is for human glorying and how much it
   needs it, for it is impudent to the last degree! "Surely, surely you
   make some distinction, Sir, between the excellent and the moral, and
   those who are openly criminal." Yes, I do make a great distinction when
   treating of our relations to one another, but we are now speaking of
   GRACE--and from the nature of things these distinctions are not
   available where mercy, not merit is the rule! To all men there is but
   one rule--"He that believes on Him is not condemned, but he that
   believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the
   Son of God."

   Again, another influence of the fact mentioned in our text is that it
   forbids despair. Despair, where are you? I have a ten-thonged whip with
   which to flog you away! "Without money and without price." Then who can
   despair? You are feeling in your pocket and you find nothing there--you
   do not need anything--salvation is "without money." You have been
   feeling in your heart and you find nothing there! You do not need
   anything before coming to Jesus, for His Grace is "without price." You
   have been looking back on your past history. It is all blank and black.
   That is true, but Jesus Christ came into the world to seek and to save
   that which was lost. But you cannot find a redeeming trait in your
   character! Ah, but God has found a Redeemer, mighty to save--and if you
   rest in Him, He will save you from your sins!

   Whoever you may be, if eternal life is to be had for nothing, you are
   not too poor to have it! It is impossible that you can have fallen too
   low for the Gospel, for "Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost
   them that come unto God by Him." I was, for a long while, pestered with
   this idea that I must have some extraordinary vision, or remarkable
   revelation, or singular experience and have something to tell, such as
   I had heard good people tell of. But when the glad tidings

   were made plain to me by the Holy Spirit, I was as if I had received a
   new revelation. "Look unto Me and be you saved, all the ends of the
   earth," sounded like a new song in my ears! My heart leaped for joy at
   the news.

   Christ was nailed to the Cross and I was to look at Him and be saved!
   Just as the serpent of brass was lifted on the pole and whoever looked
   was healed of the serpent bites, so was there, for me, eternal life and
   blessedness in looking to Jesus on the tree! Why did I not understand
   that before? Ah, why!? Why do not some of you understand it? I pray God
   the Holy Spirit make you see it this morning, for that is the great
   Truth of God which will save your soul! Everything for nothing! Christ
   Himself to be had for the asking. Surely this Truth should comfort the
   most desponding.

   Next it inspires with gratitude and that gratitude becomes the basis of
   holiness. Look here. This man is saved for nothing! His sin pardoned
   according to the free mercies of God! What do you think he says? "Oh,
   my God, my God, how have I belied You! How have I slandered You! As for
   You, You have always been merciful to me. You have blotted out my sins.
   You have made me Your child. You have given Your Son to be my Redeemer.
   My God, I love You! What can I do to show that my heart is wholly
   Yours?"--

   "Make me to run in Your commands, 'Tis a delightful road! Nor let my
   head, nor heart, nor hands Offend against my God."

   They say that a free Gospel will make men think lightly of sin. It is
   the death of sin! It is the life of virtue! It is the motive power of
   holiness and whenever it comes into the soul it begets zeal for the
   Lord--

   "Speak of morality! You bleeding Lamb, The best morality is love to
   You." The best morality springs out of gratitude for pardon, Divine
   Grace and lively hope received as the gifts of Heaven.

   Then note, again, that the receipt of salvation without money and
   without price engenders in the soul the generous virtues. What do I
   mean by that? Why, the man who is saved for nothing feels, first, with
   regard to his fellow men that he must deal lovingly with them. Has God
   forgiven me? Then I can freely forgive those who have trespassed
   against me. It is the first impulse of a soul which receives pardon
   from God to put away all enmity against his fellow men. I freely
   forgive the few pence that my fellow sinner owes me when I remember the
   thousand talents which were forgiven me by the infinite mercy of my
   God! The man who does not forgive has never been forgiven--but the man
   who has been freely forgiven at once forgives others.

   No, he goes beyond it--he says, "Now, my God has been so good to me, I
   will be good to others. And as God is good to the unthankful and the
   evil, even so will I be." When he finds that he has given his alms to
   an undeserving person, he does not, therefore, shrivel up within
   himself and say, "I will give no more." "Why," he asks, "does not God
   give life and light to men who are always cursing Him? Then I will
   bless the sons of men even if they curse me in return." This breeds in
   him a spirit of benevolence. He longs to see others saved and therefore
   he lays himself out to bring them to Jesus Christ. If he had bought his
   salvation, I dare say he might be proud of it and wish to keep it to
   himself--like a little aristocrat, he would not want every one of the
   democracy to intrude into his privileges. But since the Gospel came to
   him freely, he hears the Master say--"Freely you have received, freely
   give," and he goes forth to distribute the Bread of Life which Jesus
   Christ has so liberally put into his hands!

   So then, as to our God, the free gifts of Grace, working by the power
   and energy of the Holy Spirit, create in us the generous virtues
   towards God. Now we can say--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again With love intense I burn."

   When we know that Jesus has saved us, we feel we could lay down our
   lives for Him. Self-denial springs of this. Yes, the death of self
   comes out of a rich experience of free and Sovereign Grace Did the Lord
   love me when there was nothing to love in me? Did He love me with
   spontaneous love before the world began? Did He give His son to die for
   me, a guilty sinner, lost and ruined in the Fall? Then I will give all
   that I have to God, and feel that--

   "If I might make some reserve,

   And duty did not call

   I love my God with zeal so great

   That I would give Him all."

   This is the natural outgrowth of the grand doctrine of "without money
   and without price."

   And, lastly, Beloved, I cannot think of anything that will make more
   devout worshippers in Heaven than this. The purpose of God in seeking
   His Glory by the way of Redemption was evidently this. There were
   spirits in Heaven who could worship Him. There were angels who could
   adore Him and remain faithful to Him, but He wished to create beings
   who should be nearer to Him than angels, though also in a certain sense
   still further off. An angel is pure spirit, man is partly materialism.
   God resolved that a creature that should be both spirit and matter
   should be lifted up above angels, should come nearer to Himself than
   pure spirits have ever come--should, in fact, be related to Himself
   through His Son!

   Thus His Son became a Man, that God, being All in All, next to God
   should stand man, made to have dominion over all the works of His
   hands, with all things put under his feet. Now, observe, that unless
   there had been some exercise of Omnipotence which would have taken away
   the high attribute of free agency from man, we do not know of any other
   way in which God could secure the eternal obedience, the reverent love
   and the perpetual humility of such creatures as we have spoken of,
   except by a remarkable experience of redemption--so that they should
   forever know that everything they had was the undeserved gift of
   Sovereign Grace.

   When they look upon the crown and wave the palm, they remember that
   they were once snatched from the horrible pit and the miry clay. When
   they gaze upon their robes of splendor and stand before the Throne of
   God, peers of the universe, princes of the blood royal of Heaven, no
   pride will ever flit across their perfect souls because the memory of
   Redeeming Grace, dying love and blessings given without money and
   without price will keep them humble before the Lord. Oh, if they had
   given something, if they had done something, if they had merited
   something, this would have marred the whole, and left a gap whereby
   might enter the temptation to self-glory!

   Every child of God will know eternally that he is saved by Grace,
   Grace, Grace--from first to last--from beginning to end. And so,
   without constraint, except that which is found within their own bosoms,
   all the redeemed will forever magnify the Lord in such notes as these,
   "Worthy are You, O Lamb of God! For You were slain and have redeemed us
   unto God by Your blood, and have made us kings and priests unto God."
   May the Lord lead you all to receive His Divine salvation "without
   money and without price."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Isaiah 55. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--199, 492, 552.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                  Saving Faith

   A Sermon

   (No. 1162-3)

   Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, March 15, 1874, by

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   Thy faith hath saved thee.'Luke 7:50; and Luke 18:42.

   I do not remember that this expression is found anywhere else in the
   Word of God. It is found in these two places in the Gospel by Luke, but
   not in any other Gospel. Luke also gives us in two other places a
   kindred, and almost identical expression, Thy faith hath made thee
   whole.' This you will find used in reference to the woman whose issue
   of blood had been staunched (Luke 8:48), and in connection with that
   one of the ten lepers who returned to praise the Saviour for the cure
   he had received (Luke 17:19). You will find the expression, Thy faith
   hath made thee whole' once in Matthew and twice in Mark, but you find
   it twice in Luke, and together therewith the twice repeated words of
   our text, Thy faith hath saved thee.' Are we wrong in supposing that
   the long intercourse of Luke with the apostle Paul led him not only to
   receive the great doctrine of justification by faith which Paul so
   plainly taught, and to attach to faith that high importance which Paul
   always did, but also to have a peculiar memory for those expressions
   which were used by the Saviour, in which faith was manifestly honoured
   to a very high degree. Albeit Luke would not have written anything
   which was not true for the sake of maintaining the grand doctrine so
   clearly taught by the apostle, yet I think his full conviction of it
   would help to recall to his memory more vividly those words of the Lord
   Jesus from which it could be more clearly learned or illustrated. Be
   that as it may, we know that Luke was inspired, and that he has written
   neither more nor less than what the Saviour actually said, and hence we
   may be quite sure that the expression, Thy faith hath saved thee,' fell
   from the Redeemer's lips, and we are bound to accept it as pure
   unquestionable truth, and we may repeat it ourselves without fear of
   misleading others, or trenching upon any other truth. I mention this
   because the other day I heard an earnest friend say that faith did not
   save us, at which announcement I was rather surprised. The brother, it
   is true, qualified the expression, and showed that he meant to make it
   clear that Jesus saved us, and not our own act of faith. I agreed with
   what he meant, but not with what he said, for he had no right to use an
   expression which was in flat contradiction to the distinct declaration
   of the Saviour, Thy faith hath saved thee.' We are not to strain any
   expression to make it mean more than the speaker intended, and it is
   well to guard words from being misunderstood; but on the other hand, we
   may not quite go so far as absolutely to negative a declaration of the
   Lord himself, however we may mean to qualify it. It is to be qualified
   if you like, but it is not to be contradicted, for there it stands, Thy
   faith hath saved thee.' Now we shall this morning, by God's help,
   inquire what was it that saved the two persons whose history will come
   before us? It was their faith. Our second inquiry will be what kind of
   faith was it which saved them? and then thirdly, what does this teach
   us in reference to faith?

   I. WHAT WAS IT THAT SAVED the two persons whose history we are about to
   consider?

   In the penitent woman's case, her great sins were forgiven her and she
   became a woman of extraordinary love: she loved much, for she had much
   forgiven. I feel, in thinking of her, something like an eminent father
   of the church who said, This narrative is not one which I can well
   preach upon; I had far rather weep over it in secret.' That woman's
   tears, that woman's unbraided tresses wiping the Saviour's feet, her
   coming so near to her Lord in such company, facing such proud
   cavillers, with such fond and resolute intent of doing honour to Jesus;
   verily, among those that have loved the Saviour, there hath not lived a
   greater than this woman who was a sinner. Yet for all that Jesus did
   not say to her, Thy love hath saved thee.' Love is a golden apple of
   the tree of which faith is the root, and the Saviour took care not to
   ascribe to the fruit that which belongs only to the root. This loving
   woman was also right notable for her repentance. Mark ye well those
   tears. Those were no tears of sentimental emotion, but a rain of holy
   heart-sorrow for sin. She had been a sinner and she knew it; she
   remembered well her multitude of iniquities, and she felt each sin
   deserved a tear, and there she stood weeping herself away, because she
   had offended her dear Lord. Yet it is not said, Thy repentance hath
   saved thee.' Her being saved caused her repentance, but repentance did
   not save her. Sorrow for sin is an early token of grace within the
   heart, yet it is nowhere said, Thy sorrow for sin hath saved thee.' She
   was a woman of great humility. She came behind the Lord and washed his
   feet, as though she felt herself only able to be a menial servant to
   perform works of drudgery, and to find a pleasure in so serving her
   Lord. Her reverence for him had reached a very high point; she regarded
   him as a king, and she did what has sometimes been done for monarchs by
   zealous subjects'she kissed the feet of her heart's Lord, who well
   deserved the homage. Her loyal reverence led her to kiss the feet of
   her Lord, the Sovereign of her soul, but I do not find that Jesus said,
   Thy humility hath saved thee;' or that he said, Thy reverence hath
   saved thee;' but he put the crown upon the head of her faith, and said
   expressly, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.'

   In the case of the blind man to whom my second text refers'this man was
   notable for his earnestness; he cried, and cried aloud, Son of David,
   have mercy on me.' He was notable for his importunity, for they who
   would have silenced him rebuked him in vain; he cried so much the more,
   Son of David, have mercy on me.' But I do not discover that Christ
   attributed his salvation to his prayers, earnest and importunate though
   they were. It is not written, Thy prayers have saved thee'; it is
   written, Thy faith hath saved thee.' He was a man of considerable and
   clear knowledge, and he had a distinct apprehension of the true
   character of Christ: he scorned to call him Jesus of Nazareth, as the
   crowd did, but he proclaimed him Son of David,' and in the presence of
   that throng he dared avow his full conviction that the humble man,
   dressed in a peasant's garb, who was threading his way through the
   throng, was none other than the royal heir of the royal line of Judah,
   and was indeed the fulfiller of the type of David, the expected
   Messiah, the King of the Jews, the Son of David. Yet I do not find that
   Jesus attributed his salvation to his knowledge, to his clear
   apprehension, or to his distinct avowal of his Messiahship; but he said
   to him, Thy faith hath saved thee,' laying the entire stress of his
   salvation upon his faith.

   This being so in both cases, we are led to ask, what is the reason for
   it? What is the reason why in every case, in every man that is saved,
   faith is the great instrument of salvation? Is it not first because God
   has a right to choose what way of salvation he pleases, and he has
   chosen that men should be saved, not by their works, but by their faith
   in his dear Son? God has a right to give his mercy to whom he pleases;
   he has a right to give it when he pleases; he has a right to give it in
   what mode he pleases; and know ye this, O sons of men, that the decree
   of heaven is immutable, and standeth fast forever''He that believeth
   and is baptised shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.'
   To this there shall be no exception; Jehovah has made the rule and it
   shall stand. If thou wouldst have salvation, believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ, and thou shalt be saved'; but if not, salvation is utterly
   impossible to thee. This is the appointed way; follow it, and it leads
   to heaven; refuse it, and thou must perish. This is God's sovereign
   determination, He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that
   believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the
   Son of God.' Jehovah's will be done. If this be his method of grace,
   let us not kick against it. If he determines that faith shall save, so
   let it be; only, Good Master, create and increase our faith.

   But while I attribute this to the sovereign choice of God, I do see,
   for Scripture plainly indicates it, a reason in the nature of things
   why faith should thus have been selected. The apostle tells us it is of
   faith that it might be of grace. If the condition of salvation had been
   either feeling or working, then, such is the depravity of our nature,
   that we should inevitably have attributed the merit of salvation to the
   working or the feeling. We should have claimed something whereof to
   glory. It matters not how low the condition may have been, man would
   have still considered that there was something required of him, that
   something came from him, and that, therefore, he might take some credit
   to himself. But no man, unless he be demented, ever claims credit for
   believing the truth. If he hears that which convinces him, he is
   convinced; and if he be persuaded, he is persuaded; but he feels that
   it could not well be otherwise. He attributes the effect to the truth
   and the influence used. He does not go about and boast because he
   believes what is so clear to him that he cannot doubt it. If he did so
   boast of spiritual faith, all thinking men would say at once, Wherefore
   dost thou boast in the fact of having believed, and especially when
   this believing would never have been thine if it had not been for the
   force of the truth which convinced thee, and the working of the Spirit
   of God which constrained thee to believe?' Faith is chosen by Christ to
   wear the crown of salvation because'let me contradict myself'it refuses
   to wear the crown. It was Christ that saved the penitent woman, it was
   Christ that saved that blind beggar, but he takes the crown from off
   his own head, so dear is faith to him, and he puts the diadem upon the
   head of faith and says, Thy faith hath saved thee,' because he is
   absolutely certain that faith will never take the glory to herself, but
   will again lay the crown at the pierced feet, and say, Not unto myself
   be glory, for thou hast done it; thou art the Saviour, and thou alone.'
   In order, then, to illustrate and to protect the interests of sovereign
   grace, and to shut out all vain glorying, God has been pleased to make
   the way of salvation to be by faith, and by no other means.

   Nor is this all. It is clear to every one who chooses to think that in
   order to the renewal of the heart, which is the chief part of
   salvation, it is well to begin with the faith; because faith once
   rightly exercised becomes the mainspring of the entire nature. The man
   believes that he is forgiven. What then? He feels gratitude to him who
   has pardoned him. Feeling gratitude, it is but natural that he should
   hate that which displeases his Saviour, and should love intensely that
   which is pleasing to him who saved him, so that faith operates upon the
   entire nature, and becomes the instrument in the hand of the
   regenerating Spirit by which all the faculties of the soul are put into
   the right condition. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he, but his
   thinkings come out of his believings; if he be put right in his
   believings, then his understanding will operate upon his affections,
   and all the other powers of his manhood, and old things will pass away,
   all things will become new through the wonderful effect of the faith,
   which is of the operation of God. Faith works by love, and through love
   it purifies the soul, and the man becomes a new creature. See ye then
   the wisdom of God? He may choose what way he will, but he chooses a way
   which at once guards his grace from our felonious boastings, and on the
   other hand produces in us a holiness which other wise never would have
   been there.

   Faith in salvation, however, is not the meritorious cause; nor is it in
   any sense the salvation itself. Faith saves us just as the mouth saves
   from hunger. If we be hungry, bread is the real cure for hunger, but
   still it would be right to say that eating removes hunger, seeing that
   the bread itself could not benefit us, unless the mouth should eat it.
   Faith is the soul's mouth, whereby the hunger of the heart is removed.
   Christ also is the brazen serpent lifted up; all the healing virtue is
   in him; yet no healing virtue comes out of the brazen serpent to any
   who will not look; so that the looking is rightly considered to be the
   act which saves. True, in the deepest sense it is Christ uplifted who
   saves, to him be all the glory; but without looking to him ye cannot be
   saved, so that

   There is life in a look,'

   as well as life in the Saviour to whom you look. Nothing is yours until
   you appropriate it. If you be enriched, the thing appropriated enriches
   you; yet it is not incorrect but strictly right to say it is the
   appropriation of the blessing which makes you rich. Faith is the hand
   of the soul. Stretched out, it lays hold of the salvation of Christ,
   and so by faith we are saved. Thy faith hath saved thee.' I need not
   dwell longer on that point. It is self-evident from the text that faith
   is the great means of salvation.

   II. WHAT KIND OF FAITH WAS IT that saved these people? I will mention,
   first, the essential agreements; and then, secondly, the differentia,
   or the points in which this faith differed in its external
   manifestations in the two cases.

   In the instances of the penitent woman and the blind beggar, their
   faith was fixed alone in Jesus. You cannot discover anything floating
   in their faith in Jesus which adulterated it; it was unmixed faith in
   him. the woman pressed forward to him, her tears fell on him; her
   ointment was for him; her unloosed tresses were a towel for his; feet
   she cared for no one else, not even for the disciples whom she
   respected for his sake; her whole spirit and soul were absorbed in him.
   He could save her; he could blot out her sins. She believed him; she
   did it unto him. The same was the case with that blind man. He had no
   thought of any ceremonies to be performed by priests; he had no idea of
   any medicine which might be given him by physicians. His cry was, Son
   of David, Son of David.' The only notice he took of others was to
   disregard them, and still to cry, Son of David, Son of David.' What
   wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?' was the Lord's question, and it
   answered to the desire of his soul, for he knew that if anything were
   done it must be done by the Son of David. It is essential that our
   faith must rest alone on Jesus. Mix anything with Christ, and you are
   undone. If your faith shall stand with one foot upon the rock of his
   merits, and the other foot upon the sand of your own duties, it will
   fall, and great will be the fall thereof. Build wholly on the rock, for
   if so much as a corner of the edifice shall rest on anything beside, it
   will ensure the ruin of the whole:'

   <>'None but Jesus, none but Jesus

   Can do helpless sinners good.'

   All true faith is alike in this respect.

   The faith of these two was alike in its confession of unworthiness.
   What meant her standing behind? What meant her tears, her everflowing
   tears, but that she felt unworthy to draw near to Jesus? And what meant
   the beggar's cry, Have mercy on me?' Note the stress he lays upon it.
   Have mercy on me.' He does not claim the cure by merit, nor ask it as a
   reward. To mercy he appealed. Now I care not whose faith it is, whether
   it be that of David in his bitter cries of the fifty-first Psalm, or
   whether it be that of Paul in his highest exaltation upon being without
   condemnation through Christ, there is always in connection with true
   faith a thorough and deep sense that it is mercy, mercy alone, which
   saves us from the wrath to come. Dear hearer, do not deceive yourself.
   Faith and boasting are as opposite to one another as the two poles. If
   you come before Christ with your righteousness in your hand, you come
   without faith; but if you come with faith you must also come with
   confession of sin, for true faith always walks hand in hand with a deep
   sense of guiltiness before the Most High. This is so in every case.

   Their faith was alike, moreover, in defying and conquering opposition.
   Little do we know the inward struggles of the penitent as she crossed
   the threshold of Simon's house. He will repel thee,' the stern, cold
   Pharisee will say, Get thee gone, thou strumpet; how darest thou defile
   the doors of honest men.' But whatever may happen she passes through
   the door, she comes to where the feet of the Saviour are stretched out
   towards the entrance as he is reclining at the table, and there she
   stands. Simon glanced at her: he thought the glance would wither her,
   but her love to Christ was too well rooted to be withered by him. No
   doubt he made many signs of his displeasure, and showed that he was
   horrified at such a creature being anywhere near him, but she took no
   notice of him. Her Lord was there, and she felt safe. Timid as a dove,
   she trembled not while he was near; but she returned no defiant glances
   for Simon's haughty looks; her eyes were occupied with weeping. She did
   not turn aside to demand an explanation of his unkind motions, for her
   lips were all engrossed with kissing those dear feet. Her Lord, her
   Lord, was all to her. She overcame through faith in him, and held her
   ground, and did not leave the house till he dismissed her with Go in
   peace.'

   It was the same with the blind man. He said, Son of David, have mercy
   on me.' They cried, Hush! Why these clamours, blind beggar? His
   eloquence is music; do not interrupt him. Never man spake as he is
   speaking. Every tone rings like the harps of the angels. Hush! How
   darest thou spoil his discourse?' But over and above them all went up
   the importunate prayer, Son of David, have mercy upon me,' and he
   prevailed. All true faith is opposed. If thy faith be never tried it is
   not born of the race of the church militant. This is the victory that
   overcometh the world, even our faith,' but it is indicated in that very
   declaration that there must be something to overcome, and that faith
   must wage war for its existence.

   Once more, the faith of these two persons was alike in being openly
   avowed. I will not say that the avowal took the same form in both, for
   it did not; but still it was equally open. There is the Saviour, and
   there comes the weeping penitent. She loves him. Is she ashamed to say
   so? It may bring her reproach; it will certainly rake up the old
   reproaches against her, for she has been a sinner. Never mind what she
   has been, nor who may be present to see her. She loves her Lord, and
   she will show it. She will bring the ointment and she will anoint his
   feet, even in the presence of Pharisees, Pharisees who would say, Is
   this one of the disciples of Christ? A pretty convert to boast of! A
   fine conquest this, for his kingdom! A harlot becomes a disciple! What
   next and what next?' She must have known and felt all that, but still
   there was no concealment. She loved her Lord, and she would avow it,
   and so in the very house of the Pharisee, there being no other
   opportunity so convenient, she comes forward, and without words, but
   with actions far more eloquent than words, she says, I love him. These
   tears shall show it; this ointment shall diffuse the knowledge of it,
   as its sweet perfume fills the room; and every lock of my hair shall be
   a witness that I am my Lord's and he is mine.' She avowed her faith.

   And so did the blind man. He did not sit there and say, I know he is
   the Son of David, but I must not say it.' They said, some of them
   contemptuously, and others indifferently, It is Jesus of Nazareth.' But
   he will not have it so. Thou Son of David,' saith he; and loud above
   their noise I hear him cry, like a herald proclaiming the King, Son of
   David.' Why, sirs, it seems to me he was exalted to a high office: he
   became the herald of the King, and proclaimed him, and this belongs to
   a high officer of State in our country. The blind beggar showed great
   decision and courage. He cried in effect, Son of David thou art; Son of
   David I proclaim thee; Son of David thou shalt be proclaimed, whoever
   may gainsay it; only turn thine eyes and have mercy upon me.' Are there
   any of you here who have a faith in Christ which you are ashamed of? I
   also am ashamed of you, and so also will Christ be ashamed of you when
   he cometh in the glory of his Father and all his holy angels with him.
   Ashamed to claim that you are honest? Then methinks you must live in
   bad company, where to be a rogue is to be famous; and if you are
   ashamed to say, I love my Lord,' methinks you are courting the
   friendship of Christ's enemies, and what can you be but an enemy
   yourself: If you love him, say it. Put on your Master's regimentals,
   enlist in his army, and come forward and declare, As for me and my
   house, we will serve the Lord.' Their faith was alike then in these
   four particulars, it was fixed alone on him, it was accompanied with a
   sense of unworthiness, it struggled and conquered opposition, and it
   openly declared itself before all comers.

   By your patience I shall now try to show the differences between the
   same faith as to its manifestations. First, the woman's faith acted
   like a woman's faith. She showed tender love, and the affections are
   the glory and the strength of women. They were certainly such in her.
   Her love was intense, womanly love, and she poured it out upon the
   Saviour. The man's faith acted like a man's in its determination and
   strength. He persisted in crying, Thou Son of David.' There was as much
   that was masculine about his faith as there was of the feminine in the
   penitent's faith, and everything should be in its order and after its
   season. It would not have been meet for the woman's voice to be heard
   so boldly above the crowd; it would have seemed out of place for a
   man's tears to have been falling upon the Saviour's feet. Either one or
   the other might have been justifiable, but they would not have been
   equally suitable. But now they are as suitable as they are excellent.
   The woman acts as a godly woman should. The man like a godly man. Never
   let us measure ourselves by other people. Do not, my brother, say, I
   could not shed tears.' Who asked thee to do so? A man's tears are
   mostly within, and so let them be: it is ours to use other modes of
   showing our love. And, my sister, do not say, I could not act as a
   herald and publicly proclaim the King.' I doubt not thou couldest do so
   if there were need, but thy tears in secret, and those wordless tokens
   of love to Jesus which thou are rendering, are not less acceptable
   because they are not the same as a man would give. Nay, they are the
   better because they are more suitable to thee. Do not think that all
   the flowers of God's garden must bloom in the same colour or shed the
   same perfume.

   Notice next that the woman acted like a woman who had been a sinner.
   What more meet than tears? What more fitting place for her than at the
   Saviour's feet? She had been a sinner, she acts like a sinner; but the
   man who had been a beggar acted like a beggar. What does a beggar do
   but clamour for alms? Did he not beg gloriously? Never one plied the
   trade more earnestly than he. Son of David,' said he, have mercy on
   me.' I should not have liked to have seen the beggar sitting there
   weeping; nor to have heard the penitent woman shouting. Neither would
   have been natural or seemly. Faith works according to the condition,
   circumstances, sex, or ability of the person in whom it lives, and it
   best shows itself in its own form, not in an artificial manner, but in
   the natural outflow of the heart.

   Observe, also, that the woman did not speak. There is something very
   beautiful in the golden silence of the woman, which was richer than her
   silver speech would have been. But the man was not silent; he spoke; he
   spoke out, and his words were excellent. I venture to say that the
   woman's silence spoke as powerfully as the man's voice. Of the two I
   think I find more eloquence in the tears bedewing, and unbraided hair
   wiping the Saviour's feet, than in the cry, Son of David, have mercy on
   me.' Yet both forms of expression were equally good, the silence best
   in the woman with her tears, and the speech best in the man with his
   confident trust in Christ. Do not think it necessary, dear friend, in
   order to serve, to do other people's work. What thine own hand findeth
   to do, do it with thy might. If you think you can never honour Christ
   till you enter a pulpit, it may be just possible that you will
   afterwards honour him best by getting out of it as quickly as you can.
   There have been persons well qualified to adorn the religion of Christ
   with a lapstone on their lap who have thought it necessary to mount a
   pulpit, and in that position have been a hindrance to Christ and his
   gospel. Sister, there is a sphere for you; keep to it, let none push
   you out of it; but do not think there is nothing else to do except the
   work which some other woman does. God has called her, let her follow
   God's voice; he calls you in another direction, follow his voice
   thither. You will be most like that other excellent woman when you are
   most different from her: I mean, you will be most truly obedient to
   Christ, as she is, if you pursue quite another path.

   There was a difference, again, in this. The woman gave'she brought her
   ointment. The man did the opposite'he begged. There are various ways of
   showing love to Christ, which are equally excellent tokens of faith. To
   give him of her ointment, and give him of her tears, and give him the
   accommodation of her hair, was well; it showed her faith, which worked
   by love: to give nothing, for the beggar had nothing to give, but
   simply to honour Christ by appealing to his bounty and his royal power,
   was best in the beggar. I can commend neither above the other, for I
   doubt not that both the penitent and the beggar gave Christ their whole
   heart, and what more does Jesus ask for from any one?

   The thoughts of the woman and the thoughts of the beggar were different
   too. Her thoughts were mainly about the past, and her sins'hence her
   tears. To be forgiven, that was her point. His thoughts were mainly
   about the present, and did not so much concern his sin as his
   deficiency, infirmity, and inability, and so he came with different
   thoughts. I do not doubt that he thought of sin, as I dare say she also
   thought of infirmity; but in her case the thought of sin was uppermost,
   and hence the tears; in his the infirmity was uppermost, and hence the
   prayer, Lord, that I might receive my sight.' Do not, then, compare
   your experience with that of another. God is a God of wonderful
   variety. The painter who repeats himself in many pictures has a paucity
   of conception, but the master artist scarcely ever sketches the same
   thing a second time. There is a boundless variety in genius, and God
   who transcends all the genius of men, creates an infinite variety in
   the works of his grace. Look not, therefore, for likeness everywhere.
   The woman, it is said, loved much, and she proved her love by her acts;
   but the man loved much too, and showed his love by actions which were
   most admirable, for he followed Jesus in the way, glorifying God. Yet
   they were different actions. I do not find that he brought any box of
   ointment, or anointed Christ's feet, neither do I find that she
   literally followed Christ in the way, though no doubt she followed him
   in the spirit; neither did she with a loud voice glorify God as the
   restored blind beggar did. There are differences of operation, but the
   same Lord; there are differences of capacity and differences of
   calling, and by this reflection I hope you will be enabled to deliver
   yourselves from the fault of judging one by another, and that you will
   look for the same faith, but not for the same development of it.

   So interesting is this subject that I want you to follow me while I
   very rapidly sketch the woman's case, and then the man's, not
   mentioning the differences one by one, but allowing the two pictures to
   impress themselves separately upon your minds.

   Observe this woman. What a strange compound she was. She was
   consciously unworthy, and therefore she wept, yet she drew very near to
   Jesus. Her acts were those of nearness and communion; she washed his
   feet with her tears, she wiped them with the hairs of her head, and
   meanwhile she kissed them again and again. She hath not ceased,' said
   Christ, to kiss my feet.' A sense of unworthiness, and the enjoyment of
   communion, were mixed together. Oh, divine faith which blends the two!
   She was shamefaced, yet was she very bold. She dared not look the
   Master in the face as yet; she approached him from behind; yet she
   dared face Simon, and remain in his room, whether he frowned or no. I
   have known some who have blushed in the face of Christ who would not
   have blushed before a judge, nor at the stake, if they had been dragged
   there for Christ's sake. Such a woman was Anne Askew, humble before her
   Master, but like a lioness before the foes of God.

   The penitent woman wept, she was a mourner, yet she had a deep joy; I
   know she had, for every kiss meant joy. Every time she lifted that
   blessed foot, and kissed it, her heart leaped with the transport of
   love. Her heart knew bitterness for sin, but it knew also the sweetness
   of pardon. What a mixture! Faith made the compound. She was humble,
   never one more so; yet see how she takes upon herself to deal with the
   King himself. Brethren, you and I are satisfied, and well we may be, if
   we may wash the saints' feet, but she was not. Oh, the courage of this
   woman! She will pass through the outer court, and get right to the
   King's own throne, and there pay her homage, in her own person, to his
   person, and wash the feet of the wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty
   God. I know not that an angel ever performed such suit and service, and
   therefore this woman takes preeminence as having done for Jesus what no
   other being ever did. I have said that she was silent, and yet she
   spake; I will add, she was despised, but Christ set her high in honour,
   and made Simon, who despised her, to feel little in her presence. I
   will also add she was a great sinner, but she was a great saint. Her
   great sinnership, when pardoned, became the raw stuff out of which
   great saints are made by the mighty power of God. Finally she was saved
   by faith, so says the text, but if ever there was a case in which James
   could not have said, Shall faith save thee?' and in which he must have
   said, Here is one that shows her faith by her works,' it was the case
   of this woman. There she is before you. Imitate her faith itself,
   though you cannot actually copy her deeds.

   Now look at the man. He was blind, but he could see a great deal more
   than the Pharisees, who said they could see. Blind, but his inward
   optics saw the king in his beauty, saw the splendour of his throne, and
   he confessed it. He was a beggar, but he had a royal soul, and a strong
   sovereign determination which was not to be put down. He had the kind
   of mind which dwells in men who are princes among their fellows. He is
   not to be stopped by disciples, nay, nor by apostles. He has begun to
   pray, and pray he will till he obtains the boon he seeks. Note well
   that what he knew he avowed, what he desired he pleaded for, and what
   he needed he understood. Lord, that I might receive my sight;' he was
   clear about his needs, and clear about the only person who could supply
   them. What he asked for he expected, for when he was bidden to come he
   evidently expected that his sight would be restored, for we are told by
   another Evangelist that he cast away his beggar's cloak. He felt he
   should never want to beg again. He was sure his eyes were about to be
   opened. Lastly, what he received he was grateful for, for as soon as he
   could walk without a guide he took Christ to be his guide, and followed
   him in the way, glorifying him. Look on both pictures. May you have the
   shadows and the lights of both, as far as they would tend to make you
   also another and distinct picture by the selfsame artist, whose hand
   alone can produce such wonders.

   III. WHAT DOES THIS TEACH US IN REFERENCE TO FAITH? It teaches us first
   that faith is all important. Do, I pray you, my hearers, see whether
   you have the precious faith, the faith of God's elect. Remember there
   are not many things in Scripture called precious, but there is the
   precious blood, and there goes with it the precious faith. If you have
   not that you are lost; if you have not that you are neither fit to live
   nor fit to die; if you have not that, your eternal destiny will be
   infinite despair; but if you have faith, though it be as a grain of
   mustard seed, you are saved. Thy faith hath saved thee.'

   Learn next that the main matter in faith is the person whom you
   believe. I do not say in whom you believe. That would be true, but not
   quite so scriptural an expression. Paul does not say, as I hear most
   people quote it, I know in whom I have believed.' Faith believes
   Christ. Your faith must recognise him as a person, and come to him as a
   person, and rest not in his teaching merely, or his work only, but in
   him. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
   give you rest.' A personal Saviour for sinners! Are you resting on him
   alone? Do you believe him? You know the safety of the building depends
   mainly upon the foundation, and if the foundation be not right, you may
   build as you will, it will not last. Do you build, then, on Christ
   alone? Inquire about that as a special point.

   Observe next, that we must not expect exactly the same manifestation in
   each convert. Let not the elders of the church expect it, let not
   parents require it from their children; let not anxious friends look
   for it; do not expect it in yourself. Biographies are very useful, but
   they may become a snare. I must not judge that I am not a child of God
   because I am not precisely like that good man whose life I have just
   been reading. Am I resting in Christ? Do I believe him? Then it may be
   the Lord's grace is striking out quite a different path for me from
   that which has been trodden by my brother, that it may illustrate other
   phases of its power, and show to principalities and powers the
   exceeding riches of divine love.

   And, lastly, the matter which sums up all is this, if we have faith in
   Jesus we are saved, and ought not to talk or act as if there were any
   question about it. THY FAITH HATH SAVED THEE.' Jesus says it. Granted,
   you have faith in Christ, and it is certain that faith hath saved you.
   Do not, therefore, go on talking and acting and feeling as if you were
   not saved. I know a company of saved people who say every Sabbath,
   Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners'; but they are not
   miserable sinners if they are saved, and for them to use such words is
   to throw a slight upon the salvation which Christ has given them. If
   they are saved sinners they ought to be rejoicing saints. What some say
   others do not say, but they act as if it were so. They go about asking
   God to give them the mercy they have already obtained, hoping one day
   to receive what Christ assures them is already in their possession,
   talking to others as if it were a matter of question whether they were
   saved or not, when it cannot be a matter of question. Thy faith hath
   saved thee.' Fancy the poor penitent woman turning round and saying to
   the Saviour, Lord, I humbly hope that it is true.' There would have
   been neither humility nor faith in such an expression. Imagine that
   blind man, when Christ said, Thy faith hath saved thee,' saying I trust
   that in future years it will be found to be so.' It would be a belying
   at once of his own earnest character and of Christ's honesty of speech.
   If thou hast believed, thou art saved. Do not talk as if thou wert not,
   but now down from the willows take thy harp, and sing unto the Lord a
   new song. I have noticed in many prayers a tendency to avoid speaking
   as if facts were facts. I have heard this kind of expression, The Lord
   hath done great things for us, whereof we desire to be glad.' The text
   is, The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad;' and
   if the Lord has done these great things for us our right is to be glad
   about them, not to go with an infamous if' upon our lips before the
   Lord who cannot lie. If ye are dealing with your fellow creatures,
   suspect them, for they mostly deserve it; if ye are listening to their
   promises, doubt them, for their promises go to be broken; but if ye are
   dealing with your Lord and Master, never suspect him, for he is beyond
   suspicion; never doubt his promises, for heaven and earth and hell
   shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of his word shall fail. I
   claim for Christ that ye cast away forever all the talk which is made
   up of buts,' and ifs,' and peradventures,' and I hope,' and I trust.'
   You are in the presence of One who said, Verily, verily,' and meant
   what he said, who is the Amen, the faithful and true witness.'

   You would not spit in his face if he were here, yet your ifs' and buts'
   are so much insult cast upon his truth. You would not scourge him, but
   what do your doubts do but vex him and put him to shame? If he lies,
   never believe him; if he speaks the truth, never doubt him. Then shall
   ye know when ye have cast aside your wicked unbelief, that your faith
   has saved you, and ye will go in peace.

   PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Luke 7:36-50; 18:35-43.

   HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK''18 (Ver. 1.), 536, 586.
     __________________________________________________________________

Redemption and Its Claims

   (No. 1163)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH 8, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You are bought with a price." 1 Corinthians 6:20. "You are bought with
   a price." 1 Corinthians 7:23.

   THE same words are found in each place, though a different inference is
   drawn from them. "You are bought with a price." This morning's text
   was, "Without money and without price," [#1161] and to the best of my
   ability I tried to show how freely the blessings of the Gospel are
   bestowed upon the sons of men. But though they cost us nothing, they
   cost the Savior dearly. They are without price to us, but what a price
   He paid! Well did our poet put it in the remarkable verse which we
   sang--

   "There's never a gift His hand bestows But cost His heart a groan."

   Out of that fact grow certain most weighty practical Truths of God and
   I have chosen it as the subject of this evening's discourse that I may
   urge them upon your minds. May the Holy Spirit work graciously through
   the Word which you will hear and cause you to live as those who are
   redeemed with the precious blood of Christ.

   First, I shall have to say to you that redemption is our chief
   blessing--nothing better can be said of you than this, "You are bought
   with a price." Then I shall have to remind you that redemption on God's
   part becomes His paramount claim upon us. And thirdly, I shall have to
   show that this claim is remarkably extensive, and I shall urge you to
   admit it.

   I. First, then, "YOU ARE BOUGHT WITH A PRICE." To every man of whom
   this may be said, it is the best news he ever heard! An angel sent from
   Heaven could not bring to any man or woman a more delightful message
   than this, "You are bought with a price, even with the precious blood
   of Christ." "You are Christ's," says the Apostle in the chapter we read
   to you (1 Corinthians 3), and he seemed as if his heart glowed as he
   said it. He even made it the climax of a remarkable burst of eloquence.
   "Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours, whether
   Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things
   present, or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ's; and
   Christ is God's."

   To be bought with a price is the grandest distinction of our manhood
   and lifts us above angels themselves! It puts great honor upon the
   saints, even as the Lord has said, "Since you are precious in My sight,
   you have been honorable and I have loved you." Redemption is a greater
   mercy than creation. It is no mean blessing to have been made and to
   have been made a man rather than a dog or a toad, or a worm--to have
   been blest with intellect, with a mind that can soar into the unseen, a
   judgment which can weigh, a memory which can retain, an imagination
   which can create and color thoughts of every kind. It is no little
   matter to be capable of a mental capacity which widens the sphere of
   existence, beliefs which open up the past and make us see the far-gone
   ages and hopes which relieve the darkness of the present with lamps
   borrowed from the future.

   It is a great thing to be a man and not a bird--a man with a soul which
   will never fall by the fowler's gun. It is a great thing to be an
   immortal man, to be a creature that shall live on forever, into whom
   God has dropped a spark of undying flame. It is a grand thing to have a
   spirit within us and not to be dumb driven cattle. But for all that,
   although man is highly elevated in the scale of being, and stands even
   at the very top of being as respects this world, having dominion over
   all the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes
   through the paths of the sea--yet if you, O created man, are not
   redeemed, everything about you will only be turned into dust, so that
   it were better for you that a millstone had been tied about your neck,
   that you had been thrown into the depths of the sea, or even better for
   you that you had never been born, if you are not redeemed! "Bought with
   a price" makes existence life! To be unredeemed would make existence an
   endless death.

   Providence, also, is a short word, calling before our minds a great
   mass of mercies. But Providence is second in its blessedness to
   redemption. I would remind you of the inestimable blessings which the
   Providence of God has brought to many here present. It is no small
   thing to be in good health, no little thing to have your reason
   preserved. It is no minor blessing to have bread to eat and raiment to
   put on--and not to be distressed as many of the poorest of our Brethren
   are as to where they shall lay their heads--and where they shall find
   tomorrow's food. Some of us are surrounded with many comforts, and
   ought, every time we look at the bed on which we sleep at night, and
   the room in which we spend our days, sing unto God who has favored us
   so much--

   "Not more than others we deserve, But God has given us more."

   Look around you! Some of you have not only the necessities, but the
   luxuries of life. You are exceedingly favored in these things. But, oh,
   if you are not redeemed, what will it matter though you were clothed in
   scarlet and fine linen, and fared sumptuously each day, like Dives, and
   then should lift up your eyes in the flames of Hell? What would it
   matter, though you had the comeliness and majestic appearance of an
   Absalom, and yet over you a pious father would have to say, "Would God
   I had died for you! O Absalom, my son, my son!" What would it be to you
   to have been possessor of the world and to have called the seas your
   own, if you had no part or lot in the redemption of the Lord Jesus
   Christ and were never saved from wrath through Him? Redemption demands
   a louder note of gratitude than creation! Sweet as Providence must ever
   be to the Believer, yet redemption, redemption is the best wine kept
   unto the last--the last and best work of Heaven--the mirror in which
   the brightest attributes of Jehovah are most clearly reflected.

   This is the headstone of the corner, crowning the great temple of
   Divine Grace. "God so loved the world"--not as to make it fair and
   beautiful--that is not enough! "God so loved the world"--not so as to
   sustain it and give it day and night, and summer and winter--that is
   not enough! But the line that will fathom the depths of Divine Love is
   this--He "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
   whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life."
   Remember, dear Friends, that redemption is that which gives effect to
   all the other great blessings of

   God!

   I say, "great blessings," for I refer to spiritual blessings--all these
   need redemption to complete their design. For instance, election, the
   wellhead of Divine Grace, needs the conduit pipe of redemption to bring
   its streams down to sinners. We are chosen of God, but unto obedience,
   and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. The saints are chosen in Him--
   without Him of what good would election be? Where, also, would be our
   calling? Vain would it be to be called if there were no feast of dying
   love for us to be called to and no fountain filled with blood to which
   we might come at the call! Redemption is the fullness of all the
   blessings of God! They are like Gideon's fleece and redemption bedews
   them! It is the key of Heaven, the channel of Grace, the door of Hope.
   It constitutes our song in the house of our pilgrimage and will be the
   theme of our eternal music above.

   I would not fail to remind you, also, that redemption, at this moment,
   is the foundation of all the real peace that any man possesses. If you
   have any peace of mind worth having, you have found it at the foot of
   the Cross. If the tempest of your fears concerning the wrath of God has
   been quieted--there is only one voice which could have stilled its
   boisterous noise--it is the voice of Jesus. There is no peace apart
   from the blood of Jesus, unless it is that delusive peace which, like
   the solemn stillness which precedes the hurricane, is only the
   forerunner of destruction! All the peace you have is through redemption
   and all the security you have comes by the same way. You hope to be
   saved at the last. Your trust is that you shall die triumphantly and
   rise rejoicingly--but it is all through the blood of Jesus! Where were
   all the saints if it were not for redeeming Grace and dying love?
   Notwithstanding their professions, they are, without Christ, as a
   sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Piety has no root where
   redemption is unknown. Past experience and present enjoyment would melt
   away like the coating of morning's frost before the rising sun were it
   not that we are sealed by the precious blood of Christ! The Lord knows
   them that are His and will keep them securely to the end.

   But, oh, Beloved, there is one more Truth of God never to be forgotten!
   It is through Redeeming Grace that we expect to enter Heaven! In a few
   short weeks, or months, or, perhaps, years, you and I, who believe in
   Jesus, will be in Glory! We shall have done with these workdays here
   and shall have entered into the endless Sabbath! We shall be--

   "Where congregations never break up, And worship has no end."

   Our head shall soon wear the immortal crown and our hands shall bear
   the harp from which we will draw the richest music of praise! But our
   only hope to enter there is through the blood--and our only song shall
   be, "We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the
   Lamb." O you morning stars that sang together when a new-made world
   first revolved around the sun! O you wondering spirits who have often
   admired the Wisdom and the Justice of God in dealing with the sinful
   race of men, lift high your notes and sing yet sweeter songs concerning
   redemption! And let your wonder never cease that God should become Man
   and, as Man, should suffer, bleed, and die that He might redeem His
   people--that of them it might be said they were "bought with a price"!

   II. I have thus assured you all that redemption is our best blessing. I
   trust you will not rest without it. Now, I want

   to dwell upon the next point, namely, that therefore REDEMPTION IS THE
   LORD'S PARAMOUNT CLAIM UPON

   US. Paul does not say, "You are not your own, for God made you." That
   is true of all things that are--cattle, the trees, the dust of the
   earth as well as regenerated man. He does not say, "You are not your
   own for God created you." That would be true of the devil and his
   angels, and of the whole race of rebellious men.

   Neither does he say, "You are not your own for God preserves you." That
   would be most true, for God, who keeps the breath in our nostrils,
   ought to have our praise. But that also would be true of all creatures,
   even of the most wicked. But there is a special point here, "You are
   not your own--you are bought," not merely made and preserved, but
   bought and, "bought with a price." You who are children of God, you
   were bought as the devils never were, for Jesus never died to save
   them! "He took not up angels, but He took up the seed of Abraham." You
   are bought as the ungodly were not, for they remain the slaves of Satan
   and are not redeemed from their vain conversation received by tradition
   from their fathers. They have rejected the purchase price--they remain
   unredeemed from their slavery to sin.

   But you have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a
   lamb without blemish and without spot! And therefore Christ lays His
   pierced hand upon you and says, "You are Mine." Your King sets the
   broad arrow on you and marks you tonight as royal property. There was
   one possession which Jacob had which he greatly valued and which he
   gave to his darling son, Joseph, "because," he said, "I took it out of
   the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow." You, also, are
   the possession which Christ values beyond everything, because He has
   delivered you out of the hand of sin and Satan by His own sufferings
   and death--and because of this He has the highest conceivable right of
   property in you. He is not merely your Creator and Preserver, but He is
   your Redeemer and, therefore, if all the world should refuse Him
   homage, and all men should revolt from Him, and even if the angels
   should desert His standard, yet you must not, for you are bought with a
   price. Other claims are forcible, but this claim is overwhelming. Other
   bands are strong, but these cords of love are invincible. The love of
   Christ constrains us.

   Now let us look at this claim. Think, Beloved, what you were bought
   from. You were a slave and you have been redeemed! You were a slave to
   sin. Remember that. Perhaps there was a time when you could rap out an
   oath as well as anybody and when the pleasures of this world and the
   lusts thereof were sweet morsels under your tongue. How did you come to
   be saved from bad habits and filthy passions? You are bought with a
   price! You are the Lord's freeman! You have broken those chains, but
   not by your power. You have been bought with a price, for "you were not
   redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain
   conversation, received by tradition from your fathers; but with the
   precious blood of Christ." There is a redemption from sin!

   Then you have been redeemed from the punishment of sin. You had begun
   to feel that. You were full of doubts and fears and dreadful
   apprehensions of God's wrath. You felt as if Hell had begun in you. It
   is not so now, the blood of redemption has spoken peace and you are no
   more afraid. Well do I remember when the flames of Hell burned in my
   soul, as far as they could in this human life, yes, they dried up my
   spirit and parched up my heart, so that my soul chose strangling rather
   than life! It was such a wretched thing to live.

   But it is not so now, blessed be God! We are redeemed from remorse and
   despair, and set free from the horrible sense of guilt! In a little
   time we should have been in Hell--but since we have believed we never
   shall come into the place of torment--for sin is forgiven and the sense
   of sin is removed. We can say in the words of our text of last Sunday
   night, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes, rather,
   that has risen again, who sits at the right hand of God, who also makes
   intercession for us." We are redeemed from sin, from remorse, and from
   Hell itself! And now, at this moment, we are redeemed from the avenging
   justice of God. Jesus Christ has borne our sins in His own body on the
   tree, and by the merit of His death has forever rendered compensation
   to the injured honor of Divine Justice. He has magnified the

   Law and made it honorable so that the Law, itself, can ask no more of a
   sinner for whom Christ has died, for Christ has paid to the Law all
   that Justice could demand.

   Oh, think of that! Rejoice, Beloved, that you are redeemed from sin,
   and death, and Hell and the claims of unbending Justice--and surely you
   will feel that there is a claim upon you that you should be the Lord's.
   Reflect most lovingly upon that dear Friend who bought you out of iron
   bondage, who it was that redeemed you! You have not been redeemed by an
   angel. Dear would the angelic name have been had it been so! But angels
   were powerless in this grand affair. Who stooped to pick you up, O
   insect of a day? Who stooped to save you? Who but He who bears earth's
   huge pillars up and spreads the heavens abroad? The Son of God,
   Omnipotent, Eternal and Infinite, has fallen in love with the fallen
   sons of man--and for them has donned the garment of human flesh and in
   that flesh has suffered to the death--and died a most shameful death
   upon the gallows of Calvary!

   Oh, tell it everywhere that Jesus Christ, who is God over all, blessed
   forever, has redeemed us! And after that, who will say that we do not
   belong to Him? Then think of the price He paid. The text does not tell
   us about it, and surely the reason for its silence is to be found in
   the fact that words cannot express the mighty sum. "You are bought. You
   are bought with a price." Sometimes it is best, when you cannot say
   what you would, to say nothing at all. The famous painter, when he drew
   the picture of Agamemnon at the sacrifice of his daughter, felt that he
   could not depict the sorrow of the father's countenance and therefore
   he wisely put a veil over it, and represented him as hiding his face
   from the fearful sight.

   So the Apostle seems to have felt, "I cannot tell you all that Jesus
   suffered so I will leave it. You are bought with a price." Now, turn
   that over lovingly. Muse on it devoutly till your hearts burn like
   coals ofjuniper! "A price!" The price was God born at Bethlehem as a
   man and then living 30 years and more in poverty and contumely,
   suffering in Gethsemane till sweat of blood fell on the ground--falsely
   accused, ridiculed, spit upon, buffeted, mocked, scourged, nailed to
   the Cross, left there to die--while, in His soul, the great millstone
   of Jehovah's Wrath crushed His spirit as in an olive-press till His
   heart was broken and His spirit melted within Him like wax.

   Only God knows the sufferings of the Son of God--well does the Greek
   liturgy pour forth that mysterious plea, "By Your unknown sufferings,
   good Lord, deliver us," for unknown they were. O you saints were,
   indeed, bought with a price, and I charge you, by the agony and bloody
   sweat, by the Cross and passion, acknowledge the fact that you belong
   to Jesus! Confess that He bought you with an incalculable price! You
   are His and would not wish to question that Divine purchase which is
   the groundwork of your hope. You must not, cannot dispute the sacred
   claims which Jesus has upon you--rather should you cry, "O Son of
   David, we are Yours and all that we have."

   There is yet this further consideration, that the purchase price of
   every child of God has been fully paid. I have seen lands which have
   belonged to men who were reputed to be rich, but there was a heavy
   mortgage upon them so that, though they called them theirs, they were
   scarcely so. But there is no mortgage on the saints! There is no debt
   to be demanded in future ages either of us or of our Redeemer. "It is
   finished," said the Savior, and finished it is. He has bought you and
   He has paid for you. Are you not His? There is not one single good work
   of yours needed to complete the merit, or a single pang of suffering
   required from you to perfect the Atonement. You are perfect in Christ
   Jesus.

   Well, then, if the price is paid so fully, are we not completely and
   fully the Lord's? I will say this one thing very solemnly to you, and
   then leave the point. Beloved, if you are ready to confess that you
   were bought with a price, you must be equally ready to acknowledge that
   you cannot be your own, but belong to Him who bought you. Mark you, if
   the first is not true, then the second does not press. But if the first
   is true, namely, that Christ redeemed you, then the second is just as
   true, namely, that you are His and must live as His, or otherwise you
   are defrauding Him. If you are prepared to give up your redemption, you
   may also throw away your allegiance to Christ. But if you are not
   willing to give up redemption by the blood--and I trust you are not,
   for that is to give up everything--then you must also agree to this,
   that you are not your own, or any other man's, but belong wholly to
   Christ.

   And for that cause you are bound to render Him your whole self, spirit,
   soul and body. It is only your reasonable service, for every reasonable
   man expects to have what he has paid for. If Jesus has paid dearly for
   your soul and if it is confessed that it is His, then let Him have it
   and be not so base as to rob Christ of the reward of His heart's blood!
   "Will a man rob God?" Will you rob your Redeemer? Will you steal from
   Him the purchase of His agonies and deprive Him of

   that which it cost Him His life to buy? The claim is strong, but only
   gracious hearts will feel it. O blessed Spirit, cause us to feel it
   deeply, now, and evermore to act under its constraining power!

   III. This brings me to the third point, which is, as I have proved the
   Redeemer's claim--to show THE EXTENT OF IT--the claim of redemption is
   comprehensive. If you will kindly read the context of my first text you
   will see that it includes the body and the soul, "Glorify God in your
   body and your spirit, which are God's." There the Apostle speaks,
   first, of the body. Young man, read that passage when you get home,
   will you? I cannot read it now, but if you profess to be a Christian,
   remember that this body of yours is holy and it will rise again from
   the dead. I charge you, by the blood of Christ, never defile this body
   either by drunkenness or by lust.

   If it were the body of a common man, I would say to you, for your own
   sake, avoid these evils. But if you are a Christian I have a stronger
   argument, for your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Mark how
   strongly the Apostle puts it and try to feel the force of his words.
   You young men who come to London amidst its vices, read this passage
   and shun everything that is akin to lewdness, or leads to
   unchastity--for your bodies were bought with your Lord's lifeblood--
   and they are not yours to trifle with. Shun the strange woman, her
   company, her wine, her glances, her house, her songs and her resorts.
   Your bodies are not yours to injure by self-indulgence of any sort.
   Keep them pure and chaste for that heavenly Bridegroom who has bought
   them with His blood.

   And then your soul is bought, too. I was obliged to mention the body
   because it is mentioned here and it is so necessary it should be kept
   pure. But keep the soul pure, too. Christ has not bought these eyes
   that they should read novels, such as are published nowadays,
   calculated to lead me into vanity and vice. Christ has not bought this
   brain of mine that I may revel in the perusal of works of blasphemy and
   filthiness. He has not given me a mind that I may drag it through the
   mire with the hope of washing it clean, again, as some seem to do who
   imagine it to be the right thing to be always defiling themselves with
   skepticism and heresy that they may afterwards come to some minister to
   help them out of the dirt, or some wise friend to scrub the filth off.
   There will be enough of dust in going along the best roads--there is no
   need to go and roll in every dirt heap which foolish atheists and proud
   skeptics choose to put in the way. Do not defile your mind--it belongs
   to God--it is bought with the blood of Jesus.

   Your whole manhood belongs to God if you are a Christian. Every
   faculty, every natural power, every talent, every possibility of your
   being, every capacity of your spirit--all were bought. It would be an
   awful thing for you if there were any part of you left out of the
   inventory. That would be a cursed part of the fabric of your being! But
   it is all bought with blood, if you are, indeed, a redeemed man or
   woman. Therefore keep the whole for Jesus, for it belongs to Him. The
   Apostle draws from the fact that we are bought with a price in my first
   text, the inference, "You are not your own." It is clear as the sun at
   noon that if you are bought you are not your own.

   Now, if I am not my own, what does that negative declaration imply? It
   means, first, that I may not claim the right to do as I like. I am not
   my own. If I were my own I might do what I pleased. But I am not my
   own. I am not to do what I please, but what Christ pleases. I am to
   please my Lord and Master in everything. My question in life is not how
   shall I get the most happiness to myself, but how can I bring the most
   honor to Him? I am not my own--then I am not to follow my own passions.
   If I were my own I might fling the bridle on my neck and go where I
   want and no longer restrain my passions. But since I am not my own, I
   must not. I cannot live after the flesh. Unless I am false to Him that
   bought me, I dare not obey the bidding of my corruptions.

   Neither, if I am not my own, may I follow my own tastes if in any way I
   should so bring grief to the people of God or dishonor to the name of
   Christ. I think, dear Brothers and Sisters, that one of the best tests
   of a Christian is that he will not only do no wrong, but he will not do
   that which might lead others to do wrong. Many things are lawful to us
   which are not expedient. And often the Christian will say to himself,
   "Such a thing I think I might do if I were Alexander Selkirk on a
   desert island and nobody saw me. But insomuch as there are others who
   will take occasion to go beyond this act of mine--and weak ones who
   will be scandalized by what I do--God forbid I should make my Brother
   or Sister to offend, for I am not my own. If I were my own master and
   had not my Lord and His cause to consider, I might do a thousand
   things. But I will deny myself many lawful things for His sake and the
   sake of His Church, for I am not my own. I will deny myself even
   allowable things that I may manifest that I do not belong to myself,
   but to Him."

   I am not my own. Then I must not trust my own reasonings. If I were my
   own teacher, then, of course, I should learn my lessons from my own
   book. But I have a Rabbi, even Jesus, and I am resolved with meekness
   to learn of Him. I

   thought I was wise, once, but now I have become a little child, and I
   love to sit at Jesus' feet to learn of Him, for I have surrendered my
   reason to Him. I believe what He teaches me because He says so. His
   ipse dixit stands to me instead of argument, for what He says must be
   true. I am not my own and so I must not seek my own ends. I must not
   live in this world that I may get rich, or that I may be famous. I may
   trade and get riches, but it must be that I may use them for Him. I
   have a family to be kept. Yes, I must give my family to Christ, and
   then work to keep Christ's family--and so shall I be working for
   Christ.

   It is not my business to support myself, for the Lord is my Shepherd,
   but the Lord supports me through my own exertions and therefore do I,
   even in common labor, serve Him. "Having food and raiment," I shall be
   content. And I shall live to do good to the poor, and to the Church of
   God, and to my fellow men. When He sends me riches I shall take my
   alabaster box and break it, and pour it on His head, and never count my
   treasures so well used as when I give them up to Him. If, like Joseph
   of Arimathea, the Believer possessed a new tomb, where man never lay,
   prepared for himself--he would count it best used if his Lord deigned
   to use it for His burial. Gladly would he lend his chamber for Jesus to
   keep the Passover, or his animal that his Lord might ride into
   Jerusalem--for the saint holds all things ready at his Master's beck
   and call. His life is consecration. He has vowed unto the Lord, "I will
   work for Him. I will suffer for Him. I will write for Him, I will live
   for Him--I will even die for Him--by some means or other I will show
   that I am not my own, or anything that I have."

   Oh, Brothers and Sisters, I would not like to have an unconsecrated
   hair on my head, or an unconsecrated hour of the day, or an
   unconsecrated faculty! Every mental power which God has given to a man
   ought to be used for God's cause. No faculty which is essentially
   natural to us may be excused from bowing its neck to the yoke of the
   Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes when I have said a humorous thing in
   preaching I have not asked you to excuse me, for if God has given me
   humor I mean to use it in His cause. Many a man has been caught, his
   ear arrested and his attention won by a quaint remark. If anyone can
   prove it is a wickedness, and not a natural faculty, I will abandon it.
   But it is a faculty of nature and it ought to be consecrated and used
   for the cause of Christ! Whatever you can do, if it is a right thing to
   do, and God has made it a characteristic of your being, do it for
   Jesus! If you cannot speak like Mr. Moody, sing like Mr. Sankey--but
   somehow or other help to promote the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,
   for you are not your own, "You are bought with a price."

   In my second text the Apostle brings forth another inference. Read the
   seventh chapter at the 23rd verse--"You are bought with a price; be not
   you the servants of men." By which he means this--As you are not to
   live for yourself, so you are not to make yourself the slave of other
   men and give your powers up to any but to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not
   even follow good men slavishly. Do not say, "I am of Paul. I am of
   Apollos. I am of Calvin. I am of Wesley." Did Calvin redeem you? Did
   Wesley die for you? Who is Calvin and who is Wesley but ministers by
   whom you believed as the Lord gave unto you? Do not so surrender
   yourself to any leadership that you rather follow the man than his
   Master. I will follow anybody if he goes Christ's way, but I will
   follow nobody, by the Grace of God, if he does not go in that
   direction.

   Do not pin your faith to anybody's sleeve. Keep close to the Lord Jesus
   Christ. You are bought with a price--do not be the servants of men. Do
   not give yourselves up to party spirit. It is a pity when a man cares
   only for politics--when the one grand thing he lives for is to return a
   Liberal to Parliament, or to get in a Radical, or to lift a Tory to the
   top of the poll. To live for a political party is unworthy of a man who
   professes to be a Christian! The most advanced politics beneath the sun
   are nothing compared with living for the bleeding Savior and spending
   one's self for the promotion of the immortal principles of the Cross.
   We are not to give ourselves up to any scientific speculation,
   educational effort, or to any philanthropic enterprise so as to divert
   our minds from the grand old cause of Jesus and our God!

   A story is told of one of the early saints--I think it was Jerome--that
   he dreamed that he died and went to the gates of Heaven, and they said
   to him, "Who are you?" And he said, "I am Jerome, a student of
   Scripture." And they said to him, "No, you are not. You are one Jerome,
   a student of Cicero," for he had been much more accustomed to the study
   of Cicero and the great Latin writers than to the reading of the
   Scriptures. He dreamed, therefore, he was not permitted to enter
   Heaven. And upon waking from his dream he put aside his classic books
   to make the Word of God the main study of his life. Alas, there are a
   great many people in the world who do not live for Christ! They are
   living for something else. The main thing with them is often a trifle
   light as air--a pursuit of the most infinite value.

   I heard once a great Divine saying to another great Divine that he had
   spent a most important day on Snowdon--he considered it one of the most
   successful days of his life. Being in their line, myself, I wondered
   what great revival services had been held on Snowdon, among the
   Welshmen. The eminent ecclesiastic said he had been many years on the
   watch, but had never, till that day, been able to satisfy himself! I
   wondered if he had been in prayer, watching for the conversion of the
   Welsh people. He said he found three different kinds of them and was
   now sure they were quite distinct. Did he mean three kinds of religious
   inquirers whose cases he had, at last, been able to understand?

   Not he! He had been speaking of three species of beetles which he had
   met with after a day's searching. The minister of Christ had much joy
   over three beetles, but probably cared little for repenting sinners.
   And I am afraid there are many who spend their time in trifles as small
   as that and, perhaps, far less innocent. Everything is a trifle to a
   man who is a Christian except the glorifying of Christ. "Felix has
   driveled into an ambassador," said good old William Carey, when they
   told him that his son Felix had been made ambassador from the British
   court to the court of Burmah. He had been a poor missionary, before,
   and now they had made him a great ambassador. But his father said, "He
   has driveled into an ambassador."

   If a man who lives for Jesus and preaches the Gospel could suddenly be
   transformed into the Emperor of Germany, it would be a frightful
   come-down for him! To live for Jesus is the highest style of man! God
   grant we may realize that--for we are bought with a price. If we do not
   belong to man, it follows that we ought not to follow the fashions of
   the world. Some people must be in fashion, cost what it may--out of the
   fashion they feel they might as well be out of the world. It is almost
   death to them if they cannot dress and act after the manner of society.
   Therefore they run into extravagance, pride, show and folly. The pride
   of life eats them up. When fashions go wrong it should be the
   Christian's fashion to go against the fashion. Let no man be your
   master! If you have masters according to the flesh, serve them with all
   faithfulness, as becomes you, giving unto them diligent service--but as
   to any master over your spirit, allow no one to be so--consciences were
   made for God alone! Bow not down your heart and conscience before man,
   but be free, for, "you are bought with a price."

   To close. We are, then, it seems, wholly Christ's. Christ, then, my
   Brothers and Sisters, if we are as we should be, is Lord of our time.
   We may not say, "I have an hour of my own to waste." It is Christ's
   time. He is Lord of our household. We do not claim to be paramount
   there, but we say, "Lord, these are Your children. Help us to bring
   them up for You. Our household is Yours, Lord, grant that by family
   prayer and by holy example we may make our family to be 'Holiness to
   the Lord.'" You will go out to business and say, "This business is not
   mine. It is my Master's." You will not trade in any dishonest way if
   you do that. It will be holy trading. The farmer goes to the field and
   says, "This is the Redeemer's field, and what profit I shall make from
   it is His profit." If he feels in that way his actions will be kind,
   generous, right and God-fearing.

   I would that every young man felt, "If I have talents they are God's
   talents, to be used for Him." Young men will join clubs and societies,
   and become most energetic members. But when they join Churches, very
   often we get the distinguished honor of having their names on the book
   to encumber the Church roll, and not much more. That is not right if
   they belong to Jesus. Christian people ought, in all they do, to be
   looking out for opportunities of serving Christ. I have heard of a Jew,
   who, going forth to trade and having a choice between two towns, asked,
   "Where is the synagogue?" and when he had found there was a synagogue
   in one town and not in the other, he gave the preference to that in
   which he could worship with his brethren. It ought to be so with the
   Christian! But often Christian men forget even to inquire about such
   matters.

   They make money and go and live out of London, and where do they select
   their residence? They say, "Here is a beautiful view, and a respectable
   neighborhood." But there is no place of worship where they can take
   their children and where they can go, themselves--does that always
   influence them? I fear not. They look to other matters first. I have
   known them go to places where they could not possibly get any good--and
   they have not even tried to do any. I like to hear a Christian man say,
   "There is a destitute village. Now, if I live there I may build a
   little place of worship and so I may do good." This is an object worth
   aiming at--and if the wealthy Christians of England, when they remove
   from large centers of population--would always set to work to try and
   spread the Gospel round about where they live, they would be like seed
   sown in the ground or like salt scattered among society to preserve the
   land.

   Our first aim in life should be to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. I am
   afraid I am rapping some of you a little hard, or perhaps you will call
   it treading on your corns. You should not have corns, you know, and
   then I could not tread upon them. If you are not doing right and
   anything I say comes close to stepping on your corns, it should! Dear
   Brother, try to mend. Find not fault with the preacher because he finds
   out your faults. Go and amend. There came into this house some years
   ago a dear Brother, an earnest Christian young man. I was preaching
   some such sermon as this and he felt that he had not been living for
   Christ. He went back to the city where he lived and he began to preach
   in the streets. He continued to preach and God blessed him, and he
   developed into an earnest and talented servant of our Lord Jesus
   Christ, whose name is very dear to you all. One of the best days' work
   I ever did was to be the means of calling him out to such a service! Is
   there not some young man of that kind here, tonight?

   May there not be here present a Christian woman, with ability, and
   talent, and education who ought to be teaching young women, and doing
   good, and bringing them to the Savior? My dear Sister, you are not your
   own--you are not your own. If you were, I think you would be quite
   right in taking your ease on Sunday and making yourself comfortable in
   the week. But you are not your own. You are not your own. The blood of
   Jesus has bought every particle of you. Will you not devote yourself to
   Him? Will you not pray to make your consecration more practical than it
   has been up to now, from this time forth? The sacred blood mark is on
   every part of your spirit and your body--do not try to hide it. Give up
   all to Jesus that while you live, and when you die, you may fight a
   good fight and finish your course, and have it said to you, "Well done,
   good and faithful servant."

   O you who know nothing about being bought with a price, you will be
   lost unless you do know it! If Christ has not bought you, Hell will
   receive you, and despair will be your portion! May God grant you to
   know the power of redemption through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord!
   Amen. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--1 Corinthians 3. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--658, 663, 660.
     __________________________________________________________________

Now, A Sermon for Young Men and Young Women

   (No. 1164)

   DELIVERED ON THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 19, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that
   he sees is for many days to come, and he prophesies of the times that
   are far off" Ezekiel 12:27.

   ONE would have thought that if the glorious Lord condescended to send
   His servants to speak to men of the way of salvation, all mankind would
   delight to hear the message. We should naturally conclude that the
   people would immediately run together in eager crowds to catch every
   word--and would at once be obedient to the heavenly command. But, alas,
   it has not been so! Man's opposition to God is too deep, too stubborn
   for that. The Prophets of old were compelled to cry, "Who has believed
   our report?" and the servants of God in later times found themselves
   face to face with a stiff-necked generation who resisted the Holy
   Spirit as their fathers did.

   Men display great ingenuity in making excuses for rejecting the message
   of God's love. They display marvelous skill, not in seeking salvation,
   but in fashioning reasons for refusing it. They are dexterous in
   avoiding Divine Grace and in securing their own ruin. They hold up,
   first, this shield and then the other to ward off the gracious arrows
   of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which are only meant to slay the deadly
   sins which lurk in their bosoms. The evil argument which is mentioned
   in the text has been used from Ezekiel's day right down to the present
   moment, and it has served Satan's turn in tens of thousands of cases.
   By its means men have delayed themselves into Hell.

   The sons of men, when they hear of the great Atonement made upon the
   Cross by the Lord Jesus, and are bid to lay hold upon eternal life in
   Him, still say concerning the Gospel, "The vision that he sees is for
   many days to come, and he prophesies of times that are far off." That
   is to say, they pretend that the matters of which we speak are not of
   immediate importance, and may safely be postponed. They imagine that
   religion is for the weakness of the dying and the infirmity of the
   aged, but not for healthy men and women.

   They meet our pressing invitation, "All things are now ready, come to
   the supper," with the reply, "Religion is meant to prepare us for
   eternity, but we are far off from it as yet, and are still in the
   heyday of our being. There is plenty of time for those dreary
   preparations for death. Your religion smells of the vault and the worm.
   Let us be merry while we may. There will be room for more serious
   considerations when we have enjoyed life a little, or have become
   established in business, or can retire to live upon our savings.
   Religion is for the sere and yellow leaf of the year's fall, when life
   is fading, but not for the opening hours of spring, when the birds are
   pairing and the primroses smiling upon the returning sun. You prophesy
   of things that are for many days to come, and of times that are far
   off."

   Very few young people may have said as much as this, but that is the
   secret thought of many. And with this they resist the admonition of the
   Holy Spirit, who says, "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not
   your hearts." They put off the day of conversion as if it were a day of
   tempest and terror, and not, as it really is, a day most calm, most
   bright-- the marriage of the soul with Heaven. Let every unconverted
   person remember that God knows what his excuse is for turning a deaf
   ear to the voice of a dying Savior's love! You may not have spoken it
   to yourself so as to put it into words. You might not even dare to do
   so, lest your conscience should be too much startled--but God knows it
   all.

   He sees the hollowness, the folly and the wickedness of your excuses.
   He is not deceived by your vain words, but makes short work with your
   apologies for delay. Remember the parables of our Lord and note that
   when the man of one talent professed to think his Master a hard man, He
   took him at his word and out of his own mouth condemned him! And in the
   case of the invited guests who pleaded their farms and their
   merchandise as excuses, no weight was attached to what they said, but
   the sentence went forth, "None of these men that are bidden shall taste
   of My supper." God knows

   the frivolity of your plea for delay. He knows that you, yourself, are
   doubtful about it, and dare not stand to it so as to give it anything
   like a solemn consideration.

   Very hard do you try to deceive yourself into an easy state of
   conscience concerning it, but in your inmost soul you are ashamed of
   your own falsehoods. My business at this time is, by the aid of the
   Holy Spirit, to deal with your consciences and to convince you even
   more thoroughly that delay is unjustifiable, for the Gospel has present
   demands upon you, and you must not say, "The vision that he sees is for
   many days to come, and he prophesies of the times that are far off."

   I. For, first, granted for a moment that the message we bring to you
   has most to do with the future state, yet, even then, the day is not
   far of--neither is there so great a distance between now and then that
   you can afford to wait. Suppose that you are spared for threescore
   years and ten! Young man, suppose that God spares you in your sins till
   the snows of many winters shall whiten your head? Young woman, suppose
   that your now youthful countenance shall still escape the grave until
   wrinkles are upon your brow? Still, how short will your life be! You,
   perhaps, think 70 years a long period, but those who are 70, in looking
   back, will tell you that their age is as an hand's breadth!

   I, who am but 40, feel at this time that every year flies more swiftly
   than the last! And months and weeks are contracted into twinkling of
   the eyes. The older one grows, the shorter one's life appears. I do not
   wonder that Jacob said, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my
   life been," for he spoke as an extremely old man. Man is short-lived
   compared with his surroundings--he comes into the world and goes out of
   it--as a meteor flashes through yonder skies which have remained the
   same for ages. Listen to the brook which murmurs as it flows and the
   meditative ear will hear it warble--

   "Men may come and men may go, But I go on forever."

   Look at yonder venerable oak, which has, for 500 years, battled with
   the winds--what an infant one seems when reclining beneath its shade!
   Stand by some giant rock which has confronted the tempests of the ages
   and you feel like the insect of an hour! There are persons here tonight
   of 70 years of age who look back to the days of their boyhood as if
   they were but yesterday! Ask them, and they will tell you that their
   life seems to have been little more than a wink of the eye-- it has
   gone like a dream, or a lightning's flash--

   "What is life? 'tis but a vapor, Soon it vanishes away."

   Therefore do not say, "These things are for a far-off time." for even
   if we could guarantee to you the whole length of human existence, it is
   but a span.

   And there comes upon the heels of this a reflection never to be
   forgotten--that not one man among us can promise himself, with anything
   like certainty, that he shall ever see threescore years and ten! We may
   survive and by reason of strength we may creep up to fourscore
   years--yet not one of us can be sure that he shall do so--the most of
   us will assuredly be gone long before that age. No, we cannot promise
   that we shall see half that length of time! You young men and women
   cannot be certain that you shall reach middle life. Let me check
   myself! What am I talking of? You cannot be certain that you will see
   this year out and hear the bells ring in a new year! Yes, close upon
   you as tomorrow is, boast not yourselves of it, for it may never come.
   Or, should it come, you know not what it may bring forth to
   you--perhaps a coffin or a shroud.

   Yes, and this very night, when you close your eyes and rest your head
   upon your pillow, reckon not too surely that you shall ever again look
   on that familiar chamber, or go forth from it to the pursuits of life.
   It is clear, then, that the things which make for your peace are not
   matters for a far-off time. The frailty of life makes them necessities
   of this very hour. You are not far from your grave--you are nearer to
   it than when this discourse began. Some of you are far nearer than you
   think. To some, this rejection comes with remarkable emphasis, for your
   occupation has enough of danger about it, every day, to furnish Death
   with a hundred roads to convey you to his prison in the sepulcher! Can
   you look through a newspaper without meeting with the words, "total,"
   or, "sudden death"?

   Traveling has many dangers and even to cross the street is perilous.
   Men die at home and many, when engaged about their lawful callings, are
   met by death. How true is this of those who go down to the sea in
   ships, or descend into the heart of the earth in mines! But, indeed, no
   occupations are secure from death--a needle can kill as well as a
   sword--a scald, a burn, a fall may end our lives quite as readily as a
   pestilence or a battle. Does your business lead you to climb a

   ladder? It is not a very perilous matter, but have you never heard of
   one who missed his footing and fell, never to rise again? You work
   amidst the materials of a rising building--have you never heard of
   stones that have fallen and have crushed the workers?--

   "Dangers stand thick through all the ground

   To push us to the tomb,

   And fierce diseases wait around

   To hurry mortals home."

   Notwithstanding all that can be done by sanitary laws, fevers are not
   unknown and deadly strokes which fell men to the ground in an instant,
   as a butcher slays an ox, are not uncommon. Death has already removed
   many of your former companions. You have ridden into the battle of life
   like the soldiers in the charge at Balaclava. And, young as you are in
   this warfare, you have seen saddles emptied right and left around you.
   You survive, but death has grazed you. The arrow of destruction has
   gone whizzing by your ear to find another mark! Have you never wondered
   why it spared you? Among this congregation there are persons of
   delicate constitution. It grieves me to see so many fair daughters of
   our land with the mark of consumption upon their cheeks.

   Full well I know that lurid flame upon the countenance and that strange
   luster of the eyes--signs of exhausting fires feeding upon life and
   consuming it too soon! Young men and women, many of you, from the
   condition of your bodily frames, can only struggle on till middle
   life--and scarcely that--for beyond 30 or 40 you cannot survive. I fear
   that some of you have, even in walking to this place, felt a suspicious
   weariness which argues exhaustion and decline. How can you say, when we
   talk to you about preparing to die, that we are talking about things
   that are far off? Dear Souls, do not be so foolish! I implore you, let
   these warnings lead you to decision! Far be it from me to cause you
   needless alarm, but is it needless? I am sure I love you too well to
   distress you without cause--and is there not cause enough?

   Come now, I press you most affectionately, answer me and say, does not
   your own reason tell you that my anxiety for you is not misplaced?
   Ought you not, at once, lay to heart your Redeemer's call and obey your
   Savior's appeal? The time is short! Catch the moments as they fly and
   hasten to be blessed. Remember also, once again, that even if you knew
   that you should escape from accident and fever and sudden death, yet
   there is one grand event that we too often forget, which may put an end
   to your day of mercy all of a sudden. Have you never heard of that
   Jesus Christ of Nazareth who was crucified on Calvary, died on the
   Cross, and was laid in the tomb? Do you not know that He rose again the
   third day? And that after He had spent a little while with His
   disciples, He took them to the top of the Mount of Olives and there,
   before their eyes, ascended into Heaven, a cloud hiding Him from their
   view?

   Have you forgotten the words of the angels, who said, "This same Jesus
   who is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as
   you have seen Him go into Heaven"? Jesus will certainly come a second
   time to judge the world! Of that day and of that hour knows no man--no,
   not the angels of God! He will come as a thief in the night to an
   ungodly world! They shall be eating and drinking, and marrying and
   giving in marriage just as they were when Noah entered into the
   ark--and they knew not until the Flood came and swept them all away! In
   a moment--we cannot tell when! Perhaps it may be before the next words
   escape my lips--a sound far louder than any mortal voice will be heard
   above the clamors of worldly traffic--yes, and above the roaring of the
   sea.

   That sound as of a trumpet will proclaim the day of the Son of Man.
   "Behold, the Bridegroom comes: go you out to meet Him," will sound
   throughout the Church. And to the world there will ring out this
   clarion note, "Behold, He comes with clouds, and every eye shall see
   Him, and they, also, which crucified Him." Jesus may come tonight! If
   He were to do so, would you, then, tell me that I am talking of far-off
   things? Did not Jesus say, "Behold, I come quickly!" and has not His
   Church been saying, "Even so, come Lord Jesus"? His tarrying may be
   long to us, but to God it will be brief. We are to stand hourly
   watching and daily waiting for the coming of the Lord from Heaven! Oh,
   I pray you do not say that the Lord delays His coming, for that was the
   language of the wicked servant who was cut in pieces, and it is the
   mark of the mockers of the last days, that they say, "Where is the
   promise of His coming?"

   Be you not mockers, lest your bands be made strong, but listen to the
   undoubted voice of prophecy and of the Word of God, "Behold, I come
   quickly." "Be you, also, ready, for in such an hour as you think not
   the Son of Man comes." Now, then, it is clear enough that even if the
   Gospel message did concern only our life in another world, yet still it
   is unwise for men to say, "The vision is for many days to come, and he
   prophesies of the times that are far off."

   II. But, secondly, I have to remind you that our message really deals
   with the present. The blessings of the Gospel have as much to do with
   this present life as with existence beyond the tomb. For observe,
   first, we are sent to plead with you, young men and women, and tenderly
   to remind you that you are, at this hour, acting unjustly and unkindly
   towards your God. He made you and you do not serve Him. He has kept you
   alive and you are not obedient to Him. He has sent the Word of His
   Gospel to you and you have not received it. He has sent His only
   begotten Son and you have despised Him. This injustice is a thing of
   the present--and the appeal we make to you about it is that in all
   reason such conduct should come to an end. Oh, may God's Holy Spirit
   help you to end it!

   If I feel that I have done any man an injustice, I am eager to set it
   right. I would not wait till tomorrow. I wish to make amends with him
   at once. Yes, and even when I have forgotten to render assistance to
   some needy widow, I chide myself and feel uneasy till I have attended
   to the matter. Do you not feel the same? Would you willfully wrong or
   neglect another? I feel sure you would not! How is it, then, that you
   can be content to be unjust to God? Cruel to the dear Lover of the
   souls of men? And antagonistic to the loving pleadings of the Holy
   Spirit? That first chapter of Isaiah--you remember it, how striking it
   is! Why, if men had hearts that were at all tender it would break them!
   Read it--"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. I have nourished and
   brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows
   his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel does not know; My
   people do not consider."

   It is the wail of God Himself over man's unkindness to his Maker! Young
   man of honor, young man of integrity, does nothing speak to your
   conscience in this? "Will a man rob God?" You would not rob your
   employer! You would not like to be thought unfaithful or dishonest
   towards man! And yet your God, your God, your God--is He to be treated
   so basely, notwithstanding all His goodness? As Jesus said, "For which
   of these works do you stone Me?" So does Jehovah say, "I have made you.
   I have kept the breath in your nostrils. I have fed you all your life
   and for which of all these good things do you live without Me, and
   neglect Me, and perhaps even curse My name? For which of these do you
   sin with a high hand against My sacred Law?"

   Now, can you think it right to remain in so wantonly unjust a course of
   life as this? Can it be right to continue to wrong your God and grieve
   His matchless love? Provoke Him no more, I pray you! Let conscience
   lead you to feel that you have dealt ill with the Lord. Come to Him for
   forgiveness and change of heart! O Spirit of God, make this appeal to
   be felt by these beloved young men and women! Again, our message has to
   do with the present, for we would affectionately remind you that you
   are now at enmity with your best Friend--the Friend to whose love you
   owe everything! You have grieved Him and are, without cause, His enemy!
   Can you bear this thought? I know a little child who had done something
   wrong and her kind father talked to her, and at last, as a punishment,
   he said to her in a very sad voice, "I cannot kiss you tonight, for you
   have grieved me very much."

   That broke her little heart. Though not a stroke had been laid upon
   her, she saw sorrow in her dear father's face and she could not endure
   it. She pleaded and wept and pleaded again to be forgiven. It was
   thought wise to withhold the kiss, and she was sent to bed, for she had
   been very wrong. But there was no sleep for those weeping eyes and when
   mother went up to that little one's chamber she heard frequent sobs and
   sighs, and a sorrowful little voice said, "I was very, very naughty,
   but pray forgive me, and ask dear Father to give me a kiss." She loved
   her father and she could not bear that he should be grieved.

   Child of mercy. Erring child of the great Father of spirits, can you
   bear to live forever at enmity with the loving Father? "Would He
   forgive me?" you ask. What makes you ask the question? Is it that you
   do not know how good He is? Has He not portrayed Himself as meeting His
   prodigal son and falling upon his neck and kissing him? Before the
   child had reached the Father, the Father had reached the child! The
   Father was eager to forgive, and therefore, when the son was yet a
   great way off his Father saw him and ran, and had compassion. Say no
   longer that we are talking of things of a far-off time! It is not so. I
   am speaking of that which, I pray, may be true to you tonight, that you
   may not remain enemies to God even another hour, but now may become His
   dear repenting children and fly into your tender Father's arms!

   I have to remind you, however, of much more than this, namely, that you
   are this night in danger. On account of your treatment of God and your
   remaining an enemy to Him, He will surely visit you in justice and
   punish you for your transgressions. He is a just God and every sin
   committed is noted in His book--there it stands recorded for His
   Judgment Day. The danger you are in is that you may, this moment, go
   down into the Pit--and while sitting in that pew may bow your head in
   death and appear before your Maker in an instant--to receive the just
   reward of your sins. We

   come to tell you that there is immediate pardon for all the sins of
   those who will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ--and that if you will
   believe in Jesus, your sins, which are many--are all forgiven you!

   Don't you know the story (you have heard it many times) that the Lord
   Jesus took upon Himself the sins of all who trust Him, and suffered, in
   their place, the penalty due to their sins? He was our Substitute, and
   as such He died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. He laid
   down His life for us, that "whoever believes in Him should not perish,
   but have everlasting life." Will you refuse the salvation so dearly
   purchased but so freely presented? Will you not accept it here and now?
   Can you bear the burden of your sins? Are you content to abide for a
   single hour in peril of eternal punishment? Can you bear to be slipping
   down into the open jaws of Hell as you now are? Remember, God's
   patience will not last forever! You have provoked Him long enough!

   All things are weary of you. The very earth on which you stand groans
   beneath the indignity of bearing a sinner upon its surface! So long as
   you are an enemy to God, the stones of the field are against you and
   all creation threatens you. It is a wonder that you do not sink at once
   to destruction! For this cause we would have you pardoned now and made
   free from Divine wrath now. The peril is immediate! May the Lord grant
   that the rescue may be so. Do I hear you ask, "But may pardon be had at
   once? Is Jesus Christ a present Savior? We thought that we might,
   perhaps, find Him when we came to die, or might obtain a hope of mercy
   after living a long life of seeking."

   It is not so. Free Grace proclaims immediate salvation from sin and
   misery! Whoever looks to Jesus at this very moment shall have his sins
   forgiven! At the instant he believes in the Lord Jesus, the sinner
   shall cease to be in danger of the fires of Hell. The moment a man
   turns his eyes of faith to Jesus Christ he is saved from the wrath to
   come. It is present salvation that we preach to you--and the present
   comfort of that present salvation, too! Many other reasons tend to make
   this weighty matter exceedingly pressing. And among them is this--there
   is a disease in your heart, the disease of sin--and it needs immediate
   cure.

   I do not hear persons say, if they discover an incipient disease in
   their systems, that they will wait a while till the evil is more fully
   developed, and will then resort to a physician. The most of us have
   sense enough to try to check disease at once. Young man, you have a
   leprosy upon you! Young woman, you have a dreadful malady within your
   heart! Do you not desire to be healed now? Jesus can give you immediate
   healing if you believe in Him. Will you hesitate to be made whole? Do
   you love your mortal malady? Is hideous sin so dear to you? O that you
   would cry to be saved immediately, then Jesus will hear you! His Spirit
   will descend upon you and cleanse you. He will give you a new heart and
   a right spirit, yes, and make you whole from this time forward and
   forever! Can you wish to have so great a blessing postponed? Surely a
   sick man can never be cured too soon.

   The Gospel which we preach to you will also bring you present
   blessings. In addition to present pardon and present justification, it
   will give you present regeneration, present adoption, present
   sanctification, present access to God, present peace through believing
   and present help in time of trouble! And it will make you, even for
   this life, doubly happy. It will be wisdom for your way, strength for
   your conviction and comfort for your sorrow. If I had to die like a dog
   I would still wish to be a Christian. If there were no
   hereafter--though the supposition is not to be tolerated--yet let me
   live for and with Jesus, my beloved Lord! Balaam chose the righteous
   man's death. I choose it, too. But quite as much do I choose the
   righteous man's life, for to have the love of God in the heart, to have
   peace with God, to be able to look up to Heaven with confidence and
   talk to my heavenly Father in childlike trustfulness is a present joy
   and comfort worth more than worlds!

   Young men and women, in preaching the Gospel to you, we are preaching
   that which is good for this life as well as for the life to come. If
   you believe in Jesus you will be saved now, on the spot, and you will
   now enjoy the unchanging favor of God, so that you will go your way,
   from now on, not to live as others do, but as the chosen of God,
   beloved with special love, enriched with special blessings, to rejoice
   every day till you are taken up to dwell where Jesus is. Present
   salvation is the burden of the Lord's message to you and therefore it
   is not true, but infamously false, that the vision is for many days to
   come, and the prophecy for times that are far off.

   Is there not reason in my pleadings? If so, yield to them! Can you
   answer these arguments? If not, I pray you cease delaying. Again would
   I implore the Holy Spirit to lead you to an immediate decision.

   III. My third point is that I shall not deny, but I shall glory,
   rather, in admitting that the Gospel has to do with the future. Albeit,
   that it is not exclusively a Revelation for far-off times, yet it is
   filled with glorious hopes and bright

   prospects concerning things to come. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has to
   do with the whole of a young person life. If you receive Jesus Christ
   you will not merely have Him tonight, but that faith by which you
   receive Him will operate upon your whole existence throughout time and
   eternity.

   Dear young Friends, if you are saved while yet you are young, you will
   find religion to be a great preventive of sin. What a blessing it is
   not to have been daubed with the slime of Sodom--never to have had our
   bones broken by actual vice! Many who have been saved from a life of
   crime will, nevertheless, be spiritual cripples for life! To be
   snatched out of the vortex of vice is cause for great gratitude, but to
   have been kept out of it is better! It is doubly well, if the Grace of
   God comes upon us while we are still untainted by the pollution of the
   world, and have not gone into excess of riot. Before dissolute habits
   have undermined the constitution and self-indulgence has degraded the
   mind--it is, above all things, well to have the heart renewed!
   Prevention is better than cure, and Grace gives both.

   Thank God that you are still young--pray earnestly that you may now
   receive Divine Grace to cleanse your way by taking heed, according to
   His Word. Grace will also act as a preservative as well as a
   preventive. The good thing which God will put in you will keep you. I
   bless God I have not to preach a temporary salvation to you at this
   time. That which charmed me about the Gospel when I was a lad was its
   power to preserve from sinning. I saw some of my school companions who
   had been highly commended for their character. They were a little older
   than myself and became sad offenders when they left home. I used to
   hear sad stories of their evil actions when they had gone to London to
   be apprenticed, or to take positions in large establishments.

   And I reasoned, thus, with myself--"When I leave my father's house I
   shall be tempted, too, and I have the same heart that they have.
   Indeed, I have not been even as good as they have been. The
   probabilities are, therefore, that I shall plunge into sin as they have
   done." I felt horrified with that. I could not bear that I should cause
   my mother to shed tears over a dissolute son, or break my father's
   heart with debauchery. The thought could not be endured and when I
   heard that whoever believed in the Lord Jesus Christ should be saved, I
   understood that he would be saved from sinning, and I laid hold upon
   Jesus to preserve me from sin--and He has done it! I committed my
   character to Christ and He has preserved me to this day. And I believe
   He will not let me go. I recommend to you, young men and women, a
   character-insurance in the form of believing in Jesus Christ!

   Dear young woman, may that modest cheek of yours never need to blush
   for shameful deeds. May your delicate purity of feeling never be lost
   through gross defiling sin--but remember, it may be so unless the Lord
   keeps you. I commend to you the blessed preserving power of faith in
   Christ Jesus which will secure for you the Holy Spirit to dwell in you
   and abide in you, and sanctify you all your days. I know I speak to
   some who shudder at the thought of vice. Trained as you have been by
   Christian parents and under the holiest influences, you would rather
   die than act as some who disgrace their father's name. I know you
   would. But you must not trust your own hearts. You may yet become as
   bad as others or worse than they unless your natures are renewed--and
   only Jesus Christ can do that--by the power of the Holy Spirit. Whoever
   believes in Him has passed from death unto life. He shall not live in
   sin, but he shall be preserved in holiness even to the end.

   My dear young Friends, if God shall be pleased to change your hearts
   tonight, as I pray He may, you will be prepared for the future. You
   have not fully entered into the battle of life. You have your way to
   make, your professions and trades to choose. You, young women, are
   still under the parental wing. You have domestic relationships to form.
   Now, consider how well prepared you will be for life's work and service
   if you give your hearts to Jesus. Young man, you will be the right man
   to enter a large establishment--with the Grace of God in your heart you
   will be a blessing there. Though surrounded by her snares in this
   wicked city, the strange woman will hunt in vain for your precious
   life. And other vices will be unable to pollute you.

   Young woman, you will have wisdom to choose for your life's companion
   no mere fop and fool, but one who loves the Lord as you will do--with
   whom you may hope to spend happy and holy days! You will have placed
   within yourself resources of joy and pleasure which will never fail.
   There will be a well of Living Water within you which will supply you
   with joy and comfort and consolation--even amid trial and distress. You
   will be prepared for whatever is to come. A young Christian is fit to
   be made an emperor or a servant, if God shall call him to either post.
   If you want the best materials for a model prince, or a model peasant,
   you shall find it in the child of God! Only, mark you, the man who is a

   child of God is less likely to sink into utter destitution because he
   will be saved from the vices of extravagance and idleness which are the
   frequent causes of poverty.

   And, probably, on the other hand, he is less likely to become a prince,
   for seldom has God lifted His own children to places so perilous. You
   will be ready, young man, for any future, if your heart is right with
   God. And know when I think of you, and of what the Lord may make of
   you, I feel an intense respect, as well as love, for you. I hope none
   of us will be lacking in respect to old age--it is honorable and it is
   to be esteemed and reverenced--but I feel frequently inclined to do
   homage to our youth. When a celebrated tutor entered his schoolroom, he
   always took off his hat to his boys, because, he said, he did not know
   which of them might yet turn out to be a poet, a bishop, a lord
   chancellor, or a prime minister!

   When I look at young men and women, I feel much the same, for I do not
   know what they are to be. I may be addressing, tonight, a Livingstone,
   or a Moffat! I may be speaking, tonight, to a John Howard, or a
   Wilberforce! I may be addressing a Mrs. Judson, or an Elizabeth Fry! I
   may be speaking to some whom God will kindle into great lights to bless
   the sons of men for many a day, and afterwards to shine as the stars
   forever and ever. But you cannot shine if you are not lighted. You
   cannot bless God and bless the sons of men unless God first blesses
   you. Unregenerate, you are useless! Born again, you will be born for
   usefulness. But while you are unconverted your usefulness is being
   lost. I will not insinuate that I expect everyone here to become
   famous. It is not even desirable. But I do know this--that everyone
   whose heart shall be given to Jesus will be so useful and so necessary
   to the Church and to the world, that this world without them would lack
   a benefactor--and Heaven's company would be incomplete unless they
   joined its ranks.

   Oh, the value of a redeemed soul! The importance of a young life! I
   wish I could multiply myself into a thousand bodies that I might come
   round and take the hand of every young person here, as he or she shall
   leave the Tabernacle, and say, "By the preciousness of your life, by
   the hallowed uses to which you may be put, by the good that you may do
   and by the glory you may bring to God, do not think of pardon and Grace
   as things of the future, but now, even NOW, lay hold of them, and they
   will become to you the great power by which you shall benefit your
   generation and go down to the grave with honor."

   When I grow gray, if God shall spare me--may I see around me some of
   you with whom I speak today--who shall be some 20 years younger than
   myself, of whom I shall say, "My former deacons and elders are either
   very old or have gone home to Heaven. The dear men of God who were with
   me when I was 40 years of age have passed away. But those whom I
   preached to on that night in March, 1874, have come to fill their
   places! Those dear Sisters who used to conduct the classes, teach the
   school and manage the various societies for the poor, have gone and we
   have followed them to their graves and wept over them. But here come
   their daughters to fill their places."

   I pray that names honored in our Churches may never die out from our
   midst. May the fathers live, again, in their children! It may not be my
   honor to be succeeded in this pulpit by one of my own sons, greatly as
   I would rejoice if it might be so, but at least I hope they will be
   here in this Church to serve their father's God and to be regarded with
   affection by you for the sake of him who spent his life in your midst.
   I pray that all my honored Brothers may have sons and daughters in the
   Church--yes, from generation to generation may there be those in our
   assemblies of whom it shall be said--"These are of the old stock--they
   keep up the old name."

   Brothers and Sisters of my own age, we shall soon die. God grant us to
   die at our posts! The standard-bearer will fall and in his last embrace
   he will press the standard to his heart, for it is dearer than life to
   him. But courage, my Brethren, our sons will urge on the sacred war and
   carry on the good old cause to victory. What do you say, dear Ones? Do
   not your hearts say, "Amen"? Young men, will you not take up the
   bloodstained banner when we shall go our ways? Sons and daughters of
   the faithful, will you desert your fathers' God? Oh, will it be that He
   whom we love shall be despised by you? Will you turn your back on the
   Christ who was All in All to us? No. It cannot be! Be of good cheer,
   Abraham-- Isaac shall succeed you! Jacob shall rise up to serve your
   God! Jacob shall live to see his son Joseph, and even to bless Ephraim
   and Manasseh--and so from generation to generation shall the Lord be
   praised!

   Thus far concerning this life. But now let me remind you, dear young
   Friends, that if your hearts are given to Christ you need not tremble
   about the end of life. You may look forward to it with hope. It will
   come. Thank God, it will come! Have you never wished that you could
   ride to Heaven in a chariot of fire, like Elijah? I did, once, till I
   reflected that if a chariot of fire should come for me I should be more
   afraid to get into it than to lie down and die upon my bed! And of the
   two, one might prefer to die, for to die in the Lord is to be made like
   our glorious Head! I see no joy in the hope of

   escaping death. Jesus died, and so let me die! On His dear face the
   seal of death was set, so let it be on mine, that I may talk of
   resurrection as they cannot who shall be changed at His coming.

   You need not be afraid to depart and be with Christ, which is far
   better. Young people, whether you die in youth or old age, if you are
   resting in Jesus you shall sit upon the banks of Jordan singing. As our
   friends sang last night--

   "Never mind the river."

   The parting song will be sweet, but oh, the Glory! Oh, the Glory! I
   will not try to paint it. Who can? The judgment will come, but you will
   not tremble at it! On the right hand shall you stand, for who can
   condemn those for whom Christ has died? The conflagration of the globe
   will come. The elements shall melt with fervent heat, but you will not
   tremble, for you shall be caught up together with the Lord in the
   air--and so shall you be forever with the Lord! Hell shall swallow up
   the unjust--they shall go down alive into the pit--but you shall not
   tremble for that, for you are redeemed by the precious blood!

   The millennial Glory, whatever that may be, and the reign with Christ,
   and the triumph over death and Hell. And the giving up of the kingdom
   to God, even the Father, when God shall be All in All, and eternity
   with all its infinite Glory--these shall be all yours! If you had to go
   through Hell to reach this Glory, it would be worth the cost! But you
   have not to do any such thing! You have only to believe in Jesus and
   even faith is the Lord's own gracious gift. "Look unto Me and be you
   saved, all you ends of the earth." This is the Gospel. Look! Look!
   Look! 'Tis but a look. Look, bleary-eyed Soul, you who can scarcely see
   for ignorance! Look! You whose eyes are swimming in tears! Look! You
   who see Hell before you! Look! You who are sinking into the jaws of
   Perdition!

   Look you ends of the earth, that are farthest gone in sin, if such are
   here! You who are plunged deep in iniquity-- look! 'Tis Jesus on the
   Cross you are bid to look at--yes, Jesus at the right hand of God--the
   crucified Son of Man exalted at the right hand of the Father! Look unto
   Him, and be you saved, for He is God, and besides Him there is none
   else. God grant you to look to Jesus, even now, for His name's sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 18:1-23. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--95 (VER. II), 497, 492.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Christian's Motto

   (No. 1165)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 22, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I always do those things that please Him." John 8:29.

   OUR Lord Jesus stood alone as the Advocate of right and truth in the
   days when He dwelt among men. It is true He had a few followers, but
   they were so slow to learn and so weak in action that they rather
   increased His difficulties than rendered Him assistance. He was a
   solitary Champion in the midst of armies of foes. Those foes were
   powerful, cunning, cruel and exceedingly active, yet He was calm,
   unmoved and faced them without fear. He was never put to the blush by
   them and never turned His back in retreat. Our Lord was victorious all
   through the campaign of His ministry. I may say of Him that He went
   forth conquering and to conquer--and on the Cross He gained His
   crowning victory!

   Since you, also, will meet with enemies, would you learn to be as calm
   as He? Since difficulties must beset your pathway, would you possess
   the same strength as He? Would you, in fact, live as He lived, and,
   finishing your course, would you enter into His joy? Then study well
   the records of His sublime career and you will see that the secret of
   His power was the Presence of His God--"He that sent Me is with Me."
   And the secret of His comfort was fellowship with Jehovah--"He has not
   left Me alone." If you would know how you can enjoy the Presence and
   fellowship of the Lord-- and all the power and comfort which come
   thereby, the Savior tells you the secret in the following words--"For I
   always do those things that please Him."

   If we would have God with us, we must be agreed with Him. "Shall two
   walk together unless they are agreed?" Remember the words of the Lord
   Jesus, how He said, "He that has My commandments and keeps them, he it
   is that loves Me, and he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and
   I will love him and will manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21). To do
   the things which please God is the way to secure His Presence and
   consequent power and happiness. I shall, at this time, endeavor to set
   forth the Savior before you all under two aspects--as the Mediator, in
   which office we delight to trust Him, and as the Model, in which
   Character we endeavor to imitate Him. May the Holy Spirit so illuminate
   our minds that under both aspects our souls may be greatly blessed as
   we gaze upon our Lord.

   I. First, then, as THE MEDIATOR. He says of Himself, as God-Man, the
   appointed Redeemer, the sent Son of God, "I always do those things that
   please Him." This was and is true of our Lord every way. Of His
   Incarnation we read those memorable words--"Lo, I come: in the volume
   of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Your will, O My God:
   yes, Your Law is within My heart." In the same Psalm He describes
   Himself as a servant whose ears had been opened or bored that He might
   be a servant forever. And in another place He says, "He wakens morning
   by morning; He wakens My ear to hear as the learned." The Son of God
   was willing to come to earth to do His Father's will and His birth at
   Bethlehem was one of the points in which He pleased the Father.

   He was also doing the things which pleased the Father during His
   obscure life as the carpenter's Son. We know but little of it, and it
   is vain, by pencil or tongue, to attempt to paint what Scripture has
   left beneath the veil of silence. But we know this much of it, that He
   was about "His Father's business" and that "He grew in favor with God
   and man." He was the "holy Child Jesus," and therefore must have done
   the things which pleased God. At the end of His retirement, when He
   came forth at 30 years of age, the Father set the seal upon the past as
   well as bore witness to the present when He spoke with an audible voice
   from the excellent Glory, and said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I
   am well pleased."

   His subjection to His earthly parents and His reverent silence till the
   hour was come to speak were things which pleased the Father. When He
   entered upon His public and active service He began well, for He
   commenced, by an act of which He said, "Thus it becomes us to fulfill
   all righteousness." It was at His Baptism that the Father expressed His
   pleasure in Him and the Spirit descended upon Him. His Baptism was an
   emblem and a type of the perfect obedience which He intended to
   render--it set forth His immersion into depths of suffering, His
   sinking in death and burial, His

   rising again from the tomb--and His ascension into Heaven for us.
   Doubtless, all these are to be seen by the spiritual eye in the
   symbolic rite practiced in Jordan's waves. Blessed are they who follow
   the Lamb where ever He goes!

   Immediately after this our Lord was led by the Spirit into the
   wilderness where He was tempted of the devil. His going there and His
   threefold victory over the Tempter were well-pleasing to God. Did not
   Jehovah send His angels to minister to Him? And what was this but a
   token that He had pleased God by defeating the arch-enemy? Throughout
   His life our Lord was always acceptable to God and fulfilled in very
   deed that ancient Word of the Prophet Isaiah, in his 42nd chapter, at
   the 21st verse, in which he spoke and said, "The Lord is well-pleased
   for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify the Law and make it
   honorable."

   He magnified the ceremonial Law by coming under it and observing it
   until the time when it passed away. He magnified the moral Law, for He
   obeyed every precept--both of the first and of the second table--and
   could say to all His accusers, "Which of you convicts Me of sin?" He
   was perfect in all His ways! There is not one action upon which a
   question can be raised by any candid observer as to the exactness of
   its justice and its full conformity to the perfect law of right and
   love. He always did the things which pleased God and He had God's
   attestation of this--for though the splendor of His Godhead was veiled
   when He dwelt here, yet gleams of it burst forth here and there--as if
   the Father would let men know that the lowly Mediator was still great
   with God.

   See Him on Tabor where He was transfigured and you see how the Father
   loved Him! It was the Man Christ Jesus who there talked with Moses and
   Elijah, while Peter, James and John were eyewitnesses of His
   majesty--of which Peter has written--"For He received from God the
   Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the
   excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And
   this voice which came from Heaven we heard, when we were with Him in
   the holy mount." It is clear, then, that the Glory of our Lord was
   looked upon by the Apostles as a token of the Father's love to Him.
   Listen, also, to that Voice which answered Him out of Heaven when He
   prayed, "Father, glorify Your name. Then came there a Voice from
   Heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."

   The miracles, also, proved His acceptableness with God, for they were
   not only evidences of His own power, but tokens of His Father's good
   pleasure. And therefore, Peter, in his famous sermon spoke in this
   fashion, "Jesus of Nazareth, a Man approved of God among you by
   miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of
   you, as you yourselves also know." Everywhere the Father gave forth
   signs that He had not left Him alone, but was with Him, because He did
   His will. As a servant, for our sakes, He pleased not Himself, but
   suffered the zeal of His Father's house to eat Him up. From the first
   day in which He spoke to John at the Jordan, to the day in which He was
   taken up into His Glory, He always did the things that pleased God.

   His death, which was His own voluntary act, was the most pleasing of
   all, if there could be degrees where all was perfect. He was, indeed,
   all-pleasing to the Father when rising up from supper He said, "Let us
   go hence," and He went without a murmur to be "obedient to death, even
   the death of the Cross." That bloody sweat in Gethsemane, when He
   conquered Nature's fears and took the cup of trembling, saying, "Not as
   I will, but as You will"--was not that the doing of the things which
   pleased God? Do you not remember that notable saying of the Prophet,
   "It pleased the Father to bruise Him"? There was a Divine satisfaction
   given to the Father in the willing, the submissive, the believing, the
   triumphant pangs of Jesus!

   On Calvary He was pressed with grief beyond measure, yet He did not
   fail to bear all the pleasure of the Lord in silent submission--a
   submission which must have greatly pleased the Lord. On the Cross He
   was tried as gold in the furnace, but no dross was found in Him. On the
   accursed tree the stress of the world's sin lay on Him and yet He did
   not wish to depart from the enterprise which He had undertaken till He
   had been obedient to the Father and accomplished all His will, even to
   the endurance of death itself! He always did the things which pleased
   God.

   Having already made the text encompass parts of our Lord's work which
   were subsequent to the time when He uttered it, I shall push on yet
   further, for I have facts beneath my feet and I would remind you that
   our Lord still always does those things that please God. It pleased God
   that He should ascend and sit at His right hand. It pleased God that
   there He should be our forerunner, preparing our heavenly mansions for
   us. He is accepted, we know, for we, also, are "accepted in the
   Beloved." It is the Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom and
   therefore it is His pleasure that

   our Divine Representative should take the kingdom on our behalf. The
   intercession of Jesus, also, is always sweet with God. The Father
   always hears Him--and hears us, also, when we plead His name.

   And when He shall, "so come in like manner as He went up to Heaven."
   When He shall, "take to Himself His great power and reign," and when on
   the clouds of Heaven He shall appear to judge the quick and dead, He
   will still always do the things which please God. Yes, let me say it
   joyfully, the saving works of Jesus are lovely in the Father's eyes!
   Whenever our Lord Jesus says to a sinner, "I absolve you," it pleases
   God. Whenever the Savior calls a wanderer to Himself and draws Him to
   holiness by the attractions of His love, it pleases God. What else is
   meant by the passage, "The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His
   hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied"?

   It is the pleasure of God that sinners should find a complete Savior in
   Jesus. The Father has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but had
   rather that he should turn unto Him and live, but there is joy in the
   heart of God Himself over sinners that repent. Sheep brought back to
   the fold are rejoiced over by Him of whom we sing, "We are the people
   of His pasture and the sheep of His hand." Prodigals leaving their
   riotous living are pressed to the Father's bosom and cause pleasure to
   the soul of the benign Deity. Oh, returning Sinners, you have not to
   ask Christ to appease the Father, for the Father, Himself, loves you
   and your salvation gives Him joy!

   As for the benefit which Christ bestows upon saints, the matchless
   blessings which He has received as "gifts for men," and scatters among
   His people--these all please the Father. It pleased the Father that in
   Him should all fullness dwell, and it pleases Him when of His fullness
   we receive Grace for Grace. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, if you are rich
   in Divine Grace, you are not rich with gifts which the Father grudges!
   And if you shall ask for more, it is your Father's good pleasure that
   you should have them! Receive them freely, for He freely gives! Delight
   yourself in them, for the Father delights to see you partaking of His
   Son's abundance! Be of good courage, Sinners, when you come with empty
   hands. And be of good courage, you impoverished Saints, when you come
   with hungry mouths, for Jesus Christ, in giving freely, will only do
   what pleases the Father!

   I feel greatly comforted by this text when I think that whatever Christ
   has done and is doing pleases God. The Gospel, which is the sum and
   substance of the doings of Jesus, is always acceptable with God. It is
   a sweet savor unto God in every place. It delights the Father that
   Jesus Christ should be preached. I have often thought, when I have been
   extolling my Lord and Master, "Well, if not a soul in the place yields
   itself to Jesus, nevertheless, thanks be unto God who always causes us
   triumph in every place, for we are unto God a sweet savor, as well in
   them that perish as in them that are saved!" If Christ is preached, a
   sweet oblation is presented--sweeter than the incense of Araby--and it
   delights the Most High more than costly frankincense. As of old He
   smelled a "sweet savor of rest" when Noah brought the victim and laid
   it on the altar, so when Christ is lifted up, God takes pleasure in
   Him, and delights when men glorify His Son.

   Thus I have spoken very feebly about our Lord Jesus as the Mediator. No
   man nor angel can fitly set Him forth--He is too fair, too perfect for
   description. Earth cannot show His rival nor Heaven His equal! He is
   good and only good! All glory to His name! He has glorified the Father
   and He can say to the fullest, "I always do those things that please
   Him."

   II. Now, Brothers and Sisters, we have stern work to do. We have not
   merely to look, but we have to be transformed as we look. We are now to
   behold our Lord as THE MODEL and to copy His example. Truly we shall
   need the Spirit of God to hold our hand or we shall never write
   according to such a Copy as He has set us. It is the business of every
   Christian to be able to say, "I always do those things which please
   Him." Come, Believers, and lovingly muse upon our Lord Jesus as our
   Model!

   Here at the outset let me remind you that this will imply that we,
   ourselves, are rendered pleasing to God. Remember that as long as a
   man, himself, is obnoxious to God, everything he does is also
   obnoxious. From a sinner comes nothing but sin--an evil tree brings
   forth evil fruit--a foul fountain pours forth polluted waters. It is
   vain, therefore, to think, any one of you, that you can do anything
   that is pleasing to God till, first of all, you, yourselves, are
   reconciled unto Him. The way of reconciliation is only by Jesus Christ.
   When your persons are pleasing, your works will be pleasing. But until
   you are personally acceptable to God through Jesus Christ everything
   that you do is displeasing--and even those things which you think to be
   virtues are only, as Augustine called them--"splendid sins," mere
   glittering dross, lacking the essential purity and preciousness of the
   pure gold of love.

   Paul says, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." And again He
   says, "Without faith it is impossible to please
   Him"--impossible--whatever is thought, attempted, or done by you! Even
   acts of religion are only pretentious

   forms of sin until the nature is renewed, the heart changed, and the
   man, himself, washed in the blood of Christ and covered with His
   righteousness. Therefore, I shall have to speak entirely and only to
   those who have been, by the redemption and righteousness of Christ,
   made pleasing to God. And I hope that they, having obtained the major
   blessing of personal acceptance, will press forward for the further
   blessing of sanctification, that they may always do the things which
   please their gracious God.

   In pleasing God there is implied an avoiding of all things which would
   displease Him. We cannot say we, "always do the things which please
   Him" unless we earnestly renounce the follies which vex His Holy
   Spirit. Now, you know what the works of the flesh are, and those, as
   defiled garments, are to be put off that we may go in unto the wedding
   in the new garment. Like leaven they are to be swept out of the house
   that we may keep the paschal feast. We must put off and lay aside all
   pride, whether it is the pride of talent, the pride of
   self-righteousness, the pride of wealth, the pride of dress, the pride
   of rank, or the pride of spiritual attainments--for even a haughty word
   is detestable with God. Among the things which the Lord hates we find
   prominently mentioned a proud look. If a proud look is His abomination,
   what must pride,

   itself, be?

   It is written, "The Lord resists the proud." This implies that their
   views and designs are contrary to His own and He sets Himself to oppose
   them. He carries on continual war with Pharaohs and Senacherib. The
   moment He sees a man great in his own esteem He resolves to bring him
   down, as He did the boastful monarch of Babylon. He lifts up those that
   are bowed down, but He casts down the mighty from their seats. If we
   are proud, we cannot do that which pleases God. In fact, we cannot
   please Him at all. Sloth is another vice which the Lord abhors. He
   calls the idle servant in the parable, "You wicked and slothful
   servant." "He that knows his master's will and does it not, the same
   shall be beaten with many stripes." "He that knows to do good and does
   it not, to him it is sin."

   God is not pleased with those who are idle, wasters of their talents
   and their time, even though they may plead that they are gentle folks
   and have no need to labor. An idle nobleman is as much to be blamed as
   an idle farmer. Christians, if you always do the things that please
   God, you must be diligent servants--He takes no delight in sluggards
   and those who are lovers of ease. God is not pleased with
   unwatchfulness, careless walking, indifference to His commands, or
   neglect of cleansing the heart. Those virgins who were not thoughtful,
   forgot to take oil in their vessels with their lamps, and, in
   consequence, their lamps went out and they could not enter the marriage
   feast with the bride. Beloved, you must walk carefully, earnestly,
   zealously with God, or you cannot please Him. He is a Jealous God and
   we must jealously watch even our thoughts, or we shall soon offend Him.

   Neither is He pleased with anger, which is not only, as far as we are
   concerned, a temporary insanity, but as God judges it, it is murder! He
   that is of a quick and hasty spirit. He that bears ill will against
   another. He that seeks revenge is not acceptable with God. To a God of
   Love, malice is abominable! He would have us do good as He does and
   spread happiness all around as He does. Cross, crabbed, morose natures
   do not please the Lord! Unkind husbands, fractious wives, rebellious
   children and domineering parents are far from pleasing Him. God cannot
   smile upon oppression, craftiness, greed, or the grinding of the poor.
   Neither is "covetousness, which is idolatry," pleasing with God. He
   that is covetous, angers the great Giver of all good, whose liberal
   soul cannot endure churls and misers.

   The same is true of all worldliness. The lust of the eyes. The lust of
   the flesh. The pride of life--these are things which God condemns. In
   them He has no pleasure whatever. O you Believers, I pray you purge
   yourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit! And as for
   the deeds of darkness, have no fellowship with them, but rather reprove
   them! Come out from among them, be you separate, touch not the unclean
   thing and then you will please your heavenly Father. God is equally
   displeased with unbelief. Doubts of His power, His love, His
   faithfulness. Trembling lest He should not keep His promise, lest,
   after all, His Word should fail--this is not pleasing in His sight!

   Neither is it pleasing to Him that good men should be cambered with
   much serving and should complain of the labor of His service--He would
   not have His servants think Him a hard Master. Brothers and Sisters, He
   would have us serve Him with joyfulness! Free from care because we cast
   our care upon Him! Free from fear because we wholly confide in Him.
   Above all, He would have us free from murmuring--"Neither murmur you as
   they also murmured, who were destroyed of the Destroyer." His dear Son
   was free from everything of this kind. And as He was, so are you, also,
   in this world--therefore closely copy Him and lay aside all these evil
   things by the help of His Holy Spirit.

   Here is the place to say that it should be our intent and earnest
   design to please the Lord. We shall not do this by accident--we must
   give our whole souls to the work and labor mightily. No arrow reaches
   this target if the bow is drawn at a venture--the heart must aim with
   earnest intent and vehement desire. May the Holy Spirit work in us to
   will after this fashion--and then in due time we shall be sure that He
   will work in us, also, to do of His good pleasure. We will continue the
   same strain but touch another key. Remark attentively that the text
   does not deal with negatives, though it implies them. Christ did not
   say, "I do not the things which displease Him," but He said, "I always
   do those things that please Him."

   The sentence is positive and practical, relating to actual deeds and
   not to negatives. We must copy our Master in all the practical
   virtues--and what a Model He is! What a pattern He has set before us!
   Brethren, what was the most conspicuous thing in the life of Christ? I
   cannot tell you--everything is so conspicuously admirable! There is a
   harmony, a blending of every virtue in the life of Christ so that you
   can scarcely put your finger upon one thing and say, "This was superior
   to the rest." But if there is some excellent things more marked than
   others, one of them is prayerfulness! How continually do we read, "as
   He was praying," or, "as He was praying in a certain place," or, "every
   man went to his own home, and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives."

   We are told that He spent whole nights in prayer upon the mountain
   side--He was always in communion with God. For God to speak out of
   Heaven to Him was not a strange thing, for Christ was always speaking
   up into Heaven to His God. Be you such! It cannot please the great
   Father for His child not to speak to Him by the hour together, and to
   be indifferent to Him--to give Him no word, either of request or of
   thanksgiving. Alas, I fear some professors seldom speak with their
   heavenly Father in spirit and in truth! If we fail here, we certainly
   fail in one of the things which please Him. Next in Christ's life, one
   of the more prominent qualities was His love--His love to God. We ought
   to love God with all our hearts and spend and be spent for His Glory.
   It must be our meat and drink to do the will of Him that sent us, and
   to finish His work if we are to do the things which please Him.

   But our great Exemplar also showed the warmest love to men. How He
   pitied the fallen! With what tenderness He spoke to sinners! How gently
   did He warn! How sweetly did He woo! Brethren, we must be gentle, too.
   That which is hard and domineering savors more of the princes of the
   Gentiles than of the lowly Lamb--we must put it away. Like our Master
   and Lord, we must wash the disciples' feet and bear one another's
   burdens. Gently, kindly, tenderly, we must labor for the good of all
   and not consider ourselves. This is to do the things which please God.
   If we would follow Christ, we must practice self-denial, for He
   "pleased not Himself." It should be said of us as of Him, "He saved
   others, Himself He cannot save."

   Did you ever, in anything, find Christ making provision for Himself?
   Can you discern a speck of selfishness in His Nature? There is a crown
   before Him, but He will not have it--yet He longs to see us crowned!
   What does He care about being made a king? His joy is that the Lord
   reigns! He felt it better to obey His Father than to sit on a Throne.
   Oh that we might catch His spirit! The life of Christ is peculiar, too,
   from its separateness from sinners. He was with sinners--He ate and
   drank with them. He went to their marriage feasts and sat at their
   banquets--but He was as distinct from them as the sun from the ash-heap
   upon which it shines. He was outside the camp in Spirit, even when He
   was in it in Person. He bore reproach all His life and last of all bore
   it up to Calvary. We, too, must be different from other men--not
   conformed to this world--but transformed by the renewing of our minds.

   It is folly to be singular except when to be singular is to be
   right--and then we must be bravely singular for Christ's sake. And in
   the lonely path of holy nonconformity we shall find Jesus more near
   than ever we knew Him to be in the whole course of our lives! I cannot
   enlarge here. The picture is so beautiful that merely to dwell upon a
   touch or two of the pencil is to give you no idea of the matchless
   perfection of the work. Be as He was! Copy Him as disciples should copy
   their Master! Furthermore, my dear Brothers and Sisters, if you want to
   know what things please God, let me refer you to one or two passages of
   Scripture. David says in the 69th Psalm, the 30th verse, "I will praise
   the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.
   This, also, shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that has
   horns and hoofs."

   The Apostle says in Hebrews 13:16, "But to do good and to communicate
   forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Let us,
   then, constantly praise God! Let us have hymns in store for moments
   when we can sing and thoughts in store for moments when the tongue must
   be silent--but when the heart may yet sing aloud unto the Most

   High. Bless the Lord, for whoever offers praise glorifies Him. A
   thankful spirit is always pleasing to God. Therefore cultivate it and
   shake off, as you would shake off a viper from your hand, the spirit of
   murmuring against the Most High! Yonder thankful, humble, poor woman
   may please God better than the most talented minister who is evermore
   complaining of the dispensations of God.

   John tells us in his first Epistle, third chapter and 22nd verse, that
   we are to "do those things that are pleasing in His sight," and he
   adds, "This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of
   His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another." Faith, therefore, is one
   of the pleasing Graces. We read of Enoch that, "before his translation
   he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is
   impossible to please Him." Love to the Brethren is another of the
   Graces which please God. He would have us love His people, care for the
   poor, relieve those that are sick and cheer those who are cast down.
   Brethren, if you would please the Lord, put aside all petty jealousies
   and labor to prevent disunion, for brotherly love is one of the most
   pleasing sights which the Father of mercies sees. It is as the dew of
   Hermon, as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there
   the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

   Read, furthermore, in Colossians the first chapter, from the 10th
   verse, a long list of excellences. "That you might walk worthy of the
   Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and
   increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might,
   according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering
   with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us meet
   to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." So you see,
   you sufferers, your resignation to the Divine will, your patience under
   a smarting rod--these are all well-pleasing to God! And these and all
   the other Graces of the Spirit are the things, which, through Jesus
   Christ, are pleasing in His sight.

   Now, note particularly this, that these things must be actually done.
   "I DO," says Christ, "those things which are pleasing." It will not
   suffice to talk about them, nor to even pray about them--they must be
   done. Do not merely feel charmed with a virtue, and fascinated with a
   duty--but go and actually carry it out. Let not the purpose be
   strangled in its birth, but let it be born into actual being. There is
   a word in the text which is a hard one to put in practice--
   "always,"--"I always do those things that please Him." It will not
   suffice to say, "I do the things that please God when I go out to
   worship." I hope you do, but the Christian must aim to say, "I always
   do."

   At home, Husband, there must be such a discharge of your relationship,
   that as a husband and as a father you please God. My good Sister, it
   must be as a wife and a mother that you please God. In all those
   relationships, at all times, you must act as in His sight. True
   religion is perhaps better tested at the fireside than anywhere else.
   What a man is at home, that he is, and though he is a saint abroad, if
   he is a devil at home--you may depend upon it that the last is his real
   character! At the same time, we must not think that our religion ends
   at home. I do not suppose we shall, but if we do we are mistaken--we
   must always do the things that please the Lord.

   There must not be, at any moment about our Christian career, anything
   we should not like God to see, for He does see. Neither must we be
   where we would not like Christ to find us. Neither must we even think
   as we would not have Jesus know that we think. This is a high standard,
   but our Lord Jesus Christ sets it before us, and it is not for us to
   alter the pattern which He has given--"I always do," He says--"the
   things that please Him." Are there not many things, dear Friends, which
   you have done in former times which you will not do again now you have
   been reminded of your failings? There are many things which certain
   Christian people leave undone, which they will attend to at once if
   they realize the full meaning of this text--"I always do the things
   that please Him." Always!

   I have known some persons take a holiday from Christ's service
   sometimes. They say, "Once a year, surely, one may indulge." What would
   you do if you might be indulged? Because whatever you would do if you
   had your own way is the best test of your heart. If holiness is
   slavery, then depend upon it, you are the slave of sin! When I have
   heard of Christian men attending doubtful amusements as an occasional
   treat, I have seen at once which way their hearts went--they evidently
   loved the pleasures of sense better than spiritual joys. Where either a
   man's pleasure or treasure is, there his heart is--and whatever gives
   you the most pleasure is really your god. To be flattered is the
   greatest delight of many-- their god is themselves. "To make money is
   my greatest delight," says one. Then the golden calf is your god.
   Whatever is your greatest joy and treasure, that is your heaven and
   your God--and if you do not find the greatest pleasure in the things of
   God, then you do not know what the new life means--and neither will you
   ever know the pleasures which are at God's right hand!

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, I beseech all of you to notice that by
   always doing the things which please God, the Holy Spirit enabling us
   to do so, we shall enjoy and retain the Presence of the Father. "He
   that sent Me is with Me, He has not left Me alone, for I always do
   those things which please Him." Do you complain that you do not enjoy
   fellowship with God? Do you tell me that the joys of religion have not
   been yours for many a day? Do you come with long faces and complain
   that you find the way to Heaven very rough? God has a controversy with
   your souls--there is some hidden evil within--or some evil habit which
   does not please Him.

   Is not that hint of mine enough for you without my pressing it? Does
   not your tender conscience say, "I will examine myself. I will ask God
   to search me, and I will solemnly promise to Him--

   'The dearest idol I have known, Whate'er that idol be Shall now be
   dashed from off its throne That I may come to Thee.

   Let no pleasurable sin become an image of jealousy to provoke the Lord
   our God! As you love the Lord, and I know you do--as you would not
   grieve your crucified Master, ask Him to search you and see if there is
   any evil way in you and deliver you from it--that you may always do the
   things which are pleasing in His sight. Furthermore, by so doing, we
   shall not only have communion with God, but we shall be girded with His
   strength. "He that sent Me is with Me."

   What is the reason why some workers for God do not succeed? They cannot
   succeed--it is not possible--for they are in an evil case. Here is a
   man trying to build a wall with a broken arm. He makes slow progress,
   for he can hardly lift a brick into its place. Here is another man
   trying to run a race while he is lame in his feet--he will be far
   behind when the winner passes the goal. Here is a man trying to leap
   whose every muscle is weak--he would be more at home in an infirmary.
   Personal spiritual health is essential to vigorous, successful,
   Christian effort! And that health depends upon our living near to God.
   If we do that which is pleasing in God's sight the Lord will be with us
   in our work--but only if we strive to always do what pleases Him.

   Suppose a minister to have been living through the week a careless,
   prayerless life--he may preach his best, but as he is not a vessel fit
   for the Master's use--he may not reckon upon being used by the Lord. If
   the Sunday school teacher goes to her class after indulging in light
   conversation or in an angry temper--is there any wonder that souls are
   not converted by her teaching? If the city missionary does not find
   souls blessed in his district, need he wonder, when upon looking within
   he sees a cold heart--and upon looking without he sees a negligent
   life? A mother wonders that her children are not saved and yet it would
   be a far greater wonder if they were, when her general conduct and
   spirit are taken into consideration!

   A father has been astonished that his boys have not turned out
   Christians, while everyone except himself can see that it would have
   been a thousand miracles if they had become religious, for their
   father's religion is of that sour, melancholy, rigid, frigid, unlovely
   type that you could not suppose anybody could like unless they had a
   partiality for sour grapes and bitter aloes. We must get rid of the
   things that displease God if we are to be useful! And when that is
   done, then shall we be able to say, "He that sent Me is with Me; the
   Father has not left Me alone."

   Now I close, and closing I ask you--is this too high a Model for you?
   Would you prefer an example which would let you abide content in a
   measure of sin? I hear many say, "I love Christ," but their love does
   not make them imitate the Lord! I fear that they do not know Him and if
   they did, they would not love Him, but would think Him a deal too
   precise and self-denying. There is such a thing as loving a Christ of
   our imagination--not the Christ of the New Testament whose Character is
   absolute perfection. Do you love the holy Jesus? If you do, then I am
   sure you do not think His Character too elevated, or His example too
   pure. No, you say, "Lord, I love this holy living, I only wish I could,
   in all things, copy it. Oh, for more holiness! Grant it to me!"

   Do you think it is impossible to act as Jesus did? Then I must ask you
   another question--Do you think the Holy Spirit has not yet come, or do
   you conceive that the Holy Spirit is deficient in power--so that He can
   only lead men up to a certain point and must, there, necessarily cease
   working? Do you not believe that all things are possible with Him? Do
   you not believe that all things are possible to Him that believe? I
   grant you that men do not live as my text requires and that the most of
   professors do not even try to do so--but the fault is in
   themselves--not in the Holy Spirit! He is able to do exceeding
   abundantly above what we ask or even think!

   Somebody asked me the other day whether I thought Christians could be
   quite perfect, and, I have no doubt, expected a long pompous speech
   from me! But I cut him short, for my secret thought was, "Well, you are
   a fine fellow to be asking such a question, for there is no danger of
   your coming anywhere near that condition." That question from most men
   is about as consistent as if a beggar should come to my door for bread
   and then request to see me. I go to the door, and he says, "Sir, I have
   a very difficult question to put to you--do you think every man in
   England might make his fortune and be worth a million of money?" What a
   question for a man in rags to agitate! Surely he might put off that
   inquiry till he is worth two pence, himself, and can pay for his
   night's lodging. I say to him, "My good fellow, you are not at all in
   danger of becoming too rich, and have no need to raise questions about
   millions. Get out of your rags and make yourself commonly decent before
   you puzzle your head over that."

   It is too early for most professors to be discussing the higher life
   and entire sanctification. They are like babies taking the measure of
   giants. I am sick of seeing a set of beggarly professors whose poverty
   of Divine Grace is manifest to everybody but themselves, shaking their
   heads at those good Brothers who preach up a high standard of Grace.
   They need be under no alarm about growing too devout, too prayerful, or
   too holy! They may go a long way before they will be mistaken for
   perfect! I do not believe in a great deal which our modern
   perfectionists say about themselves--and I should think a deal more of
   them if they thought less of themselves--but at the same time I labor
   under no dread as to any of them becoming too good. Nor dare I set up a
   lower object of sanctified aspiration than that which Jesus has set
   before us in the command, "Be you perfect, even as your Father in
   Heaven is perfect."

   Have you failed to do as the text says? Then grieve over it! Do you
   wish to do as Jesus did? Then He will help you, for He works mightily
   with us. Commit yourself unto His teaching. Give yourself up to the
   purifying power of His Spirit, and He will bear you up to heights of
   Divine Grace and glories of character which you have never thought you
   could reach--but which, when you reach them, will not puff you up--for
   you will feel constrained to cry, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto
   Your name give praise!"

   If we have done all, we are unprofitable servants--we have only done
   that which it was our duty to have done--and therefore unto Grace shall
   be the praise through the precious blood of Christ, forever and ever.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Luke 14. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--460, 259, 815.
     __________________________________________________________________

Marrow and Fatness

   (No. 1166)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MARCH 29, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Then went King David in, and sat before the lord, and he said, Who am
   I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that You have brought me up to
   now? And this was yet a small thingin Your sight, O Lord God, but You
   have spoken also of Your servant's house for a great while to come. And
   is this the manner of man, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto
   You? for You, Lord God, know Your servant. For Your word's sake, and
   according to Your own heart, have You done all these great things, to
   make Your servant know them. Therefore You are great, O Lord God: for
   there is none like You, neither is there any God beside You, according
   to all that we have heard with our ears." 2 Samuel 7:18-22.

   DAVID was overwhelmed with the mercy of God! Nathan's message was too
   much for him. He felt emotions in his bosom which he could not express.
   Like a wise man, he went at once, while under the impulse of gratitude,
   into the place of nearness to God. It was not everyone who might go in
   and sit before the Lord as he did, but he felt he had a special call to
   draw near unto the Most High--and there he sat down in the posture of
   waiting to receive the fulfillment of what was promised, in the posture
   of rest--as one who had, now, all that he could desire and was pressed
   down under the weight of blessing. Yet the Psalmist's sitting was also
   a posture of worship and surely of all passages of Scripture none can
   be said to contain more true adoration than that which is now before
   us.

   The king sat, however, before the Lord. The mercy had all come from God
   and therefore to God all his praise was offered. His soul waited only
   upon the Lord, because his expectation was alone from Him. He was
   conscious of being in the sacred Presence and he sat there, feeling
   that by the Covenant Blessing he had been brought very near, and his
   spirit exulted in that nearness! Brothers and Sisters in Christ, the
   mercies which God has shown to us are as great as those which He
   manifested to His servant David! And if the Spirit of God has opened
   our eyes to see and understand them, we may, this morning, ardently
   wish to do precisely what David did.

   Let us have boldness to enter into the nearest possible fellowship with
   God--yes, let us go where David could not go--within the veil, and
   there, where Christ has opened up the way through His torn body, let us
   sit down in a restful, waiting, happy spirit, and give full play to all
   those Divine emotions which ought to be awakened by reflecting upon the
   lovingkindness of the Lord!

   I have selected this subject because there are many among us who have
   lately found the Savior and it is well to let them see the happiness
   which belongs to them--the pleasures and the treasures which are theirs
   in Christ Jesus--that they may render unto the God of Grace the glory
   which is due unto His name. David did not understand the words of
   Nathan to relate merely to his dynasty and to his dominion over the
   house of Israel. He looked far beyond temporal things--and therefore,
   in the words before us, there is a spiritual depth which will not
   strike the eye of the casual reader. The New Testament must be the
   expositor of the Old, and Peter, in his famous sermon gives us the key
   to this passage!

   Turn to Acts 2:29 and you will find that Peter accounts for a memorable
   utterance of David in the Psalms by declaring that he was a Prophet,
   and knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of
   his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on
   his throne. The joy which filled David's bosom was a spiritual one
   because he knew that Jesus would come of his race--and that an
   everlasting kingdom would be set up in His Person--and in Him should
   the Gentiles trust.

   Now, then, we also, being blest with all spiritual blessings in
   heavenly places in Christ Jesus, are bound to feel as David felt, and
   therefore we shall pass in review, David's expressions, with the desire
   that we may drop into the same mood. May God the Holy Spirit, who alone
   can enable us to do so, bless our meditation at this time.

   I. First I shall need you to notice THE HUMILITY apparent in David's
   words. "Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord, and he said,
   Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that You have brought me up
   to now?''" First, he acknowledged the lowliness of his origin--"What is
   my house?" He came not of royal blood. Nathan spoke the Truth of God
   when he said in the Lord's name, "I took you from the sheepcote, from
   following the sheep." David was but a humble shepherd lad when he was
   first anointed--and after that anointing he continued in that humble
   office. From this he rose to become the leader of a motley band of
   free-lances exiled from their country. Yet the Lord was pleased to call
   him from his low estate to make him king over the chosen people!

   Beloved, what is our origin? What is there about our descent that could
   claim for us the high privilege of being sons of God? Trace our origin
   to its most ancient source and behold, SIN is there, staining the
   escutcheon of our house! All down the line there is a taint of high
   treason against the Divine Majesty. We come of a race of rebels and our
   own personal birth was marred with sin. Heraldry lends no pomp to
   us--and the genealogy for the most of us reveals no hereditary
   glories--and even if it did, it would be mere fancies and fictions not
   worthy to be mentioned before the Presence of the Lord. "Who am I, O
   Lord God? and what is my house?"

   David laid the most stress upon his own personal unworthiness. He said,
   "Who am I? What was there in me that You should make me a king and a
   progenitor of the Christ?" And will not each Believer here say the
   same? Who am I? What is there in me? God might have chosen the great
   and the mighty of the world, but He has passed them by. He might have
   chosen the learned and famous, but not many of them are called. He has
   chosen the poor of this world and things that are despised. Yes, the
   base things has God chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to
   nothing the things that are, that no flesh might glory in His Presence.
   Look at yourself from head to foot--examine every crevice of your
   heart, and every single feature of your character--can you see anything
   there that might command Jehovah's esteem? Do you see any
   qualifications for being bought with redeeming blood? Are there any
   reasons, that you can find, why you should be made sons of God, and
   heirs of Glory?

   The Lord had reasons for choosing you, for He acts according to the
   counsel of His will, but those reasons are not in you--they lie in His
   own bosom and you must exclaim--"Who am I that You have brought me up
   to now?" I have no doubt that David looked upon his own
   deservings--what if I correct myself and say his own undeservings?--and
   marveled that the Lord had chosen him and rejected Saul! He was a man
   after God's own heart, but his conduct was that of a bold, rough
   soldier--and he could not look upon it without observing its
   imperfections. He prayed, in the 25th Psalm, "Remember not the sins of
   my youth, nor my transgressions: according to Your mercy remember You
   me for Your goodness' sake, O Lord." These sins are not recorded in the
   chronicles of his life, but they were written in his own penitent
   memory. And being humbled concerning them he cried, "Who am I?"

   There must have been many an action in his exile and wanderings which
   he did not rejoice to remember. For instance, his mimicry of madness
   before the king of Gath. His great anger against Nabal. His affinity
   with the Philistines. And besides such prominent errors as these, he
   could see many failings and transgressions all along--and these both
   made the Grace of God the more illustrious and led him to cry from his
   very heart--"Who am I, O Lord God?" Now, Brothers and Sisters, look
   back upon your own lives before conversion. What were they? Let them be
   blotted out with tears! Consider your lives since conversion and
   confess that whenever you have been left to yourselves and the Grace of
   God has withdrawn for a while, you have always stumbled into some form
   or other of deplorable folly. Who am I? What have I done? What have I
   been? How is it that I am made Your child, purchased with the blood of
   Jesus, and made an heir of Heaven? We may sum it all up in that
   exclamation, "Why me, Lord?"--

   "Why was I made to hear Your voice, And enter where there's room, While
   thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"

   There is something very interesting in the expression, "Who am I, O
   Lord God?" David's sense of his own nothingness is strikingly set forth
   by putting the, "I," side by side with, "O Lord God." "I David, Jesse's
   son, the shepherd's boy, who am I, O You infinite, all-commanding
   Jehovah, Creator, Preserver, Lord over all? How can I stand

   in Your Presence? I shrink to nothing there! Did I not come of You? Do
   I not owe all to You? Are You not the very breath of my nostrils? I am
   a nothing, a very dream, a thing of nothing and yet You look upon me!
   And You shower down Your mercies upon me! With a flood of blessedness
   do You carry me away. Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house?" Thus
   you see David's humility under a sense of mercy.

   And let us remark, here, that nothing humbles a man like the mercy of
   God! Unkind, ungenerous remarks do not humble the soul--they rather
   gender pride. Under the criticisms of unkindness a man who is a man
   finds all that is strong within him coming to the front, and, as in
   Job's case, self-assertion straightway leads the van. Reproach and
   rebuke tend, rather, to make men proud than humble. Love is the melting
   power. Nothing weighs a man down like a load of blessing. When you see
   God blotting out your sin, accounting you righteous in His sight, for
   Jesus' sake, and saying to you, "I have loved you with an everlasting
   love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you," where is
   boasting, then? It is excluded! Love shows boasting to the door and
   bars its return.

   Peter was ready enough to speak of what he had done, but in the
   Presence of his loving Lord, when he saw his ship sinking through the
   plenteous catch of fishes, he knelt down and cried in deep humiliation,
   "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."--

   "The more Your glories strike my eyes The humbler I shall lie."

   A sight of the Glory and mercy of God is sure to produce in us a sense
   of shame for our ill-desert--combined with wonder that God should have
   so much as a single kind look for us! Sit down, then, children of God,
   and review His mercy and be humbled! Do not deny yourselves the joyful
   review because of a jealous fear of being exalted by it. Never endorse
   the great lie of the self-righteous, that full assurance of faith leads
   men to presumption! It does no such thing! By God's Grace it humbles a
   man, makes him feel his own unworthiness, and so leads him to walk more
   carefully and prayerfully before his God. It is in this point that
   faith makes us strong, for while it exalts our joys, it slays our pride
   and makes us shrink to nothing before the great ALL IN ALL.

   II. Now observe, secondly, David's WONDERING GRATITUDE. He wondered,
   first, at what God had done for him--"What is my house, that You have
   brought me up to now?--to a house of cedar, and to be able to talk
   about building a house for You. To be Your chosen king and to have my
   seed established on my throne, and to become the ancestor of the
   Christ! Come, Brothers and Sisters, you do not need me to preach to you
   here! I should like to sit down and leave you to muse upon what the
   Lord has done in bringing you up to now--up from the pit of
   destruction, up from the miry clay of your depravity, out of the
   horrible prison of your dread of Divine wrath--away from the Egypt of
   darkness and bondage into light and liberty!

   What an almighty work it was that brought you from darkness into light,
   from death into life! Bless the Lord for this. Praise Him for your
   calling when effectually He drew you and you ran unto Him weeping and
   singing! Praise Him for your pardon when He washed you in the blood and
   you were clean--and you knew you were! Wonder of wonders is this!
   Praise Him for your justification, when He took the robe the Savior
   wore and dressed you with it--never was a bride arrayed by the most
   loving bridegroom! Praise Him for your regeneration, when you were born
   into a new world! Praise Him for your being set apart for holy uses,
   admitted to new company, filled with holy joys, instructed in heavenly
   truths and dedicated to sacred duties!

   Praise Him for sanctification which has made you worthy to be partakers
   of the inheritance of the saints in light! Praise Him for the
   preservation from sin which you have, up to now, received--and the
   education for eternity which has so happily commenced! Praise Him for
   the provision so bounteous with which He has furnished a table in the
   wilderness, both temporally and spiritually! And praise Him for the
   protection with which He has warded off the arrow that flies by day,
   and the pestilence that walks in darkness. O Lord, I bless You that You
   have brought me up to now! Sometimes, when I take a view of what God
   has done for me, I feel like Christian when he went through the Valley
   of the Shadow of Death by night.

   Remember how Bunyan pictures the scene? A narrow pathway with a pit on
   this side and a deep morass on that--on all sides hobgoblins, dragons,
   and spirits of the deep seeking to destroy him. His sword is useless
   and therefore put away in its sheath. No weapon in his hand but that of
   All-Prayer, which he found to be equal to the emergency. And when he
   had gone through it, and the sun rose on him, and he looked back, he
   could not believe his eyes that he passed through it!

   And truly, at this moment, looking back on life with its innumerable
   temptations, and remembering the tendency to yield that is within every
   one of us, we can each one sing as Christian did--

   "Oh, world of wonders (I can say no less),

   That I should be preserved in that distress

   That I have met with here!

   Oh, blessed be

   That hand which from it has delivered me!

   Dangers in darkness, devils, Hell, and sin,

   Did compass me, while I this vale was in:

   Yes, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets did lie

   My path about, that worthless, silly I

   Might have been caught, entangled, and cast down,

   But, since I live, let Jesus wear the crown." David did not end his
   wonder there, but went on to another and greater theme--the blessings
   which the Lord had promised him. He praised the Lord for what He had
   laid up as well as for what He had laid out. He said, and mark the
   words, "And this was yet a small thing in Your sight, O Lord God, but
   You have spoken also of Your servant's house for a great while to
   come." What a wonderful expression! "And this was yet a small thing in
   Your sight." It sometimes appears as if every mercy the Lord brings us
   is meant to eclipse those which have gone before! For instance, He
   gives a sinner pardon, and the soul is, for a time, perfectly content
   with cleansing and expects nothing more. But soon it learns that there
   is such a thing as justification--when it comes to be just with God,
   complete in Christ and accepted in the Beloved--then it rejoices anew
   as if pardon were but a small thing compared with justification!

   And lo, before our eyes have fully drunk in the beauty of
   justification, we hear the Word which says, "A new heart also will I
   give you, and a right spirit will I put within you: I will write My Law
   in your hearts, and you shall not depart from Me," and our hearts are
   carried away with the splendors of sanctification! Scarcely, however,
   have we been fully made aware of the extent of this blessing before
   another portion of the royal regalia is uncovered, and we hear it said,
   "They shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord God Almighty," and
   now we understand that we are adopted--we are children of God!

   But before we fully understand this great privilege we begin to hear
   the song whose swell is like that of many waters, "He has made us kings
   and priests unto God, and we shall reign forever and ever." And then we
   see the royal prerogative, the priestly dignity which God has put upon
   us--yes, and long before even these mercies are perfectly understood we
   are called away to see the heavenly joys, compared with which all else
   will seem to be yet a small thing! I beg you, my Brothers and Sisters,
   to remember, today, that your God has spoken of you for a great while
   to come! He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Is not
   that for a great while to come? He has bid you say, "Surely goodness
   and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in
   the house of the Lord forever." Is not that for a great while to come?
   He has promised to give you all you ever shall require. "No good thing
   will I withhold from them that walk uprightly." Note well that text
   ever to be remembered, "Because I live you shall live also," and that
   petition of our Lord, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You have
   given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory." These,
   and a hundred more gracious Words all concern a great while to come!

   Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, you have not obtained transient
   blessings--blessings which will be gone tomorrow-- gifts which will
   decay as the year grows old and the autumn leaves flutter to the
   ground! You have not obtained a mercy which will leave you when you
   tremble in decrepitude! No, rather, when your are old and gray-headed
   your God will not forsake you! You shall still bring forth fruit in old
   age to show that the Lord is upright. "When you pass through the rivers
   I will be with you; the floods shall not overflow you." Therefore may
   you boldly say, "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
   death I will fear no evil, for You are with me."

   When you die you shall rise again! In your flesh you shall see God and
   shall rejoice before Him. Yes, forever shall you be satisfied when you
   wake up in His likeness. You shall go into everlasting joy and so shall
   be forever with the Lord. He has spoken to you for a great while to
   come. Sit down and wonder--wonder and adore for evermore!--

   "Firm as the lasting hills, This co venant shall endure,

   Whose potent shalls and wills Make every blessing sure: When ruin
   shakes all Nature's frame, Its jots and tittles stand the same." David
   had yet another theme for wonder, which was this--the manner of the
   giving of all this. There is often as much in the manner of a gift as
   in a gift itself. I have known some who could refuse a favor and give
   greater pleasure by their kindly-worded denial than others by their
   rude consent. Now here is a mercy of which the way of giving it is, if
   possible, more astounding than the mercy itself, though that is amazing
   beyond measure, for David says, "And is this the manner of man, O Lord
   God?" The word in the Hebrew is, "law." It is never translated, except
   in this case, by the word, "manner," and we may keep to the word,
   "law," if we like--"Is this the law of man, O Lord God?" We will render
   the passage first according to the authorized version--"Is this the
   manner of man?" Does man act like this? Does man pitch his love upon
   the unworthy? Does man exalt the lowest to the highest place?

   Does man forgive transgressions and continue to do so? Does man bear
   provocation and return love for offenses? Is man so faithful? Is man so
   bounteous? Oh, man can never be Divine, and therefore man can never
   come up to the infinity of Your Grace, O Lord God. This is not after
   the manner of man, neither is it after the law of man, for the law of
   Adam is, "In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die." Punishment
   follows quick on the heels of sin. Free Grace is not the law of the
   first man--it is the law of another man, the Second Adam--and so some
   render the passage, "This is the law of the Man," the Man Christ Jesus,
   the true Adam. We will not contend for that rendering, but it contains
   a Truth of God which we will now utter in our own words.

   It is not the law of man, it is the law of Grace, the law of infinite
   mercy, the law of infallible faithfulness, the law of immutable love.
   Beloved, if it had not been revealed to you, you could never have
   imagined or dreamed of such a fullness of Grace as the Lord has
   actually made to pass before you. It is more marvelous than romance! It
   may well make your heart exult, for it is astonishing beyond all
   measure. Jonathan Edwards, when defending the great Calvinistic theory,
   made use of language somewhat to this effect--"You tell one that the
   Doctrines of Grace are a dream. Then, if it is so, you ought to join
   with me in perpetual regret that it is so." I venture to say, let the
   earth be hung in sackcloth if there is no Covenant of Grace, no way of
   salvation by redemption--for it is the most charming of
   conceptions--and brings to mankind the most extraordinary of blessings.

   If this is dreaming, let me dream on, my God, forever! Eternal love
   welling up in infinite blessing to the chosen race--pouring forth,
   forever, inexhaustible rivers of mercy--is far above all that man could
   of himself have imagined! Poetry has never soared within a myriad
   leagues of such an imagination! I am more than content with the
   Covenant Love of my God. I ask for nothing else. This fills my soul and
   satisfies my spirit, and I would sit down before You, my Father, and
   say, "Is this the manner of man, O Lord God?" Infinite love granting
   infinite blessings! The Gospel must be true! It bears its own witness
   upon its very brow, for who could have made it up? Where is the
   imagination that could have conceived such majestic mercy as God
   reveals unto His people?

   III. Now, changing the note and yet continuing in the same strain, we
   have to speak of David's emotion of love. I almost regret that I have
   to speak to you. I wish I could sit still and yet make you feel what I
   feel. If there could be some electric action by which thought could be
   communicated without words, it would suit my mood exactly at this
   moment. David found but a scant outlet for his love. What precious
   words are these--"What can David say more?" It is Love struck dumb by
   receiving an unspeakable gift. The king was exactly in the same case as
   Paul when he said, "What shall we then say to these things?" To that
   question no answer was ever given by Love. Love sat silent after she
   had asked it, speechless in adoration--but Faith pushed himself forward
   and cried, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" But Love was
   silent, dumfounded with the mass of mercy.

   So David says, "What can David say more?" Certainly no eloquence can
   match the silence of human love abashed by Divine Love. Sit down, O you
   saints, and cry, "What can Your servants say?" Notice the childlikeness
   of this love. "What can David say more?" Your little child, if she is
   ill, will not say, "Mother, nurse me," but, "Mother, nurse poor little
   Mary." And when she feels very sick she will say, "Mary's head aches."
   Your little John, when he wants you to play with him will say, "Please,
   Father, take little John on your knee," or, "Please, Father, take John
   for a walk." It is the way children talk, and this is David's
   child-talk to God. "What shall David say more?" He might have said,
   "What shall I say more?" But Love taught him a simple and sweet speech
   which he delighted to use.

   Observe, it is a love which longs for communion and enjoys it. He says,
   "What can David say more unto You?" He can talk to other people, but he
   does not quite know how to speak to God. And then he adds, "For You,
   Lord God, know Your servant," which is a parallel passage to that of
   Peter, "Lord, You know all things, You know that I love you," as if he
   could not speak his heart, but his Master could read it--and he
   besought the Lord to act as his interpreter. Such thoughts as those
   which were in David's mind break the backs of words and stagger speech!
   Tongues are an afterthought, hearts come first--and oftentimes hearts
   wish they could fly away from tongues. Language is but a feeble wing,
   we want to ride the lightning--

   "Teach me some melodious sonnet Sung by flaming tongues above,"

   has often been our cry. We are right enough in thinking that we can
   never express ourselves till we get to Heaven. How does John Berridge
   put it in that singular hymn? I do not know if I can recall it on the
   spur of the moment. Yes, here it is--

   "Then my tongue would fain express

   All His love and loveliness.

   But I lisp and falter forth

   Broken words not half His worth.

   Vex'd I try and try again,

   Still my efforts all are vain:

   Living tongues are dumb at best,

   We must die to speak of Christ." Death must unloose these stammering
   tongues or they will never be able to speak all that we feel when
   Divine Love casts us into joyous raptures! Strip us of this camber and
   we will be seraphs in their burning hymns, and even the heavenly harps
   shall learn from us how to magnify the Lord! Till then we must be
   content to cry with David, "What can we say more? You, Lord, know Your
   servants." But do you see it is obedient love as well? It is not mere
   sentiment, there is a practicalness about it, for he says, "Lord, you
   know your servant"--he subscribes himself as henceforth bound to God's
   service. With delight he puts on his Master's livery and sits like a
   servitor in the hall of the King of kings, waiting to hear what shall
   be spoken to him. As the eyes of the handmaidens are to their mistress,
   so his eyes are up to his God.

   Therefore it is that David was known in later times to sing, "O Lord I
   am Your servant; I am Your servant, and the son of Your handmaid: You
   have loosed my bonds." He had caught the spirit of the Christian
   proverb, "To serve God is to reign." He loved to do homage at the feet
   of his Sovereign Lord and yield himself and all that he had as a
   reasonable service to him who had crowned him with lovingkindness and
   tender mercies. Warm love always urges the soul to service. None are so
   ready to wear the yoke of Christ as those who have leaned on His bosom.
   The nearer we come to our Father's heart the more submissive we are to
   His commands. Free Grace is the best atmosphere in which to grow strong
   in obedience. The more often we consider what we owe to Eternal Love
   the more ready we shall be to pay our vows unto the Lord.

   How he dwells upon those words, "You, Lord God." What pleasure he finds
   in the very name of his Benefactor and Master. All through Scripture we
   ought to notice the titles by which God is called in each distinct
   place. We are so poverty-stricken in thought that we generally use but
   one name for God--not so the rich soul of David! Throughout the Psalms
   you will find him appropriately ringing the changes upon Adonai, El,
   Elohim, Jehovah, and all the varied combinations of names which loving
   hearts were known to give to the glorious Lord of Hosts! And here he
   says, "You, Lord God." He delights in God and finds music in His name!
   He is affluent in ascriptions and titles because his soul is rich in
   affection. His love was reverent love, adoring love, meditative love,
   intelligent love, whole-hearted love. It expresses itself by reverence
   when it fails to compass infinite mercy by descriptions.

   I want every Believer here to be sweetly stirred with this love this
   morning! I would have you go home and spend an hour this afternoon in
   contemplating the ever-blessed God who has done so much for you that
   you may well say, "What can David say more unto You?" My time is
   flying, but I must have space for another point. David's language is so
   rich that truly, as I take up these words one by one, I feel as if I
   could say with the Psalmist, "My soul shall be satisfied with marrow
   and fatness." Have we not marrow and fatness here?

   IV. David's heart was full of PRAISE, and the praise was first for the
   freeness of the Grace which brought him such blessedness. "For Your
   word's sake, and according to Your own heart have You done all these
   great things." Whenever the Believer asks why God gave him Grace in
   Christ Jesus he can only resort to one answer--the Lord's own heart has
   devised and ordained our salvation. Why did the Lord love you, my
   Brothers and Sisters? Because He would love you is the only possible
   reply. In the book of Deuteronomy, seventh chapter and seventh and
   eighth verses, we have this self-contained love set forth. The Lord did
   not love the people because they were numerous, but because He loved
   them. His love was its own reason. He loved us because He would love
   us, "according to His own heart."

   Now, this is one of the things which always must astound us and make us
   love God, that everything comes from Him spontaneously, without
   anything in us that could produce it or call it forth. "I will have
   mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I
   will have compassion," rolls like thunder over the rebel's head--but to
   a child of God it is full of music--so that voice of the Lord is full
   of majesty to him! Oh, wonder of wonders, that He who passed the fallen
   angels by, nevertheless stooped to save unworthy men, for so it seemed
   good in His sight! David praised also the faithfulness of God. He says,
   "For Your word's sake." Is not that the ground upon which all mercy is
   received by the child of God? God has promised it and will keep His
   word. He never did run back from His Covenant yet--

   "As well might He His being quit As break His promise or forget."
   Jehovah must be true. Oh, what a faithful God has He been to many of
   us! We can recount the scores and hundreds of times when, if the
   promise had failed, the disaster would have been irretrievable--but it
   never has failed. Not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord
   God has promised.

   You men of 70, you can say that! We who are but lads in the army are,
   nevertheless, bold to avow the same! He has helped in every need and
   never yet has He been backward in coming to our rescue or supplying our
   necessities. Glory be to His name! Let us sit down and adore His
   faithfulness. Here we may, also, see David discerning the connection
   between Divine mercy and the Lord Jesus Christ. What if I read it
   so--"For YOUR WORD'S sake"--for the sake of the Eternal Logos, the Word
   that was God, and was with God--for HIS sake all these mercies have
   come to us! It is very sweet to see the mark of the pierced hands on
   every Covenant Blessing, to receive every blessing from the hand that
   was nailed to the tree for us, and to feel--

   "There's ne'er a gift His hand bestows, But cost His heart a groan."

   This will lead us to praise God for the freeness of the mercy, for the
   faithfulness of the mercy and for the mediatorial Grace by which every
   mercy comes to us.

   Then the king's heart was taken up with the greatness of the Covenant
   Blessings. "According to Your own heart, have You done all these great
   things." They were all great. There was not a little mercy among them.
   All the mercies which we great sinners receive from our great God are
   inconceivably great and therefore demand from us the greatest
   thankfulness. Dwell on the great deliverances, the great promises, the
   great comforts, the great expectations of the children of God till your
   souls are enlarged with gratitude! Once more, David praised God for His
   condescending familiarity. "According to Your own heart, have You done
   all these great things, to make Your servant know them." They were
   revealed to David by a Prophet, just as Jesus communed with His
   disciples, and said, "I have told you before it came to pass, that when
   it is come to pass you may believe."

   And yet again, "If it were not so I would have told you." God's mercies
   are instructions to us. We never know them till God brings them to us
   and makes us know them--they are their own interpreters. Like letters
   written in cipher they have the clue within themselves. As the
   prophecies are never understood till they are fulfilled, so the mercies
   of God are never understood till they are received. Experience teaches.
   Experience is the master doctor in the University of Christ. When you
   know Him by testing and handling Him, then is Jesus sweet! When you
   know His power by testing it in weakness, then you understand its
   exceeding greatness! When you know His faithfulness in deep affliction
   and great need, then you see it! And when you taste His mercy under a
   sense of great sin, then you weep with joy as you perceive it!

   God alone can make His servants know His gifts. Blessed be God, who
   alone teaches us to profit, and makes His own dear children to sit at
   His feet. Has He not said it, "They shall all be taught of the Lord."
   No school like this! May I forever be a scholar in it--on the lowest
   form in that school I would be content to sit and learn eternally! Now
   give your souls to the sacred lesson. Praise and magnify your God, O
   you that love His name!

   V. To conclude, not for lack of matter, however, but for lack of
   time--David's soul was wound up to HIGH THOUGHTS OF GOD, for our text
   concludes with these words--"Therefore you are great, O Lord God: for
   there is none like You, neither is there any God beside You, according
   to all that we have heard with our ears." God is great! He is the
   greatest because He is the best! The old Romans used to say, optimus
   maximus--the best, the greatest. You, God, are good, and therefore You
   are great. As we drink in the sense of His goodness we cannot help
   saying, "Therefore You are great, O Lord God"--great positively! Then
   great comparatively--"there is none like You." Yes, greatest of all,
   superlatively--"neither is there any God beside You."

   I have heard of a preacher upon whom a good man's criticism was that he
   made God great whenever he preached. God forbid we should ever preach
   otherwise! And may you, dear Hearers, always feel how great God is! I
   pray you go away with this on your minds--He is too great for me to
   dare offend Him! He is too greatly good for me to grieve Him! He is too
   greatly good for me to doubt Him! He is so great that nothing can be
   great that I can do for Him! He is so great that nothing is too great
   for me to give to Him! He is so great that when I give myself away, it
   is a poor offering compared with His blessings! He is so great that
   when all earth and Heaven ring with His praises, they still fall short
   of

   His Glory!

   He is so goodly great and greatly good that I would be all His, and
   yield myself entirely up to His will, to be like an atom in a current,
   borne along by His unresisted will. I would be what He would have me
   be, do what He would have me do, give what He would have me give,
   suffer what He would have me suffer! I would be absorbed into Him! I
   would find a Heaven in a blessed union with Himself which should
   prevent forever any self-assertion, or the setting up of so much as a
   wish or a thought which would be contrary to His mind! God is great,
   therefore would I wish others to know Him and love Him, too. All hearts
   are cold in every place--would God they were melted in this fire! Would
   God they flowed down at His touch in constant worship!

   Therefore, since He is so great, I will speak great things of Him! I
   will tell it out among the heathen that the Lord reigns! I would ask
   for talent, if I may be trusted with it, with which to proclaim Him.
   And if I have small ability, yet with such as I have, Grace being given
   me, I would, to the utmost of my ability, proclaim the greatness which
   has already overpowered my spirit! Let Him be crowned with majesty! Let
   Him be King of kings and Lord of lords, because of all that He has
   done! Go forth, you daughters of Jerusalem, and crown your King!
   Throughout the whole of your lives weave chaplets for the Redeemer's
   brow! Let your lives be Psalms, let your garments be vestments, let
   every meal be a sacrament, let your whole being be transformed into an
   immortal Hallelujah unto the Lord Most High, for He is greatly to be
   extolled!!

   O come, let us worship and bow down! Let us kneel before the Lord our
   Maker, and ascribe unto the Lord the Glory due unto His name! Blessed
   God, blessed God, what more can Your servant say? He has not the voice
   of David, nor David's harp, nor David's poetic fire, nor David's
   inspiration--and where even David failed, what more can he say? Lord,
   You know all things, you know that I love you, and thousands of your
   servants here can join in the same declaration! Accept what we speak
   and what we feel, but cannot utter! Bless Your saints forever! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Samuel 7. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--230, 231, 775.
     __________________________________________________________________

Additions to the Church

   (No. 1167)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 5, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved."
   Acts2:47.

   WE are just coming to the most beautiful season of the
   year--Spring--when everything around us is shaking off the chill grave
   clothes of winter and putting on the beautiful array of a new life. The
   Church of God was in that condition at Pentecost--her winter was past
   and the flowers appeared on the earth. She enjoyed the spring breezes,
   for the breath of the Holy Spirit refreshed her garden. There was
   spring music--the time of the singing of birds was come, for her
   preachers testified faithfully of Jesus. And so many and varied were
   the sweet notes which welcomed the new season, that many nations of men
   heard in their own tongue the wonderful works of God!

   There were, also, the spring blossoms--the fig tree put forth her green
   figs and the vines with the tender grapes gave a good smell--and all
   around multitudes inquired, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" And
   many also avowed their faith in Jesus. There were the spring showers of
   repentance, the spring sunbeams of joy in the Holy Spirit and the
   spring flowers of newly-given hope and faith! May we behold just such
   another springtime in all the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the
   world! And meanwhile, let us arouse ourselves suitable to so gladsome a
   season. Let us rise up and meet the Well-Beloved, and in concert with
   Him let us sow in hope and look for a speedy springing up. The Sun of
   Righteousness is coming forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and
   the weary night is melting into welcome day--let us hear the Beloved's
   voice as He cries to us, "Arise, My love, My fair one, and come away."

   It seems from the text that the additions to the Church which were made
   in the Pentecostal springtime did not occur always in one form.
   Sometimes they came in crowds and at other times by gradual increase.
   Upon one day there were 3,000 added--that is an instance of conversion
   in the mass, when a nation is born at once! In such a work we are bound
   to believe. I mean not merely in the possibility of it, but in the
   probability of it, for it stands to reason that what should convince
   one man in a particular condition of heart would as readily convince
   3,000 or 30,000 if they were in the same state. Granted the same soil,
   the same seed, the same season and the same wonder-working God--and I
   cannot imagine any reason why a limit should be set to results!

   The Holy Spirit is Divine and consequently He knows how to influence
   all kinds of men, and He can, by the instrumentalities now in use,
   reach just as many as He pleases. I remember well, when I first
   preached in London, a remark made by a friend which very greatly
   encouraged me at the time, and has proved true in my experience. When
   he heard that my little country Chapel had been filled by the
   inhabitants of the village in which I had preached, he gave me hope of
   filling a far larger place in London. "For," he said, "what will draw
   200 will draw 2,000, and what was useful to a few may be made just as
   useful to a multitude."

   I saw at once that it was so. When we are dealing with spiritual forces
   we have not to calculate by pounds and ounces, or by so many horse
   power. We have not to think of quantity. As an illustration--give me
   fire, I will not bargain for a furnace--give me but a single candle and
   a city or a forest may soon be in a blaze. A spark is quite sufficient
   to begin with, for fire multiplies itself. So give us the Truth of God,
   a single voice and the Holy Spirit with it--and none can say where the
   sacred conflagration will end! One Jonah sufficed to subdue all Nineveh
   by one monotonous sentence often repeated! And in spite of the weakness
   of our present instrumentality, if God does but bless the Gospel, there
   is no reason why it should not speedily be felt by the whole of London!

   The sermon preached by Peter at Pentecost was the arrow of the Lord's
   deliverance to 3,000--there is no reason why the Lord should not cause
   one of ours to be the same! Three thousand cannot be converted if only
   a hundred are present to hear--but with this vast assembly, and
   thousands of smaller ones within gunshot--why should not the slain of
   the Lord be many? Assuredly the Divine Comforter can as readily bless
   three millions as three individuals! But it

   would appear from our text that the additions to the Pentecostal Church
   were not made in a mass at all times. The Spirit of God was still with
   them, but their increase was more gradual. "The Lord added to the
   Church daily of such as should be saved."

   You have seen a heavy shower of rain in the Spring--in a moment a big
   drop has fallen upon the pavement and before you were ready to escape
   from it, a deluge followed, so plenteous that you half suspected a
   cloud had been torn in two right over your head! Such a sudden and
   impetuous shower may serve for a figure of the conversion of 3,000
   souls at once. But at other times rain has fallen gently and has
   continued to descend hour by hour--a soft, warm, Spring watering--which
   in its own way and fashion has done its work of blessing quite as
   surely as the heavier downpour. We must be very thankful if we do not
   see 3,000 converted in one day. If we see 300 every day for 10 days, or
   if we see 30 every day for a hundred days, we ought, indeed, to be
   grateful for all success so long as sinners really come to Jesus.

   Whether they come in troops, or one by one, we will welcome them! The
   woman who lost her money was glad to find one piece, although she would
   have been even more glad to have found a purse full if they had been
   lost. I want you to think about additions to the Church as they used to
   occur among the early Christians. Certain people are always talking
   about the "early Church," and very strange notions they seem to have of
   the aforesaid early Church. Their early Church was very different from
   anything we meet with in the Acts of the Apostles, for it was very
   particular in its architecture, millinery, and music. Their "early
   Church" could not worship at all unless it had a visible altar, with
   reredos and frontal, at which gentlemen in gorgeous attire of blue and
   scarlet and fine linen made many postures and not a few low bows.

   The "early Church" of which they speak, it seems, believed in baptismal
   regeneration, transubstantiation, priestcraft and sacramental efficacy.
   Well, that may or may not be, but there was an earlier Church which had
   no such notions! And it is for us to get right away from any such early
   churches to the earlier Church or the earliest Church, and there, I
   guarantee you, you shall find no priestcraft nor nonsense of
   sacramental efficacy! There was but simplicity, Truth of God and the
   power of the Holy Spirit! The early Church, so much admired by
   Anglicans, was a degenerate vine, a field of wheat and tares, a mass
   leavened with antichristian error--in a word--baptized heathenism!

   After its own fashion, it set up, again, the many deities of the
   heathen, only calling them saints instead of gods-- putting the Virgin
   into the place of Venus and setting up Peter or Paul in the niches
   formerly occupied by Saturn or Mars. Our present "revived early Church"
   is only paganism with a border of crosses! We are resolved to return to
   the primitive Church of which we read, "then they that gladly received
   the Word were baptized, and they continued steadfastly in the Apostles'
   doctrine." In connection with this Church we shall handle our subject,
   trusting to the Holy Spirit to be with us as He was with them.

   I. First, then, ADDITIONS TO THE CHURCH, WHAT ABOUT THEM? "The Lord
   added to the Church daily of such as should be saved." It seems to have
   been the custom in the earliest times for persons who had been
   converted to Christ to join themselves with the Church of Jesus Christ.
   From that fact, I feel persuaded that they did not conceal their
   convictions. It is a strong temptation with many to say, "I have
   believed in Jesus, but that is a matter between God and my own soul.
   There can be no need that I should tell this to others. Can I not
   quietly go to Heaven and be a Nicodemus, or a Joseph of Arimathea?"

   To which I reply, Yes, you can quietly go to Heaven, and we hope you
   will do so, but that is a different thing from being cowardly and
   ashamed of Christ! We shall not object to your being a Nicodemus if you
   will go with him when he carries spices to the grave of Jesus. And you
   may be a Joseph of Arimathea if you will attend him when he goes boldly
   in unto Pilate and begs for the body of Jesus! Neither of these two
   Brothers were cowardly after the Cross had been set up before their
   eyes. Neither were they ashamed to identify themselves with Christ
   crucified. Follow them, not in the infancy of their love, but in its
   mature days! Remember, dear Friends, the promise of the Gospel runs
   thus--"He that with his heart believes, and with his mouth makes
   confession of Him, shall be saved."

   Do not, I charge you, neglect one half of the command! The Gospel
   commission which we have received is this--"Go you into all the world
   and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes and is
   baptized shall be saved." That is the message as we find it. We did not
   insert the clause concerning Baptism, neither dare we leave it out, or
   advise you to neglect it. I give you the very words of the Savior. Do
   not, therefore, divide the Gospel command in order to throw half of it
   behind your back, but both believe and acknowledge your belief, and be
   added to the Church. It is quite clear, too,

   that Believers in those days did not try to go to Heaven alone. There
   has been a great deal said in these latter days about being simply a
   Christian and not joining any particular Church--a piece of cant
   mostly--and in all cases a mistake.

   In the name of unity this system is preached up, and yet it is clear to
   all that it is the reverse of unity and is calculated to put an end to
   all visible Church fellowship. The good people mentioned in our text
   joined themselves with the Church of God in Jerusalem at once. I dare
   say that even in those days, had they criticized the Church, they would
   have found faults in her--certainly within a few weeks great faults had
   to be remedied--but these converts felt that the society at Jerusalem
   was the Church of Christ and, therefore, they joined themselves to it.
   All of you can meet with Churches of Jesus Christ if you choose to look
   for them. If you wait for a perfect Church, you must wait until you get
   to Heaven! And even if you could find a perfect assembly on earth, I am
   sure they would not admit you to their fellowship, for you are not
   perfect yourself.

   Find out those people who are nearest to the Scriptures--who hold the
   Truths of God in doctrine and in ordinance, and are most like the
   Apostolic Church--and then cast in your lot with them and you will be
   blessed in the deed. Consider the matter, and reflect that if it would
   be right for you to remain out of Church fellowship, it must be right
   for every other Believer to remain in the same condition. And then
   there would be no visible Church on earth at all and no body of people
   banded together to maintain the Christian ordinances. Christian
   fellowship, especially in the breaking of bread and the maintenance of
   an evangelistic ministry, would become an impossibility if no one
   openly avowed the Savior's cause. Act, then, according to your duty.
   And if you are a Christian, join with Christians. If you love the
   Master, love the servants. If you love the Captain, unite with the army
   and join that regiment of it which you think cleaves closest to the
   Master's Word.

   Observe next, that the persons who were reached at Pentecost were added
   to the Church by the Lord. Does anybody else ever add to the Church?
   Oh, yes, the devil too often thrusts in his servants! Who was it that
   added Judas, Ananias and Sapphire, and Simon Magus and Demas to the
   Church? Who was it that stole forth by night and cast tares among the
   wheat? That evil spirit is not dead! He is still busy enough in this
   department and continually adds to the Church those who are not saved.
   His are the mixed multitude which infest the camp of Israel and are the
   first to fall a lusting. His the Achan who brings a curse upon the
   tribes. His are those of whom Jude says, "certain men crept in unawares
   who were before of old ordained to this condemnation." These adulterate
   the Church and by so doing, they weaken and defile it, and bring it
   much grief and dishonor. When the Lord adds to the Church, that is
   quite another matter!

   Moreover, the Church, itself, cannot avoid adding some who should not
   be received. With the greatest possible care and prudence we shall
   still make mistakes, And some are thus added whom the Lord never added
   to the Church. You have heard Mr. Hill's story of meeting a man in the
   street one night, who hiccupped up to him and said, "How do you do, Mr.
   Hill? I am one of your converts." "Yes," said Rowland, "I should say
   you are, but you are none of God's, or else you would not be drunk."
   Converts of that sort are far too numerous. Converts of the preacher,
   converts of friends, or converts of a certain fashion of making
   profession--but not true-born children of the Lord.

   Dear Friends, I invite all of you who are thinking about joining the
   Church to search and see whether you are such as the Lord would add to
   a Church. If you are, you have been converted by the Lord. You have
   been wounded by the Lord and you have been healed by the Lord. And in
   the Lord is your righteousness and trust. It has not been man's doing,
   whoever may have been the instrument. The Holy Spirit has worked all
   your works in you. You must have been the subject of a Divine agency.
   Something more than you could do for yourself, or any man could do for
   you, must have been worked in you by the Lord. He who made you has made
   you new. Oh, dear Friends who love the Lord, join in earnest prayer
   that the Lord would add to the Church daily the saved ones, for we long
   for such.

   Then, additions to the Church of a right kind are described in the text
   by the words, "such as should be saved." Only those words are not quite
   a correct translation of the original. I suppose they were borrowed
   from the vulgar Latin-- they are not in the Greek. The translation
   should be either, "The Lord added to the Church daily the saved," or,
   "The Lord added to the Church daily those who were being saved." Saved
   persons were added to the Church--and only such are fit to be added. We
   are not authorized to receive into our number those who desire to be
   saved, as certain Brethren do--I commend their design in so doing, but
   I am sure they have not Scripture for it. Those who are being saved, in
   whom the work of salvation is really begun, are the only proper
   candidates--and these are spoken of in the 44th verse as

   "Believers."

   The proper persons to be added to the visible Church of Christ are
   those who believe to the salvation of their souls. They are they who
   are, from day to day, experiencing the saving power of the name of
   Jesus by being delivered from sin. They are being saved from the
   customs of the world and are being saved in the sense of sanctified
   from the various corruptions and lusts which rule among the sons of
   men. These are the sort of persons who should be added to the Church.
   So let the question go round--Am I saved? Have I believed in Jesus? If
   I have, the process of salvation within me is going on. I am being
   delivered from the reigning, ruling power of sin each day. I am being
   kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation and I shall be
   kept and presented, at last, spotless before the Presence of God with
   exceeding joy! We set the door wide open to all who are saved, however
   little their faith may be.

   The Church has no right to exclude any of the saved because their
   knowledge or experience is not that of advanced Believers. If they
   believe in Jesus and are saved, the babes are of the family and ought
   to be received. The lambs belong to the flock and ought not to be kept
   outside the fold. Church membership is not a certificate of advanced
   Christianity--it is simply the recognition of the profession of saving
   faith in Jesus Christ. May the Lord add to this Church many of the
   saved! And may we sit at the Lord's Table together and sing of
   redeeming Grace and dying love, as those who love the Savior. Come
   here, you who are the Lord's little ones, but stay far from here you
   unbelievers and unregenerate!

   Again the text says, "The Lord added to the Church daily such as should
   be saved." They were really "added" to the Church. I am afraid certain
   persons' names are added to the Church, but they themselves are not!
   They increase our numbers. They are added like figures on a slate, but
   they do not augment our strength. The Church is a vital body and to add
   to a vitalized body requires a Divine operation. The Church is like a
   tree--if you want to add to a tree you cannot take a dead bough and tie
   it on--that is not adding to it, but encumbering it. To add to a tree
   there must be grafting done, which requires skill--and the branch,
   itself alive--must be knit to the living trunk by a living junction so
   that the vital sap of the tree flows into the grafted bough. A true
   Church is a living thing and only living men and women made alive by
   the Spirit of God are fit to be grafted into it--and the grafting must
   be made by the Lord Himself--otherwise it is no true addition to the
   Church of God.

   Some members are only tied on to the Church--they are neither useful
   nor ornamental--as a dead bough fastened to a tree would add no beauty
   to it and would certainly bring forth no fruit. There must be a living
   union, so that the life which is in the Church shall join with the life
   that is in the man--and the one life of the one quickening Spirit shall
   flow through the whole of the body. When I hear professors railing at
   the Churches to which they belong. When I see disunion and disaffection
   among Church members, I can well understand that the Lord never added
   them! And it would be a great mercy to the Church if the Lord would
   take them away. When the Lord adds them, added they are for time and
   for eternity, and they can say to the Church, "Where you dwell I will
   dwell; your people shall be my people, for your God is my God."

   One more point in the text is this, that "the Lord added to the Church
   daily such as should be saved." There were additions to the Church
   every day! Some churches, if they have an addition once in 12 months
   make as much noise over that one as a hen does when she has laid an
   egg! Now, in the early Church they would not have been content with so
   small an increase. They would have gone weeping and mourning all over
   Jerusalem if there had been additions but once in the year. But, cries
   one, "If we have an addition every month, is not that enough?" Well, it
   is enough for some people, but when hearts are warm and full of love to
   Christ, we want Him to be praised from the rising of the sun unto the
   going down of the same--and we long to have added to the Church daily
   of such as are saved--and why not? "But," you reply, "we are not daily
   preaching." That may be, but we ought to be! If not daily in the
   pulpit, there should be the daily preaching of the life, and if all the
   members of the Church were daily teaching of Jesus Christ from house to
   house, a daily sowing would bring a daily reaping!

   If we were daily praying with earnestness, and daily using every effort
   we could by the power of the Holy Spirit-- and if daily the Church
   abode in fellowship with her Master--we should soon see added to it
   daily of those who are saved. "Why do we not see it," asks one, "in
   many Churches?" Why? Because many Churches do not believe in it! If
   there were many converts added to them, they would say, "Yes, we hear
   of a great many additions, but what are they? We hope they will hold
   on," or some such ungenerous remark. If to some Churches there should
   come a large increase, there are Brethren who would not believe it to
   be genuine and would despise the little ones!

   God will not cause His children to be born where there are none to
   nurse them--He will be sure not to send converts to Churches which do
   not want them. He will not have His lambs snarled over as if they were
   so many young wolves, and kept out in the cold by months together to
   see whether they will howl or bleat. He loves to see His people
   watchful for new converts, and watchful over them. The Good Shepherd
   would have us feed His lambs, gather them in from the cold field of the
   world and carry them to some warm sheltered place--and nurture them for
   Him. When He sees a Church ready to do that, then will He send them His
   lambs, but not till then.

   II. That brings me to the second point, which is this--ADDITIONS TO THE
   CHURCH--UNDER WHAT

   CONDITIONS MAY WE EXPECT THEM ON A LARGE SCALE? Turn to the chapter,
   again, and we shall have our answer. We may expect additions to every
   Church of God on a large scale when she has, first of all, a Holy
   Spirit ministry. Peter was, no doubt, a man of considerable natural
   abilities. He was also a warm-hearted, fervent man, just such an one as
   would have power over his fellow men because of the enthusiasm which
   dwelt in himself. But for all this, Peter had never seen 3,000 persons
   converted until he had been baptized with the Holy Spirit! After the
   tongue of fire had sat upon Peter's head, he was another man from what
   he had ever been before!

   If, dear Brothers and Sisters, we are to see large multitudes
   converted, the power of the preacher must lie in his being filled with
   the Holy Spirit. I fear that many Churches would not be content with a
   ministry whose power would lie solely in the Holy Spirit. I mean
   this--that they judge a minister by his elaboration of style, or beauty
   of imagery, or degree of culture. And if he is a man of such refined
   speech that only a select few can understand him--he is a favorite with
   what is considered to be "a respectable Church." Many despise a
   preacher whom the common people hear gladly--who uses great plainness
   of speech and discards the words which man's wisdom teaches. They
   complain that he is only fit to address the ragtag of the people, and
   for this they turn their backs on him. They want not the fire of the
   Spirit, but the flash of oratory! Not the rushing wind of the Holy
   Spirit, but the perfumed zephyrs of "high culture!"

   The jingle of rhetoric has more attraction for them than the certain
   sound of the trumpets of the sanctuary. May God have mercy upon the
   Church that has got into such a miserable state and is so lacking in
   true education--for where a Church is educated by the Lord she
   understands that salvation is not by might nor by power--but by the
   Spirit of God! Plainness of speech is the perfection of Gospel
   utterance, for the Master Himself so spoke. Men of studied elocution,
   who can pile up a climax and cap it with a dainty piece of poetry, are
   not the men whom God the Holy Spirit honors to be soul-winners! Have
   you not heard fine orations which have perfectly charmed you by their
   beauty, and yet after you have heard them you have felt that if the
   Lord did bless such sermons to the conversion of anybody it would be a
   novelty upon the face of the earth, for there was little of Christ in
   them and none of the unction of the Holy One?

   Great sermons are often great sins--and "intellectual treats" are
   frequently a mess of savory pottage made of unclean meats. A Holy
   Spirit ministry, if Peter is the model, is one which is bold, clear,
   telling, persuasive--one which tells men that Jesus is the Christ and
   that they have crucified Him--and calls upon them to repent and turn
   unto the Lord! The truly sent preacher speaks out straight, plain and
   home to the conscience, whether men will hear or whether they will
   forbear. The Holy Spirit minister chooses Jesus for His main theme, as
   Peter did. He did not speak to them about modern science and the ways
   of twisting Scripture into agreement with it. He cared nothing for the
   maundering of the Rabbis or the philosophies of the Greeks. He went
   right on setting forth Christ crucified and Christ risen from the dead!

   When he had preached Christ, he made a pointed personal appeal to his
   hearers, and said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you." He was
   not afraid to give such an exhortation! He was not like some who say,
   "We must warn sinners and then leave them. We may preach Christ to them
   but may not bid them repent." Peter came boldly forth with the Gospel
   exhortation and left it to his Master to send it home by the power of
   the Holy Spirit! That was the sort of sermon which God blesses. The man
   was full of God and God shone through the man and worked with him!
   Remission of sins was sought for and was found through repentance and
   faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by a vast number of souls. May God send
   to all His Churches a Holy Spirit ministry!

   But if there are to be many additions to the Church it must, next, be a
   Holy Spirit Church. Note that! What is a Holy Spirit Church? Well, it
   is a Church baptized into His power and this will be known, first, by
   its being steadfast. Read the 42nd verse--"And they continued
   steadfast." He will not bless a Church which is excited and then
   relapses, is carried away by every novelty and does not know what it
   believes. A Church which abides in Jesus and in His Truth will be

   blessed of God. They were steadfast in four points. In the Apostle's
   doctrine. They were a doctrinal Church. They believed in being
   steadfast in fixed truth--they did not belong to the shifty generation
   of men who plead that their views are progressive and that they cannot
   hold themselves bound by a plain creed.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, never give up the grand old truths of the
   Gospel! Let no excitement, even though it is the whirlwind of a
   revival, ever sweep you off your feet concerning the great Doctrines of
   the Cross. If God does not save men by truth, He certainly will not
   save them by lies! And if the old Gospel is not competent to work a
   revival, then we will do without the revival. We will keep to the old
   Truths of God, anyhow, come what may! Our flag is nailed to the mast!
   Next they were steadfast in fellowship. They loved each other, and they
   continued doing so. They conversed with one another about the things of
   God and they did not give up the converse. They helped each other when
   they were in need and they continued in such liberality. They were true
   Brethren and their fellowship was not broken.

   Next they continued in the breaking of bread, which is a delightful
   ordinance and never to be despised or underestimated. As often as they
   could, they showed Christ's death till He should come. They delighted
   to enjoy the dear memorials of His sacred passion, both in the assembly
   and from house to house. They remained also steadfast in prayer. Mark
   that! God cannot bless a Church which does not pray--and Churches must
   increase in supplication if they would increase in strength. Sacred
   importunity must besiege the Throne of God and then the blessing will
   be yielded. Oh, children of the heavenly King! You hamper the Spirit
   and hinder the blessing if you restrain prayer! Here were four points,
   then, in which the Church was steadfast--and God blessed it.

   Note next that it was a united Church. We read of them that they were
   so united that they had all things in common and they continued daily
   with one accord in the temple. There were no parties among them, no
   petty strifes and divisions. They loved the Lord too well for that. The
   Sacred Dove takes His flight when strife comes in. If you divide the
   Church within itself, you also divide it from the mighty operations of
   the Spirit of God. Be full of love to one another and then you may
   expect that God the Holy Spirit will fill you with blessing. They were
   a generous Church as well as a united Church. They were so generous
   that they threw their property into a common stock lest any should be
   in need. They were not communists, they were Christians--and the
   difference between a communist and a Christian is this--a communist
   says, "All yours is mine," while a Christian says, "All mine is yours."
   And that is a very different thing.

   The one is for getting and the other for giving. These Believers acted
   in such a generous spirit, one to the other, that it seemed as if
   nobody accounted that what he had belonged to himself, but generously
   gave of it to the necessities of others. I do not believe the Lord will
   ever bless a stingy Church. There are Churches whose minister has to
   anxiously inquire how he shall provide food and raiment for his
   household, and yet these churches are not very poor. There are Churches
   where more is paid per annum for cleaning the shoes of the worshippers
   than they spend upon the cause of Christ! And where this is the case,
   no great good will be done. The Lord will never bless a synagogue of
   misers--if they are churls they may keep their worship to themselves,
   for God is a generous God, and He loves to have a generous people.

   Again, these people were in such a condition that their meals and homes
   were holy places. I want you to notice this, that they were breaking
   bread from house to house and did eat their meat with gladness and
   singleness of heart. They did not think that religion was meant only
   for Sundays and for what men, nowadays, call the House of God. Their
   own houses were houses of God, and their own meals were so mixed and
   mingled with the Lord's Supper that to this day the most cautious
   student of the Bible cannot tell when they left off eating their common
   meals and when they began eating the Supper of the Lord. They elevated
   their meals into diets for worship--they so consecrated everything with
   prayer and praise that all around them was holiness unto the Lord! I
   wish our houses were thus dedicated to the Lord, so that we worshipped
   God all the day long, and made our dwellings temples for the living
   God.

   A great dignitary, not long ago, informed us that there is great
   efficacy in daily prayer in the parish Church. He even asserted that
   however few might attend, it was more acceptable than any other
   worship. I suppose that prayer in the parish Church with nobody to join
   in it except the vicar and the beadle is far more effectual than the
   largest family gathering in the house at home! This was evidently his
   lordship's idea and I suppose the literature which his lordship was
   best acquainted with was of such an order as to have led him to draw
   that inference! Had he been acquainted with the Bible and such
   old-fashioned books, he would have learned rather differently. And if
   someone should make him a present of a New Testament, it might,
   perhaps, suggest a few new thoughts to him.

   Does God need a house? He who made the heavens and the earth--does He
   dwell in temples made with hands? What crass ignorance is this! No
   house beneath the sky is more holy than the place where a Christian
   lives, eats, drinks, sleeps and praises the Lord in all that he does!
   And there is no worship more heavenly than that which is presented by
   holy families devoted to His fear. To sacrifice home worship for public
   worship is a most evil course of action! Morning and evening devotion
   in a cottage is infinitely more pleasing in the sight of God than all
   the cathedral pomp which delights the carnal eye and ear! Every truly
   Christian household is a Church--and as such it is competent for the
   discharge of any function of Divine worship, whatever it may be! Are we
   not all priests? Why do we need to call in others to make devotion a
   performance? Let every man be a priest in his own house! Are you not
   all kings if you love the Lord? Then make your houses palaces of joy
   and temples of holiness! One reason why the early Church had such a
   blessing was because her members had such homes. When we are like them
   we shall have "added to the Church daily of the saved."

   I have already mentioned that they were a praying Church and that
   accounted greatly for the increase. They were a devout Church, a Church
   which did not forget any part of the Lord's will. They were a baptized
   Church and they were a bread-breaking Church, so that they were
   obedient to Christ in both ordinances. They were also a joyful Church.
   We find that they ate their meat with gladness. Their religion was not
   of the somber hue which comes of doubting and fearing. They were
   Believers in a risen Redeemer and though they knew that they would soon
   be persecuted, they so rejoiced that everybody could read Heaven
   shining on their faces, and might have known that they believed in the
   blessed Gospel, for they were a blessed people. They were also a
   praising Church, for it is said they "praised God, and they had favor
   with all the people." Oh, may the Lord make this Church and all the
   Churches around us to be as holy and joyful as that Apostolic
   community.

   III. I must conclude with a word upon that which I wanted most of all
   to say--WHAT RESPONSIBILITIES DO

   THESE ADDITIONS TO THE CHURCH BRING TO US? To you who are to be added
   to the Church tonight, and I

   thank God you are so many, it involves this responsibility--Do not come
   in among us unless you are saved. Judge yourselves with honesty.
   Examine yourselves with care. And although you have gone as far as you
   have, yet tonight, before I give you the right hand of fellowship, if
   you are conscious that you are not what you profess to be, I do beseech
   you stand back! If you are the weakest of the weak, and the most feeble
   of the feeble, yet, if you are sincere, come and welcome! But if you
   are not sincere, do not add to your sin by taking upon you a profession
   which you cannot keep up, and by declaring a falsehood before the
   Lord--for if you do so, remember you will not have lied unto man, but
   unto God, Himself--in daring to declare yourselves Christians while you
   are unbelievers.

   Come and welcome if you are Believers! And when you come, remember that
   the responsibility which you undertake in God's strength is that you
   live to prove that you have really given yourself up to the
   Church--that you mean to serve Christ with all your heart--that you
   will seek to promote the holiness and unity of the Church which you
   join and will strive to do nothing to dishonor her good name or to
   grieve the Spirit of God. In joining the Church, pray to be continued
   steadfast in doctrine and fellowship. Pray for more Divine Grace, that
   you may be filled with the Spirit of God. Do not come in to weaken
   us--we are weak enough, already. Do not come in to adulterate our
   purity--we have enough impurity even now. Pray that God may make you a
   real increase to our prayerfulness, to our holiness, to our
   earnestness, to our higher life--and then come and welcome, and the
   Lord be with you!

   As for us who shall receive the converts, what is our responsibility?
   First, to welcome them heartily. Let us open wide the door of our
   hearts and say, "Come and welcome," for Jesus Christ's sake. After
   welcoming them we must watch over them. And when so many are added,
   double care is needed. Of course, no two pastors can possibly watch
   over this vast assembly of 4,500 professed Believers. Let the watching
   be done by all the members--by the officers of the Church, first--and
   then by every individual. I am very thankful that out of the cheering
   number to be brought in tonight the larger proportion belong to the
   families of the Church. My Brothers and Sisters already in Christ, it
   is fortunate for these young people that they have you to watch over
   them! Never let it be said that any parent discourages his child, that
   any guardian discourages the young after they have come forward and
   acknowledged their faith!

   If you notice faults, remember you have faults, yourselves. Do not
   tauntingly throw their failing in their teeth as some have unkindly
   done. Guide them and cheer them on. Help their weakness. Bear with
   their ignorance, impetuosity and correct their mistakes. I charge you,
   my beloved Sisters, be nursing mothers in the Church! And you, my
   Brothers, be fathers to these young people that they may be enabled by
   your help, through God's Spirit, to hold on their way. It is an

   evil thing to receive members and never care for them afterwards. Among
   so many some must escape our supervision, but if all the members of the
   Church were watchful this would not be. Each would have someone to care
   for him. Each one would have a friend to whom to tell his troubles and
   his cares. Watch over the Church, then, I pray you.

   And you elder ones, myself chiefly among you, let our example be such
   as they can safely follow. Let them not come into the Church to find us
   cold. Let us try, as we see these young ones coming among us, to grow
   young again in heart and sympathy. In receiving these new members we
   ought to have, dear Brothers, an access of new strength and a more
   vigorous life. The Church ought to be giving out more light, for here
   are fresh lamps! She should be doing more for Christ--here are new
   workers! She should be herself stronger, more daring, more useful--for
   here are bold soldiers newly enlisted! I think, as I see new converts
   brought in, I see the Lord lighting up new stars to gladden this
   world's night! I see Him swearing in new soldiers to fight Christ's
   battles! I see Him sending out new sowers to sow the plains of the
   world for the ever-glorious harvest--and I bless and praise and magnify
   His name with gladness of soul!

   Heavenly Father, keep them, yes, keep us all, lest any of us, though
   added to the Church on earth, should not be added to the Church in
   Heaven! Keep us so that when the muster-roll is read for the last time,
   we who have had our names inscribed among the saints on earth may find
   them written among the blessed in Heaven! May God grant it, and He
   shall have all the glory. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Acts 2. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--96, 451, 972.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Crown of Thorns

   (No. 1168)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 12, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His
   head." Matthew 27:29.

   BEFORE we enter the common hall of the soldiers and gaze upon "the
   sacred head once wounded," it will be well to consider who and what He
   was who was thus cruelly put to shame. Forget not the intrinsic
   excellence of His Person, for He is the brightness of the Father's
   Glory and the express image of His Person. He is in Himself God over
   all, blessed forever, the eternal Word by whom all things were made and
   by whom all things consist. Though Heir of all things, the Prince of
   the kings of the earth, He was despised and rejected of men, "a Man of
   sorrows and acquainted with grief." His head was scornfully surrounded
   with thorns for a crown. His body was bedecked with a faded purple
   robe. A poor reed was put into His hand for a scepter, and then the
   ribald soldiers dared to spit upon His face, and worry Him with their
   filthy jests--

   "The soldiers also spit upon that face Which angels did desire to have
   the grace, And Prophets once to see, but found no place. Was ever grief
   like Mine?"

   Forget not the glory to which He had been accustomed, for before He
   came to earth He had been in the bosom of the Father, adored of
   cherubim and seraphim, obeyed by every angel, worshipped by every
   principality and power in the heavenly places! Yet here He sits,
   treated worse than a felon, made the center of a comedy before He
   became the victim of a tragedy. They sat Him down in some broken chair,
   covered Him with an old soldier's cloak, and then insulted Him as a
   mimic monarch--

   "They bow their knees to Me, and cry, Hail king. Whatever scoffs and
   scornfulness can bring, I am the floor, the sink, where they'd fling.
   Was ever grief like Mine?"

   What a descent His love to us compelled Him to make! See how He fell to
   lift us from our Fall! Do not, also, fail to remember that at the very
   time when they were thus mocking Him, He was still the Lord of All and
   could have summoned 12 legions of angels to His rescue. There was
   majesty in His misery! He had laid aside, it is true, the glorious
   imperial pomp of His Father's courts, and He was now the lowly Man of
   Nazareth, but for all that, had He willed it, one glance of those eyes
   would have withered up the Roman cohorts. One word from those silent
   lips would have shaken Pilate's palace from roof to foundation--and had
   He willed it--the vacillating governor and the malicious crowd would,
   together, have gone down alive into the pit, even as Korah, Dathan, and
   Abiram of old!

   Lo, God's own Son, Heaven's Darling and earth's Prince, sits there and
   wears the cruel chaplet which wounds both mind and body at once--the
   mind with insult, and the body with piercing pain! His royal face was
   marred with "wounds which could not cease to bleed, trickling faint and
   slow." Yet that "noblest brow and dearest head" had once been fairer
   than the children of men and was even, then, the countenance of
   Immanuel, God with us! Remember these things and you will gaze upon Him
   with enlightened eyes and tender hearts--and you will be able, the more
   fully, to enter into fellowship with Him in His griefs. Remember from
   where He came and it will the more astound you that He should have
   stooped so low! Remember what He was and it will be the more marvelous
   that He should become our Substitute.

   And now let us press into the guard room and look at our Savior wearing
   His crown of thorns. I will not detain you long with any guesses as to
   what kind of thorns He wore. According to the Rabbis and the botanists,
   there would seem to have been from 20 to 25 different species of thorny
   plants growing in Palestine. And different writers have, according to
   their own judgments or fancies, selected one and another of these
   plants as the peculiar thorns which were used upon this

   occasion. But why select one thorn out of many? He bore not one grief,
   but all--any and every thorn will suffice. The very dubiousness as to
   the peculiar species yields us instruction.

   It may well be that more than one kind of thorn was platted in that
   crown--at any rate sin has so thickly strewn the earth with thorns and
   thistles that there was no difficulty in finding the materials, even as
   there was no scarcity of griefs with which to chasten Him every morning
   and make Him a mourner all His days. The soldiers may have used pliant
   boughs of the acacia, or shittim tree--that unrotting wood of which
   many of the sacred tables and vessels of the sanctuary were made--and,
   therefore, significantly used if such were the case. It may have been
   true, as the old writers generally consider, that the plant was the
   spina Christi, for it has many small and sharp spines. And its green
   leaves would have made a wreath such as those with which generals and
   emperors were crowned after a battle.

   But we will leave the matter. It was a crown of thorns which pierced
   His head and caused Him suffering as well as shame--and that suffices
   us. Our inquiry, now, is--what do we see when our eyes behold Jesus
   Christ crowned with thorns? There are six things which strike me most.
   And as I lift the curtain I pray you watch with me and may the Holy
   Spirit pour forth His Divine illumination and light up the scene before
   our wondering souls.

   I. The first thing which is seen by the most casual observer, before he
   looks beneath the surface, is A SORROWFUL SPECTACLE. Here is the
   Christ, the generous, loving, tender Christ, treated with indignity and
   scorn! Here is the Prince of Life and Glory made an object of derision
   by ribald soldiers! Behold, today, the lily among thorns, Purity,
   itself, in the midst of opposing sin! See here the Sacrifice caught in
   the thicket, and held fast there, as a victim in our place to fulfill
   the ancient type of the ram held by the bushes which Abraham slew
   instead of Isaac!

   Three things are to be carefully noted in this spectacle of sorrow.
   Here is Christ's lowliness and weakness triumphed over by the lusty
   soldiers. When they brought Jesus into the guard room they felt that He
   was entirely in their power and that His claims to be a king were so
   absurd as to be only a theme for contemptuous jest. He was but meanly
   dressed, for He wore only the smock frock of a peasant--was He a
   claimant of the purple? He held His peace--was He the man to stir a
   nation to sedition? He was all wounds and bruises, fresh from the
   scourger's lash--was He the hero to inspire an army's enthusiasm and
   overturn old Rome?

   It seemed rare mirth for them and as wild beasts sport with their
   victims, so did they. Many, I warrant you, were the jibes and jeers of
   the Roman soldiers at His expense, and loud was the laughter amid their
   ranks. Look at His face, how meek He appears! How different from the
   haughty countenances of tyrants! To mock His royal claims seemed but
   natural to rough soldiers. He was gentle as a child, tender as a woman!
   His dignity was that of calm quiet endurance--and this was not a
   dignity whose force these semi-barbarous men could feel and, therefore
   they did pour contempt upon Him. Let us remember that our Lord's
   weakness was undertaken for our sakes--for us He became a lamb--for us
   He laid aside His Glory. And therefore it is the more painful for us to
   see that this voluntary humiliation of Himself must be made the object
   of so much derision and scorn, though worthy of the utmost praise.

   He stoops to save us and we laugh at Him as He stoops! He leaves the
   Truth of God that He may lift us up to it, but while He is graciously
   descending, the hoarse laughter of an ungodly world is His only reward!
   Ah, me, was ever love treated after so unlovely a sort? Surely the
   cruelty it received was proportioned to the honor it deserved, so
   perverse are the sons of men--

   "O head so full of bruises! Brow that its lifeblood loses! Oh great
   humility. Upon His face are falling Indignities most galling! He bears
   them all for me."

   It was not merely that they mocked His humility, but they mocked His
   claims to be a king. "Aha," they seemed to say, "is this a king? It
   must be after some uncouth Jewish fashion, surely, that this poor
   Peasant claims to wear a crown. Is this the Son of David? When will He
   drive Caesar and his armies into the sea and set up a new state, and
   reign at Rome? This Jew, this Peasant--is He to fulfill His nation's
   dream and rule over all mankind?

   Wonderfully did they ridicule this idea and we do not wonder that they
   did, for they could not perceive His true Glory. But, Beloved, my point
   lies here, He was a King in the truest and most emphatic sense. If He
   had not been a king, then He would, as an impostor, have deserved the
   scorn, but would not have keenly felt it. But being truly and really a

   King, every word must have stung His royal soul and every syllable must
   have cut His kingly spirit to the quick. When the impostor's claims are
   exposed and held up to scorn, he himself must well know that he
   deserves all the contempt he receives--and what can he say? But if the
   real Heir to all the estates of Heaven and earth has His claims denied
   and His Person mocked--then is His heart wounded and rebuke and
   reproach fill Him with many sorrows.

   Is it not sad that the Son of God, the blessed and only Potentate,
   should have been thus disgraced? Nor was it merely mockery, but cruelty
   added pain to insult. If they had only intended to mock Him, they might
   have platted a crown of straw. But they meant to hurt Him and,
   therefore, they fashioned a crown of thorns. Look, I pray you, at His
   Person as He suffers under their hands! They had scourged Him till
   probably there was no part of His body which was not bleeding beneath
   their blows--except His head--and now that head must be made to suffer,
   too.

   Alas, our whole head was sick and our whole heart faint--and so He must
   be made, in His chastisement, like unto us in our transgression. There
   was no part of our humanity without sin--and there must be no part of
   His humanity without suffering. If we had escaped, in some measure,
   from iniquity, so might He have escaped from pain. But as we had worn
   the foul garment of transgression and it covered us from head to foot,
   even so must He wear the garments of shame and derision from the crown
   of His head, even to the sole of His feet--

   "OLove, too boundless to be shown

   By any but the Lord alone!

   O Love offended, which sustains

   The bold offender's curse andpains!

   O Love, which could no motive have,

   But mere benignity to save."

   Beloved, I always feel as if my tongue were tied when I come to talk of
   the sufferings of my Master. I can think of them. I can picture them to
   myself. I can sit down and weep over them, but I know not how to paint
   them to others! Did you ever know pen or pencil that could? A
   Michelangelo or a Raphael might well shrink back from attempting to
   paint this picture! And the tongue of an archangel might be consumed in
   the effort to sing the griefs of Him who was loaded with shame because
   of our shameful transgressions.

   I ask you rather to meditate than to listen--and to sit down and view
   your Lord with your own loving eyes rather than to have regard words of
   mine. I can only sketch the picture, roughly outlining it as with
   charcoal. I must leave you to put in the colors and then to sit and
   study it--but you will fail as I do. Dive as we may, we cannot reach
   the depths of this abyss of woe and shame! Climb as we may, these
   storm-swept hills of agony are still above us.

   II. Removing the curtain, again, from this sorrowful spectacle, I see
   here a SOLEMN WARNING which speaks softly and meltingly to us out of
   the spectacle of sorrow. Do you ask me what is that warning? It is a
   warning against our ever committing the same crime as the soldiers did.
   "The same?" you ask, "why, we should never plat a crown of thorns for
   that dear head." I pray you never may. But there are many who have done
   so and are doing it! Those are guilty of this crime who, as these
   soldiers did, deny His claims. Busy are the wise men of this world at
   this very time all over the world--busy in gathering thorns and
   twisting them--that they may afflict the Lord's Anointed. Some of them
   cry, "Yes, He was a good Man, but not the Son of God!"

   Others even deny His superlative excellence in life and teaching. They
   quibble at His perfection and imagine flaws where none exist. Never are
   they happier than when impugning His Character. I may be addressing
   some avowed infidel here, some skeptic as to the Redeemer's Person and
   Doctrine--and I charge him with crowning the Christ of God with thorns
   every time he invents bitter charges against the Lord Jesus and utters
   railing words against His cause and His people! Your denial of His
   claims, and especially your ridicule of them, is a repetition of the
   unhappy scene before us. There are some who ply all their wit and tax
   their utmost skill for nothing else but to discover discrepancies in
   the Gospel narratives, or to conjure up differences between their
   supposed scientific discoveries and the declarations of the Word of
   God. Full often have they torn their own hands in weaving crowns of
   thorns for Him and I fear, as the result of their displays of
   scientific research after briers with which to afflict the Lover of
   mankind, some of them will have to lie upon a bed of thorns when they
   come to die.

   It will be well if they have not to lie on worse than thorns forever
   when Christ shall come to judge them and condemn them and cast them
   into the Lake of Fire for all their impieties concerning Him. Oh, that
   they would cease this useless and malicious trade of weaving crowns of
   thorns for Him who is the world's only hope, whose religion is the lone
   star

   that gilds the midnight of human sorrow and guides mortal man to the
   port of peace! Even for the temporal benefits of Christianity the good
   Jesus should be treated with respect. He has emancipated the slave and
   uplifted the downtrodden! His Gospel is the charter of liberty, the
   scourge of tyrants and the death of priests! Spread it and you spread
   peace, freedom, order, love and joy! He is the greatest of
   philanthropists, the truest Friend of man--why, then, array yourselves
   against Him--you who talk of progress and enlightenment? If men did but
   know Him, they would crown Him with diadems of reverent love more
   precious than the pearls of India, for His reign will usher in the
   golden age. Even now it softens the rigor of the present, as it has
   removed the miseries of the past. It is an ill business, this carping
   and quibbling, and I beseech those engaged in it to cease their
   ungenerous labors, unworthy of rational beings and destructive to their
   immortal souls!

   This crowning with thorns is worked in another fashion by hypocritical
   professions of allegiance to Him. These soldiers put a crown on
   Christ's head, but they did not mean that He should be king. They put a
   scepter in His hand, but it was not the substantial ivory rod which
   signifies real power--it was only a weak and slender reed. Therein they
   remind us that Christ is mocked by insincere professors. O you who love
   Him not in your inmost souls, you are those who mock Him! But you say,
   "Wherein have I failed to crown Him? Did I not join the Church? Have I
   not said that I am a Believer?" On, but if your hearts are not right
   within you, you have only crowned Him with thorns! If you have not
   given Him your very soul, you have, in awful mockery, thrust a scepter
   of reed into His hand! Your very religion mocks Him! Your lying
   professions mock Him!

   Who has required this at your hands, to tread His courts? You insult
   Him at His table! You insult Him on your knees! How can you say you
   love Him, when your hearts are not with Him? If you have never believed
   in Him and repented of sin. If you have never yielded obedience to His
   commands. If you do not acknowledge Him in your daily life to be both
   Lord and King, I charge you, lay down the profession which is so
   dishonoring to Him! If He is God, serve Him! If He is King, obey Him!
   If He is neither, then do not profess to be Christians! Be honest and
   bring no crown if you do not accept Him as King! What need, again, to
   insult Him with nominal dominion, mimic homage and pretended service? O
   you hypocrites! Consider your ways, lest soon the Lord whom you provoke
   should ease Him of His adversaries!

   In a measure the same thing may be done by those who are sincere, but
   through lack of watchfulness walk so as to dishonor their profession.
   Here, if I speak rightly, I shall compel every one of you to confess it
   in your spirits that you stand condemned--for every time that we act
   according to our sinful flesh we crown the Savior's head with thorns.
   Which of us has not done this? Dear Head, every hair of which is more
   precious than fine gold, when we gave our hearts to You we thought we
   should always adore You! We thought that our whole lives would be one
   long Psalm, praising and blessing and crowning You!

   Alas, how far have we fallen short of our own ideals? We have hedged
   You about with the briers of our sin. We have been betrayed into angry
   tempers so that we have spoken unadvisedly with our lips. Or we have
   been worldly and loved that which You abhor, or we have yielded to our
   passions and indulged our evil desires. Our vanities, follies,
   forgetfulness, omissions and offenses have set upon Your head a coronet
   of dishonor--and we tremble to think of it! Oh, cruel hearts and hands
   to have so maltreated the Well-Beloved, whom it should have been our
   daily care to glorify!

   Do I speak to any backslider whose open sin has dishonored the Cross of
   Christ? I fear I must be addressing some who once had a name to live,
   but now are numbered with the dead in sin! Surely if there is a spark
   of Divine Grace in you, what I am now saying must cut you to the quick
   and act like salt upon a raw wound to make your very soul to smart! Do
   not your ears tingle as I accuse you of deliberate acts of
   inconsistency which have twisted a thorny crown for our dear Master's
   head? It is assuredly so, for you have opened the mouths of
   blasphemers, taught gainsayers to revile Him, grieved the generation of
   His people and made many to stumble1 Ungodly men have laid your faults
   at the door of the innocent Savior--they have said--"This is Your
   religion."

   You have grown the thorns, but He has had to wear them! We call your
   offenses inconsistencies, but worldly men regard them as the fruit of
   Christianity and condemn the Vine because of our sour clusters! They
   charge the holy Jesus with the faults of His erring followers. Dear
   Friends, is there not room to look at home in the case of each one of
   us? As we do so, let us come with the sorrowful and loving penitent and
   wash His dear feet with tears of repentance because we have crowned His
   head with thorns. Thus our thorn-crowned Lord and Master stands before
   us as a sorrowful spectacle, conveying to us a solemn warning.

   III. Lifting the veil again, in the Person of our tortured and insulted
   Lord we see TRIUMPHANT ENDURANCE. He could not be conquered! He was
   victorious even in the hour of deepest shame--

   "He with unflinching heart Bore all disgrace and shame, And mid the
   keenest smart Loved on, yes loved the same."

   He was bearing at that moment, first, the substitutionary griefs which
   were due to Him because He stood in our place and from bearing them He
   did not turn aside. We were sinners and the reward of sin is pain and
   death--therefore He bore the chastisement of our peace.

   He was enduring, at that time, what we ought to have endured--and He
   was draining the cup which Justice had mingled for us. Did He start
   back from it? Oh, no! When He first came to drink of that wormwood and
   gall in the Garden, He put it to His lips and the draught seemed, for
   an instant, to stagger even His strong spirit. His soul was exceedingly
   sorrowful, even unto death. He was like one demented, tossed to and fro
   with inward agony. "My Father," He said, "if it is possible, let this
   cup pass from Me." Three times did He utter that prayer, while every
   portion of His Manhood was the battlefield of legions of griefs! His
   soul rushed out at every pore to find a vent for its swelling woes! His
   whole body became covered with gory sweat.

   After that tremendous struggle, the strength of Love mastered the
   weakness of Manhood--He put that cup to His lips and never shrank--He
   drank right on till not a drop was left! And now the cup of wrath is
   empty--no trace of the terrible wine of the wrath of God can be found
   within it! At one tremendous draught of love the Lord drank destruction
   dry, forever, for all His people. "Who is he that condemns? It is
   Christ that died, yes, rather, that has risen again." And "there is
   therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who
   walk not after the flesh but after the

   Spirit."

   Now, surely, endurance had reached a very high point when our Master
   was made to endure the painful mockery which our text describes, yet He
   quailed not, nor removed from His settled purpose. He had undertaken
   and He would go through with it. Look at Him and see, there, a miracle
   of patient endurance of griefs which would have sent a world to Hell
   had He not borne them on our behalf! Besides the shame and suffering
   due for sin, with which it pleased the Father to bruise Him, He was
   enduring a superfluity of malice from the hate of men. Why did men need
   to concentrate all their scorn and cruelty into His execution? Was it
   not enough that He must die? Did it give pleasure to their iron hearts
   to rack His tender sensibilities? Why these inventions for deepening
   his woe?

   Had any of us been thus derided we should have resented it. There is
   not a man or woman here who could have been silent under such
   indignities! But Jesus sat in Omnipotence of patience possessing His
   soul right royally. Glorious Pattern of patience, we adore You as we
   see how malice could not conquer Your almighty love! The pain which He
   had endured from the scourges caused Him to throb with exquisite
   anguish--but we read neither of tears nor groans--much less of angry
   complaints or revengeful threats. He does not seek pity, or make one
   appeal for leniency. He does not ask why they torture or why they mock.
   Brave Witness! Courageous Martyr! Suffering exquisitely, You also
   suffered calmly! Such a perfect frame as His--His body being conceived
   without sin--He must have been capable of tortures which our bodies,
   corrupted by sin, cannot feel.

   His delicate purity felt a horror of ribald jests which our more
   hardened spirits cannot estimate! Yet Jesus bore all as only the Son of
   God could bear it. They might heap on the load as they would--He would
   only put forth more endurance and bear it all-- He would not shrink or
   complain. I venture to suggest that such was the picture of patience
   which our blessed Lord exhibited that it may have moved even some of
   the soldiers, themselves. Has it ever occurred to you to ask how
   Matthew came to know all about that mockery? Matthew was not there!
   Mark, also, gives an account of it, but he would not have been
   tolerated in the guard room. The Praetorians were far too proud and
   rough to tolerate Jews, much less disciples of Jesus, in their common
   hall.

   Since there could have been nobody there except the soldiers
   themselves, it is well to inquire--Who told this tale? It must have
   been an eyewitness. May it not have been that centurion who in the same
   chapter is reported to have said, "Certainly this was the Son of God"?
   May not that scene, as well as the Lord's death, have led him to that
   conclusion? We do not know, but this much is very evident--the story
   must have been told by an eyewitness, and also by one who sympathized
   with the Sufferer--for to my ears it does not read like the description
   of an unconcerned spectator. I should

   not wonder--I would almost venture to assert--that our Lord's marred,
   but patient visage, preached such a sermon that one, at least, who
   gazed upon it felt its mysterious power!

   Certainly at least one felt that such patience was more than human--and
   accepted the thorn-crowned Savior as his Lord and his King! This I do
   know, that if you and I want to conquer human hearts for Jesus, we,
   too, must be patient. And if, when they ridicule and persecute us, we
   can but endure without repining or retaliation, we shall exercise an
   influence which even the most brutal will feel--and to which chosen
   minds will submit themselves.

   IV. Drawing up the veil again, I think we have before us, in the fourth
   place, in the Person of the triumphant Sufferer, a SACRED MEDICINE. I
   can only hint at the diseases which it will cure. These blood-sprinkled
   thorns are plants of renown, precious in heavenly surgery if they are
   rightly used. Take but a thorn out of this crown and use it as a
   lancet, and it will let out the hot blood of passion and abate the
   fever of pride! It is a wonderful remedy for swelling flesh and
   grievous boils of sin. He who sees Jesus crowned with thorns will
   loathe to look on self, except it be through tears of contrition. This
   thorn at the breast will make men sing, but not with notes of
   self-congratulation--the notes will be those of a dove moaning for her
   mate.

   Gideon taught the men of Buccoth with thorns, but the lessons were not
   so salutary as those which we learn from the thorns of Jesus. The
   sacred medicine which the good Physician brings to us in His thorny
   crown acts as a tonic and strengthens us to endure, without depression,
   whatever shame or loss His service may bring upon us--

   "Who defeats my fiercest foes? Who consoles my saddest woes? Who
   revives my fainting heart, Healing all its hidden smart? Jesus crowned
   with thorns."

   When you begin to serve God and for His sake endeavor to benefit your
   fellow mortals, do not expect any reward from men, except to be
   misunderstood, suspected and abused. The best men in the world are
   usually the worst spoken of. An evil world cannot speak well of holy
   lives. The sweetest fruit is most pecked at by the birds. The mountain
   nearest Heaven is most beaten by the storms--and the loveliest
   character is the most assailed. Those whom you would save will not
   thank you for your anxiety, but blame you for your interference.

   If you rebuke their sins they will frequently resent your warnings. If
   you invite them to Jesus, they will make light of your entreaties. Are
   you prepared for this? If not, consider Him who endured such
   contradiction of sinners against Himself lest you become weary and
   faint in your minds. If you succeed in bringing many to Christ, you
   must not reckon upon universal honor--you will be charged with
   self-seeking, popularity-hunting, or some such crime--you will be
   misrepresented, belied, caricatured and counted as a fool or a knave by
   the ungodly world. The probabilities are that the crown you will win in
   this world, if you serve God, will contain more spikes than sapphires,
   more briers than beryls! When it is put upon your head, pray for Divine
   Grace to wear it right gladly, counting it all joy to be like your
   Lord.

   Say in your heart, "I feel no dishonor in this dishonor. Men may impute
   shameful things to me, but I am not ashamed. They may degrade me, but I
   am not degraded. They may cast contempt upon me, but I am not
   contemptible." The Master of the house was called Beelzebub and spit
   upon--they cannot do worse to His household--therefore we scorn their
   scorn! Thus are we nerved to patience by the patience of the despised
   Nazarene. The thorn crown is also a remedy for discontent and
   affliction. When enduring bodily pain we are apt to wince and fret, but
   if we remember Jesus crowned with thorns, we say--

   "His way was much rougher and darker than mine. Did Christ my Lord
   suffer, and shall I repine?" And so our complaints grow dumb--for very
   shame we dare not compare our maladies with His woes! Resignation is
   learned at Jesus' feet when we see our great Exemplar made perfect
   through suffering. The thorn crown is a cure for care. We would
   cheerfully wear any array which our Lord may prepare for us, but it is
   a great folly to plat needless thorn crowns for ourselves. Yet I have
   seen some who are, I hope, true Believers, take much trouble to trouble
   themselves and labor to increase their own labors.

   They hasten to be rich--they fret, they toil, they worry and torment
   themselves to load themselves with the burden of wealth--they wound
   themselves to wear the thorny crown of worldly greatness! Many are the
   ways of making rods for our own backs. I have known mothers make thorn
   crowns out of their children whom they could not trust with God--

   they have been worn with family anxieties when they might have rejoiced
   in God. I have known others make thorn crowns out of silly fears for
   which there were no grounds, whatever--but they seemed ambitious to be
   fretful, eager to prick themselves with briers. O Believer, say to
   yourself, "My Lord wore my crown of thorns for me! Why should I wear

   it, too?"

   He took our griefs and carried our sorrows that we might be a happy
   people and be able to obey the command, "Take no thought for tomorrow,
   for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself." Ours is the
   crown of lovingkindness and tender mercies--and we wear it when we cast
   all our cares on Him who cares for us. That thorn crown cures us of
   desire for the vainglories of the world! It dims all human pomp and
   glory till it turns to smoke! Could we fetch, here, the Pope's triple
   crown, or the imperial diadem of Germany, or the regalia of the Czar of
   All the Russias--none of them can compare with Jesus' crown of thorns!
   Let us set some great one on his throne and see how little he looks
   when Jesus sits beside him! What is there kingly in being able to tax
   men and live upon their labors, giving little in return? The most royal
   thing is to lay them all under obligations to our disinterested love
   and be the fountain of blessing to them.

   Oh, it takes the glitter from your gold, the luster from your gems and
   the beauty from all your dainty gewgaws to see that no imperial purple
   can equal the glory of His blood--no gems can rival His thorns! Show
   and parade cease to attract the soul when once the superlative
   excellencies of the dying Savior have been discerned by the enlightened
   eyes! Who seeks for ease when he has seen the Lord Christ? If Christ
   wears a crown of thorns, shall we covet a crown of laurel? Even the
   fierce Crusader, when he entered into Jerusalem and was elected king,
   had sense enough to say, "I will not wear a crown of gold in the same
   city where my Savior wore a crown of thorns."

   Why should we desire, like feather-bed soldiers, to have everything
   arranged for our ease and pleasure? Why this reclining upon couches
   when Jesus hangs on the Cross? Why this soft raiment when He is naked?
   Why these luxuries when He is treated barbarously? Thus the crown of
   thorns cures us, at once, of the vainglory of the world and of our own
   selfish love of ease. The world's minstrel may cry, "Ho, boy, come here
   and crown me with rose buds!" But the pleasure seeker's request is not
   for us. For us neither delights of the flesh nor the pride of life can
   have charms while the Man of Sorrows is in view. For us it remains to
   suffer and to labor till the King shall bid us share His rest.

   V. I must notice, in the fifth place, that there is before us a MYSTIC
   CORONATION. Bear with my many divisions. The coronation of Christ with
   thorns was symbolical and had great meaning in it, for, first, it was
   to Him a triumphal crown. Christ had fought with sin from the day when
   He first stood foot to foot with it in the wilderness, up to the time
   when He entered Pilate's Hall--and He had conquered it. As a witness
   that He had gained the victory, behold sin's crown seized as a trophy!
   What was the crown of sin? Thorns. These sprang from the curse.
   "Thorns, also, and thistles shall it bring forth to you," was the
   coronation of sin--and now Christ has taken away its crown and put it
   on His own head.

   He has spoiled sin of its richest regalia and He wears it Himself.
   Glorious Champion, all hail! What if I say that the thorns constituted
   a mural crown? Paradise was set round with a hedge of thorns so sharp
   that none could enter it, but our Champion leaped, first, upon the
   bristling rampart and bore the blood-red banner of His Cross into the
   heart of that better new Eden which He won for us--never to be lost
   again. Jesus wears the mural chaplet which denotes that He has opened
   Paradise. It was a wrestler's crown He wore, for He wrestled not with
   flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and He overthrew
   His foe. It was a racer's crown He wore, for He had run with the mighty
   and outstripped them in the race. He had well-near finished His course
   and had but a step or two more to take to reach the goal. Here is a
   marvelous field for enlargement--and we must stop at once lest we go
   too far! It was a crown rich with glory despite the shame which was
   intended by it.

   We see in Jesus the Monarch of the realms of misery, the Chief among
   ten thousand sufferers. Never say, "I am a great sufferer." What are
   our griefs compared with His? As the poet stood upon the Palatine Mount
   and thought of Rome's dire ruin, he exclaimed, "What are our woes and
   sufferings?" Even so I ask, What are our shallow griefs compared with
   the infinite sorrows of Immanuel? Well may we "control in our close
   breasts our petty misery." Jesus is, moreover, the Prince of Martyrs.
   He leads the van among the noble army of suffering witnesses and
   confessors of the Truth of God. Though they died at the stake, or pined
   in dungeons, or were cast to wild beasts--none of them claim the first
   rank-- He, the faithful and the true Witness with the thorn crown and
   the Cross, stands at the head of them all!

   It may never be our lot to join the august band, but if there is an
   honor for which we might legitimately envy saints of former times, it
   is this--that they were born in those brave days when the ruby crown
   was within human grasp--and when the supreme sacrifice might have been
   made! We are cowards, indeed, if in these softer days we are ashamed to
   confess our Master and are afraid of a little scorn, or tremble at the
   criticisms of the would-be wise. Rather let us follow the Lamb where
   ever He goes, content to wear His crown of thorns that we may, in His
   kingdom, behold His Glory!

   VI. The last word is this. In the thorn crown I see a MIGHTY STIMULUS.
   A mighty stimulus to what? Why, first, to fervent love of Him. Can you
   see Him crowned with thorns and not be drawn to Him? I think if He
   could come among us this morning and we could see Him, there would be a
   loving press around Him to touch the hem of His garment or to kiss His
   feet. Savior, You are very precious to us! Dearest of all the names
   above, my Savior and my God, You are always glorious, but in these eyes
   You are never more lovely than when arrayed in shameful mockery. The
   Lily of the Valley and the Rose of Sharon--both in one is He, fair in
   the perfection of His Character--and blood-red in the greatness of His
   sufferings. Worship Him! Adore Him! Bless Him! And let your voices
   sing, "Worthy the Lamb."

   This sight is a stimulus, next, to repentance. Did our sins put thorns
   around His head? Oh, my poor fallen Nature, I will scourge you for
   scourging Him and make you feel the thorns for causing Him to endure
   them! What? Can you see your Master put to such shame and yet hold
   truce or parley with the sins which pierced Him? It cannot be! Let us
   declare before God our soul's keen grief that we should make the Savior
   suffer so! Then let us pray for Grace to hedge our lives around with
   thorns that from this very day sin may not approach us.

   I thought, this day, of how often I have seen the blackthorn growing in
   the hedge all bristling with a thousand prickles, but right in the
   center of the bush have I seen the pretty nest of a little bird. Why
   did the creature place its habitation there? Because the thorns become
   a protection to it and shelter it from harm. As I meditated, last
   night, upon this blessed subject, I thought I would bid you build your
   nests within the thorns of Christ. It is a safe place for sinners!
   Neither Satan, sin, nor Death can reach you there. Gaze on your
   Savior's sufferings and you will see sin atoned for. Fly into His
   wounds! Fly, you timid, trembling Doves! There is no resting place so
   safe for you! Build your nests, I say again, among these thorns, and
   when you have done so, and trusted Jesus, and counted Him to be All in
   All to you, then come and crown His sacred head with other crowns!

   What glory does He deserve? What is good enough for Him? If we could
   take all the precious things from all the treasuries of monarchs, they
   would not be worthy to be pebbles beneath His feet! If we could bring
   Him all the scepters, miters, tiaras, diadems and all other pomp on
   earth, they would be altogether unworthy to be thrown in the dust
   before Him! With what shall we crown Him? Come, let us weave our
   praises together and set our tears for pearls--our love for gold--they
   will sparkle like so many diamonds in His esteem, for He loves
   repentance and He loves faith. Let us make a wreath, this morning, with
   our praises, and crown Him as the Laureate of Grace! This day on which
   He rose from the dead, let us extol Him! Oh, for Grace to do it in the
   heart! And then in the life! And then with the tongue, that we may
   praise Him forever who bowed His head in shame for us!

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORESERMON--Matthew27:11-54. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--336, 282, 275, 417 (vs. 1 & 4).
     __________________________________________________________________

The Fullness of Christ the Treasury of the Saints

   (No. 1169)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 19, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell."
   Colossians 1:19.

   "And of His fullness we ha ve all received, and Grace for Grace." John
   116.

   THESE two texts make up a very beautiful sketch of the plan of
   salvation. Put before your mind's eye the sinner, empty of all
   holiness, of all hope, despairing and ready to die. Put, also, before
   your mind, God, full of mercy, willing to come and fill the sinner's
   emptiness, to bring all His communicable attributes, dwell in that
   sinner and give him, first, the mercy which can blot out his sin, and
   then the holiness which can lift him up from his ruined condition. Next
   note the difficulty in the way--God cannot come as half a God--all His
   attributes must come together. And should the just God come into this
   guilty sinner to fill his emptiness, the flame of Justice would destroy
   him. It is not possible for God, even our God, who is "a consuming
   fire," to come into contact with that which is sinful without
   destroying it. What then? Shall the sinner remain empty and shall God's
   fullness remain uncommunicated?

   Behold the plan which infinite Wisdom has devised! The Eternal Son of
   God becomes Man! The Divine Nature comes in all its fullness and dwells
   in the Mediator Christ Jesus! Coming into Him, He was made to feel the
   mighty burning of Justice, which caused Him agony but could not consume
   Him, for in Him there was no sin. Justice burned and blazed within Him
   and cast Him into a bloody sweat--yes, brought Him to the Cross and to
   death because He stood in the sinner's place. But this golden Vessel,
   though heated, was not melted! It could contain the Divine fire and yet
   not be destroyed--and now in Christ Jesus dwells all the fullness of
   the Godhead bodily and, moreover, the Divine Nature is in Him in such a
   way as to be capable of communication to the sons of men. Of course the
   essence of Deity is not communicated, for that would be to make men
   into Gods--but we are "made partakers of the Divine Nature" in the
   sense of receiving the same character--and becoming the children of
   God. That which God could not bring to us directly by reason of our
   inability to receive it, He has now brought to us through a Mediator,
   by placing it in the Man, Christ Jesus, that we, coming to Him, might
   freely receive of it.

   The next step in the plan of salvation is this--that after the fullness
   of God has come to man in the Person of His Son, everyone that comes to
   Him by faith receives His Divine Grace. Salvation is not by what you
   bring to Christ, but by what you take from Him. You are to be receivers
   first, and then, by-and-by, through the power of Grace, you shall give
   forth from yourselves rivers of living water to others. In your first
   coming you come empty, having nothing but your sin and misery--as
   empty, undeserving sinners you receive of His fullness--and all your
   life continue to do the same. The Grace already given is not the climax
   or the conclusion--you go on receiving more and more! Grace increases
   your capacity for Grace and that enlarged capacity becomes filled! And
   so the fullness of God comes into you till you are filled with it and
   you rise from Grace to Glory, being made like unto God and fitted to
   dwell where He is forever and ever.

   Now, unconverted ones, take note that this is the plan of salvation,
   and the only plan. You must obtain God's love and mercy and holiness by
   receiving it through the Mediator, Jesus Christ! You have not yet
   received it--I ask you, How long will you tarry without it? You are, in
   some degree, aware of your need, for you are not ignorant of the
   Gospel. Oftentimes you have heard the voice of its invitation and have
   been almost persuaded to receive the fullness revealed in Christ Jesus.
   How long will you waver between two opinions? How long will you
   hesitate? This is the way, the safe way, the suitable way, the only way
   which is open to you--and it is open to you at this very moment--will
   your feet never

   tread it? Will your disobedient steps forever wander, till, at last,
   you sink in despair and die eternally? God have mercy upon you and
   bring you to receive of the fullness which the Father has stored up in
   His Son, Jesus Christ!

   Needy Sinners, I warn you, do not insult the fullness of Christ by
   thinking that you are full enough yourselves! Never think of putting
   your own righteousness side by side with the Divine, nor think of
   mixing your tears with Jesus' blood, nor of bringing your prayers or
   your faith to increase the all-sufficiency of Christ's atoning
   Sacrifice! He needs nothing from you! Come and take everything from
   Him, for all fullness dwells in Him. As you may not insult His
   fullness, so I pray you, do not neglect it. Do not stand by this
   Fountain and refuse to drink. Do not pass by the riches of His Grace as
   though they were nothing to you, lest haply, when you come to die, your
   heart should be wrung with terrible remorse because you have despised
   the Savior's love. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a
   salvation?" Put not off these matters from month to month, but, "today,
   if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." Hasten now unto
   the place where God Himself has come to meet you--namely, in the Person
   of His Son.

   Moreover, as I charge you not to neglect the Grace of our Lord Jesus,
   so would I encourage you not to distrust it. All fullness dwells in
   Jesus--a fullness which is meant to be given out to all who receive it
   as the gift of Divine Grace! Believe in this fullness and, empty as you
   are, do not despair any longer when you remember that Jesus has a
   supply for every possible need. Come, though your head is bowed with
   grief, for Jesus never did reject a sinner and he never can. It is His
   office and calling to cleanse the guilty and to receive the lost. Come
   to Him, now, and may we, before this service is done, be able, all of
   us, to sing, "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness
   dwell," and, "of His fullness have all we received, and Grace for
   Grace."

   Let not these words be forgotten by those for whom they are meant. But
   still, I have not taken my text, this morning, with the view of so
   preaching from it. I have another aim altogether. Moreover, it will be
   right for me to say that I do not intend to go into an exposition of
   these texts, having explained them several times before. I have only
   taken them with one object, namely, to address myself vehemently to the
   servants of God--that they may be exhorted to lay hold of the fullness
   of the power and holiness which dwell in their Covenant Head.

   During this last week I have given to my Brothers in the Conference, a
   motto which lay on my own heart. It is, "Forward! Upward!" These are
   the watchwords of this morning--Forward! Upward! I want you, dear
   Brothers and Sisters, to see that every preparation is made for greater
   growth and greater success. I want you to be encouraged to seize upon
   that which lies before you, but which is too often treated as if it did
   not exist, and to rise, by the power of the Eternal Spirit, to
   something higher than you have, up to now, accomplished or even
   attempted.

   I. My first point this morning is this--THERE IS A GLORIOUS FULLNESS IN
   JESUS. Brothers and Sisters, if it is so, why are we so weak,
   unfurnished and unhappy? There is an infinite fullness in Jesus! A
   fullness of all that any saint can ever need to enable him to rise to
   the highest degree of Divine Grace. If there is anything lacking for
   the attainment of the Divine image in us, it is not a deficiency
   Christward--it is occasioned by shortcomings in ourselves. If sin is to
   be overcome, the conquering power dwells in Him in its fullness. If
   virtue is to be attained, sanctifying energy resides in Christ to
   perfection. If I see before me an eminent child of God, whose
   conversation is in Heaven, I may not dare to say that I am not capable
   of being as sanctified as he is--for the same Lord is mine as well as
   his.

   I have in my flesh no power whatever, for I am emptiness itself. In me
   the Truth of God is realized, "Without Me you can do nothing." But, on
   the other hand, the power to do all things lies in Christ and the power
   to become fully consecrated streams forth from Him. "With God all
   things are possible." "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
   bodily," and they who dwell in Him shall find things impossible with
   man become simple everyday facts with themselves if they will but have
   faith in the mediatorial fullness.

   Beloved, I am going to say nothing but what you all know. And I do not
   mean to garnish it with finery of words. The truth is that there are
   many who are barely Christians and have scarcely enough Grace to float
   them into Heaven. The keel of their vessel is grating on the gravel all
   the way. My prayer is that we may reach deep waters and have so much
   Grace that we may sail like a gallant ship on the broad ocean with a
   glorious cargo on board and all colors flying--and so there may be
   administered unto us an abundant entrance into the kingdom of our Lord
   and Savior Jesus Christ! Everything is provided for this. Christ has
   not merely placed enough bread on the table to keep us from starving,
   His oxen and fatlings are killed--He has spread a royal feast.

   He has not provided a scanty garment which may barely hide your
   nakedness, but He has brought forth the best robe and has procured
   earrings for your ears, jewels for your necks and a royal crown for
   your heads--for it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness
   dwell for all His saints. If you have not these riches, the fault lies
   with yourself. It is there--you might have it if you had but faith to
   take it. Too often we sit down like beggars on the dunghill and groan
   and cry because of the poverty of our nature when we ought to be
   rejoicing in the Lord. I thank God that we can groan, for that is
   something! But there is a more excellent way--a better gift to be
   earnestly coveted. In Christ you are rich to the fullness of riches!
   Get up, I pray you, to the high places and realize for yourselves the
   fullness of God in Christ Jesus!

   The fullness which dwells in our Lord we may rest assured is sufficient
   for the conquest of the world. It is not enough for you or me that we
   should be wholly consecrated to Christ--our desire is that the whole
   world should be filled with the knowledge of the Lord! We can never be
   satisfied while there remains one sinner unsaved, one idol upon its
   pedestal, or one single error to darken the minds of men. For Christ we
   do not desire England, only, and the civilized nations, but we claim
   for Him the darkest dens of cannibalism and the vilest haunts of
   piracy. The banner of the Cross shall wave where now black flags poison
   the breeze! It shall be lifted high where today Kalee and Juggernaut
   set up their ensigns, for the Lord God Omnipotent shall reign from
   shore to shore!

   We have in Christ Jesus all the might which is needed for subduing the
   nations, for all power is given unto Him in Heaven and in earth. We
   have, dear Brothers and Sisters, I fear, too often been considering the
   amount of money and the number of men which would be needed. Indeed, I
   remember a remarkable paper being read explaining to us how much money
   it would require to evangelize the world--a calculation which I
   regarded as vanity of vanities and nothing more--for if mountains of
   money were put before us it might just as well be shoveled into the
   infernal deep for all the good it could do--if regarded as at all
   essential! Our checkbook needs more golden treasure and, thank God, we
   have it!

   Depend upon it, when the Church is fit to be trusted with money, she
   will have it. Pecuniary straitness is only an index of lack of Divine
   Grace and is so far a good thing, because it brings before us in
   palpable form our real poverty before the Most High. But Brothers and
   Sisters, for the conquest of the world, the strength lies in the man
   Christ Jesus, since in Him all fullness dwells! And in Him we have all
   the necessary power at our disposal. We are never to say, "Those
   thieves and criminals are too depraved to be converted," for in our
   Lord there is fullness of power to convert the most abandoned! We are
   not to say, "That alley in the darkest part of the city will never be
   cleansed from its abominations." Jesus could cleanse Sodom, itself! We
   are never to leave a tribe of savages unevangelized because they are
   too degraded, nor are we to quail before an uneducated and subtle
   nation because it is too skeptical--all power for all cases is in
   Jesus--He is the armory of the house of David! In Him we shall find a
   thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men! Let us go to the armory
   and we shall receive the invincible weapons of our Holy War, yes, and
   the strength with which to wield them--the might which ensures victory!

   Beloved, the text puts away from us, as far as the east is from the
   west, every conceivable objection that may be raised as to what a saint
   can do, for surely the very thought of difficulty is rendered absurd by
   the fact of all fullness residing in our Lord on our behalf! It is not
   a fullness for merely teaching, but a fullness for convincing! It is
   not a fullness for simply convincing of sin, but for converting and
   bringing to full salvation! It is not a fullness for justifying the
   Believer, alone, but a fullness for sanctifying him--and not a fullness
   for sanctifying him merely for a little while--but a fullness to keep
   him to the end! It is a fullness which can fill him with all the
   fullness of God! Come to whatever place you may, you shall not say,
   "Here I am at a nonplus," but there will you find a new illustration of
   the might of the eternal God which dwells in Christ Jesus!

   The fact is, Beloved, we have a superabundant force in Christ and if we
   did but know it, instead of talking about the struggles of the Church
   and the strain that is put upon us to hold our own, the joy of the Lord
   would give such strength to us that we should not remember our own
   efforts, but like the flood which rushes down the mountain after the
   rain, the flush of life from Jesus would speed on with a tremendous
   force, leaping over every obstacle and filling our souls to the brim!
   God grant us to feel that we do not serve a little Christ nor a stingy
   Lord. Our God is the God of the hills as well as the valleys! And in
   the strength of the Lord Omnipotent we triumph in every place! Only let
   us serve God in real faith and we know not what we may live to see!

   God grant us to know this first Truth of God that there is a fullness
   in Christ--and in the strength of that fullness we may cry--"Forward
   and upward!"

   II. The next encouraging fact is that THE FULLNESS IS IN JESUS NOW. "It
   pleased the Father that in Him

   should all fullness dwell." The glory of the past exercises a
   depressing influence upon many Christians. "We have heard with our ears
   and our fathers have told us the wondrous things which You did in their
   day and in the old time before them." But we dolefully complain that
   the golden age of Christianity is over--its heroic times are matter of
   history. Indeed, this feeling is transformed to fact, for scarcely any
   Church now existing realizes that it can do what its first promoters
   did! All appear to be quite sure that these are bad times and but
   little is to be done in them. We do not expect, nowadays, to find a
   Methodist so full of fire as the first field preachers. The Quakers are
   never as fanatical and even the Primitives are not Ranters now! The old
   reproach has ceased because the old ardor which provoked it has cooled
   down. So far so bad.

   I see grave cause for sorrow in all this. A people are in an evil case
   when all their heroism is historical. We read the biographies of former
   worthies with great wonder and respect. But we do not attempt to follow
   in their steps with equal stride. Why not? It has pleased the Father
   that in Jesus all fullness should dwell, a fullness for Paul, a
   fullness for Luther, a fullness for Whitfield, and blessed be God, a
   fullness for me and a fullness for you! All that Jesus has given forth
   has not exhausted Him! Christianity has not lost its pristine
   strength--we have lost our faith--there's the calamity! Oh, ignoble
   sons of glorious sires, you have degenerated, but not your Master! And
   if, even in your degeneracy, you would cast yourselves upon your
   unchanging God, you would rise to more than the strength of your sires
   and do yet greater things than they!

   The fullness of Jesus is not changed. Then why are our works so feebly
   done? Pentecost, is that to be a tradition? The reforming days, are
   these to be only memories? I see no reason why we should not have a
   greater Pentecost than Peter saw and a Reformation deeper in its
   foundations, and truer in its building up than all the reforms which
   Luther or Calvin achieved! We have the same Christ, remember that! The
   times are altered, but Jesus is the Eternal and time touches Him not.
   "But we are not such men as they." What? Cannot God make us such? Are
   we weaker than they? The fitter to be instruments for the mighty God!
   Away with the cowardice which thinks the past is never to be outdone!
   Is not the Lord of Hosts with us? Is anything too hard for Him? We must
   labor to eclipse the past as the sunlight eclipses the brightness of
   the stars!

   The mass of professors have their eyes only on the future. The good
   times are coming, by-and-by, but they are not here yet. We look forward
   with much hope to the golden age that is to be, when we shall see the
   fullness of Jesus and nations will be born in a day! Brothers and
   Sisters, does my text say, "It pleased the Father that in Him all
   fullness shall one day dwell"? No, but, "in Him should all fullness
   dwell." Whatever has been done can be done now--and whatever shall yet
   be done, can be done today, by His Grace. Our laziness puts off the
   work of conquest. Our self-indulgence procrastinates. Our cowardice and
   lack of faith make us dote upon the millennium instead of hearing the
   Spirit's voice today! Happy days would begin from this hour if the
   Church would but awake and put on her Strength, for in her Lord all
   fatness dwells.

   When the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the earth? Some
   doubting ones say, "We do not wonder that there is success in such a
   place," but we cannot have it. We hear of earnest ministers and we
   conclude that where they labor God will send the blessing, but not to
   our ministry. We conclude that when yonder woman gathers the young
   people around her, it is no wonder that blessing comes. Does Christ
   depend on ministers or on holy women? Have you said, "Alas, I cannot
   have the blessing." Why not? How dare you limit the Holy One of Israel?
   You who dwell in towns where all is cold around you, do you despair? Is
   it in your minds that Christ is dependent upon the circumstances in
   which He has placed His servants? "It pleased the Father that in Him
   should all fullness dwell." What if the servants are empty--their
   Master is not! If the means of Grace lack power, Grace from above is
   still Omnipotent. Only fly to the Fountain and the dried up streams
   need not distress you.

   Furthermore, our Churches believe that there is a great fullness in
   Christ and that sometimes they ought to enjoy it. The progress of
   Christianity is to be by tides which ebb and flow. There are to be
   revivals like the spring and these must alternate with long lethargies
   like the winter. O accursed Unbelief, will you always pervert the Truth
   of God? Will you never understand this Word of God--"It pleased the
   Father that in Him should all fullness dwell"? It is not the Lord's
   purpose that a fullness should reside in Jesus during revivals and then
   withdraw. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! The
   highest state of revival should be the normal condition of the Church.
   When her martyrs are

   most self-sacrificing, her missionaries most daring, her ministers most
   bold, her members most consecrated, she is, even then, below her
   standard--she has not fully reached her high calling--to come down from
   her position would be sin!

   God grant us Grace to feel that we have not to drink of an intermittent
   spring, nor to work for Christ with an occasional industry--but as all
   fullness dwells in Him--it is ours to believe that today we can have
   all the blessing of a true revival! That today we can go forward in the
   power of God! That at this very hour we lack for nothing which can lift
   the Church into her highest condition of spirituality and power! God
   grant us to receive Grace for Grace today!

   III. Thirdly, THE POSITION OF THIS FULLNESS IS RICHLY ENCOURAGING TO US
   IN THE MATTER OF

   OBTAINING IT. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness
   dwell." Brothers and Sisters, you have heard what we have said about
   the fullness--our words are very poor and poverty-stricken compared
   with the fact--but listen! The fullness is placed where you can receive
   it--where you can receive it now, for it is placed in Him who is your
   Brother--bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh! It dwells in Him
   who loves to give it, because, as our Head, He delights to communicate
   with His members!

   The plenitude of Divine Grace dwells in Him who is, Himself, yours!
   Since He is yours, all that is in Christ is yours! You need not pray as
   if you had no inheritance in the blessing which you seek. Christ is the
   Trustee of the fullness of God and the property of it is vested in His
   people--you have only to ask of Him and He will give you that which is
   yours, already! Why do you hesitate? How can you linger? The Father has
   placed His Grace in Christ because it gratifies His love to His Son. It
   pleases the heart of the great God to see Jesus adorned with the
   fullness of Deity and every time Jesus gives to Believers, the great
   heart of God is gladdened! How can you hesitate about receiving it if
   it pleases God for you to partake in it? You may go with great spirit
   and comfort, since Jesus Himself is honored by your going to Him. He
   obtains Glory by distributing of His fullness to empty sinners, who,
   when they receive Grace, are sure to love Him--how can you think Him
   reluctant to bestow the gift which will increase His Glory?

   Do you not know, too, that when you go to Christ, you gain even by the
   act of going? I am so thankful that Christ has not put my fullness in
   myself, for then I should not require to go to Him so often, or if I
   did go to Him I should not have an errand to go upon of such importance
   as to justify my seeking an audience. But now, every time I get to
   Christ's door I can plead necessity. We go to Him because we must go.
   When is there an hour when a Believer does not need to receive from
   Jesus? Go, then, Beloved, since it blesses the Church, it honors
   Christ, it pleases God and it is the way of soul enrichment for
   yourselves! What place of resort could be so attractive as the Person
   of the Well-Beloved? If God had put His fullness into an angel, we
   should not feel greatly drawn to him--but since He has caused it to
   dwell in Jesus, He has put it where we love to have it--where we feel
   at home, where we are glad to go often! Yes, where we would love to
   abide and never to go away, but to be forever receiving of Him.

   I delight to think that this fullness is placed in Christ because He is
   the Man who receives sinners and, therefore, you saints who have lost
   your evidences, you Believers who have acted inconsistently and have
   not lived up to your privileges, you may say, "we cannot go for this
   fullness to God, Himself, but we will joyfully go to the Savior of
   sinners." If you have been, till now, self-deceived, and your
   experience has all been a mistake, you can still come to the sinner's
   Savior, to whom the thief looked up in his expiring hour--and from whom
   your first mercy came! Come, Brothers and Sisters, why do you hesitate?
   Why do you linger? You who know what Christ is, come, I pray you, with
   swift feet to the place where all you need is stored--and take all your
   heart requires! Yes, come for the highest degrees of Grace and for the
   largest measures of success--and you shall have them, for Christ
   delights to give exceeding abundantly above what we ask or even think!

   IV. And now I have to pass on to another argument. I want to use each
   head as a hammer--and may God's own

   Spirit wield it. The next is this, that FROM THIS FULLNESS WE HAVE,
   MANY OF US, ALREADY RECEIVED. Is

   not that an argument for still further exercising faith in Jesus? I
   know of no argument equal to that of practical experience. They must
   come who have come before! The sweetness of this honey remains upon the
   tongue and we long for more and cannot be satisfied till we have taken
   up the dripping honeycomb once again.

   Now, see, Beloved, the text says, "Of His fullness we have all
   received." That is, all the saints in former days have received of this
   fullness. There was not in John any good thing but what he received
   from his Master. There was not in the noble martyr Stephen one grain of
   courage but what he received from Christ. Paul, Apollos, or
   Cephas--these had nothing but what they took from Him If they received
   everything, why should we hesitate to do the same? Of ourselves it

   is also true that all our Graces came from Jesus. This is true of the
   greatest saint and true of the least. Do you remember when you first
   received Divine Grace? It brings to my mind right joyful memories of
   the hour when first these eyes looked to Him and were lightened--when I
   received pardon from His dying love and knew myself forgiven!

   Since your conversion, dear Brothers and Sisters, everything good you
   have ever had, you have received from our Lord. What? Have you drunk
   out of your own cistern? What treasure have you found in your own
   fields? Nakedness, poverty, misery, death--these are the only
   possessions of Nature. But life, riches, fullness, joy--these are gifts
   of Divine Grace through Jesus Christ! Are you accepted before God? He
   justified you! Have you been kept? He has preserved you! Are you
   sanctified? He has cleansed you by His blood! Do you know, by full
   assurance, your interest in the Father's love? He gave you that
   assurance! All you have and all you ever will have--all that every
   saint that shall ever be born shall have that is worth having comes out
   of the fullness of Christ!

   The crowded ranks of the white-robed above, without exception, confess,
   "Of His fullness we have all received." I hear them sing, this morning,
   as they keep a glorious Sabbath Day above--and this is one sweet stanza
   of their song, "Of His fullness we have all received, and Grace for
   Grace." Come then, Brothers and Sisters, what prevents us from
   receiving? "Ah," you say, "I cannot imagine that I can be a Christian
   of the highest type." Why not? Have you not received life? Why should
   you not receive life more abundantly? Have you not already been
   pardoned? Why should you not have the full assurance of that pardon?
   Have you not already been taken up from the horrible pit and out of the
   miry clay? What hinders but that Christ should set you upon a rock and
   put a new song into your mouth and establish your goings?

   "But I cannot hope to be so useful as some are." Why not? According to
   your faith so shall it be to you! God has given you one convert, why
   cannot He give you a hundred? You have been blessed to a dear child in
   Sunday school and you have rejoiced over that one jewel as a precious
   God-send! Why should you not dive, again, and bring up other pearls for
   your Immanuel's crown? I would stir in you a sacred ambition! I would
   provoke you to the highest style of Christian manhood and the most
   heroic form of Christian service! What you have received is the pledge
   of what you may receive, but, indeed, you have already obtained a good
   deal more than yet remains to be received!

   Christ is yours and by that fact all things are yours! What you now
   need is included in what you already have! You only need to realize
   it--by faith call it your own--and practically to live upon it. May God
   enable you to do so! Of His fullness have we all received--why should
   we not receive more?

   IV. The last blow of the hammer shall be this--THE GIFTS WE HAVE
   ALREADY HAD ARE NOT TRIFLES, for John says we have received "Grace for
   Grace," which is a mode in the Greek language of expressing the
   superlative. We have received the highest Grace, superlative Grace. The
   gift of Jesus Christ is the highest Grace that even God, Himself, can
   bestow--nothing can go beyond that! Listen to this, then--"He that
   spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all, how
   shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" I charge you,
   let that text enter into your hearts--and when you feel straitened in
   prayer and tempted to say, "No, not here, I cannot rise so high, I am
   not qualified for that attainment"--do, I pray you, remember the gifts
   already received by which Jesus opens your mouth and bids you ask great
   things.

   The Father has given you His Son! How can He deny you anything? The
   expression, "Grace for Grace," may mean Grace answering to Grace--Grace
   which was in accordance with Grace already given--Grace preparatory to
   what is yet to come. Has not the Father given you such Divine Grace as
   you had capacity to receive? If there had been more room you would have
   had more. If you had exercised more faith, He would have given you more
   joy. If you had possessed more hope, you would have had more
   realization. He has always come up to, and even gone beyond, the
   measure of our expectation. Is there, in your soul, this morning, an
   enlargement? I feel it in my own heart! I feel a dissatisfaction with
   my present attainments! I pant to know my Lord better! I am
   discontented with what I have done for Him up to now! I long to do 10
   times more for His Glory!

   Do you feel the same? Oh, then He will keep in touch with you! Yes, He
   will do exceeding abundantly above all you ask, or even think! That
   text does not say, "Above what you can ask or think," as people will
   persist in saying. That is not true because we can ask and can think as
   great things as God Himself will give, and He means us to ask before He
   gives. Our capacity for asking is, as a general rule, the measure of
   His giving, but the Scriptures say He will do exceeding

   abundantly above what you ask or think. Now, are you thinking great
   things and asking great things? Do not be afraid! The Lord will not let
   you outstrip Him! Be enlarged--and as large as your faith--so large
   shall the blessing be.

   Then, dear Friends, Grace for Grace may mean Grace upon Grace, like
   Pelion upon Ossa--one mountain piled upon another--each Grace eclipsing
   the light of that which went before. This we have already known. When
   we first believed in Christ, pardon for sin seemed everything. But when
   we came to know that we were justified in Christ Jesus, that appeared
   to be a much greater blessing. And when we understood that we were
   adopted and were the sons of God, that new delight surpassed the former
   joy! The Lord has led you into Divine Grace which has surprised you and
   lifted you up from one point to another. I speak to many Brothers and
   Sisters here who must confess that their present state is very
   different from their Christian infancy--they now know what they never
   thought they could know. Why, there are doctrines that some of you can
   enjoy this morning which you used to think frightfully high doctrines!
   You once could not appreciate them, yet they are simplicities to you
   now! And there are conquests over sin which you could not have achieved
   in your boyhood. But now in your Christian manhood you can take up
   dragons and destroy them.

   Now, dear Brethren, as you have been surprised with mercy, you are to
   be surprised with more mercy, and the Lord says to you, "Son of man, I
   will show you greater favors than these." Greater joys are yet to be
   known! You have entered the room of silver--that inner door will lead
   you to a chamber of gold! And beyond that there is a door in the wall
   which he that is taught of God shall open--a door which will admit you
   into a chamber of diamonds! And when you shall come there and have seen
   the Glory and the exceeding riches of the Grace of God, there is still
   an inner chamber where that which eye has not seen nor ear heard shall
   be revealed to you--a joy unspeakable, unthinkable, indeed! May we
   comprehend with all the saints what are the heights and depths--and
   know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.

   Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have a
   fullness in Christ as Believers which we ought to use in the following
   manner --First, believe in great things! Do not sit down, as some do,
   in the little Meeting House where about 50 Brethren meet and expect the
   Lord to send a convert once every 12 months. And when He does send him,
   they worry him by the month together for fear he should not be one of
   the right sort! And when he finally comes in, they rejoice over him as
   one that finds great spoil in having picked up one solitary soul after
   12 months' ministry!

   Oh, Brothers and Sisters, we have a greater God than this would imply!
   The little narrow thoughts which Christians have had as to the success
   of the Gospel cannot have come from a great God, can they? The day was
   when the very idea of sending the Gospel to the heathen was regarded by
   our orthodox Brethren as a piece of Don Quixotism, not to be attempted,
   and even now, if you say, "All the world for Jesus," they open their
   eyes and say, "Ah, we are afraid you are tainted with universal
   redemption, or are going off to the Arminian camp." God grant these
   dear Brethren new hearts and right spirits--at present their hearts are
   too small to bring Him much glory! May they get larger hearts, hearts
   something like their Lord's--and may they have Grace given them to
   estimate the precious blood at a higher rate--for our Lord did not die
   to buy a few hundred souls, or to redeem to Himself a handful of
   people! He shed His blood for a number which no man can number--and His
   elect shall excel in multitude the sands which belt the sea!

   Let us have great faith in what God intends to do. Believing these
   great things, let us expect them. Be on the qui vive for spiritual
   miracles. Expect to see hundreds converted! Wonder, when you hear a
   Gospel sermon, that the Holy Spirit does not save 3,000 by it! "Ah,"
   says one, "I should be very much astonished if He did." I know you
   would, and that is why we do not see it! But we ought to wonder that
   there are not, and when we are as we should be, we shall see greater
   things than these! There is no weakness with God! That limping sinew is
   in Jacob's thigh, it is not in the Angel's. That palsied arm is man's,
   not God's--no sinew of His arm can decay.

   Sirs, do you think that He who smote the fields of Zoan with plagues is
   not Lord of idols and King of heathens? Do you think that He who
   divided the Red Sea cannot lead His people like a flock through the
   wilderness and bring them into the promised possession? Do you think
   that He cannot bring up His Church out of her bondage and set her feet
   in a large room? The Lord of Hosts is with us! Therefore let us expect
   things! Expecting great things, let us attempt great things! Let us
   each set about doing something for Christ, in the power of the Holy
   Spirit! Let us try what can be done! Let us not, if we are Sunday
   school teachers, be satisfied with going through the day's lesson and
   feeling, "There, that will do." Aim at the immediate conversion of
   every child in the class!

   Do not let us say, as we go round with the tracts this afternoon, "We
   will leave them and not say a word." Aim at getting a word about Jesus
   Christ with every person you meet with! As for myself, the preacher,
   let me come here to preach to you, not with the hope that perhaps, here
   and there, one will find a Savior, but with an earnest cry to Heaven
   that the Holy Spirit will comprehend, in the lines of His electing and
   redeeming love, the whole mass of you, and make this Tabernacle into a
   golden casket in which all of us shall be the jewels, and take it right
   up and keep it in His bosom forever!

   Last of all, let us not talk about this, but let us set about doing it!
   Shall we never have, in our midst, men who will go among the heathen to
   preach Jesus Christ? We had two lately, are there not two more? Young
   men and young women, will you not consecrate yourselves to the Lord and
   go into exile for His sake? Have we none such? We have here, this
   morning, good women and good men, too, who are at work among the
   heathens of the east end of London and the worst parts of our city. Are
   there no others to do the same? There is room for scores of you to be
   as devoted to God as our dear Brother, Dr. Barnardo, or our Sister,
   Miss MacPherson--and why not you? Why should not the same anointing
   come upon you and qualify you for useful work?

   Will you not, this very day, preach Christ in the streets? Will you not
   consecrate yourselves to be whole burnt offerings unto Christ, for Him
   to live, for Him to die? O soldiers of the Cross, will you loiter in
   the march? The enemy still holds citadels which belong to Christ and
   you, by a desperate push, may seize them! Swift as eagles and strong as
   lions, press onward and win the victory! Why do you hesitate? The
   powers of evil linger not! The hosts of Hell are raging--they call up
   all their strength against the Lord of Hosts--and will you stand back?
   Have you no courage? Is your blood turned to water? Has the Spirit of
   God departed from you?

   Oh, let it not be so, but may God launch us upon the enemy like
   thunderbolts from His own Omnipotent hand! And yet may it be seen
   throughout the world that there are men who have received of the
   fullness of the Crucified One and who, therefore, can give it forth to
   others and point them to Him in whom the Father is well-pleased that
   all fullness shall dwell. The Lord be with you all. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 1:1-34. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK"--436, 415, 249.
     __________________________________________________________________

"By All Means, Save Some"

   (No. 1170)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, APRIL 26, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "That I might, by all means, save some." 1 Corinthians 9:22.

   THE Apostle speaks very broadly and talks about saving men. Some of our
   extremely orthodox Brothers would say at once, "You save men? How can
   man do that? The expression is inaccurate in the extreme. Is not
   salvation of the Lord from first to last? How can you, Paul, dare to
   speak of saving some?" Yet Peter spoke very much like this when he
   said, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation." Indeed, the
   expression is a little more bold, if anything, and if Peter were alive
   now he would be called to account. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he said
   to him, "Take heed unto yourself, and unto the doctrine; continue in
   them: for in doing this you shall both save yourself and them that hear
   you." This is another instance of language used in a popular sense by a
   man who had not the fear of critics before his eyes.

   The Apostle did not intend to insinuate that he could save anybody by
   his own power and no one thought that he could. He used expressions
   without guarding them because he was writing to people who mixed candor
   with their knowledge of doctrine and would not willfully misunderstand
   him. He did not write for those who must have all the creed in every
   sermon and require all statements of the Truth of God to be cut into
   one shape. The doctrine that salvation is of God, alone, and is the
   work of the Holy Spirit was dear to him as life, itself, and having
   often proclaimed it, he was not afraid of being misunderstood.

   Our testimony, also, has, for many years, been clear upon this point,
   and therefore we shall venture to be as accurately inaccurate as was
   the Apostle--and to speak of saving souls and winning souls after the
   manner of ordinary speech. The expression used gives great prominence
   to instrumentality and this is the use and habit of Scripture. There is
   not much danger, just now, of exaggerating the power of instrumentality
   and looking to men instead of their Master. The danger seems to lie in
   the opposite direction--in the habit of depreciating both an organized
   Church and a recognized ministry. We have frequently heard it said of
   certain revivals that no particular person was engaged in them, neither
   evangelist nor minister had a hand in the work. This is thought to be a
   recommendation but, indeed, it is not.

   I fear that many hopeful beginnings have come to a sudden collapse
   because faithful and holy ministers have been despised and a slur has
   been cast upon ordinary instrumentalities. Men talk thus under the
   notion that they are honoring God, but they are off the track
   altogether--for God still owns and blesses His chosen ministers and is
   honored thereby. And as He still works by them He would not have us
   speak disparagingly of them. The topic of this morning is this--it has
   pleased God to save souls by His people and, therefore, He places in
   them a sacred longing to save some by all means. He might, if He had
   pleased, have called all His chosen to Himself by a Voice out of the
   excellent Glory, just as He called Saul, the Persecutor.

   Or He might have commissioned angels to fly throughout the length and
   breadth of the world and carry the message of mercy. But in His
   inscrutable wisdom He has been pleased to bring men to Himself by men.
   The Atonement is complete and the Spirit's power is fully given--all
   that is needed is that men be led to believe for the salvation of their
   souls--and this part of salvation is accomplished by the Holy Spirit
   through the ministries of men! Those who have, themselves, been
   quickened, are sent to prophesy upon the dry bones. In order that this
   Divine arrangement may be carried out, the Lord has implanted in the
   hearts of all genuine Believers a passion for the salvation of souls.
   In some this is more lively than in others, but it ought to be a
   leading feature in the character of every Christian.

   I shall speak upon this sacred instinct and deal with it thus--First,
   why is it implanted in us? Secondly, how does it exercise itself?
   Thirdly, why is it not more largely manifested? And fourthly, how can
   it be quickened and made more practically efficient?

   I. WHY IS THIS PASSION FOR SAVING OTHERS IMPLANTED IN THE BREASTS OF
   THE SAVED? For three reasons, I think, among many others. Namely, for
   God's Glory, for the good of the Church, and for the profiting of

   the individual. It is implanted there, first, for God's Glory. It is
   greatly to the Glory of God that He should use humble instruments for
   the accomplishment of His grand purposes. When Quintin Matsys had
   executed a certain wonderful well-cover in iron, it was the more
   notable as a work of art because he had been deprived of the proper
   tools while he was executing it, for I think he had little more than
   his hammer with which to perform that wonderful feat in metal.

   Now, when we look at God's work of Divine Grace in the world, it
   glorifies Him the more when we reflect that He has achieved it by
   instruments which, in themselves, would rather hinder than promote His
   work. No man among us can help God! It is true He uses us, but He could
   do better without us than with us! By the direct Word of power He could
   do, in a moment, that which, through the weakness of the instrument,
   now takes months and years--yet He knows best how to glorify His own
   name. He puts a longing to save others into our souls, that He may get
   Glory by using us, even us who have little fitness for such work except
   this passion which He has implanted in our breasts. He graciously uses
   even our weak points and makes our very infirmities to illustrate the
   Glory of His Grace--blessing our poorest sermons, prospering our most
   feeble efforts--and driving us to see results even from our stray
   words.

   The Lord glorifies Himself by making our feebleness to be the vehicle
   of His power--and to this end He makes us pant for a work far out of
   our reach--and sets our hearts a-longing to "save some." It brings
   Glory to God, also, that He should take sinful men such as we are and
   make us partakers of His Nature--He does this by giving us fellowship
   in His heart of compassion--communion in His overflowing love. He
   kindles in our breasts the same fire of love which glows in His own
   bosom. In our own little way we look down upon the prodigal sons and
   see them a great way off, and have compassion on them, and would gladly
   fall on their necks and kiss them. The Lord loves men, however, after a
   holy fashion. He desires their sanctification and their salvation by
   that means. And when we desire the good of our fellow men by means of
   their conversion, we are walking side by side with God. Every real
   philanthropist is a copy of the Lord Jesus, for though it is too low a
   term to apply to His infinite excellence, yet, truly, the Son of God is
   the grandest of all philanthropists!

   Now, that God should, by the power of His matchless Grace, produce in
   such cold hearts as ours a burning passion for the salvation of others
   is a singular proof of His Omnipotent power in the world of the mind.
   To change sinful men so that they pant after the increase of holiness!
   To render stubborn wills eager for the spread of obedience and to make
   wandering hearts earnest for the establishment of the abiding kingdom
   of the Redeemer--this is a mighty feat of the Divine Grace of God! That
   a perfect angel should cleave the air to perform His message is a
   simple enough matter--but that a Saul of Tarsus, who foamed at the
   mouth with enmity to Christ--should live and die for the winning of
   souls to Jesus is a memorable illustration of the Grace of God!

   In this way the Lord gets great Glory over the archenemy, the Prince of
   the power of the air, for He can say to Satan, "I have defeated you,
   not by the sword of Michael, but by the tongues of men. I have
   conquered you, O you enemy, not with thunderbolts, but with the earnest
   words and prayers and tears of these, My humble servants. O My
   adversary, I have pitted against you feeble men and women, into whom I
   have put the love of souls, and these have torn away from you province
   after province of your dominions! These have snapped the fetters of the
   bandaged ones. These have burst open the prison doors of those who were
   your captives." How illustriously is this Truth of God seen when the
   Lord seizes the ringleaders of Satan's army and transforms them into
   captains of His own host! Then is the enemy smitten in the house of his
   former friends!

   Satan desired to sift Peter as wheat, but Peter sifted him in return on
   the day of Pentecost! Satan made Peter deny his Master, but when
   restored, Peter loved his Lord all the more--and all the more earnestly
   did he proclaim his Master's name and Gospel! The fury of the foe
   recoils on himself! Love conquers and where sin abounded Grace does
   much more abound! As for Saul, who persecuted the saints, did not he
   become the Apostle of Christ to the Gentiles, laboring more than any
   other for the good cause? Beloved, the ultimate triumph of the Cross
   will be the more admirable because of the manner of its achievement!
   Good will conquer evil--not by the assistance of governments and the
   arms of potentates, not by the prestige of bishops and popes and all
   their pompous array--but by hearts that burn, souls that glow, eyes
   that weep and knees that bend in wrestling prayer! These are the
   artillery of God! By using such weapons as these He not only foils His
   foes, but triumphs over them--confounding the mighty by the weak, the
   wise by the simple--and the things which are by the things which are
   not!

   Next, the passion for saving souls is implanted for the Church's
   good--and that in a thousand ways, of which I can only mention a few.
   First there can be no doubt that the passion for winning souls expends
   the Church's energy in a healthy manner. I have observed that Churches
   which do not care for the outlying population speedily suffer from
   disunion and strife. There is a certain quantity of steam generated in
   the community--and if we do not let it off in the right way, it will
   work in the wrong way--or blow up altogether and do infinite mischief.
   Men's minds are sure to work and their tongues to move--and if they are
   not employed for good purposes they will assuredly do mischief! You
   cannot unite a Church so completely as by calling out all its forces
   for accomplishing the Redeemer's grand object. Talents unused are sure
   to rust and this kind of rust is a deadly poison to peace--a bitter
   irritant which eats into the heart of the Church. We will, therefore,
   by all means, save some, lest by some other means we become disunited
   in heart.

   This passion for saving souls not only employs, but also draws forth
   the strength of the Church. It awakens her latent energies and arouses
   her noblest faculties. With so Divine a prize before her, she girds up
   her robes for the race--and with her eyes upon her Lord, presses
   forward to the goal. Many a commonplace man has been rendered great by
   being thoroughly absorbed by a noble pursuit--and what can be nobler
   than turning men from the road which leads to Hell? Perhaps some of
   those ignoble souls who have lived and died like dumb, driven cattle,
   might have reached the majesty of great fires if a supreme intent had
   fired them with heroic zeal and developed their concealed endowments.
   Happy is the man whose task is honorable, if he does but honorably
   fulfill it. Lo, God has given to His Church the work of conquering the
   world, the plucking of brands from the burning, the feeding of His
   sheep and lambs! And this it is which trains the Church to deeds of
   daring and to nobility of soul.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, this common passion for souls knits us
   together! How often do I feel a fresh bond of union with my beloved
   Brethren and fellow workers when I find that I was the means of the
   conviction of a sinner, whom one of them comforted and led to the
   Savior? And thus we have a joint possession in the convert! Sometimes I
   have been blest of God to the salvation of my hearer, but that hearer
   was first brought here by yonder friend--and so we become sharers in
   the joy! Communion in service and success welds the saints together and
   is one of the best securities for mutual love. And, moreover, when new
   converts are brought into the Church, the fact that they are brought in
   by instrumentality tends to make their fusion with the Church an easy
   matter.

   It is in this case much the same as with our families. If God had been
   pleased to create each of us as individual men and women and drop us
   down somewhere on the earth. And if were left to find our way to
   somebody's house and unite with his family, I daresay we should have
   had to wander long before we should have been welcomed! But now we come
   as little ones to those who rejoice to see us! And they sing, "Welcome,
   welcome, little stranger!" We become, at once, parts of the family
   because we have parents and brothers and sisters--and these make no
   debate about our introduction and consider it no trouble to receive
   us--though I fear we have never duly rewarded them for their pains.

   So is it in the Church--if God had converted all men one by one, by His
   Spirit, without instrumentality, they would have been separate grains
   of sand, hard to unite into a building and there would have been much
   difficulty in forming them into one body. But now we are born into the
   Church, and the pastor and others look upon those converted under their
   instrumentality as their own children whom they love in the Lord. And
   the Church, having shared in the common service by which they are
   converted, feels, "These belong to us, these are our reward." And so
   they are taken cordially into the Christian family. This is no small
   benefit, for it is at once the joy and the strength of the Church to be
   made one by vital forces, by holy sympathies and fellowships.

   We have spiritual fathers among us whom we love in the Lord and
   spiritual children whose welfare is our deepest concern. We have
   Brothers and Sisters to whom we have been helpful, or who have been
   helpful to us, whom we cannot but commune with in heart. As a common
   desire to defend their country welds all the regiments of an army into
   one, so the common desire to save souls makes all true Believers akin
   to each other! But this passion is most of all for the good of the
   individual possessing it. I will not try, this morning, to sum up, in
   the short time allotted to me, the immense benefits which come to a man
   through his laboring for the conversion of others, but I will venture
   this assertion--no man or woman in the Church of God is in a healthy
   state if he or she is not laboring to save some.

   Those who are laid aside by suffering are taking their part in the
   economy of the household of Christ. But with that exception, he that
   does not work, neither shall he eat. He that does not water others is
   not watered himself. And he who cares not for the souls of others may
   well stand in jeopardy about his own. To long for the conversion of
   others makes us

   Godlike! Do we desire man's welfare? God does! Would we gladly snatch
   them from the burning? God is daily performing this deed of Divine
   Grace! Can we say that we have no pleasure in the death of him that
   dies? Jehovah has declared the like with an oath! Do we weep over
   sinners? Did not Jehovah's Son weep over them? Do we lay out ourselves
   for their conversion? Did He not die that they might live?

   You are made Godlike when this passion glows within your spirit. This
   is a vent for your love to God as well as your love to men. Loving the
   Creator, we pity His fallen creatures and feel a benevolent love
   towards the work of His hands. If we love God, we feel as He does, that
   judgment is strange work and we cannot bear that those whom He has
   created should be cast away forever. Loving God makes us sorrow that
   all men do not love Him, too. It frets us that the world lies in the
   Wicked One, at enmity to its own Creator, at war with Him who, alone,
   can bless it. O Beloved, you do not love the Lord at all unless you
   love the souls of others!

   Trying to bring others to Christ does us good by renewing in us our old
   feelings and reviving our first love. When I see an inquirer penitent
   for sin, I remember the time when I felt as he is feeling. And when I
   hear the seeker for the first time say, "I do believe in Jesus," I
   remember the birthday of my own soul, when the bells of my heart rang
   out their merriest peals because Jesus Christ had come to dwell within
   me! Soul-winning keeps the heart lively and preserves our warm youth to
   us! It is a mighty refresher to decaying love. If you feel the chill of
   skepticism stealing over you and begin to doubt the Gospel's power, go
   to work among the poor and ignorant, or comfort souls in distress. And
   when you see the brightness of their countenances as they obtain joy
   and peace in believing, your skepticism will fly like chaff before the
   wind!

   You must believe in the cause when you see the result! You cannot help
   believing when the evidence is before your eyes! Work for Jesus keeps
   us strong in faith and intense in love to Him. Does not this holy
   instinct draw forth all the faculties of a man? One strong passion will
   frequently bring the whole man into play, like a skillful minstrel
   whose hand brings music from every chord. If we love others, we shall,
   like Paul, become wise to attract them, wise to persuade them, wise to
   convince them, wise to encourage them. We shall learn the use of means
   which had lain rusted and discover in ourselves talents which otherwise
   had been hidden in the ground if the strong desire to save men had not
   cleared away the soil!

   And I will add here that love to souls will, in the end, bring to
   everyone who follows it up, the highest joy beneath the stars. What is
   that? It is the joy of knowing that you have been made the spiritual
   parent of others! I have tasted of this stream full often, by God's
   Grace, and it is Heaven below! The joy of being saved one's self has a
   measure of selfishness about it, but to know that your fellow men are
   saved by your efforts brings a joy pure, disinterested and heavenly--of
   which we may drink the deepest draughts without injury to our spirits.
   Yield yourselves, Brothers and Sisters, to the Divine appetite for
   doing good! Be possessed with it and eaten up by it--and the best
   results must follow! Let this be, from now on, your aim, "That I may,
   by all means, save some."

   II. How DOES THIS PASSION EXERCISE ITSELF? Differently in different
   persons, and at different periods. At first it shows itself by tender
   anxiety. The moment a man is saved he begins to be anxious about his
   wife, his child, or his dearest relative. And that anxiety leads him,
   at once, to pray for them. As soon as the newly opened eye has enjoyed
   the sweet light of the Sun of Righteousness it looks lovingly round on
   those who were its companions in darkness--and then gazes up into
   Heaven with a tearful prayer that they, also, may receive their sight.
   Hungry ones, while they are eating the first mouthful at the banquet of
   Free Grace, groan and say, "Oh, that my poor starving children could be
   here to feed on the Savior's love with me."

   Compassion is natural to the new-born nature--as common humanity makes
   us pity the suffering--so renewed humanity makes us pity the sinful.
   This, I say, happens at the very dawn of the new life. Further on in
   the heavenly pilgrimage this passion manifests itself in the intense
   joy exhibited when news reaches us of the conversion of others. I have
   often seen, at Church meetings and missionary meetings, a hearty and
   holy joy spread throughout an audience when some new convert, or
   returned missionary, or successful minister, has given details of the
   wonders of Saving Grace. Many a poor girl who could do but little for
   the Savior has, nevertheless, shown what she would have done if she
   could, by the tears of joy which have streamed down her cheeks when she
   has heard that sinners have been led to Jesus. This is one of the ways
   in which those who can personally do little can share in the joy of the
   most useful, yes, can have fellowship with Jesus Himself!

   The hallowed instinct of soul-winning also shows itself in private
   efforts, sacrifices, prayers and agonies for the spread of the Gospel.
   Well do I remember when I first knew the Lord, how restless I felt till
   I could do something for others. I did not know that I could speak to
   an assembly and I was very timid as to conversing upon religious
   subjects. And therefore I wrote little notes to different persons
   setting forth the way of salvation. I dropped these written letters
   with printed tracts into the post, or slipped them under the doors of
   houses, or dropped them into areas--praying that those who read them
   might be aroused as to their sins and moved to flee from the wrath to
   come. My heart would have burst if it could not have found some vent!

   I wish that all professors kept up their first zeal and were diligent
   in doing little things as well as greater things for Jesus, for often
   the lesser agencies turn out to be as effectual as those which operate
   upon a larger area. I hope that all of you young people who have been
   lately added to the Church are trying some mode of doing good, suitable
   for your capacity and position, that, by all means, you may save some!
   A word may often bless those whom a sermon fails to reach. And a
   personal letter may do far more than a printed book. As we grow older
   and are more qualified, we shall take our share in the more public
   agencies of the Church. We shall speak for Jesus before the few who
   meet at the cottage Prayer Meeting. We shall pray with, as well as for
   our families, or we shall enlist in the Sunday school, or take a tract
   district. Ultimately the Lord may call us to plead His cause before
   hundreds or thousands--and so beginning with littles our latter end, by
   His Grace, shall greatly increase.

   There is one point in which zeal for the salvation of others will show
   itself in all who possess it, namely, in adapting ourselves to the
   condition and capacity of others for their good. Notice this in Paul.
   He became all things to all men, if by any means he might save some. He
   became a Jew to the Jews. When he met with them he did not rail at
   their ceremonies, but endeavored to bring out their spiritual meaning.
   He did not preach against Judaism, but showed them Jesus as the
   Fulfillment of its types. When he met with a heathen he did not revile
   his gods, but taught him the true God and salvation by His Son. He did
   not carry about with him one sermon for all places, but adapted his
   speech to his audience.

   What a very wonderful address that was which Paul delivered to the
   council of philosophers upon Mars' Hill. It is most courteous
   throughout and it is a pity that our translation somewhat destroys that
   quality, for it is eminently conspicuous in the original. The Apostle
   began by saying, "You men of Athens, I perceive that you are, on all
   points, very God-fearing." He did not say, "Too superstitious," as our
   version has it! That would have needlessly provoked them at the outset.
   He went on to say, "For as I passed through the city and observed your
   sacred things, I found an altar bearing the inscription, 'To an unknown
   God.' What, therefore, you worship without knowing it, that I announce
   unto you."

   He did not say, "Whom you ignorantly worship." He was far too prudent
   to use such an expression! They were a collection of thoughtful men, of
   cultured minds--and he aimed at winning them by courteously declaring
   to them the Gospel. It was most skillful on his part to refer to that
   inscription upon the altar and equally so to quote from one of their
   own poets. If he had been addressing Jews, he would neither have quoted
   from a Greek poet nor referred to a heathen altar--his intense love for
   his hearers taught him to merge his own peculiarities in order to
   secure their attention.

   In the same manner we also sink ourselves and instead of demanding that
   others submit to us, we cheerfully submit to them in all unessential
   matters, that we may gain their favorable consideration of the claims
   of Jesus. Mark you, there was never a man more stern for principle than
   Paul. In things where it was necessary to take his stand he was firm as
   a rock. But in merely personal and external matters he was the servant
   of all. Adaptation was his forte. Beloved, if you have to talk to
   children, be children--do not expect them to be men. Think their
   thoughts, feel their feelings and put truth into their words. You will
   never get at their hearts till your heart is in sympathy with their
   childhood. If you have to comfort the aged, enter, also, into their
   infirmities and do not speak to them as if they were still in the full
   vigor of life. Study persons of all ages and be as they are--that they
   may be led to be Believers--as you are.

   Are you called to labor among the educated? Then choose out excellent
   words and present them apples of gold in baskets of silver. Do you work
   among the illiterate? Let your words be as goads--speak their mother
   tongue, use great plainness of speech so that you may be
   understood--for what good is it to speak to them in an unknown tongue?
   Are you cast among people with strange prejudices? Do not unnecessarily
   spar with them, but take them as you find them. Are you seeking the
   conversion of a person of slender understanding? Do not inflict upon
   him the deeper mysteries, but show

   him the plain man's pathway to Heaven in words which he who runs may
   read! Are you talking with a friend who is of a sorrowful spirit? Tell
   him of your own depressions. Enter into his griefs and so raise him up
   as you were raised. Like the good Samaritan, go where the wounded man
   lies and do not expect him to come to you.

   A real passion for winning souls reveals the many sides of our manhood
   and uses each one as a reflector of the Divine light of Truth. There is
   a door to each man's heart and we have to find it and enter it with the
   right key, which is to be found somewhere or other in the Word of God.
   All men are not to be reached in the same way, or by the same
   arguments--and as we are, by all means, to save some, we must be wise
   to win souls--wise with wisdom from above. We desire to see them
   conquered for Christ, but no warrior always uses the same
   strategy--there is, for one, open assault, for another a siege--for a
   third an ambush, for a fourth a long campaign.

   On the sea there are great rams which run down the enemy, torpedoes
   under water, gunboats and steam frigates. One ship is broken up by a
   single blow. Another needs a broadside. A third must have a shot
   between wind and water. A fourth must be driven on shore. Even thus
   must we adapt ourselves and use the Sacred Force entrusted to us with
   grave consideration and solemn judgment, looking ever to the Lord for
   guidance and for power. All the real power is in the Lord's hands! We
   must put ourselves fully at the disposal of the Divine Worker, that He
   may work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure--so shall
   we, by all means, save some.

   III. WHY IS NOT THIS PASSION MORE LARGELY DEVELOPED AMONG CHRISTIANS?
   The preacher needs

   not answer that question--each of his hearers may do that for himself.
   Why is it that we do not yearn more over the perishing souls of men? Is
   it not that we have but very little Grace? We are dwarfish Christians
   with little faith, little love, little care for the Glory of God--and
   therefore with little concern for perishing sinners. We are spiritually
   naked and poor. We are spiritually miserable when we might be rich and
   increased in goods if we had but more faith. That is the secret of the
   matter and is the fountain of all the mischief.

   But if we must come to particulars, do you not think that men are
   careless about the souls of others because they have fallen into
   one-sided views of Gospel doctrines and have turned the Doctrines of
   Grace into a couch for idleness to rest upon? "God will save His own,"
   they say. Yes, but His own do not talk in that fashion. They are not
   like Cain, who said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Unquestionably the
   Lord will see that His own elect are called in due season, but He will
   do this by the preaching or teaching of the Word. Predestination is not
   a legitimate reason for inaction! Men do not consider it so in other
   matters, why, then, in religion? Except the Lord prospers us in
   business all our efforts are in vain--and yet we do not say--"I shall
   have as many pounds in my pocket as God intends I shall have, and
   therefore I need not work or trade."

   No, men save their fatalism to play the fool only with spiritual
   things! In all other things they are not such idiots as to suffer
   predestination to paralyze their minds! But here, since idleness needs
   an excuse for itself, they dare to abuse this sacred Truth of God to
   cripple their consciences! In some professors downright worldliness
   prevents their seeking the conversion of others. They are too fond of
   gain to care for saving souls, too busy about their farms to sow the
   seed of the Kingdom, too much occupied with their shops to hold up the
   Cross before the sinner's eyes, too full of worldly care to care for
   the salvation of the lost! Covetousness eats up the very soul of many.
   They have far more business than they can manage without injury to
   their spiritual health--and yet they are eager after more. Prayer
   Meetings are neglected, the class in the school is given up, efforts
   for the poor and ignorant are never made--and all because they are so
   taken up with the world and its cares. This age is peculiarly tempted
   in that direction and it needs strong piety to be able to love the
   souls of men practically.

   With some I fear that the cause of indifference is lack offaith. They
   do not believe that God will bless their efforts and, therefore, they
   make none. They have a vivid recollection of far-gone times when they
   tried to be useful and failed. So, instead of past failure being made a
   reason for double exertion in the present, to make up for lost time,
   they have given up labor for the Lord as a bad case and do not attempt
   anything more. It is to be feared that with many Church members the
   reason for the absence of this passion is that they love ease and are
   worm-eaten with indolence. They say, "Soul, take your ease! Eat, drink,
   and be merry. Why trouble yourself about others?" "Send the multitude
   away," said the disciples. They did not want to be worried with them.

   True, the people were very hungry and weary and it was a painful thing
   to see them fainting. But it was easier to forget their needs than to
   relieve them! London is perishing--millions are dying in their sins!
   The world still lies in the

   Wicked One and Sloth calls Forgetfulness to her aid to ignore the whole
   matter! Such people do not want to be made uncomfortable--neither do
   they wish to spend and be spent for the glory of Christ. The secret of
   it all is that the great majority of Christians are out of sympathy
   with God and out of communion with Christ. Is not this an evil? O eyes
   that never wept over dying men, do you expect to see the King in His
   beauty? O hearts that never throbbed with anxiety for those that are
   going down to the Pit--do you hope to leap for joy at the Master's
   coming? O lips that never speak for Jesus, how will you answer to the
   searching questions of the Last Great Day?

   I beseech you, Christian people, if you have grown indifferent to the
   conversion of those around you, search out the secret reason! Find what
   is the worm at the root of your piety--and in the name of Christ seek
   to be delivered from it!

   IV. How CAN THIS PASSION BE MORE FULLY AROUSED? First, it can be done
   by our obtaining a higher life. The better man shall do the better
   deed--the stronger in Divine Grace, the stronger to save some. I do not
   believe in a man's trying to pump himself up beyond his level. The man
   must be up and then all that comes out of the man will have risen. If
   love to God glows in your soul, it must show itself in your concern for
   others. Make the tree good and the fruit will be good. It will not do
   for you to begin a more earnest career by stimulating yourself to a
   hectic zeal which will come and go like the flush on the consumptive's
   cheek--the life within must be permanently strengthened--and then the
   pulsing of the heart and the motion of the whole man will be more
   vigorous.

   More Divine Grace is our greatest need. This being granted, it will
   greatly help us to care for the conversion of sinners if we are fully
   cognizant of their misery and degradation. How differently one feels
   after seeing with ones own eyes the poverty, filth and vice of this
   city. I wish some of you respectable people who have never seen any
   part of London except the broad thoroughfares, would take a stroll down
   the courts which open into the narrow side streets. I would like you to
   go down courts such as Queen Victoria never saw, and alleys far from
   green. Ladies, you may leave some of that finery at home. And
   Gentlemen, you may put away your pocket handkerchiefs and your purses,
   unless you would like to empty them out among the wretched beings you
   will meet.

   There are sights to be seen close to our own homes which might well
   make our hearts bleed and harrow up our spirits. When you have seen
   them, you will begin to feel aright towards the sinful. We sit at home
   comfortably at our fires in the winter time and think the weather is
   not so very cold. But if we go out and see the poor shivering in their
   rags, or find them cowering over their empty grates, we begin to think
   that cold is a greater evil than we dreamed! We come here, to this
   place of worship, and while we are listening to the Word we forget the
   destitution of those who hear it not. Why, at this very moment around
   the doors of the gin palaces and public houses of London there are
   thousands standing waiting till the blessed hour of one--when they can
   obtain the cheering draught which their souls thirst after! The
   assemblies now tarrying for the god Bacchus can be counted by the
   thousands!

   What have these men been doing with the Sabbath hours up till now?
   Reading the Sunday newspaper, lying in bed, or loafing about their
   little gardens in their shirt sleeves. That is the occupation of
   hundreds of thousands this day all around us and at our doors! Have we
   done our best to bring them to the House of Prayer? Hundreds of
   thousands near by have never heard the Gospel in their lives--and never
   think of entering places where it is preached! Of course, if they had
   lived in Calcutta we should have thought about them! Because they are
   living in London close to us shall we neglect them?

   One of the best things that could be done for us all would be to go
   round to houses in the worst parts of the city for one week with a city
   Missionary. Then we might see for ourselves what is to be seen! Then
   would sin and poverty become palpable and stand out in grim reality!
   Your fellow countrymen, men born of women who are of the same flesh and
   blood as yourselves--are living in daily neglect of your dear Savior,
   living in jeopardy of their immortal souls--if you did but realize this
   it would quicken you, by all means, to save some! Brethren, the
   strongest argument I have ever seen for the doctrine of the eternity of
   future punishment is an argument which is often used against it. They
   say, "If the eternity of future punishment is true, we wonder that
   believers in it can rest in their beds, or eat their meals--for the
   truth is so horrible that it ought to stir them to incessant efforts to
   deliver others from going into this boundless misery."

   It is true and spoken of by a Prophet, and that is one reason why I
   believe the doctrine, because it has a tendency, if anything has, to
   move us to compassion and rouse us to action. If the advocate of other
   views is prepared to teach me a doctrine which will make me think more
   lightly of sin and make me feel more easy about the damnation of my
   fellow men, I do not want his doctrine, for I am too careless now, and
   have a dread of being more so! If, with the most terrible

   argument for incessant sorrow for the ruin of the souls of my hearers,
   I cannot be as tender as I would, what should I be if I could lay the
   flattering unction to my soul that, after all, it was of smaller
   consequence than I had thought whether they were damned or saved? Ah,
   dear Friends, can you bear to think of it, that all around you there
   are men and women who will, in a few years, suffer the terrible wrath
   of God and be banished forever from His Presence? If you could but
   realize Hell and its horrors, you might be stirred, by all means, to
   save some.

   Many other things might move us, but certainly this last ought to do
   it. A sense of our own solemn obligations to the Grace of God should
   arouse all our energies. If we are what we profess to be--saved men
   redeemed by the heart's blood of the Son of God--do we not owe
   something to Christ for this? Shall we be easy till we have found many
   jewels for His crown? Can we be content while so many myriads are
   ignorant of Him, or opposed to Him? If you love Him, what will you do
   for Him? Show Him a proof of your love--and the best proof you can give
   is your own personal holiness and persevering effort to gather in His
   redeemed. Brother, Sister, do something for Jesus! Do not talk about
   it--do it!

   Words are leaves--actions are fruits. Do something for Jesus! Do
   something for Jesus, today! Before the sun goes down think of some one
   action which may tend to the conversion of some one person--and do it
   with all your might! Let the object of the effort be your child, your
   servant, your brother, your friend--but make the effort today! Having
   done it today, do it tomorrow and every day--and doing it in one way,
   do it another way! And doing it in one state of heart, do it in
   another! Let your joy enchant, let your sorrow arouse, let your hope
   attract! Let your changeful moods help you to attack sinners from
   different quarters, as your varying circumstances bring you into
   contact with differing persons.

   Be always awake! Turn yourself about like a gun on a swivel to reach
   persons who are found in any direction--so that some may fall wounded
   by the Gospel's power. By all means, save some! God grant it may be so!
   And, oh, that some might be saved this morning by simply believing in
   Christ Jesus, for that is the way of salvation! Jesus puts away sin
   wherever there is a simple trust in Him! May seekers exercise that
   trust now and live forever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Lord Chiding His People

   (No. 1171)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 3, 1874, BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "He will not always chide: neither will He keep His anger forever."
   Psalm 103:9.

   THIS verse has reference only to the children of God. The Psalm is for
   them--they alone can sing it and this statement concerns them only--for
   this reason, that the wrath of the great Judge of all the earth is
   removed from every true child of God. Our sins were laid upon Jesus
   Christ and He bore them for us. The penalty due to us on account of
   them, or its equivalent, has been endured by Jesus Christ, our
   Substitute. Therefore, as before the Throne of God there is no
   accusation against a Believer, the justice of God has no anger towards
   him. "Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You
   comfort me," is the proper language of every justified man.

   But let it never be forgotten that in pursuance of His gracious plan,
   God, who has blotted out our offenses as rebellious subjects, has now
   placed us in a new relationship, for, by adoption and the new birth, we
   have become His children and He is our Father. Though He neither can
   nor will ever summon us before the bar of His jurisdiction, either to
   charge us with sin or condemn us for it, inasmuch as Jesus Christ has
   put that sin away, yet, as our Father, He exercises discipline among
   His family, and we, as His children, are both chided and chastened for
   our faults. The sword of justice no longer threatens us, but the rod of
   parental correction is still in use. The judge no longer condemns, but
   the Father chides--"For what son is he whom his father chastens not."

   Remember, then, that we are not about to speak of Believers under the
   Law, or the anger arising out of the breach thereof--by His Grace we
   are quite clean from all the mire of that slough of legality. We are
   about to treat of Believers as the adopted, twice-born children of
   God--and of the rule of the Lord's household--and the chiding and
   chastisement which are necessary to it. The text seems to me to say two
   things. First, He will chide. Secondly, He will not always chide,
   neither will He keep His anger forever.

   I. The text very plainly says to us who choose to hear it, HE WILL
   CHIDE. It is implied that He will be angry, otherwise it were not
   necessary to say that, "He will not keep His anger forever." Why will
   He chide? There are many answers, but we can mention only a few. He
   will chide His own dearly beloved children, first, because if He did
   not do so it would seem like winking at sin. Eli did not restrain his
   sons or chasten them as he should have done and, therefore, judgments
   fell upon his house. God is not foolishly gentle like that aged
   priest--He will sorely smite His children if they follow iniquity.

   David had never displeased Adonijah at any time in saying, "Why have
   You done so?" And therefore on his deathbed the old man heard the news
   that his much-indulged son was seeking to snatch the crown from
   Solomon, his appointed heir. God is no indulgent David--He does not
   spare His children the chidings due to their sins. "The Lord your God
   is a jealous God." In His people, sin is sin, and even yet more heinous
   than in those who are outside of the family, seeing that they sin
   against greater light and greater love. Sin is in the elect of God
   exceedingly sinful. The Lord regards it as an intolerable evil which
   His soul hates. It must be cleansed as by burning, for He will bring
   His people through the fire and refine them as silver is refined. Has
   He not said of His chosen, "You only have I known of all the families
   of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities"? A man
   may suffer a stranger's child to do many wrong things without laying
   his hand upon him. But he makes his own child to smart if he dares to
   disobey.

   God chastens and chides His children, next, because if He did not,
   others of the family would follow their ill example. If I knew a man
   who lived in sin and yet enjoyed the light of God's Countenance, should
   I not naturally conclude that I, also, may live as he does and yet walk
   in the light as God is in the light? If we had heard of David's sin
   with Bathsheba and had never read of his horror of soul, his broken
   bones and bleeding heart--should we not have inferred that we, also,
   might fall into the same filthiness--and find it a very small matter to
   return into the way of righteousness again?

   Every father among you knows that he has often to chasten his child's
   bad behavior--not only for its own sake but for the sake of the younger
   children--for if the fault were overlooked they might come to do the
   same.

   Sometimes a frown which might have been spared the individual,
   considered by himself, must be put upon the parent's face for the sake
   of brothers and sisters, lest they should fall into like fault.
   Remember that the Lord has a large family--and like a wise father He
   considers the interests of all. Consequently He does not allow sin to
   go unchided, lest it breed folly in others. Moreover, the world outside
   the regenerated family looks on with unfriendly eyes. If the erring
   child of God were never chided or chastened, then would worldlings say,
   "What does it matter that God denounces sin in us, when He winks at it
   in His own family?"

   Should we not say of a minister who preached holiness, but who suffered
   his own sons to indulge in vice, "Why is it that he does not begin at
   home?" Is it not natural for us to think that those who are in real
   earnest for piety and holiness will be sure to show it by the way in
   which they restrain their own children and conduct the affairs of their
   own house? If we see that a Christian man's daughters are the wildest
   of the group and the most frivolous of the frivolous, do we not say at
   once, "What a pity it is that he speaks about evil in others and yet
   does not set his own house in order"? It is mentioned as an essential
   qualification for a pastor that "he rules well his own house; for if a
   man knows not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the
   Church of God?" Of the deacons, also, it is said that they must "rule
   their children and their own houses well," from which we gather that a
   man who cannot govern his children can never be anything but a
   rear-rank soldier of Christ, a poor, feeble Christian at best.

   Now, shall it ever be said that the great Father of Spirits does not
   enforce discipline in His own house? Will the greatest of all
   Householders suffer it to be whispered throughout the world that He
   allows His favorites to do as they please, and His darlings to indulge
   in sin without chiding them? God forbid! It must not be so imagined!
   What says the Apostle Paul in Hebrews? "Even our God is a consuming
   fire." He does not say that God, out of Christ, is a consuming fire,
   for God in Christ is our God--and in that Character He is a consuming
   fire, burning with infinite jealousy against sin! The terrified
   hypocrites in Zion, who are spoken of by Isaiah, asked a hard question,
   but it is one which we must answer--"Who among us shall dwell with that
   devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"
   Only he can so dwell who "walks righteously and speaks uprightly," "but
   he shall dwell on high, his place of defense shall be the munitions of
   rocks, his bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure" (Isa.
   33:14-16).

   It is not possible for the thrice holy Jehovah to act otherwise towards
   sin than as fire to feel, hence those who dwell with Him must be pure.
   God must, for the outside world's sake, judge among His own people,
   separating the precious from the vile, and passing even the precious
   gold through the fire to cleanse it from its dross--thus making His
   people to be a holy people--separated unto His fear. His fire is in
   Zion and His furnace in Jerusalem. Judgment begins at the house

   of God.

   But, Beloved, there is another reason which more nearly concerns
   ourselves--God must chide us when we do evil, for our own sakes, or
   else the evil would lie festering in us, breeding I know not what of
   deadly mischief. Often we do not know sin to be sin till the Lord
   chides us for it, or we do not perceive the high degree of its
   sinfulness till we hear His solemn tones rebuking us lovingly but
   sharply that we may be sound in His fear. This Divine chiding lays open
   the sore which else might have worked inwardly to mortal sickness.
   Besides, if sin were not chided, one fault would lead to another and we
   should go from bad to worse. That gradual decline which saps the bodily
   constitution of many would happen to our souls--and we should fall
   little by little. Gray hairs would be upon us here and there--and we
   should not know it.

   The Lord reins us up, when our steps are almost gone, and gives us a
   sharp blow such as a skillful driver deals to a stumbling horse. And
   then we run more carefully, pick up our feet in the dangerous pathway
   and so hold on and hold out to the end. It is necessary, Beloved, and
   for our good, that we should bear His chiding, else sin would, before
   long, pierce us through with many sorrows. I am never afraid for my
   Brethren who have many troubles, but I often tremble for those whose
   career is prosperous. To be emptied from vessel to vessel with trouble
   is often the best thing which can befall us. But to stand at ease till
   the lees subside, and yet be there, is the greatest danger of
   Christians in these days. The dregs of sin fall to the bottom out of
   sight because we are not agitated by--and then we get the notion that
   we are wholly refined and clear from sin--when it is only because we
   are not stirred that our impurities do not rise to the surface.

   Brothers and Sisters, it is good, sometimes, to be stirred up with a
   temptation that you may see what a Hell there is in the depravity of
   your nature--and what a fiend you are apart from the Grace of God! This
   humbles you, drives you to prayer and makes you cry out for real
   purity--and so it is a blessed thing. But to have ease and freedom from
   toil, never to have your temper tried, never to have your patience
   exercised--to have a long period of prosperity--is often to breed in
   you an estimate of yourself which is totally false. You are no better
   than other men, but you happen not to be so much tempted as other
   men--and so you become conceited, which is one of the most grievous of
   calamities.

   Now, the Lord can see the residue which we do not see. He knows what
   lees are at the bottom of the vessel and, therefore, He chides us,
   tells us of our secret faults and makes our faces to be suffused with
   blushes, though just before this we were full of self-exultation.
   Remember, also, that while sin would lie in us and fester, and we
   should also grow conceited, we may be sure that we should never attain
   any high position in Grace if it were not for the chidings of the Lord.
   His rebukes throw us on our faces before the Cross and we are then
   nearer Heaven than at any other time. Beloved, if we become satisfied
   with what we are, we shall cease to struggle after anything better--and
   become stunted professors.

   There is grave cause in every one of us for dissatisfaction with our
   condition, from one point of view or another and, therefore, it is a
   thousand mercies that the Divine reproofs for our weakness of faith,
   for the coldness of our love, for the distance of our walk with Him.
   The Lord's corrections are the thorns in our nest which make us soar
   towards Heaven! His chiding shows us our emptiness and leads us to
   apply to the fullness which is prepared for us.

   I cannot, however, stop to show you many more of the wise, tender,
   fatherly, gracious reasons why the Lord chides His people, but I will
   answer another question. How does He do it? I answer, sometimes, He
   rebukes His people by the sin itself. They sow it and He lets them reap
   it--there is no more fitting retribution than for the backslider in
   heart to be filled with his own ways. If you sow wild oats they will
   make bitter cakes when they are reaped and ground--and you are made to
   eat them. The Lord treats us as Aaron treated Israel--he took their
   golden calf and ground it to powder, strewed it on the water and made
   them drink.

   Very sharp and burning is the concoction made from our darling sins.
   More bitter than gall is the wine which flows from the grapes of
   transgression. Sin's result is its punishment. Abraham's unbelief
   chastened itself when he found his wife taken by the Philistine king. A
   worse case is that of Lot. He did not keep the separated path as he
   ought to have done, but chose to dwell with the men of Sodom. And when
   he saw all his property destroyed by the flames which fell from
   Heaven--when his sons-in-law perished and his wife was turned into a
   pillar of salt--he must have seen in his sorrows the very image of his
   sins. Who brought this upon you, Lot? Who made you what you are? What
   but your worldliness? And who but yourself, in your greedy choice of
   the well-watered plain of Sodom, and your forsaking of the pilgrim walk
   with God?

   Child of eternal love, your God will gather twigs for His rod out of
   your own garden! Like Gideon, He will chastise you with thorns and
   briers--and those sharp teachers He will gather from the neglected
   corner of the field which you should have cultivated for your Lord.
   Frequently He chastens His people by His Providence. Chastisements come
   to us through sickness of body and depression of spirit, losses in
   business or failures of enterprise. Trouble in the family or attacks
   from the outside world may be other ways, but here we must be careful
   to discriminate, for all trials are not chastisements--many are sent as
   tests of integrity, or illustrations of faith. Some are sent to afford
   us opportunities of winning crowns for Christ and honor for Him.

   In fact, trials may be regarded very often as great favors and special
   privileges. "Whom the Lord loves He chastens," and, "Every branch that
   bears fruit He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." You must
   not think, because you are afflicted, that you have been more sinful
   than others, for it may be you are more beloved! Tribulation is often a
   gracious reward for faithfulness, affording, as it does, an opportunity
   for the exercise of yet higher virtue! Yet many troubles are manifestly
   chastisements. When Rebekah saw her darling son driven away from his
   father's house, was not that a chastisement for her teaching him lies?
   When afterwards Jacob found himself deceived by Laban, what was that
   but a chastisement for the deceit which he had practiced against his
   brother Esau?

   God's Providence is disciplinary towards His own household--David's sin
   was followed by a pestilence. Hezekiah's proud display of his riches to
   the Babylonian ambassadors brought on captivity. Asa's transgression
   caused the rest of his life to be troubled with wars. A happy life can
   be changed into one of care and affliction by careless living, for God
   will order all events for the correction of His rebellious child. But
   the Lord as often chides His people by the withdrawal of

   privileges. Full assurance is one of the first blessings taken from
   those who wander--faith burns dimly and those who could once read their
   title clear, now spell it out with many questions by a smoking
   lamp--whose light is but a glimmer. They formerly could say, "I know."
   Now they can barely cry, "I hope." Their faith is weak because it does
   not lie, now, in the same atmosphere, since the manifested love of God
   has ceased to shine upon them.

   The Lord also denies His blessing to the means of Grace and they become
   wells without water and clouds without rain. The sermon is not sweet as
   it used to be. Even the Bible is not so comforting as before. The
   joyous assemblies are now sorrowful, the feasts are turned to fasts,
   the Bethels to Bochims, the hymns to howls. The wail of the mourner
   will be, "O that it were with me as in months past, when the candle of
   the Lord shone round about me." Private prayer soon becomes a weariness
   and all the exercises of secret devotion are carried on as matters of
   duty rather than as sources of enjoyment.

   The Father also chides His children by taking from them their
   fellowship with Himself. They dare no longer sing, "My beloved is mine,
   and I am His." Their cry is, "Where has my Beloved gone, that I may
   seek Him?" At the Lord's Table the emblems are no longer gates of pearl
   to admit to the secret chambers of the King. The Beloved is gone and
   the sun is eclipsed. Now they are in the dark, though once they basked
   in the sunlight. Some here know all about this--and they will tell you
   that there is no worse chastening than to be left of God and deprived
   of His present smile. Then there will happen to you a great withdrawal
   of power in prayer. You used to ask and have--but now you are made to
   wait and knock long and loud before the gate opens to you.

   Once you were such a favorite with the King that when you had His ear
   you spoke to Him for your child, and that child's soul was given to
   you! You sought favors and they came into your bosom at once. You told
   the Well-Beloved your daily troubles with sweet familiarity--and they
   were all relieved at once. Whatever you asked in prayer, you received,
   because you kept His Commandments. But now you have walked contrary to
   Him and He walks contrary to you. The heavens are as brass above you
   and your prayer comes back to you unanswered. Thus does the Lord chide
   you. It happens, also, that the erring Christian's influence over
   others fades away. "When a man's ways please the Lord He makes even his
   enemies to be at peace with him." But when he gets out of step with
   God, his enemies take license to rage.

   Look at David. Did not the Lord let loose upon him that cursing Shimei
   and open the mouth of Sheba, the son of Bichri, because he had sinned?
   As for Solomon, the great king, what cause had he to be afraid of
   Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, or Hadad the Edomite, or Rezon of
   Damascus--until the day when he had cause to be afraid of his offended
   God? The lions are chained for Daniel, "the man greatly beloved," but
   they break loose upon the man who follows afar off, and roar upon him
   till he denies his Master.

   At times the Lord will chasten His servants by taking away all their
   success in service. They preached and souls were saved. But now they
   preach and there are no conversions. They went to the Sunday school
   class and the children's hearts were melted while they taught. It is
   not so now. Barrenness has fallen upon all their fields. Their land is
   sown with salt. Their vine forgets her fruit, for the Lord has said,
   "Inasmuch as you have left Me and sinned against Me, I also will leave
   you to your devices till you mourn and repent and turn unto Me." May my
   Lord never thus chide me--I would choose any plague rather than that of
   barrenness.

   Moreover, our heavenly Father chides by His Holy Spirit. Many of us
   know it is for the Spirit of God to speak softly in our hearts and tell
   us we have done wrong the very moment we have transgressed. And happy
   is that man who bows before that Voice, for he will thus escape the
   rod, since the Lord never comes to blows when words will suffice. The
   Spirit of God often sends home the reproofs of Scripture to our
   hearts--while we are reading the Word we feel that it searches us and
   rebukes us! So, also, the Lord will employ His ministers to chide us.
   Little is that ministry worth which never chides you! If God never uses
   His minister as a rod, depend upon it, He will never use him as a pot
   of manna, for the rod of Aaron and the pot of manna always go
   together--and he who is God's true servant will be both to your soul.

   The Lord will also chide you through your own conscience, causing you
   to judge and condemn yourself. The Spirit of God will quicken your
   understanding and then it will be said of you as of David, "David's
   heart smote him." It is hard hitting when the heart smites, for it
   comes to such close quarters! But blessed is that man who can thus be
   corrected--it is a sad sign when conscience is too dead to be of any
   service in this direction. I believe our heavenly Father, at times,
   chides His people through Church discipline. I do not mean the
   discipline carried on by us through the minister, deacons and the
   Church itself. I refer to that solemn Church discipline which goes on
   in the Churches and is often unobserved.

   Paul said of the disorders in the Corinthian Church, "For this cause
   many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. But if we would
   judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we
   are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the
   world." Now, there is no reason to believe that these visitations of
   the Lord upon the Churches have ceased. Indeed, I am persuaded they
   have not. I have seen those who have walked inconsistently in this
   place die, one after another. When their inconsistencies have not been
   such as I could touch, but such as have grieved the children of God,
   the Lord has, Himself, executed discipline.

   Many cases which I shall never relate are written down in the tablets
   of my memory with this verdict, "Removed by the discipline of God." I
   have seen others blighted in fortune, chastened in body and especially
   depressed in spirit as the result of grieving the Spirit of God in the
   Church. Church sins, such as injure peace and unity, dampen zeal and
   enterprise, or hinder prayer, or grieve holy men, are surely visited
   with stripes. There is no need for us to root up the tares, for the
   Spirit of God does it by His own processes. That same spirit that was
   in Peter and smote Ananias and Sapphira is still in the Church, not
   destroying souls, but taking away life or health as a solemn discipline
   upon grave offenses beyond the reach of human jurisdiction.

   I do not say that it is so in all Churches, for some Churches are
   barely Churches of Christ at all. But when a Church lives in the light
   and when the Lord blesses that Church, and the Spirit of God is there,
   discipline from God will be decisive, for the Lord is very jealous for
   His name in such places. Depend upon it, one of the most awful
   conditions a man can hold, while it is also one of the most blessed, is
   to be in membership with a Church that is much loved and smiled upon by
   God--for there is a searching wind of discipline sweeping through it
   continually of a more solemn kind than I shall care further to describe
   just now.

   Now let us ask, when does God chide? I will answer very briefly, that
   He does not chide for every sin. His Word chides for every sin, but I
   mean that the Lord does not, for every fault, actually chasten us in
   the sense here intended. He is angry when a sin has not been mourned
   over and repented of. When it is known to be sin and yet committed
   again--when it threatens to become chronic, so that the man will
   continue in it and it will become habitual--He is sure to chide. When a
   sin has special flagrancy about it--when it indulges the grosser lusts,
   or some utterly contemptible passion--or is associated with pride and
   presumption, He sis sure to chide. Surely, also, He will rebuke when
   the opulence follows upon high privileges. If you lie in God's bosom
   you must watch that you do not offend--a common subject may do without
   punishment--but he who is the king's favorite must not even think of
   it.

   We will take from strangers, remarks which would wound us terribly if
   they came from those we love or friends. If you are among the king's
   courtiers he will watch your walk with a jealous eye. Chiding is sure
   to come when the offender is not in circumstances which would suggest
   an excuse for his fault, such as a sudden temptation, or a fierce
   trial. Anything like a deliberate act of sin is certain to bring down
   the Father's anger. When the poor man in his extremity acts as he
   should not to gain bread for his babes, God will never view his offense
   in the same light as the greed of the man of wealth. Is not that an
   incidental lesson of Nathan's parable in which the rich man's many
   flocks aggravate his robbery of the poor man's ewe lamb?

   Brethren, the sin which in me may be very grievous, might be
   comparatively overlooked in you. And the sin which in you is pestilent
   before high Heaven, might be far less grievous in another Brother whose
   circumstances are less favorable than yours, whose temptations are
   stronger and whose natural temperament, perhaps, may have a weakness in
   that direction. Anyway, the Lord does chasten His people and displays
   both wisdom and love in so doing.

   II. We have been gazing at the black cloud, now let us look at the
   silver lining. Here is the text, itself, in its sweetness--"HE WILL NOT
   ALWAYS CHIDE." What does that mean? It means that He will not chide for
   every fault. Of course, as I have already said, His Word chides even a
   sinful thought in His people, but the Lord does not fall to blows about
   it--does not grow angry so that we feel His anger for every fault--but
   only for some, else He would be chiding every minute! It means, too,
   that He does not chide long. Oh, how often does He just chide for a
   moment and then He has done, like a mother who speaks an angry word to
   her child and kisses it the next minute--

   "He will not always chide,

   And when His strokes are felt,

   His strokes are fewer than our crimes,

   And lighter than our guilt."

   It means, again, that He does not hold any grudges. That is the real
   meaning of the second clause. The words, "His anger," are in
   italics--they are not in the Hebrew--they are supplied by our
   translators to complete the sense. It means just this, "neither will He
   keep a grudge against us." Many will say, "I forgive you," but you know
   very well what sort of forgiveness it is. They pardon you because they
   cannot help themselves and they forgive until the first opportunity
   comes of showing their spite. Not so with God! He has no grudge against
   His children. He smites them and has done with it. Whenever God uses a
   rod on His children, He always burns it as soon as ever He has done
   with it. He does not put it up by the mirror as I have seen it in some
   families, but He destroys it, for He hates the sight of it.

   Thus He used Sennacherib as a rod, and then He broke him in pieces. He
   used Babylon for the same purpose and then blotted it out of existence.
   He employed Assyria, also, but He destroyed her power. The rod reminds
   Him of His children's cries and He cannot endure it. The text
   especially means that there is no eternal wrath for a child of God. He
   may be angry with me, but my soul, in her deepest agony, clutches at
   this thought, "He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger
   forever." Anger forever is for the ungodly. Oh, you unconverted ones,
   He will keep His anger forever against you! So long as God's Word is to
   be understood as it stands, we shall believe that as surely as His love
   is everlasting, so is His anger eternal against the impenitent! He will
   keep His anger forever against you, but not against Believers.

   Blessed be His name, when the rod makes the bluest welts we may still
   rejoice that He will not slay us, "neither will He keep His anger
   forever." I may lie tossing on the bed of pain, but I shall never make
   my bed in Hell! I may be brought to poverty, but not to Perdition! I
   may suffer loss, but I shall not, myself, be lost eternally! What a
   comfort is this! The positive meaning of the text is that the Lord will
   soon leave off chiding--but when will He leave off chiding? Beloved, He
   will refrain from chastening when we begin repenting--when we come to
   tears--then He will cease from rebukes. He wants to make us see the sin
   and mourn it. And then will He cease to see it and forgive it!

   He will chide till we come to Jesus Christ as we came at first. When He
   brings us to our knees with, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," He will
   no more send us away unheard than He sent the publican away unblest.
   Go, poor Prodigal, and weep your confession into your Father's
   bosom--and He will not make mention of chiding--for He forgives
   graciously and upbraids not. He will chide us till we forsake our sin.
   The rod and our backs will never part till our hearts and sin are
   separated. When we put an end to sin, there shall be an end to
   chastening. Often the Lord will not refrain from chiding till the
   results of the sin as well as the sin, itself, shall have been removed.
   He will chasten us till our bad example shall have been, in a measure,
   counteracted by our sorrows.

   For instance, David's foul sin would have done great mischief to the
   Church, but David's bitter repentance has become a cure for that evil.
   When Christian people are able to see that you have to suffer and
   sorrow because of your sin, then, as far as they are concerned, God's
   reason for chiding you will have ended--and He will turn to you in
   infinite mercy. Do you inquire of me, why is it that God will not
   always chide His people? Blessed be God, there are many reasons for it!
   One is because He does not mean to confuse chastisement with
   punishment! The Law is angry forever, but the Gospel is full ofpity.
   God would not have His children treated as if they were slaves--they
   have not come to Sinai, but to Zion.

   Moreover, if the Lord did always chide, our spirits would fall before
   Him, for we would be crushed. When He rebukes, our beauty fades away
   like the moth. And if He continued to do so we should die. It is always
   a sad thing, when a parent crushes a child's spirit, as is sometimes
   done, and the child is made obedient and stupid, too. God will not thus
   injure His children and, therefore, He will not always chide. To chide
   too much might lead to other sins, for if the sin is love of pleasure,
   we might be chided into despondency, unbelief, despair and I know not
   what! The great Father stays His hand, lest in driving out one devil He
   should drive 10 in, as some parents do.

   He will not always chide, lest His enemies should exult over His
   people, for they are always ready to say, "Aha, so we would have it."
   The wicked world is glad to exult over a chastened saint, but we can
   say, "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy, for the Lord will not always
   chide." He has said, "For a small moment have I forsaken you, but with
   great mercy will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid My face from you
   for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you,
   says the Lord my Redeemer." After all, remember that when God chastens
   His children He loves them just as much as when He caresses them. There
   is no change in Jehovah's love, though there may be changes in His ways
   of showing it.

   It never pleases God to chasten His children. He does not afflict
   willingly. When He sees His beloved broken down and humble, He is
   pleased with their humility. But He grieves for their misery. Judgment
   is His strange work. He delights to see His people rejoice--He is a
   happy God--and He loves to have a happy people. Now, if he always
   chastened them, they would be always wretched and, therefore, He will
   not always chide lest the sweet fruits of the Spirit, which are joy and
   peace, should never be brought forth in their souls.

   Beloved, are you being chided this morning? Then let me give you this
   word of good cheer--when you were a sinner, dead in sin and had no
   thought of Him nor desire towards Him, yet He came to you in love. Do
   you think that now He will reject you? You whom He has bought with
   blood? You who have lain in His bosom? You who have known, in days gone
   by, sweet fellowship with Him on the hill Mizer and the Hermonites?
   Will He now forsake you? Oh no, He will turn again! He will have
   compassion upon you, for, "He will not always chide, neither will He
   keep His anger forever."

   And now, Brothers and Sisters, learn the lessons of the whole subject.
   The first inference is--here is consolation for the house of Israel!
   The Jews have been chided and God's anger has smoked against His
   chosen. But they will be gathered together one day--and the fullness of
   the Jews shall be brought to the feet of Jesus. Let Israel write this
   over her synagogues and let believing Jews inscribe this upon their
   doorposts--"He will not always chide, neither will He keep His anger
   forever." His dear people, Israel, He has not put away forever, for
   "where is the bill of your mother's divorcement? says the Lord." He
   will yet bring the seed of Abraham to Himself and comfort them in His
   bosom.

   Let this be a lesson, also, to ministers. We have to chide, sometime,
   by preaching the Law and the terrors of the wrath to come. But we must
   not let a sharp tone rule our ministry. Our preaching must be quick and
   powerful, but as God does not always chide, so neither must we! There
   is to be the thunder and the lightning, but there must be the soft
   shower after it--we must not always chide. This is equally a lesson to
   all of you. If God will not always chide, then you must not. Have you a
   child who has done wrong? Chide, by all means, but do not always chide!
   There is the difficulty involved in the example to the rest of the
   family, but still I pray you forgive, for your Lord says He will not
   always chide. God is wiser than we are--and if it would be right always
   to chide, God would have done it--but He acts otherwise.

   What the Lord does is a model for us, let us copy it. If He would
   always chide us where should we be? But He will not. Therefore I
   beseech you, forgive the wrong, forgive the wrong at once and take your
   child to your heart. Mark your disapprobation of the offense, kind
   Christian parent, but still forgive your child! Be angry and sin
   not--and you can only be so by not being angry too much or too long.
   Here, too, let us say, do not always find fault. Condemn the fault,
   mistresses, if there is a wrong in the servant--and speak of it very
   plainly--but do not be always complaining of your servants, or, as
   people call it, "nagging at them." For if you do, they will very soon
   hate you and all chance of doing them good will be gone. By perpetually
   finding fault you will make them eye-servers or unhappy employees.

   Do not always blame, but praise when it is due. Certain people never
   praise anybody. They think it will puff them up and spoil them. How
   many times in a year do I receive the following fatherly advice, "I
   hope your work will last and I pray that you may be kept humble," and
   so on. A good lady once told me that she prayed every day for me, that
   I might not be proud. I replied, "You put me in mind of my own neglect,
   for I have never prayed that prayer for you and must begin." "Oh, no,"
   she said, "there is no occasion for that, there is no danger of my
   being proud." "Then," I said, "I had better begin at once, for you are
   proud already."

   These people think a vast deal of themselves if they imagine that a
   little of their praise would exalt us above measure. I believe that a
   judicious word of encouragement and commendation is often more useful
   than censure--and certainly censure has all the more effect when it
   comes from one who has spoken justly of you on former occasions.
   Children and servants will not thrive on perpetual chiding any more
   than a horse on constant whipping. A very good gentleman had a faithful
   manservant who came to him one day after 10 years' service and said,
   "Sir, I must leave you." "How is that?" the gentleman asked, "have I
   not treated you well?" "I have no fault to find," was the answer. "Have
   not I paid you enough? Do you need more?" "Oh, no, Sir," he said, "but
   sometimes, do you know, when we have been traveling together and have
   roughed it both on sea and land, if you had spoken one kind word to me
   I would have stuck to you as long as you lived. But you have never
   spoken to me except when you gave your orders." Our honest faithful
   dependents look for encouragement and they ought to have it. The Holy
   Spirit and the Apostolic writers speak well of good men and so should
   we.

   The last word concerns God's dealings with us. That is the chief
   thought of the text. Let us carry it away with us. He is chiding you,
   dear Sister. He is chiding you, my Brother, but do not think that it
   will last forever. "He will not always chide." The sun went down last
   night and a little child who had never noticed it before might have
   cried and said, "Father, Father, the sun is gone away! I saw him go
   down behind the hills. It is dark! What shall we do?" "Oh," you say to
   him, "do not fear, my Baby, he will be up again tomorrow." Go, then,
   and tell every broken heart that "weeping may endure for a night, but
   joy comes in the morning." The Lord may chide today but He will kiss
   tomorrow! Now the smarting of His rod are terrible--tomorrow the
   sweetness of His love will be entrancing!

   Be of good courage, then! Go to your offended Father speedily and
   confess the wrong which brought you chastisement. Humble yourself in
   His sight and He will smile again! Forgive others, and then expect to
   be forgiven yourself, for verily, verily I say unto you, the time of
   the opening of the dungeons is come! The night of mourning is almost
   over! You soon shall rejoice in the Lord!--

   "Come, let us to the Lord our God

   With contrite heart return!

   Our God is gracious, nor will leave

   The desolate to mourn.

   His voice commands the tempest forth,

   And stills the stormy wave;

   And though His arm is strong to smite,

   'Tis also strong to save." Therefore, be of good courage, all you that
   hope in the Lord! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Psalm 103. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--103 (VERS. I), 136 (VERS. I), 211.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Savior You Need

   (No. 1172)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S DAY MORNING, MAY 10, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Andbeing made perfect, He became the Author of eternal salvation unto
   all them that obey Him." Hebrews 5:9.

   THE great folly of awakened sinners lies in looking to themselves when
   they are convinced that they are lost. When the Law condemns them--when
   they have the sentence of death ringing with its dolorous knell through
   their consciences--they nevertheless turn to themselves for help. As
   well might they search for life within the ribs of death, or dig for
   light in the dreary vaults of outer darkness! First, they try what
   outward reformation can do and they are amazed when they discover their
   own impotence. Then they turn their eyes towards their feelings and
   either they labor after tears and mental tortures till they grow
   conceitedly miserable, or else they yield to hopelessness, because they
   find their heart to be as an adamant stone. They frequently fly to
   ceremonies and go far in formalism but find no peace.

   And often they turn to the belief of orthodox doctrines and seek
   salvation in mere head knowledge of the Word of God, forgetting that
   Jesus once said, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you
   have eternal life; but you will not come unto Me that you might have
   eternal life." In some shape or other, all natural men seek refuge in
   self and fly there, again and again and again, though often driven from
   it. Their so doing is useless and foolish, dishonoring to God and
   defiling to themselves. If men would but believe the Truth of God they
   would know that they can no more save themselves than they can turn
   evil into good, or Hell into Heaven!

   It would be a grand thing if they could be made to understand that they
   have abundant power to destroy themselves, but that all their help for
   salvation lies wholly in Jesus Christ! When they are convinced of this,
   they will cast themselves upon the Redeemer, and peace and joy will
   fill their spirits. This is the stern labor which utterly baffles the
   preacher--it is a work which only the Holy Spirit can accomplish. To
   wean the sinner from the breasts of self, to rescue him from his proud
   delusions, to make him see that salvation must come from above as the
   pure gift of Divine Grace--this, though it appears simple enough,
   requires a miracle of Divine Grace! God the Holy Spirit generally uses
   as a cure for this foolish looking to self the exhibition of Christ
   Jesus. Christ supplants self. Looking unto Jesus puts an end to looking
   to self and feelings and works.

   I shall now endeavor to preach Jesus Christ in the fullness of His
   perfection as a Savior, that poor sinners may not look for perfection
   in themselves, nor search for any fitness or strength in themselves,
   but may flee to Jesus, in whom everything requisite for their salvation
   is so richly provided.

   I. Five thoughts grow out of the text and the first is this--beloved
   seeker after peace, believe in THE UNDOUBTED WILLINGNESS OF JESUS
   CHRIST TO SAVE. Where do I find this in the text? I find it just below
   its surface and here it is. As God, the Lord Jesus is and always was
   perfect in the most emphatic sense. As Man, Christ's Character is also
   perfect from the first, having in it neither deficiency nor excess. But
   as Mediator, High Priest and Savior, He had to undergo a process to
   make Him perfectly qualified, for the text says, "Being made perfect,
   He became the author of eternal salvation." Now, if we find that He was
   willing to undergo the process which made Him completely fit for the
   office of a Savior, we may certainly conclude that He is willing enough
   to exercise the qualifications which He has obtained!

   Suppose that we have before us a person who is anxious to wait upon the
   sick. She is a woman of most excellent character, in all respects,
   faultless, but not yet fitted for a nurse till she shall have walked
   the hospitals. To do this she must give up the comforts of home,
   undertake a world of drudgery and see much that will cause her pain,
   for she must, herself, see and understand what sickness means or she
   will be of no use. Now, if this person is willing, for the sake of
   becoming a nurse, to undergo personal discomfort and physical
   weariness--to put herself to much self-denial and to

   exercise much anxious thought. And if, indeed, all the preparatory
   process has been already undergone, who doubts her willingness,
   afterwards, to exercise the office of a nurse for which she has taken
   so much pains to fit herself? Does not the case speak for itself?

   Then transfer it to the Lord Jesus. He has undergone all that was
   necessary to make Him a complete Savior, in all points qualified for
   His work and none may dare insult Him by saying that He is unwilling to
   exercise His office and save the sons of men. Remember that what the
   Son of God underwent to fit Him for a Savior was extremely humiliating
   and painful. He left the Throne for the Cross, the adoration of angels
   for the mockery of menials. He came from yonder bright world, where
   they need not the light of the sun, to visit those who sit in darkness
   and in the valley of the shadow of death. He was so poor that He had
   not where to lay His head, so despised that even His own received Him
   not, but hid, as it were, their faces from Him. He endured death,
   itself, in the most cruel circumstances of ignominy and pain.

   All this was necessary before He could be made perfect as a Priest and
   a Savior--and all this He has undergone and has cried concerning it
   all, "It is finished." What are yon scars on His hands? What but the
   tokens of His fitness for His office? What is that gash in His side?
   What, but the warrant that the work is complete which renders Him a
   perfect Savior? And will you tell me, after all this, that He declines
   to save? That He turns a deaf ear to a sinner's cry? That you have
   pleaded with Him by the month together and yet have not been answered?
   That you are willing to come and fling yourself at His feet, but He is
   unwilling to receive you? Oh, utter not a falsehood at once so
   groundless, so dishonoring to Him and so defiling to yourself!

   Jesus must be willing to save, or else He never could have submitted to
   so painful a preparation in order that He might be installed in His
   office as Mediator! He would not have toiled so sternly to reach that
   high position in which He is able to save unto the uttermost them that
   come unto God by Him, if He had not a hearty goodwill towards sinners
   and a readiness to receive them. Trembling Sinner, if you conclude that
   Jesus Christ is not willing to save, you must suppose that He prepared
   Himself deliberately and with painful cost, to do nothing! For if He
   does not save men, then He came without an errand and died without a
   purpose! He certainly did not come to condemn them--"For God sent not
   His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
   Him might be saved." "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that
   which was lost."

   If, then, He does not save that which is lost, He has prepared Himself
   for nothing, has lived in vain and shed His blood without purpose. If
   you can think this of Him and of His work, I marvel at your unbelief
   and tremble to think how fatally sin has blinded your eyes! Moreover,
   if you think Jesus is unwilling to save, you will have to suppose that,
   having spent a life in obedience and endured a death of agony, He has,
   after all, changed His mind and renounced the object once so dear to
   Him. You will have to believe that the heart which bled, and even after
   death poured out both blood and water, has suddenly become petrified!
   That the eyes which wept over Jerusalem retain no longer any pity for
   the sons of men and that He who prayed for His murderers, "Father,
   forgive them," has now become stern in spirit and will have nothing to
   do with sinners when they seek His mercy.

   Oh, do not dishonor my Lord so greatly as to think thus of Him! Lo, He
   is "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever"! Interrogate
   those scars and see if there is a change in Him. Look into His face and
   see if love has departed! He is in Heaven at this day, ever living to
   make intercession for sinners--and I ask you, would He continue to
   intercede if He had ceased to love? Would He not throw up the office in
   disgust if His Nature were so transformed that He no longer cared to
   save the lost? Away with your dishonoring fears! Do you dream that
   Jesus has saved all He designed to bless and that the full count of His
   redeemed is made up? Do you imagine that the merit of His blood has
   come to an end, that His power and willingness to forgive have gone
   clean from Him? It cannot be so, for is it not written, "Ask of Me and
   I will give You the heathen for Your inheritance, and the uttermost
   parts of the earth for Your possession"? And, remember, that has not
   been fulfilled yet.

   It is written, "By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify
   many," but as yet the many have not been justified, for the number of
   the saved is small compared with the multitude descended to Hell. Will
   not Jesus have the preeminence? Will He not redeem unto Himself a
   number that no man can number? When the whole poem of human history has
   been written, will it not be found to be in honor of Divine Grace
   abounding over sin, Christ victor over Satan, Mercy triumphant over
   Wrath? Will not Jesus and His seed outnumber the seed of the serpent?
   How else would it be true that

   His bruised heel shall break the serpent's head? Instead of believing
   that Jesus has ceased to save, I look for a fuller display of His power
   in glad days when nations shall be born at once!

   The Fountain flows on with undiminished stream--O Sinner, drink and
   live! You must not imagine, poor, trembling Sinner, that the dear
   Redeemer has undergone all His agonies to prepare Him to save men, and
   yet is unwilling to perform His sacred office! Such a wicked fancy will
   be ruinous to your soul and grievous to His Spirit. Oh, that you would
   go and try Him! You would find Him ready to save you!

   II. The second thought will bring us nearer to the text. Consider, I
   pray you, in the second place, THE PERFECT FITNESS OF THE SAVIOR FOR
   HIS WORK. We will view the fitness both Godward and manward. View it
   Godward. Sinner, if anyone is to deal with God for you so as to avail
   on your behalf, he must be one of God's choosing, for "no man takes
   this honor upon himself, but he that was called of God, as was Aaron.
   So, also, Christ glorified not Himself to be made an high priest, but
   He that said unto Him, You are my Son, today have I begotten You."
   Christ was ordained of God from all eternity to stand as the
   Representative of His people before the Throne of God.

   "It pleased the Father to bruise Him." "The Lord has laid on Him the
   iniquity of us all." He from old eternity was set apart to be the High
   Priest and the Redeemer of His people. Can you not, in this, see
   grounds for resting upon Him? What God appoints, it must be safe for us
   to accept. In order that Jesus Christ, being appointed, should be fit
   for His office, it was necessary that He should become man. Man had
   sinned, and man must make reparation to the broken Law. God would not
   accept an angel as a substitute, for the Law had to do with man. And as
   the race had revolted, it must be through one of the race that God's
   justice should be vindicated.

   But Jesus was God--how, then, could He become our Savior? Behold the
   mystery! God was manifest in the flesh. He descended to the manger of
   Bethlehem. He nestled in a woman's bosom, for as the children were
   partakers of flesh and blood, He, Himself, also took part in the same.
   Sinner, behold your Incarnate God! The Eternal One dwells among dying
   men, veiled in their mortal flesh, that He may save men! This is the
   greatest fact ever related in human ears. We hear it as a common thing,
   but the angels have never ceased to wonder since they first sang of it
   and charmed the listening shepherds. God has come down to man to lift
   man up to God! Surely it is the sin of sins if we reject a Savior who
   has made such a stoop in order to be perfectly qualified to save!

   "Being found in fashion as a Man," it was necessary towards God that
   Jesus should fulfill the Law and work out a perfect obedience. The
   obedience of an angel would not have met the case--it was from man that
   obedience was required--and a man must render it. Behold, then, this
   second Adam, this new Head of our race, rendering to God the complete
   obedience which the Law demanded, loving God with all His heart and His
   neighbor as Himself. From the time when He said to His mother, "Know
   you not that I must be about My Father's business?" till the time when
   He exultingly cried, "It is finished," He was in all things the
   obedient Servant of the great Father! And now His righteousness stands
   for us and we are "accepted in the Beloved." The High Priest who is to
   intercede for us must wear upon His forehead, "Holiness unto the Lord,"
   and truly such a High Priest we have, for Jesus is, "holy, harmless,
   undefiled and separate from sinners."

   Nor was this all towards God. The High Priest who should save us must
   be able to offer a sufficient sacrifice, efficacious to make atonement,
   so as to vindicate Eternal Justice and make an end of sin. Oh, hear
   this, you Sinners, and let it ring like music in your ears--Jesus
   Christ has not offered the blood of bullocks nor of goats, but He has
   presented His own blood upon the altar! "He, Himself, bore our sins in
   His own body on the tree." "This Man, after He had offered one
   sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from
   henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. For by one
   offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified." The blood
   of bulls and of goats could never take away sin, but the blood of the
   Son of God has infinite efficacy--and for every one for whom the great
   Surety died--all sin was put away since He bore its penalty. The Law
   could ask no more.

   Pitiful, indeed, is the man's case who has no interest in the atoning
   sacrifice! His sin lies heavy upon him and wrath hangs over him.
   Wretched is the sinner who, being conscious of his guilt and being bid
   to believe in Jesus, yet continues to look to himself--and so does
   dishonor to this Sacrifice, so precious in the sight of the Lord. The
   blood of Jesus speaks better things than that of Abel, and woe to the
   man who despises its gracious cry--

   "How they deserve the deepest Hell, That slight the joys above!

   What chains of vengeance must they feel, Who break such cords of love."

   Godward, then, Christ became perfect as our Savior. And when He had
   finished His work, the Lord certified the completion and acceptance of
   it by raising Him from the dead and giving Him a place at His right
   hand. He who, as Judge, was offended by our sin, is now well-pleased in
   His Son, and has established a Covenant of Peace with us for His sake.

   Is God satisfied with Jesus and are you dissatisfied? Is Infinite
   Justice content and do your doubts and fears prevent your being
   reconciled? Do you stand by and say that Jesus cannot save you, when
   God's Word declares that He is able to save to the uttermost them that
   come unto God by Him? Do you set up your prejudices and unbelief under
   the pretence of humility, in opposition to the declaration of God, who
   cannot lie? The Lord declares His approbation of His dear Son-- why,
   then, do you quibble? God forbid that you should indulge in such a sin
   any longer! Rather end your opposition and where God finds rest, there
   find rest yourself! If the Lord is content to save those who obey
   Jesus, be obedient by the help of God's blessed Spirit.

   But, Beloved, I have said that Christ Jesus, as our High Priest, needed
   to be perfected manward. O Sinner, consider His perfections as they
   concern yourself! That He might save us He must have power to pardon
   and to renew our hearts. These He has to the full, for all power is
   given unto Him in Heaven and in earth. He gives both repentance and
   remission. But, alas, we are afraid of Him! We shrink from approaching
   Him and, therefore, to make Him a perfect Savior He must be tender of
   heart, willing to come to us when we will not come to Him,
   compassionate to our ignorance and ready to help our infirmities. It
   needs One who can stoop to bind up gaping wounds which cannot heal
   themselves. One who does not mind touching the leper, or bending over
   the fever-stricken, or going to the grave where corruption pollutes the
   air. One who does not ask the leper to first make himself clean, but
   comes into contact with him in all his foulness and abomination--and
   saves him!

   Now, Brothers and Sisters, Jesus bids us come to Him because He is meek
   and lowly in heart. It is said of Him, "This Man receives sinners and
   eats with them." He was called "A friend of publicans and sinners." His
   name is love and His heart is pity. To make tenderness practical, a man
   must not only have a gentle nature, but he must have undergone the
   sufferings which he pities, so as to sympathize with them. We may try,
   dear Friends, to sympathize with persons in certain afflictions, but
   the attempt does not succeed unless we have walked in the same paths.
   Now, Sinner, have you a broken heart? So had Christ, for He said,
   "Reproach has broken My heart." Are you trembling under Divine anger?
   He, also, cried, "Why have You forsaken Me?"

   What burden do you bear? His load was far heavier than yours! Are you
   wounded? He was nailed to the Cross! Do you feel exceedingly sorrowful,
   even unto death? So did He, until the bloody sweat stood on His brow!
   He is a brotherly Savior, well trained in Sorrow's school, deeply
   versed in the science of Consolation. Jesus knows the ins and outs of
   our nature. He knows what is in man. Now, this is a grand
   qualification. If you go to a physician, and yours is a very peculiar
   case, you are doubtful as to his skill. But when he shows that he knows
   all about you by describing the symptoms exactly as they occur, and
   adds, "I was once afflicted with this same sickness, myself," you say
   to yourself, "This man will suit me." Just so is it with Jesus--

   "He knows what fierce temptations mean, For He has felt the same."

   So far as it is possible for a sinless one to do so, He sympathizes
   with the whole of your condition. He knows the struggles within, the
   fears, the bitter tears, the groans which cannot be uttered. He knows
   every jot and tittle of your experience and is, therefore, eminently
   qualified to cope with your case.

   If you were on board a vessel and had lost your bearings, you would be
   glad enough to see a pilot in the offing. Here he is on board, and you
   say, "Pilot, do you know where we are?" "Yes," he says, "of course I
   do. I can tell you within a yard." "It is well, Mr. Pilot, but can you
   bring us to the port we want to make?" "Certainly," he says. "Do you
   know the coast?" "Coast, Sir! I know every bit of headland, rock and
   quicksand, as well as I know the cut of my face in a looking-glass. I
   have passed over every inch of it in all tides and all weathers. I am a
   child at home here." "But, pilot, do you know that treacherous shoal?"
   "Yes, and I remember almost running aground upon it once, but we
   escaped just in time. I know all those sands as well as if they were my
   own children."

   You feel perfectly safe in such hands. Such is the qualification of
   Christ to pilot sinners to Heaven. There is not a bay, or a creek, or a
   rock, or a sand between the maelstrom of Hell and the fair havens of
   Heaven but what Christ has sounded all the deeps and the shallows,
   measured the force of the current and seen the set of the stream. He
   knows how to steer so as to bring the ship right away by the best
   course into the heavenly harbor. There is one delightful thing in
   Christ's perfect qualification to save, namely, that He "ever lives to
   make intercession for us." If Jesus Christ were dead and had left us
   the blessing of salvation that we might freely help ourselves to it, we
   should have much to praise Him for. But He is not dead, He is alive! He
   left us a legacy, but many a legacy is left which never gets to the
   legates! Lo, the Great Maker of the will is alive to carry out His own
   intentions!

   He died and so made the legacy good. He rose again and lives to see
   that none shall rob any one of His beloved of the portion He has left!
   What do you think of Christ pleading in Heaven? Have you ever estimated
   the power of that plea? He is day and night pleading for all them that
   obey Him--pleading for sinners--pleading with God that pardon may be
   given to the greatest of offenders! And does He plead in vain? Is He
   unacceptable with the Father? It cannot be imagined! Why, then, O
   Sinner, do you continue to look to yourself? How much wiser would it be
   for you to turn your eyes to your Lord. You say, "I am not perfect."
   Why, do you want to be? The perfection is in Him. "But, alas, I am not
   this and I am not that." What has that to do with it? Jesus is all that
   is needed. If you were to be your own savior, you would be in a bad
   case, indeed, for you are all faults and failings!

   But if He is the Savior, why do you talk about what you are? He is
   fully equipped for the world. He never asked your help. It is an insult
   to suppose that He wants it. What if you are dead in sin, yes, and
   rotten in vice and corruption? He is able to raise you from the dead
   and to make you sit at His own right hand in the heavenly places, for
   He is a perfect Savior and is able to save to the uttermost!

   III. The third point is this. I want you to notice THE HIGH POSITION
   WHICH OUR LORD JESUS TAKES IN REFERENCE TO SALVATION. According to the
   text, "He became the Author of eternal salvation." He is the

   Designer, Creator, Worker and Cause of salvation. By Him salvation has
   been accomplished--"His right hand and His holy arm have gotten Him the
   victory." "He has trod the winepress alone, and of the people there was
   none with Him." He is the Author of salvation in this sense, that every
   blessing comes through Him. All the various departments of salvation,
   whether they are election, calling, justification, or
   sanctification--all bless us through Him, according as the Father has
   chosen us in Him from before the foundation of the world.

   In him we are called, in Him preserved, in Him accepted--all Grace
   flows from Him. Christ is All and in all. Salvation within us is all
   His work. He sought us as well as bought us! His Spirit gives us the
   first sense of sin and leads us to faith. He Himself draws us to
   Himself. His name is Jesus, for He saves His people from their sins!
   Let me compare salvation to a book, of which Jesus is the sole Author.
   No one has contributed a line or a thought to it. He has never asked
   any human mind to write a preface to His work--the first word is from
   His pen. Some of you are trying to preface Christ's work, but your toil
   is fruitless! He will never bind up your wretched introduction with His
   golden lines of love. Come to Him without a preface, just as you are,
   steeped up to the throat in the foulness of sin, begrimed with the
   slime of Sodom!

   Come to Him without previous preparation and lay your heart's tablets
   before Him that He may write on them. He is an Author so skillful that
   none have ever discovered the smallest error in His work, for there are
   no mistakes--and no amendments are ever needed. When He saves, He saves
   completely. He does not ask us to revise and perfect His writing, it is
   perfected by His own hand. He is an Author to whose writing there are
   no addendum--it is finished and he is accursed who shall add a line! We
   have to take the finished salvation and rejoice in it--but we may never
   add to it. Christ is an Author who needs no man's imprimatur--He,
   Himself, has dignity and authority enough to make His work illustrious
   without the patronage of man. Christ is the Author of salvation!

   What you have to do, Sinner, is to take it--not preface it, improve it,
   or add to it--but to take it just as it is. There it is for you! It is
   to be had for the taking--hold out your trembling hand and receive it!
   Bring your empty cup and hold it under the Divine Fountain and let it
   be filled. Faith to accept it is all that is required. Why is it that
   you delay? You need to make yourself better before you believe in
   Jesus? That is to say, you want to be the author of your salvation and
   so elbow Christ out of His place! "Oh, but," you will say, "I cannot
   pray as I want." If you could pray as you ought, would Christ then be
   able to save you? He needs your prayers to help Him, does He? "Oh, but
   I do not feel as I ought."

   Your feelings are to help Christ, are they? "Oh, but I want to be
   different." And if you were different, then Christ would be able to
   save you--but as you now are He cannot save you?

   Do you mean that? Do you dare to say that He cannot forgive you this
   very moment, while the word is coming out of my mouth? Do you mean that
   this very instant, just as you are--a sinful and all but damned
   sinner--that He cannot forgive you now if you trust Him? If that is
   what you mean, you are deceived, for He is able to save you now! Having
   been made perfect, He is the Author of eternal salvation to everyone
   that obeys Him, and He is able at this moment to speak peace to the
   conscience of anyone and everyone who now obeys Him. God grant you
   Grace to catch the thought which I try to make plain, but which only
   the Spirit of God can lead you to understand.

   IV. My next thought is this. Dwell for a few minutes in devout
   meditation upon THE REMARKABLE CHARACTER OF THE REVELATION WHICH CHRIST
   HAS WORKED OUT. He is the Author of eternal salvation. Oh, how I love
   that word, "eternal." "Eternal salvation!" When the Jewish high priest
   had offered a sacrifice, the worshipper went home satisfied, for the
   blood was sprinkled and the offering accepted. But in a short time he
   sinned again and he had to bring another sacrifice. Once a year, when
   the high priest entered within the veil and came out and pronounced a
   blessing on the people, all Israel went home glad. But next year there
   must be the same remembrance of sin and the same sprinkling with
   blood--for the blood of bulls and of goats could not really put away
   sin--it was only a

   type.

   How blessed is the Truth of God that our Lord Jesus will not need to
   bring another sacrifice at any time, for He has obtained eternal
   salvation through His one offering. It is an eternal salvation as
   opposed to every other kind of deliverance. There are salvations spoken
   of in the Bible which are transient, for they only deal with temporal
   trouble and passing distress. But he who is once taken out of the
   horrible pit of unforgiven sin by the hand of Christ will never lie in
   that horrible place again! Being raised from the dead, we die no more!
   We are effectually delivered from the dominion of sin when Jesus Christ
   comes forth to save us.

   It is eternal salvation in this sense, that it rescues us from eternal
   condemnation and everlasting punishment. Glory be to God, everlasting
   punishment shall never fall on the Believer, for everlasting salvation
   puts it far away! It is eternal salvation as opposed to the risk of
   falling away and perishing. Some of our Brethren seem very pleased with
   a salvation of a temporary character whose continuance depends upon
   their own behavior. I do not envy them and shall not try to rob them of
   their treasure, for I would not have their salvation if they were to
   press me ever so much. I am a great deal more satisfied to have eternal
   salvation--a salvation based upon a finished work, carried on by Divine
   power--and undertaken by an unchangeable Savior!

   "Oh, but," I hear some say, "you may have eternal life today, and lose
   it tomorrow." What do words mean? How can that life be eternal which
   you can lose? Why, then, the life could not have been eternal. Your
   doctrine is a mistake in language, a contradiction in terms. "He that
   believes in Him has everlasting life." "I give unto My sheep eternal
   life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of
   My hand." "Because I live you shall live also." Sinner, if you believe
   in Jesus, He will not save you today and let you perish tomorrow! He
   will give you eternal salvation, which neither death nor Hell, nor
   time, nor eternity shall ever destroy, for, "who shall separate us from
   the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" The man who
   believes in Jesus is not as happy, but he is as safe from final
   condemnation as if he were already in Heaven--

   "His honor is engaged to save

   The meanest of His sheep.

   All that His heavenly Father ga ve,

   His hands securely keep.

   Nor death nor Hell shall ever remo ve

   His favorites from His breast.

   In the dear bosom of His lo ve

   They must forever rest."

   If this doctrine is not taught in Scripture, nothing is taught there at
   all and words have no meaning! On the very forefront of Scripture is
   written, "He that believes shall be saved." God grant us Grace to
   realize that promise. When the text says, "eternal salvation," it means
   that it will ripen into eternal bliss! You are saved from eternal
   misery. You are preserved by eternal life from falling back upon your
   old life--and you shall be brought to eternal bliss. Whoever Christ

   saves shall see the face of God with joy forever, as surely as he is
   born! Christ was made perfect on purpose that He might be the Author of
   eternal salvation.

   V. The last thought is THE PERSONS CONCERNED IN THIS SALVATION. "To all
   them that obey Him." The

   word, "obey," here, according to Dr. Owen's admirable translation,
   signifies "obedience upon hearing." And he very rightly says that this
   indicates faith. To obey Christ is, in its very essence, to trust Him
   or believe in Him. And we might read our text as if it said, "The
   Author of eternal salvation to all them that believe in Him." If you
   would be saved your first act of obedience must be to trust Jesus
   wholly, simply, heartily and alone! Recline your soul wholly on Jesus
   and you are saved now.

   "Is that all?" Certainly, that is all! "But it says 'obey.'" Precisely
   so. And do you not know that every man who trusts Christ obeys Him? I
   gave just now the illustration of a pilot. The pilot comes on board and
   says, "If I am to steer you into harbor you must trust me with the
   command of the vessel." That is done and he gives orders, "Reef that
   sail!" Suppose the captain says to the sailor, "Leave that sail alone,
   I tell you!" Is it not clear that he does not trust the pilot? If he
   trusted him he would have his orders carried out. Suppose the pilot
   cries out to the engineer, "Ease her!" and the captain countermands the
   order? The pilot is evidently not trusted and if the vessel runs ashore
   it will be no fault of his.

   So is it with regard to our Lord. The moment you put yourself into His
   hands you must obey Him, or you have not trusted Him. To change the
   figure--the doctor feels your pulse. "I will send you some medicine,"
   he says, "that will be very useful, and besides that, you must take a
   warm bath." He comes the next day. You say to him, "Doctor, I thought
   you were going to heal me. I am not a bit better." "Why," says he, "you
   do not trust me." "I do, Sir. I am sure I have every faith in you."
   "No," he says, "you do not believe in me, for there is that bottle of
   medicine untouched. You have not taken a drop of it. Have you had the
   bath?" "No, sir." "Well, you are making a fool of me. The fact is, I
   shall not come again. You do not believe in me. I am no physician to
   you."

   Every man who believes Christ obeys Him--believing and obeying always
   run side by side. Do you not know that Christ does not come merely to
   blot out the past, He comes to save us from being what we are, to save
   us from a bad temper, from a proud eye, from a wanton look, from a
   corrupt heart, from covetous desires, from a rebellious will and an
   indolent spirit? Now this cannot be done unless we obey, for if we are
   to continue to live in sin, salvation is a mere word and to boast of it
   would be ridiculous! How can we be saved from sin if we are living in
   sin? A man says, "Christ saves me, and yet I get drunk." Sir, you lie!
   How can you be saved from drunkenness when you are living in
   drunkenness?

   "But Christ saves me," says another, "although I am worldly and wild
   and frivolous." How does He save you? Man alive! Do you tell me the
   doctor has healed you of the leprosy while yet it is white on your
   brow? How can you say he has healed you of chills while you are, even
   now, shivering with it? Surely you do not know what you are talking
   about! Christ comes to save us from living as we once did. He comes to
   make new men of us. To give us new hearts and right spirits. And when
   He does this He will not let us go back to our old sins again, but
   leads us onward in the path of holiness. Mark well that every man who
   obeys Christ shall be saved, whatever His past life may have been.
   Every one of you, whatever your present condition may be, shall be
   saved if you obey the Redeemer, for, "He is the Author of eternal
   salvation to all them that obey Him."

   But mark, not to one more--no soul that refuses to obey Christ shall
   have any part or lot in this matter. Men may make what professions they
   please, but they shall never gain eternal salvation unless they obey
   Jesus. Those gates which open to let in the obedient close fast to shut
   out the unbelieving and disobedient. "God so loved the world, that He
   gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might not
   perish but have everlasting life." The extent of God's love to the
   world is this--He loves it so as to save all who believe in Jesus--but
   He will never save a soul which dies unbelieving and disobedient. If
   you reject Christ, you shut in your own face the only door of hope,
   "for he that believes not is condemned already."

   I am sometimes confronted with this statement--that faith is the gift
   of God and is worked in man by the power of the Spirit of
   God--therefore I have no business to command and entreat men to
   believe. I am not slow to answer my opposers, for in my inward soul I
   know that saving faith always is the gift of God and is in every case
   the work of the Holy Spirit! But I am not, yet, an idiot, and therefore
   I also know that faith is the act of man. The Holy Spirit does not
   believe for us. What has He to believe? The Holy Spirit does not repent
   for us. What has He to repent of? You must, yourself, believe, and it
   must be your own personal act or you will never be saved! I charge you
   before God, do not let the

   grand Truth of God that faith is the gift of God ever lead you to
   forget that you never will be saved unless you personally believe in
   Jesus!

   If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved, for here is
   the Gospel--"He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." And here
   is the solemn penalty appended to it, "He that believes not shall be
   damned." Sinner, there was never such a Savior as Christ is! He is the
   very Savior for you--He is both willing and able to save--and knows how
   to do it! He has promised to save all that trust Him. Go and try Him
   and, if, this morning, you shall trust Him and He repels you, come and
   tell me--and I will leave off preaching. When I find my Master casts
   out those that come to Him, I will put my shutters up and have done
   with the business of the Gospel! I can only speak as I find. I went to
   Him trembling and dismayed, and I thought He would never receive me.
   But I received as my welcome "Come in, you blessed of the Lord, why do
   you stand outside?" He washed me from my sins in the same hour and sent
   me on my way rejoicing!

   And here I have been, these 23 years, preaching Free Grace and dying
   love, and never have I yet lighted upon a sinner whom Jesus has cast
   out! And when I do meet with such a case, I must have done preaching
   for very shame. I am not afraid, however, for such a case shall never
   be heard of in this world. No, nor in the infernal deep does there lie
   a single soul condemned for sin who would dare to say, "I sought the
   Lord and He would not hear me. I trusted in Christ and He would not
   save me. I pleaded the promise but it was not fulfilled."

   No, it shall never be! While God is true no Believer shall perish! Here
   is the promise, "Him that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out."
   Happy is the preacher who has such a Gospel to preach as I have
   preached to you! But I cannot make you receive it. I can bring the
   horse to the water, but I cannot make him drink. God must do this. Oh,
   that He may lead you to receive eternal salvation by Jesus Christ, to
   the glory of His name. Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Hebrews 5, 7. HYMNS FROM "OUR
   OWN HYMN BOOK "--327, 468, 395.
     __________________________________________________________________

"I Thought"

   (No. 1173)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 17, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "I thought." 2 Kings 5:11.

   OUR great object in preaching today will be the conversion of sinners.
   There is a great deal else to be done-- Believers need building up,
   comforting and quickening--but while myriads of men remain careless
   until they are swept away into Perdition, it becomes us to lend our
   strength to the most necessary work of winning souls for Jesus.
   Therefore, again this morning, I shall leave the 99 in the wilderness
   and go after that which has gone astray, pleading earnestly with God
   that He will bless my pleading with men so that while I discourse with
   them concerning their folly in rejecting the Savior, His Spirit may
   discourse with them, also, and lead them to flee to Jesus for eternal
   life!

   At the outset, however, we will have a few words for Believers.
   Preconceptions of what ought to be the Lord's mode of action are very
   injurious, even to those who have true faith in God--and yet they are
   very frequently indulged. We map out beforehand the path of Providence
   and the method of mercy, forgetting that the Lord's way is in the sea,
   His path in the great waters and His footsteps are not known. When the
   Lord does not choose to act according to our notions we start back and
   cry, half-indignantly, "I thought He would surely act otherwise." This
   folly is seen in Believers, sometimes, in reference to their way to
   Heaven.

   They are like the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. There
   is a straight road to Canaan--why are they not allowed to take it?
   Instead of a direct march onward they are led round about with
   ever-varying experiences. Their course is by turns progressive,
   retrograde and standing still--to the right and to the left, forward
   and retreat. Does not Providence often perplex you and run counter, not
   only to your wishes, but to your deliberate judgment? That which for
   many reasons seems to be the best does not happen to you, while that
   which appears to be distressingly injurious overtakes you! Your
   forecasts do not come true, your daydreams are not realized, your
   schemes for life are not carried out. You cannot understand why!

   Why is it that you are kept in poverty when you could have made such
   good use of riches? How is it you are laid aside just when you could
   have been most useful? Why have talents been denied to you when you
   feel you would have used them with such diligence and fidelity? How is
   it that others, who waste away life, are endowed with 10 talents, while
   you who are industrious and zealous have scarcely one? You have
   ventured to propose such inquiries, but you have not been able to
   answer them. It is as well that you should not, for our business is not
   the solution of problems, but the performance of precepts. Let us cease
   from our own wisdom and leave all arrangements in the hand of our
   heavenly Father. Our thoughts are vanity, His thoughts are precious.

   The like fault will arise in connection with our prayers. We pray
   believingly and an answer comes, for believing prayer never fails, but
   the answer comes in an unexpected fashion and not at all as we thought!
   We prayed God to bless our family, and, lo, our wife is taken away, or
   our child sickens! We besought the Lord to make us more spiritual and
   He has sent a severe affliction to grieve us--

   "I asked the Lord that I might grow

   In faith, and love and every Grace,

   Might more of His salvation know,

   And seek more earnestly His face.

   I hoped that in some favored hour

   At once He'd answer my request,

   And by His love's constraining power

   Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

   Instead of this, He made me feel

   The hidden evils of my heart

   And let the angry powers of Hell

   Assault my soul in every part.

   Yes, more, with His own hand He seemed

   Intent to aggra vate my woe.

   Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

   Blasted my gourds and laid me low.

   'Lord, why is this?'I trembling cried.

   'Will You pursue Your worm to death?'

   ''Tis in this way,' the Lord replied,

   'I answer prayer for Grace and faith.'" "I thought," you say, "but oh,
   how different from my thoughts!" Yes, but how much better than your
   thoughts! You shall find that the Lord is doing for you exceeding
   abundantly above all that you asked or even thought! God is enriching
   you by your poverty. He is healing you by your sickness and drawing you
   nearer to Himself by driving you further away from creature confidence.

   Often and often we fail to see God's gracious answers to prayer because
   we make up our minds as to the way in which they will come. We refuse
   letters from Heaven because they are sent in black-bordered envelopes.
   We thought our Lord would send us bread and meat by angels, but
   instead, He sent it by ravens. When we see the Lord's hand in
   unexpected ways, we are apt to say, half in disappointment, "I thought
   it would have been otherwise." Perhaps we have carried these
   preconceptions of ours still further--for we have actually thought
   beforehand that God would not bless us at all! He has been graciously
   designing our good by affliction and we have written bitter things both
   against Him and against ourselves, for we have thought that He had
   utterly forsaken us. We have cried with Jacob, "Joseph is not, Simeon
   is not, and you will take Benjamin away. All these things are against
   me!"

   When the good old Patriarch stood up in the chariot and felt Joseph's
   warm kiss upon his cheek, he might have said, "I thought that all
   things were against me, but now I see that I misjudged my God. He sent
   my Joseph here to provide for me and for my household in the days of
   famine. And He fetched my Simeon and my Benjamin away, that it might be
   all the more easy for me to come down to the place where my sons had
   been before me. The Lord has dealt well with His servant, but I thought
   not so." Dear Brothers and Sisters, leave off these forecasts, for
   blind unbelief is sure to err--the trade of a Prophet does not suit
   many of God's servants. We look into the telescope, for we are curious
   to peer into the future, and having breathed upon the glass with
   anxious breath, we cry out in dismay, "I see nothing but clouds and
   darkness before me!"

   Yet our pictures of the dreadful future dissolve into the realities of
   boundless goodness as we see goodness and mercy following us all the
   days of our lives! We blush for our unbelief, for we had said in our
   heart, "I shall one day perish by the enemy's hand." May God save us
   from that cruel, "I thought," which torments us and belies our God! On
   the other hand, we sometimes make flattering forecasts of the future
   which are equally untrue. "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be
   moved. Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong."
   That was David's thought. Everybody else might be tossed to and fro,
   but he would be calm and confident. No doubt others might be in trouble
   and in doubt, but his faith was so firm and his position so well
   established that he feared no change or commotion. He was too strong to
   tremble at the assaults from which others fled away discomfited.

   Now listen to the sequel--"You did hide Your face, and I was troubled."
   Like any other man, he feared and his firm mountain turned out to be
   only a rolling cloud which fled before the blast. The man who was so
   brave asked for the wings of a dove so he might take his flight.
   Beloved, we must give up this prophesying of our own greatness--it is a
   mere bag of wind! It is the very worst form of judging what is to be
   and what ought to be. Things are in better hands than ours! We have
   enough to do to obey the Lord's commands without setting up to be
   managers of Providence. Let Him plan and let us trust! Walk as in His
   sight, resigned to His will, and you shall rejoice all your days. But
   if you begin to map out a course for yourselves, to be your own guides
   and providers, your way will be both rough and dangerous--and your
   heart will be wounded with many sorrows.

   So far, then, I have spoken a lesson to Believers. I must now turn to
   the unconverted, and in so doing, I ask every Christian's prayer that a
   blessing may attend my words. Preconceived notions of the way of
   salvation are great

   hindrances to the very existence in the minds of the unconverted. It is
   our business from Lord's Day to Lord's Day, yes, everyday, to tell the
   sinner that, "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved." As
   clearly as words can put it, we repeat it ten thousand times--that to
   trust in Jesus is the only way of salvation, for Jesus has offered a
   great and acceptable Atonement before God for the sins of men--and
   whoever will come to Him and rest upon His Atonement has eternal life.
   We are met, at once, with opposition and men turn upon their heels and
   reject our message because it is not what they thought it would be.

   To wash in Jordan and be clean is not according to their notion. Or
   they expected some more difficult, mysterious, and showy way of
   salvation. "Behold, I thought," they say, and they go their way, either
   in a rage, or else in utter carelessness. Come, Friend, let me get you
   by the buttonhole and talk with you upon this matter--and may the Lord
   make both of us wise! First, how could you expect to find out the way
   of salvation by your own thoughts? There are a great many things which
   men can discover. The inventiveness of the human mind about earthly
   things appears to have scarcely any limit. But, with regard to heavenly
   things, the natural man has not the faculty of discerning and never did
   make a discovery yet, and never will. Whatever is known of God is made
   known by God.

   Upon the face of Nature the existence of God is written, but we look in
   vain for any indication of a plan of salvation. Jesus, alone, is the
   Savior--how can you imagine that His way of saving can be known to men
   except as He has revealed it? I will ask you a question. Suppose you
   were sick of a mysterious and fatal disorder, and a skillful physician
   was recommended to you--would you expect to foresee that physician's
   mode of action? Would you go to him and then hesitate to accept his
   advice because it was contrary to what you had supposed it would be? If
   so, I can only say that you must be very foolish to go to a physician
   at all! Why not heal yourself?

   Your case is complicated and here is a surgeon who, by long experience
   and wonderful skill, has acquired power to deal with your disorder. Do
   you insist upon it that he shall only operate as you approve? Is he to
   use knife, lances, bands and splints at your dictation? If so, you had
   better dispense with him and call in a nurse who has never studied the
   art, but is quite able to do your bidding, for you are surgeon to
   yourself! Unconverted Friend, your case is one in which you cannot help
   yourself--none but Jesus can save you! How can you expect to invent for
   yourself a plan of salvation? You are bid to become Christ's
   disciple--do you expect to know more than your Master? Are you to teach
   Him, or is He to teach you?

   If you could discover the way to Heaven for yourself, why has the Lord
   given you the Bible? That Inspired volume is a superfluity if your
   thoughts are to appoint the way of salvation. And what need is there of
   the Holy Spirit to reveal the Truth of God and lead us into it, if,
   after all, our thoughts are to be the rule? Oh, Sirs, your
   arrogance--for I dare not call it less--makes you claim to be equal to
   the Physician of souls, to be beyond the need of Revelation and
   superior to the assistance of the Holy Spirit! Retract, I pray you, and
   leave a position which involves such blasphemies! I will ask every
   awakened sinner here who has been settling in his thoughts what the
   plan of salvation ought to be, what peace his thoughts have brought to
   him? How far have your inventions brought you?

   They have led you to physicians of no value! They have caused you to
   spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that
   which satisfies not. You have leaned upon reeds and trusted in shadows!
   Kindling a fire with your own fuel, you have, for a moment, rejoiced in
   the sparks, but before long you have had to lie down in sorrow. I have
   passed through your state of mind. I tried full many an invention, but
   upon them all was written, "Vanity of vanities." Self was at the bottom
   of all--in some form or other I looked to self--and I looked in vain! I
   was like a man in a bog, who, the more he struggles, the more he sinks.
   Or like a prisoner upon the treadmill who rises no higher, but only
   wearies himself by his climbing.

   No good can result from efforts made apart from faith in Jesus. However
   earnest and sincere we may be, we must fail in our search if we do not
   seek God's way. Would it not be wise, after so many bitter
   disappointments, to leave your own inventions? If they have done you no
   good, depend upon it, they never will! You had better humble yourself
   as a little child and learn from God what the plan of salvation is, and
   then obediently accept it. Come, poor Soul, in humble obedience read
   the sacred roll of Inspiration and say, "O Lord, show me what You would
   have me to do." Then will light break in upon you and peace shall
   follow! Faith in Jesus is God's way--it will be the height of folly to
   set up a method of your own in competition with Him!

   Let me now ask you a second question, or a series of questions. Should
   the plan of salvation be arranged according to your will and judgment?
   You are a sinner and need pardon. Your nature is depraved and needs
   renewing. Should the plan of forgiving and regenerating you be shaped
   to please your tastes and whims? Should the great Lord of mercy wait
   upon you and consult you as to how He shall work out your salvation? As
   a reasonable man I beg you to tell me--has not the Lord an absolute
   right to dispense His favors as He pleases? Shall He not do as He wills
   with His own? You yourself, perhaps, are a man of generous spirit, and
   you relieve the poor. But suppose a poor man should dictate to you how
   he should be helped and in what shape you should bestow your
   charity--would you listen to him for a moment? "No," you would say, "I
   am not bound to give you anything. If I give, I give freely, but I am
   not going to be bound by rules which you may choose to make."

   Beggars must not be choosers. Now, you, O unsaved one, are a beggar
   needing alms from God. Do you intend to dictate to the Host on high how
   and in what manner He shall give His salvation to you? Act not so
   foolishly! As a reasonable man, renounce such an idea! I claim for God
   not only that He has a Sovereign right to make His own plan of
   salvation, but that He is infinitely wiser than you are! Had He left it
   to you to devise a scheme of mercy, it would have been most unfortunate
   for you. God knows more about man than man knows about himself. And the
   great designs of God are much more far-reaching than the expectations
   or desires of man, even when he is most desirous to be blessed. I do
   not hesitate to say that the most intelligent Christian would have been
   content with far less than God is accustomed to give, and that if the
   arrangements of Divine Grace had been left to us, they would have borne
   but very stunted proportions compared with the present dimensions of
   the plan of Divine Grace.

   Surely it is best to leave it with God who will surpass all that we
   could desire or devise. Why should you be thinking of ways to be saved,
   when the mind of God, which is infinite as well in love as in wisdom,
   has already arranged a scheme so much superior? Furthermore, do you not
   think that if the plan of mercy were left to your choosing, you would
   become very self-conceited? If you had the sketching of the system of
   salvation and it were well done and fully accomplished, you would say,
   "My methods were admirable! Am I not wise? Did I not arrange it well?"
   You would be proud as Lucifer and when you got to Heaven, saved on your
   own system, you would have ground for glorying and many a note upon
   those golden harps would be dedicated to the glory of your own
   skill--and very few enough be consecrated to your Redeemer.

   Now, an arrangement which would increase our self-conceit would be
   fatal to salvation, for self-conceit is a part of the sin from which we
   need to be saved! Salvation is the destruction of sin--a system which
   would foster self-conceit and self-confidence is evidently unadapted to
   the end in view. Therefore, since your own plan could not save you, bow
   your hearts to the method of Divine Grace and live! Moreover, consider,
   O man, you who desire to sketch for yourself the road to Heaven, do you
   not see how you derogate from the Glory of God? Did the Lord ask your
   judgment when He made the heavens? When He dug the channels of the
   deep? When He poured out the water floods? When He balanced the clouds?
   When He set the stars in their places? With whom did He take counsel?
   Who instructed Him?

   Who was with Him to stretch the line or hold the plummet? He, Himself,
   in the old creation, made all things by His infinite wisdom. Do you
   think that He needs your aid in the new? In the work of redemption did
   He ask your help or take your counsel when He made the Covenant of
   Grace and fixed it by firm decree? Did you stand in the winepress, side
   by side with the Redeemer, in the day when His garments were red with
   blood? Have you contributed to the ransom price which He redeemed His
   people from going down into the Pit? Creation and redemption have been,
   up to now, works of God, alone--and has the Lord, now, a need of you?
   Has He called you into His counsels, that you may guide Him as to the
   application of redemption? Dare you pluck Jehovah by the sleeve and
   tell Him what He ought to do in order to save a guilty worm like you?
   Must He need ask you how He shall deal with you?

   O man, it will not do! The supposition cannot be endured! You must
   leave the Lord to save you as He wills--and as His plan is that of
   simple faith--it is wickedness to set up another! Renounce your proud
   conceit! If you would be saved, renounce it and humbly come and say,
   "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." Here is His message of life to
   your souls-- "Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul
   shall live; and I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you, even the
   sure mercies of David." Now, if you have determined what the plan of
   salvation ought to be, I ask you, next, by what rule are you able to
   preconceive that plan? You refuse to be told what that plan really is
   because you think you know beforehand.

   Now by what rule have you judged? I will tell you in one word. The most
   of sinners conceive the plan of salvation to be what they wish it to
   be. They thought--but their wish is father to their thought. Naaman
   with his chariots and his horses wanted the obsequious homage of the
   Prophet and therefore he thought, "Surely he will come out to me." Men
   love to be flattered. They need a plan of salvation which will gratify
   their self-esteem and enable them to show what dignity there is in
   human nature! They think that man should be treated like an emperor in
   disguise--and mercy should be bestowed on him as if it were a reward
   for merit! As they wish it to be, so they believe it is. Gentlemen of
   the modern school of thought think out what God ought to be, like the
   German who evolved a camel out of his own consciousness and was very
   disgusted when he found that it had a hump.

   They make a god as they imagine he ought to be and deify the creature
   of their addled brains. And then they turn to the Bible for passages
   which may be twisted to support their ideas--instead of coming to the
   Book to learn what is in it--and accepting its every teaching as the
   Truth of God. They bring their notions to the Bible and try to mold it
   to their views. In this spirit men believe the road to Heaven to be
   what they wish it to be, but it is not so. But you assure me that you
   have conceived the way of salvation according to your understanding.
   Well, then, you have conceived it wrongly for certain--for what is your
   understanding compared with the understanding of God?

   A little child has asked a favor of his father. His father knows it to
   be difficult to grant it, but he has, at great expense and skill,
   arranged it. And, now, is the way in which it is to be accomplished to
   be according to the child's understanding? No, I say it must be
   according to the father's understanding, for that is more able to lead
   the way. And besides, the father is the benefactor. In your case, is
   your understanding to be the guide, or God's? I will suppose you to be
   a person of considerable education, far above the common level. But yet
   I would have you remember that, "as high as the heavens are above the
   earth, so high are God's thoughts above your thoughts, and His ways
   above your ways." Why, then, should you wish to measure the dealings of
   the Most High by so short a line as your own?

   Have done with this folly! "Well," you say, "but I have received my
   ideas from my parents." Well, then, who were your parents? That is a
   very great point in such a case. Who were they and were they saved?
   Suppose your parents were lost, is that a reason why you should be?
   Nobody here who has a blind father would consider it his duty to put
   his eyes out by way of honoring his parents! If a man were born of a
   crippled parent and God blessed him with all his limbs and faculties,
   he would not consider himself obliged to limp, or use a crutch, or
   twist his foot. We have an old proverb that if a man were born in a
   stable he need not be a horse--nor should a man be of a false religion
   because of his family connections. If our parents were mistaken, that
   is no reason why we should be. We regret it for their sakes, but with
   the Word of God in our hands we do not intend to follow them any
   further than they were led by God.

   A certain heathen warrior was about to profess to be a Christian.
   Standing with one leg in the waters of baptism, he turned to the
   missionary and inquired, "Where are my sires? Where are the chiefs of
   my line who worshipped Woden and Thor? Where have they gone? Are they
   in Heaven?" "No," said the missionary, "we fear not." "Ah, then," he
   said, "I will not leave the house of my fathers," and so he drew back
   his foot from the font. Many are of his mind, if I may call it mind at
   all! It is a certain animal instinct of the same nature as that which
   makes sheep follow each other when they go astray. God save us from
   this evil fashion! A man cannot inherit religion. It is not a thing to
   be bequeathed like old clothes or family china. Search the Scriptures
   for yourselves! Go to God the Holy Spirit for enlightenment and follow
   where that enlightenment leads--even to Jesus the Savior!

   Never dream of keeping to a false religion because it is that of your
   family or your nation--for by that rule we ought, at this moment, to be
   worshipping with the Druids in the oak groves. If we are bound to
   follow the religion of our forefathers, missionaries are great
   criminals and there must be dozens of true religions instead of only
   one. On this principle Naaman ought never to have gone to wash in
   Jordan--he ought to have stuck to Abana and to Pharpar, as his fathers
   had done before him--and have remained a leper all his days. "Well,"
   you say, "my idea of how I ought to be saved is gathered from what I
   have read and observed. I cannot submit to be saved by simple trust in
   Jesus, for I have been reading the biography of a good man and I want
   to feel just as he felt. Moreover, I noticed how my cousin was troubled
   in mind and I observed that she had a very remarkable dream. And,
   besides, she obtained very extraordinary joys--and unless I have some
   of these I shall never believe."

   But, my dear Friend, do you think that God is tied down to give to each
   penitent the same line of experience? Is a master artist bound to paint
   always the same picture? May there be no variations in form and tint?
   In man's work there is

   always a degree of monotony--even the most versatile genius has its own
   peculiar line of things. But God is never monotonous! There is a
   wonderful variety in all that He does and this is very conspicuous in
   conversions, for these are masterpieces of His Spirit. Do not,
   therefore, settle how you ought to be brought to Christ, as if that
   were a stereotyped affair, for the Lord does as He wills. "Yes," says
   one, "but I judge by the general current of society and the opinions
   that I meet in everyday life. I am a man of the world and I form my
   opinion from men of the world." Then, for certain, you form a wrong
   opinion, for the mind of the world never was the mind of God and never
   will be!

   "You are of God, little children," says John, "and the whole world lies
   in the Wicked One." To form your opinion of what light is by sojourning
   in darkness is ridiculous. To fashion a notion of liberty from the
   prison, or to describe life by observations made in a morgue would be
   absurd! Your every method of salvation by preconceived thought is
   wrong, therefore cease from such thoughts, I pray you. I have another
   question. How would it be, supposing your thoughts were the fact? Let
   us examine the matter. You have thought, perhaps, that you ought to be
   saved by undergoing a ceremony. You have believed that the sprinkling
   of water on your face, or the eating of a wafer and the drinking of a
   little wine would procure the forgiveness of your sins. Suppose it were
   so?

   It would be a calamity, for it would give pardon without penitence,
   forgiveness without a change of heart. Can any moral result be produced
   by an ecclesiastical performance? Has the world ever seen persons
   rendered more honest or more spiritually-minded by the contact of
   priestly hands? External operations do not affect the moral nature!
   That is a fact which we can prove by innumerable instances and there is
   not one instance of an opposite character. If they will bring a man who
   is really improved by priestly operations, whether aqueous, alimentary,
   unctuous, or saline, we will listen to them--but no such fact is
   forthcoming. It would be a very unfortunate thing for you, my dear
   Friends, if, by external operation, guilt could be removed--because it
   is clear that your evil heart would remain and, therefore, you would
   still have no communion with God and no fitness for Heaven.

   You must be born again! You must believe in Jesus! These are the
   necessities of your nature if you are to be happy. Heaven would not be
   Heaven to you if you were baptized, confirmed and took all the
   sacraments which Rome could give you, for they would not change your
   nature--and that change is a prime necessity which cannot be dispensed
   with. True faith in Jesus works by love and purifies the soul--that is
   the Lord's way--accept it and forsake your own thoughts! You wish,
   perhaps, to be saved by good works--self-righteousness is your thought.
   Alas, if this were the way it would be an impossible way for you, for
   you cannot perform good works! If you can, why have you sinned at all?
   What would be your motive if you attempted good works? Why, to save
   yourself, would it not? With selfishness as their motive, your works
   would be defiled at the fountainhead!

   Besides, all that you can do is already due to God and, therefore, it
   cannot make up for the past. You must be saved by the Grace of God and
   then good works will come from you, but never will you have any to
   spare. When you have done all, you will still be an unprofitable
   servant and a debtor to Sovereign Grace. Perhaps you think that God
   might as well pardon you at once and have done with it--that is your
   plan. Suppose He did so. Suppose that He, at once, blotted your sin
   from His book and that was the end of it? What peace would that give
   you? What security for the future? A God who could pardon without
   justice might, one of these days, condemn without reason! He who could
   set aside His Law so as not to execute His threats, might one day set
   aside His Gospel so as not to fulfill His promise. It is a grand ground
   of peace for us that God is never unjust in order to be gracious. He
   saves sinners, but not till He has laid their sin upon Christ and is
   both just, and yet the Justifier of Him that believes. Your plan of
   pardon without an expiation would not work. It would not give
   confidence to you and it would certainly dishonor the Character of the
   Most High.

   But you have thought that if you are to be saved, you must of necessity
   experience great horrors, as many have done. You have read of John
   Bunyan and others passing through the Slough of Despond and you have
   set it down as a fact that you ought to wallow there, also. But why,
   Beloved? How does this tend to salvation? Is doubting the mercy of God
   a good and useful thing? Truly, some who are brought to Jesus are long
   in coming, but if He pleases to lead you by a long way, why complain?
   Is not the Gospel way the best way? Believe and live--is not that
   enough? Why, if the terrors did come upon you, they could not help you,
   or if they did, you would trust in your despair and this would be a
   false way.

   "Then," you say, "I stipulate for raptures and excitements. If I have
   these, I will believe." Joy will come after believing--it is a gift of
   God with which He rewards faith. If the Lord required joy and rapture
   of you, you could no more render them than if the way of works were
   still in vogue. "Jesus only" is your hope, why demand more? Now I come

   to the point. I have looked at what you would like salvation to be--and
   I have told you what it is. I will ask you this question--What in it do
   you object? Do you object to being saved simply by faith? Because it
   appears to you to be too mysterious? Mysterious? It is the essence of
   simplicity! You make it mysterious by refusing to understand it and not
   believing it to be so plain. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you
   shall be saved." To believe is to trust--and whoever trusts in the
   atoning blood is saved. Where is the mystery?

   Then men turn round and say, "Then it seems like nothing at all." But
   Jesus says, "This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He
   has sent." It is the work which God works, the grandest of all works,
   to believe in Jesus Christ! Do you count it as nothing, when God has
   elected it to be the grand means of renewing the heart by the Holy
   Spirit? Faith is the spring which moves all our nature. He who believes
   learns to love and, learning to love, he is changed from sin to
   holiness. "Yes, but this believing makes a man into a mere child." Is
   that an objection? Then I give you no reply but the words of the Lord
   Himself--"Except you be converted and become as little children, you
   shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of Heaven."

   "Oh," says another, "it throws the whole thing so open, if whoever
   believes in Jesus is saved." And do you want it closed? Do you crave a
   monopoly for yourself and your little coterie? Oh, Sir, God thinks not
   as you do! And when your heart is enlarged you will be ashamed of
   having made such a remark! "Well, but I do not like salvation by Grace
   alone, for it implies so much against me. I feel as Naaman did when the
   Prophet said, 'Wash and be clean.' What do I need washing for? Am I
   dirty? Do you insinuate that this leprosy of mine comes because I have
   not bathed often enough? I am insulted by you." Men regard the Gospel
   as insulting their dignity and therefore they turn away from it. They
   talk in this fashion--"What? Believe and live! Is that all? That way of
   salvation would suit a harlot or a drunk, but I am just, upright,
   honorable. Simply look to Christ as the dying thief did on the tree?
   Such a religion suits a thief, but it does not suit me."

   So you would like to have one way to Heaven for yourself and people of
   quality, and a back gate to let in the guilty? There is no such
   arrangement, Sir, and I trust you will not be so foolish as to be lost
   because your pride cannot be gratified. "Ah," says another, "it does
   not give a man anything that he can be proud of. It does not make him
   do anything, or be anything that he can talk about to his neighbors.
   'Only believe, and you shall be saved.' Why, the most common boy in the
   street might understand that, and practice it, too. I have graduated at
   a university. I am a man of natural endowments and great
   attainments--am I to be put on the same level as a shoe-black?" Well,
   if that is your line of argument, my answer is--"not many great men,
   not many mighty are chosen," and when you reject the Gospel, you
   neither disappoint Christ nor His people--we knew you would do so.

   I sometimes feel inclined to answer people in the manner in which I
   replied to a caviler not long ago. He did not understand this, nor
   understand that, nor understand the other and at last I said to him,
   "Sir, I do not suppose you ever will understand it." "Why not?" he
   asked. "Because," I said, "God reveals these things to His own elect
   and not to the wise and prudent." This view of the case he did not
   like, but I believed it would do him more good than entering into
   further controversy with him. Men profess to be puzzled with this and
   that when the truth is that their hearts are alienated from God. When
   the heart is set right and they are sincere inquirers, they will feel
   that the plan of salvation by Divine Grace is most suitable, most wise
   and most acceptable.

   When God the Holy Spirit once makes a man feel himself to be a lost,
   undone, ill-deserving, Hell-deserving sinner, he seizes upon the Gospel
   of Free Grace as a hungry man grasps a loaf of bread! May God bring men
   to feel themselves sinners and they will quibble at the Gospel no more.
   In conclusion. You thought that the Gospel ought to be such-and-such
   and now you are annoyed because you are told that the whole plan lies
   in believing. Let me ask you, then, Do you mean to be damned for the
   sake of a whim? Come, I will not mince the matter. Do you mean to lose
   Heaven and be cast into Hell forever for the sake of your proud
   fancies? For, oh, Sir, I assure you, in God's name, His plan will not
   alter for you! If the Lord should alter His Gospel for you, then He
   must alter it for another, and another--and it would be as shifting as
   quicksand. There it is! Take it of leave it, but alter it, you cannot.
   "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved" is always true. And
   the other side of the question is true, too--"He that believes not
   shall be damned."

   Remember, also, that however much you may dislike it today, it will be
   quite as unpleasant tomorrow. If there is at present some sharp,
   stripping and humbling work about it, it always will strip and always
   humble you if ever you receive it. To be saved by Grace alone will be
   as hard to your pride in 10 years' time as it is now--perhaps harder,
   because your

   heart will have grown harder and your stomach even more haughty against
   the Lord God of Hosts. Surely, Sir, if you are lost because you will
   not have salvation in God's way, you will get small comfort from your
   meditations when you lie in Hell. When you are shut in the eternal
   prison, you will reflect that you are there because you thought God
   ought to save you in another way. Then you will say to yourself, "I
   would not take His mercy freely. I would not fall down at Jesus' feet
   and simply trust Him. I wanted to feel, or do, or be something. I would
   not give up self and its foolish confidences--and here I am."

   Surely you will gnaw your tongue in anguish that you have been cast
   away for such an unreasonable reason! If others ask you how you came
   there, it will be a strange answer that you will have to give them.
   "I," says one, "I am here because I loved drink." Another says, "I am
   here, for I was lustful and debauched." "Ah," you say, "I was neither
   the one nor the other. I was kept from such sins, but I am lost simply
   because when I heard the plan of salvation, I had made up my mind what
   it ought to be and I stuck to my prejudices. I would not go to the
   Bible to search. I thought I knew as well as the Book and as well as
   the Holy Spirit, and I am lost." My dear Hearers, I do not ask you to
   believe anything I say because I say it. Fling it to the winds if it
   has no better authority than mine! But if it is God's Word, I charge
   you, on your soul's peril, do not reject it!

   We shall face each other at the last tremendous day and if I have told
   you honestly the plan of salvation, I am clear of your blood. But if,
   having heard it, you reject it because it does not suit your
   preconceived ideas, then, Sirs, your doom will lie at your own door.
   Provoke it not! Yield to the Master's bidding! May His Holy Spirit
   sweetly incline you and He shall have praise. There it is. Jesus died
   instead of sinners. He suffered God's wrath in the place of the guilty
   and, "Whoever believes in Him has everlasting life." Other foundation
   can no man lay. There is not another name under Heaven among men
   whereby you can be saved! The worst of all is, you will say, "We do not
   reject it, but we mean to think of it tomorrow."

   That has been the cry of some of you for 50 years! The bell will toll
   for your funerals before your tomorrow comes! Do not run this frightful
   risk. If to believe and to be saved would incapacitate you from your
   daily calling, or rob you of a single honorable joy, I might see sense
   in your procrastination. But since to be saved will make you fit for
   this life and fill your cup to the brim with joy, in addition to
   preparing you for the life to come, I charge you, by the living God,
   "kiss the Son lest He is angry and you perish from the way, while His
   wrath is kindled but a little." The Lord bless you for Jesus' sake.
   Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--2 Kings 5. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--34 (VS. I), 560, 583.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Ear Bored With An Awl

   (No. 1174)

   DELIVERED BY

   C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and
   my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him
   unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the
   doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he
   shall serve him forever." Exodus 21:5, 6.

   THE slavery which existed among the ancient Jews was a very different
   thing from that which has disgraced humanity in modern times. And it
   ought also to be remembered that Moses did not institute slavery in any
   shape or fashion. The laws concerning it were made on purpose to
   repress it, to confine it within very narrow bounds and, ultimately, to
   put an end to it. It was like the law of divorce--Moses authored that
   law but he knew that the people were so deeply rooted in it that it
   could not be forbidden. And therefore, as Jesus tells us, Moses,
   because of the hardness of their hearts, suffered them to put away
   their wives. And so, I may say, because of the hardness of their hearts
   he suffered them, still, to retain persons in servitude. But he made
   the laws very stringent, so as almost to prevent it.

   Among other repressive regulations, this was one, that when a slave ran
   away from his master it was contrary to law for anyone to assist in
   sending him back again. And with such a law as that, you can clearly
   see that nobody need remain a slave, since he could run away if he
   liked. It was nobody's business--no, it was a sin for anybody--to force
   him back again. Now, if a man can go when he likes, his slavery is a
   very different thing from that which still curses many parts of the
   earth. But the case stood thus and, sometimes persons who were
   insolvent, who could not pay, were compelled by the law to give their
   services to their creditors for a certain number of years, always
   limited, as you see in this case, to six.

   A man who had committed theft, instead of putting the country to the
   expense of a prison, was sometimes fined for his theft sevenfold. And
   if he had no money he was placed in servitude till he had bought
   himself free again--an institution not altogether indefensible, I
   think--and having a good deal of rough justice about it. Sometimes a
   person who was extremely poor would sell his services for the six
   years, which are here prescribed, to some wealthy person who was bound
   to house him, clothe him and feed him. This is very much like a system
   which still exists in some parts of our own country, where a person's
   services are hired for the year, with so much nourishment to be given,
   and so much of wage.

   Well, the law here says that if a man should have sold himself, or by
   insolvency should have come to be sold to his master, at the end of six
   years he might go free. He was quite free to leave his master's house
   and go where he pleased. But it seems that the servitude was so
   exceedingly light and, indeed, was so much for the benefit of the
   person in it, that frequently men would not go free. They preferred to
   continue as they were, servants to their masters. Now, as it was not
   desirable that this should often be the case and as, if it were
   permitted oppressive masters might sometimes frighten a servant into
   such an agreement, the law was made that in such a case the matter must
   be brought before the judges.

   And before them the man must say plainly--note that word--he must say
   it very distinctly and plainly, so that there was no doubt about it,
   that it really was his wish not to accept his liberty, but to remain as
   he was. And then, after he had stated his desire and given as his
   reason that he loved his master--and loved the children and the wife
   that he had obtained in his service--his ear was to be pierced against
   the door of the house. This ceremony was intended to put a little
   difficulty in the way, that he might hesitate and say, "No, I won't
   agree to that," and so might, as was most proper, go free.

   But if he agreed to that somewhat painful ceremony, and if he declared
   before the judges that it was his own act and deed, then he was to
   remain the servant of his chosen master as long as he lived. We are
   going to use this as a type--and get some moral out of it, by God's
   blessing. And the first use is this. Men are by nature the slaves of
   sin. Some are the slaves of drunkenness, some of lasciviousness, some
   of covetousness, some of sloth--but there are generally times in men's

   lives when they have an opportunity of breaking loose. There will
   happen Providential changes which take them away from old companions
   and so give them a little hope of liberty, or there will come times of
   sickness which take them away from temptation and give them
   opportunities for thought.

   Above all, seasons will occur when conscience is set to work by the
   faithful preaching of the Word and when the man pulls himself up and
   questions his spirit thus--"Which shall it be? I have been a servant of
   the devil, but here is an opportunity of getting free. Shall I give up
   this sin? Shall I pray God to give me Divine Grace to break right away
   and become a new man--or shall I not?" Such a time may happen to some
   sinner here. I pray you, dear Friend, do not slight it, because these
   times may not often come. And coming but being willfully refused, they
   may never return to you. If you are resolved to be the slave of your
   passions, then your passions will, indeed, enslave you. If you are
   content to be a slave of the cup, you shall find that the cup will hold
   you by its fascinations as fast as captive in fetters of brass.

   If you are willing to be the slave of unbelief and of the pleasures of
   the flesh, you will find that they will fasten you as with bands of
   steel and hold you down forever. There are times when men might get
   free. Their prison door is, for the moment, on the latch. "You almost
   persuade me to be a Christian," cries Agrippa. Felix trembles and
   resolves to hear more of this matter. Many others in the same condition
   have been all but free--but they have deliberately preferred to remain
   as they were--and the result has been that sin has bored their ear and
   from that day forward they have seldom been troubled by conscience.

   They have sinned with impunity. The descending scale to Hell has grown
   more and more rapid and they have glided down it with ever-increasing
   pace. Have I not seen some such, for whom I hoped better things? The
   evil spirit went out of them and left them for a while--and oh, if
   Divine Grace had come and occupied the house, that evil spirit would
   never have returned! But they beckoned back that evil spirit and he
   came with seven other devils more wicked than himself-- and the last
   end of these once hopeful persons has become worse than the first!
   Slave of sin, will you be free? Your six years are up tonight! Will you
   be free? The Spirit of God will help you to break every chain! The
   Redeemer will snap your fetters! Are you ready for liberty?

   Or does your heart deliberately choose to abide under the bondage of
   Satan? If so, take heed. That awl of habit may bore your ear and then
   you will be beyond all hope of reformation--the victim of yourself, the
   slave of your sins, the idolater of your own belly--the abject menial
   of your own passions. "He that would be free himself must break the
   chain," is the old saying. But I will improve it--he that would be free
   must cry to Christ to break the chain. But if he would not have it
   broken and hugs his bonds, then on his own head will be his blood!
   Christian man, the lesson to you is this--since the servants of Satan
   love their master so well, how well ought you to love yours? And since
   they will cling to his service, even when it brings misery into their
   homes, disease into their bodies, aches into their heads, redness into
   their eyes and poverty into their purses, oh, can you ever think of
   leaving your good and blessed Master, whose yoke is easy and whose
   burden is light? If they follow Satan into Hell, surely you may well
   say--

   "Through floods and flames, if Jesus leads, I'll follow where He goes."

   They are the willing servants of Satan. Be you, with more than equal
   ardor, the willing servants of Christ!

   Our text reads us a second lesson, namely, this. In the 40th Psalm, in
   the sixth verse, you will find the expression used by our Lord, or by
   David in prophecy personifying our Lord, "My ear have You opened," or,
   "My ear have You dug." Jesus Christ is here, in all probability,
   speaking of Himself as being forever, for our sakes, the willing
   Servant of God. Let us just dwell on that a moment. Ages ago, long
   before the things which are seen had begun to exist, Jesus had entered
   into Covenant with His Father that He would become the Servant of
   servants for our sakes. All through the long ages He never started back
   from that compact. Though the Savior knew the price of pardon was His
   blood, His pity never withdrew, for His ear had been pierced.

   He had become, for our sakes, the lifelong servant of God. He loved His
   spouse, the Church. He loved His dear sons, His children whom He
   foresaw when He looked through the future ages--and He would not go out
   free. Our insolvency had made us slaves and Christ became a Servant in
   our place. When He came to Bethlehem's manger, then it was that His ear
   was pierced, indeed, for Paul quotes as a parallel expression--"A body
   have You prepared Me." He was bound to God's service when He was found
   in fashion as a Man, for then He "became obedient unto death, even the
   death of the Cross." When he came to the waters of Baptism at Jordan
   and said, "Thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness," then

   did He, as it were, go before the judges and say plainly that He loved
   the Master, whom He was bound to serve, loved His spouse, the Church,
   and loved her little ones--and would, for their sakes, be a Servant
   forever.

   When He stood foot to foot with Satan in the wilderness, the arch-fiend
   offered to Him all the kingdoms of this world--and why did He not
   accept them? Because He preferred a Cross to a crown, for His ear was
   bored. Afterwards the people, in the height of His popularity, offered
   Him a crown, but He hid Himself away from them. And why? Because He
   came to suffer, not to reign. His ear was bored for redemption's work
   and He was straitened until He had accomplished it. In the Garden, when
   the bloody sweat fell from His face and He said, "If it is possible,
   let this cup pass from Me," why did He not put away that cup? If it had
   pleased Him, He might have applied for 12 legions of angels and they
   would have come to the rescue. Why did He not summon that celestial
   bodyguard?

   Was it not because He had wholly surrendered Himself to the service of
   our salvation? Before His judges He might have saved Himself. Why
   didn't He? One word when He was before Pilate would have broken the
   spell of prophecy, but why, like a sheep before her shearers, was He
   dumb? Why did He give His back to the smiters and His cheeks to those
   that plucked off His hair? Why did He condescend to die and actually,
   upon the Cross, pour out His heart's blood? It was all because He had
   undertaken for us, and He would go through with it. His ear was
   bored--He could not and He would not leave His dearly beloved Church--

   "Yes, said His love, for her I'll go Through all the depths of pain and
   woe. And on the Cross will even dare The bitter pangs of death to
   bear." He would not accept deliverance though He might have done so.
   "He saved others, Himself He could not save."

   Now, hear it, you Believers! If Jesus would not go free from His
   blessed undertaking, will you ever desire to go free from the service
   of His love? Since He pushed onwards till He said, "It is finished,"
   will not His love, by God's Holy Spirit, inspire you to push forward
   till you can say, "I have finished my course, I have kept the faith"?
   Can you go back when Jesus goes before you? Can you think of
   retreating? Can desertion or apostasy be regarded by you with any other
   feelings than those of abhorrence when you see your Master nailed to
   the gallows of Calvary, to bleed to death and then to lie in the cold
   grave for your sakes? Will you not say, "Let my ear be bored to His
   service, just as His ear was dug for

   me"?

   Let these observations stand as the preface for our sermon, for my
   discourse, though I will try to make it brief, deals with ourselves in
   an earnest fashion. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I think I speak for
   all of you who love Jesus, when I say--we are willing to undertake,
   tonight, perpetual service for Christ. To lead you all to renew your
   dedication I shall speak upon our choice of perpetual service and our
   reasons for making that choice. And then I shall call you up and try to
   pierce your ears with some one of certain sharp awls, which I have here
   ready for the purpose.

   I. First, let us speak upon our CHOICE OF PERPETUAL SERVICE. The first
   thing is we have the power to go free if we will. This is a very
   memorable night to me. Pardon my speaking of myself, I cannot help it.
   It is exactly 24 years this night that I put on the Lord Jesus Christ
   publicly in Baptism, avowing myself to be His servant. And now, at this
   present time, I have served Him four times six years and I think He
   says to me, "You may go free if you will." In effect He says the same
   to every one of you, "You may go free if you will. I will not hold you
   in unwilling servitude."

   There are plenty of places you can go--there is the world, the flesh
   and the devil. For a master you may have either of these three if you
   choose. Jesus will not hold you against your will. Do you desire to go
   free, Brothers and Sisters, free from the yoke of Jesus? I can only
   speak for myself--and you may say, "amen," for yourselves if you wish,
   but nothing more. "Blessed be His name," I never wish to be free from
   His dear yoke! Rather would I say--

   "Oh, to Grace how great a debtor, Daily I'm constrained to be! Let that
   Grace, Lord, like a fetter, Bind my willing heart to Thee." I will
   speak of Him as I find--I wish to serve Him not another 24 years, but
   four and twenty million years! Yes, and forever and forever, for His
   yoke is easy and His burden is light. It is said of the Hebrews, "If
   they had been mindful of the country from which they came out, they had
   opportunity to return." And so have we. But will we return to the land
   of destruction? Will we go back unto Perdition? Will we renounce our
   Lord? No, by God's Grace it cannot be! We are

   bound for the land of Canaan and to Canaan we will go. Wandering hearts
   we have, but Divine Grace still holds them fast and our prayer is--

   "Prone to wander, Lord, we feel it, Prone to leave the God we love.
   Here's our heart, Lord, take and seal it, Seal it from Your courts
   above."

   Well, then, since we might go free if we would, but wish not to do so,
   we are willing to declare before the judges-- that is, before the
   public here assembled tonight, who shall be our judges--that though
   quite able to go free, (we say it plainly and without stammering), we
   have not the remotest wish to do so. If the service of Christ has been
   a fetter, Lord, put on double fetters! If Your service has been a bond,
   Lord, tie us up, hand and foot, for, to us, bondage to You is the only
   perfect liberty. Yes, if it must be so, we will say it here--

   "'Tis done! The great transaction's done.

   Iam my Lord's, and He is mine!

   He drew me, and I followed on,

   Charmed to obey the voice Divine."

   And we will add the words--

   "High Heaven that heard the solemn vow,

   That voice renewed shall daily hear

   Till in life's last hour we bow,

   And bless in death a bond so dear." We are willing to say it publicly
   and plainly, and we are willing to take the consequences too. Are we?
   That is the question! If we mean to be Christ's servants forever, we
   must expect to have special troubles such as the world knows nothing
   of. The boring of our ear is a special pain, but both ears are ready
   for the awl. The Lord's service involves peculiar trials, for He has
   told us, "Every branch that bears fruit He purges it."

   Are we willing to take the purging? What son is there whom his father
   chastens not? Are we willing to take the chastening? Yes, we would
   deliberately say, "Whatever it is, we will bear it, so long as the Lord
   will keep us and help us to remain faithful." We dare not run away from
   His service! Would not, could not--and nothing can drive us to abscond
   from His house or His work, for, exulting in persevering Grace, we
   venture to say, "Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in
   Christ Jesus our Lord?" We will bear the boring of the ear! Perhaps it
   will come in the shape of more reproach from men. Some of us have had a
   very fair share of that and have been tolerably well abused up till
   now, but none of these things move us.

   Will there be more cruel mocking between here and Heaven? No doubt
   there will! Then let them come and welcome! My solemn personal
   declaration at this hour is--

   "If on my face for Your dear name Shame and reproach shall be, I'll
   hail reproach and welcome shame For You'll remember me."

   Do you not say the same, Beloved? Will you not serve Christ without any
   conditions, at all hazards? Will you not follow Him through the mire
   and through the slough, and up the bleak side of the hill, and along
   the crest of the field where the battle rages most fiercely? Yes, that
   we will, if but Divine Grace is given--if the Holy Spirit will abide in
   us. Do you not desire to follow the Lamb where ever He goes? Do you
   shrink from the supreme sacrifice? Do you not long to abide faithful
   though all should forsake the Truth? Yes, we desire perpetual servitude
   to Christ and to bear whatever that involves. I speak the heart of
   every lover of Christ when I say we do not want to serve Christ a
   little--we wish to serve Him much--and the more He will give us to do,
   the better we shall love Him!

   Yes, and the more He will give us to bear for His dear sake, if He will
   give us corresponding Grace, the more will we rejoice! That is a great
   life which is greatly useful, or greatly suffering, or greatly
   laborious for Jesus Christ the Savior. Do you not feel in your inmost
   souls that instead of wishing to be set free, you wish to plunge deeper
   into this blessed bondage--to bear in your body the marks of the Lord
   Jesus--and to be His branded slaves forever? Is not this the perfect
   freedom you desire? So, then, there is the first point--our choice of
   perpetual service.

   II. Now, secondly, OUR REASONS FOR IT. A man ought to have a reason for
   so weighty a decision as this. We have served our Master, now, for 24
   years and do not want to change, but should like to live with Him and
   die with Him and live forever with Him. We speak boldly on a very
   weighty business. What reasons can we give for such decided language?
   Well, first, we can give some reasons connected with Himself. The
   servant in our text who would not accept his liberty, said, "I love my
   master." Can we say that? I cannot feel content with merely saying it.
   It is true, true, true!

   But if I were to begin to talk of how I love Him, or how I ought to
   love Him, I should break down altogether tonight. Even now I choke with
   emotion. I can feel love in my heart, but my heart is too full for
   expression. Oh, what a blessed Master He is! Not love Him? My whole
   nature heaves with affection for Him! Who can help but love Him? Look
   at His wounds and you must love Him if you have been redeemed. Look at
   the great gash which reached His heart, where flowed the water and the
   blood to be, for your sin, the double cure! Could you fail to love Him?
   I mean Him who died for you and bought you, not with silver and gold,
   but with His own pangs and griefs and bloody sweat and death! Leave

   Him?

   O Savior, let us not be such devils as to leave You, for worse than
   demons should we be if we could apostatize from such a sweet Master as
   You are. We love our Master, for He has bought us and saved us from the
   miseries of Hell. And we love Him because there never was such a
   Master, so good, so tender, so royal, so inconceivably lovely, so
   altogether glorious! Our Lord is Perfection, itself, and the whole
   universe cannot produce His equal. We cannot now praise the stars, for
   we have seen the sun. We could not take up with the mean things of
   earth, for the Lord of Heaven has looked upon us and one glance of His
   eyes has enamored us of Him forever and forever. Want to leave the
   service of Jesus? By no means! No such wish crosses our soul.

   Beloved, I am sure you have no desire to change Masters, have you? Are
   you not abundantly well-pleased with His treatment of you? When a
   servant comes up from the country to take a situation in town, if he
   goes back to the village, his old friends come round him and they say,
   "Well, John, how did you find the service? Did your master treat you
   well? Was the work very hard? Were you well-fed and well-clothed?" Now,
   Christian people, I am not going to talk for you, but you shall talk
   for yourselves to your friends and kinsfolk--answer for yourselves
   their various questions. If you can find any fault with Jesus, tell
   them of it. Say whether He has ever treated you badly and, if He has,
   report it to all the world. Do not allow any to be led into a bad
   service if you have found it to be such.

   As for me, there was never a worse servant, but never servant had a
   better Master than I have! He has borne with my ill manners and treated
   me like one of His own family. I have been, at times, a dead weight to
   His household, but He has never given me a rough word, "My cup runs
   over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
   life." Tonight I must, even though I may be thought egotistical, speak
   of His lovingkindness towards me. Twenty-four years ago I was a lad in
   jackets and I walked into the open river on a cold May day to be
   baptized into the name of Jesus as timid and timorous a youth as you
   well might see.

   But when I rose from that water the fear of man was gone from my mind!
   I hope never to return. For the first time that night I prayed at the
   Prayer Meeting and this tongue has never since ceased to talk of His
   dear love--

   "Before since by faith I saw the stream His flowing wounds supply,
   Redeeming lo ve has been my theme, And shall be tiil I die."

   Now see what my Lord has done for me! If anyone had said to me,
   "Twenty-four years from this time you will preach to a vast crowd and
   will have spiritual children whose number cannot be told," I never
   could have believed it! It would have seemed impossible that such a
   thing could be! Yet so it is. His right hand has done wonderful things
   for me and my heart reverently extols Him. Glory be unto His name
   forever and forevermore! Leave my Master? Grant, O glorious Lord, that
   no such base and loathsome thought may even alight upon my breast! No,
   dear Master, I am Yours forever! Let me kiss Your feet again and be
   forever bound to You by new cords of love. Well, my Brothers and
   Sisters, the Lord has treated you kindly, has He not? Come, speak for
   yourselves! You could rise and tell stories, in their own way, equally
   as remarkable as mine and you could wind up, each one, by saying, "I
   love my Master. I cannot help but love Him."

   The servant in our text, who would not go free, plainly declared that
   he loved his wife, so that there are reasons connected not only with
   his master, but with those in his master's house, which detain each
   servant of Jesus in happy bondage. Beloved, some of us could not leave
   Jesus, not only because of what He is, but because of some that are
   very dear

   to us who are in His service. How could I leave my mother's God? How
   could I leave my father's God, my grandfather's God, my
   great-grandfather's God? My Brothers and Sisters, how could I leave
   your God, to be separated from you, whom I have loved so long, so well?

   Husband, tender and affectionate, could you leave your wife's God?
   Wife, could you forsake the God of those dear babes in Heaven? They are
   resting there on the breast of Jesus and you hope to see them soon--do
   you not love Jesus for the sake of those who once nestled in your
   bosom? Yes, and it is not merely earthly relationship that binds us
   thus, but we love all the people of God because of our relationship in
   Christ! Truly we can say of His Church, "Here my best friends, my
   kindred dwell." Some of the dearest associations we have ever formed
   commenced at the foot of the Cross. Our best friends are those with
   whom we go up to the House of God in company. Why, most of the friends
   that some of us have on earth we won through our being one in Jesus
   Christ! And we mean to stand fast for the grand old cause and the old
   Gospel, for the sake not only of Christ but of His people--

   "Now, for my friends and brethren's sake, Peace be in you, I'll say And
   for the sake of God our Lord I'll seek your good always."

   "Because I love my wife and my children," says the man, "I cannot go
   out free." And so say we. Besides, let me add, there are some of us who
   must keep to Christ because we have children in His family whom we
   could not leave--dear ones who first learned of Christ from us. Many in
   this place were first led to the Lord by our teaching and by our
   prayers. We could not run away from them--their loving prayers hold us
   fast! In them the Lord has hold upon us by new ties. You do not find a
   woman leaves her husband, as a rule, when there are seven or eight
   little children at home. No, and no man can leave Christ who has been
   spiritually fruitful--the seals of his ministry seal anew the
   indentures which bind him to his Lord. The successful pastor will be
   kept faithful. He must stand fast by the Church, and by the Church's
   Head, when there are children begotten unto him by the power of the
   Holy Spirit through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

   There are reasons, also, why we cannot forsake our Lord which arise out
   of ourselves. And the first is that reason which Peter felt to be so
   powerful. His Master said, "Will you, also, go away?" Peter answered by
   another question. He said, "Lord, to whom shall we go?" Ah, Christian,
   there is no way for you but to go straight on to Heaven, for where
   would you go? Where else could you go? Some of us are so thoroughly
   identified with Jesus and His Gospel that the world would have nothing
   to do with us if we were to ask its friendship. We are committed too
   much to our Master ever to reckon upon receiving love and friendship
   from His foes. We have given the world too many slaps in the face to be
   forgiven by it. We have crossed the Rubicon and there remains nothing
   for us but victory or death.

   Where could a poor wretch hide, who has been a well-known minister of
   the Gospel, should he apostatize? Where could he dwell? Should he
   journey to the ends of the earth some would remember his name and say,
   "When did you last apostatize?" In the remotest regions of the globe
   some would jeeringly say to him, "Have you fallen, have you gone
   aside?" Where could we go, then? We must cleave to Christ! It is of
   necessity we must. And why should we go? Come, Brothers, can you find
   any reason why we should leave Jesus Christ? Can you imagine one? As my
   imaginative faculty is not strong enough I will not attempt it.

   I can see a million reasons for cleaving to Him, but not a presence of
   a reason for leaving Him. And when should any who love Him leave Him,
   if we must leave Him? Leave Him while we are young? It is then that we
   need Him to be the guide of our youth! Leave Him when we are in middle
   life? Why, then it is we need Him to help us to bear our cross, lest we
   sink under our daily load! Leave Him in old age? Ah, no! It is then we
   require Him to cheer our declining hours! Leave Him in life? How could
   we live without Him? Leave Him in death? How could we die without Him?
   No, we must cling to Him--we must follow Him where ever He goes. These
   are a few of the reasons why we would be His servants forever.

   III. In the last place, I want to bore your ear. Do you mean to be
   bound for life? Christians, do you really mean it? Come, sit down and
   count the cost and, if you mean it, come and welcome! There is the
   standard! The blood-red Cross waves at the top of it--will you now, in
   cool blood, enlist for life? Every man who wishes to desert may go
   home. Christ wants no press men. Ho, you volunteers! Come here! We want
   you and none but you! The Lord desires no slaves to dishonor His camp.
   Cowards, you may go! Double-minded men, you may get to your tents! But
   what do you say, you

   true Believers? Will you cleave to Him and His cause? Do you leap
   forward and say, "Never can we separate from Jesus! We give ourselves
   to Him for life, for death, for time, and for eternity. We are His
   altogether and forever"?

   Come, then, and have your ears bored. And, first, let them be bored
   with the sharp awl of the Savior's sufferings. No story wrings a
   Christian's heart with such anguish as the griefs and woes of Christ.
   We preached, the other morning, upon the crown of thorns, [#1168, THE
   CROWN OF THORNS, April 12, 1874] and it was our task to bring before
   you the different items of our Savior's griefs. Now, whenever you are
   hearing about Him, you ought to say within yourself, "Ah, He is
   piercing my ear. He is fastening me to His Cross. He is marking me for
   Himself, I cannot forsake my bleeding Lord! His wounds attract me. I
   fly to Him afresh. When the world would draw me off from Jesus, I find
   a central force drawing me back to His dear heart. I must be Christ's.
   His suffering has won me. The bleeding Lamb enthralls me. I am His, by
   His Grace, and His forever!"

   That is one way of marking the ear. Next, let your ear be fastened by
   the Truth of God so that you are determined to hear only the Gospel.
   The Gospel ought to monopolize the Believer's ear. Some professors can
   hear any stuff in all the world if it is prettily put and so long as
   the man is a "clever" man (I think that is the word). When they hear a
   preacher of whom they can say, "He is very clever, very clever!" they
   appear perfectly satisfied--whether the man's doctrine is good or bad.
   Now isn't this foolishness? What does it matter about a man's being
   clever? Satan is clever! And every great thief is clever! There is
   nothing in cleverness to gain the approval of a spiritual mind.

   I pray God to give every one of you an ear that will not hear false
   doctrine! I do not think we ought to blame a man who gets up and goes
   out of a place of worship when he hears the Truth of God denied. I
   think we ought, rather, to commend him! There is a great deal of that
   soft, willow-pattern style of man about nowadays. Let a man talk loudly
   and prettily, and many hearers will believe anything he says. Dear
   Brothers and Sisters, we must have discernment, or we shall be found
   aiding and abetting error! "My sheep," says Christ, "hear My voice, and
   a stranger they will not follow, for they know not the voice of
   strangers."

   Now, if you mean to be Christ's forever, you must not allow that ear of
   yours to hear bad doctrine! You must take care that, knowing the Truth
   of God, you hold to it and renounce every false way. Do not make your
   ear a common sewer into which foul doctrine may be poured, in hope that
   afterwards Jesus Christ may make it clean again. "Take care what you
   hear" is one of the precepts of infinite wisdom--let it not fail to
   impress your souls. Furthermore, if you really give yourself to Christ,
   you must have your ear opened to hear and obey the whispers of the
   Spirit of God so that you yield to His teaching and to His teaching,
   only. I am afraid some Christians give their ears to an eminent
   preacher and follow him whichever way he goes, very much to their own
   injury.

   The right thing is to yield to the Spirit of God. Which way the
   Scripture goes--that is the way for you to go! And though we, or an
   angel from Heaven, preach to you any other Gospel than what this sacred
   Book contains--though I trust we may not be accursed if we do it in
   ignorance--yet, certainly, you will be accursed if, knowing it to be
   wrong, you follow us in preference to following the Lord! Let your ear
   be open to the faintest monitions of the Holy Spirit! There would be an
   end to all the sects and divisions in the Church if all Christians were
   willing to do what the Holy Spirit tells them. Alas, there are many
   people who do not want to know too much of the mind of God. What the
   Bible says is no great concern of theirs because, perhaps, that may not
   say quite the same thing as the Prayer Book--and they had rather not be
   disturbed in their minds.

   Perhaps the Bible may not confirm all the doctrines of their sect and,
   therefore, they leave it unread, for they had rather not be perplexed.
   Oh, Brothers and Sisters, let names, parties, Prayer Books, catechisms
   and everything else go to the dogs sooner than one word of Jesus be
   neglected! Let us give ourselves up to the Spirit of God and to the
   teaching of His own Word, for as Christ's servants our ears have been
   pierced. Your ear has thus been bored with three awls and none of them
   has pained you. Many young women have had their ears pierced--I do not
   know whether it hurt them or not. I do not suppose that the operation
   described in the text pained the man much, though there was a little
   blood lost, perhaps, when the awl went through the lobe of the ear.

   I will tell you what some would do with their ears if they were
   pierced. I would not do it with mine, but an oriental would be sure to
   do it. What would he do? Why, put a ring in it and hang it with
   ornaments. When a Christian man has his ears bored to belong to Christ
   forever and ever, God will be sure to put a jewel in it for him! And
   what jewels ought to hang in the Christian's ear? Why, the jewel of
   obedience. Practice the doctrine which your ear has heard! Then there

   would follow the diamond ofjoy--the ear which belongs wholly to Jesus
   will be sure to be adorned with the jewel of the Spirit, which is joy!
   If we give our heart up to Christ He will hang in our ear many costly
   gems of knowledge--we shall know the deep things of God when we are
   willing to learn them.

   The ear being pierced, we shall sit like children at Jesus' feet and
   learn of Him--and rubies and emeralds and pearls such as deep-sea
   fisheries never knew, shall belong to us! And our ear will be hung with
   the priceless gem of "quickness of understanding in the fear of the
   Lord." "He wakens me morning by morning. He opened my ear to hear as
   the learned." There, too, will hang that precious gem of separation
   from the world. The distinguishing mark of, "Holiness unto the Lord,"
   will be in the Christian's ear like a precious jewel of inestimable
   price. When they were selling the Duke of Brunswick's gems the other
   day, they found that ever so many of them were not what they were
   supposed to be--he had guarded them with great care and scarcely had
   enjoyed a happy hour in the great anxiety for his valuables--and yet
   some of them were not worth the keeping!

   If you will give yourself to Christ and if your ear is bored, these
   precious Graces which I have mentioned will be pearls of exceedingly
   great price--such as angels might envy your wearing. There, young
   women, put these jewels in your ears and nobody will blame you for
   wearing such goodly ornaments. There, good man, you, also, may go with
   rings in your ears if these are the rings and these are the gems--and
   you will not be thought foppish and singular. May the Lord give them to
   you! As you come to the Communion Table, come with this feeling--"I am
   going there to renew my covenant. I have been a Christian these many
   years. By His Grace I love my Lord better than ever I did and I will,
   therefore, dedicate myself to Him again."

   And now, you unconverted people, do you think I have spoken the truth?
   If my Master had behaved badly to me I would have run away from Him
   long ago! I would not stand here to tell you that He was a good Master
   if He were not. But, since He is so good, oh that you would say, "I
   would like to be in His service." Have you such a desire? Then, dear
   Heart, remember His own words, "Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise
   cast out." If you are willing to be His, He is willing to have you! He
   is so great a Prince that He can maintain an endless company of
   servants without embarrassing Himself. There was never a soul that
   needed Christ but what Christ needed that soul! Depend upon it, if you
   go to Him, He will enroll you among His household retainers and allot
   you an honorable portion day by day. Seeking Sinner, believe in Jesus
   and live! God grant you Grace for Christ's sake! Amen.

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--John 637 HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN
   HYMN BOOK"--660, 658, 663.
     __________________________________________________________________

Stephen's Death

   (No. 1175)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 24, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus,
   receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice,
   Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he
   fell asleep." Acts 7:59, 60.

   IT is of the greatest service to us all to be reminded that our life is
   but a vapor which appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
   Through forgetfulness of this, worldlings live at ease and Christians
   walk carelessly. Unless we watch for the Lord's coming, worldliness
   soon eats into our spirit as does a canker. If you have this world's
   riches, Believer, remember that this is not your rest--set not too
   great a store by its comforts. If, on the other hand, you dwell in
   straitness and are burdened with poverty, be not too much depressed,
   for these light afflictions are but for a moment and are not worthy to
   be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us! Look upon the
   things that are as though they were not. Remember you are a part of a
   great procession which is always moving by--others come and go before
   your own eyes--you see them and they disappear. You, yourself, are
   moving onward to another and more real world.

   "'Tis greatly wise to talk of our last hours," to give a rehearsal of
   our departure and to be prepared to stand before the great tribunal of
   the judgment. Our duty is to trim our lamps against the time when the
   Bridegroom comes. We are called upon to stand always ready, waiting for
   the appearing of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, or else for the
   summons which shall tell us that the pitcher is broken at the fountain
   and the wheel broken at the cistern--that the body must return to the
   earth as it was and the spirit unto God who gave it.

   This death scene of Stephen's may aid our meditations while, by the
   help of the Holy Spirit, we cast our minds forward to the time when we,
   also, must fall asleep. This is the only martyrdom which is recorded in
   the New Testament in detail--the Holy Spirit foreseeing that there
   would be martyrdoms enough before the Church's history would end-- and
   that we should never lack memorials such as those with which Foxe's
   Martyrology and works of the like order supply us. It is equally
   remarkable that this is the only death scene in the New Testament which
   has been described at length, with the exception of our Lord's. Of
   course we are told of the deaths of other saints and facts relating to
   them are mentioned. But what they said when they died and how they felt
   in passing out of the world are left unrecorded, probably because the
   Holy Spirit knew that we should never lack for holy deathbeds and
   triumphant departures.

   He well knew these would be everyday facts to the people of God.
   Perhaps, moreover, the Holy Spirit would have us gather from His
   silence that He would not have us attach so much importance to the
   manner of men's deaths as to the character of their lives. To live like
   Jesus most nearly concerns us--a triumphant death may be the crown, but
   a holy life is the head that must wear it. To obey our Lord's commands
   during our life is our most pressing business. We may leave the
   testimony of death to be given us in the same hour. We shall have dying
   Grace in dying moments, but at the present time our chief business is
   to obtain the Grace which will enable us to adorn the doctrine of God
   our Savior in all things.

   However, as we have this one case of Stephen given us at full length,
   we should prize it the more highly and study it the more carefully
   because it is the only one. Let us do so this morning. There are three
   things upon which I shall speak--The general character of Stephen's
   death. Secondly, its most notable peculiarity. And thirdly, things
   desirable in reference to death suggested to us by Stephen's departure.

   Let us look at Stephen's death, and notice ITS GENERAL CHARACTER. It
   strikes us at once that it happened in the very midst of his service.
   He had been appointed an officer of the Church at Jerusalem, to see
   that the alms were distributed properly among the poor, especially
   among the Grecian widows. He discharged his duty to the satisfaction of
   the whole Church and thereby he did most useful service, for it gave
   the Apostles opportunity to give themselves wholly

   to their true work, namely, that of preaching and prayer. It is no
   small matter to be able to bear a burden for another if he is thereby
   set free for more eminent service than we could, ourselves, perform.

   If it is so that I cannot preach myself, yet if I can take away from
   one who does preach certain cares which burden him--if I thus enable
   him to preach the more and the better--I am virtually preaching myself.
   The care which Stephen exercised over the poor tended, also, to prevent
   division, and this was a result of no mean order. But, not content with
   being a deacon, Stephen began to minister in holy things as a speaker
   of the Word, and that with great power, for he was full of faith and of
   the Holy Spirit. He stands forth on the pages of Church history, for
   the time being, as quite a leading spirit. So much so, indeed, that the
   enemies of the Gospel recognized his prominent usefulness and made him
   the object of their most fierce opposition, for they generally rage
   most against those who are doing most good.

   Stephen stood in the front rank of the Lord's host and yet he was taken
   away! "A mystery," some say. "A great privilege," say I. My Brothers
   and Sisters, who desires to be removed at any other time? Is it not
   well to die in harness while yet you are useful? Who wants to linger
   till he becomes a burden rather than a help? If we are called to depart
   in the middle of service we must submit to it thankfully and may even
   wish to have it said of us, he did--

   "His body with his charge lay down, And ceased at once to work and
   live." He was removed in the very prime of his usefulness, just when
   many were being converted by his ministry. A time when, through his
   faith, miracles were being worked on all sides. A time when he seemed,
   indeed, to be necessary to the Church!

   And is not this well? Well, first, that God should teach His people how
   much He can do by a man whom He chooses. Well, next, that He should
   show them that He is not dependent upon any man, but can do His work
   even without the most choice laborer in His vineyard! If our life can
   teach one lesson--and when that is taught--if our death can teach
   another, it is well to live and well to die! And it is far more
   desirable than to tarry long and take one's flight in the dreary winter
   of declining influence. Let me be reaped, if I may venture on a choice,
   when my ministry shall be like the wheat in Pharaoh's dream--with seven
   ears rank and good--and not in a time when the east wind has shriveled
   me into barrenness. If God is glorified by our removal, is it not well?
   And may He not be more than ordinarily glorified when He lays us aside
   in order to show His Church that He can do without His servants, or can
   raise up others in their place? Happy is that messenger whose absence
   as well as his presence fulfils his Master's will!

   But Stephen's death was painful and attended with much that flesh and
   blood would dread. He died not surrounded by weeping friends, but by
   enemies who gnashed their teeth! No holy hymn made glad his death
   chamber--the shouts and outcries of a maddened throng rang in his ears!
   No downy pillow for him, but the hard and cruel rocks. Battered and
   bruised by a whirlwind of stones he laid down to sleep and woke up in
   the bosom of his Lord! Now, Brothers and Sisters, this is all the more
   for our comfort, because if he died in perfect peace, no, in joy and
   triumph, how much more may we hope to depart in peace? Since we shall
   not have these grim attendants upon our departing hours, may we not
   hope that we shall be sustained and buoyed up by the Presence of our
   Lord and Master, even as Stephen was, and Divine Grace will be made
   perfect in our weakness?

   Every circumstance tells on our side by way of comfort. If he slept
   amidst a storm of stones, how may we hope to fall asleep right
   peacefully, in the same faith in Jesus, when the saints are gathered
   around our bed to bid us farewell? More particularly, however, I want
   to call your attention to the fact that Stephen's departing moments
   were calm, peaceful, confident, joyous. He never flinched while he was
   addressing that infuriated audience! He told them the plain Truth of
   God, with as much quiet deliberation as if he had been gratifying them
   with a pleasing discourse. When they grew angry he was not afraid. His
   lips did not quiver. He did not retract or soften down a single
   expression, but cut them to the heart with even more fidelity! With the
   courage of a man of God, his face was set as a flint. Knowing that he
   was now preaching his last sermon, he used the sharp two-edged sword of
   the Word of God, piercing into their very bones.

   He cared little how they frowned. He was not abashed when they gnashed
   their teeth. He was as calm as the opened Heaven above him and
   continued though they hurried him out of the city. When they had
   dragged him outside the gate and stripped off their clothes to carry
   out his execution, he did not let fall a single timorous word or
   trembling cry. He stood up and committed his soul to God with calmness.
   And when the first murderous stones felled him to the earth he rose to
   his knees, still not to ask for pity, nor to utter a cowardly cry, but
   to plead with his Lord for mercy upon his

   assailants! Then, closing his eyes like a child tired out with the
   sport of a long summer's day, he drops asleep as on his mother's
   lap--"he fell asleep."

   Believe, then, O Christian, that if you abide in Christ, the same will
   be the case with you! You shall be undisturbed at the premonitions of
   decay. When the physician shakes his head, your heart shall not fail!
   When friends look sad, you will not share their sorrow! We wept when we
   were born though all around us smiled--so shall we smile when we die
   while all around us weep. The dying Christian is often the only calm
   and composed person in all the group which fills the chamber from which
   he ascends to Heaven. Talking of what he enjoys and expects, he glides
   gently into Glory! Why should we expect it to be otherwise? Stephen's
   God is our God! Stephen's faith we already possess in its germ and we
   may have it in the same degree! The Holy Spirit dwells in us even as He
   did in Stephen--and if He puts not forth the same energy--what hinders
   Him but our unbelief? Getting more faith we shall enjoy the same
   tranquil repose of spirit when our appointed hour shall come. Brethren,
   let us not fear death, but descend Jordan's shelving bank without the
   slightest dismay!

   Some other points about Stephen's departure I beg you to notice--points
   relating to the state of his mind. His mind was in a very elevated
   condition. Here, let us first notice his intense sympathy with God. All
   through that long speech of his you see that his soul is taken up with
   his God and the treatment which He had received from Israel. He does
   not speak against his countrymen from any ill will, but he seems to
   take them into very little consideration. His God absorbs all his
   thoughts. He tells how his God had sent Joseph, but his brothers
   persecuted him. His God had sent Moses, but they rebelled against him.
   His God had now sent Jesus and they had been His betrayers and
   murderers. He had pity upon them in his heart, that is clearly seen in
   his dying prayer for them, but still, his main feeling is sympathy with
   God in the rebellions which He had endured from the ungodly.

   Surely this is the mind which possesses the saints in Heaven. I see, as
   I read Stephen's speech, that he regarded impenitent sinners from the
   standpoint of the saints above, who will be so taken up in sympathy
   with God and the righteousness of His government, that the doom of the
   finally rebellious will cause them no pain. The triumph of right over
   willful wrong, of holiness over the foulest and most wanton sin, of
   justice over the ingratitude which made light of redeeming love, will
   clear the soul of all emotion but that which rejoices in every act of
   the Most High because it is and must be right. I know how easily this
   remark may be misrepresented, still it is true, and let it stand.

   Notice, too, how Stephen's mind clung only to that which is purely
   spiritual. All ritualism was clean gone from him. I dare say at one
   time Stephen felt a great reverence for the Temple. The first Jewish
   Christians still continued to feel a measure of that awe of the Temple
   which, as Jews, they had formerly indulged. But Stephen says, "How is
   it the Most High dwells not in temples made with hands? As says the
   Prophet, Heaven is My Throne and earth is My footstool: what house will
   you build Me? says the Lord; or what is the place of My rest?" It is
   noteworthy how the saints, when they are near to die, make very little
   of what others make a great deal of.

   What is ritual to a dying man?--a man with his eyes opened, looking
   into the future and about to meet his God? Sacraments are poor supports
   in the dying hour. Priestcraft, what is it? The reed has snapped
   beneath the weight of a burdened conscience and the tremendous
   realities of death and judgment. The peculiar form of worship which a
   man contended for in health--and the little specialties of doctrines
   which he made much of before--will seem little in comparison with the
   great spiritual essentials, when the soul is approaching the Presence
   Chamber of the Eternal! The saint in death is growingly spiritual, for
   he is nearing the land of spirits and that City of which John said, "I
   saw no temple there." Brethren, it is a grand thing to grow in
   spiritual religion till you break the eggshell of form and shake it
   off--for the outward fashion of ceremonies and even of simplicities is
   too often to men what the eggshell is to the living bird--but when the
   soul awakens into the highest forms of life, we chip and break that
   shell and leave our former bondage.

   Stephen came right away from those superstitious reverences which still
   cast their blight over many Christians and worshipped God, who is a
   Spirit, in spirit and in truth! It is most clear that he rose beyond
   all fear of men. They grin at him, they howl at him, but what matters
   that to him? He will be put to a blasphemer's death outside the city by
   the hands of cruel men--but that daunts him not. His face glows with
   unspeakable joy! He looks not like a man hurried to his execution, but
   as one on the way to a wedding! He looks like an immortal angel rather
   than a man condemned to die! Ah, Brothers and Sisters--so will it be
   with all the faithful!

   Today we fear man, who is but a worm. Today we are so weak as to he
   swayed by the estimation of our fellows and we listen to kindly voices
   which counsel us to speak with bated breath upon certain points, lest
   we grieve this one or that. But the fitter we are for Heaven the more
   we scorn all compromise and feel that for Truth, for God, for Christ,
   we must speak out even if we die--for who are we that we should be
   afraid of a man that shall die and the son of man that is but a worm?
   It is a blessed thing if this shall be growingly our condition! At the
   same time Stephen was free from all cares. He was a deacon, but he does
   not say, "What will those poor people do? How will the widows fare? Who
   will care for the orphans?" He does not even say, "What will the
   Apostles do, now that I can no longer take the labor from off their
   shoulders?" Not a word of it!

   He sees Heaven opened and thinks little of the Church below, love it
   though he does with all his heart! He trusts the Church Militant with
   her Captain--he is called to the Church Triumphant! He hears the
   trumpet sound, "Up and away," and lo, he answers to the summons! Happy
   men who can thus cast off their cares and enter into rest! Why should
   it not be thus with us? Why, like Martha, do we allow our much serving
   to encumber us? Our Lord managed His Church well enough before we were
   born! He will not be at a loss because He has called us Home and,
   therefore, we need not trouble ourselves as though we were
   all-important and the Church would pine for lack of us!

   At the same time, Stephen had no resentments. That was a sweet prayer
   of his, "Lay not this sin to their charge." Just as Daniel before
   Belshazzar saw the scale and saw Belshazzar weighed in it and found
   wanting, so Stephen saw the balances of justice, and this murder of
   his, like a great weight, about to be placed in the scale against the
   raging Jews. And he cried, "Lord, cast not this sin into the balance."
   He could not say, as the Savior did, "They know not what they do," for
   they did know and had been so angered by his speech that they stopped
   their ears to hear no more. But he pleads for them as far as truth
   would permit him while breathing out his soul. Every child of God ought
   to lay aside all resentments at once, or rather he should never have
   any! We are to carry in our hearts no remembrance of ills, but to live
   everyday freely forgiving, as we are everyday freely forgiven. And as
   we get nearer to Heaven there must be growing love to those who hate
   us, for so shall we prove that we have been made ready for the skies.

   To close up this description of his death, Stephen died like a
   conqueror. His name was Stephanos, or crown, and truly that day he not
   only received a crown, but he became the crown of the Church as her
   first martyr. He was the conqueror, not his enemies! They stoned his
   body, but his soul had vanquished them. It was not in their power to
   move him. His quiet look defied their fury. He went home to his God to
   hear it said, "Servant of God, well done," and in nothing had his foes
   despoiled him on the way there! He was more than a conqueror through
   Him that loved Him. These are some of the characteristics of Stephen's
   departure. I trust that in our measure they may be ours. God grant them
   to us and we will give Him all the Glory.

   II. I Now call your attention to a very interesting point--THE MOST
   NOTABLE PECULIARITY OF

   STEPHEN'S DEATH. It was notable for this one point--that it was full of
   Jesus--and full of Jesus in four ways. Jesus was seen, invoked, trusted
   and imitated. First, the Lord Jesus was seen. The martyr looked up
   steadfastly into Heaven and saw the Glory of God--and Jesus standing on
   the right hand of God! At first he was probably in the council hall of
   the Sanhedrim, but the vision seemed to divide the roof, to roll away
   the firmament--and set open the gates of Heaven so that into its
   innermost chambers the anointed eye was able to gaze.

   It is said he saw the Son of Man. Now this is the only place in
   Scripture where Jesus is called the Son of Man by any one but Himself.
   He frequently called Himself the Son of Man. That was, indeed, a common
   name for Himself, but His disciples did not call Him so. Perhaps the
   Glory of the rejected Messiah as Man was the peculiar thought which was
   to be conveyed to Stephen's mind, to assure him that as the despised
   Lord had, at length, triumphed, so, also, should His persecuted
   servant. At all times it is a gladsome sight to see the representative
   Man exalted to the Throne of God, but it was peculiarly suitable for
   this occasion, for the Lord Himself had warned His enemies, "Hereafter
   shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power." He
   had spoken those words to the very men who now heard Stephen bear
   witness that it was even so!

   Stephen saw his Lord standing. Now our Lord is generally described as
   sitting, but it was as if the sympathizing Lord had risen up to draw
   near to His suffering servant, eager both to sustain him and to receive
   him when the conflict was over. Jesus rose from the Throne to gaze upon
   Himself suffering, again, in the person of one of His beloved members.
   The place occupied by the Lord was at the "right hand of God." Stephen
   distinctly saw the ineffable brightness of Eternal

   Glory which no human eye can see until strengthened by superior
   Grace--and amid that Glory he saw the Son of Man in the place of love,
   power and honor, worshipped and adored!

   Now, when we come to die, dear Friends, we may not, perhaps, expect
   with these eyes to see what Stephen saw--but faith has a grand
   realizing power. The fact that Jesus is enthroned is always the same
   and as long as we are sure that He is at the right hand of God, it
   little matters whether we see Him with our natural eyes, for faith is
   the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
   Brothers and Sisters, if your faith shall be strong when you come to
   die, as doubtless it will be, you will have a sight and sense of Jesus
   in His Manhood at the right hand of God--and this will effectually take
   away from you all fear of death--for you will feel, "If the Man, Christ
   is there, I, being already represented by Him, shall also be there! I
   shall rise from the dead! I shall sit at the right hand of the Father!
   His eternal power and Godhead will raise me up to be where He is, for
   has He not said--"I will that they, also, whom You have given Me be
   with Me where I am"?

   I will, however, venture further. I am convinced, from my own
   observation, that not to a few, but to many dying saints, something
   more is given than the realizations of faith. Much more frequently than
   we suppose, supernatural glimpses of the Divine Splendor are vouchsafed
   to the saints in the hour of their departure. I have heard persons
   comparatively uninstructed, and certainly unimaginative, speak of what
   they have seen in their last hour in such a way that I am certain they
   never borrowed the expressions from books, but must have seen what they
   described. There has been a freshness about their descriptions which
   has convinced me they did see what they assured me they beheld. And,
   moreover, the joy which has resulted from it--the acquiescence in the
   Divine will, the patience with which they have borne suffering--have
   gone far to prove that they were not under the influence of an idle
   imagination, but were really enabled to look within the veil!

   The flesh in its weakness becomes, if I may so say, a rarefied medium!
   The mists are blown away, the obscuring veil grows thinner, disease
   makes tears in it and through the thin places and the tears the
   heavenly Glory shines! Oh, how little will a man fear death, or care
   about pain, if he expects to breathe out his soul on a better Pisgah
   than Moses ever climbed! Well did we sing just now--I am sure I sang it
   with all my heart--

   "Oh, if my Lord would come and meet, My soul would stretch her wings in
   haste, Fly fearless through Death's iron gate, Nor fear the terror as
   she passed." Now this model departure, which is given in Scripture as a
   type of Christian deaths, has this for its ensign, that Christ was
   visible. And such shall be the character of our departure, if through
   faith we are one with Jesus. Therefore, let us not fear.

   Next, notice that Jesus was invoked, for that is the meaning of the
   text. "They stoned Stephen, calling upon God," or invoking, "and
   saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Dying Christians are not
   troubled with questions as to the Deity of Christ. Dear Friends,
   Unitarianism may do to live with, but it will not do to die with, at
   least not for us. At such a time we need an almighty and Divine Savior!
   We need, "God over all, blessed forever" to come to our rescue in the
   solemn article. So Stephen called upon Jesus and worshipped Him. He
   makes no mention of any other intercessor. O martyr of Christ, why did
   you not cry, "Ave Maria! Blessed Virgin, succor me!"? Why did you not
   pray to St. Michael and all angels? Ah, no! The abomination of saint
   and angel worship had not been invented in his day--and if it had been
   he would have scorned it as one of the foul devices of Hell! There is
   one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. He invoked
   Christ and no one else. Neither do we find him saying a word as to his
   good works, alms deeds, sermons and miracles. No, he invoked the Lord
   Jesus and leaned wholly on Him!

   Ah, Brothers and Sisters, it is well to live and to die resting wholly
   upon Jesus! If you lie down tonight and quietly think of your departure
   and inquire whether you are ready to die, you will not feel at your
   ease till your heart stands at the foot of the Cross, looking up and
   viewing the flowing of the Savior's precious blood, believing humbly
   that He made your peace with God. There is no right living, or joyful
   dying, except in invoking Christ. What did Stephen do next? He trusted
   Jesus and confided in Him only, for we find him saying, "Lord Jesus,
   receive my spirit." He felt that his spirit was about to leave the body
   to fly into the unknown world. Perhaps a shiver came over him of
   natural awe at the great mystery, even as it comes over us when we
   think of being disrobed of the familiar garment of our body. But he
   placed his unclothed spirit in the hands of Jesus and his fear and care
   were over.

   Look, he has quite done with it, now! He prays no more for himself, but
   intercedes for his enemies! And then he closes his eyes and falls
   asleep. This is the simple and sublime art of dying. Once more we take
   our guilty soul and place it in the dear pierced hands of Him who is
   able to keep it. And then we feel assured that all is safe. The day's
   work is done, the doors are fastened, the watchman guards the streets.
   Come, let us fall asleep. With Jesus seen, invoked and trusted, it is
   sweet to die. Notice, once again, that in Stephen we see Jesus
   imitated. The death of Stephen is a reproduction of the death of Jesus.
   Let us hope that ours will be the same.

   It was so, even in little circumstances. Jesus died outside the gate,
   so did Stephen. Jesus died praying, so did Stephen. Jesus died saying,
   "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit." Stephen cannot approach
   God absolutely, but he approaches Him through the Mediator, and he
   says, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Christ dies pleading for His
   murderers, so does Stephen--"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."
   Now, if our death shall be a reproduction of the death of Jesus, why
   need we fear? It has, up to now, been sweet to be made like He and it
   will still be sweet. Even to suffer with Him has been
   delightful--surely it will be joyful to die with Him! We are willing to
   sleep in Jesus' bed and lie as He did in the bosom of the earth, to
   arise in His likeness at the Resurrection.

   Thus you see, dear Brethren, that Stephen's death was radiant with the
   glow of his Lord's brightness. Christ was glorified and reflected in
   him. None could question whose image and superscription he bore. If our
   lives shall be of that order, our deaths, also, shall be of the like
   character. Let your life be looking unto Jesus, pleading with Jesus,
   trusting in Jesus, copying Jesus--and then your departing moments will
   be attended by visions of Jesus and reproductions of His dying
   behavior! As you have been with Him in the trials of life, He will be
   with you in the closing scenes of death. Happy are they whose deathbed
   Jesus makes, and who sleep in Jesus, to be brought with Him when He
   returns to take the kingdom!

   III. From Stephen's departure we gather something as to THE KIND OF
   DEATH WHICH WE MAY WISELY

   DESIRE. First, it is very desirable that our death should be of the
   same sort of our life. Stephen was full of faith and of the Holy Spirit
   in life--and so was he full of the Holy Spirit in death. Stephen was
   bold, brave, calm and composed in life-- he is the same amid the
   falling stones. It is very sad when the reported account of a man's
   death does not fit in with his life. I am afraid that many funeral
   sermons have done great mischief by their flattery, for persons have
   very naturally said, "This is very strange. I never knew that the
   departed person was a saint until I heard this account of his end.
   Really, when I hear these wonderful things about him--well, I should
   not have thought it."

   No, it will not do to have no character for piety but that which is
   hurriedly run up in a few days of sickness and death. It is ill to die
   with a jerk, getting, as it were, upon another line of rails all on a
   sudden. It is better to glide from one degree of Divine Grace to
   another--and so to Glory. We ought to die daily--die every morning
   before we go down to breakfast--that is to say, we should rehearse it
   all so that when we come to die it will be no new thing to us. Death
   may be the fringe or border of life, but it should be made out of the
   same piece. A life of clay is not to be joined to a death of gold. We
   cannot hope to dine with the world and sup with God. We ought to dwell
   in the house of the Lord every day.

   Again, it is most desirable that death should be the perfecting of our
   whole career, the putting of the cornerstone upon the edifice, so that
   when nothing else is needed to complete the man's labors, he falls
   asleep. Dear Brothers and Sisters, is it so with you? Suppose you were
   to die this morning in the pew would your life be a complete life, or
   would it be like a broken column snapped off in the center? Why, there
   are some, who even in their business lives, have left many necessary
   things undone. For instance, they have not made their wills, yet, and
   will cause much sorrow to wife and children through their neglect. Some
   Christian people do not keep their worldly affairs in proper order, but
   are lax, disorderly and slovenly, so that if they were to die, there
   would be many things of which they would feel loathe to die.

   Mr. Whitfield used to say when he went to bed at night, "I have not
   left even a pair of gloves out of their place: if I die tonight, all my
   affairs, for time and eternity, are in order." That is the best way to
   live--so that, let death come when it may, at midnight, cockcrowing, or
   midday--it will be a desirable finis to a book of which we have written
   the last line. We will have finished our course and served our
   generation--our falling asleep is the fit conclusion of the matter. May
   our death not be one of a kind which needs flurry and hot haste to make
   the man ready. There are people in the world who, if they were going
   off by train and knew of it a month beforehand, would be all in a fever
   an hour before they started! Though they know the time the train
   leaves, they cannot arrive a few minutes before by any means, but rush
   in just as the bell rings and leap into a carriage just at the time the
   train leaves.

   Some die in that fashion, as if they had so much to do and were in such
   a hurry--and besides, had so little Grace that they could be only saved
   so as by fire. When worldly Christians die, there is a deal to be done
   to pack up and get ready for departing. But a true Christian stands
   with his loins girded. He knows he has to travel. He does not know
   exactly when, but he stands with his staff in his hand! He knows the
   Bridegroom is soon coming and he, therefore, keeps his lamp well
   trimmed. That is the way to live and the way to die! May the Holy
   Spirit put us in such a condition that the Angel of Death may not
   summon us unawares, or catch us by surprise! Then will going home be
   nothing out of the common way, but a simple matter.

   Bengel, the famous commentator, did not wish to die in a spiritual
   parade, with a sensational scene, but to pass away like a person called
   out to the street door from the midst of business. His prayer was
   granted. He was revising the proof sheets of his works almost to the
   moment when he felt the death stroke. Is not this well? Equally
   desirable was the end of the Venerable Bede, who died as he completed
   his translation of the Gospel of John. "Write quickly," he said, "for
   it is time for me to return to Him who made me." "Dear master," said
   the pupil, "one sentence is still lacking." "Write quickly," said the
   venerable man. The young man soon added, "It is finished," and Bede
   replied, "You have well said, all is now finished," and he fell asleep.

   So would I desire to depart! So might every Christian desire! We would
   make no stir from our daily holiness. We would change our place but not
   our service--having waited on our Lord at this end of the room--we are
   called up higher and we go! It must be a dreadful thing for a
   professing Christian to die full of regrets for work neglected and
   opportunities wasted. It is sad to have to say, "I must leave my Sunday
   school class before I have earnestly warned those dear children to flee
   from the wrath to come." It would be wretched for me to go home, today,
   and say, "I have preached my last sermon, but it was not earnest, nor
   calculated either to glorify God or benefit my fellow men." Can the end
   of a wasted life be other than unhappy? Will it not be sorrowful to be
   called away with work undone and purposes

   unfulfilled?

   O my Brothers and Sisters, do not live so as to make it hard to die! It
   must also be a sad thing to be taken away unwillingly, plucked like an
   unripe fruit from the tree. The unripe apple holds fast to its place
   and so do many hold hard to their riches and cleave so fondly to
   worldly things that it needs a sharp pull to separate them from the
   world. The ripe fruit adheres but lightly--and when a gentle hand comes
   to take it, it yields itself freely, as if willing to be gathered--
   like an apple of gold into a basket of silver. God make you unworldly
   and forbid that you should cleave so resolutely to things below as to
   make death a violence and departure a terror! Brethren, we would not
   wish to die so that it should be a matter of question, especially to
   ourselves, to which place we are going--and yet you will die in that
   way if you live in that way.

   If you have no assurance of salvation, do you expect it to come to you
   on your dying bed? Why, my dear Friend, when the pain increases and the
   brain becomes weary, you are very likely to suffer depression and,
   therefore, you need strong faith to begin with for your own comfort!
   Would you like friends to go out of your death chamber saying, "We hope
   he is saved, but we stand in doubt concerning him"? Your life should
   prevent that! Holy Mr. Whitfield, when someone observed, "I should like
   to hear your dying testimony," said, "No, I shall, in all probability
   bear no dying testimony." "Why not?" said the other. "Because I am
   bearing testimony everyday while I live and there will be the less need
   of it when I die." That seraphic saint preached up to the last
   afternoon and then went upstairs to bed, and died. There was no need
   for anyone to ask, "What did he say when he was dying?" Ah, no! They
   knew what he said when he was living--and that was a great deal better!
   Let your testimony in life be such that, whether you speak or not in
   your last moments, there shall be no question about whose you were nor
   whom you served.

   In conclusion, one would desire to die so that even our death should be
   useful. I feel persuaded that Stephen's death had a great deal to do
   with Saul's conversion. Have you ever observed the evident influence of
   Stephen upon Paul? Augustine says, "If Stephen had never prayed, Saul
   had never preached." I do not say that the death of Stephen converted
   Saul--far from it--that change was worked by a Divine interposition
   when Saul was on the road to Damascus. But what he saw in Stephen's
   martyrdom had made the soil ready to receive the good seed. Saul, in
   later life, seems to me to be always taking his text from Stephen's
   sermon.

   Read that sermon through at home and see if it is not so. Stephen spoke
   about the Covenant of Circumcision and that was a very favorite topic
   with Paul. When Paul stood at Athens on Mars' Hill and addressed the
   Areopagites he said

   to them, "God that made Heaven and earth dwells not in temples made
   with hands"--almost the identical words which Stephen had quoted--and
   surely the remembrance of Stephen before the Sanhedrim must have rushed
   over the Apostle's mind at the time. There is yet another passage--and
   indeed I might carry on the parallel a very long way--where Stephen
   used the expression, "They received the Law by the disposition of
   angels," an idea peculiar to Paul. Paul is the child of Stephen.
   Stephen dying is the seed out of which Paul springs up. What a
   privilege so to die that a phoenix may rise out of our ashes!

   If we have been useful, ourselves, up to the measure of a moderate
   ability, we may, as we die, call forth greater workers than ourselves.
   Our expiring spark may kindle the Divine light in some flaming beacon
   which, far across the seas, shall scatter the beams of Gospel light!
   And why not? God grant that we may, both in life and in death, serve
   Him well. I would that even in our ashes might live our former
   lives--that being dead we yet may speak! It was a happy thought of an
   earnest Divine who asked that when he was dead he might be placed in
   his coffin where all his congregation might come and see him--and that
   on his bosom should be placed a paper bearing this exhortation,
   "Remember the words which I have spoken to you, being yet present with
   you." Yes, we will go on telling of Jesus and winning souls in life and
   death, if God so helps us! Beloved Believers, love the souls of men and
   pray God to save them!

   As for you who are not saved yourselves, I implore you think of what
   your condition will be when you come to die. Or, if a seared conscience
   should cause you to die in peace, think what you will do at the
   Judgment, when that conscience will become tender. What will you do
   when the lips of the dear Redeemer shall say, "Depart, you cursed, into
   everlasting

   fire in Hell"?--

   "You Sinners, seek His Grace,

   Whose wrath you cannot bear! Look to the dying Savior's face, And find
   salvation there."

   PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Acts 5:9-15; 7. HYMNS FROM
   "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--855, 829, 853.
     __________________________________________________________________

The Eternal Day

   (No. 1176)

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 31, 1874,

   BY C. H. SPURGEON,

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Your sun shall no more go do wn, neither shall your moon withdraw
   itself: for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of
   your mourning shall be ended." Isaiah 60:20.

   ISRAEL of old had light while all the rest of the world sat in
   darkness. In consequence of receiving moral and spiritual light from
   God, the nation prospered, and under the smile of Heaven it was greatly
   enriched and multiplied. But, alas, the sun went down and the moon
   withdrew itself, for Israel turned aside and followed after idols, and
   the land was terribly smitten by the hostile sword. Upon her repentance
   her sun arose again and the daughters of Judah rejoiced, but again they
   went astray, for the zealous judge, or the godly king, or the pious
   priest died--and the nation, prone to backsliding, again provoked the
   Lord--and the light of His Countenance was withdrawn. This typical
   Church of God abode not in the light continually, its history was
   checkered with alternate brightness and gloom, repentance and relapse,
   prosperity and adversity.

   What a change from the glory of Solomon to the captivity of Zedekiah!
   From the Temple in its glory to the city in ruinous heaps! Truly, to
   those who knew Israel well, this prophecy of Isaiah must have sounded
   as rare music, and they must have devoutly cried, "Hasten it, O Lord,
   in our time." Another dispensation came. Jesus Christ was born at
   Bethlehem, "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the Glory of Your
   people Israel." And the sun shone upon the earth as it had never done
   before. A visible Church was called out to walk in the light, which
   Church still exists upon the earth, and from the days of Pentecost
   until now its sun has never altogether gone down, neither has its moon
   withdrawn herself.

   To us, the promise of the text has been fulfilled in a gracious sense,
   for to the Church of God there has never been an utter suspension of
   the Divine light. The light has not always been equally clear, but it
   has still been day. Somewhere or other God has had a visible Church on
   the earth--if not at Rome, yet in the valleys of Piedmont--not in
   palaces of bishops, yet in dens and caves of the earth. Yet the visible
   Church has had her dark days--the text has been only true of her
   comparatively--her sun has gone down in some sense. The long medieval
   night, with its heavy dampness, hung over the souls of the myriads and
   chilled them into crouching superstition, until the day when God sent
   us the Reformation, like a new daybreak.

   Even now there are tokens of returning night, but may the Lord avert
   it. Shine out, you stars in the right hand of Jesus, and let your Lord,
   the Sun of Righteousness shine forth, also, and drive away those Romish
   bats and owls which are fluttering all around us in the hope that their
   beloved darkness will return! The history of the Church has not been a
   clear increasing light, like the growth of day from dawn to noon. Her
   glory has, for a while, departed. Her candlestick has been removed and
   it may be so, yet again. But, Beloved, there is a Church upon the earth
   which is within the visible Church and is its central life. I refer to
   the really elect, called and justified, which are a spiritual Church.
   There are to be found in the visible Church in all its sections--a
   people truly saved in the Lord, not a field of mingled wheat and
   tares-- but all plants of the Lord's right hand planting.

   This secret Church, this Church Mystical, this true body of our Lord
   Jesus Christ may claim to have had this text fulfilled in its
   experience in a far larger sense. "If we walk in the light as He is in
   the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus
   Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." There are Believers who
   know the meaning of that text, for from the day when they first
   believed they have not ceased to walk in the light. Though now and then
   a cloud has crossed their sky, yet, as a rule, no night of backsliding
   or deadly doubt has come upon them. They have believed fully and,
   therefore, have seen the salvation of God. Their sun has not gone down,
   for the Lord Jesus Christ has never hidden His face, and they have
   rejoiced in an abiding sense of His love.

   I believe that this is the proper condition of all saints. And if
   saints were as they should be it would be fulfilled in them--"your sun
   shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for
   Jehovah shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning
   shall be ended." Oh, what a glad thing it would be if we could attain
   to this! "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God"--not, we
   "ought" to have it, but, "we have peace with God, through Jesus Christ
   our Lord." We have learned to glory in tribulations, also, crying, "Who
   shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
   Lord?" If we have learned the meaning of the exhortation, "Abide in
   Me," and are so abiding, then is our fellowship continual and our
   course is as the shining light which shines more and more unto the full
   noontide--

   "Walk in the light! And you shall see Your darkness fade away, Because
   that light on you has shone, In which is perfect day."

   Yet even to the spiritual Church the text has not been fulfilled in its
   largest conceivable sense, for I fear that to the most spiritual some
   darkness comes. Their light is sown, but it has not yet sprung up to
   its full harvest--they still struggle with inward sin--they must still
   wrestle with outward temptations. At any rate, the days of their
   mourning are not, in the most unlimited sense, ended, for though faith
   lifts them above the cares of life and resignation takes out the sting
   of affliction, yet in common with the whole creation they groan, being
   burdened. It is true of the best of saints when they arrive in Heaven,
   that "they came out of great tribulation." God puts even His purest
   ones into the furnace and the branch that bears fruit He purges. Every
   son whom He receives He also chastens.

   For the present our chastisement is not joyous, but grievous. "In the
   world you shall have tribulation," is a part of the legacy of our
   ascended Lord, so that as yet, to the largest extent, we cannot say
   that the days of our mourning are ended. We must, therefore, refer the
   text to a fourth form of the Church. If we see it not at all in the
   typical, just a little in the visible, very much in the spiritual, we
   find it all in the Church Triumphant. The full triumph of the Church of
   Christ shall begin in the millennium. I am not about to enter into
   details, but it seems to me that there is to be on earth a new
   Jerusalem which shall come down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a
   bride for her husband, and there will be "a new Heaven and a new earth,
   in which dwells righteousness."

   Upon this earth where sin prevailed, righteousness will yet conquer!
   Where Christ bled, there shall He reign! Where His heel was bruised,
   shall the same heel crush the dragon's head. That, however, will be as
   it were a prelude, a commencement to the full heavenly triumph. I
   shall, without making any distinction, refer the promise of the text in
   its fullness to the Church in its triumphant condition, whether on
   earth in the millennial period, or in Heaven, world without end. To her
   this Word shall be fulfilled, "Your sun shall no more go down, neither
   shall your moon withdraw itself: the Lord shall be your everlasting
   light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended."

   I. Our first point is--THE LIGHT OF THE TRIUMPHANT CHURCH SHALL BE
   INCESSANT. "Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon
   withdraw itself." There will be no intervening nights of darkness, but
   one long noonday of purity and felicity, "the days of your mourning
   shall be ended." And why will this be? Why does Heaven's joy never
   falter? Why is her purity never defiled? We answer, first, because the
   light of Heaven is independent of creatures. As long as there is a sun
   it will go down. And as long as there is a moon it will wane. But when
   the Lord becomes our light, our independence of the secondary agent
   will lift us up beyond the fear of change.

   In this present state everything must change. God does not bestow upon
   creatures the quality of Immutability, for that belongs to Him, alone.
   The hardest rocks crumble beneath the tooth of time. Even the heavens
   are waxing old and must, one day, be put away like a worn-out vesture
   and as all that comes out of earth partakes of the soil from which it
   springs, all created joys wither and decay. From a sun which has its
   tropics we cannot expect a changeless light. From a moon which waxes
   and wanes, the light can never long be the same. When we shall rise
   above the creature and drink in our supplies directly from the
   changeless all-sufficiency of the Creator, we shall come into perfect,
   unbroken light! Such is the condition of the perfect saints above.

   In Heaven the saints will need no teacher. When God sends a true
   preacher, he is a star in God's right hand, and the Church is bound to
   value his light, which is the gift of Heaven. But we shall need no
   teachers there--we shall see, not through a glass darkly--but face to
   face. God shines upon the Church through His servants one after
   another, and as they are removed in the order of Providence and close
   their useful careers, the Church suffers great loss. But up yonder

   there is only one Pastor and He never dies--"The Lamb in the midst of
   the Throne shall feed them and lead them unto living fountains of
   waters." No teachers will be laid with tears in the silent grave, for
   in the glorified Church no man needs to say to his fellow, "Know the
   Lord," for they all know Him from the least unto the greatest!

   Up there they need no comforters to succor them in the time of their
   distress, for God, Himself, has wiped away all tears from their eyes.
   He has taken up Lazarus from among the dogs and the dunghills and laid
   him in Abraham's bosom! He has lifted up the languishing from their
   beds of pain to sit among princes in Glory! Poor saints will not, then,
   be dependent upon the alms or the consolations of others, though once
   their generous friends were like sun and moon to them. They need not
   fear that their comforts shall depart, for the Lord God is their light!
   The saints are not dependent upon fleeting possessions, or decaying
   estates--here we must have sustenance from without and we are thankful
   to God that it comes in our time of need--but bread perishes, wealth
   takes to itself wings, business decays, prosperity wanes.

   In Glory saints are independent of all created things! They neither
   look to angel, cherub, or seraph for support. They have left the
   streams, for they have reached the Fountainhead! The vessels are no
   more needed, for they lie down and drink at the Well, itself, where the
   crystal water of life bubbles up eternally! They do not send down to
   Egypt for corn, but dwell in their own Goshen where harvests never
   fail! They have come unto their God and what can we say more? O beloved
   Brothers and Sisters, this makes the joy of Heaven--that God Himself
   shines upon the blessed ones and they need no other light--He, Himself,
   is their All in All! With Him is fullness of joy! At His right hand are
   pleasures forevermore! Therefore is it that their sun shall no more go
   down, for they have no sun! And their moon shall not withdraw itself,
   for they have no moon! "The Lord God and the Lamb are the light
   thereof."

   Their light is incessant, secondly, because it is cleared of all
   clouding elements. There is much of consolation in this thought. Here,
   below, in the Church of God, whatever by God's Grace may be our light,
   errors will arise to cloud it. Evil men come in unawares and distract
   God's saints with false doctrines, schisms and heresies. There are none
   such up yonder! Skeptics assail us with doubts and suspicions--there
   are none up there! Hypocrites now steal in and pollute our solemn
   feasts, but no deceiver shall sit down in the banquets of the
   perfected! Formalists mix with us and freeze our devotion. Hosannas are
   made to languish because they fall from tongues unconscious of the glow
   of generous love. But it shall not be so among the Church Triumphant!

   It will be no small blessing to the Church to be free from the
   contamination of the outside world and from the intrusion of false
   professors! Their absence will deliver us from that light discourse
   which now vexes our ear and that inconsistency which grieves our heart.
   Yes, Satan, himself, shall be shut out! The camp of the saints he may
   attempt to attack, but over her ramparts he shall never leap! Those
   sacred walls, whose 12 foundations are inestimably precious stones,
   shall exclude forever the accuser of the Brethren, the fomenter of
   discord and sin. There the wicked cease from troubling and therefore
   nothing shall make our sun go down, or cause our moon to withdraw
   itself, and the purity, the peace, the bliss of Heaven shall be without
   cessation.

   Remember, yet again, that in the Church Triumphant the saints
   themselves shall be so purified that nothing in them shall darken their
   light. Here today Christ changes not, but we change, and hence our joy
   departs. It is not that Divine Grace ceases to beam forth from the Sun
   of Righteousness--our eyes gather the scales of worldliness, so that we
   cannot see it. It shall not be so there. We shall be delivered from the
   last vestige of inbred sin! Corruption and every result of the Fall
   shall have been effectually removed. Among the saints whom God has
   privileged to see His face, no worldliness, no coldness of heart, no
   lethargy, no slothfulness ever intrudes. They are never burdened with
   heavy cares, nor depressed with the recollection of unforsaken sin.
   They neglect no duties, they commit no transgressions--they are without
   fault before the Throne of God--rendered as pure as God, Himself, by
   the blood of Christ and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.

   Truly, as I speak about this I long to be among them! We cannot, as
   yet, see afar off, and the plains of Heaven are boundless. Therefore we
   shall need far-reaching sight before we can enjoy their beauties, but
   our inner sight is being strengthened, the films of sin are being
   removed and we shall, before long, have our eyes strengthened to look
   upon the invisible with unclenching gaze. When we enter the Church
   Triumphant, being ourselves without tendency to sin, there will be
   nothing in us to mar our purity or to spoil our joy! Anticipate this,
   Beloved, with great joy. Notice that the text hints that both the major
   and the minor necessities of saints will be abundantly supplied. Have
   you not found, sometimes, that the Lord Jesus Christ has withdrawn
   Himself from you? Then your sun has gone down.

   You are prospering in business. God gives you all that heart can wish.
   The moon does not withdraw herself, but the sun has gone and woe
   beclouds your spirit. It will never be so in Heaven! You shall see your
   Lord face to face without a veil between--and that eternally! Here, on
   the other hand, at times Jesus has shone upon you and as to spiritual
   things you have been rich. But then earthly trouble has hovered over
   you--the moon has withdrawn herself. You have been suffering in body,
   though rejoicing in soul. The head has ached, though the heart has
   triumphed. You have feasted at the table of God, but poverty has swept
   your board till you knew not from where your next meal would come. Not
   often have both sun and moon been as flesh and blood would have them.
   True, you have been able to do without the moon in the presence of the
   sun, but you would have both spiritual and temporal prosperity.

   Now in Heaven all the needs of our nature will be completely supplied.
   The bodies of the saints will be as happy as their souls! Their bodies,
   I say, for I am referring to the risen ones who have attained to the
   full triumphs of which I speak. There shall be for spirit, soul and
   body, that trinity of our manhood, a triple and all-sufficient supply.
   Neither shall the sun go down nor the moon withdraw itself. Oh, what a
   happy thing to have a body which will not need to rise on the Sabbath
   weary with the week's toil needing to be dragged along the road to the
   place of worship and feeling inclined to sleep in the heavy atmosphere
   of the crowded assembly! What bliss to be "clothed upon" with a body
   unlike this load of clay, which far too forcibly reminds us that we
   dwell in a world of sin.

   Soon we shall possess a body light and ethereal, strong and glorious,
   suitable for the soul and quick to obey its motions--a body free from
   every infirmity, delivered from every possibility of pain or
   weariness--a body in which we shall serve God day and night in His
   Temple and shall never, never sin! So, you see, Beloved, another reason
   why the sun of the blessed never goes down is because they, themselves,
   are in all respects filled with an inward and perfect light which is
   the perpetual reflection of the eternal light of Jehovah!

   Once more, let it be remembered that the Church Triumphant will be
   delivered from the vicissitudes of those seasons which cause the going
   down of sun and moon. I do not refer to summer and winter, but to
   ecclesiastical and temporal arrangements, such as the Lord's Day and
   times of assembly and Church fellowship. This blessed Sabbath, how
   rejoiced we are when it comes round! But then towards eventide the
   Sunday hours grow few and many a time has the child of God gone up to
   his chamber and said, "Would God tomorrow were a second Sabbath." We
   have wished that instead of the weekdays, with their toil and care, we
   could step from Sunday to Sunday till we climbed into the Sabbath which
   will never end! It shall be so soon, in the land where--

   "Congregations never break up, And Sabbaths have no end."

   Here we come together and are warmed into a hallowed state of mind and
   would gladly continue in the mount, but we must go down, for other
   duties call us away. But in Glory we shall, all day, charm the
   celestial plains with joyous song and never need to scatter or betake
   ourselves to an inferior calling. Blessed shall the day be when our
   Sunday sun shall no more go down! Here, too, we have our seasons for
   communion. We come together at the Table and, for my part, I am never
   happier than when I see before me the emblems of the Beloved's broken
   body and His blood poured out in infinite love for us. But we cannot
   always be there--we have to eat with publicans and sinners as well as
   with the Lord. We glowed in fellowship like the Master Himself on
   Tabor, until our garments seemed whiter than any fuller could make
   them--but we must go down among the ungodly, yet again, to seek their
   good. We shall not do that, by-and-by. We shall eat bread at the table
   of the King and go no more out forever and forever!

   It was a glad day for Israel when the trumpets rang out the morning of
   the Jubilee, for every slave was free and every debtor found his
   liabilities discharged. Back came each man's lost inheritance and the
   whole nation was glad. With sound of trumpet and of cornet they saluted
   the rising of the sun on the first day of that Jubilee year! But the
   Jubilee year went by and lands were mortgaged and forfeited. And slaves
   fell, again, into slavery. And bankrupts were again seized by their
   creditors. Ah, Beloved, we are coming to a Jubilee of which the
   trumpets shall sound on forever! We shall regain our once forfeited
   inheritance never to have it encumbered again! We shall snap the
   fetters which have bound us, never to feel them again. "If the Son
   makes you free, you shall be free, indeed."

   Thus I have shown you that in Heaven they are free from that
   vicissitude of seasons which now afflicts the sons of men--and so their
   sun goes no down more, neither does their moon withdraw itself.

   II. Let us change the run of our discourse. The light of the triumphant
   Church has been shown to be unceasing. Now we shall show that IT IS
   EVERLASTING. "The Lord shall be your everlasting light." This requires
   no comment. You can see at once why it is so. Why will the perfection
   and the bliss of the saints triumphant never end? First, because the
   God from whom it comes is eternal. We have explained that this bliss
   does not arise from the creature. If it did, it might end. But arising
   wholly from the Creator, how can it end? As long as God lives, His
   people must be happy. When He has perfected them and taken them up to
   be where He is, the fountain from which they drink cannot dry, for it
   is infinitely full and fresh. The sun which gives them light cannot be
   dimmed, for it is immutable.

   Again, the Covenant by which the saints stand in Heaven is a sure one.
   There are in it solemn engagements entered into by the eternal God,
   never to turn away from His love. By two immutable things in which it
   is impossible for God to lie, He has given us strong consolation. Every
   sin has been put away from the triumphant saint. What, then, can
   destroy them? For them Christ has discharged all their debts! What,
   then, can be brought against them? For them an eternal inheritance has
   been bought by Divine blood! How, then, by any possible means, can they
   lose it? God is forever true, He cannot forsake. God is forever strong,
   He cannot fail. God is forever loving, He cannot frown upon His people.
   The Lord must be their everlasting light!

   Besides, the guarantee of that Covenant can never fail, seeing it is
   Christ Himself. "Because I live you shall live also" is the great seal
   set upon the indentures by which we hold our inheritance in the skies.
   And till we shall see a dying Christ, till He who has Immortality shall
   expire, till Christ, the Son of God, very God of very God, shall cease
   to be, it cannot, by any possibility, come to pass that one child of
   God shall lose his inheritance! The seal is Divine, the security is
   unquestionable. And, Brothers and Sisters, there is this to be added,
   that those who possess Heaven are also, themselves, immortal. When we
   once enter the Church Triumphant there shall be no more death, neither
   sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed away!

   The body was sown in corruption, but it is raised in incorruption! It
   was liable to disease, death and corruption-- the worm could devour it
   and the winds scatter its particles. But it shall be raised in
   perennial youth, free from any tendency to corruption or any liability
   to suffer. Oh, happy spirits who, in themselves, possess a life
   enduring as the life of God! The Lord shall be their everlasting light!
   I leave that point because it needs no enlargement. It rather needs to
   be thought upon and enjoyed.

   III. I want your earnest attention and help, in the third place, while
   I mention that, according to the text, THE

   LIGHT OF THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT SHALL BE BOUNDLESS. "The Lord shall be
   your everlasting light."

   Now, the Lord is Infinite. If He is our sun there can be no limit to
   the light in which we shall receive. But how am I to speak upon an
   infinite theme? I can only touch the surface of the brook as the
   swallow does, and then up and away! But I cannot dive into its depths.
   Only notice this, that if God is to be our light, then in every
   separate Believer there will be a perfect light of bliss and holiness.
   I mean in you, Beloved!

   You are aged. You feel, also, that you are full of infirmities and
   sins. Now, these will all vanish and that weakened form of yours shall
   be raised in power! Your ignorance will give place to the light of
   knowledge, your sin to the light of purity, your sorrow to the light of
   joy! It does not yet appear what you shall be, but you shall be like
   your Lord and